Holiday Cheer from Andrew Grey and Amy Lane

Public Works

Public Works

“HEY, HAL —who’s that?”

Hal looked up from the rack of jeans he was perusing—in Pierce’s size—and glanced in the same direction Pierce was. “I have no idea.”

The kid—um, young man—Hal’s age sported a brownish man bun and a scarf around his white T-shirted neck and had been cruising Hal with raised eyebrows and a predatory gleam since they’d arrived at the outlet mall. Now as Hal looked over his shoulder, the guy winked and smiled coquettishly.

Hal rolled his eyes and turned back to Pierce. “Now see, if we weren’t in Tommy Hilfiger, he wouldn’t have seen us, and I wouldn’t have to scrape him like a barnacle. So you need to just concede to the inevitable and let me buy you pants that don’t look like dad jeans.”

Pierce let out a little whine. “I thought we’d be at Target or something—at least for the rubber mats and the office chair.”

Hal looked at him unhappily. “Crap. Would you believe I forgot that’s why we came? I was just so damned excited to go somewhere with you.”

Oh no. Pierce grimaced. “Look, I don’t want to piss on your parade, but—”

“But you don’t want to waste time doing something not practical. I get it.” Hal snapped his sunglasses on over his eyes and turned toward the exit, self-recrimination etched in every line of his body.

“No!” Pierce laughed, wondering where that wound had come from. “Not at all. I’m actually having a really good time, even if you apparently think I look like hell.”

“Really?” Hal turned back and slid the sunglasses up to the top of his head again. “Then what is it?”

Pierce shrugged, embarrassed. Hal had kept his promise about giving him a light stretching workout that morning—Pierce had felt invigorated as he’d clumped to the condo, showered, and put on a pair of jeans and a Hawaiian shirt—by far the dressiest things he owned. Hal’s good-natured ribbing about the dad jeans had prompted Pierce to offer to buy some more clothes—and then Hal had offered to buy them for him.

They’d had fun until just this minute. “I… I’ve got maybe two stores in me,” he said apologetically. “If one of them is here and the other one is Target, I’m going to have to get a Lyft into town to go Christmas shopping.” Ugh. “Sorry—I’m just trying to get as much as possible out of my freeloading here.”

Hal smacked his forehead. “Doh! Okay—good. I mean, not good that I totally forgot your agenda like a punk, but good that you made that clear. Gotcha. Tell you what. Let’s get you some clothes—because… dude.”

“Understood,” Pierce said dryly. Cynthia hadn’t liked the way he’d dressed either—but then, she hadn’t made him laugh when they’d gone shopping. If she’d tried to make it fun, even a little, talking about movie stars with consummate bitchery or joking about how a yellow shirt would make him look like Tweety Bird, Pierce might have stepped up his game.

“Then we’ll go out to lunch—they’ve got the best café here. I’m dying to take you. Afterward we’ll go to Target. I know where the rubber matting is—I bought a shit-ton for my place a couple of years ago, and you can find the office chair of your dreams. Then, you work out heavy for the next two days, and we try this again after that?”

Pierce smiled, flattered. “You wouldn’t mind taking me back? I’m, uh”—he gestured to the whole store—“I’m sort of a clod, you know.”

Hal winked. “Yeah, but you’re willing to be trained up. That’s my favorite sort of clod. And seriously, I’m having fun. Just let me know if your leg or your hip gets too stiff. I’ll go look for stuff and bring it to you in the dressing room, okay?”

“That’s… that’s really nice.” Suddenly Pierce wanted to cry. “You’re really good at this planning stuff, you know? Babying my weak ass? It’s… it’s nice, that’s all.”

Oh! He’d never seen such preening. But since Hal was preening as he held up decent-looking shirts in his size, Pierce was going to call it a win.

He tried on two pairs of jeans and three shirts, awkwardly taking things on and off in the cramped dressing room while his semi-abused body ached. He held out the one pair of jeans that fit and said, “I’ll get these, okay?”

“What about the shirts?” Hal asked, taking the jeans and scrupulously not looking at Pierce’s bare and scarred body in the cubicle.

“Well, the blue one fits and looks pretty good, the red one is too tight, and the yellow one…. Tweety Bird and me should not be friends.”

“Gotcha. I’ll go get these—”

“No, no.” Pierce waved him off. “No—this was a good idea, and it was fun, and I’m the one getting the clothes. I’ll get them.”

Hal hmm ed noncommittally. “Just get dressed,” he said mildly. “I’ll meet you at checkout.”

Pierce met him at the cash stand, where Hal presented him with the bag of already purchased items—plus another pair of jeans and three shirts in the same size.

And a belt.

“Aw, man!” Pierce said, looking through the bag’s contents. “That’s not—”

“It was my choice,” Hal said, only the faintest bit of rebellion in his tone. “Here—let me carry the bag. We can go eat at the spicy seafood place, and you can promise that next time we go out, you’ll look less like a suburban dad and more like a hot guy in his thirties.”

