Page 82 of The Fire Line

The frustration turned inward.

Across the table, Jay was still talking to Elise, completely unbothered. He hadn’t apologized for making anyone uncomfortable or made himself smaller by a single inch, and Harris liked that about him so much it hurt.

Walt stayed through the rest of dinner but declined dessert. When Della offered him pie, he shook his head and pushed his chair back. “Think I’m gonna head out.”

Evan glanced at him. “Everything okay?”

“Yup. Early morning.”

It was plausible enough. Walt was often up before daylight, and he didn’t invent some urgent piece of ranch work that everyone at the table knew could wait. Still, Harris knew the difference between his father being tired and his father deciding he’d had enough of a room.

Walt carried his plate to the counter, told everyone good night, and disappeared through the mudroom.

Jay barely seemed to register the departure. By the time the door closed behind Walt, he was already listening to Priya again.

Harris wasn’t.

Everybody knew now.

Jay being attracted to men changed exactly nothing about the past month. It had been true when Harris took him into the mountains, true every time Jay came by his cabin alone, true every time they disappeared somewhere in Harris’s truck. The difference was that yesterday none of Harris’s family had known it.

Now they did, and Harris became abruptly aware of how the two of them might look from somewhere outside his own head. Once the thought started, it was impossible to put back: the high-country trip, Jay at his cabin, the amount of time Harris spent taking him places without the rest of the crew, the way his attention found Navarro across a dinner table no matter how firmly Harris told it not to.

It was ridiculous. Knowing Jay dated men did not mean anybody would suddenly assume he was sleeping with every man he spent time with, but Harris’s brain had apparently decided ridiculous was a perfectly serviceable working theory.

When he glanced across the table again, Jay was already watching him.

Harris nearly dropped his gaze on instinct, then caught himself. Avoiding Navarro so aggressively that everybody noticed would hardly improve matters, so he held Jay’s eyes instead.

Something questioning moved through Jay’s expression.

Harris gave the smallest shake of his head. Nothing’s wrong.

The question eased out of Jay’s face, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

Harris felt the answering pull at his own before he could stop it.

Well. That answered one question, unfortunately raising several others in its place.

Questions like when and where.

Harris looked away before his face could contribute anything further and became acutely aware of Della serving pie three feet away while Evan helped June retrieve something she had dropped beneath the table and Priya continued talking to Eli as if Harris’s entire private life had not just become considerably harder to manage.

Jesus Christ.

Wanting Navarro had been considerably easier when nobody else knew to look.

* * *

Harris showered, changed his shirt, and spent forty minutes in his cabin pretending he had not returned there specifically because Jay was making him insane.

Watching Jay’s films had not helped. They had given Harris new versions of him to carry around: Jay standing in wind beside a harbor, Jay reflected in a factory window, Jay allowing another person’s silence to remain theirs. The films made Nell’s trust in him feel personal in a way Harris had not expected, and they made the man at the dinner table harder to ignore.

Harris considered several legitimate reasons Jay might need to come over. The high-country map was settled. Harris still did not know what a sound log contained and had no intention of finding out. Nell’s opinion of Jay’s work was absolutely fucking unusable.

He sat on the edge of the bed, stood again, went to the window, and returned to the kitchen. Maybe Jay would come find him.

That might actually be smarter now. Dinner had changed the calculation whether Harris liked it or not. His family knew Jay dated men, and Harris had spent half the meal becoming painfully aware of how much time the two of them already spent alone. Jay crossing the yard to his cabin after dark suddenly felt less invisible than it had yesterday.