by Amy Lane
Sodden Ashes
IT SHOULD have been a perfect day.
It had started off warm and snuggly, Larx lying next to him on his stomach, both fists tucked under his chin. At their age, sleep didn’t make them young or innocent—it just made them look at rest. Larx was so rarely at rest—restless brain always working; active, sturdy body always doing something. Gardening, running, cooking, stoking a fire, petting a cat, talking to kids, turning a group of confused strangers into a family.
Making love.
Larx wasn’t just a man—he was practically a force of nature. Aaron had been caught in the pull of his turbulent winds since he’d first seen him without a shirt and realized that there was a human under that pleasant community member.
The alarm went off and Larx opened his eyes, squinting, looking confused, smiling shyly—and then rolled off the bed and popped to his feet, scrambling for sweats and his running shoes long before Aaron suspected he was actually awake.
Aaron was very awake as they slipped quietly out the door and into the frosty air. Larx was quiet for their first two miles on the track, and then, as they drew near the back of Aaron’s house, he grunted.
“What?” Aaron asked, hoping it was safe to talk to him now.
“I used to get all excited when I saw your house, ’cause, you know, ‘Aaron’s there!’ Now it’s just another house, but I get to go home with you. I mean, this is better, but I’m still trying to figure out where to get my rush.”
Aaron chuckled. “Maybe when you see my SUV in the driveway or when I get home early from night shift.”
“You work night shifts?”
“Sometimes. I used to leave the kids after they went to bed and get home in time to take everybody to school.”
Larx grunted again, and for a moment, Aaron thought it was because he still wasn’t very awake.
“Aaron, did Caroline have trouble with your job?” he asked soberly.
Aaron tried to kick his brain in the direction Larx’s had just gone. “No,” he answered, thinking about it. “I… I don’t know. I told her it was going to be okay and she believed me.”
“I’m not that trusting,” Larx muttered.
Oh no. “Is this going to be a problem?” Aaron asked, legitimately spooked.
Larx looked at him, his feet doing that same dancy thing he’d done on that first day, the one that kept him upright when he wasn’t watching where he was going.
“No,” he said after a moment and bit his lip. “I’m going to get used to it.”
Aaron actually stopped, because he couldn’t make his feet go anywhere without his eyes to guide him. “That’s it?” he asked, sort of gobsmacked.
Larx turned around, jogging in place. “That’s what?”
“You’re going to get used to it?”
Larx squinted at him. “It scares me shitless, okay? But I’m not going to ask you to quit. You obviously love your job. You’re good at it. You loved someone for ten? Twelve—?”
“Fourteen,” Aaron said quietly. “Fourteen years.”
Larx nodded. “Exactly. There’s no fucking guarantees. You know that. I know that. You make me happy now—I’m too goddamned old to be throwing something this good away because I’m afraid. What in the hell—I’m a big pouty baby who needs my fucking way?”
Aaron smiled at him then and started running again, mostly to keep warm. They resumed their path down the track, and he said, “Remember, we need to cut this a little shorter than usual.”
Larx grunted. “It’s a good thing I just decided not to be a big pouty baby.”
“I’ll get there,” Aaron panted. “But not today.”
“Me too,” Larx said, and Aaron had a sudden shaft of gratitude. Thank God for grown-up lovers who recognized what they couldn’t fix in other people and endeavored to fix in themselves.
“I try to call,” Aaron told him. “Or text. Or semaphore. I do it with Kirby—make sure I’m on time or that I’ve told him. I’ll put you in the loop.”
“Thank you,” Larx said humbly. “That’s considerate.”
They pushed on, Larx reaching that pace that made Aaron haul ass after him, but the conversation sat hard on Aaron’s shoulders.
Because instead of reassuring Aaron that Larx could handle the risk, it had reminded Aaron that now he had something to risk.
And like Larx, he was going to need a little time to get used to that.
When he got to work that morning, the sober reminder of the risks of trusting fate had put him into… well, not so much a funk, but scrambled and unfocused.
