“Hey, man,” says the jail attendant, who Lance now knows is named Tim. Hard to pass a night with a guy who talks you down from a panic attack and not emerge on a first-name basis. “I’ve got really good news. Robbie Chase just posted your bail.”
Robbie Chase.
Just his name manages to penetrate the ugly haze Lance has been swimming in since sometime around eight last night. It’s better now, with a little bit of sunshine coming through the high, small window opposite the cell, but not by much. He still feels sick, like a fever rages in his body, building toward a breaking point that won’t come.
“Okay,” he mutters, lurching to his feet, palms slick. He picks up the crumpled piece of paper with his charges on it—the citation, Tim called it. It’s been sitting on the bench beside him because it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he should shove in his pocket, and it’s been his only reading material.
“So, you’re letting me out?” He takes a half-step toward the door, daring to hope, even though if he lets himself imagine the door opening and himself stepping out, he’ll be doubly crushed if it doesn’t happen. Tim has explained that if no one answers his calls, he’ll be out no earlier than Monday, when the judge will be in and can consider waiving his bail.
“Yeah, man. Come on.” Tim unlocks the door, and Lance feels a rush of relief so powerful that he almost sobs.
Instead, he takes hurried, shuffling steps to mask how unsteady he feels, and slips through the door the moment Tim opens it and steps back. He hadn’t realized his ears were ringing until now, when the sensation abates.
“Come on,” Tim says quietly, guiding him by the arm out of the jail vestibule and into the adjoining office. “Just need to sign you out.”
Tim’s office is basically a carbon copy of the room with the cell, except without the bars. The desk is heaped with stacks of files and reams upon reams worth of paperwork. Floor-to-ceiling shelves take up most of the wall-space, stuffed with more files, some of them in binders, and banker’s boxes with their lids askew, revealing yet more files and loose paper.
“You wouldn’t want to light a match in here,” Lance murmurs.
Tim laughs. “Hadn’t thought of that.” He hands Lance a pen.
Tim explains each form in the monotone of someone who’s repeated his lines so many times that he knows them by heart. Lance barely catches a word, but scrawls his signature on each one nonetheless. Tim feeds each signed page into a noisy desktop copier, then stacks the copies in Lance’s hands on top of his crumpled citation.
And then they go out into the hallway, and just like that, Lance is looking at Robbie Chase.
Robbie’s hands are tucked in the pockets of a pair of battered, dark-wash Wranglers. He’s wearing a coat that’s a little too puffy to be fashionable, or to flatter anyone else, but Robbie always looks good, no matter what ridiculous crap he wears. His hair got long at some point. He always used to keep it carefully trimmed above his collar, but now the strands are long enough to cling to his throat at the ends—vividly black, like they’re wet. The black cowboy hat on his head is damp, too. It must be snowing outside. The window was too small and the glass too opaque for Lance to have realized it.
The sight of him is a slap to Lance’s already abused senses.
It’s a slap he isn’t braced for, either. Lance’s world takes a hard lurch, his vision narrowing to a pinpoint, and his knees fail.
When he’s aware of anything again, it’s of strong, warm arms around him and a familiar scent he’s tried so hard to forget. Pine needles, leather, and the clean salt smell of horses. That old, burning sensation of longing and shame in equal, agonizing parts fills his chest.
Lance is more or less sprawled on the floor. Robbie is kneeling beside him, supporting his upper body, and the sleeves of Robbie’s coat are damp. He has the untidy beard he always used to sport in the winter, dark and looking softly touchable, although Lance has never actually touched it. His eyes are warm and worried, and moving fast over Lance’s face like he’s looking for something.
“Jesus,” he says at last. Their faces are close enough that Lance can feel the warmth of his breath as he speaks. “Are you okay? Do we need to call a doctor?”
He sounds the same, too. The rush of memories and feelings his closeness triggers makes Lance dizzy again. Ignoring the way his surroundings continue to tilt and sway, Lance grits his teeth and pulls away, sitting up on his own.
