Wild Trail

by A. M. Arthur

  Mack hung up, his nerves buzzing, no clue what he was even asking Colt about, and kind of wishing Avery had never said anything. But Colt would have come up eventually, so better to see what this was now, instead of waiting for later. He found Colt exactly where he said he’d be, and Colt seemed to be finishing up the fix job, putting his tools back in the precise ways he preferred. Colt had been the same way when handling his SWAT equipment, careful to return it to his locker in a specific, controlled way.

  Reyes stood a few feet from Colt, feeding an apple to Hot Coffee, and the pair stopped whatever conversation they were having when Mack walked into the barn. Reyes nodded in his direction. Colt froze in place, his expression mild but wary.

  “Hey, man,” Colt said as he stood. “How’d the inspection go?”

  “It went great,” Mack replied. “I officially hired Avery today.”

  “Good. He’ll be a great asset to the project.”

  “I know. He’s all-in with doing it as historically accurate as possible.” Mack wasn’t much for casual segues. “I bet you aren’t surprised that you came up in conversation.”

  Colt’s eyes narrowed. “Oh? He ask about me?”

  “Not directly. He was curious how it was you’d given me his contact info. When I told him you worked here, he seemed...surprised. And he also implied you’d left Los Angeles for a different reason than you’d told me. Which was burnout. When I pressed, he said I should ask you about it, so here’s me. Asking.”

  “What are you asking exactly?”

  Mack couldn’t tell if Colt was playing dumb, or genuinely unsure what Mack was referring to. “When you were with Avery, did you ever mention our friendship?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why on God’s green earth would Avery be so surprised we’re still friends?”

  Colt, for all of his high energy and excitability, suddenly looked a bit like a corpse—still, pale, barely breathing. His wide eyes held an emotion that scared Mack on a cellular level. Mack wasn’t going to like whatever Colt had to say. Even Reyes was watching Colt with steady curiosity.

  Eventually, Colt sucked in a ragged breath. “Fuck, I never should have given you Avery’s number.”

  Those words sent Mack’s anxiety over this conversation to nuclear levels. “Why not?”

  “Part of the reason I was with Avery was because of the stress of SWAT. I needed what he had to offer, and at first it was totally platonic, but after that last mission that went FUBAR and got Geoff killed it changed. Got sexual, and our relationship grew from there.”

  Mack didn’t have to ask to know that whatever Colt had gone out looking for, it had something to do with BDSM. Colt had never suggested he was into that sort of thing, but he also didn’t tell explicit stories about his hookups, either. Just mentioned he’d had them. This wasn’t about Colt’s sexual history, but it did have to do with the bank robbery from hell, which only amped Mack’s anxiety.

  “So Avery went from sex to a boyfriend?” Mack asked. Off Colt’s nod, he said, “And he knew about Geoff being killed, knew you and I were friends.”

  “Yes.” Colt took in a shaky breath, looking like a guy two seconds away from upchucking on the barn floor. “You’d already left the city when the ballistics report from the robbery finally came down. I wanted to find out, so you’d know. I figured I could do that for you, even though it wouldn’t bring Geoff back or ease your pain. I called in some favors, got someone to get me the intel.”

  Mack’s heart nearly stopped at the implication of Colt’s words. Out of their five-man squad, three of them had actually shot their weapons, including Colt. Mack hadn’t fired a shot, he never had a clean sight on any of the suspects. There was only one reason Colt wouldn’t have told Mack the truth about the shooter whose bullet struck and killed Mack’s boyfriend...

  A slow roar in his head grew into a thundering train of rage, hurt and betrayal. Colt didn’t have to say it. The misery dripped off him and thickened the air between them. Time seemed to stop as the last five years of their friendship dissolved into bitter ash that left a putrid taste in Mack’s mouth.

  “You fired the shot?” Reyes asked, his own voice strangled and unsteady.

  Colt didn’t finish his nod before Mack’s fist connected solidly with the man’s mouth. The blow sent Colt backward into the stall door, and then onto his ass. Mack wound up again, but a strong arm snared his and kept him from throwing a second punch. Reyes held him firm, his expression grim, but determined. Mack wanted to hit Reyes, too, so his friend would set him free to give Colt the ass-beating he deserved.

