Wild Raspberries (16 page)

“Do you want me to wait here?” Dan asked as Tyler turned off the engine.

“Why?”

“Well, two guys, one room… unless you want to get two…I mean, I’ve got some money…” Dan found himself floundering, suddenly keenly aware of just how dependent he was on Tyler and how much Tyler gave him. He met Tyler’s eyes and saw understanding in them and a little pity.

“I want one room, but not because it’s cheaper,” Tyler said gently. “I want you sleeping with me. I’ve gotten used to the way you drool on me.”

“I do not drool!”

“And if the manager has a problem with that, which I doubt, I’ll deal with it.” Tyler ran a finger down Dan’s nose. “You think too much, Dan. You don’t have to. I know you’ve got no money and I know what that feels like, but anything I give you is just — it’s not important.”

“You shouldn’t have to pay for everything,” Dan said. “I need to get a job.”

Tyler opened his mouth and then closed it again. When he did speak, he seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “Yeah, you do. And I’m not stupid; I know there’s nothing for you to do in Carlyle and that you’re bored hanging around the cabin all the time. I know what we’ve got going here is temporary, but right now, let it go, okay? We’re on vacation and we’ll deal with it all later.”

Temporary? Dan focused on that single word and felt it chill him. Everything Tyler had said was true — though he was willing to try and find a job in town; there was bound to be someone needing help on a farm at this time of year — but none of it mattered when the thought of turning his back on Tyler made him feel cold and sick.

“Come on,” Tyler said. “We’ll get a room and then go and eat.”

The woman who rented them the room was as skinny as a straw with tinted silver hair that seemed to be purple in some lights. Dan was fascinated by it. Did she know it looked purple? Did she care? She took Tyler’s credit card with one eye on them and the other on the TV, which was showing an ancient episode of Dallas.

“One room?”

Tyler nodded.

“Two doubles or one king-size?”

Dan felt himself tense up as Tyler answered, but the indifference in her expression didn’t alter when Tyler chose the second option. She pushed over two keys and gave the TV her undivided attention after a murmured wish for them to enjoy their stay.

The room lived up to the parking lot; Dan had been expecting something on the bleak or tacky side, reeking of smoke and other people, but the screened window was open wide, letting in the warm, flower-scented air, and the small sign telling people not to smoke seemed to have been obeyed. The red and white theme was present, but the carpet was dark green, which offset it. Dan kicked off his shoes and lay down on the wide bed, the white pillowcase crisp and smooth against his face, the red and white striped comforter soft. “Oh, yeah, this feels good.”

Tyler returned from the small bathroom and nodded. “Nice place. Clean.”

“Nice bed. Soft.”

Tyler leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest, which did things to Dan — made his mouth dry and yet watering, made his cock stir, made his mind sharp and clear when it came to getting Tyler naked and close enough to touch and fuzzy on everything else.

“Thought you were hungry.”

“Hungry? Try starving.” Dan licked his lips. If Tyler didn’t get the message from the way he was staring like a cat at a canary, ready to pounce, he was prepared to spell it out explicitly, but something told him he wouldn’t need to.

Tyler nodded. “I can see that, boy.”

Fuck, that voice; amused, yes, but as husky with pure want as his own had been… Tyler might like being cajoled into sex, and Dan didn’t mind doing it, but when it came down to it, Tyler wanted it as much as Dan did, and he didn’t really try and hide it. It made Dan feel good about himself in a way being desired never had before, not even with Luke. Tyler looked at him and saw all of him, not just a mouth to take, an ass to fuck.

“God, I love you,” he said, the words involuntary, and heard the room go quiet, go still.

“That’s… probably not a good idea,” Tyler said eventually. The warmth and amusement had gone from his voice, replaced by a flat weariness.

“It’s not?” Red and white stripes wavered in front of Dan’s eyes as he stared down at the bed. “Sorry about that.”

The bed creaked and he looked up to see Tyler sitting close enough to touch but with enough tension around him to make Dan think that if he did the air would crackle and spit. “I know where Luke is,” Tyler told him.

The words made no sense at first, thrown into the conversation as they had been. He rearranged them in his head in a few combinations until he was back to the original order. “Luke?”

Tyler jerked his chin in an acknowledgement of all the questions that lay behind Dan’s startled echo. “You told me his name and age; finding him was easy. He’s working in a coffee shop in Vancouver, and he lives in an apartment with two other men. It’s a dive, going off the address and the rent, but it’s cheap, and I don’t suppose he cares because he’s probably too busy enjoying the big city. You could be enjoying it with him.”

“Luke? I — Luke isn’t —” Dan swallowed. “I don’t give a fuck about Luke,” he said. He sat up and reached past all the barriers Tyler had around him, the way he always had since day one, minute one, and stabbed his finger into the rock-solid muscle of Tyler’s chest. He’d kissed that spot, licked it wet, laid his face against it and listened to the muted thud of Tyler’s heart. He knew it. He fucking
owned
it. “Did you hear me? I don’t give a fuck. I care about you. If I went to Vancouver —”

“Do you want to?”