He hates being helpless. He hates being transparent. He hates the ghost of his last encounter with this man, which has haunted him into manhood. The anger and frustration filling him are familiar, too. He knows how to use them, to patch the dark feelings together into a kind of flimsy raft he can use to navigate the rapids. Not ideal, but better than trying to swim.
“I’m fine,” he says, his voice coming in a rasp, hardly convincing. Swallowing, he goes on with more energy. “It’s just...I was—”
“Locked in,” says Robbie with quiet emphasis. He’s still kneeling, but he’s leaned back a bit to allow Lance some space to sit up, and now they’re not quite touching, with Robbie’s knees a hair’s breadth from Lance’s hip.
Lance, surprised, shoots him a glance. “Yeah,” he says quietly. You remembered, he adds, only in his head. He marvels at that fact in silence, and it’s a little flame of brightness and warmth he can tuck next to his heart.
“Danny didn’t get your message until this morning, and I came as soon as he called me.” Robbie’s voice is suffused with so much regret that Lance’s ears burn. “I’m so sorry you had to be in here all night.”
Lance swallows and starts to get up. Not because he trusts his body any more than he did a minute ago, but because he has to put some distance between them.
“It’s okay. I mean, thank you. For coming at all. I—owe you,” he says, tripping over the last few words as he slowly clambers to a standing position. Because it isn’t just an expression. Robbie literally spent money to post Lance’s bail. One thousand dollars, according to Tim, which may as well have been one hundred thousand for Lance, who has access to exactly sixty-three dollars.
Robbie rises gracefully along with him, his brow still furrowed with concern.
Without looking at him, Lance presses on doggedly. “Unfortunately, I can’t pay you back right now,” he manages in an almost-normal voice. All of his money is in his accounts with Niall, or wherever else Niall put it. Maisie would tell him he’s an idiot for running off without figuring out how to get at least some of it first.
Robbie isn’t saying anything. Lance dares a look.
They’re almost the same height, which is a realization that appears to be striking Robbie, too. His eyes widen when Lance meets them without having to look up more than an inch. Sure enough, Robbie says, “You really grew up.”
Lance studies Robbie in earnest, even if it hurts to spend more than a moment seeing that face—one he couldn’t forget if he tried, but hasn’t seen in so long. Robbie has changed a little, Lance realizes with a start. It’s not that he’s aged, exactly—he looks tired, like he needs more than one good night’s sleep. And the slight smile that tugs on the left side of his mouth when he catches Lance’s eyes looks rusty, as though no one has coaxed it from him in a while. Lance feels a familiar spike of the old commingled jealousy and frustration toward Megan, apparently undiluted by the past several years and his supposed transformation from a child to an adult. You’re supposed to make him smile, he thinks viciously at her, wherever she is.
To get out of his own head, Lance speaks with a shrug. “Well, I’m not sixteen anymore.” So much for banishing intrusive thoughts. Lance immediately ducks his head. If that comment doesn’t raise the specter of his sixteen-year-old self between them, and that final, desperate, pathetic stunt—
“No,” Robbie agrees, his voice steady and without judgement. “I can see that.”
Lance’s eyes dart to Robbie’s and their gazes lock again, this time for longer. A second, two, three. Lance feels something pass between them…something he can’t quite articulate, but which startles him into the momentary belief that feelings beyond Robbie’s general sainthood and faithfulness to Danny brought him here. But then Lance remembers the years through which Lance fed his own delusions—blinded by a destructive fantasy. He looks away sharply, pushing his hand up against the wall less to steady his body and more to anchor his mind to something real, even if it’s just the texture of whitewashed cinderblock.
“Is there…” Robbie starts, and then trails off. Lance can’t bear to look at him again except out of the corner of his eye, but he seems like he’s biting his lip, showing a flash of perfect white teeth in the frame of his beard. “I want to ask if you have somewhere to go, but maybe it’s not any of my business.”
Robbie’s speaking very softly, and Lance is suddenly too aware of Tim hovering awkwardly to his left.
