Hidden Heart

by Amy Lane

  “You look fine!” Spencer retorted. “But I feel like a cradle robber! Fantastic. What’d you do today, Spencer? I fell out of a helicopter, steered a porch through a flood, and came on to a teenager!”

  “I’m twenty-four!”

  “Yeah. That’s better. Go ahead. Wait for the helicopter. Leave me here to die.”

  Theo resisted the urge to kick him. “Oh my God. If you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill you myself.”

  Spencer let out a low chuckle. “And see, Junior Woodchuck, that’s why you and I would never wo—”

  Theo fell to his knees in the rain and took Spencer’s fool mouth in a hard, punishing kiss. Twenty-four years of yearning for someone to connect with, twenty-four years of hoping against hope that someone would come to rescue him from the wilds of Oregon and the life he’d chosen for himself, and this man literally fell out of the sky. And now his own stubbornness was going to kill them both.

  No. Spencer was convinced his friends would come back for them—Theo would take them on faith.

  But Spencer needed to believe in something too, and right now, Spencer’s mouth yielding to his own, Theo demanded that Spencer believe in them.

  And Spencer’s mouth did yield. He opened for Theo, let him in, accepted his tongue, his invasion, his demands. Theo brought his hands up to cup Spencer’s cheeks, and the heat, of everything, pulled him gently back.

  “You are sick,” Theo whispered hoarsely. “And for the record, I’m coming on to you.”

  Spencer closed his eyes. “If I agree I’m not doing so hot, will you forget this thing between us? Woodchuck, I am not forever material. I am not a good experience. I’m… I’m a used condom and an alternative to politics on TV—and I’m fine with that.”

  “Spencer, nobody’s fine with that,” Theo said, pushing Spencer’s hair back from his face. “Nobody’s fine with being lonely. I should know.”

  Spencer whimpered a little—probably not voluntarily—and shuddered under his blankets. Theo pressed their lips together one more time, then stood, checked the knot on the garden hose—it kept threatening to expand and untie—and cleaned up the cluttered deck. He noted with a little twist of his lips that Thelma’s garbage bag of pictures was still bungee corded to the ice chest before he squatted down to organize the contents again, making sure the waste bags were sealed and the remaining dressing and antibiotic ointment was safe and dry. He spotted the ibuprofen bottle again and snagged that for his pocket, and then the bottle of amoxicillin that he’d been looking for.

  “Spence?” he asked. “Do you have any medication allergies?”

  Spencer grunted. “Penicillin.”

  Theo’s gaze flattened. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Nope—have to take Keflex instead. Bet you don’t have that in your ice chest, right?”

  “No, but I do have amoxicillin, which I think just proves that your entire existence is centered around my personal frustration.”

  Spencer’s shoulders shook, but he looked too tired to laugh. Theo grabbed the Gatorade and sealed the ice chest, then snagged two foil packets of food from the built-in utility box, complete with little quenelles attached to the bottom of the packet.

  Spencer took the ibuprofen and the Gatorade without comment and washed one down with the other, but he looked at the MRE and shook his head. “That’s kind,” he said softly. “It is. But I don’t think I can keep that down.”

  Theo let a long slow breath out through his nose and nodded. “Okay, then. Lift up the blankets, though, and let me in. You’re hogging the warmth.”

  Spencer did, and with the foil blanket above them like an umbrella, and the one covering their legs as well, Theo got a sense of peace and even warmth tucking next to Spencer.

  For his part, Spencer looped his arm around Theo’s shoulders and drew Theo’s head to his chest, and for a moment they sat and listened to the roar of the water and the thunder of the rain.

  Tempting Fate

  FOR a moment, Spencer closed his eyes and tried to overcome all the funky bullshit going on with his body. He was good with this from the military—compartmentalize his pain, deal with what was at hand.

  What was at hand was Theo’s warm body, the sort of implicit trust of his head on Spencer’s chest, and the evergreen smell of the trees around them, along with the clean smell of the water, albeit there was too damned much of it for comfort.

  But Theo’s warm body was, of course, the most important thing.

  “What time is it?” Spencer asked woozily. “Are we getting close to nightfall?”