  But in Reyes’s dark eyes, Mack saw a warning. Don’t be that guy. You aren’t a violent man.

  Fury swam in Mack’s gut, a burning thing that wanted to be expunged through a brawl. But more than anger, his heart ached with an overwhelming sense of betrayal. Not because one of his best friends had been the one to fire that devastating bullet, but because Colt had lied by keeping the truth from him all these years. For supporting Mack in his grief, while knowing the whole time he was responsible for it. For never telling anyone—no, scratch that.

  A new wave of anger crashed over him. Mack took a step back from Colt, and Reyes released his arm. “You son of a bitch,” Mack seethed. “You couldn’t tell me, but you told Avery!”

  Colt looked up from his spot on the ground, blood running from his split lip, tears already streaming down one cheek. “I’m so sorry,” he said, voice as busted as his lip. “I was so wrecked when I found out, I had to tell him. He was the only person I could tell.”

  “You could have told me, you lying asshole! You should have told me.”

  “I didn’t want you to hate me. I couldn’t lose our friendship.” Blood dripped from Colt’s chin and splattered on his polo, but he didn’t seem to notice. It was all Mack could see. “You guys are the only family I have.”

  “Family doesn’t keep secrets like that. And where the fuck do you see our friendship going now, huh?”

  “I don’t know.” Colt’s chest heaved. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Fuck you’re sorry.”

  Mack couldn’t stop staring at that blood, though. He’d drawn blood from someone he’d once considered a brother. Someone with whom he’d shared so many personal secrets. And this lie had been between them for years, tarnishing every interaction. He’d drawn blood and he hated himself for it, but he also hated Colt for what he’d done.

  “Please don’t blame Avery, or fire him,” Colt said. “He urged me for weeks to tell you, and it was one of the biggest reasons why we broke up. He said he couldn’t be with someone who kept those kinds of secrets from their brothers.”

  Mack snarled. “At least one of you two had some integrity.”

  “He must have assumed I’d told you the truth. That’s probably why he was surprised we were still friends.”

  “You know, if you’d told me back then what happened, maybe, given time, we could have come back from it.”

  Colt nodded, so miserable Mack almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  “Stay away from me,” Mack snapped. He turned and stormed out of the barn, so upset he couldn’t see straight and nearly walked into a goddamn tree.

  Reyes caught up with him halfway to their cabin. “Thank you for not hitting him again,” he said.

  “Fucker deserved that and more.”

  “Maybe, but I know you, Mack. You aren’t a violent person, and despite how you’re feeling right now, eventually you’ll regret it and beat yourself up over it.”

  Sometimes he hated that Reyes knew him so well. “I can’t believe he kept that from me.” He yanked their cabin door open and stalked inside, too restless to sit, but also exhausted to the bone. As his adrenaline waned, weariness settled into his muscles but didn’t make it to his racing mind.

  “I’m so sorry, man.”

  The sentiment meant more c
oming from Reyes, but Mack couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Did you know?”

  “Fuck no, I didn’t know.” Reyes glared at him in a way that made Mack feel like an ass for questioning his loyalty. “You know me better than that.”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “It’s fine, your emotions are running at a hundred miles an hour right now. And to be fair, Colt wasn’t the only person keeping a secret from you.”

  Mack’s entire body went rigid. “What?”

  Reyes sank into one of the reading chairs, shoulders back but his expression tentative. “You remember Geoff was preparing for a big audition? For that firehouse pilot?”

  “Yeah, I remember. It was the best script he’d gotten in a long time, and he was stoked for the part. He’d hoped he could finally quit his bank job. What about it?”

  “The day before he died, Geoff called and we had coffee together. He wanted to pick my brain about how firehouses worked, about the equipment, basically to bone up for the audition.”

  “Okay.” Nothing weird about that. Reyes and Geoff had been friends, and with Reyes being a fireman at the time, the coffee date made sense. “That’s the big secret?”

