Fury stepped away until his back hit the wall. Without warning, his face crumpled, and he roared an inarticulate wail of pure rage. Nathan stood stupid and unmoving. Fury grabbed the hand dryer on the wall. He wrenched it and ripped it out of its moorings. Tile and plaster crumbled; dust erupted in little clouds. Fury threw the dryer at the wooden bathroom door. It dented, splintered, and the dryer bounced and chipped the floor.
Fury pivoted, shoulders hunched and breath snarling from him in great, watery heaves. Nathan made himself a small target against the wall, soundless, and watched Fury tear a stall door off its hinges. Fury threw toilet paper, air freshener, and a stack of paper towels went flying. He stalked to the sink, slapped his hands on the counter, and yelled again, the volume deafening.
As shocking and violent as it was, what was frightening was when Fury went completely quiet. Fury’s wail cut off like someone cut the power, and he sank to his knees. He panted, and Nathan got his jelly legs moving. He wet paper towels and sank down next to Fury. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?” Nathan whispered.
Fury stared dead ahead, and Nathan washed Hellabeth’s bloody fingerprints off Fury’s ears and face. Scrubbing Fury clean of blood bothered Nathan less than washing himself. He could focus on Fury’s sponge bath and tune out everything else. Like the voices in his mind wondering how in the world this could be Nathan’s life: sitting in a church at night, washing blood off his boyfriend’s head. By the time he was done, Fury was clean from the waist up, goose bumps forming on his arms and chest from the chilly water. Fury didn’t have a scratch on him.
“Better?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah,” Fury croaked, and after a moment of gathering momentum, Nathan returned to ridding himself of the biological evidence. He washed until he was raw, and stopped himself from quoting
Macbeth
. Out fucking spot indeed.
“Did you know it was going to be money?” Nathan asked. “In the bag?”
“No,” Fury said. His cheeks were wet, but his gaze was fixed on the far wall.
Nathan tossed more paper towels into the growing pile in the trashcan. He sat next to Fury again. “She’ll be all right.”
“Yeah,” Fury said, clearly not convinced.
“So will Dennis,” Nathan said. “And so will we.”
Fury looked sharply at Nathan. “What?” Nathan asked, tone neutral and as comforting as he could make it.
Without answering, Fury shook his head, and then glowered at the concrete until Nathan thought it would melt. “Hale?” Nathan asked, but Fury shrugged Nathan off and stood.
“Get the trash, would you?” Fury asked.
“Sure?”
“Dumpster’s down the hall and out the door on the right.”
“Where you going?”
Nathan didn’t get an answer. Fury left, and Nathan hauled himself to his feet. In oppressive silence, Nathan washed everything with the industrial cleaner spray he found under the sink. He pulled the trash bags out of the bins, replaced them with the fresh ones that were also under the sink, and followed Fury’s directions outside and to the Dumpster. The garbage bags landed with dull thuds on the rest of the heap, and then Nathan headed to the car to wait on Fury.
With his ass getting cold from the chilly leather, Nathan texted Laura to tell her they were all right. He dozed after he hit Send, waking up with a start when Fury climbed into the car. Fury tossed a flat, empty duffel behind them.
“What’d you do with the cash?” Nathan asked.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Nathan wanted to tell Fury that would be physically impossible, but he was so tired, he dropped the issue. It wasn’t like there wouldn’t be plenty of chances to drag details out of Fury later.
The drive home was quiet, and Nathan was in and out of consciousness. He had no concept of time and had trouble remembering what day it was. He was still working on that puzzle when Fury parked, killed the engine, tossed Nathan the key, grabbed the duffel, and got out of the Corvette. With a sigh, Nathan climbed out into the cold, and blinked at Fury, who was not walking toward the apartment, but away from the building altogether.
“Hey,” Nathan said, guts turning into ice and panic screeching along his spine. His voice was nothing more than a hoarse croak. “Hey!” Nathan called again, louder, but Fury sped up, hands shoved in his pockets and shoulders hunched. Nathan left the car door wide open, chasing after Fury. “What are you doing?”
“Going to my truck,” Fury muttered, brushing Nathan off when Nathan tried to grab Fury’s arm.
“You forget something in it?”
Fury’s answer was a half spin to escape another one of Nathan’s attempts to catch him. “Hale,” Nathan yelled. “What the fuck?”
