by Kim Fielding
“Um… was?”
Parker nodded. “Yeah. He died in a car crash a bunch of years ago.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. I was in my first semester at Oregon State. I’d seen him the weekend before—he and Mom came down to Corvallis to take me out for my birthday dinner. They dropped me off at my dorm, I said good night, and that was it. He just suddenly disappeared from the world.”
Wes nodded, remembering the grief that had torn at him when his grandfather passed away. At least Wes had some warning: his grandfather was in his late eighties and had battled cancer for a couple of years. But still Wes’s world shifted in a terrifying and disorienting way. For months afterward he caught himself almost heading down the road to his grandfather’s house, almost buying a package of those awful menthol candies the old man loved to suck on when he wasn’t in the mood for peppermint.
“I’m sorry,” Wes repeated.
Parker looked pensive. “Mom was— It wrecked her, and seeing that was almost as bad as losing him ’cause she’s always so strong. She got through it okay in the long run, though.”
“Did you get through it okay, in the long run?” Wes didn’t look at Parker as he spoke.
“Sure. I mean, I guess.” A pause punctuated by a sigh. “I dropped out of school. In theory it was a temporary thing so I could help Mom out for a while, but I hadn’t been doing all that great in my classes anyway. I probably would have flunked out. I’d only gone to college because that’s what everyone expected. Anyway, I never went back.”
“Do you wish you had?”
This time Wes glanced at Parker, who scrunched up his face in thought. “No. I’m not the academic type. How about you? Did you go to college?”
“Associate’s degree. Criminal justice.”
Parker’s eyes widened. “That’s right! You used to be a cop.”
Parker hadn’t pressed him about yesterday’s run-in with Jeremy and Nevin, and Wes was perfectly okay with avoiding that topic for, oh, the next century or so.
Frowning, he unhooked the tape measure from his tool belt. “Want to see how a miter saw works?”
PARKER SEEMED to grow a little restless as the morning continued. He wandered over to the pond and watched the ducks for a while. Then he announced he needed a walk and disappeared around the curve in the gravel road. Wes half expected he’d never see Parker again, figured he’d make his way to the county road and hitch a ride. But Parker returned an hour later, his shoulders hunched against the light rainfall.
“That hoodie’s not going to keep you dry,” Wes said, trying to hide his pleasure at Parker’s return. “I think I have a spare raincoat.”
“Now you sound like my mom.” But Parker made sure to stand under the tarp’s shelter. “Want me to make us some lunch?”
“Sure.”
“I should be doing something to earn my keep.”
Wes was in the middle of sanding, and it was wonderful to look up from his work now and then and see Parker close by, rattling pans and humming to himself. Parker managed well with Wes’s somewhat makeshift kitchen. Maybe his varied job experience helped him find his way around, even under rough circumstances.
After they ate, Wes returned to his project. He didn’t often put in so many hours in a row, but it was a lot of fun to have someone to talk to, and the time flew by. He didn’t know whether Parker was genuinely fascinated by the details of woodworking or just appreciated a distraction from his personal problems. Either way, Wes was happy to be of service.
By dinnertime his back ached and his hands felt stiff. This was one of those few occasions when he wished he had a nice, deep bathtub. Maybe he ought to look into the costs and logistics of building a hot tub. It would be nice to soak under the stars now and then.
Parker insisted on starting dinner—linguini, chicken, and squash—while Wes washed the dust and grime off his hands and face. They ate outside, listening to raindrops patter onto the tarp, enjoying a mostly silent camaraderie. Five meals, Wes realized with a start. This meant he’d shared five meals in a row with Parker. He rarely had company, almost never while he ate, and the last time he’d eaten five consecutive meals with anyone was… while Parker was still in high school.
Parker stared at him as if there was something absolutely fascinating about the way Wes ate pasta. That scrutiny was unusual too, because people didn’t often pay Wes much attention. Even his rare hookups seemed satisfied with a cursory inspection of Wes’s face and physique before getting down to business. Wes knew he was sort of good-looking, in a bland and forgettable way. Forced to give a flattering description of his own face, Wes would have said his features were regular and symmetrical.
