Hidden Heart

by Amy Lane

  But now Spencer chuckled. “All that and it turns out her true love is my idiot dog. Go figure.”

  “He’s got good taste,” Theo said gently and put his hand on Spencer’s knee. “Where’s Belinda?”

  Spencer covered the hand with his own, and watched as Caden’s eyes started to flutter shut. “Said something about having made us a casserole and took off in the golf cart to go get it.” He looked up to see Preston as he came out and down the small hallway. “You’re welcome to eat here with us,” he said, since he knew Damien would be gone until the next day.

  Preston shook his head. “I still have work to do. I’ll eat leftovers with Oscar later.” He gazed affectionately at the baby. “But I can go do that now so she can keep the golf cart. We have a car seat for it.”

  Spencer grinned at him. “Handy little device,” he agreed. “What do you think about our kittens?”

  “I think she’s lucky. Lots of new mothers have a really big one first, and it gets stuck and things go to hell. This birth went off without a hitch. And you have six now, Theo. I think she’s got one or two more.” He sighed, and then looked at Spencer and Theo like a patient parent. “And what are we going to do as soon as the kittens are weaned?”

  “Everybody gets fixed,” Theo said firmly. “I hear you. Remember—we inherited this cat.”

  “Inherited?” Spencer snorted. “Inherited? Are you shitting me? Would you like to hear how we got this cat, Preston?”

  Preston’s eyes went wide. “All I know is that Theo had it with him when he got to the hospital that night!”

  “Yeah, well, given he jumped out of a perfectly functioning flotation device into a valley full of water to get the damned cat, I’m glad he kept holding on to her,” Spencer said sourly.

  “I was trying to get her with the pole,” Theo told him, laughing.

  “Which you dropped into the water!” Spencer returned.

  “How did you get him out?” Preston asked.

  Spencer grimaced. “We had two barge poles. One of them was being used as a stay to keep the garden hose from unraveling—we were using the hose to keep us tied to a tree. I grabbed that one to get him out, and it worked, but….”

  “But by the time I was out of the drink, with the cat, the raft was floating toward the canyon,” Theo told him. “And that’s when the helicopter got there.”

  Preston nodded. “That’s a good story,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s a miracle story. It’s like when Damien came to get me and Glen and Cash, flying a broken helicopter. Or when Cash dangled out of a helicopter to save Glen.”

  Theo grinned. “Or when the snowboarder and the accountant rode the airplane wing down a mountain to save Damien!”

  Preston nodded again. “All these miracle stories,” he said. “And the cat having kittens or the baby you’re holding feel like bigger miracles. Why is that?”

  Spencer’s breath caught, and he looked at Theo with his entire chest on fire. “I don’t know,” he said. “Life’s funny that way.”

  At that moment, Belinda got there and set the casserole on the table, along with a big bowl with salad fixings.

  “I was going to stay and eat with you,” she said smiling, “but Oscar surprised me by putting another casserole in. He said it’s your favorite, Preston, so you two come down when you’re done with chores.”

  She made one more run into the back bedroom to look at the kittens, and then came and gently lifted the sleeping baby into her arms, where he crashed against her shoulder in absolute oblivion.

  They walked out into the twilight shadows, leaving Theo and Spencer in a suddenly quiet house.

  “You want me to get a plate?” Theo asked, smiling.

  Spencer shook his head. “We can sit at the table,” he said. “Leave the door open and the screen shut. Open the windows. It’s a little chilly out, but it’s still nice.”

  “Almost romantic,” Theo said lightly, standing up to start setting the table.

  Spencer shoved out of the recliner and sighed. “I’ll work on full romantic one day, if you like,” he promised rashly.

  Theo’s smile went incandescent. “You just did,” he said. “Go check on the cat and come sit down.”

  Spencer did as ordered and hobbled down the hall. Sure enough, in the last light through the window, Stupid was licking what was probably her final kitten while the others mewled and nursed. Colonel surrounded the content little family with his long Shepherd body, panting proudly, as though he’d done any part of what had recently gone down, but Spencer wasn’t going to pop his bubble.

