Dan & Tyler 2 - Wintergreen (22 page)

Ouch. Luke hadn't been as special as Dan had thought he was, but that was a little harsh. Luke had been unceremoniously kicked out and hadn't had any choice in the matter; it was Dan who'd left without warning.

"Luke wasn't--" Dan shook his head and stared at his father, willing him to see sense. "No. I'm not going through that again. It's done, let it lie. Who do you have helping you? Anyone I know?"

"Matt Jones." His father drained his coffee and set his mug down, giving the clock on the wall a sidelong look. Coffee breaks weren't part of his schedule; this interruption in his routine had to be killing him. "You went to school with him, didn't you?"

"Matt? Yeah, he was a couple of grades above me." Bulky, brainless, and when he had a few beers in him he was easy to provoke, but not mean with it. Dan didn't know him well, but he guessed they could work together if they had to.

"And his mother, Alison? Do you remember her?"

 

"Who?" Dan shook his head, puzzled by the question. "If I saw her, I might know her, but I don't think…" His father pointed at the dresser on the far wall of the kitchen, and Dan stopped talking.

 

A large photograph, posed for and framed in gold. His dad and a blonde woman, all fixed smiles and smart clothes. His dad in a suit, with a
tie
on, for God's sake.

"We're getting married next month," Peter said, looking a little shamefaced, as if he was admitting to a liking for hip hop. "They live here now, both of them. I wasn't sure -- people talk
- but Alison said it didn't matter these days and we weren't getting any younger." A flush stained his father's neck, the way it always did when he was embarrassed. "I started seeing her not long after you left. She has a brother who's… like you, and she made me see that it wasn't really your fault that you're the way you are."
Peter gave him an expectant look, as if he'd made a huge concession and deserved applause for his broad-mindedness.
Welcome to the twenty-first century, Dad. Now try and say that again without making it sound like me and this brother have head lice or something. Not my fault? You mean, not
your
fault, not a reflection on
you-

"Married? Wow. That's -- Well, that's nice," Dan said, the flat, inadequate words all he could come up with. He made an effort and smiled brightly. "Congratulations, I guess. Is she around?"

He couldn't hear anyone in the house, but he supposed she could be out seeing to the chickens. Peter kept a dozen; not to sell, just for their eggs and, when they stopped laying, their meat. Taking care of them had always been one of Dan's jobs, and, the occasional peck aside, he'd enjoyed the collection of the eggs, warm and flecked with shit and downy fragments of feathers, but still feeling like a gift for all the mess. The chickens had been kept in a barn, free to flutter around, with a large outside area to scratch in, soft brown bundles with sharp beaks. Dan was too much of a country boy to get attached to something he'd end up eating, but he'd been fond of them in a general way.

Peter shook his head. "She's in town with Matt getting her wedding dress fitted. I don't know why she needed him when there's work to be done here, but she said something about a tuxedo…" He smiled indulgently and looked a little foolish doing it. "It's not going to be a fancy affair, but you know how women are."

"Uh, yeah. I guess." Dan screwed up his face, the unreality of it all hitting hard. Home wasn't supposed to change. Home was supposed to be there, eternally as it was the moment you left it, preserved in amber. That disconcerting sense of missing a step aside, he didn't really have a problem with his dad remarrying. His mother had been dead a long time, after all. He just wished that his dad had taken the step earlier. It would've been kind of nice to have had some company on the farm when he was growing up.

Something occurred to him. Luke had slept in a small room carved out of the basement, with free run of the rest of the house. The basement had tiny windows and only a few power outlets and lights, which meant that it hadn't been ideal, but as Peter had pointed out to Luke, if he was doing his job properly, he'd be too tired to notice his surroundings. It stood to reason that Matt wouldn't want to live down there. "Matt -- does he have my room now?"

A discomfited look passed over his father's face. "I didn't think you were coming back, remember. I kept your things. Most of them, anyway. They're boxed up in the basement."

Well, that answered that question -- and what he owned would have fitted in about three boxes after Peter had winnowed out the small stash of gay porn Dan had kept under his bed, almost hoping it would be found, and the collection of crap every teenager collects.

