24. CJ
CJ
It hadn’t been nearly enough time.
That was CJ’s only thought as they drove away from the cabin.
The road down from Juniper Creek unwound in ribbons of asphalt and the pine trees gave way to scrub as the mountains grew smaller behind them.
He sat angled toward the window, one arm bent and braced against the door so his fingers curled loosely near his mouth.
Next to him, Evan’s gaze was fixed on the road, and he had both hands on the wheel, his thumbs tapping absently against the leather.
He’d been quiet since they’d left the cabin.
Not withdrawn exactly, but it was clear to CJ that Evan had compartmentalized their trip and turned it into something he could hold without it spilling into the rest of his life.
CJ knew that look. He’d seen it on his own face years ago, and he knew how that story ended.
“Hopefully, we’ll make good time getting home,” he said finally because the silence had started to make him twitch.
Evan’s grip tightened on the wheel before he relaxed his fingers and hummed in acknowledgment. “Yeah.”
That was it. Just “yeah.” CJ was starting to feel like Evan had one foot out of whatever they’d had in the mountains, and his chest tightened.
Three days hadn’t been enough time. It hadn’t even scratched the surface.
He swallowed hard and shifted in his seat, and for a few miles, they fell back into silence.
Evan had a couple of different forms of quiet.
There was the comfortable kind that lived between them when they were relaxing at home, Evan reading and CJ watching a movie.
And then there was this kind: a silence that wasn’t quite uncomfortable but had a tension running through it, the way air pressure changed before a storm.
He’d made peace with the knowledge that their lives would go back to the secrecy and hiding.
What he couldn’t make peace with was Evan sitting two feet away from him, already looking like he was somewhere else.
CJ left it alone. He’d learned to recognize the story Evan’s posture told, knew that he had turned inward because the last three days had gotten too close to something real.
He hadn’t been like that in college, but this Evan had learned to pull back so easily that it looked effortless.
CJ was starting to learn that trying to force conversation when Evan went quiet only pushed him further away.
They drove the rest of the way like that, with conversation coming in short bursts that never took hold.
But every time CJ tried to pull them into the kind of easy back and forth they’d shared at the cabin, Evan gave him short answers, if he even used words at all.
By the time the city came into view, CJ had given up trying and turned up the music.
They pulled into the garage just before seven and unloaded their bags.
The elevator was empty, and the silence continued as they rode up to the fourteenth floor.
CJ watched the numbers change, and when the doors opened on their floor, they stepped into the hallway and stood there for a moment before walking down the hall.
They stopped outside CJ’s door, and he pulled his keys out.
CJ had no idea whether he should ask Evan to stay or give him space.
He was pretty sure he knew the answer anyway.
“So,” Evan said.
CJ looked at him, surprised that he’d spoken first. Evan had his hands in his pockets and the look of a man who had been running a conversation in his head for the last few hours.
And he looked tired again. The mountain air had done something for him this week, and the city had already started trying to undo it.
“So,” CJ said back.
Evan stared down the hall toward his apartment for a long moment. “I had a good week,” Evan said.
CJ watched him. “Me too.”
Evan nodded and tilted his head toward his own apartment. “I should probably…”
“Yeah,” CJ interrupted because he knew how that sentence would end and he didn’t want to hear it all the way through. “I’ll probably just crash anyway.”
“Same,” Evan said.
CJ shifted his weigh and huffed out a breath as he dragged a hand through his hair. “Fuck,” he muttered. “This is awkward. Why is this awkward?”
Evan’s mouth twitched, but it wasn’t quite a smile. “I don’t know.”
“All of a sudden we don’t know how to say goodnight?”
Evan glanced at him then, and something flashed across his face that CJ couldn’t quite read. “I guess we’re out of practice.”
“We’re still good, right?” The question slipped out before he could stop it.
Evan locked eyes with him. “Yeah. We’re good.”
“Okay,” he said. “Good. See you tomorrow at practice?”
“Yeah.” Evan turned to leave. “Get some sleep.”
CJ waited until Evan was in his apartment before he let himself into his own.