  “Why?” Theo asked, sitting up, alarmed. “Do your people stop looking for us at night?”

  “God no,” Spencer said, laughing a little. “But if we’re getting that close, we should do something to secure the boat. I don’t know about you, but I’m beat. We can’t stay up all night retying the garden hose, you think?”

  Theo scowled, his brow wrinkling. “Maybe if we use one of the barge poles to secure it. I can jimmy-rig that in a sec.”

  “Good idea,” Spencer approved. “You should eat too. I may be a fragile fucking flower right now, but you need to keep calories up to keep your body warm.”

  Theo nodded. “And when I’m done, I’ll come back here and we can keep each other warm.”

  Spencer sighed. “Theo, you need to not get attached to me.”

  “Why Elsie?” Theo said, obviously done with Spencer’s excuses—and Spencer couldn’t blame him. They were sounding increasingly pathetic to his own ears. Once upon a time, yes, Spencer had hoped for someone he could be close to, he could trust and even love. But too much time had passed, too many disappointments. Spencer felt dirty, not with sex, but with sadness, with cynicism. He wouldn’t wish his baggage on Theo for all the snuggling in the world.

  “Why Elsie what?” Spencer asked, but he knew. Know your enemy, know their friends. It was a good tactic and, he had to admit, talking about Elsie was comforting.

  “You and Elsie seem to have mated for life in the work-partner department. Tell me about her.”

  Theo handed him the two foil packets of food for a moment while he sat up and rearranged himself.

  His warmth—even through their layers of protective gear—was comforting. Spencer was used to feeling alone, even when he was with a bed partner, but something about Theo getting cozy pinged something inside him that didn’t usually get pinged.

  Spencer handed him back his food and turned his head, because even the smell coming off the MRE bothered his stomach. “She was the smartest,” he said, thinking. “I was a Second Lieutenant, and they made me a squad leader. We were supposed to pick our squad seconds after some basic drills, and she’d pretty much outclassed everybody else. So I’m looking at the group, and most of them are white and only a handful of them are women, and she gives me this look like I’m nothing to her. I liked that look, you know? My opinion didn’t matter. She knew she kicked ass. So I picked her, and instead of taking a step forward, she said, ‘I don’t need your pity, sir.’” He snorted, remembering his surprise. “I said, ‘It’s not pity, Airman. I want someone who’s gonna help me dine on the heart of my enemies, is all.’ She cracked a smile and said, ‘Can do, sir!’ We’ve been inseparable ever since.”

  Theo chuckled and took a bite of chow. “What made you two decide to leave?”

  Spencer grunted. He didn’t really like that story. “We got tired of this man’s military being for that other asshole over there,” he said vaguely.

  Theo grunted and looked at him. “There’s more to the story than that,” he said perceptively, and Spencer leaned his aching head back and closed his eyes.

  “There is,” he conceded. “But it’s your turn to talk. Why’d you come out here after college?”

  Theo seemed to consider the question as he took another bite. “I wanted to make a difference. I thought about teaching, but the thought of little kids all day long was exhausting, and I wasn’t interested in any one subject enough to get a degree
in it. I wanted to learn them all. I thought about being an EMT, but at the time my mom was here by herself—she hadn’t been diagnosed until I was almost done with school, and the hours aren’t great, and there are only so many needed in a tiny area, so odds were I’d be working farther out. I got my EMT anyway, because I figured it would be useful, and got my degree in management because I remembered Imelda and the community center. The opportunities for stupidity in a place this far out—opioid addiction, fun and games with guns, domestic abuse—are well established. I figured a community center, someplace that educated adults and kids alike, gave the teenagers constructive things to do, let the adults know they had options. That was like being an all-around community resource, you know?”

  “That was some good thinking,” Spencer told him, impressed. “Did it work out like you thought?”

  “Oh yeah!” Theo said, and Spencer heard the bittersweet ache in his voice. “Last year we got five of the ten graduating seniors into college in Portland. I took a group of junior high students to a soccer tournament out there too. We got our asses kicked, but we visited the college on our way out, and the kids got to see that school—and bigger places—weren’t just for people on cable. We had interventions for domestic abuse and sheltered a couple of mothers before finding them someplace safe to go. I loved what I was doing.”