“What?” Dan shook his head, derailed again by the quiet interjection. “Maybe? Sure, one day. If you wanted to, then, yes, tomorrow — shit, tonight, if you
really
wanted to and you’d let me drive when you got tired —”

“Not a chance.”

“I’d go anywhere with you.” He said it and knew it was true as soon as he heard the words spoken aloud, not just in his head. “Out into the big, wild world or back to the cabin. I just — I know it’s too soon and shit, we hardly know each other — no, scratch that, we just haven’t known each other
long
— but I can’t see me walking away from you. I don’t want to do it.”

Tyler nodded slowly. “You’re right.”

“I am?”

“It’s too soon.” Tyler stood. “Come on. Let’s eat.”

Dan felt his mouth push out in a pout and didn’t stop it. “Don’t want to.”

“Do you want to know what I do to sulky boys who don’t eat their greens?” The humor was a little forced, and Tyler didn’t sound as if he was flirting, either.

“No. Do you want to know what I do to people who keep on treating me like I’m fourteen?”

“No.” Tyler sighed and looked off to the side. “I’m sorry. But I can’t give you what you want right now and I
can
give you a meal, so I’m going with that, because it’s the best I can do.”

“Fine.” Dan got off the bed. “But if you think we’re done discussing this, you’re wrong.”

“Even if I throw in dessert?”

“Oh, well,
dessert
…” Dan said, and let the sarcasm coat his reply as thickly as frosting on a cake.

Gilmore was composed of 20,000 inhabitants who were probably all wishing they lived somewhere else. Tyler thought that if he lived here, his brain would have been atrophied within the week. Carlyle was smaller, but there was a pulse of energy running through it that this town didn’t have. He and Dan walked two blocks to a restaurant, ate steak and fries, and shared a Caesar salad. They washed it down with beer in frosted glasses and said very little indeed.

Watching Dan toy with a fry, dipping it into an excessively large pool of ketchup and dragging it around in a desultory way, his expression distant, was painful. He’d done that to him, Tyler knew, with the way he’d received Dan’s announcement, but, hell, what else had he been supposed to do? They’d known each other a couple of weeks. Weeks. Whatever he felt for Dan — and God knows what label it needed, because he wasn’t sure — he’d planned to keep to himself, but Dan just —

“You just say stuff, don’t you?”

“What?” Dan studied the limp fry, ketchup-thick, and dropped it onto his plate. “Oh. Yeah, I guess I do now. Why not?”

Because it fucks with people’s heads, you idiot.

He didn’t say it, because he wasn’t Dan. “It’s just not always a good idea.”

“Got that loud and fucking clear,” Dan told him, just a little too loudly. A waitress old enough to be Tyler’s grandmother sucked in a sharp breath and leaned over to murmur into a customer’s ear.

“Keep your voice down, okay?” It came out harsher than he’d expected, but Dan didn’t back down.

“Been doing that all my life. I kind of like not doing it now, so if it’s all the same to you, I’ll tell you that you’re all kinds of an asshole, but I still love you.”

Tyler closed his eyes. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“I don’t suppose you did. What the hell difference does it make?” Tyler opened his eyes again and Dan was still there, still eying him in an annoyed way that made him look older. “What happened?” Dan asked. “I thought we’d decided what we were doing — taking this trip, then going back to the cabin… why have you flipped out?”

Tyler noted that Dan hadn’t called the cabin “home” and wondered if that was because he didn’t think of it that way, or if Dan had thought it sounded too pushy to claim it like that. Maybe a little of both.

“I don’t — look, you know what happened. It was what you said.” This really wasn’t the kind of discussion he wanted to have here, in this harshly-lit restaurant with the worn seats and the inquisitive stares.

“That really blew your mind that much?” Dan rolled his eyes. “Grow up.”

“Coming from the man who’s been giving an impression of a toddler denied a treat, that’s a bit fucking rich,” Tyler snapped. He stood and headed for the bathroom, not looking back, needing a space of time when he wasn’t close enough to Dan that he could smell the frustration and need pouring off him. Sex… oh, yeah, he could have given Dan that on the clean, pretty bed, could have gotten that bed rumpled and used, could have shut out the setting sun and made it dark in there, could have done things to Dan that would have had him making those broken, begging, exultant sounds…

Love. Oh, God, no. He could admit to himself that he felt something for Dan, but to have it returned was never something he’d expected, or even wanted. Dan would be with him for a while, move on, and become a memory for Tyler to take out and smile over. It wasn’t that he didn’t think he deserved to be loved; he wasn’t that fucked-up. Tyler just didn’t feel capable of normal, and Dan, for all he’d gone through in the last few months, pretty much defined the word.