He shoots Tim a strained smile. “So, is there anything else I need to do?” Tim has turned out to be a really decent guy. He could have just shut the lights off and left Lance to tolerate the night of locked-in darkness as best he could; he didn’t have to bring all of his paperwork in and do it on a clipboard on his lap in the vestibule, leaving the lights on, or tell Lance a dozen long and wandering stories that ranged from his days in high school marching band to the difficulties of learning to two-step in time for his cousin’s wedding.
“Nope. You’re all set,” Tim says with a guileless smile. But he’s definitely looking between Robbie and Lance with a bewildered sort of curiosity that makes Lance itch again to get away.
Tim hands Lance a plastic baggie that contains everything Lance had in his pockets when they checked him into jail. Then, his eyes rest on the crumpled paperwork Lance has to pass to his other hand in order to take the baggie. Tim holds up a finger and disappears again into his office.
During the long few seconds Lance and Robbie are alone, Lance avoids Robbie’s gaze by staring at the baggie. A cell phone with a dark screen. Sixty-three dollars and twelve cents. A stick of gum with some lint stuck to it. His slim wallet, with a couple of useless credit cards and his ID.
When Tim comes back, he has a manila folder, dogeared around the edges and with rectangles of blacked-out ink here and there on the front.
“Here, for your docs,” Tim says with a half-smile.
Lance is so emotionally raw that his hand is shaking a little when he takes the folder. The gesture, no matter how small, hits him hard. He meets Tim’s kind, close-set eyes with a sincere smile. “Thanks, man.”
“You bet.” After watching Lance tuck his wrinkled documents into the folder, Tim gives his shoulder an awkward pat in farewell.
Lance takes a deep breath and heads for the stairs. For the first two steps, Robbie is right behind him, and then he hurries past Lance, getting slightly ahead of him on the stairs as they descend, like he’s prepared to catch Lance if he should pitch forward.
From two stairs below, Robbie has to look up at Lance from under the brim of his hat. “Do you have a coat? It’s snowing, and the wind is starting to blow.”
“I’ve pretty much got the clothes on my back and the contents of this Ziploc,” Lance says, waving the bag demonstratively. So that he doesn’t have to see Robbie’s reaction, Lance looks down at the thin jacket he was lucky to keep when everything happened yesterday. It’s a fitted fleece intended to be worn under a heavier coat, like the one he left in the back seat of the car that’s now locked in an impound. “I’ll be fine,” he insists, and it’s probably true. He’s been cold before. And he has enough cash to get a night at the motel—maybe two, if they only want half up front.
Then again, how much does a motel cost these days? It’s been a long time since he’s stayed in one. Not since the weekend trips he went on with his aunt at the end of high school. He’s thinking that over when they reach the first landing of the broad staircase and Robbie turns and steps in front of him, putting them chest-to-chest.
Lance is startled enough that he accidentally meets Robbie’s eyes. Again, he notices the strangeness of their similar heights. For so long, Lance was always looking up at him. Usually from afar.
Now, it’s no strain for him to see Robbie’s crow’s feet, and the inky darkness of his eyelashes, and the shorter, fine hairs as his beard feathers away to bare, smooth skin on his cheekbones.
“If you’re in trouble,” Robbie says firmly, his murmur low and distracting, “then I can help you.”
Lance can’t contain an incredulous laugh, but there’s a tremor to it that makes Robbie’s eyes grow steely, determined. He leans a fraction of an inch closer, but still they’re not touching.
Even now, all these years later, he’s so very careful not to touch Lance.
“I mean it, kid.”
That word—kid—brings Lance back. He doesn’t have to force the flint into his voice when he says, “I don’t need your help.”
He shoulders past Robbie, feeling a rush of adrenaline that carries him down the rest of the steps and out the heavy glass and oak doors onto the snow-covered steps, where a gust of wind penetrates his fleece jacket like a punch.
