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  Carter sighed and accepted the fact that the walk back was going to seem much, much longer than ten miles.

  12.

  Nate drove off thinking that wanting to kiss a guy and hit him at the same time was the sign of a hopelessly fucked up person, and that if he told anyone about it he'd probably get the suggestion that he go into therapy. Well, not if he told any of the people he actually knew, since none of them would ever suggest therapy anyway. And then, if he told any of the people he knew just about the wanting to kiss a guy thing -- leaving the hitting part out altogether -- they'd probably end up hitting him. At the very least. He'd be lucky if a bunch of them didn't hold him down and beat the crap out of him.

  He'd been very, very careful about his privacy. Not just because he wasn't that crazy about people in general, and not just because he didn't want anyone to know. Fuck, even his family didn't know. Or maybe the more accurate way to put it would be to say that especially his family didn't know. He didn't want to think about what it would do to his mother, let alone his dad, and the idea of his crew knowing and him being in the same bunkhouse with them and the things straight men did to gay men when they found out...

  Not that he couldn't stick up for himself, and not that he'd take broken bones from anyone without giving some in return. It wasn't fear that twisted his gut when he thought about it -- it was something more primal, some instinctive form of self-protection that growled and snarled and threatened to rip out the throat of anyone who dared to come near.

  Nate hoped that the cops were right about being able to find those kids soon. He wondered if the legal system would allow them to be held responsible for the girl's death, considering they'd set the fire, or if it would just be looked upon as an unfortunate accident. He wouldn't be surprised if they got off scot-free, though.

  Screw Carter anyway for blaming himself. Did the guy think that he was supposed to be a mind reader or something? He looked like he had enough sense to be afraid of what Nate might do if he got really pissed off, so why wouldn't he have said something to Nate if he'd suspected the kids were going to do something to get themselves into trouble? Answer was, he would have said something. Nate didn't doubt that for a second. Fact that he hadn't just meant he hadn't known.

  Which presumably was why he was beating himself up about it. Weird how he'd gotten so freaked out when Nate had told him to quit it. Nate just didn't get the self-flagellation thing; he never had, and he suspected he never would. No point to it. You did the best you could with what you had, and moved on. You didn't keep whipping yourself about something that was over and done with, not when it wouldn't change anything. Waste of time and energy. Carter was too smart for that. At least Nate thought he was, so why the hell couldn't he see what was right in front of his face?

  Fuck. Nate hated people who acted all responsible for everything that went on around them. Hated people who were into making themselves feel bad. Hated people who thought they were brilliant but acted like they had no common sense. Three big reasons right there for hating Carter, which somehow he couldn't quite bring himself to do.

  Nate also hated people who couldn't make up their minds. Which meant that right now he was hating himself, and since he wasn't into making himself feel bad, it was time to move on to some other train of thought before this one derailed and killed everyone on it.

  Thinking about the train being filled with hundreds of innocent but chronically annoying passengers when it smashed into bits, Nate smiled.

  * * * * *

  Nate dragged a chair out onto the porch and was sitting with it tipped back against the wall when Carter dragged his ass up the road and collapsed onto the stairs. The cigarette in Nate's hand (he'd bummed it from Big Mike, who smoked like a chimney whenever they were on the side, something that Nate had given him no end of shit for) was mostly burned down, and he dropped it onto the wood floor of the porch and carefully crushed it out with his boots, making sure that it was completely out. No taking chances, not with his life.

  Carter shot him a look. "I didn't know you smoked."

  "I don't." When Carter's look intensified, Nate capitulated. "Maybe once or twice a year. Used to. Never gave it up totally, I guess."

  "Yeah. I figured I would have -- " Carter cut himself off, and Nate thought he could make a pretty good guess about what Carter'd been about to say. Thought he would have smelled it on Nate, tasted it on Nate. And okay, because here was one reason not to hate Carter, a sense of self-preservation that extended to covering Nate's ass. That was something he could appreciate.

  "How was your walk?"

  Carter grimaced and lifted a foot in illustration. "Boots," he said darkly. "Blisters. I'd strongly recommend against ten mile hikes when wearing boots that've seen better days."

  "I'll keep that in mind." Nate's fingers itched for another cigarette. He thought he should have pinched out the other one and just held it. It was his hand that wanted it, not his mouth.

  Carter's fingers, on the other hand, had plenty to do. They were busy unlacing his boots and easing them off while his mouth was busy groaning in what sounded like a mixture of pain and relief. He peeled his socks off, too, and then rubbed at his left foot tenderly.

  "Don't pop 'em," Nate offered. "More chance of ending up with an infection that way. Let 'em go on their own."

  "Right." Carter sighed and dropped his head, rolling it from shoulder to shoulder as if to ease tension there.

  "Well, if the walk sucked, did you have a good think at least?"

  Carter lifted his head and looked at Nate thoughtfully. "Yeah," he said finally. "It was good. I figured out a couple of things. Let some stuff go."