“I gotta go, Nate.” Fury was fishing for his keys, and Nathan’s head was spinning.
Nathan put himself between Fury and the driver’s door. “Okay, then I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
“The hell do you mean ‘no’?”
“I mean, no, Nate. Pretty simple.” Fury tried to be gentle as he attempted to push Nathan out of the way, but Nathan wasn’t budging.
“After tonight? After all of it? You think you should go?” Nathan slammed his fists into Fury’s chest, knocking the man off-balance. “The hell’s wrong with you?”
“Things have changed, Nate. Gotten a whole lot worse.”
“So what? We’re together in this. In all of it. You don’t get to go anywhere without me.”
Fury was all dry lips and downward gaze, but he didn’t shout back. He didn’t yell. He was calm and quiet, and that nearly drove Nathan completely off the edge of insanity. “Some things you gotta do alone,” Fury said.
“That’s bullshit.”
“No, it ain’t.” Fury met Nathan’s eyes. Fury’s were damp. “I was dying to come home to you. I thought everything would get handled on its own. Thought I’d just leave it to Hellabeth and God. But I was wrong. And people are dead or dying.”
“None of that’s your fault,” Nathan said desperately.
“I know. But that don’t stop it from mattering to me or make me any less a part of it. So I gotta go get square. Got shit to do.”
“And you think I don’t? You think any of this is easier for me? You think I don’t need… You think I don’t need…”
Nathan couldn’t make himself say it, and he saw the sadness sweep across Fury’s face. He saw that Fury knew and understood things that Nathan didn’t, and none of them were easy to learn. “I got an old life to bury,” Fury said. “And that’s the kind of thing you have to do by yourself.”
Fury yanked Nathan away from the door. There was a kiss that was all ownership and salty good-bye, and then Fury was in the truck. And then the truck was moving. And then the tail lights were winking and fading away in the night.
Chapter Thirteen
“You really don’t have to do this,” Vicky said, taking another serving dish from Nathan’s soapy hands and carefully drying it.
“And I’m telling you, I find washing dishes relaxing,” Nathan replied. He also found staying busy nice and distracting, and he needed every bit of healthy diversion he could get.
“Well, the Women’s Group appreciates it.” Vicky chuckled. “Usually it’s just us girls cleaning up after Wednesday-night dinner.”
“Mmm,” Nathan hummed, scrubbing a bowl clean of casserole. “Maybe I should join the group?”
“You’d have to join the church first.” Vicky smiled, and her blue eyes sparkled.
Nathan hissed through his teeth. “Dunno about that. All that getting dunked in water. Been through it once.” Nathan mocked a shiver. “Blegh.”
“What if I promise we’ll only sprinkle you with water, and we’ll let you wash all the dishes you want for however many years of dinners you’d like?”
“Vicky, you cunning preacher’s wife, you. Such a sense of humor. How in this world did you become a Baptist?”
“I fell in love with one.” Vicky sighed a wistful sigh, seemed to catch herself, and glanced at Nathan. “Oh dear.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. That was careless of me.”
“Mentioned what? Love?” Nathan washed a serving spoon. “He’ll be back.”
“Of course he will, dear.”
“Yeah, I know it.”
Vicky patted Nathan’s arm. “I’ll just go check on Joyce and the tables.” Vicky gave Nathan a little squeeze and left.
A soap bubble floated into the air. Four weeks. It’d been four weeks since Nathan had washed blood off his hands and watched Fury leave him. Nathan had stood in the parking lot until he was numb. And when he’d finally gone inside, he’d crawled into bed, and he hadn’t emerged for days. He’d called in sick to work, ignored everything and everyone, and he’d stared at walls. Time had moved like it had after his mother had died: strangely. Some parts of the day went by in a blink, and others, like the hours between four p.m. and seven, dragged for eons.
At some point, though, Nathan had rolled over and had spotted Fury’s bag on the floor of the closet. Nathan had wrapped himself in the covers and padded to kneel next to it. The bag was empty, all of Fury’s clothes either hung up in the closet mixed in with Nathan’s or they were still with Fury. The night he’d left after the bad fight, Fury had taken some things with him, but he’d left the bag. At the time, Nathan had thought it significant, but then, at that moment, crouched on the floor, stinking of sweat and grief, Nathan had understood it meant the world. Fury didn’t have much, but a chunk of what he did have was still with Nathan.
