Page 92 of The Fire Line

“Still makes it easier for somebody to start wondering.”

Jay studied him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. I’ll be careful.”

There was no hurt in the answer and no argument waiting behind it. Jay didn’t tell him he was being ridiculous, though Harris suspected he knew at least some of this was. He simply finished buttoning the overshirt and reached for his shoes.

That should have made the whole thing easier, and mostly it did.

“I’m still angry about the lie, by the way.”

“Figured.”

“You don’t get to distract me with your tragic cowboy emotional development.”

“Wasn’t trying to.”

“You absolutely were.”

Harris gave him a flat look.

Jay laughed and stood. “See? Manipulative.”

“Get out.”

“Now that sounds more familiar.”

He stepped into his shoes and crossed toward the door. Harris followed without quite deciding to.

Jay stopped with one hand on the knob. For a second, neither of them said anything. Then Jay looked back.

“We’re okay.”

Harris studied him.

“Not you lied and I’m thrilled about it okay,” Jay added. “But okay.”

“Yeah.”

Jay’s gaze dropped briefly to Harris’s mouth. “Goodnight, Harris.”

“Night.”

Jay opened the door, slipped outside, and pulled it quietly shut behind him.

Harris stood there for another few seconds before turning back toward the room.

The glasses were still resting on Middlemarch. Jay’s empty beer sat beside his own. The couch cushion held the shallow impression of where he had been sitting.

Temporary, Harris reminded himself. That was the point; it was supposed to make this easier.

16

Every Empty Room

For the next day, Harris and Jay behaved exactly the way they had agreed to behave, which turned out to require considerably more effort than Harris had anticipated.

Around other people, nothing changed. Jay worked with Priya and Eli while Harris moved between the barn and pastures, and when they crossed paths they kept it ordinary. That mattered more now that his family knew Jay dated men; Harris had become painfully aware of how often the two of them disappeared together. Keeping it ordinary was one thing. Feeling ordinary was another.

Harris could pick Jay’s laugh out of the yard without trying. He noticed whenever Jay came through a doorway, whenever his hair came loose from its tie, whenever they passed close enough that touching him would have required only a few inches of bad judgment. Apparently admitting what he wanted had removed whatever useful mechanism had previously allowed Harris to pretend he didn’t.