But Parker gazed as if Wes were remarkable. Maybe Parker was so used to colorful, striking people like himself that an everyday model proved momentarily exotic.
“Sorry there’s no club nearby,” Wes finally blurted.
Parker’s eyes widened. “Club?
“Dance club. There’s nothing for miles. You’d have to go to Medford for that.”
“Do you want to go dancing?”
Wes chuckled uncomfortably. “I can’t dance. I just figured that was more your speed than… you know….” He shrugged and waved his hands vaguely at their surroundings.
“Is that who you think I am? A club kid?” Parker’s expression, which had been relaxed most of the day, went tight and angular.
“No. I mean, if you are, that’s fine, nothing wrong with it. It’s only that you’re such a vibrant person. I can picture you out on the dance floor with your gorgeous, cool friends, having a good time. Better than I can picture you on a farm listening to some guy go on about wood glues and joining screws.”
Parker’s face lightened. His lips even twitched a bit at the corners. “Joining screws? Is this the point when I can make a lot of bad double entendres about wood?” He snorted lightly, then stood and began gathering their dishes. “I like dancing,” he said as he carried the plates to the sink. “And sometimes I’m in the mood to go out. Right now, though, I’d rather be here. With you.”
Wes was immediately doubtful. But then he remembered Parker was dealing with a number of fresh shocks—a breakup, a job loss, a move, and the death of his ex. Maybe he did need some quiet and isolation right now. Retreating to a safe, secluded location made a lot of sense after trauma. The problem with that strategy, however, was that if you weren’t careful, a refuge could become a self-imposed prison, and you might never find the key to let yourself out.
That night Parker texted his mother, probably to report that Wes hadn’t murdered him yet. Afterward Parker and Wes sat in the bus with their books as the speakers wafted dinosaur rock. They ate popcorn and drank beer. And sometimes Wes would glance over to discover Parker looking at him pensively.
When the hour grew late, they washed up, stripped to their underwear—gray boxer briefs for Wes and tangerine-colored briefs for Parker—and got into bed. Side by side. Not touching.
Having Parker right there, almost naked yet out of bounds? It was a terrible torture, and Wes wanted to groan.
“Question for you.” Parker’s voice was barely above a whisper, amplified by the darkness and intimacy. “It’s personal. So don’t answer if you don’t want to.”
That was intriguing and slightly disquieting. “Okay.”
“You can think of it as a game of Truth or Dare. Which means if you answer with a truth, you get to ask me something, and I have to answer too, or else I’ll lose. I hate losing.”
Wes wasn’t usually in favor of spilling secrets, but tonight he was amenable. “What do you want to know?”
“You don’t seem to have a whole lot of interactions with other people. Is that because you’re a world-class introvert and prefer to be alone? ’Cause if so, that’s cool. Or do you wish you were more… social?”
Wes didn’t respond right away, in part because he wasn’t sure of the answer. He’d always been kind of a loner, or at least most comfortabl
e with just one or two people close by. Crowds made him nervous. Social occasions exhausted him. On the other hand, there was a big difference between needing some alone time and spending a decade barely interacting with the outside world. Sometimes a week or more went by without him seeing or talking to another human being. And sometimes he felt so isolated and forsaken that he wanted to cry.
“Some of each, maybe,” he answered at last. “Mostly I feel protected here. Secure.”
“Okay.” Parker’s response seemed to come without judgment or condemnation. He didn’t even ask why Wes needed to feel secure. Parker just accepted it. Then he shifted under the blankets. “Your turn.”
Although there were about a thousand things Wes wanted to know, he didn’t need to know them. Not now, when Parker was still emotionally raw.
“What other colors have you dyed your hair?”
Parker barked a laugh. “All of them. Every color of the rainbow, man.”
A comfortable silence fell between them, and after a short time, Wes began to slip into a drowse. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming when Parker reached over and touched his hand for a second and whispered, “Night, Wes.”
