by Tory Temple
That being said, Chris wondered later why his usually present conscience was strangely silent as his eyes traveled over the monitor. He scanned the names and addresses in Morgan’s inbox, recognizing several from the fire department. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Nothing, that was, except the last email sandwiched in between the read and the unread. Chris could see that Morgan hadn’t read any mail since Thursday morning, the day after Chris had left. The very last email that Morgan had read had a time stamp of late Wednesday night, after their phone sex. The “from” address read KRTurner.
Kyle Turner.
Chris sat very still and stared for a long time at the name. There was no subject line to give him a clue as to what the email might be about, but the name alone was enough for now.
Ten years ago, Kyle had been Morgan’s… what? Partner? Boyfriend? Lover? Chris wasn’t exactly sure, although he knew Morgan and Kyle had had a relationship that went beyond just friends. Kyle was married to a woman—at least, he used to be—and he and Morgan had only seen each other several times a year, usually during brush fire season. Kyle had been a smokejumper, and Morgan had worked for the California Department of Forestry.
Then had come the accident—one Morgan had only told Chris about one time and then refused to speak of again. The accident that had proved Kyle’s utter recklessness and had gotten him covered in third-degree burns. The accident that should have killed him, from the way Morgan described it. Kyle had been burned and disfigured and suffered the loss of a limb, forcing his parents to take him home to Ohio. Morgan’s letters and phone calls had gone unanswered. It had split Kyle and Morgan up for good, cementing Morgan’s dislike for firefighters and their daredevil natures.
As far as Chris knew, Morgan had never spoken to Kyle again. So why was there an email in Morgan’s inbox?
Chris clicked over quickly to Morgan’s sent mail folder and scanned the contents. A month’s worth of sent mail rested there, but none with Kyle’s address. That made Chris feel oddly better. At least Morgan, from what Chris could tell, hadn’t initiated any type of contact.
He flipped back to the inbox and rested the cursor over the email. This was where the angel on his shoulder usually spoke up, but things were strangely silent.
Chris clicked. The email opened, revealing only one line on the otherwise blank page.
I need you to come.
Soundlessly, Chris got up from the desk and went out to the garage. He pulled down the ladder to the loft in the beams and climbed up, looking for the place he and Morgan stored their suitcases. Only Chris’s suitcase remained in its place. Morgan’s small rolling carry-on was missing.
Down the ladder and back into the house, then into the bathroom. No green toothbrush in the holder next to Chris’s blue one.
He really didn’t need more proof, but something prodded Chris to check the drawers in the bedroom anyway. T-shirts, briefs, and socks were missing. Chris sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at nothing for a long time.
When he finally moved, Chris didn’t bother going back into the guest bedroom to shut down Morgan’s computer and pretend he’d never been there. Morgan would figure out soon enough that Chris knew where he was. If he had the fucking balls to get pissed that Chris read his private email, well. Chris didn’t really think Morgan stood on solid ground with that one.
He packed enough uniforms for two days and went to his station. There were always shifts to be had.
HIS CELL didn’t ring until early the following morning. Chris knew the right thing to do was just turn it off and leave it in his locker, but the part of him that was a glutton for punishment made him carry his phone in his pocket instead. Or maybe it was just the part of him that wanted to hear what Morgan had to say, if anything.
“Yeah.” Chris lay back on his bunk and studied the ceiling.
“Hey. What time are you getting home today?” Nothing in Morgan’s tone indicated there was anything wrong, that he was anywhere but where he was supposed to be. And he obviously thought Chris was still at his parents’.
Chris considered his answer carefully. Lying did not come naturally, and as far as Chris knew, he’d never lied to Morgan. But circumstances were a little different now.
“I’m thinking about staying another day. Probably be home tomorrow instead.” Coming home tomorrow was probably true, in any case.
“Oh, really?” It was impossible to tell if the faint note of relief was real or imagined. “Okay. I, uh. I’ll be home tomorrow evening, likely after you.”