Pierce wrapped both mental hands around his misanthropy and asked patiently, “Why? Why is it so important to you that I don’t look like a suburban dad?”

Hal scowled—and the look was surprisingly effective on him. “’Cause that guy scoping me out was shady, that’s why. For all he knows, we’re on a date, and I don’t like anyone throwing shade on you.”

“You did see him!” He knew it!

“Well, yeah. But it’s rude. People used to do that to Russ and me all the time.”

“Try to poach you from your boyfriend?” Pierce was lost.

“No. Try to poach Russ. He’s sort of a model, and he’s really frickin’ beautiful. And he used to laugh it off, like it was no big deal. And then….” He shook his head. “Here. The spicy fried fish is to die for. I’d do that.”

Pierce was just grateful to hobble through the outdoor mall into the bar-style restaurant and sit down. Lord, it was sixty degrees outside, but the humidity and the glare of the sun made it feel about eighty. He really hated the trickle of sweat that crept from his neck to between his shoulder blades to disappear under the waistband of his jeans and haunt the crack of his ass.

A perky waitress with thick blonde hair in twin french braids seated them and took their drink orders, leaving Pierce to look around, grateful they’d arrived in the afternoon lull.

“Mm…,” he said, closing his eyes and turning his face toward the fan. “Air conditioning.”

Hal laughed, some of his earlier bitterness fading away. “You Californians—you’re easy to please,” he said, and Pierce waggled his eyebrows.

“Yup. You have no idea.”

“Maybe someday.” Hal winked and looked at the menu. “So, the spicy fried fish—”

“They’ve got a fish and chips plate with it?”

“Yup—right there. It’s big enough for two if you want to split it.”

Oh perfect. “You read my mind.”

They set their menus down, and Pierce wondered whether or not to break their little bubble by asking the hard question.

Then Hal said, “Yes, he cheated on me. A lot. And the thing is, I believed him when he said it wasn’t personal. He just got… lured. I mean, it was his fault, but he was like a dog chasing a cat and running into the street. Just never saw the bad thing coming, not even when it was fucking him, you know?”

Ouch. “I’m sorry.” Pierce meant it with all his heart.

Hal shrugged and fiddled with his water glass. “You didn’t do it. You wouldn’t do it, either, would you.” The surety in his voice was flattering, and for once Pierce didn’t have to worry about disillusioning him.

“Nope. Cynthia and I did not have that problem.” Odd how it had never occurred to him, not even when things were really bad.

“Then what was the problem?” Hal asked.

The waitress arrived with their iced teas—Hal’s sweetened, Pierce’s unsweetened with lemonade added—and they gave their orders. Hal added an order of fried calamari because he said it was really wonderful and not on the platter, and then she left and they were alone.

With that question hanging between them.

For a breath, a heartbeat, Pierce thought about refuting the question. Claiming it was too personal. Asking to talk about something stupid.

All he had to do was say “Wabbit season,” and this convo never had to happen.

But Hal had bought him clothes. Not because he didn’t think Pierce was presentable, really, but to defend his honor.

What an absurdly sweet thing to do.

Pierce would have rather paid for the clothes—especially since Derrick’s contact had gotten back to him that morning and practically slobbered all over the cyberwaves at his expertise. He had a settlement from the insurance company, a settlement from the old job—and a new job in the works.

He could have bought his own goddamned clothes.

But Hal apparently had money of his own. What he wanted—what he really wanted—seemed to be friendship.

And that came with telling embarrassing stories about where you decided to draw the line.

“She was judgy as fuck,” Pierce said boldly.

“So that’s a deal breaker?” Hal asked, cringing. No doubt he was thinking about his earlier celebrity bitchery, but that wasn’t what Pierce was talking about.

“You know how you said your ex didn’t mean it personally? About cheating?”

Hal nodded, looking troubled. “Yeah. I mean, he meant it every time he said it was the last. I sort of felt bad for him in the end, but I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“See—she would never have forgiven like that. I mean, you broke up with him, and good for you—but she wouldn’t have been okay with it inside. She would have told her mom and her sister and her entire extended family, talking about the cheating again and again and again, and how awful it was and what a horrible human being the cheater was, and then she would have pulled out a Bible verse or quoted some prominent writer or politician and… and never, not once, would there have been an acknowledgment, I guess, that the guy was human. Not once.”

“But you didn’t cheat,” Hal said, confused. “So why is this a deal?”

“Because it wasn’t just cheating!” Pierce burst out. “It was….” Oh hell. “See, my sister, who is the sweetest woman in the world and lives with her equally sweet husband and two adorable kids—she got pregnant at eighteen. And it wasn’t easy. I mean, Sasha and I both stopped talking to our parents about it because, dude! They were horrible to her. And I’d just gotten my job at Hewlett-Packard, and I supported her while Marshall worked on getting them an apartment, and we tried to get them cars that worked. She could have gone home, I guess, but they were just hell-bent on making her ‘pay.’ Like having to deal with a kid while you’re getting through college isn’t payment enough?”