  “No. He seemed off that day, like he didn’t want to be there, when he’d called me. When I pushed him about it...” Reyes’s eyes flashed with pain. “Geoff admitted that he’d cheated again. The day before, with some random guy he met at another audition.”

  A new surge of betrayal knifed Mack in the gut—not so much for Reyes keeping that a secret, but for what Geoff had done. For the second time.

  That he knew of, anyway, and that fucking hurt.

  “I was working up the nerve to tell you,” Reyes continued. “Even though Geoff begged me not to, my first loyalty is always to you. But then the bank happened, and in the middle of all that grief, there was never a time. Or a purpose. And then I got burned, and I was in rehab for so long, and after a while it stopped seeming important. You were moving on, and I didn’t want to open that can of worms again.”

  Mack waited for anger that never came. Reyes had known Mack for two-thirds of their lives, and he’d never kept this kind of secret from him. But at the same time, Mack understood his motives. He’d lived through his own grief, his fear after hearing Reyes had been trapped in a burning building, getting Reyes on his feet and walking again after the skin grafts. They’d both wanted to leave their old lives behind and move on, not dwell on the past.

  The secret also tarnished Mack’s memory of Geoff a little bit more, taking the shine off what he’d thought was a great, stable, trusting relationship.

  He cheated on me again two days before he died.

  Knowing that didn’t make Geoff’s death any less tragic, but it hurt. A lot.

  “I’m sorry, brother,” Reyes said softly. “I didn’t know Colt’s secret, and he didn’t know mine, but we both lied to you.”

  “I get you not telling me Geoff cheated.” Mack ran a hand down his beard, then tugged at the end. “But fuck if I know how I feel about Colt right now, other than bald rage. Your two secrets are nothing like the other.”

  “I know. But considering... I felt like I owed you the truth.”

  “Thanks.”

  As much as Mack wasn’t angry at Reyes, he also didn’t want to be around the man. His pulse was still racing, his thoughts tumbling all akimbo, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to sort himself out.

  Wes. I need Wes.

  He needed Wes more than he ever imagined possible, so he grabbed his truck keys and left, desperate to talk to his guy.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You’re doing me a huge favor, man, I mean it,” Gary said, and not for the first time in the last twenty minutes.

  “It’s really not a problem,” Wes said, again. “I haven’t played it in months, so I can give it up for a week.” He handed the game cartridge over to Gary. “I hope your nephews enjoy it.”

  “They will, they’ve wanted to play it for ages, but Bethany’s been struggling ever since the divorce and money’s tight for those little extras.”

  Wes’s heart went out to the guy and his family’s struggles. Gary was another actor at the dinner theater where Wes worked. He was older, in his early forties, and he had an amazing singing voice. Wes was one of those people who tried to get to know his coworkers, so he’d listened to Gary vent about his little sister Bethany’s awful divorce and difficulties getting back into the work force after being a stay-at-home mom for the last fourteen years. And while Wes’s family wasn’t rolling in cash, he’d never wanted for anything.

  Gary was due to babysit his nephews for the rest of the week, after their mom had an emergency appendectomy yesterday. He’d come to Wes looking for entertainment ideas, and Wes had suggested video games. He had several of the newest to spare.

  “You know what,” Wes said, “tell them it’s a gift from one of Uncle Gary’s friends. Keep it.”

  “What? You’re serious?”

  “Sure. Think of it as my contribution to keeping you sane this week.”

  “I appreciate it more than you know.”

  Wes reached for the apartment door and twisted the knob. Pulled. “I don’t mind. Let me know if you need any other favors.” He swung the door open and nearly took a fist to his nose.

  Mack filled his doorway, in some sort of distress that shifted into confusion and hurt. Wes’s shock over finding Mack at his apartment at ten o’clock on a Tuesday died quickly as he saw the misunderstanding forming in Mack’s head.

  “Hey, you,” Wes said with a bright smile. “I hadn’t expected to introduce you to my coworkers this soon, but nothing about our relationship has been exactly traditional.”

  “Coworker,” Mack echoed.