Chris rolled to his side and faced the small row of lockers. One was his, one was Andy’s on B shift, and one belonged to Tyson on C shift. Chris’s locker had three or four photos taped to it, taken of various places out in the desert. He stared at them now as he spoke to Morgan.
“Yeah, after me. Got it. Want anything in particular for dinner?” It was a stupid question; Chris already knew dinner wasn’t going to happen.
“I’ll think about it. Maybe we’ll go out. I’ll see you tomorrow night, okay?” Morgan sounded subdued and quiet, or maybe that was just Chris’s imagination again.
His cell phone was warm against his ear. “Sure, yeah. Tomorrow night. Later.”
“Night, Chris. Miss you.”
Chris hung up without replying.
HE DID go home the next morning, only because no one on the incoming shift wanted to give up their hours. Chris spent twenty minutes on the department’s computer, scanning shift schedules and hoping for available overtime somewhere. There was none to be had. Summer was on the way, and people were working hard now so they could afford a few days off with their families when school got out.
Chris sighed and gave up at quarter past eight. He packed his gear bag and headed home, knowing the house would be empty for a few more hours.
He still hadn’t decided on whether he should be there when Morgan got home.
It turned out to be a moot point, however, since Chris heard the garage door raise at three in the afternoon. He was trying to grab a quick nap and hadn’t expected Morgan until late evening, but it seemed he’d caught an early flight back from wherever he’d gone.
To see Kyle.
Chris scowled and brushed the thought away. In all honesty, he didn’t know that yet. But did he owe it to Morgan to find out? Right now, Chris pretty much thought that Morgan wasn’t the one who was owed something.
He sat up in bed and tried to look like he hadn’t been sleeping. The mussed bedclothes were probably a giveaway, but Chris didn’t care. He fiddled with the edge of the sheet and waited.
Faint sounds from the hallway, then the kitchen indicated that Morgan had dropped his bag and gone to find a drink. Chris expected water or soda but blinked when Morgan appeared in the bedroom doorway with a bottle of beer. He rarely drank alcohol before dinner.
They looked at each other silently. An undercurrent of something passed between them in that moment, and Chris knew that no matter what else happened, Morgan wouldn’t try to bullshit him. That was almost worse, knowing Chris was going to hear nothing but truth. Sometimes truth sucked.
“So you weren’t at work,” Chris said, putting it all out there immediately. What was the point of dancing around it?
Morgan took a long swallow of beer and leaned his head against the doorframe. “I wasn’t at work.” He was quiet. Lines around his eyes revealed a weariness that hadn’t been there previously, or maybe Chris hadn’t noticed. “Did you call me there?”
“No.” Again, a bit of guilt surfaced at reading Morgan’s private email, but then Chris remembered the instant nausea he’d felt at realizing where Morgan had gone. The guilt was easily squashed. “You left your laptop here. I checked it.” He braced himself a little for the dressing-down he was sure to get, but none came.
“Oh. Yeah, I left in a hurry. Didn’t take anything but my toothbrush and clean shirts.” Morgan examined the rim of his bottle.
The lack of annoyance at Chris poking through Morgan’s compu
ter was alarming. Chris sat up a little straighter. “So where were you?”
“Ohio. I went to Ohio.”
Chris had known, but it was sickening to hear just the same. “To see him.”
“To see Kyle, yes.” Morgan nodded and kept his eyes on his beer.
“You knew you were going to go. That’s why you didn’t come to my parents’ with me.” Chris climbed out of bed shakily and pulled on a T-shirt. “You planned it all along.”
“No. I didn’t.” Morgan raised his gaze and looked directly at Chris. “Christopher. Believe me, I didn’t plan it. I knew there was a possibility of having to leave suddenly, but I didn’t plan it to be while you were gone.”
A shaft of afternoon sunlight sliced its way across the tops of Chris’s bare feet. He felt the warmth on his skin as he tried to dissect the meaning of Morgan’s words. “Wait. You knew you might just up and leave like that, but didn’t warn me ahead of time? You knew you were going to fucking leave me?” Chris clenched his hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
“No!” Morgan’s voice was sharp, cutting through the simmering tension. “I did not leave you. I’m not leaving you. Not like that.”
