by Alexa Snow
Nate glared at him. "You done?"
"Probably not." Carter sighed.
"What current subject?"
"You, me, this thing about it 'not being about more than two bodies together.'"
"That's all it is," Nate said, sounding angry.
"Jesus Christ, Nate," Carter said, and this time it felt like the sigh came all the way up from his toes. "I'm not saying I want fucking candy and flowers. I'm not saying I'm in love with you. Heck, most of the time I can barely manage to be in the same room with you. I'm just saying there's something here, and it's stupid to keep pretending there's not."
"Can we just go to the fucking hospital and see Jeff without this turning into some huge romantic sharing thing? Please?" Nate put his hand on the gear shift and tightened it into a fist, even though he didn't need to shift gears.
"Yeah, sure," said Carter. "Right."
13.
Nate wondered if being out in the middle of nowhere was starting to affect Carter's vocabulary. He sure wouldn't have expected Carter to give up so easily, or in so few words.
"Put on the radio," he suggested.
Carter flicked it on -- the station it was tuned to wasn't coming in well, since Nate hardly ever used the thing -- and then started to use the search buttons to find something that would come in. He paused briefly at each station, presumably long enough to identify that it wasn't something he wanted to listen to, and then hit the button again.
He'd been at it long enough for Nate to start to think that he'd gone through the entire dial and back again when all of a sudden he found a station that was playing a song Nate actually recognized. "Hold it," he said quickly, at the same time Carter leaned back like he was happy with the station.
"Peter Gabriel," Carter explained.
"Oh." Nate hadn't known who it was -- just that it was familiar and that he liked it.
"I have all of his albums," Carter said.
Nate grinned. "I didn't even know this was Peter Gabriel. Like it, though."
"Yeah. He's good."
After a while Nate's fingers started tapping on the steering wheel. Fuck, he hated when he did that.
* * * * *
They found Jeff's room again without any trouble. Carter had insisted on stopping at the hospital gift shop and buying the kid some magazines -- Sports Illustrated, Time, something about modern musicians. Nate humored him and loitered in the lobby while he shopped, and then they went upstairs and Nate peeked his head around the edge of the door.
Jeff was sitting up with his well-wrapped arm propped on some pillows, watching TV. He turned as Nate came in. "Nate," he said, sounding surprised.
"Hey, kid, how's it going?"
Jeff shrugged with one half of his body, looking embarrassed. "Okay. Kinda bored. They say I can get out of here in another day or two. Gonna go home for a while." He glanced up at Nate and then back down at the exposed fingers that stuck out from the end of the bandages.
"I'm gonna have to get someone in to do your job for a while," Nate said, casually.
"Yeah, I figured."
"But don't worry about it," he continued. "Your job'll be waiting for you when you come back. If you want it."
Jeff seemed surprised. "I didn't think -- but then, I don't even know if I'll be able to do it."
"Sure you will," Nate said, wondering if he was actually managing to sound encouraging. He could hear Carter shifting behind him, playing that fidgeting game again, and he didn't know if it was because Carter was nervous or just a spaz. "You'll be back to work in no time. That doctor, he said he did a good job of fixing you up."
"I know."
Carter moved around and put the small pile of magazines on the wheeled table next to Jeff's bed. "I thought you might want something to read," he offered. "Just... you know, in case you were bored."
Jeff turned a look that might have been gratitude -- Nate didn't like to think that it might have been adoration -- at Carter. "Thanks," Jeff said. "Wow, thanks a lot. That was really nice of you."
Carter grinned, and it made the little lines around his eyes crinkle up. Oh fuck, Nate was actually looking at the little lines around Carter's eyes. Shit.
A sudden beeping noise distracted them all. Nate glanced toward the medical equipment that was around the head of Jeff's bed, but none of it seemed to actually be attached to him.
Carter dug around in his pants pocket and came up with a beeper, and had to fumble with it for a minute before he managed to shut it off. "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "I keep forgetting I've even got it on me." He looked at the little view screen. "It's my editor -- probably wants to check in and see how the book is going." There was an expression on his face that Nate couldn't figure. "I'm just going to go find a phone... I'll be right back."
* * * * *
Carter had so completely forgotten that he even had a beeper that when it had started making noise he'd wondered for a few seconds why the hell his pants were beeping. It had taken him what felt like a long, stupid time to figure out how to shut the damned thing off, and then when he'd realized it was Edward his heart had sunk down into his toes. He should have called Edward days ago about how things were going -- in fact, he'd been ordered -- not that he took orders, exactly -- to call the day after he'd arrived, to check in. Which he'd never done.
He excused himself from Jeff's room and went off to find a pay phone. He dialed the number and leaned against the wall, trying to relieve some of the discomfort from being on his feet.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Edward, it's Carter."