“Yeah, that’d be rough,” Hal said, nodding. “And she had another one?”

Pierce shrugged. “You know, they were married by then and had jobs, but even if they didn’t—whose business is it to say it’s a bad thing? It’s like you and your parents. Why should they get to tell you that you’re too gay for Christmas? I think that’s horrible. And Cynthia—she just didn’t let it go. So I’m talking to Sasha over the computer, and I say something about a business trip I might have to take to Korea, and Sasha… she’s never been out of the country, right? She gets really wistful, like, ‘Oh yeah, I’d love to do that,’ and Cynthia—who is just walking around behind me, putting away laundry—goes, ‘Well, you shouldn’t have gotten knocked up!’”

“Oh ouch!” Hal stared at him with wide horrified eyes. “What. A. Twat.”

“Right?” Oh, Pierce had been wrong. This wasn’t something that needed to be hidden. This was something he needed to get off his chest! “And I managed to get off the call with Sasha, but Cynthia and I—well, we fought for the next two days. We fought over dinner, and we fought while we showered. And all I was saying was, judging people is a really shitty way to go through life. And all she kept repeating was that if people didn’t want to be judged, they shouldn’t fuck up.”

Hal cringed again, and Pierce felt a surge of affection for him that had not a thing to do with his warm brown eyes and lush pink mouth or the new clothes leaning against Pierce’s calf as he sat. “I’m not wrong, am I?”

“Not from my view,” Hal said sincerely. “But—and I’m not being judgy—”

Pierce smiled, appreciating him.

“—but this didn’t occur to you before you got married?”

Pierce blew out a breath. “She was my first relationship after Loren,” he said simply. “And I was so damned lonely. And she… she could be really kind. I just never saw the strings attached until it was too late.”

“Was that the only reason?” Hal asked after a pause. “Because divorcing someone for just one flaw, that seems sort of….”

“Judgy?” Pierce finished, then grew thoughtful. “There was more. There was… I guess there was just this sort of… I want to say superficiality, but that’s not the word. Like I said—she could be kind. Her best friend in the world was a big girl—plain and shy—but whenever she came over, I watched Cynthia just light up, and I could tell that when she looked at Wendy, she was seeing an angel from heaven, you know? So she had depth, and she was capable of really nice moments. But it was like she needed a list—she needed someone to tell her what was right and what was wrong, and if she had permission to think it was wrong, boy, did she do that shit up right, you know?”

Hal nodded, looking thoughtful. “I do.” He flashed a smile. “Father’s a judge, right?”

“Yeah. It was that kind of thing too. The law was the law was the law—but there was no… no understanding that the law could be changed. It’s like….”

Pierce searched hard for a simile—it was just such a hard idea to pinpoint.

“Like, when I was in high school, my best friend, Derrick—the guy whose condo I’m currently freeloading in—his older sister got pregnant right when her husband was deployed.”

Hal grimaced. “Is it just me, or do you know a lot of pregnant women?”

“That kid just turned sixteen, give me a break. Anyway—Derrick’s sister called the school and begged him to take her to the doctor when she went into labor, but he didn’t have a car, and I did. So we left school—just left. I didn’t call my folks, he didn’t call his, ’cause we were kids and hey, lady with a baby.”

“Well, yeah.” Hal took a pull of his iced tea. “They scare me too.”

“They’re not so bad—seriously. Derrick and his wife want to have kids. I’m rooting for them. I’ll get to play with kids that I don’t have to take home with me. It’ll be brilliant.”

“But about leaving school at seventeen?” Hal was good at keeping up with him.

“We got her to the hospital, and we were even in the room with her until their parents got there. And the next day we go back to school, feeling like heroes, and—”

“You got detention for ditching out on school.”

Pierce stared at him. “For two weeks. How did you guess?”

“Because. It was a story about rules and why some of them are stupid. And I got it. I mean… I get it. It’s a good analogy.” Hal was gazing at him now with a sort of softness in his eyes.

Pierce’s face heated. “Sorry. Just… haven’t been out with a friend in a while. I… I was talking too much.”

“No,” Hal said. “You… it’s just, I saw the end coming, and I felt bad. You were a unicorn once too.”

And that flush wouldn’t quit. “I had my moments,” he mumbled. Oh God, he really had talked too much.

Hal’s smile went quietly blinding. “You’ll have more.”

Pierce’s throat went dry, and he was sucking the dregs of his Arnold Palmer when the waitress came by with the food and two plates.

The mood, successfully broken, lightened up with discussions of amazing spices in the breading and other great things to eat. By the time they were done, Hal had Pierce nodding his head and saying yes to chicken and waffles when they went out again in three days, and that sudden bolt of intimacy between them was forgotten.

Or over.

Maybe not forgotten.