  Idiot dog was happy with an idiot cat and idiot adorable kittens. It didn’t make no goddamned sense, but it appeared to be the truth.

  “I hear you,” he muttered and turned back toward the front room.

  Chicken casserole was one of his favorites too—or maybe he simply liked Belinda’s comfort food as a whole—so dinner was enjoyable, and the smell of the cool evening on the cut grass of the ranch with the pink light of twilight made his belly tingle with the anticipation of spring.

  He and Theo talked easily—but then that had never been their problem, not from the first moment Theo had pulled him gasping out of the drink, had it?

  They had both pushed their plates back, and the silence had just begun to be heard when Spencer’s mouth opened and he began to speak.

  “My parents seemed perfect,” he said, “when I was a kid. I figured everybody got their ass beat in small towns in Bumfuck when they didn’t do their chores. Moms always backed their husbands against their kids. And it was okey-dokey to sit and pray for the deaths of everybody who wasn’t us when we sat down to dinner.” He heard the words then—his father’s words—and thought about how easy it was to buy into hate words when you didn’t know any better. “And then Dad caught me kissing my first boy, and I realized that I was one of the people my family hated. And for about a minute I thought about changing who I was to be who my parents wanted me to be, and then it hit me. I don’t understand why the rest of the world doesn’t figure it out, but it hit me, right there at the dinner table with a swollen face and sore ribs, that when you have a list of people you hate, eventually you’ll get around to someone you love. And I realized that I couldn’t live with a list like that on my soul. And my parents would ask me, every day, if I’d asked God to not be a—” He stopped. He couldn’t use that word here, not with Theo. He couldn’t use any of the hate words anymore. “Not be gay anymore, and I said I asked God to not be his son instead. That was my last beating, because I hit back that time, and after that… just chores and meals, and I left the table and did the dishes and went to bed. No picnics with the family. No church. I got my ROTC scholarship and slept on people’s couches until I went away to college.”

  “Oh, Spence—”

  He held up a hand. “See, but I had hope then. I thought, hey, there’s people out there who aren’t my father. And then I met a guy—saw him around, we hooked up a couple of times, and then we texted, and suddenly I thought, ‘Wait, is this a boyfriend?’ and we saw each other at the canteen at a base Elsie and I hadn’t been to before, and there we were, chatting each other up, when I realized Elsie had disappeared and four guys who’d been giving her shit had disappeared too. I remember looking at the guy and saying, ‘Hey, where’s my flight partner?’ and he gets this look, really annoyed, and goes, ‘Oh, those guys. They’re always messing around.’ And I stood up to go get her, and he was like, ‘Hey, there’s nothing we can do. Do you want to come to my bunk?’ And… and for a moment, I was tempted, right? Because this was a boyfriend—or the closest thing I’d ever had to one. But I couldn’t leave Elsie when I didn’t know if she was all right.” He grunted. “You know the rest.”

  “She wasn’t all right,” Theo said softly. “And you weren’t either.”

  Spencer gazed out the door into the purpling night. It was officially chilly outside, and he thought about closing everything down.

  In a minute, he thought. This needed sayi
ng.

  “So that happened, and then civilian life was the two of us running into one clusterfuck after another, and… and I found I couldn’t trust any guy I was with, really. What if they all turned out to be douchebags? What if I really liked a guy and he turned out to be awful? Like my old man. Like those fuckers who went after Elsie. Or even just… flawed. Like the guy who would sit back and let bad shit happen on his watch because it wasn’t him. So it was easier, you know? To do a guy once and make him breakfast and send him on his way. Wasn’t great—obviously. Preston set this place up for me, and I moved out here and didn’t get laid for over a year, and I was fine with that. Preferred my dog. Elsie didn’t let me down. Glen and Damien and Preston didn’t. Oscar and Belinda are perfect people. Who needed someone in his life who would care for him and take care of him when he was alone and remind him to be his better self?”

  Theo covered Spencer’s hand with his own. “You did,” he said softly.