Chapter Seven
AS PARKER cradled his second coffee of the morning, he acknowledged that he needed to do something. Well, something more, because he’d fixed breakfast again, and brewed coffee, and now he was watching Wes turn boring hunks of wood into something amazing.
Parker found Wes more fascinating than any movie or video. Part of that was Wes’s magic—the way he could make something valuable from what looked like a pile of kindling. And part of it was Wes’s handsome face and the way he bit his lip when he concentrated. Wes’s smooth voice contributed too. He talked about foreign places or explained how a tool worked, and Parker hung on every word. And Wes’s hands! Parker kept finding himself staring at them, admiring their dexterity and strength, wondering how they’d feel moving across his skin. What were the chances he’d imagine those hands during the next zillion jerk-off sessions? Oh, somewhere in the ballpark of a hundred and ten percent.
But he couldn’t just sit there for the rest of his life, rousing himself only to make food and clean up. He was wearing Wes’s clothes, which didn’t fit him very well, and he’d used Wes’s phone charging cord, his razor and brush, his soap and shampoo and toothpaste. He only had his own toothbrush because Wes gave him one from his stash. As accommodating as Wes was being, a man couldn’t survive forever in borrowed underwear.
But Parker didn’t want to face the real world.
This was like a grown-up version of summer camp, where he got to spend his days being entertained in the great outdoors and his nights tucked away somewhere cozy with a friend. All he needed was s’mores and a poison oak rash. But eventually summer camp ended and school began. His time with Wes had to end too, and Parker needed to go back to Portland, to his mother’s house and her coffeehouse, to the ashes of his latest and greatest disaster.
Suddenly Parker was crying.
He hadn’t meant to. He wasn’t the type to dissolve into tears, and on those few occasions when emotions overwhelmed him, he locked himself in a bedroom or bathroom and bawled in private.
But now Parker was crying so hard, in full view of poor Wes, that he had to put down the coffee cup and bury his face in his hands. He would have run away if he’d trusted his legs to hold him.
Wes put aside his sander, hurried to Parker’s side, and knelt on the soft ground. “Parker?” He gave his shoulder an awkward pat.
Parker abandoned his last specks of dignity and threw himself at Wes. He landed on his knees and clung to him like a drowning man trying to save himself. Instead of pushing Parker away—as a reasonable person might want to do—Wes held him, petting Parker’s back and letting him get tears and snot on Wes’s soft flannel shirt.
When Parker’s knees began to ache, he let go of Wes and got to his feet. “Sorry.” He swiped his arms across his face. His hoodie sleeve made a crappy Kleenex, but it would have to do.
Wes stood too, his expression concerned rather than grossed-out. “It hit you, huh?”
“Logan was….” Parker sniffled. “He was unreliable. Even by my standards. But he was also funny. And at work he was so good with the dogs. If one was a little fearful or overwhelmed, Logan would just hang and sweet-talk it. Cuddle it, maybe. And pretty soon the dog would be totally chill. All the dogs loved Logan best.”
Logan had other appealing qualities too. He’d buy plain white tennis shoes, cheap ones, and doodle all over them with Sharpies. For dinner he liked to eat cereal, the sugary kids’ kind with cartoon characters on the box. He knew the theme songs from a zillion old sitcoms. He was mortally terrified of spiders and shrieked anytime he saw one.
God, Parker was going to start crying again.
“He’s dead because of me,” he said in a tiny voice. He’d made a lot of mistakes in his life, but until now he’d never killed anyone.
Wes shook his head. “C’mon. You’re not responsible for whatever bad shit was going on in his head.”
“But if I hadn’t broken up with him and gotten him fired—”
“What were you supposed to do? Thank him for stealing from you and getting you evicted?”
“I… dunno.” More pathetic sniffles. “I could have handled it better, maybe.”
“Let’s… let’s go inside. It’s kind of cold out here.”