THE TRIP to Target didn’t take long, and they emerged victorious with a box of the rubberized mesh mats and an office chair. By the time they got to the car, though, Pierce was limping fiercely, and the arm holding the cane was cramping too.

“Oh man,” Hal muttered as he piloted his CR-V over the skyway to the outer beach. “I’m so sorry. All you asked was for stuff to make your condo not awful. I didn’t mean to break you.”

Pierce let out a weak laugh. “Don’t apologize,” he said, meaning it. “It was my best day in a long time.”

Hal darted a look at him before looking back at traffic. “You mean that?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

Hal just shook his head. “Tell you what. We get back, you sit and watch television while I put the mats all over the place. Then I can make us some dinner while we watch TV.”

It was such an easy plan—simple and domestic. Hal made him put on sleep pants and a T-shirt and watch the TV in the bedroom with a prop behind his back while he ran around and put the mats down. Dinner was an english muffin sandwich again, and Pierce started dozing off not long after, but he pulled himself awake long enough to say, “You don’t have to leave. Watch as much TV as you want.”

“I need to look some stuff up on my computer,” Hal said. “If you give me the keys, I can go get it and come back.”

“Sure. They’re on the counter.” Sometime after that, in his dreams, he felt the brief touch of fingertips on his temple as he slept, but he was too tired to open his eyes and see if it was real.

He woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and realized Hal had taken him at his word. The bed—a giant king-sized pedestal affair that made Pierce think of sleeping on the divan of the gods—was big enough that Pierce hadn’t even realized that sometime in the night, Hal had just stretched out in a pair of sweats, covering up with the throw he’d pulled out a few days before. He was huddled under it now, like he was cold.

After Pierce hobbled to the bathroom, he took a mild painkiller—the cramping in his leg and arm hadn’t eased up, and he had to concede he’d overdone it. The good news was, the rubber matting under his feet softened the impact against the tile, and what used to feel like a death march without his flip-flops was now just averagely uncomfortable. After the painkiller, he went to the linen cupboard and grabbed one more afghan.

He paused on the way back to bed. He hadn’t drawn the blinds in front of the sliding glass door to the beach, and for a moment he stood, mesmerized by the view of the moonlight, bright against the black sky and luminous on the water.

“Whatcha doin’?” Hal mumbled from the room behind him.

Pierce turned and smiled, because he sounded sleepy and dear. “Nothing. Taking an Advil. Get under the covers, baby—you’re cold.”

“Mm’kay.”

Pierce walked back into the room and laid the throw at the foot of the bed in case they got cold, then crawled in. He turned toward Hal, wondering if he’d feel anything about having a man in his bed again, but Hal was on the edge, not even close enough for Pierce to feel his body heat.

He closed his eyes, letting the painkiller do its work.

In that honest moment between sleeping and dreaming, he was brave enough to admit that it would be nice to roll over and snuggle that hard young body, to bury his nose in the hollow of Hal’s shoulder and see what he smelled like when he was warm and soft in the dark.

HAL TOOK Pierce’s rehabilitation damned seriously.

He’d upped the workout—Pierce was at an hour and a half now, much of it stretching, with more stretching in the hot tub.

Hal always got in and rubbed him down, hands solicitous and impersonal.

Pierce was starting to… twitch every time Hal stopped at midthigh or his glutes. The rubdown felt incomplete, he sulked to himself.

He didn’t even want to admit to the vague ache of arousal that plagued him when they sat and ate lunch or dinner in front of the television. He tried to justify it to himself. He and Cynthia hadn’t been having sex before the accident—it had been a while.

Hal was cute—by anybody’s standards—and he’d been kind and generous with his time.

He was entertaining—he kept up a constant stream of snark and banter when they were together, and after that moment in the café, he’d kept it light—stupid things that occupied their time and made them smile but didn’t tap too deeply into the heart muscle.

He had good hands, Pierce thought. Good, long-fingered, competent hands that worked deeply into his calf or his thigh or his instep or bicep or forearm, and he could take care of every sore part of Pierce’s body.

Even his psyche.

Even his heart.

That was it.

It was his hands.

Right.

The next “light” workout day, they put off Christmas shopping again and went grocery shopping. Pierce insisted on paying, buying enough groceries for both of them since Hal seemed to be staying more at Pierce’s place than his own.

Pierce hadn’t even seen Hal’s condo. For one thing, it was on the top floor, and that was a pain in the—literal—ass. All he really knew about the place was that it must have an amazing assortment of clothes, because Hal wore something different every day.

The day after grocery shopping, Pierce doubled down after his workout and proclaimed it laundry day.

Hal helped him pull the linens off the bed, neither of them mentioning that he’d been sleeping on the far end, only returning to his place to work out and shower in the morning before Pierce’s time in the pool. After the load started, Pierce turned to him.

“So, go up to your place and get a load of undies or something. We’ll put it in next.” He knew Hal had his own washing machine—he must, because the unit above Pierce’s place did laundry almost constantly, it sounded like.