  “I do,” Spencer agreed. He turned his hand over and laced their fingers together. “We made love today, and it was really wonderful. And I never thought I’d do anything that wonderful with another human being. And I want you to stay here. With me. And I want us to make a go of it in this out-of-the-way place with our really awesome jobs and people who care for us. Is that okay?”

  Theo squeezed his hand. “My parents died within two years of each other,” he said. “My mom right after I graduated from college and committed myself to living in Sticky, Oregon, to take care of her. After she passed, I just… stayed. I was making a difference. I was happy. But I didn’t expect another gay man to find me out in the middle of nowhere. I certainly didn’t expect one to fall out of the sky. But I didn’t move out here because you fell out of a helicopter for me, or because your family is super awesome—even though they are. I moved out here because you are one of the best men—one of the best people—I have ever met, Spencer Helmsley. I would have been a complete moron to let you go without me when I had a chance to be sitting here in this freezing trailer, holding your hand.”

  Spencer laughed a little and tried to pull away to get up and close the door—and to wipe his eyes while he was at it, because this baring your soul stuff wasn’t for the weak and he was damned embarrassed about that.

  Theo used his free hand to grab a napkin, though, and he wiped his eyes first, and then, tenderly, he leaned into Spencer’s space and wiped Spencer’s eyes too.

  “We made love today,” he said softly. “And it really was fantastic. It was everything I was promised about sex because it was with the right person, and he loves me as much as I love him. Isn’t that right?”

  Spencer took a deep shuddering breath. Goddammit. “Yeah,” he whispered. “That’s right.”

  And then Theo’s mouth was on his, salty and sweet, warm and safe, and Spencer lost himself in that kiss and found himself too. And then he found Theo and realized they were like that, and maybe always would be, close enough that they would always find each other, because together was how they belonged.

  Sunsets and Beer

  Six Months Later

  “WELL?” Belinda asked, moving about the kitchen smoothly in spite of a growing bulge at her middle. Apparently Caden—who could now run around like a champion, chasing the adolescent orange tabby that Belinda had chosen for their house—had been such a sweetheart that she and Oscar had decided that they must start on a new one immediately.

  Theo didn’t mind. He and Spencer had been spending five days a week working the cargo bay and the office for Gecko Inc. and helping Belinda decorate the guest room for little-boy Caden, as opposed to baby Caden, during their weekends. All that was about to change, though, and Theo was only a little anxious as he replied to Belinda’s question.

  “Well, what?” But he knew.

  “How’d he do?” she asked. Spencer had gone up in the air that day with their local flight certificatory. A one-hour trip, take-off and landing of a small cargo plane, and then the same for a helicopter. It was his final test after a series of them over the month, and Theo grinned at her.

  “Can you imagine Spencer failing anything?”

  She grinned. “Absolutely not. Yes! This is good. I made him a cake, you know.”

  “He’ll be excited. He’s coming back with Damien tonight. In fact….” They both paused while the whomp-whomp-whomp of the Hummingbird’s propellers beat the air to the landing pad on the other side of Damien and Preston’s cottage. “There he is!”

  “Are you going to go greet him?” she asked, dimpling. “Dinner’s not for a good two hours—you could go, you know, ask him about his day?”

  She insinuated that last with a sweet little blush, and Theo fell in love with her all over again. “I could,” he said. “But it’s getting cold. This could be the last night we get to watch the sunset for quite some time.”

  “Oh!” She held her hands to her chest. “Here, let me get you two beers. Colonel’s out tearing up the back by the firepit. You guys can go sit out there.”

  Theo gave her a kiss on the cheek and took the beers from her as she pulled them from the refrigerator, and then he whistled for Colonel as he trotted through the back door and into the space between the house and the cottage, which had been designated as sort of a barbecue/common area for the three homesteads.

  Once he’d passed that—and Preston and Damien’s cottage—he found Preacher and Colonel sitting and panting while Preston greeted Damien with a long, long hug.