They washed up, and Parker made more coffee. This time when he sat on the couch, Wes took the spot beside him instead of his usual chair. Parker stared into his cup. “Can you drive me to Grants Pass tomorrow? Or if that’s a pain in the ass, I can—”
“Why do you want to go to Grants Pass?”
“So I can catch a bus to Portland.” Parker hadn’t checked the Greyhound schedule, but he figured there’d be a stop there.
Wes stiffened beside him, and when he answered, his voice was strained. “I’ll drive you.”
“You’re not too busy?”
“No.”
Silence hung heavy between them, and Parker wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t know what he wanted, didn’t know what he was going to do. Hell, half the time he didn’t even know how he felt. And as for Wes, he clearly wasn’t used to much personal interaction.
Which raised an interesting question, one that provided an excellent opportunity for a needed change of subject.
“Why did you become a cop?”
Wes stared at him, brow furrowed, and didn’t answer. But that didn’t stop Parker from blundering onward. “I know sort of a lot of cops. Nevin. Jeremy—well, he’s not one anymore, but he’s still kinda coppish. A lot of their buddies hang out at P-Town, so I know them too. And don’t take this the wrong way, okay, ’cause I don’t mean it as an insult, but I’m sorta having trouble picturing you in a blue uniform. You just don’t seem the type.”
Parker winced at the words. So what if Wes didn’t fit the typical law enforcement persona? Parker didn’t care. Preferred it, even. In his current mental state, he was probably better off with Wes’s quiet, unpushy manner, with the way Wes could be solid and strong in an unobtrusive way. But telling someone he didn’t seem to fit his former career was probably a shitty thing to do.
To Parker’s surprise, Wes quirked his mouth into a small smile. “I’m not the type. I was a shitty cop, and I hated doing it.”
“But—”
“My dad was a sheriff’s deputy. He wore khaki and green instead of blue, but there was no question he was a cop.” His lip curled. “The kind who feels like a tough guy because he wears a badge and carries a gun.”
Nevin and Jeremy were nothing like that, but Parker knew what Wes meant. “Okay.”
“I figured if I followed his footsteps, he might finally…. I don’t know. Pay attention to me. Like me. Respect me.”
Parker understood completely. He’d never questioned his parents’ feelings toward him, and if anything they tended to smother him with attention instead of ignoring him. But s
till, he’d never been able to shake a niggling sense that he was letting them down. That as their only child, he ought to be achieving something remarkable. Or… achieving anything. Maybe that sense hadn’t been so overwhelming when his father was alive, since Parker was still young then, still on a somewhat meaningful trajectory. But after his father’s death, Parker couldn’t help feeling as if he was constantly disappointing his mother. That feeling grew worse every year, with every personal disaster.
“You wanted him to love you.”
“I was a dumbass.”
“I don’t think so.”
Wes shot him an unreadable look before shrugging and leaning back against the couch cushion. “Anyway, he didn’t give a shit. I invited him to the ceremony when I graduated from the academy, but he didn’t show. Never heard a fucking peep from him until I… until I left the bureau. And let’s just say he wasn’t feeling very respectful then.”
Parker was dying to know what had transpired to end Wes’s career and make Nevin and Jeremy so angry. Surely it couldn’t have been something really bad, like corruption or abuse of force; Wes didn’t seem capable of that. Not that Parker knew him all that well. If only he had his mother’s magical ability to read the quality of people’s souls.
Wes didn’t offer more information, and he looked so angry and forlorn that Parker chose not to push it. So he smiled gently instead. “Was there anything you liked about being a cop?”
That brought a small chuckle. “Driving fast. I really liked driving fast.”
THEY DIDN’T discuss anything personal for the rest of the day. Parker watched Wes work, and Wes explained what tools he was using and why, and that was good. When Wes got wrapped up in making furniture, he almost became a different person. More confident. Less gruff. A light would shine in his eyes as he spoke about the qualities of different materials and his plans for the pieces of wood that awaited his craftsmanship. It was the same light Rhoda displayed when talking about P-Town or that Jeremy got when describing a hike. Passion, Parker supposed. He doubted his own eyes had ever held that light.