Hal cocked his head, and for a moment Pierce expected him to say “Naw—I’ll go run a load upstairs,” which was way more logical.

Instead he looked Pierce in the eye and said, “Okay. I’ll bring my toiletries here too, and some clothes.”

For a moment it felt like a dare. “If you want to, why not?”

Hal’s usually expressive face closed down, like he was playing poker and Pierce had just made an unexpected bet.

“Won’t you be afraid someone will think the worst?”

Pierce blinked. “What’s the worst?” he asked stupidly.

Hal’s jaw dropped. “That we’re, uh….”

Oh. Heat—sticky, sweaty heat that had become closer and closer to Pierce’s skin in the past week—suddenly washed his face, his neck, his back.

“Why—” he squeaked and then cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter to me,” he said, wishing he could move from the hallway, grab a soda from the fridge, a glass of water, anything. His throat felt like baby powder, the old-fashioned talcum kind with extra grit. “You’re a friend. Lots of people stay in a beach house with friends.”

Hal’s expression opened, and what Pierce saw didn’t reassure him in the least. He looked… sly and vaguely predatory. He raised his hand and feathered his fingertips across Pierce’s scarred cheekbone. “Sure, Pierce. You and me, we’re friends.”

Pierce closed his eyes and wished….

For what?

A palm on his cheek? Hal’s breath against his face?

A simple kiss?

When Pierce opened his eyes, Hal had stepped back, smiling cockily. “I’ll go get the next load of laundry,” he said, practically whistling. “We can go for a walk after we shove this one in the dryer.”

“Wait—didn’t I just work out?” Pierce demanded, although, in fact, he felt better, looser, and more mobile than he had a week and a half earlier. He had to admit, the rubber mats were a simple solution to walking on the tile, and the office chair helped him not wreck his back when he communicated with what appeared to be an office behind an exciting and lucrative job offer.

Hal paused and turned his head, winking. “Just ten minutes, my man. It won’t kill you, and geez—aren’t you a little interested in seeing the ocean?”

His words hit Pierce in the guilt center. “I love the ocean,” he said wistfully. The ocean was one of those places in Sacramento people claimed they loved but never went to visit. Here he’d been staying, the ocean just out his back window, and he hadn’t so much as opened up the sliding glass door.

“Yeah, well, we better go take it in now, you know, because the next two days we’re supposed to have rain.”

Pierce frowned. “I thought hurricane season was over?” Because people from Sacramento also were afraid of pretty much every type of weather—rain, snow, drought—it was all frightening.

“Well, yeah—this is just a storm. You know, raindrops? It’ll be fine. Besides—why do you think the window is built with those serious blinds?” He winked. “What’s the matter—think we’ll be locked in here while the world ends and I’ll be the only person you’ll have to fuck?”

Pierce rolled his eyes and prayed the sudden zoom of his heart rate didn’t show. “You’re all talk,” he said, trying hard to be casual. “If you need to get laid before the apocalypse, I’m pretty sure all you have to do is open your door and you’ll have a line down the staircase and wrapping around the condo.”

Hal’s sudden sucking-a-lemon expression told him the conversation didn’t take quite the turn he’d expected. “If I wanted to fuck those losers, I wouldn’t be moving my toothbrush down here. Now please tell me you have tennis shoes and not flip-flops, ’cause those things are good to get out to the pool but they’re crap in the sand if you’re injured.”

Pierce nodded, trying hard not to think of the implications of things like loads of laundry and toothbrushes. “I can do that.”

Hal nodded like it was a done deal, but as soon as he’d left the condo and shut the door behind him, Pierce limped back to his suitcase, pulled his long-neglected tennis shoes out as well as his socks, and positioned himself on the bed to try to put them both on.

The socks were… difficult. He had to hold a sock in one hand so he could balance himself against the bed, then slip a toe in before grabbing the elastic with the other hand and pulling it on. By the time he’d done that twice, he was sweating a little and feeling sore and stupid.

How—oh how—could he have fooled himself into thinking that his body was 100 percent? When he’d gotten there, he’d been at 40 percent at the most—that sort of pain, stiffness, and muscle loss didn’t reappear in a day!

Or a week.

By the time Hal got back with the laundry, Pierce was sitting on the bed and staring at his feet. Yes, he’d slipped the tennis shoes on—but tying them was going to be a challenge.

“Oh, there you are,” Hal said, poking his head in. “I set the basket on top of the washer so we don’t forget to keep the parade moving. How are you—oh!” And God, he sounded so natural. “Would you like some help?”

“Augh!” Pierce voiced, because the frustration had been breaking him into a sweat for the last ten minutes. “How do you stand me? I’m worthless! I can’t even put on my shoes!”

Hal paused on his way into the room. “There’s got to be a Shakespeare quote in there,” he said, like he was thinking about it hard. “About how a man’s worth is more than his ability to lace his boots. Now you sound like you’re in asshole mood—you’re not going to kick me in the face if I squat down to tie those, are you?”