Aaron forced himself to fill out the paperwork for their search and seizure the day before, but restlessness was an itch up his spine, and he could hardly sit still.
Warren was sitting in the desk next to his, and every time Aaron stood up, sat down again, and sighed, he shot an irritated glance Aaron’s way. “Jesus, George, what in the hell?”
Aaron scowled at him. “There’s something itching at me,” he muttered. “It’s like… like Christmas, but the opposite of that. Something’s building.”
Was this just one of the stages of having a partner? Had Caroline done this when he’d gotten out of college and gone into law enforcement? Had he just not noticed? Had he been too arrogant, too assured that the world always dished out happy endings to ever anticipate Caro going before him?
So many things you depended on, took for granted, when you had someone in your life—
“Wait,” Aaron said, standing up and looking for Eamon.
Eamon was walking by, looking restless and irritated himself.
“Eamon?”
“Deputy?”
“Where in the fuck is her husband?”
Eamon’s eyes widened. “Whitney Olson’s?”
“That’s the one. We’ve talked to her kid, her lawyers plural—but you know who hasn’t been called in now that his daughter is on the run and his wife is under house arrest?”
“Carl Olson,” Eamon said.
It hit them both at the same time.
“Oh my God.” Aaron picked up his desk phone and dialed the coroner. “I’ll tell Gary, and you tell forensics to go get some of Carl’s DNA from the house. We might know who our floater is.”
EVEN WITH DNA evidence, it took longer to confirm an identity than most people assumed. Aaron, Warren, and Eamon were running down Carl Olson’s financials, trying to figure out where he’d been and if he was still there, when Aaron looked up at the clock.
“Son of a fucking bitch!” he snarled. “Eamon, I’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
“Your boy going to bat for the school?” Eamon asked laconically, and Aaron pulled on his hat and his jacket and gloves. It was dark outside and nippy to boot.
“Yeah. He’s getting there early, but if I don’t see how it goes, I’ll feel like crap!”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Eamon said, waving him on.
Aaron hustled out the door, hoping he could get to the district office in time to find a spot.
He parked illegally, putting the cherry light on top to pretend he was on duty, and hustled into the squat, circa ’95 district office. He walked through the normally monitored front entrance and toward the back, where the board meetings were usually held. He had to wade through people, all of them milling for the back overflow hallway, to get to the meeting room itself.
He walked to the entrance of the meeting room, and Kirby thrust a program at him and scowled. “Way to represent, Dad. Do you want to go back to eating my cooking?”
Aaron scowled back. “I texted him on the way. Shit came up.”
But Kirby did not look happy, so Aaron figured he’d better try to get in Larx’s good graces ASAP. He stuck his head in the room and Larx caught his eye almost immediately, pointing an imperious finger to the vacant spot next to him. Well, it was a madhouse—Aaron had never seen so many people there. Larx’d probably had to draw blood in order to keep Aaron a spot.
He scooted in, took his place on
the end, and looked down the row at the list of grim and furious teachers lined up.
“Check your agenda,” Larx said tightly, and Aaron’s heart sank.
He scanned through the photocopy and grunted.
First thing on the agenda was revisiting the need for the GSA.
Second thing on the agenda was a discussion of how Larx had handled the night of the bonfire.
Third thing on the agenda was how to apportion the funds raised by the GSA for a scholarship should the GSA be disbanded.
This did not bode well for the first and second thing on the agenda.
“Okay, then,” Aaron said, standing up.
“Where are you going?”
“To speak for local law enforcement—”
“Your friend Percy already signed up.” Larx looked sourly to where the duty-deserting slacker was sitting in a suit, looking proud as punch.
“Tough,” Aaron said, heading for the podium. He got there just in time to grab the clipboard and scratch out Percy’s name and place his own. They were still down on the roster—maybe twentieth to speak—but Aaron was damned if he was going to let someone like Percy have a say when the asshole hadn’t even been there for the stabbing.