  Spencer heard it. The realization then.

  “Maybe some of the town—” he began, but Theo shook his head violently.

  “Don’t bullshit me,” he said, voice so thick Spencer didn’t even give him crap for the word “bullshit.” “My entire town got blasted out over the canyon. We both know it. I just don’t see any other outcome from all this water rushing for one exit. I mean, last year we were building firebreaks around the town because the whole world was on fire and there was literally no way out. Mother Nature had it in for us, that’s all.”

  Spencer tightened his arm around Theo’s shoulders, because how did you hear that sort of heartbreak and not give comfort.

  “I’m sorry, Theo. It’s really not fair. I gotta say, I prefer the flood to the fires, though. I’m not sure if that’s any comfort, but the fires scared the hell out of me. I’d rather go out in the water.”

  Theo pulled away to measure his expression. “Was your crew involved in the fires too?”

  Spencer shuddered. “My boss—Glen Echo—has a little brother, Preston, who happens to be married to Glen’s best friend and business partner, Damien. It’s all very incestuous and cozy, and they’re all assholes, so we fit like that.”

  “That’s the guy you got Colonel from,” Theo remembered.

  “Yeah. Preston has a big stretch of land out in Napa, and it’s devoted almost entirely to dogs. He’s got a couple of horses, which is sweet because those animals are for Damien and Preston loathes them with the entirety of his being, but mostly it’s dogs. Big ones, small ones, dogs who play with rocks….” He trailed off in hopes that Theo would start singing, and Theo didn’t disappoint him.

  “Good dogs, all are good dogs, and good dogs do not bite,” he hummed.

  Spencer chuckled. “Thanks for that.”

  “You’re welcome,” Theo murmured. “But keep on talking.”

  “He’s got a big house and a mother-in-law cottage and a bunch of kennels out there. It all got wiped out.”

  Theo made a hurt sound. “The animals?”

  “We saved every last one of ’em,” Spencer told him, because this was sort of the point of the story. “It was something. His housemates, Oscar and Belinda, who live in the rebuilt big house now because Belinda just had a baby—they left first with the horses and one pickup full of dog crates. Preston was losing his shit because his truck was full and there were still so many damned dogs. So Glen tells Elsie and me to go help some campers who are stranded by a lake, and he and Damien go to help with the dogs. We get our people safe, and right when Glen is going to have to tell Preston that no, there’s five giant dogs he can’t save, Elsie and I land. Man, the flames were so close we had to wear masks or we would have choked on the ash. We get the dogs stashed, and Colonel’s in the front of Preston’s truck with Preacher, Preston’s personal dog. Preston says it’s on account that I ruined Colonel by smelling like cocaine, but I really think it’s because he had a soft spot for the doofus, but anyway, Colonel heard me talking, I guess, and I’m about to run around the chopper and hop in my seat and take off when that dog opens the motherfucking door to the truck and runs and jumps into my arms. Preston just shakes his head and stalks off to the truck, and me, Elsie, and the extra dogs plus Colonel get the fuck out of there.”

  “Wow,” Theo said. “That dog loves you.”

  Spencer sort of chuckled, but it was more fondness than anything else. “See? You see why there’s no life after Colonel, right? Anyway, we take off, and Preston gets the truck on the road and….” He shuddered. “It must have been close. Preston doesn’t talk much, and he doesn’t tell tales, but that whole section of road had been burned when all was said and done, and Preston was either a whisker ahead of it or driving through some of it. We had to treat all his dogs for heat exhaustion when he got to the hangar where we rendezvoused. It was close.”

  “But you did it,” Theo said, a little bit of awe in his voice. “What happened to the dogs?”