Luke, well, yeah, he probably wasn’t a good bet, either, but if a list existed of men Dan would be happy with, long-term, Tyler knew his name wasn’t on it. He’d given Dan a refuge, out of guilt, attraction, and necessity, and that was it. Stupid for either of them to make it more than that.

Tyler would take Dan to the ocean and leave him there with enough cash to tide him over until he got a job. Okay, if Dan picked a town or city he wanted to start over in, Tyler would maybe drive him there, if it wasn’t too far… maybe help him find a place… a job… a — fuck. What the hell was he
doing
?

The bathroom door opened, and Tyler realized that he’d taken a leak and washed his hands without noticing and was standing with his hands under a hot air blower that had long since turned itself off. He brushed past the man who’d walked in and was giving him a frankly curious stare and went back into the restaurant.

Dan was gone.

Tyler made himself sit down and wait for the bill to arrive. Made himself walk at a normal pace back to the motel. Made himself believe the whole way that he’d find Dan in there, waiting for him, angry, sure, but there, because it was the only way he could stop himself running and his ankle wasn’t really ready for a two-block sprint.

The door to the room swung open and he saw what he’d known he would.

Fuck
.

***

He didn’t check out, but he left a ten dollar bill in the room for the key in case he never returned it. Dan couldn’t have gotten far, and there was only one road out of town; he’d find Dan in minutes, which was what made Dan’s gesture just that — a pointless, stupid, childish —

When he’d driven five miles without seeing Dan, it occurred to him that Dan might not be continuing toward the ocean, but heading back for the farmlands he knew. He turned the truck around as soon as he could and retraced his steps, barreling through town and out the other side until an itch on the back of his neck made him stop. No. No sign of him, and it didn’t feel right.

Which meant Dan had faked him out and stayed in town, or he’d gotten a ride. Tyler slammed his fist against the wheel and contemplated a third option — that Dan had been arrested for soliciting or something. He could give a not-so-gentle yank at strings and get that wiped off Dan’s record, calling in favors that went back years, but he didn’t want to.

He couldn’t waste time by pulling over to think, but he had to start using his head, because right now he was flailing around in the dark. Two fucking years and it had come to this; he couldn’t find a man he’d last seen forty minutes ago in a town with one main road running out of it. Unbelievable.

Taking three slow breaths, he stopped thinking of Dan as a friend he’d lost and made him a target. It helped, even as part of him cringed away from doing that, because in Tyler’s world, “target” meant “dead.”

He’d left the restaurant and walked back to the motel. If Dan had taken the road leading west, toward the coast, he would have kept on going after he’d picked up his backpack, maintaining his head start of… Tyler worked it out. Fifteen minutes, twenty maybe if Dan had run back to the motel and left the restaurant as soon as the bathroom door had closed behind Tyler.

Twenty minutes. Why the hell had he waited for that woman to fuss and fret over the fucking bill? He could have just tossed over some cash and maybe caught up to Dan at the motel…

He stopped wasting time on what ifs. As he’d walked back to their room, a couple of trucks had passed. He called up an image of them in his head; both large, lumbering behemoths driven by men who might be glad of some company to keep them awake as they drove through the night. Tyler didn’t assume someone who’d picked Dan up would necessarily be a danger to him; there were plenty of decent drivers out there, who’d feel some pity toward him, maybe spot him a meal. It didn’t help. He’d watched Dan struggle in his sleep, fighting off demons.

Two trucks. One white under a layer of grime, one… blue? Or black? And that was all he could remember, though when he saw them, he might be able to recognize them.

“Some agent you are,” he said aloud. “And Cole wants me back?”

The summer night was falling now, and in the glare of his headlights, the road stretched out endlessly. Easy to miss one man walking, so he didn’t dare go too fast, but the trucks would be speeding along and he couldn’t let them get away from him. Choices, decisions… once, he would have made them without hesitation, his brain cold, clear, shuffling odds and probabilities like cards, deftly, precisely. Now his brain felt clogged with fuzz.

And that was what being in love did to you. It slowed you down, held you back.

Why was he doing this, anyway? When he caught up to Dan, what would he say? Dan had just brought their inevitable parting forward by a few weeks and made it less amicable than Tyler would have chosen. He should accept Dan’s decision to walk away and turn the truck around and head back home.

And go back to hiding.

The irony of it all was that Tyler was getting bored of the cabin himself. The interruption of his stay there had exposed it for what it was — not a choice of a more peaceful lifestyle but a self-imposed prison sentence. He’d put himself in solitary confinement and turned the key in the door. Oh, sure, he liked a lot about the cabin; he’d enjoyed the quiet, and he’d always been enough of a loner that the solitude hadn’t troubled him, but he’d fooled himself into thinking it was permanent when it wasn’t and never could be.