"There you are! I was starting to wonder if you'd driven off the continent instead of going to Oregon."
Well, at least Edward didn't sound mad. That was good. "No, I'm here. It's just been kind of crazy, getting settled in. It's like a roller coaster ride."
"They giving you a hard time? Jackson said he'd make sure Tavaras understood he needed to cut you some slack."
"No, not that -- well, yeah, but it's complicated..." An announcement came over the hospital's PA system, calling one of the doctors to the emergency room.
"What the hell was that?" Edward asked.
"Oh, I'm at the hospital. One of the kids on the crew got hurt, we came in to see how he was doing."
Carter couldn't help but think about Julie and Robin. Robin must be here, somewhere. He wondered if he could find out where. He didn't even know the guy's last name.
"Sounds like you're getting pretty chummy with them."
"No," Carter denied. "But he's just a kid."
"Well, you know what you're doing," Edward said, although it didn't sound like he believed what he was saying. "So how's the book coming?"
The reality was, Carter wasn't sure. He didn't think it had so much to do with the fact that he'd never actually written a book before -- because really, how different could it be from writing articles? A book was just one really long article, right? -- as with the fact that he was losing focus. He wasn't sure anymore if he was cut out for this sort of thing. "Okay," he hedged. "It's slow, but I'm taking a lot of notes and I've spent a fair amount of time talking to the crew, hearing what they've got to say." That much was true, at least.
"Getting a lot of dirt?" Carter could picture Edward sitting at his desk, bottle of Evian to his right, phone on the left.
Dirt was pretty much the last thing he was getting, even though it was, for the most part, why he'd come. "I've got lots of notes. I'll have a better idea in... oh, a couple of days, maybe. I'll call you."
"I've heard that before," Edward snorted. "You do that, Carter. Call me. Don't leave me hanging, wondering what the hell I was thinking in lining this up for you."
"I won't. And, yeah, I'll call."
He hung up the phone and looked at it for a while. The whole point of leaving Shannon, of trying to start this new life for himself, had been so that he could get away from the confusion and the guilt and the sense of... wrongness that had consumed him since he'd begun to realize how he felt about Gary. And ye
t somehow everything had ended up just as complicated as it had been before. Maybe more so, because at least before his work had been the constant, the thing that he could count on to feel a certain way about, to be competent at. Now his personal life was a mess and his work life was a mess.
And it all came down to Nate.
Suddenly, Carter wasn't prepared to go back and deal with Nate. Instead, he found a sitting area close to Jeff's room and sat down, propping his aching feet up on the magazine table and watching his knee bounce, even though sitting completely still would have been far less painful.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there -- it felt like a long time, because his ass was starting to fall asleep. Then Nate was standing in front of him.
"Wondered where you'd got to." Nate just watched him. "Kid's asleep."
"Okay." Carter shifted his position to get his legs back down on the floor, wincing as his sneakered feet made contact with the carpet. He realized he'd never done anything about checking on Robin. "Actually, I was thinking I should see about Robin..."
Nate shook his head. "Not here. They decided he was okay to leave, so he's in police custody. He's okay, though. Or so they tell me."
"Right." Sure. Okay. Thanks. Carter wanted to bash his head against the nearest wall, but settled for getting to his feet and enjoying the pain of the blisters instead.
"How's the editor?" Nate asked, as they started walking toward the elevator.
"Okay. He wanted to know how things were going with the book."
"Mmm."
"I told him it was going fine."
Nate shot him a look over his shoulder. "Doesn't sound like you're convinced of that."
"I'm not."
Nate hit the down button for the elevator and crossed his arms. "So what's wrong with it?"
"Nothing. Everything. Me, maybe." Carter tried to grin. "I don't know. It might not be... I might not be ready to write this book. Or maybe I passed the time when I was ready to write it. Maybe I missed the window of opportunity."
The elevator doors opened and they got in. Carter pressed the button for the lobby and looked sideways at Nate, who was looking sideways at him with a funny grin on his face.
"What?" said Carter.
"You're such a geek."
"Excuse me?" Carter couldn't help but smile at the obvious enjoyment Nate was getting out of the exchange.
"There, see? Only a geek would say 'excuse me.'"
"What?"
"There, that's better. Least you're a fast learner." Nate punched him gently on the shoulder, a buddy-buddy kind of thing that made Carter want to laugh because all he could think about was what it had felt like to kiss Nate, and God knew that was about the least buddy-buddy thing that anyone could come up with.
Carter's face felt stretched tight with the smile that refused to back off. "Fast learner?" he echoed, thinking that less than two years ago he'd thought he'd be with his wife forever, and that all loggers were pure evil. "You have no idea."
* * * * *
Nate blinked. "Tell me about it." It was a genuine request for information, but Carter didn't seem inclined to take it as such. "Come on," Nate pressed. "Seriously."