Lance stops there, frozen by that burst of wind. Like a character in The Team, struck by Mister Ice’s storm gun, he thinks, with a bolt of longing for Danny. They’ve barely spoken in years, but he still knew when he called that Danny would do whatever he could for him. Lance feels guilty for manipulating that neglected, but still-strong bond. Then again, it isn’t like he did it with cool calculation. Tears had streaked his cheeks for the entire forty-five second duration of listening to the phone ringing unanswered, and then leaving a clumsy voicemail.
Robbie is behind him. Lance knows it without seeing or hearing him. The wind twists around him, its icy fingers penetrating Lance’s jacket and stinging him from head to toe, but some of it is blocked by Robbie’s body, and it’s not quite as bad as it was a moment ago.
“Lance,” Robbie says in that soft voice Lance remembers him using around skittish horses. “If you haven’t already made other arrangements,” he continues, slow and measured—like they’re meeting under pleasant circumstances, and not on the steps of the building where Lance just spent the night in jail, “I’d like it if you stayed with me at the ranch for a couple of days.”
The courthouse square is spread out in front of Lance—lawn and flag poles and two oak trees. Beyond it is the facing row of downtown storefronts lining the block, all looking just as he remembers. He supposes six years isn’t exactly a lifetime. There’s the corner pharmacy with the old-fashioned soda fountain in the back. There’s the Wicked Cut, where he got every terrible haircut he received in the first eleven years of his life, before rebelling and growing his dark curls out into a ponytail. There’s the hardware store where his dad once yelled at him so violently, right in the middle of the aisle beside the big bins of nails and screws, that Lance dug his hand into one of the bin’s sharp contents and squeezed. He’d made his palm bleed in six places, but he didn’t think his father had even noticed. He’d spent the next couple of weeks terrified he was going to get tetanus.
“Kid,” Robbie says quietly, bringing him back to the present again. “Lance. You’re family. Please.”
Lance pretends for another second that he has a choice…that spending the very last of his money at a motel is a viable option. Then, he swallows and nods. “Yeah. Okay.” He’s sure he does the least convincing impression of a casual shrug ever. His body is quaking, mostly from the cold, so all that really happens is that his right arm jerks. “Okay,” he repeats. “Sure.”
Robbie lets out a gusty sigh, so close all of a sudden that Lance can hear it even over the snow-laden wind, and then the heavy warmth of Robbie’s coat lands on Lance’s shoulders. The feel of it is almost overwhelming, like being wrapped in Robbie’s arms for that moment after he collapsed back in the jail.
“I don’t—” Lance starts to protest, but Robbie is already walking past him, down the handicapped-accessible ramp that’s clear of snow, probably liberally spread with salt by some public servant in anticipation of the forecast. Lance has little choice but to follow him.
Lance hunches his shoulders so that the collar of Robbie’s coat brushes his cheek, and he smells soap, cologne, and something else—spicy, so it’s probably not aftershave, considering Robbie is so deliberately unshaven. Does he oil his beard? Does he moisturize?
When Lance sees the familiar truck parked on the curb, he smiles despite himself. The old blue Chevrolet is gathering snow on the pristine curves of its body; with a couple of evergreens in the bed, it would look like something straight out of a Christmas card. It’s in the same mint condition that Lance remembers.
“You still have it,” he observes. Robbie has his shoulders up around his ears. He’s wearing a grey Henley that’s molded to his chest—proof, if Lance needed it, that he’s still strong and hard-bodied from daily work. His black hat is dusted with snowflakes. The cold is getting to him almost as fast as it did Lance, judging by the red tip of his nose and how hastily he reaches for the truck’s driver’s side door.
Still, he pauses to shoot Lance a smile. “Yeah, I plan to drive it until the wheels fall off, or somebody steals it. You okay? I’m freezing.”
Okay. The concept makes Lance want to laugh. He’s never been okay in his life. But he’s told this lie a hundred thousand times, and it comes easily enough. “Yeah, I’m fine,” Lance says, and he slides into Robbie’s truck.