“He emailed you. He’s been emailing you, obviously, since you said you knew you might have to go. Kyle emailed and said he needed you, and you went. All without telling me.” The weight of betrayal was heavy, Chris realized. The amount of trust he’d put in Morgan had been more than he’d thought.
“It wasn’t Kyle.”
“Bullshit, it wasn’t!” Chris grabbed a pillow from the bed and flung it toward the wall. It made a very unsatisfying soft landing and slid to the floor. “I saw, Morgan! I saw his fucking name. I read his fucking mail to you!” Chris was past the point of caring to debate whose moral wrong was worse.
“It wasn’t from Kyle,” Morgan said again. “It was from Monica.”
Monica was Kyle’s wife, last Chris had heard. That didn’t make real sense. “Why?” God, he was so confused.
“Why what? Why did she contact me?”
Chris nodded and bit back the compulsion to urge Morgan to sit down before he fell over from exhaustion. “I guess, yeah. Why did either of them contact you?”
“He’s dying. I needed to go.”
The silence became screamingly oppressive. Chris stared across the bedroom at the man he loved, despite all of Morgan’s hard work to rid Chris of that idea. “He’s dying,” Chris repeated carefully.
Morgan nodded once. “He should have died eight years ago, after the accident. But he hung in there, the stubborn bastard. He hung in there with no leg and covered in scar tissue, and now he’s thirty-eight years old and he’s going to die. Monica called me three weeks ago and let me know. She was the one who emailed and told me to come. She said Kyle asked her to.”
Things clicked into place, although Chris didn’t want them to. Morgan’s more-argumentative-than-usual episodes. His reluctance to give Chris his laptop password. It made sense now, but making sense of it seemed just as confusing as anything else.
Chris swallowed. “You… you couldn’t take me? You couldn’t tell me?”
Morgan looked up, exhaustion and sorrow written into the lines of his mouth and eyes. But sorrow for what? For hurting Chris, or for his dying lover? “I didn’t want to.”
“Oh.” Well, there was some more truth, whether Chris wanted to hear it or not. “I need to go.”
“I understand.” The defeat in Morgan’s voice was evident, but Chris didn’t waver.
“I don’t.” He grabbed his wallet and keys and left Morgan standing in the doorway of their bedroom.
CHAPTER FIVE
HE WAS able to sneak back to the house the next morning and load his bike up in the back of his truck, so Chris felt better about having both vehicles at his disposal. He had no idea where he was going to go or for how long he needed to stay away from the house, but his gear for work was in the cab and his bike would provide a soothing ride if he needed it.
The problem was, Chris didn’t know what he needed, but a bike ride probably wasn’t it.
Chris spent the first full day away from home at the library. He used the public computers to access information about the Sheep Creek fire, the one that had burned Kyle. A quick search of “Kyle Turner” revealed two or three old newspaper articles on the young smokejumper, but none of it was anything that Chris didn’t already know.
One of the articles showed a picture of Kyle in uniform, about to board an aircraft. He held his helmet in one hand, and the other hand was lifted to the camera. Chris leaned closer to the monitor, studying him. Kyle couldn’t have been more than twenty-six in the picture, Chris guessed. Close-cut hair, white smile. The graininess of the black-and-white picture made it impossible to tell what color the man’s eyes were.
Chris didn’t bother closing the browser before he got up from his chair and left the library.
HE SPENT the night at the station, and the next morning was his regular shift. Tucker was exceptionally cheerful, which pissed Chris off.
“God, can you shut up?” he finally snapped, when Tucker’s soft whistling became too much to bear.
Tucker stopped refilling the med box and glanced up, eyebrow raised. “’Scuse me?”
Chris could feel his cheeks heating. “Sorry,” he mumbled, getting to his feet and leaving Tucker crouched over the box on the floor of the station’s garage. “I just….” Chris shook his head. “Sorry.” He turned and pulled open one of the doors that led from the garage into the station’s small gym. Two other guys were already in there, so Chris walked straight through to one of the dark classrooms. He sat at a table in the back corner and didn’t bother with the lights.