“No,” Pierce told him—but sulkily. “I try not to hurt the people who help me. Usually.”

“So that means there’s some danger,” Hal said, just to make sure. “That’s good to know. You can protect yourself if you know the dangers.”

Everything in Pierce’s brain backed up and fountained out his ears. “You can’t,” he said fervently, because this suddenly seemed important. “You can’t. A relationship isn’t like that—you can’t protect yourself, even if you know the dangers. You protect yourself and you’ll just… it’s like a circuit. You can’t make a circuit with the vinyl still on the wires. You either strip the protection off to make the circuit complete and hope it doesn’t explode, or nothing ever happens.”

Hal paused, kneeling at his feet, his hands warm on Pierce’s calf. “That’s… well, off topic, actually. And I’d love to know where it came from. But for right now, I just need to know if you’re going to kick me in the face.”

He rubbed Pierce’s calf absentmindedly, his hands warm and strong and capable. The taut panic wire that had been zinging up Pierce’s spine since he’d realized that no, he couldn’t really bend far enough to put on his shoes yet, and how embarrassing that was when this young, attractive man was… was putting himself at close range—that panic wire stilled, muted, the charge of embarrassment dampening until Pierce could breathe again.

“No,” Pierce whispered huskily. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Hal blinked a couple of times, looking up at him. “How do you strip the wires?” he asked, the absentminded rubbing turning into a caress.

The question made Pierce’s eyes burn. “I have no idea.”

The corners of Hal’s mouth turned down, and he stopped touching Pierce and made quick work of the laces. “We’ll figure it out,” he promised. He stood, offering Pierce a hand up, and Pierce took it, then accepted the hated cane so he could make his way through the house.

Once he got outside, the cold and humid breeze took his breath away. He kept walking, expecting Hal to catch up at any moment, but he was surprised when he’d gone nearly a hundred yards before Hal trotted up to his side. Hal zipped up a windbreaker of his own before handing Pierce a zippered hoodie.

“It’s frickin’ cold out here!” he called, and Pierce grimaced.

“You guys are a little spoiled,” he said through the wind. He remembered going running in the chill of a Sacramento winter, when it got down to the thirties.

“Yeah, well, humor me.” Hal stood solicitously and helped him on with the hoodie; then together they soldiered through the loose sand that formed a pathway through the rushes toward the harder sand of the beach. Hal’s hand hovered under his elbow for a few steps, and Pierce, eschewing his pride for once, paused and took his hand, putting it firmly under his arm.

“People will think we’re a couple,” Hal said, and he had to talk over the sound of the surf, so it was hard to know if he was flirting or embarrassed.

“I don’t mind if you don’t.”

Hal squeezed his elbow in response, and they hit the harder-packed sand of the beach proper.

Pierce swung toward the pounding surf and paused. The waves were decent-sized but still small compared to high tide in Monterey or Half-Moon Bay, and the horizon tinted toward gold instead of gray-blue.

But still, it was a great unfathomable deep, and since he’d hauled his limping ass out here, he wanted a good look at it.

“Why are you stopping?” Hal tugged on him, and Pierce bit his lip, standing still.

“Because,” he said, having trouble raising his voice. “It deserves our respect, don’t you think? If you don’t respect the ocean, or time, or fate, or the big things in the world, you sort of have it coming when they knock you on your ass.”

Hal stopped tugging and drew up even with him. Shyly, with tentative little pauses and jerks, he put his arm around Pierce’s shoulders.

Pierce let him.

“Does it make you feel alone?” he asked, voice throbbing with a loneliness he rarely showed but Pierce had guessed at.

“Yeah,” Pierce said, wrapping his arm around Hal’s waist. Comfort, right?

Maybe.

“Then why do we keep coming here?”

“Because it’s great and vast and holy,” Pierce told him, unexpectedly moved by having it right there, in front of him, when he’d ignored it for the better part of two weeks. “And it lets us touch our toes to its surf and play.”

“Do you think you’ll ever be able to strip the vinyl off?” Hal asked quietly. “Let your wires touch?”

Pierce swallowed, although the question wasn’t unanticipated.

“I have to know I’m strong enough to take the charge,” he answered. Oh, he liked this metaphor. It was another layer of vinyl between him and the pain of the divorce, and his bitterness, and of loving someone enough for the love to hurt.

“I’ll test it gently,” Hal whispered. “When you’re ready.”

Eventually they turned and took off to the north, letting the wind and the late-afternoon shadows batter at them. They walked carefully, dodging the big bits of broken shells that were sharp enough to cut through old tennis shoes if the traveler were unwary. When Pierce’s leg began to complain loudly instead of nag subtly, he turned around and let Hal escort him home.