Unless the porn was still there, waiting for Matt to discover -- and wouldn't that be a disappointment to him. All that bare skin and no tits in sight.
Dan pushed his hand through his hair, fighting back the urge to laugh aloud because he'd have to explain what was amusing him. Short hair, shorter than it'd been for a year or more, which reminded him of the day he'd cut it and Tyler's reaction.

Tyler. Everything led back to Tyler. He felt as if part of him was still beside Tyler in the truck, the road disappearing under their wheels, the horizon their only destination. Time to cut to the chase.

"So, you don't really need me back here at all."

"
Need
you? No. Not when it comes to work, though Matt's not as bright as you, son. Strong as an ox, dumb as a post." His father chuckled. "Shoulda seen his face when I told him to get me a lefthanded wrench one day. He caught on, sure, but it took him a minute or two." Peter shook his head, his smile fading. "But needing and wanting are two different things. You're wanted here and don't ever think otherwise. It's your home, and I'm your father. You and me… I think if you'd stayed, I'd have gotten over the way I felt in time. You just didn't give me that time. I was… it was a shock. The way I found out…"

Dan winced. The door opening, the cool air on his bare skin, the shock of shame at being caught, naked, erect, by his father… He hadn't given his dad time? Well, Peter hadn't given him anything but grief, so he guessed that they were even.

"It wasn't easy for me, either."

His father slammed his fist down on the table, making Dan jump. "Maybe it wasn't, but you knew what you were. I didn't. If I'd have walked in on you and a girl, it would still have -- I would have wanted to know why you didn't tell me about her -- but that, what I saw…" Peter wiped his mouth with a hand that shook slightly. "My son and the man I'd hired. You made a fool out of me, Daniel, and it wasn't much consolation knowing that Luke did the same to you."

"What? By leaving, you mean?" Dan frowned, annoyed at his dad's blindness on that point and the use of his full name, always a sign that he was in disgrace. "He
had
to; you'd kicked him out, and no one around here would've hired him after that." Neighbors stuck together, and they'd have assumed that Luke was lazy or careless, cardinal sins on a farm, both of them.

His father looked away, his mouth tight and twitching, tiny, spasmodic jerks. When he spoke, the words were said reluctantly, but they stung just as much -- more -- than if they'd been meant to hurt. "He wasn't just with you. You weren't the only one. After you'd gone, I made it my business to find out about him. I thought maybe you'd gone after him, and if I found him, I'd find you." Peter met Dan's eyes, and Dan saw the anger there and knew that, for once, it wasn't directed at him. "When I knew that, I worried even more. You -- you were safe, weren't you? When you and he -- you used protection?"

Dan closed his eyes for a moment to blot out the sight of his father's embarrassment. The truth wasn't as easy to ignore. So Luke had been screwing around. Nice. It shouldn't have mattered -he'd moved on, after all -- but it did. He pictured Tyler doing that to him, but it just didn't register as a possibility. Tyler finding someone else was, though… oh God. Of course he would. God, that thought was unbearable. He'd take another bullet if it would spare him that raw agony of loss. Luke's past betrayal faded to nothing in comparison.

Peter was still waiting for an answer, but at least Dan had nothing but good news for him on that count.

 

"Yes. Always, with everyone. I'm clean, Dad. I've been careful. I'm not stupid."

Except he was. He made Matt look like Einstein. He'd missed how much hurt lay behind his father's anger, how his decision to hide what he was from the man who'd raised him had been taken as a rejection of the love his father had tried, clumsily at times, to give him. Peter hadn't hesitated to apply his belt to Dan's backside when he thought it was needed, and cuffs to the head were more frequent than hugs, but as fathers went, Dan knew of plenty worse.

He'd come close to being found in a ditch somewhere, half-starved, robbed, raped, killed because the road he'd chosen had been too long to walk and the risks of hitching a ride had been worth it to save himself a few blisters. So fucking close.

Dan didn't open his eyes, just pillowed his head on his folded arms and started to cry at the kitchen table, in front of a man who'd taught him never to shed a tear no matter how hurt he was.