He signed his name and made direct eye contact with Percy just as the gavel sounded, and he hustled back to his seat.
Heather Perkins was a squat little woman who had apparently not gotten the memo that helmet hair was no longer in fashion. Her friend Cissy wore the full-on waterfall/iron-throne cut that seemed to mark chic motherhood these days, and both of them streaked their brown hair blonde. Heather’s husband was a colorless little man who slumped next to her and looked sorrowful and confused during school board meetings. The rest of the board consisted of a junior high principal who worked in the adjacent Placer district but lived in Colton; a member of the rotary club, Gordon Chandler; a member of the Colton Chamber of Commerce and Whitney Olson’s distant cousin; the student body president—a kid Kirby had abhorred as a snack-stealing suck-up; and three people Aaron couldn’t have picked out of a lineup.
He had the feeling it wouldn’t matter. This was mostly Heather and Gordon’s show.
Heather called the meeting to order, and the first thing she did was violate the order she’d set.
“So I understand a member of the Colton County Sheriff’s Department is here to brief us on the events of Friday?” She smiled at Percy Hardesty, and Aaron stood up.
“Indeed so, Madam Chairperson,” Aaron said briskly. “Given that I was there during the events of the bonfire and an active part of two pertinent investigations, I think both Sheriff Mills and Deputy Hardesty will agree that I can take it from here.”
Percy scowled, looking around the room like he wanted to cry, and Aaron didn’t give a crap. As far as he knew, the guy had gotten to the scene of the bonfire about a half an hour before the last teacher left. He’d seen the report—Percy had been there to clean up the crime scene.
Heather looked at him in surprise, her fine-point eyebrows arching. “Uh, sure, Deputy George, if you’re sure Sheriff Mills would ap—”
“He does,” Eamon said from the doorway. “I don’t know why you’d want to listen to Percy. He wasn’t there anyway.”
Heather nodded grimly, and Aaron proceeded to the podium. He gave a terse and pithy version of events, from the moment Joy had screamed.
“But Deputy George,” Heather said in confusion, “if you were there, didn’t you see the… the incident at the bonfire?”
Aaron was ready for this. “I saw two boys, supported by their staff and student body, come out honestly, like men, and share a kiss. It was brave on their part, but it wasn’t an ‘incident.’ They were congratulated by their teachers and their peers, and frankly we’re not sure it had anything to do with what happened next. Isaiah is a busy boy by all accounts—football, drama, AP classes. The anger that fueled a crime like this could have come from any place besides his sexuality, especially with a staff that kept the bullying down to a minimum.”
“Well, thank you, Deputy George. We’ll be sure to take that under advisement—”
“While you’re doing that, you should also know that we’ve served a warrant to a person of interest. We are unsure of this person’s motives. Please be aware that this may or may not be a hate crime. If it is, treating the object of this person’s hatred as a guilty party can only make this situation worse. If it isn’t, you have created an opportunity for bigotry where none existed before. Isaiah and Kellan did nothing wrong—this next item here, the disbanding of the GSA? That can only make things worse.”
Heather gaped at him, and he asked to be excused.
“Well, then,” she said, trying to get her composure back. “Our next speaker is Mrs. Nancy Pavelle.”
Nancy was sitting on the other side of Yoshi, and she stood and spoke clearly from her seat. “Okay, folks,” she said, her voice like a crystal freight train—clear and strong and unmistakable. “First of all, I would like all employees of the Colton Unified School District who support Principal Larkin and Vice Principal Nakamoto to stand up.” They paused and let that happen. “Now for those of you from the parent community who are here thinking that the teachers you see in the auditorium are the only voices here, I would like everybody who supports Larx and Yoshi but who was forced to wait in the overflow room due to board member shortsightedness to please file in past the podium and back out to your little cave of exile, okay?”