  Nate hoped Carter really had let it go, and hadn't just pushed it further down so that he didn't have to think about it anymore. "Good." Nate eyed the squashed cigarette. If it hadn't been so thoroughly crushed he might have thought about picking it up and holding it, despite whatthefuckever had probably been on the bottom of his boot. "What'd you figure out?" he asked.

  Carter tucked his socks into his boots and stood up, in turn tucking the boots under his arm. He hobbled the rest of the way up the stairs and stopped next to Nate. "That I don't have any control over lots of stuff that happens."

  "True enough."

  "That maybe I can't always trust my instincts."

  Nate thought about this one. "No one can," he said eventually. "Most of the time you'll be right, sometimes you'll be wrong. Not much you can do about that, either. Another example of the 'don't have any control' thing."

  Carter nodded. "I don't have any control over a lot of things." His voice was quiet, like he didn't enjoy admitting it. He shifted the boots under his arm and reached out with the same hand that had grabbed onto Nate's chin hours earlier, touching Nate's cheek. His touch didn't linger, though -- it was just a quick skim of skin across skin, there and then gone. "Including how I feel about you."

  * * * * *

  Nate froze. "What?"

  "I spent half the walk back here -- no, more like three-quarters of the walk back here -- trying not to think about you and not being able to. Not think about you."

  There was a thump as Nate stood up abruptly and the chair rocked back down onto all four legs. "If this is gonna be some declaration of eternal love, then get the fuck out of my face," Nate hissed, which Carter thought was kind of ironic, since Nate was the one all up in his face, trying to be threatening or whatever.

  "Oh, no, I got the memo on that one," Carter said, not backing down for a second. "Don't worry, I'm not about to forget the whole no candy, no flowers thing. But you need to remember something, too -- you're the one who was all in my face earlier about being honest. So if you don't want to hear what I have to say, just tell me and I'll go be honest somewhere else."

  Nate looked at him. Well, glared might have been a more accurate word. "I can't," Nate said. "I can't hear this." Nate turned toward the door of the bunkhouse and said, very slowly and carefully, "Go be honest somewhere else, Carter."
r />   A surge of anger welled up in Carter, anger that he didn't know how to deal with. Nate acted so tough, but in reality he was just a big chicken-shit. It wasn't like Carter was planning on declaring eternal love after all. God knew he was pretty sure that what he was talking about didn't have anything to do with love (even though he was now convinced that he didn't hate the guy, either.) It was more like obsession, like a fever in his blood that had somehow managed to infect his brain.

  "You're a fucking coward," he said before he could even try to stop himself.

  At this, Nate turned around. Both of his fists were clenched, and so was his jaw. He looked somewhat less like a coward and more like a psycho, and Carter took a step backward involuntarily.

  "What, are you going to hit me because you're afraid I might say something you don't like?" Carter taunted him, and then winced and realized that if he was afraid of getting hit it might make more sense to keep his mouth shut.

  Nate made a visible effort to relax. "You're always saying stuff I don't like."

  "What do you think I'm going to say this time?"

  "Something stupid. Something about this -- " and Nate gestured between the two of them, " -- being about more than bodies and..." He shook his head and lowered his voice. "We are not doing this here, do you hear me? We're not."

  "Fine," said Carter. "But we are going to do it sooner or later."

  "You keep deluding yourself however you see fit," Nate growled out. "About whatever you want. It's not my problem. I never should have gotten involved in the first place."

  Carter managed, just barely, to avoid laughing as Nate went back inside and closed the door carefully, leaving him standing on the porch in his bare feet.

  * * * * *

  After Carter had spent fifteen minutes in the kitchen putting together some kind of dinner for himself out of the leftovers and some vegetables that looked like they were on their way out, he sat down to go over his notes again. It was a quiet evening, and the guys seemed more subdued than usual -- not that they were a rowdy bunch for the most part -- and he thought it might be a good time to talk to some of them about how they felt about their jobs.

  They seemed uncomfortable, mostly, at being asked, although they were willing enough to answer. There were long pauses, as if they were looking for the right words. Carter wasn't sure if this was because they were trying to protect themselves, or if they were just naturally so private that they weren't used to talking about their feelings.

  For his part, his head nodded in the right places, and he wrote down everything that was said, but he didn't feel like he was really there. It wasn't even that he was thinking about Nate, because actually he wasn't -- it was more like he wasn't thinking about anything; like his brain had gone off on a little vacation, but been kind enough to leave behind enough cells for him to manage to function.

  "So was this something you wanted to do, from when you were young?" he heard himself asking Flash.

  "Nah," Flash shook his head. "I was always good with my hands -- good at fixing stuff, you know? When my dad died, my mom didn't have enough money left to survive. She got a part time job but it was so hard on her... she had the baby at home and it cost almost as much to pay the sitter as she earned. We were running out of food earlier and earlier every month. I had to go to work, knew how to fix engines, so I got a job at a garage, and then somehow I just... ended up here. Not even sure how it happened, exactly. S'just what I do."