After a moment, he heard the scrape of a chair and his father's footsteps. Oh, God, his dad was going to walk out on him. He deserved it; he'd walked out on Tyler instead of facing him and risking rejection, and this was retribution for that weakness, he knew it.

The footsteps weren't receding, though. Dan lifted his face, sniffed wetly, and felt a light, tentative touch on his head. "It's okay, son," Peter told him, and patted his back comfortingly, awkwardly. "You're home now. It's going to be okay."

It was the freakiest part of the whole goddamned week.
Chapter Fourteen

Tyler pulled over after driving for two hours, hours in which his speed had decreased until he was cruising along just under the limit on roads as empty as his thoughts. He felt as if the truck was attached by an elastic band to something; it was getting harder to drive, and if he stopped he could almost imagine that he'd find himself hurtling backward.

Stupid idea.

The truck's engine pinged as it cooled, small, cheerful sounds that were irregular enough to be irritating. Tyler opened the door and got out to escape them. He'd parked on a wide verge of dusty gravel. No cover, but he didn't need it. No one was likely to be shooting at him today. He'd been driving across land like this since leaving Dan, the countryside interrupted now and then by small towns. Narrow side roads leading nowhere offered little incentive to turn off the main road.

There wasn't much to look at, but as the silence settled back around him, Tyler felt a measure of peace return. Hurrying on, racing toward nothing… what was the point? When he'd felt restless living in the cabin, his journeys to the ocean or the mountains had served a purpose and calmed him down, but this journey carried with it no sense of freedom or release.

He'd told Dan that he wouldn't let Cole persuade him to return, but as he'd driven away, Tyler could see it happening. Oh, not as a sniper, no; those days were behind him. But as Cole's deputy, maybe. He'd make his report and get asked to stick around while this got checked and that got organized, his input on tighter security measures would be asked for… and soon they'd be assigning him a parking space and a dental plan.

Even covert operatives got cavities.

"Fuck that," he said under his breath. Maybe the time in the cabin had shown him that pastoral bliss wore thin after a while, but it'd also kept him sane. If he went from that aimless contentment to the hamster-wheel predictability of an office job, even one with the stakes high enough that he'd wake each morning with a crushing load of responsibility, he'd die of boredom.

It wasn't easy to admit how little ability to cope with life he had these days, but he was strong enough to do it. Just.

Maybe after a summer traveling with Dan, he'd have been ready to come up with something he could do other than putter around a garden. But right now, with Dan behind him, miles of road separating them physically, and a gulf between them less easy to bridge, his sense of purpose was missing.
Tyler's life had always been filled with certainty. Even his breakdown had been a concrete fact for him to deal with, and he'd known what was happening to his mind and body and why. University, the army, Cole… each step had been taken with a clear view of the road ahead. Now, he was driving into darkness.

He stared back the way he'd come, squinting against the dazzle of sunlight. Dan would be telling his edited stories and catching up on what had happened in his father's life. Awkward moments were inevitable, with excess emotions slopping all over the place, and there'd probably be an argument before long, just to relieve the pressure, but give it a week or so and the status quo of Dan's life would be restored.

For a while, anyway. It would be interesting to see what happened when Dan found himself a partner, as Tyler was sure he would. Dan was too fond of sex, too pragmatic to stay loyal to a memory -- and it wasn't as if they'd been together long enough for many memories to be created.

Tyler pushed aside a crowd of mental images that proved him wrong and focused grimly on his line of thought. Now that Peter Seaton knew how it felt to be without Dan around, would he develop enough tolerance to grudgingly accept a boyfriend, especially if it was a young man he knew, son of a family in town? Maybe. If Dan pointed out that his last partner had been fifteen years older with a murky past, it would help. One last favor that Tyler could do for him.

With a sense of becoming part of the world again, linked to it by the simple fact of being accessible, Tyler reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out his phone, switching it back on with a stab of his finger.

Decision time -- but when it came down to it, it really wasn't that difficult to work out what he wanted to do. He called Cole, and when he was shunted to voice mail, left a message telling Cole that their meeting would have to wait and where Dan was. Cole would find out soon enough that Tyler wasn't with Dan, but this way he wouldn't have to learn about it through a report. Tyler wasn't sure why that mattered, but it did.