She must have had a runner waiting with a signal, because it happened so quickly. The parade of teachers started, in through the side door of the meeting room, down past the podium, and up through the main entrance. The teachers started out quiet, glaring at the board meaningfully, but then their uniform footsteps took on a hollow, march-like tempo.
Some smartass started to chant.
“Larx! Larx! Larx! Larx! Larx!”
Aaron looked at Larx in surprise, and Larx was squeezing his eyes shut like he could make it stop.
“They love you!” Aaron chided under the rhythm of the chanting.
“I’d better not fuck this up,” Larx muttered.
On and on, until Heather Perkins nailed her table with her little gavel. “Enough! Enough!” But the line of teachers continued. “Dammit, Nancy, you only get two minutes to speak!”
“Well, you should have put us in the theater auditorium,” Nancy retorted over the shouting. “Like we asked, so the community could see that we’ve got Larx’s back.”
Heather scowled, but the parade went on, ending thirty seconds later when the last irritated teacher disappeared. A barrage of applause erupted from outside the meeting room, and Nancy smiled graciously.
“Your floor, Madam Chairwoman. Now you know.”
“Well, now,” Heather said, glaring at her husband like the last three minutes had been his fault. “Now that we are aware of how many teachers are here, is there a parent who would like to speak on the matter of the GSA?”
“I would!” bellowed a voice, and Aaron looked back to the corner of the room.
And groaned.
“Yup,” Larx muttered. “All that wonderful posturing, and it’s about to be ripped to shreds by Billy MacDonald.”
Aaron could barely listen to the man. He rambled, his arguments made no sense, and he must have said the word faggots six times without getting silenced by Heather’s wretched gavel. When he was done, the audience gave him a scatter of applause, but mostly he was greeted with an icy silence. Aaron studied the faces around him as he strutted back to his seat.
“You know,” he said quietly in Larx’s ear, “I think he might have done more harm than good.”
Larx looked around and shrugged. “No one wants to admit they’re on his side,” he said philosophically. “Wait—it’s coming.”
Sure enough, the next parent was college educated, the leader of the local book club, a Sunday school teacher. She did not use the word faggot.
She just asked if, perhaps, giving the students a Gay-S
traight Alliance didn’t give kids the option of being gay when they might not think of it themselves. Weren’t they just creating their own gay community when one didn’t really need to exist?
This woman got applauded.
So did the father who worried about what kind of sex his daughter would learn about if she attended those meetings with her friends.
And the chamber of commerce member who was afraid of the “crowd” they’d attract if their high school was known as a gay-friendly kind of place.
By the time the next five speakers were done, Aaron felt sick to his stomach.
Then Heather called on Andy Jones, the football coach.
“If you please, Madam Chairperson,” he said, standing up but not coming to the podium. “Me and the next four teachers on your list have agreed to give our time to Larx, who’s going to tell you why all that stuff you guys just said was crap and why you’re only hurting your kids.”
The room erupted into cheering—and it was echoed by the crowd down the hall.
Heather finally got to bang her little gavel again.
“So, Principal Larkin, you have ten minutes—”
“Twelve,” Larx said. “I’m on your list too.”
“Fourteen!” called a timid-looking woman in the front. “I’m way down on the list, and if Larx speaks for me, we can go home earlier.”
There was some general laughter then, and some scattered applause.
As Larx made his way to the podium, Aaron’s stomach lightened up, and he felt hope.
Everything Larx said made so much sense.
He started with the nice Sunday school teacher and pointed out that kids were born gay or bi or trans or straight—and that giving them a safe place to talk about who they were did more than just make them feel good, it kept the bullies away, because the LGBTQ kids knew they weren’t alone.
He told the father worried about his daughter learning about sex that they weren’t authorized to even talk about sex—they just wanted to make the kids growing up with the same crushes everyone else had to feel safe. (A simple roll of his eyes told Aaron that he thought kids should be talked to straight-up about sex without adult sugarcoating, but since not all the parents could read Larx’s eye roll, Aaron figured they were safe.)