Which meant that Fury wasn’t gone for good. Fury wouldn’t go back on his word. Fury would sort it out and come home. Nathan had Fury’s bag; Nathan had Fury’s love; Nathan had whole pieces of Fury’s life.
Fury wouldn’t leave it stranded and alone. He just wouldn’t.
Vicky returned with a stack of dishes. “Honey, Matt’s looking for you.”
Nathan’s heart skipped its rhythm. “He is?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Vicky set down the plates and pushed up her sleeves. “Here. Let me take over, and you go on.”
“You sure?” Nathan asked, already shrugging out of an apron patterned in dancing daisies.
“Of course. Joyce will be in here once she’s got the linens stripped off the tables. Go on. Shoo.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Nathan dried his shaking hands on a dishtowel and stepped into the hallway, steeling himself before heading toward Matt’s office.
After Nathan had found Fury’s duffel, he’d gotten up and had found his laptop. Still hugging the bag, Nathan had searched for news about the warehouse explosion. The first few hits were nothing more than useless
News Sentinel
articles that only told Nathan what he already knew. A few links down, though, he found a video news report. Channel Five had reported the fire and the body count, which included “four local businessmen” and three other “Knoxville residents” who were listed in critical condition. A suspect, the video said, was in custody, and the explosion was being attributed to a drug-related turf war.
Nathan had chewed his fingernails to the quick wondering if the suspect was Fury or Tray. There had been no way to tell, no way of knowing, and finally Nathan had taken a couple Xanax and a shower.
Knocking on Matt’s door at the church, Nathan hoped to heaven and hell that Matt hadn’t summoned Nathan to tell him bad news. Fury had been arrested. Fury was dead. They were all dead. Fury would never, ever come home because he was buried in the ground. All Nathan would ever have were a few cast-off shirts and an empty duffel bag.
“Come in,” Matt called, and Nathan stepped inside the minister’s cluttered office. All the walls were taken up by bookshelves, which were full to groaning. The desk was an old folding table covered in a maroon cloth, but Matt’s computer was a brand-new Mac. He turned away from it and stood when Nathan shut the door.
“Nathan.” Matt came around the desk to hug him. “The women work you to death?”
“Stopped just shy of it.” Nathan’s throat was tight and dry.
“Sounds like them. Have a seat?”
Nathan collapsed into a worn chair, and Matt sat beside him in the other one. “How are you, son?”
“I’m thirty days sober,” Nathan said, and almost added
and every one of them was a day without Fury.
“Congratulations.” Matt smiled. “It’s been wonderful to have you in the counseling meetings here. Everything working out all right elsewhere?”
It had only taken forty-eight hours or so for Nathan to realize that Fury had been right. And it’d taken forty-nine hours for Nathan to realize that he’d been working on coming to terms with his need to self-destruct for years. Fury had been the tipping point, not the catalyst, so Nathan refused to turn him into an excuse. Nathan did have a problem, and Nathan had to get clean for his own reasons. He hoped it didn’t matter that the majority of those reasons had been to be better for Fury when Fury came back. It had been the only motivation strong enough to make Nathan go to Matt, ask for help, and then actually go to the meeting Matt set up for Nathan at the O’Hare Rehab Facility in Maryville. Nathan had enrolled in their outpatient program, and he’d been diligent about attending the one-on-one therapy sessions and all the required meetings.
At first, Nathan’s efforts had been about preparing himself for Fury’s return. Everything was tinted the shade of Fury’s hair, skin, and eyes and by the memory of his smile, but after a week of daily counseling, it’d become something more. Counseling became a safe haven where he could talk about the nightmares that lived on the backs of his eyelids. Sometimes, he completely forgot about the carnage. Other times, it was all he could think about. He never spoke of the warehouse to anyone at O’Hare, but during the second week of personal sessions with Matt at the church, Nathan had broken down and told the minister everything. He figured if Fury had trusted Matt, then Nathan could too, and Nathan had been right. Matt had held him, hugged him, prayed for him, and made Nathan feel—for the first time—that everything really was going to be okay. Not immediately, not without serious hard work, time, and dedication to the cause, but in the end…okay.
“It’s great,” Nathan said. “The program’s going really…” Nathan’s voice cracked like a terrified teenager in the principal’s office waiting to get confirmation that yes, the car crash had killed both his parents.