Bent Arrow (7 page)

He had to make a decision, but he wasn’t ready yet. His mom and dad had harped on him over supper to sign the papers. Could he leave the oil boom? Right now he was young. He was fit and able to work long hours. But how much longer would the boom last? It was eventually going to go bust or the government was going to wake up to how dangerous fracking was to the environment.

“Just five more years,” he said to the brightest star in the sky. “Five more years, maybe seven, and financially I can be set for life.” He could rent this place out in the meantime, and when he was ready, he could move in. Maybe his parents would retire down in Florida or Arizona by that time, so he wouldn’t have them showing up on his doorstep every few days. Then he could live the life he wanted. Sure there would be gossipers, but if he kept to himself and stayed out at the lake rather than socializing in town, he could easily avoid that. His mom and dad being gone would ensure that the local chatter stayed to a minimum as well.

“Yeah,” he said through a sigh. “I can’t live here until they’re gone.”

O
N THE SECOND
tattoo removal trip, while Erik was back in the treatment room getting those horrid words blasted with a laser, Luther got a call from his boss, which was unheard of. He scowled as he answered the phone with a tentative hello as he slipped outside the clinic door so he didn’t disturb the people sitting in the waiting room.

“Luth, I’ve got some bad news.”

“Oh?”

“The higher-ups are slowing production here in the eastern Bakken. Unless you’re willing to transfer out to Williston, which I see in your employment file you’re not, I’ve gotta lay you off immediately. Is that right, you’re not willing to go west?”

It wasn’t the first time a layoff had happened. It wouldn’t be the last. And it was true he wanted nothing to do with Williston again. He could barely handle the crowding between Tioga and Stanley anymore, and that was barren compared to Williston. Not to mention what had happened to Erik out there. “Uh… not really. Any idea how long this’ll last?”

“Could be a few months or more. It all depends. Right now I’ve got an overabundance of roustabouts, and since you’re one of the newest guys on my crew and you’ve been taking a lot of days off recently….”

He had been, but each day he’d taken off was for something worthwhile, whether it was for Erik or his grandma’s house. “I get it. How long do I have before I need to be out of my trailer? I’m in Fargo right now.”

“Tomorrow by midnight. Leave your forwarding address with the office so we can get back in touch.”

“Will do.”

His boss hung up before Luther even had a chance to say good-bye.

When he stepped back into the waiting room, Erik was already done and paying at the front desk. “Oh, hey. I wondered where you’d wandered off to. I was hoping I didn’t need to hitch a ride back home.”

“I wouldn’t leave ya. How’d it go?”

“Great. She doesn’t think I’ll need to come back.”

“That’s good.” Luther held the door open, and Erik smiled as he stepped out into the late-afternoon August heat. “Would you mind…?”

“Would I mind what?”

“Could we head back now rather than spending the night? I’ll drive the whole way so you can rest and get comfortable.”

“Sure,” he said around a weary smile.

SEVEN

R
IGID

L
UTHER DROVE WEST
in stunned silence. Erik eyed him, staring for several minutes before he looked back out the windshield.

“Did something happen?” Erik asked after the city dissolved into countryside.

Apparently it was impossible to keep the worry off his face. “I just got laid off. That’s never bothered me before, but now….”

“Now?” Erik asked after the silence went on for several minutes.

“Now it does. I need to be out of my trailer by tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Five green mile markers passed before Erik said, “That fucking sucks. What are you going to do?”

“Go to my gra—
my
house, I guess. Sign the papers so it’s really mine. Might as well stop running away from my responsibilities.”

Erik hummed as he scooted to the center of the bench seat and wove their fingers together, then leaned his comforting weight against Luther’s side. They drove in silence like that until Luther needed his hand to shift gears so he could turn onto a new highway and maneuver through a sleepy town.

“Hungry?” Luther asked as he saw the fast-food restaurant up ahead.

“Yeah.”

They went through a drive thru and mowed down on burgers and fries while Luther kept on driving. They talked about nothing in particular, avoiding the elephant riding along in the truck with them, until Erik started yawning.

“You comfortable?” Luther asked. “Need anything?”

“I’m good.” Erik soon started to drift, sated stomach apparently sending him off to sleep.

Miles ran under the truck’s tires, and all Luther could think about was not being able to see Erik after his shifts or spend lazy mornings in bed together anymore. He didn’t know what to say, because... what
could
he say? Once again his destiny had been decided for him, and he’d sat by and watched it happen.

It had been going on for years, though, hadn’t it? First by his parents and then by a series of shitty employers who barely made sticking around worthwhile outside of the money, and when they finally did—somehow giving him the luxury of getting to know Erik—the rug was pulled from under him.

Time to move on. Time to find another town, another job, another place to search for another guy.

But he didn’t want another guy. Not this time.

The last three months with Erik had been his best three. Ever. He didn’t want to walk away from that, but now he was being
forced
away. And if his company was laying people off in the region, all the other companies would be too.

So this was it. That’s what temporary living arrangements and jobs were all about. He knew what he’d signed on for, but he never expected Erik and a barely dreamed-of future to walk into his life.

The silence was suddenly oppressive, so Luther turned on the radio. He discovered the nearby college station he knew occasionally played a good mix, and after three songs, he wasn’t disappointed when Jim Morrison started singing to him.