  "How old were you when your father died?" Carter asked, curious now despite his former resolve to stay distant.

  "Fifteen."

  "You went to work when you were fifteen?" He wondered if he sounded as appalled as he felt.

  "Yeah. Wasn't so bad. It wasn't like staying in school was going to do me a heck of a lot of good if I starved to death."

  "Did you ever go back? To school?" Carter asked.

  Flash shrugged. "Got my G.E.D. a couple years later. But then I've always just done this, for work -- it's not like I really need a diploma for anything. People want to know if you can fix an engine, they don't much care if you can do algebra."

  "Right. Yeah, I guess not." Carter scribbled a few more notes and then glanced at his laptop screen. "So how do you feel about all of the people -- protesters, environmentalists -- who think that loggers aren't worried about the planet?"

  "Think they probably have a point," Flash said calmly.

  Carter looked up, surprised. "You don't think loggers are worried about the planet?"

  "No, that's not what I meant," said Flash, picking at one of his fingernails with the opposite thumb. "I mean... I can understand why other people might think so. I imagine we seem like a bunch of uneducated hicks out here in the forest, cutting down trees, not caring if the planet ends up some horrible wasteland of desert because we can't think past the ends of our noses."

  There was a noise in the doorway. Nate stood there with a grouchy expression on his face -- no big surprise there, really. He didn't say anything, though, so Carter turned his attention back to Flash.

  "I guess some people might think that," Carter said carefully, trying not to let on that he might have been guilty of thoughts along those same lines himself a week or so ago.

  "Doesn't bother me." Flash gestured with his hands to show he didn't care. "I figure, if they took the time to talk to some of us, they'd learn different. Until then, they're the ones that are uneducated as far as I'm concerned."

  Carter nodded, letting that sink in. "Yeah," he said. "Right." He glanced at the laptop again. "Well, thanks. I appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions."

  "No problem." Flash hauled himself to his feet and disappeared around the corner.

  When Carter looked up again Nate was still standing there, leaning on the door frame.

  "Thinking about going down to see Jeff," he said. "Wanna come?"

  Again, Carter had to push back laughter. He wondered if it was the sort of laughter that people described as hysterical. Sure he wanted to come. Wasn't that the problem? "Sure. Yeah, thanks, I'd like to. Did you talk to the hospital? Did they say how he's doing?" He quickly began to shuffle his notes into a pile, shut down the laptop and closed it.

  "Said he could have visitors, so I figure that means he's doing okay. Wouldn't let us come in otherwise, right?" Nate shifted like he was impatient to get going.

  "Right." Carter felt like his brain had melted -- he'd been reduced to repeating the same few words again and again -- yeah, sure, right, thanks. Fuckwit. But hey, at least that one had some personality. "Let me just throw this stuff into my room and I'll be ready to go."

  He limped down the hallway, still wearing only a pair of thick wool socks, and put the laptop and his notes on the bed while digging underneath it for the pair of ratty sneakers he'd brought with him. It hadn't occurred to him when he'd been packing that the boots would, well, totally destroy his feet, but then he hadn't thought he'd walk ten miles in them either. He'd only grabbed the sneakers as a sort of emergency back-up, but clearly he was going to be grateful for having them. He put them on as quickly as he could while still being careful of his blistered feet and got up, heading for the front door.

  It was open and Nate had the headlights turned on, the SUV already running, waiting for him. He clambered in and buckled his seat belt.

  They started driving. Carter wondered how long it would take for Nate to say something, anything, if he himself sat there silently.

  Ten minutes later, Nate said, "Sorry."

  Carter waited.

  "About before."

  "Oh?"

  Nate shot him a look that he read as utter hatred, which didn't really go along with the apology. "About... I wouldn't have hit you."

  Great. That was what he was apologizing for? For making Carter think Nate was going to punch him? Brilliant. "I wasn't worried about it." Which wasn't entirely true, but mostly true. True enough.

  "Oh. Well... good." Nate didn't look like he thought it was good, he looked annoyed, li
ke he was irritated that he'd gone to the trouble of apologizing for something when he needn't have bothered.

  "Yeah, great." Carter said.

  "What the hell do you want from me, Carter?" Nate asked a minute or so later. He sounded tired. "Was there something else you wanted me to apologize for? Are you wishing for candy and flowers? What?"

  "First off, you were the one who brought up the whole candy and flowers -- or, no candy and flowers -- thing in the first place. I try not to eat refined sugar and cutting living flowers to stick them in a vase is stupid, so you continuing to talk about them like stuff that I'd want doesn't do anything but show your ignorance. Second, not that I expected an apology of any kind from you, but if you were going to apologize for anything, I'd hope it would be for saying I'm deluding myself, because you're the one who seems to be the expert in that department. About this current subject, anyway."