  And Theo strode up to Spencer, still in his flight suit, and kissed him square on the mouth.

  Ah! Yes! Warm, happy, sarcastic man, with a definite edge of cocky pilot, which had been seeping back into Spencer’s taste over the last months.

  Heady stuff, that. Theo couldn’t get enough of it.

  “Beer, Woodchuck?” Spencer gasped as he came up for air. “Isn’t that a little forward?”

  “The sunset, idiot! Go change out of your flight suit and meet me back here.”

  “Oh!” Spencer’s grin went shy, and Theo fell in love with him for the hundredth time since that late March when the idiot had fallen out of the sky. “Okay. Yeah. Sure.”

  He kissed Theo one more time for good measure and then turned to trot up the walk toward the trailer. He still had a limp in his stride—much like Damien’s, that would probably never go away. But he had so much of himself back too, and to Theo’s eternal gratitude, that cocky part of him that had gotten so lost after his injury seemed to want Theo as much as the vulnerable part of him that he fought so hard to hide.

  “Don’t forget my sweatshirt!” Theo called after him, shivering a little as the October chill settled into the air.

  He set the beers in the cup holders of two of the camp chairs by the fire pit, and to his surprise, Preston came over, two big logs in his arms.

  “Grab some kindling,” he said, pointing to the small pile of it on the other side of the composite picnic table that he and Damien had installed that summer.

  Theo did as asked, and by the time Spencer and Damien got back from changing, they had a cheerful fire going, but that didn’t mean Theo wasn’t grateful for the fleece hoodie Spencer had brought back with him.

  Colonel, who had stayed dejectedly by Theo’s side as Spencer had gone to change, greeted him excitedly for a moment before Spencer sank gratefully into the camp chair and petted the animal’s giant head for five minutes, as well as giving scritches and good-dogs and general spoiling and love.

  Colonel and Stupid had continued to be an item, snuggling at every opportunity when Colonel was in the house. But Colonel really was a working dog, and he accompanied Theo and Spencer to the hangar most days, to either sit at Theo’s feet while he worked or to follow Spencer as he organized deliveries. And now he’d be going with Spencer and Elsie as they went back to being the inseparable flight buddies they were made to be.

  “So!” Theo demanded impatiently. “How’d the helicopter certification go?”

  “He passed,” Damien said, inter
rupting them without compunction. “No worries. No fuss. He flew us home tonight. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you!”

  Spencer grinned, obviously insufferably pleased with himself, and then reached for Theo’s hand. “Yes, I’m a genius pilot, and we all love me. But hush! We’re missing it!”

  “Of course,” Theo said, looking at Damien and Preston meaningfully.

  They nodded and sat, stretching their legs out to the fire and cracking their own beers while Theo sank down in the chair next to Spencer and rested his hand, palm up, for Spencer to lace fingers with him.

  And with that touch, that warm and kind touch from the man he loved, the whole world held its breath.

  Spencer and Theo—and Damien and Preston—looked up to the west, over the hills, as the orange sun sank into a luxurious pink and fluffy bed of clouds, and night pulled a purpling blanket over it in sleep.

  For five minutes, there was nothing but the warmth of Spencer’s hand in his, Colonel’s patient breaths, and that breathtaking appreciation that they’d all seen another day come safely to a close.

  When it was over, and they were left in twilight with the crackling fire at their feet, Damien broke the silence with a soft-voiced, “Amen,” and they all echoed him.

  Spencer was the one who’d started that, the moment of holy gratitude for the sun and the moon and the stars and the sky. Glen, Damien, Elsie—even the two new pilots, who had come out here too over the summer—all seemed to hold the same reverence, and Theo wondered if it was one of those things that came with being a pilot, like the vulnerable hearts that Cash had talked about that long-ago, wonderful, terrible moment in the hospital.

  Conversation started up then, and Preston and Damien disappeared to help Belinda and Oscar bring the food out to the picnic table. Damien paused to click on the electric pole light Preston had installed as well, and for a moment Theo and Spencer were the only ones out there under the chilly purple sky.