12. It Will
It Will
They cleaned up with a little water from Harris’s canteen, pulled their clothes back into place, and settled against opposite sides of the lookout with the kind of grim practicality that would have been less absurd if they had not both looked thoroughly kissed.
Jay sat against the wall with one knee raised. Harris looked out through the broken window toward the valley, having no idea what the first sentence after something like that was supposed to be.
Eventually Jay rubbed his thumb over one corner of his mouth. “I genuinely had no idea.”
“’Bout what?”
“That you were into men. I’m usually very good at that.”
“Not this time, apparently.”
Jay pointed at him. “Do not get smug. You hid your bisexuality like it was in witness protection.”
Amusement tugged at Harris’s mouth. “What was I supposed to do? There a secret signal?”
“I don’t know. Maybe listen to Orville Peck?”
Harris let the smile happen. “Got two albums.”
Jay stared at him. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“This is devastating.” Jay dragged a hand over his face, then let it fall to his raised knee. “I observe people for a living.”
Harris leaned more comfortably against the wall. “Maybe stick to scenery.”
Jay pressed a hand to his chest. “Ex-wife. Cowboy hat. Two Orville Peck albums. The evidence was fighting itself.”
Harris looked toward the window before the grin could get any worse.
“Don’t laugh. This is the worst day of my gaydar’s life.”
“Thought today went pretty good,” Harris drawled.
Jay stopped.
When Harris looked back, Jay was staring at him, a slow smile spreading across his face.
“Well. Look at you.”
“Shut up.”
The smile lingered. “How long have you known?”
“Long time.”
“And you’ve been with men before?”
No.
The answer rose immediately. Then Harris looked at Jay—mouth still swollen, posture loose with the confidence of a man who knew what he was doing—and imagined him turning careful.
“Yup.”
The lie felt wrong the moment it left his mouth.
Jay gave a small nod, accepting the answer more easily than Harris deserved. “And nobody knows?”
“No one.”
“Not Claire?”
Harris shook his head.
“Your family?”
“Nobody knows.” He turned the canteen slowly between his hands, thumb working over the ridged cap. Beyond the broken window, the valley dropped away beneath them, hazy with distance and smoke. “Nobody can know.”
Jay’s expression sobered. “They won’t hear it from me.”
“My family especially.”
“Okay.”
“Crew too.”
Jay nodded, his gaze flicking briefly toward the camera case. “Yeah. And the film stays the film.”
“I know.”
The easy humor from a minute ago had gone quiet between them. Jay shifted against the wall, stretching one leg out across the dusty floor before looking toward the doorway and back again.
“So… what happens when we get back?”
Harris’s thumb stopped against the canteen cap.
Jay watched him closely. “We ride down there, Priya starts yelling about schedules, your entire family is within a hundred yards again. Doors, dinner tables, people who might notice where you’re looking.” His mouth pulled slightly to one side. “Do we pretend none of this happened?”
“No.”
The answer came before Harris had time to consider whether there was a safer one.
Jay went still for half a beat. Then his shoulders eased against the wall.
“Okay. And if this happens again—”
“It will.”
The words were out before Harris could think better of them.
Jay went still. Then his smile arrived slowly. “That is not the rebuttal you think it is.”
Harris caught the front of his shirt and kissed him again.
* * *
They rode back toward the line cabin in the long evening light without saying much. The important things had already been said. What remained was the considerably stranger problem of how to sit on horseback beside someone after having his hand around your cock.
The trail helped. Where it narrowed through timber, Harris rode ahead, but whenever the ground opened enough for two horses, he slowed until Red came alongside.
That was new.
So was knowing what Harris’s mouth tasted like, how rough his stubble felt against Jay’s face, the sound he made when control finally left him. Trail conditions had become unexpectedly difficult to concentrate on.
On one wider section, Harris looked over. Jay met his eyes, and Harris’s gaze dropped briefly to his mouth before returning to the path.
Jay nearly guided Red into a pine branch.
Professionalism was going extremely well.
By the time they reached the cabin, exhaustion and routine gave them something easier to do with themselves.
They unsaddled the horses, checked legs and water, carried the gear inside, and reheated the remaining stew.
The familiar sequence of small tasks settled around them, unchanged even if almost everything else about the day had shifted.
Dinner was nearly normal. Harris asked whether Jay had enough battery for the route back, and they talked about the weather moving over the western ridge and whether the lower trail would turn muddy if the forecast held.
Neither mentioned the lookout. They didn’t need to.
The knowledge of it sat easily enough between them until Jay finished eating and carried his bowl toward the stove just as Harris stepped away from it.
They stopped nearly chest to chest.
Harris smelled like smoke, horse sweat, and the faint trace of soap beneath both. Jay’s attention dropped to his mouth.
Harris noticed.
For a second, the space between them seemed much smaller than it was.
Then Harris stepped aside.
“Need sleep.”
“Yeah.”
Jay set down the bowl and went to his bunk. The stove settled into a low red heat while darkness gathered around the cabin, and from only a few feet away came the occasional shift of Harris’s sleeping bag.
Jay lay on his back with a smile he was glad Harris couldn’t see.
Sleep took a while.
* * *
A little after five, Jay woke to Harris feeding another piece of wood into the stove. The cabin remained mostly dark, orange light moving across Harris’s shoulders as he straightened.
Harris made coffee while Jay sat up in his sleeping bag and watched him with the still-new awareness of knowing exactly what those hands felt like on his body.
Eventually Harris turned with the mugs.
Their eyes met.
Which was apparently all it took.
Harris crossed the cabin, set the mugs down on the shelf by Jay’s bunk, and kissed him.
There was no shock this time, no collision followed by disbelief. Jay knew what was happening from the first second and pulled Harris between his knees. Harris came willingly, one hand braced against the wall while the other settled on Jay’s thigh over the sleeping bag.
The kiss started slow, almost lazy, until Jay slipped a hand beneath Harris’s shirt and felt his stomach tighten beneath his palm. Harris answered by unzipping the sleeping bag and reaching inside.
Jay sucked in a breath against his mouth.
At the lookout, Harris had touched him with intense concentration, as though every reaction Jay gave him was information worth remembering. This time there was less hesitation. His hand found what had worked before and did it again.
Jay pulled him closer and slipped a hand beneath the waistband of Harris’s boxers in return. They got each other off with their hands again, slower than at the lookout and with considerably less uncertainty.
By the time they finally separated, gray morning had begun to fill the cabin, and their coffee was cold.