29. Four Days #2
Jay was nearly at the lodge now. Harris could still call him back, tell him the answer had been wrong, ask for the time Jay had offered and figure out the rest later.
He had done versions of this before: let silence make the decision because saying what he wanted would mean living with the answer. Knowing the pattern did not make him brave enough to break it.
He didn’t.
Jay disappeared inside, and Harris remained beside the unfinished fence.
* * *
Packing took less time than Jay wanted it to. His room had accumulated clothes in drawers, two books on the windowsill, a charger behind the bed, and three rocks Willa and June had given him for reasons nobody had ever explained. His navy cap was still missing.
Priya appeared in the doorway while he was pushing one of the rocks into the side pocket of his bag.
“You could come back.”
“For pickups.”
“Sure.”
“There may not be pickups.”
“There are always pickups.”
“That is something lazy producers say to avoid emotional closure.”
She leaned against the doorframe. “Did you ask him?”
Jay stopped pretending to organize the bag. “I offered to stay a few weeks.”
“And?”
“He said Sunday was the right call.”
Priya’s expression softened. “I’m sorry.”
“It is the right call.”
She let him hear how unconvincing that sounded without saying so.
“Did you tell him why?”
“I said I could work remotely.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“It’s what I said.”
Jay sat on the edge of the bed. There were words he could have used.
He could have told Harris that leaving felt wrong, that he wanted to know what happened after the fire because it was Harris’s life and not because any of it belonged in the film.
He could have admitted that waking in the hospital and finding Harris beside him had done something Jay had not managed to put back where it belonged.
Wanting Harris was not the part he mistrusted, though. He mistrusted what he might promise because he wanted him.
“I’m not doing another Miles,” he said. “I’m not building a relationship out of departures and asking somebody to be grateful for whatever parts of me happen to be available.”
“Has Harris asked you to?”
“No.”
The answer hurt more than it should have. Miles had never asked Jay to stop leaving either; he had simply adjusted until neither of them could tell the difference between flexibility and resignation. Jay would not repeat that pattern merely because this departure felt harder.
Priya studied him for a moment. “People sometimes say no because they’re afraid of what yes would require.”
“That sounds embroidered on a pillow.”
“It probably is.”
She left him to finish packing.
* * *
Dinner that night happened outside the lodge beneath temporary work lights, with ranch hands, neighbors, too much food, and a group photograph Jay objected to until Willa took his hand and made refusal impractical.
By the time everyone sat down, the distinction between crew and family had blurred enough that nobody seemed sure where one group ended and the other began.
Jay sat across from Harris and spent most of the meal pretending not to notice how often they looked at each other.
Conversation moved around them through fencing, insurance, road closures, and the coming week’s work.
Once, Jay coughed into his elbow and Harris’s attention snapped toward him before anyone else reacted.
The response was quick enough that Elise noticed.
Her gaze moved from Harris to Jay and remained there for half a second—not triumph or teasing, only the quiet look of someone adding one fact to another.
Harris knew exactly what she had seen.
The change in him was small but immediate: his shoulders tightened, his attention shifted back toward Della, and for the next several minutes he barely looked across the table.
Jay understood more from that retreat than he wanted to.
Staying would not have meant only remote editing and a few weeks helping around the ranch. It would have meant remaining inside something Harris still did not know how to let other people see.
By ten, the neighbors had begun leaving. Jay helped with cleanup until Della removed a stack of plates from his hands and informed him he was doing it incorrectly. When he looked for Harris again, he was gone.
Jay found him near the large barn, leaning against the fence with a cigarette between two fingers. Laughter still carried from the lodge behind them, but the yard was dark enough here to feel briefly separate from everyone else.
“You starting again?” Jay asked.
“Nope.”
“Good. I’d hate for surviving a wildfire to lead to unhealthy choices.”
Harris glanced at him. “You came over here to lecture me?”
“I came over because you disappeared.”
The answer came out more plainly than Jay intended. Harris went quiet, and Jay could feel the moment opening in front of them, dangerous mostly because either of them could still choose to step into it.
Instead Harris asked, “All packed?”
“Mostly.”
“Flight still early?”
“Painfully.”
Harris nodded and looked out toward the pasture.
Jay watched the ember brighten between his fingers. He could have let the conversation remain practical. That would have been easier for both of them.
“Leaving is usually easier than this.”
Harris looked at him then.
Jay held his gaze, aware that he had finally said something without hiding it inside work or logistics.
“Yeah,” Harris said. The word was quiet, but it carried enough that Jay did not ask him to explain it.
For a moment neither moved. Harris finished the cigarette, crushed it out against the post, and slipped the butt into his pocket before looking back toward the guest cabin.
“You coming by later?”
Jay’s breath caught despite himself. “That an invitation?”
“Suppose.”
Under almost any other circumstances, Jay would have made him say it properly. Tonight, he understood what Harris was offering and what he was not.
“Suppose I could.”
Something eased in Harris’s expression. He said he had paperwork to finish first, and Jay informed him that this was an appalling seduction strategy, which earned the faintest movement at the corner of Harris’s mouth.
Harris headed back toward the guest cabin while Jay returned to the lodge. He helped Priya finish the last of the packing, listened to Eli complain about somebody putting batteries in the wrong case, and tried not to keep track of how long it had been since Harris left.
Nearly an hour later, the ranch had gone mostly quiet. Jay stepped outside and looked across the yard.
The light in Harris’s cabin was still on.
He had spent the afternoon reminding himself that wanting something did not make it sustainable. None of that made him want this night less.
Jay crossed the yard.