He listened as all twelve minutes of The Door’s “The End” played, which spoke to this moment more than any other song could’ve. This was going to be good-bye, not just to Erik, but to the last vestiges of his childhood if he was really going to step up and do what his grandma had always had faith he could handle. The melancholy the song draped over the truck forced Luther to drive with the radio off while only the sounds of the road and Erik’s soft snores entertained him. The sun dipped lower and lower, nearly blinding him as it appeared to hiss in watery waves as it sunk into the earth.

And he still had another hour to go.

As he drove past Erik’s motel, he didn’t consider dropping him off there for one second, but he did jostle him awake.

“We’re almost back to the man camp, so you might want to scoot back over,” Luther said as kindly as he could.

“Thanks,” Erik mumbled as he wiped at his face, as though to wake himself up more quickly before he slid to the passenger seat. “Can I spend the night with you?”

“I’d love that.”

Luther turned the corner and finally pulled up to his trailer, exhausted. When they got inside, Luther insisted Erik lie down on the bed and put an ice pack on his wound to numb it even more.

“You’re babying me.”

“Let me,” Luther said with far too much pleading in his voice.

This was stupid. Why was he holding all of this in?

He lay next to Erik, being careful not to wiggle the bed too much, and he pressed a kiss to Erik’s forehead.

“I had a lot of time to think while I drove.”

“Sorry I fell asleep.”

“Don’t be. I sorted a lot of shit out in my head.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“I’m going to go make my grandma’s house my own. I’ll live at the lake and escape this overpopulation that never sat right with me. I can fish and water-ski and sail. In the winter I can play hockey and learn how to fix hardwood floors. I can even work at the lumberyard, according to my mom.”

“Yeah?”

“I think it’s time to stop running. You were the first person to call me on that.”

Erik nodded and gave Luther a resigned smile. “It’ll be nice for you to finally settle down and grow some roots.”

“There’s only one thing missing.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“I need a plumber who can help me fix… well, a lot of stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll be completely honest with you, anything up near the lake is
not
going to pay like oil jobs do, but the housing is free. Just move in with me and help me figure out how to make Grandma and Grandpa’s house a home again. Show me how to bend rather than break, because right this second, I feel like I’m splintering apart.”

“Shhh,” Erik said against Luther’s cheek as he caressed his chin and pressed a kiss to his mouth, then he pulled away.

That was the first time Luther had allowed his words to get away from him, and he had no clue how they’d be received. He bit his lower lip so hard it almost bled while he waited to find out.

Erik breathed in deep and then released a slow and steady sigh, but there were tears in his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low and guarded but raw honesty bled through. “You’re not breaking, but you’re not ready to bend yet, either. I’m tired of hiding in the shadows. I’m tired of always being aware of who’s watching me. I’m plain old tired of hiding.”

“Me too.”

“But you’re going up there to hide some more, aren’t you? You’re not even out to your parents yet.”

“Do I have to be?”

Erik gave Luther a watery smile and nodded. “If you want to stop running and start doing more than living from job to job, fuck to fuck, then yes.”

“What we have is more than that.”

“Is it? Is it more than convenience and good timing?”

“What?” Tears blurred Luther’s vision. “It may have been that the first time, but not a day since. Not to me, at least.”

Erik shrugged. “How would I know that? You don’t ever tell me what’s going on in your head, until now, when you share all these great plans you have for yourself. And now you want me to move in with you to help you fix up your place so it can happen?”

“No. That’s not why. That’s not why at all. I want you to move in with me because… becau—” Luther’s throat closed off, words getting stuck. He gasped and swallowed thickly.

Erik licked his lips as he sat up. “See? Like now. No words. Stop hiding, stop running, and then you’ll learn how to bend. But you’ve got to do that on your own.” He squeezed Luther’s thigh, stood, and asked, “Can you give me a ride back to the motel?”

Luther nodded, setting a few tears loose. He wiped at them angrily as he headed toward the front door. The noise of his engine cut through the night, but the ride to the motel was utterly silent. When he pulled in front of Erik’s door, a group of rowdy drunk guys were loitering nearby.

“When you’re ready to be honest, call me,” Erik said, looking with resolution at the drunk men before pressing a kiss to the corner of Luther’s mouth. Erik hopped out, disappeared behind door number seventeen, and Luther felt more alone than ever.

EIGHT

P
RESSURE

L
UTHER UNPACKED THE
scant belongings he’d moved from place to place for the last eight or nine years, easily fitting them on empty shelves in his grandma’s kitchen… in
his
kitchen. He had to toss decades worth of outdated bottles of pills and cosmetics from the bathroom medicine cabinet and realized he needed new towels, ones without holes.

As the days passed, he moved from room to room, pulling out memories from shelves, which pulled more from his mind of how happy he was when he spent time here as a child. Now he felt nothing. He forced himself to make decisions on what to keep and what to get rid of. If he was going to put down roots here—because God knew he was done with the oil life—he needed this place to be his. In his mind, it was still his grandparents’, despite the ink on the legal documents being dry for days.

He drove to the big city to drop off donations and buy new linens. He stopped by the lumberyard and turned in a job application. He cooked on an actual stove, something he hadn’t done in years. And each night, he stood on the dock watching the sun set as he ran over all the times he’d kept himself from sharing his feelings with Erik. This was where he’d been when words nearly burst from his lips, and he’d dropped to his knees and used sex to share his feelings instead, when Erik needed the words.

Luther stripped and jumped in the lake. He floated on his back and allowed the water to muffle all sound but his heartbeat and near-deafening gulps. Tears tracked to his temples before being swallowed by the lake.