Pierce was older, and supposedly cynical and bitter, but he found himself clinging to the younger man’s promise for the rest of the walk, even through the steady rain at the end. They returned to finish the laundry and remake the bed, talking quietly under the sound of the rain driving against the sliding glass door and the roar of the pounding surf. It made Pierce feel small, like the brightly lit condo was a quiet fortress of possibility against the bleak elements, and that feeling of intimacy lasted long into a quiet evening of eggs and chips for dinner before giggling their way through Bob’s Burgers .

For once, Pierce didn’t fall asleep on the couch. At eleven o’clock he stood and stretched and reached for his cane. Hal stood at the same time and turned off the television.

“I’ll turn off the lights,” he offered, yawning. He blinked and looked quietly at Pierce. “If you, I don’t know, wanted to roll a little closer to the center of the bed tonight, I wouldn’t grab your ass or anything.”

Pierce smiled. “I never thought you would.”

The wind gusted hard against the glass and they shared a look, haunted, searching for protection and companionship.

Two people under the covers—maybe tonight they’d be close enough to share warmth.

Pierce had just slid into bed and was setting his phone in the charger when it buzzed.

“You have friends?” Hal joked, although he’d seen Pierce take brief texts from his sister, checking in every day to make sure he wasn’t dead.

“Apparently not,” Pierce said grimly. “It’s Cynthia.”

“Does she not know about the time change?” Hal eyed the phone with distaste—it was after eleven.

“Nope,” Pierce said cheerfully. On that thought, he hit Connect and yawned directly into the phone. “Evening”—yawn—“Cynthia. Nice of you to call.”

“You’re not in bed yet. You don’t go to bed before twelve,” she said flatly over the speaker.

“I’m still recovering,” Pierce told her, stung. “And I was just going to bed after a rather busy day for me. Can I help you?”

He heard her blow out a breath, which was usually her cue for remembering the social niceties. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Hal she needed a checklist. He used to think it was her way of making sure she didn’t offend anybody. It hadn’t been until this last year that he’d realized she’d used the checklist in the same way zealots bombing other countries used the dogma of their faith—as a crutch to support her hypothesis that she wasn’t a bad person.

“I apologize,” she said civilly. “You’re right. There’s a time difference, and I was thoughtless.”

He skipped the part where he said “That’s okay” because it wasn’t. “What can I do for you?” he asked politely.

“Did you file for divorce already?” she asked.

“I’ve been in the hospital or Florida,” he said, stomach sinking. “Remember, Cynthia? The hospital? I was wrapped in bandages, and you said, ‘Pierce, I forgive you.’”

“And you said you wanted a divorce. I still don’t understand.” Her voice lowered, and the brittle exoskeleton of bitch grew a little softer. “I don’t understand why that was the final straw. You never did explain it to me.”

Pierce sighed, part of him wanting to claim the easy way out and pretend exhaustion, but part of him knowing that he was ending a seven-year relationship, and he owed her better than that.

“Cynthia, what did my sister ever do to you?”

“Your sister? I don’t know—nothing, I guess. What does she have to do with this?”

“You kept saying she deserved to be poor, deserved to not get nice things, deserved to have to work when her husband had a good job. She’d earned that, you said. All the time. ‘Welp, if Sasha didn’t want to struggle, you know what she should have done.’”

“Well, she got knocked up, Pierce—you know that—”

“Yeah, but she’s a good mother. She’s kind. She’s a better sister than I’ve ever deserved. Why doesn’t she deserve a good life? Why does every struggle she has have to be… some sort of bill God hands her for a mistake she made a million years ago when she was a stupid kid? When does that term of service end?”

“Pierce, I don’t know what this has to do with us—”

“Everything,” he said quietly, pretty sure she would never get it. “What if I made a mistake? What if I invested in the wrong thing or trusted the wrong accountant? How long would I hear about that? What if someday I vote for the wrong politician and he screws up the world? Do I ever get to fix that with you? Because marriage is based on trust, sweetheart—and I finally got to the point where I couldn’t trust you to forgive me if I so much as bought the wrong pair of tennis shoes.”

“But… but I never said any of those things about you,” she said, her voice wobbling.

“Yeah. But you said them about somebody. Somebody I cared for. And when I tried to explain it, all you could tell me was that she should have known better. Everybody makes mistakes, hon. Everybody. Holding a mistake like that against somebody—it makes you not a very good person, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” she asked, and it wasn’t his imagination. He’d hurt her. Deeply. He hadn’t thought it was possible—but then, until these last two weeks, talking to Hal until he became another chamber of Pierce’s heart, he hadn’t found the words.

“Maybe it was just that way for me,” he soothed. “Maybe somewhere out there is someone who will take the same sort of joy you do in finding that line in the sand.”

“You’re judging me, you bastard!” She was trying to pull her bitch on again, but he’d left her crying, and he hated that.

