The porch light turned on, and the front door flew open. A young man wearing only a T-shirt and sweats and with the reddest hair Linc had ever seen came flying out of the house and ran down the yard like he was being chased.
“Oh my God.” Linc scrubbed his face, but he was already pushing open the door and stepping down from the truck.
“It’s fine! It’s fine!” Avery’s voice carried over the steady drum of raindrops on the road. He was barefoot, and the water had plastered his hair to his scalp, turning it a rusty brown.
“What are you doing?” Linc said.
“It’s nothing, I just—” he put his hands to his face, “—oh God, this was a bad idea. I—”
“Red.” He couldn’t help the nickname. Never mind Avery told him to stop using it. Just the sight of his flushed cheeks and the way his eyes widened at the word was enough for Linc to know he’d do whatever it took for Avery to forgive him.
“I—I—didn’t know how—”
“Scott,” Vasquez called from just inside the truck. “Are you going to check it out or not?”
Linc glanced back at Avery. “Is there a fire?”
Avery shook his head so hard, water droplets sprayed into Linc’s face. “No. There was, but—I got your messages and—”
“You better go inside and make sure.” Vasquez slammed the truck door shut, and the engine roared to life.
“Hey!”
She pushed the window down and poked her head into the rain. “What?”
“You’re leaving?”
“False alarm. Brian and I will buy the donuts.” She grinned and blew him a kiss. “Now get inside. Wanda will kill me if you both die of pneumonia.”
The truck made a six-point turn in the dead-end street. Brian might have driven through the puddle right by Linc on purpose, or it might only have been that the whole street was rapidly becoming a puddle. Linc flipped him off for good measure, and Brian responded with a sharp buzz of the siren before he turned around the corner and disappeared.
Water streamed over Avery’s cheeks. The last bruise under his eye was mostly gone, and his shirt was plastered to his chest.
“You look amazing,” Linc said.
“I hope you think so when you find out what I’ve done.” He blew water off the tip of his nose and shivered.
Linc put a hand on his shoulder, and the weather didn’t matter at all because Avery didn’t push him away. Still, he was like ice under Linc’s touch. “You’re freezing. Let’s go inside.”
Another spark of hope flared to life when Avery didn’t say no.
But once they were in the apartment, the distance between them remained uncomfortable. Linc was still in his bunker pants and boots, although he’d left the coat in the truck, and Avery dripped quietly on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Avery said in a rush.
“For what?”
“I lit a match and held it under the smoke detector until the alarm went off.”
Linc frowned. “You lit a match.”
“Uh-huh.” Avery nodded and water flew out of his hair like when a dog shook itself off at the beach. “Well. A few matches. More like twenty. It took a while.”
The lecture on how dangerous that could have been would need to wait. Linc was impressed. “Most people don’t have matches anymore.”
“I had to go buy some. They were surprisingly hard to find.”
Linc struggled to hold back a laugh while fighting to understand the logic. “But why?”