"Seriously? I'm thinking that since it took me 27 years to realize I was attracted to men, 'fast learner' is about the last phrase that applies to me."
Nate shrugged. "At least you did realize it. Plenty of people who don't. Or who do but won't admit it to themselves."
"I suppose so."
They went out into the lobby and then into the parking lot and found the SUV.
"I haven't started my car since I got here," Carter remarked. "Remind me to do it when we get back? I don't want the battery to die on me."
"Hasn't been that long," said Nate. "But, yeah, I'll try to remember."
Carter started flipping through the radio stations again, and then stopped on one and chuckled. Nate thought that the music sounded familiar, but the singer was awful.
"Who the hell is that?" Nate asked.
"Weird Al."
The name sounded vaguely familiar, too. Nate listened to the lyrics for a minute and eventually realized that it was some kind of parody -- the music was from another song entirely. "This is stupid," he said, trying not to laugh.
"Yeah, but that's why it's funny." Carter grinned at him.
"It's not funny," Nate insisted, but started to laugh. "It's just... stupid."
"If it's not funny, then why are you laughing?"
Nate tried to choke it back, but failed miserably. "Isn't this..." he managed to get out, "...that Michael Jackson song?"
"Yeah." Carter was smiling like a loon now, and making no effort to change the station. "But with food."
"Stupidest... thing I ever... heard," Nate gasped between bouts of laughter, trying to concentrate on driving.
Carter reached out and shoved his arm. "Knock it off or you're going to run us off the road and get us killed."
The next lyrics said something about yogurt and spam, and scarily Nate wasn't sure which was worse. He laughed harder and pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the SUV, leaning over the wheel with his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. He laughed for a minute or so and then lifted his head to see what Carter was doing.
The guy was just sitting there with a funny half-smile on his face, watching Nate with an expression of... Nate wasn't sure what it was, and he felt the laughter die down a little bit. Carter's eyes weren't quite crinkled up, and his hand was resting quietly (for once) on his knee.
Nate leaned over and kissed Carter.
He leaned back, chuckled a few more times, and then kissed Carter again. Nate let a hand wrap around the back of Carter's neck, tangled in his hair, and pulled him closer. The goddamn song was still playing and he was trying not to laugh, and then Carter's tongue flicked against his and he forgot about laughing.
There was something about this that tore at his gut, that made him feel like he needed to puke, and he couldn't figure out what it was. He pulled back far enough to look at Carter, and the guy's eyes were this weird greenish-hazel kind of color and those little crinkles around the corners looked so freaking lickable that he had to pull off Carter's glasses (groping blindly so that he could put them on the dashboard) and do it.
Carter sucked in some air like maybe he had forgotten how to breathe right, and his hand closed on Nate's forearm in a tight grip. "Nate?" Carter said, and it was definitely a question.
"Just shut up a minute, will you?" Nate responded, and kissed Carter again, full on the mouth with both hands in the glorious tangle of Carter's hair and his own breath catching in his throat. He let his lips travel around to Carter's ear, nipped at it sharply, and felt his heart do something funny when Carter sucked in another lungful of air. "You're so fucking sexy," he heard himself say, and then winced inwardly at how stupid he sounded. On the other hand, the something that had been twisting in his gut loosened a little bit, and that wasn't a bad thing.
Carter groaned and turned his head, catching Nate's mouth with his own. "Weren't you just telling me to shut up?" Carter asked.
"Yeah," Nate said, and couldn't control his grin, so he shoved his lips onto Carter's again. "So?"
"So how come you get to talk and I don't?" Carter asked.
Nate tried to shift closer, whacked his shin on the gear shift, and groaned into Carter's mouth. "Shit," he said, not answering the question. "Think we're ever gonna get to do this somewhere comfortable?"
Carter's fingers were tracing his hard cock through the thick fabric of his jeans. "That might be nice," Carter agreed. "But this isn't so bad."
Nate groaned again as Carter squeezed him. "Fuck. Feels good." He reached down and grabbed onto Carter, somewhat awkwardly because their position really was uncomfortable, and gave Carter an answering squeeze.
Carter's reply was to kiss him harder. Holy shit, they were making out in the car on the side of the road like horny teenagers. Too bad only one of those two words applied.
"We c
an't do this here," Nate gasped.
Carter nodded and reluctantly pulled his hand back, his breathing harsh.
"No, I meant... back seat?"
The light that came into Carter's eyes was gratifying. "Oh, yeah."
They got into the back seat and struggled out of some of their clothes, alternately kissing and groping. Nate had barely finished unbuttoning his jeans when Carter's hand was knocking his out of the way, Carter's fingers sliding in to grab his cock, which twitched eagerly at Carter's touch.