  “Gary O’Hallin,” Gary said. “Fellow actor. Wes is helping me out of a jam.” He held up the game.

  “Oh. Uh, Mack Garrett. Nice to meet you.”

  Mack still wasn’t himself, though, so Wes needed to wrap this up. “Like I said, Gary, if you need anything else this week, let me know.”

  “I appreciate it,” Gary said. “Nice to meet you, Mack. Guess you’re the reason Wes’s been smiling so much recently.”

  “I guess so,” Mack replied with little enthusiasm.

  Okay, this is bad.

  Wes let Gary out, then invited Mack in, stomach souring at the tentative way Mack crossed the threshold. His shoulders were slumped, his entire big body seeming ready to tilt over. After Wes shut the door, he pulled Mack into a tight hug. “What’s wrong?” Wes whispered.

  Mack shuddered. “Needed you. Needed this.”

  “You’ve got me. Whatever you need.” Wes tried to hold him tighter, wishing he could do more, and after a while, Mack relaxed in his arms. He pressed his face into the crook of Wes’s shoulder, his beard tickling bare skin.

  Wes wasn’t used to being the person his boyfriend ran to when something was painful or overwhelming. Drake had always compartmentalized his personal problems, dealt with them himself, instead of sharing them. It should have been a red flag that their relationship was doomed from the start, but Wes had been too infatuated with his TV star boyfriend to care.

  Eventually his legs got tired and one thigh started to cramp, so Wes moved them to the couch. Wes had gotten tied up talking to Gary backstage, so Miles had left before him and was probably holed up in his room, since the only sign Wes had seen of him was his keys. Whatever. Even if Miles came out in the middle of some big emotional reveal, the guy knew how to be discreet.

  “Do you want some water? Wine?” Wes asked.

  Mack let out a rusty sound. “I could use a belt of something stronger.”

  “I might know where Miles keeps a jar of apple pie moonshine. It’ll put extra hair on your chest.”

  More of that rusty sound, and then, “Okay, sure.”

  Wes retri
eved the Mason jar of alcohol and two shot glasses. Mack was leaning heavily against the couch cushions, hands flat on his thighs, and the sight of Mack’s right hand made Wes fumble the glasses. The knuckles were swollen and one was cut. “What happened to your hand?”

  “I punched Colt in the mouth.”

  On a list of possible answers to his question, that was down there under I got into a brawl with a pro-wrestler and I had to punch a mountain lion before it ate a tourist. “Why did you hit Colt?”

  Mack’s face pinched, and he seemed stuck between wanting to cry and wanting to rage. “Remember when I said Geoff was killed by friendly fire?”

  “Sure, that’s an impossible thing to forget, especially when...” A horrible idea formed in Wes’s mind, too awful to acknowledge. “No fucking way.”

  “Shot came from Colt’s gun. He’s known this whole goddamn time.” Mack curled both hands into fists, even though that had to hurt his wounded knuckles.

  “I’m so sorry.” Wes’s heart twisted for Mack’s obvious pain. He’d sought out Wes for comfort, and Wes had no idea what to say or do.

  No, he could do something. “Stay here a sec.”

  He went into the kitchen for a bag of frozen corn, which he put over Mack’s swollen knuckles. Then he poured them each a shot of moonshine. Carefully arranged one of the glasses in Mack’s left hand.

  “What are you doing?” Mack said in a soft, raspy voice.

  “Taking care of you. Isn’t that what boyfriends do?”

  Mack swallowed hard, nodded, then downed the shot. Wes drank his, enjoying the burn in his throat and the sweet flavors of apple and cinnamon. Mack coughed. “Wow, that’s...interesting.”

  “A few more of these and you’ll forget your troubles.”

  “Not likely.”

  Okay, Mack wasn’t ready for jokes yet. He poured two new shots, anyway. “Okay, so if Colt has known he fired the shot all these years, why did he suddenly confess?”

  “It’s a long story with a messy middle, but when I confronted him over keeping a secret from me, he confessed. I swear, Wes, I thought I’d had some sort of psychotic break. Didn’t want to believe someone I’d thought of as a brother could keep something like that from me.”