He’d showered and was leaning against his kitchen island with a couple of takeout menus in front of him when his phone buzzed. CJ picked up his phone and saw a group text from Rizzo to him and Evan.
Rizzo
Were you guys in Juniper Creek this week?
CJ stared at the message. How the hell—his phone buzzed again, then again. Two more messages in rapid succession, both from the team group chat. Then another from his agent. His group chat with his brothers. Then his mother, who rarely texted first, if she did at all.
“What the fuck?” he whispered. His stomach dropped and a chill ran across his body.
Rizzo
Just a heads up. I’m sorry, guys. Let me know what I can do.
CJ clicked the link. The page took a second to load, just long enough to make his pulse spike in anticipation of something he already knew was going to be bad.
A headline snapped into place: Secret Lovers?
Followed by a photo that made CJ’s breath hitch. The caption read,
CJ Hartman and Evan Delgado share a cozy lunch date in Juniper Creek, CA, on Wednesday, July 15th.
“What the fuck?”
He recognized the restaurant immediately, could easily identify the square table in the corner and the window behind them with the main street of Juniper Creek visible through the glass.
In the photo, Evan was looking out the window, his hand on CJ’s thigh and CJ’s hand curled loosely around it in a way that couldn’t be explained as anything other than exactly what it was.
A moment later, the angle of the shot registered, and CJ’s stomach rolled.
It wasn’t from outside or from a booth across the room.
It came from the left side of the frame, from inside the restaurant, at a slightly elevated angle.
From the direction of the counter, and the man in overalls who’d been hunched over a newspaper when they walked in and hadn’t seemed to pay them any attention at all.
Both of them had looked at the man once and thought he was harmless. He would never make that mistake again.
CJ sat down on the edge of the couch.
His phone buzzed again.
Evan
Fuck.
A pause.
Evan
CJ
CJ
I know. I’m looking at it.
Are you okay?
Evan didn’t answer. CJ tried to call him, and Evan sent him to voicemail.
CJ looked at the photo again and cursed.
The man had been there when they walked in, and he’d been there when they left, and CJ hadn’t given him a single thought while they were there or since.
But he thought about it now, and if he hadn’t been so filled with rage, he might have been impressed by the specific kind of patience it would take to know who you’re looking for and then just… wait.
He stared at the ceiling for a moment. Then his phone rang. The screen said MOM. He stared at it for one full ring. Then another. Dread coiled in his gut and he cursed before he answered.
“Hey.” He stood so he could pace.
“I just saw something on your father’s phone.” His mother’s voice was pitched high. “I just saw…is it you?”
CJ closed his eyes briefly. “Yeah.”
“Christopher.”
His mother’s voice was measured in the way it got when she was managing herself very carefully.
He’d seen and heard versions of it his entire life: the restraint of a woman who had raised him with a preference for composure over confrontation.
A restraint she was currently exercising under immense pressure.
“Mom—”
“I’m not asking you to explain yourself over the phone.” Her voice was tinged with something that sounded like disappointment. “I just want to know that you’re all right.”
He leaned against the counter in his kitchen. “I’m all right.”
There was a pause, and he could hear the television in his parents’ living room. “Your father wants to talk to you.”
“Mom—”
“CJ.” Her voice dropped slightly, composure slipping just a fraction. “Please just talk to him.”
She didn’t give him a chance to respond before his father’s voice came on, quieter than his mother’s but more direct.
“CJ.”
“Hi, Dad.”
“You want to tell me what I’m looking at?”
It wasn’t quite a question, but CJ had grown up understanding that this particular way of asking meant he already knew the answer. He just wanted to see if his son would be straight with him.
Or not so straight.
“It’s a photo from a restaurant,” CJ said. “It’s in a small mountain town near a cabin I rented so I—we could get away. There was a guy at the counter with a newspaper he was clearly using as a prop.”
“I can see that,” his father said, and CJ swore there was a tinge of amusement in his tone. “You want to tell me who and what it’s a photo of?”
CJ closed his eyes briefly. “Evan and me. Eating lunch.”
“Christopher.”
“Father.” He sighed. “You know who Evan is, Dad.”