The blue truck, the one that had passed by second, appeared in his headlights, and Tyler felt his nostrils flare in an unthinking, primal response at seeing his prey. Scratch his surface and you didn’t have to dig down far to find his base nature.

He passed the truck easily on the quiet road and glanced up at the driver, but the angle was all wrong, and he glimpsed one hairy arm and not much more. Okay. He got in front of it and adjusted the distance between them until he could catch a look at the driver’s cab in his rear view mirror. One person. Dan could have recognized Tyler’s truck and ducked out of sight, of course, but the driver, from the fleeting glances Tyler could spare, didn’t seem to be puzzled or questioning the odd behavior of his passenger. Tyler took off like a man in a hurry, and as soon as the road curved to hide him, put the brakes on, slowing down considerably. When the truck came around the bend, he was ready for it, accelerating away as he didn’t want to be rear-ended, but able to get another look. Still only the driver visible, who gave Tyler an up-thrust finger and a long blast on his horn.

Tyler didn’t blame him; he was driving like an idiot, but it couldn’t be helped. Rational thought seemed to have left the building. He could tell himself this was for the best; he could remind himself that once Dan settled somewhere, he could find him, but reason wasn’t cutting it right then. He continued along the road, straining to see the white truck. When he did, his breath hissed out in exasperation and fury because it was parked by the side of the road, tucked into a passing place sheltered by overhanging trees.

His training clicked into place because right then it was more useful than instinct would have been and a small, coldly logical place in his head knew that. He slowed, let the blue truck come close, and slid in behind the white truck, killed the engine, and opened his door, all of it covered by the roar of the truck as it passed and a second, infuriated hoot of its horn. Without closing his door, he got out and walked toward the side of the truck facing the woods. When he heard the rasp of metal on metal as a zipper came down — or went up; fuck, was he too late? — he pulled his gun from its holster and held it down by his side, safety still on.

He rounded the side of the truck and saw a burly man with a satisfied smile on his face, his hand on his zipper.

“You son of a bitch —”

“Huh?” The man turned his head fully, startled, and Tyler took a step back and made his gun disappear, tucking it into the small of his back even as he raised his empty hand in a distracting, placating gesture.

No Dan in sight and a tree trunk with urine splattered over it…

“Sorry. I thought you were someone else.” He put both hands up and pasted a reassuring smile on his face.

“Yeah?” The man was all beer gut and muscle, but he looked puzzled, not threatening. “Like who?”

Tyler was debating the value of giving the man a description of Dan when the passenger door opened. “Me.” Dan swung his legs around, his backpack in his lap. “He’s looking for me, Larry.”

“Is that so?” Larry hawked and spat. Tyler didn’t flinch; it hadn’t been aimed at him. “Well, if you don’t want to be found, just stay where you are. You’re safe enough there.” He jerked his chin at Tyler. “You try anything, and you’ll regret it, mister. I don’t know what you want with the boy, but —”

“I just want him to come home,” Tyler said. “He’s not in any trouble.”

Larry’s eyebrows, thick and as luxuriant as his moustache, knitted together. “Home?” He gave them both a dubious look. “You’re family? You look too young to be his daddy.”

“He’s my stepfather,” Dan said, contriving to sound sullen and resigned, but not intimidated. “Is Mom —?”

Reminding himself that once he had Dan to himself, he could make him pay for forcing this charade onto him, Tyler played along. “Your momma is crying her eyes out over your worthless hide and if I know her, she’s making your favorite supper as she does it.” He shook his head. “Running away isn’t going to solve your problems, son.” He gave Larry a rueful look. “Him and his best buddy took a joyride and ended up crashing Billy’s dad’s car. Took out a fence and hit a tree.”

“Drunk?” Larry asked, his voice sharp.

Tyler laughed, deep and easy. “No, Billy’s just one piss-poor driver.” He met Dan’s eyes. “Billy’s told everyone how you tried to make him stop. He’s grounded for the rest of his life, or until his daddy gets over it, but I guess I can cut you a break seeing as how you didn’t try and push it all onto him.” He shook his head. “Kids.”

“Got two of my own,” Larry said. “Hell-raisers, both of them.” He looked up at Dan. “Well, boy? Get your ass down here and get back home with you.”

“Yes, sir,” Dan said meekly and scrambled down to stand beside Tyler. He didn’t meet Tyler’s eyes until after Larry, waving off a thank you from both of them, had climbed back into his rig and driven away.

“You lie good,” Tyler said, watching the taillights fade away. “Don’t ever even think of trying it with me.”

“You do, too,” Dan pointed out. “And I only did once, when I lied about my name. I swear I never have since then.” Tyler grunted in acknowledgement of something he knew to be simple fact, and Dan said reflectively, “So, just what
is
my favorite supper?”