It wasn’t entirely unexpected when the door opened and Tucker slipped in. Chris knew he wasn’t visible from the window in the hallway, so Tucker either just took a guess where Chris would be or he’d looked everywhere else.
Tucker slid into the seat next to him at the table and glanced around the dark room. “So,” he said conversationally. “How’s it goin’?”
It probably wasn’t meant to be funny, but Chris snorted a laugh anyway and heard Tucker chuckle in response. “It’s going fucking shitty,” Chris answered. “And I’m in a crappy mood.”
“Yup.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t care.” Tucker shrugged. “I been in bad moods a lot. Usually ’cause something at home is fucked-up.”
“Something at home is fucked-up.”
“Uh-huh. But you don’t gotta tell me what it is. I’ll just hang here with you for a while, okay?”
The unexpected bit of kindness made Chris’s chest tighten. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “That’d be good, Tuck.” He scooted forward and folded his arms on the desk, then lay his head down on them and sighed.
Tucker’s chair scraped across the floor as he got near enough to lay a comforting hand on Chris’s back.
THE DAY after that, Chris managed to snag an extra shift, but on the fourth day, he was faced with the terrifying possibility of having to go home. He was out of underwear, there was no cash in his wallet, his bank card was in his dresser drawer, and he was growing tired of avoiding everything anyway. Besides, he hadn’t watered his plant in the kitchen and Morgan never remembered to do it. If Morgan was even there.
Chris didn’t want to admit to being afraid to go home.
So home he went, his gear bag loaded down with dirty clothes. The house was quiet and still when he arrived, and for a terrifying moment, Chris was afraid Morgan had packed up and left him.
Like you did to him, that annoying voice whispered. Chris told it to fuck off and dropped his laundry next to the washer. He’d do it later.
Each room of the house remained empty and silent as Chris searched for Morgan. There was nothing to indicate he’d gone. His Wall Street Journal was on the kitchen table, and there were breakfast dishes in the sink. Chris stood in front of the bedroom closet and wondered what he’d find when he opened it.
A blank space where Morgan’s dress clothes and jeans had hung? An empty spot on the shelf where Morgan’s pullover sweaters had been neatly folded?
Chris yanked on the door and it swung wide, revealing rows of clothes that hung exactly as he’d left them. His work uniforms and Morgan’s slacks, Chris’s sweatshirts and Morgan’s ties. Everything was still there.
But… what was missing, then?
Chris nudged the door closed again and turned in a slow circle, taking in the contents of the bedroom. Nothing was out of place. But the fucking stillness of the house, like no one had been living there in Chris’s absence, well. That was freaking him out.
“Morgan!” Chris called. He received no answer, unsurprisingly. Chris tried again. “Hey! Morgan!” He left the bedroom and began pushing open doors to the other rooms in the house, places he’d already looked or rooms he knew Morgan wasn’t in. Guest bedroom, bathroom, small dining room, laundry room…. The house remained empty, and Chris grew even more frightened.
“Morgan!” he called out once more as he entered the kitchen, knowing that Morgan wasn’t there but wanting to hear something other than the eerie quiet. “Mor—oh!” Chris stopped short as the kitchen’s back door opened and Morgan came in.
“What?” Morgan said, brow furrowed. He crossed the kitchen at once and laid a hand on Chris’s arm. “Christopher. What’s wrong? I could hear you shouting from outside.”
“I… it’s…. You’re here.” Chris blinked at him, not caring if he sounded stupid. The immense wash of relief was dizzying.
Morgan frowned. “Well, yes. I live here.”
“I just thought you might have gone somewhere else.” Chris searched Morgan’s face for something he couldn’t explain to himself.
“Did you want me to?” Morgan’s expression was impassive, but the small wrinkle remained between his brows.
Chris shook his head. “No. Don’t leave me.” The words came out in a rush and hung between them.