“You’re right.” Unwelcome and unbidden, he remembered when he’d first seen her. She’d been tall, healthy—a broad-cheekboned face and thick dark hair and eyes, with the sort of smile that sparkled. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice choking. “I am. I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I should probably have been gentler about it, but… but you were there. I almost died. And when I woke up, I thought, ‘Right now, we can say we’re sorry, and we can make it better. I don’t want to live like this anymore.’”

“And I said….” She breathed deeply, obviously trying to control her own tears. “I’m sorry, Pierce,” she whispered after a few hard breaths. “I’m… I still don’t get it all. But I’m starting to see I fucked up.”

“I should have found better words.” He hauled in a big lungful of air. “But my body hurt and my heart hurt and….”

“And you didn’t trust me not to hurt you again,” she whispered. “Okay. Okay. This isn’t what I called for, but okay.”

Pierce wiped his face with his palm, and Hal reached over to his side of the bed and grabbed a few tissues, handing them to him while he pulled himself together.

“What did you call for?” he asked after one of the worst moments of his life—including when the fire department had to use the jaws of life to peel him out of his destroyed pickup truck.

“I… I was going to file the papers,” she whispered. “I just wanted to make sure they hadn’t been filed yet.”

“You do that,” he said. “I won’t stop you. Send them to my sister’s house. I’m coming home in January. We can be divorced by the early part of next year.”

“I… I was… I found somebody,” she said, half laughing. “I didn’t expect to, so soon. I was hoping for a June wedding.”

Pierce paused, waiting for the impact, but he was apparently in the right position, because the blow flew right by. “I’m glad,” he said, meaning it. “I am sincerely glad you found someone. I… I never wished you ill.”

“Pierce?” she asked, her voice aching. “Why didn’t you ever ask to have children? I… I want them. I didn’t realize how much until I… I met this other guy. Why not us?”

Pierce thought about it. Hal grabbed the box of Kleenex and scooted close. Closer. Until their hips and thighs were touching under the covers. Part of Pierce was distracted by the warmth of the body—of Hal’s body. But most of him was still putting this part of his past to bed.

“I was afraid to ask you,” he said, his heart aching too. “You… you were so mean to Sasha, Cynthia. I… I was afraid you’d judge me too.”

Her voice caught in a sob. “I… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

And now he could say this with a clear heart. “Me too. I’m so sorry. I… this was not how I saw us.”

He’d imagined them once having children, being the kind of parents he saw Sasha and Marshall being. He hadn’t realized, day after day, week after week, the fear of what she’d say, what she’d do—how that had built into a shell around his heart.

“Me neither. I… I filled the paperwork out already. You’ve got the house, like I promised. I hired a gardener to keep up the outside. Call me before you get home. I’ll have someone come in and freshen the place up.” Her voice stabilized, now that she was being practical. She’d always been good with details. “I took the bed, so if you send me a link to one, I’ll order the replacement and be there when it’s delivered.”

“That’s kind. You don’t have to—”

“I do.” A deep shuddery breath. “I… I guess I don’t have as much kindness in me as I always thought. I should probably practice before I screw up another relationship, right?”

“It took two,” Pierce admitted. “I… I should have found better words.”

“It… you accused me. That’s what it felt like,” she confessed. “I…. God. Why didn’t we have this talk years ago?”

Work. Promotions. Parties. Trips. Every moment, Pierce thinking they could work through it, he could live with her another week, another month, because he loved her, right?

Until all that resentment smothered the love. Dead. No resuscitation, no more love.

“I’m sorry. Just… so sorry.”

“I still care for you,” she said softly. “But… but we’re better off over, aren’t we.”

It wasn’t a question. “Yeah.”

“I’ll send the papers to Sasha’s. I… I need you to know, I never wished her ill either.”

No. She hadn’t. “I know.”

“Take care. I’ll…. Can you call me on New Year’s Eve? I… I’m going to miss you, okay?”

New Year’s had always been them, alone, in a cabin in Tahoe. It had been special. “Yeah,” he said on a sigh. “I’ll call you.”

The line went dead, and Pierce fumbled the phone into the charger. God. Hal was there. Their bodies were touching, and Hal had heard everyth—

“What’s this?” Pierce asked softly, because he had a sudden armload of Hal, weeping softly on his T-shirted chest. “Oh, baby…. Hal… what’s wrong?”

“You were really nice to her,” Hal sobbed. “So nice.” The rest of it was lost as Pierce wrapped his arms around Hal’s shaking body, but Pierce heard the word “unicorn” in there somewhere.

He reached to turn off the light, wincing a little because it had been an active day for him, and his body had stiffened up. In the darkness, Hal seemed bigger somehow, warmth and weight, collapsed against Pierce’s chest.

Pierce wrapped his arms around Hal’s shoulders and rocked him, keeping him safe from the storm outside and whatever raged within.

They fell asleep tangled, Pierce curled around Hal, Hal’s head pressed against his chest.

Pierce dreamed about a sunny day and Hal, dressed in a white linen shirt and dark cotton trousers, offering him a flower and a kiss, in an almost perfect world.