“Eleven,” said Blaze brightly, but he was chewing his lower lip as if contemplating that somehow that answer was the wrong one.
“I’m good, boss,” said Tom, folding the slightly damp towel under his arm. “Can I go to dinner now?”
“Sure,” said Gabe, wondering if the monikerbosswas too chain gang for the type of environment he wanted to create. With half of his attention on Tom, walking away with his slightly damp towel under his arm, Gabe turned to Blaze.
“You’ll need hand towels as well, but we can take care of that later. For now, have a seat.”
Blaze seemed a little startled, his eyes wide, and it was only then that Gabe realized how it might seem to Blaze to be alone in a supply hut with a guy who held a great deal of power over him. But to have Blaze sit while Gabe helped get him a pair of boots the right size was simply what he would have done for any ranch hand or army buddy or anyone.
“Eleven, you said?” asked Gabe as he began scanning the shelves.
As most personal gear was ordered to suit each particular man, there wasn’t a huge supply of new work boots on hand. Luckily, there was a box labeled size eleven, which Gabe pulled down, opening the lid as he turned to Blaze.
Who was staring up at Gabe, eyes wide, fingers curled around the edge of the metal folding chair, like he’d been trapped there and was frantically trying to figure out how to escape his current situation. Well, there was one thing Gabe could do, and that was diffuse the tension in the air, which would hopefully make Blaze feel more at ease and erase the worry tightening his features.
Not that Gabe preferred the just about fake happy-go-lucky expressions Blaze had been displaying since he’d gotten out of the van, but the near panic wasn’t an improvement. So he knelt down in front of Blaze, rolling his shoulders forward, making himself small. Not advice that Leland would have given him, or any guard at any prison, for sure, but it seemed to be what the moment called for, so Gabe went with his gut.
“Take those off and we can make sure these fit,” he said, opening the box and putting the lid beneath it before putting the box on the floor. “Then we can both go get our dinners.”
Blaze’s dark hair, still drying, rumpled across his forehead, almost hiding one green eye. He seemed dubious, but he let go of the chair and bent forward to unlace his too-big boots. His fingers, just at eye level for Gabe, were long, graceful, as they unlaced the yellow and black laces.
Gabe reached to help tug off those boots, realizing, perhaps too late, just how close he was kneeling, how he was eye level with those long fingers, the curve of Blaze’s knees, the length of his thigh. This close, Blaze smelled good, the scent of plain Ivory soap mixing with fresh pine-scent, with salt, the warmth of Blaze’s skin.
Then Gabe saw the socks Blaze was wearing, obviously not standard valley-issue, as they were grimy on the bottom, with one of his big toes sticking out of a hole that looked like it had been created weeks ago and not just today.
“Why are you wearing old socks rather than the new ones you were given?” he asked, pausing at his task of putting new laces through the brass grommets on the smaller pair of boots, the boots resting on his bent thigh.
“I figured, you know, that I’d just keep wearing these,” said Blaze, the words rippling and hurried, perhaps in an attempt to ease Gabe’s irritation. “That is, until I can’t anymore, and then I’d wear one of the new pairs. Save ‘em till I need ‘em.”
Gabe nodded as he finished lacing the boots.
“I mean, I’m sure I’ll need ‘em. I’m sure I’ll need a whole lot of things while I’m here. You know?”
The sensation of abundance had not yet kicked in for Blaze, that much was for certain, but perhaps for a man like Blaze, abundance was a faraway dream, and new socks, no matter how white and soft and sturdy, just weren’t his to enjoy.
Gabe wasn’t irritated, simply worried about how he was going to convince Blaze to simply stop putting on all these different tones, from apologetic, to worried, to flirty. It was exhausting and unnecessary.
“You’ll need new socks inside boots like these, otherwise you’ll get blisters,” said Gabe, sticking to the practical. He placed the boot on the cement floor and stood up to grab a new packet of socks, sized nine to eleven. “Put those on and take the rest of the pack with you. I’ll update the clipboard.” Gabe watched Blaze put on the new socks, bending at the waist, his dark hair sprawling over the side of his face, pale beneath faint dark hair, a long length of muscled calf jutting from the shoved up hems of his crisp blue jeans.
“That’s better.”
Gabe knelt again, focusing on the task at hand rather than Blaze’s feet, now tucked into new, white socks, warm beneath Gabe’s hands while he helped Blaze on with the new boots.
“Sock, sock, then shoe, shoe, eh?” asked Blaze, head still down as he held his feet still as Gabe laced them up.
Gabe nodded as he pressed on the toe of each boot. “Get up and walk back and forth to make sure they fit.”
Blaze got up and took a few steps in each direction, which satisfied Gabe.
“That’s you, then,” said Gabe, patting the ankle of each boot, the way he might with someone much younger, but the gesture felt natural and besides, Blaze might like to know that Gabe was done fussing over him, though it might remain in his mind as to why he was fussing quite like he was.
“And yes.” He looked up with a laugh. “Sock, sock, then shoe, shoe. Or in this case, sock, sock, boot, boot.”
Open-mouthed, Blaze looked like he was on the verge of laughing out loud, too, but because Gabe was his boss, perhaps he was holding it back.
In that moment, Gabe had a vision of how Blaze might be, in another circumstance, another life, maybe. Head thrown back, a laugh on the verge of his lips, as though someone had taken a photo of a candid moment. How Blaze might be if he’d not been a prisoner for almost two years. Not faking it, not going through the motions. Warmth in his face, green eyes dancing, looking out from the photo as if the person who had taken it was a good friend to him, someone around whom Blaze could drop his guard.
Gabe stood up, wiping his hands on his thighs, writing quickly on the clipboard, taking the box and putting it, lid tucked beneath it, on the long table near the door, in case someone wanted a box, because the boxes Carhartt boots came in were good boxes and not to be wasted.
