“Don’t give me that,” said Wayne. “I saw where you were coming from this morning, and it wasn’t your tent.”
“What, you’re a tracker now?”
“Don’t have to be,” said Wayne, his smile triumphant and a little mean. “Went to have a piss, and the shower was running. Was still running when I came back to brush my teeth so I looked. There were two pairs of feet.”
“We were trying to be discreet,” said Blaze, giving in, looking over at Ellis, who drank his coffee with one elbow on the table, nonchalant, like he was in a coffee shop staring out of the window at the rain.
“You suck at it.” Wayne nudged him with his elbow. “I don’t give a fuck,” he said. “But you’re just so coy, like a virgin or something. You’re fucking the boss. Who cares.”
“There are rules about this, right?” Blaze didn’t know, but there had to be something about this, even on a ranch like this one. In prison, if a guard and an inmate were caught fooling around, the guard got demoted or fired or fined, and the inmate got written up and transferred. “Anyway, it’s none of your business.”
“Like I said, I don’t give a fuck.”
Half in desperation, half in confusion, Blaze looked at Ellis, who, silently, looked back at him. He gave a little shrug as if to sayI don’t give a fuck, either, which was funny because Blaze couldn’t recall whether Ellis had said a single word all evening.
Still, the message was pretty clear that Blaze was the only one freaking out over this, over being discovered. Or maybe Gabe was freaking out as well, because he and Jasper had been gone an awfully long time—
“Dessert has arrived,” said Jasper, sitting down next to Ellis, his focus on the bowl of ice cream in front of him. “What’d you get?”
Gabe slid in next to Jasper, but his eyes were on Blaze, the earlier withdrawal replaced with Gabe’s full focus.
The two of them were going back and forth on this, leaving behind a confusing trail in Blaze’s chest. But maybe this was part of how it worked, how Gabe worked, having doubts then getting over them. Not in a kiss-kick kind of way, but in a way that told Blaze, seemed to be telling him, that Gabe had enough doubts that his summer with Blaze was intended to be just that. A summer. A fling. A thrill.
Maybe this summer was all Blaze was going to get. Maybe this summer of bliss was all Blazedeserved. After that, he would be given his certificate and sent on his way, with nowhere to go and no way to get there.
“Hey,” said Gabe, holding his spoon out like he was about to rap Blaze’s knuckles. “Can I have a bite of your lava cake?”
The eyes of every man at that table were on Blaze. In the movies, sometimes, and on TV, sharing a dessert and indeed giving someone else the first bite was a cutie-cute thing real couples did when they were courting. When they were first starting out. Maybe Gabe was playing a game for an imaginary audience, and all Blaze could do was go along with it.
“Sure,” said Blaze.
He pushed his dish closer to Gabe, like he was going along with it and maybe he was, because he liked this guy, really and truly.
He shouldn’t imagine that Gabe was running a scam, even as everybody watched him take a bite of that lava cake, chocolate fudge lacing his mouth before he licked it off. Gabe wasn’t like that, wasn’t a scammer. He was one of the good guys.
Maybe the end of summer was as far as he could go, and Blaze just ought to back the fuck off and appreciate it for what it was. A little bit of something good to salve his heart so he’d be ready for the next part of his life.
“You okay?” asked Gabe, his eyes dark blue and steady and focused only on Blaze. “You can try my apple pie with ice cream.”
“Yeah.”
Blaze took a forkful of the pie which, in keeping with the amazing food in the restaurant, was sweet with the bite of cinnamon.
He would never forget this moment, when Gabe had let Blaze have the first bite, like Blaze deserved all the nice things in the world. This moment between him and Gabe where the rest of the table seemed to fall behind a curtain of hush.
Only between the two of them could they interpret the glance between them. The way the edge of Gabe’s pinkie touched the curve of Blaze’s wrist, leaving behind a faint trace of warmth that burrowed inside of Blaze and seemed to want to stay.
“That’s good,” Blaze said, finally, resolving to enjoy what he had, and stop wanting impossible things. He shook himself mentally and sat up. “Is there coffee coming?”
The waitress eventually brought four more mugs and a carafe of coffee, and poured for everyone, and they enjoyed their desserts silently amidst the gaiety of the tavern. It was nice, but all Blaze wanted to do was go back to the valley and settle with Gabe on his cot, snug beneath summer bedclothes as the night grew cool.
When they were finished, there was a little argument between Jasper and Gabe as to who would pay, with Jasper insisting, and Gabe insisting right back that Leland Tate himself had authorized the night out for the team, and Jasper and Ellis were also his guests.
In the end, Ellis silently plucked Gabe’s credit card out of his hand and gave it to the waitress, arching a brow at Jasper, adding a shrug. There was nothing Jasper could do but mock-punch Gabe in the shoulder, but then he smoothed it with his hand, laughing, threateningNext time.That it was how it was between them, it was easy to see—good friends with a long history of give and take.
Blaze didn’t have any history like that, not with anyone, and he could taste the envy on his tongue as they left the tavern, spilling out into the parking lot, the warm glow of the lights inside the tavern stretching out over them. And then in Gabe’s truck, him in the front with Gabe.
Wayne was in the back seat, hanging over the edge of the front seat, talking about something that Blaze didn’t care to give even half his mind to. He just kept his hands to himself all the drive home, through the dark woods of the switchback until they arrived in the parking lot near the mess tent and Gabe parked the truck.