  “We kept them at the hangar until we got the place rebuilt. Glen’s boyfriend, Cash—he’s in this like, boy band. I guess they’re popular or something. He raised money for Preston’s dog shelter and training facility. It took some months of hard work, but he rebuilt the house and the mother-in-law cottage.” Spencer grunted and felt compelled to add, “And for some reason, when it was all done, he added a double-wide for me on the corner of the property. I had been rooming with Glen, which worked okay because Cash is on tour six months out of the year. But this way I can heli-commute to the hangar with Damien and….” He shrugged, because this was the best part of the bargain. “I get to keep Colonel. Couldn’t keep him at Glen’s place. So it was a real nice thing Preston, Glen, and Damien did for me.”

  “You showed up in the middle of a firestorm and saved his dogs,” Theo said, and his voice sounded wobbly.

  “Elsie was there too!” Spencer protested. “All she got from that bullshit was a longer drive to visit!”

  “She got to help your family,” Theo said softly, and Spencer sighed.

  “Yeah. Sure. When you put it that way. As soon as she and Josh find a good place to live, they’ll be up to their eyeballs in cats, dogs, and kids, and the dogs, at least, will be courtesy of Preston frickin’ Echo.”

  Theo laughed softly. “Your boss’s brother. You like him?”

  “He’s a good guy. Absolutely no bullshit. Not always sweet about things, and he doesn’t make innuendo or snark. Elsie says he was put into this world to keep Glen, Damie, and me honest, because otherwise we’d fill the world with BS. She’s not far wrong.”

  Theo frowned. “Sometimes saying things easy-like is a kindness.”

  Spencer let out a sigh. This was tricky. “Well, some people aren’t wet-wired that way. Their brains only speak the truth.”

  “He’s on the autism spectrum? Why didn’t you just say that?”

  Well, of course Theo would be fine with it, but it still rankled Spencer that it would even come up. “Because people don’t come with T-shirts that say Autistic or Bipolar. My ADHD banner has been lost in the mail for twenty-five damned years. We come as we are, and we are better people if we accept the people around us for who they are, glitches and all, and not get all offended by small shit that other people might not even know they’re doing. God, does it matter? If I say ‘Preston is autistic,’ does that make him more or less of a person? Or does it just make him Preston, and you have to deal with that man as he comes?” Spencer’s own thought jerked him out of his tirade. “As Damien has discovered time and time again when he’s tried to bullshit Preston when he should have been honest.”

  Theo hummed against his shoulder. “T
hat’s a good point,” he said softly. “But we shouldn’t be ashamed of those things either.”

  “Are you shitting me? That man owns upwards of two hundred dogs. Knowing him is one of the coolest things about me.”

  Theo outright laughed. “You fall out of helicopters on an off day, Spencer. You’re not in danger of being boring.” He finished his MRE in one bite and yawned. “I’m going to throw this away and try to rig the garden hose so it’s not in danger of slipping. You stay put. It’s warm in here, and the foil blankets are keeping the rain off.”

  Spencer grunted. “And there’s no danger of sunburn.”

  Theo wriggled away, leaving him empty and cold and strangely bereft. “No, but you may have to check for mushrooms behind the ears.”

  Spencer laughed softly and leaned his head back under the silver-tinted light of the foil blanket, huddling deeper into the wool wrapped around his torso. Yeah, he was wet, but he had to admit that Theo had done his best to make him toasty. For a moment he was content to listen to the fall of the rain and the roar of the water and track Theo’s movements as he did those things he said he was going to do. There was a pause then, and Theo cleared his throat.

  “Spencer?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t, uh, peek out of the blankets for a sec, will you? I’ve got to use the facilities and, well….”

  Spencer found himself tickled beyond measure. “You have to piss off the porch into a flood?”

  “Yeah,” Theo said, laughing too. “And I don’t want you to watch.”

  Spencer chuckled some more. “No worries about that, Woodchuck. Your virtue is safe with me.”

  There was a pause, and then Theo said, “I hope not. I was really just hoping to keep my dignity.”

  Spencer thought about all the couples he knew, about the way Glen Echo and Cash Harper looked at each other with unashamed hearts in their eyes. About the way shy banker Mallory Armstrong regarded unapologetic extrovert Tevyn Moore from under his eyelashes. About how Josh made sure Elsie had flowers waiting on the table anytime she was gone for more than three days, and Damien and Preston—who didn’t do a lot of public affection—would simply hug, long and hard, when one of them had worried the other.