“No.”
“Your jaw is clenched.”
Dustin turned the volume up.
Miraculously, Greg took the hint.
Ridgway sat in a valley between the San Juans and the Cimarrons, a small town that hadn't changed much in the twenty-six years Dustin had been alive. Main street had one traffic light, a general store, a coffee shop that closed at four, and a bar that everyone pretended they didn't go to as often as they did.
Cathy's house was on the east side, up a gravel road that wound between pastures. A small, tidy house with a covered porch and a yard she always kept mowed.
Dustin pulled into the driveway and killed the engine.
He sat there.
“Dustin?” Greg's voice was careful. “We're here.”
“I know we're here.”
“Do you want me to wait in the truck?”
Dustin considered letting Greg wait while he went in alone, broke the ice, prepared Cathy for what was coming.
But that would mean talking to her first. Just the two of them. Without a buffer or a reason to keep the conversationon something other than the two of them and the distance between them.
“No,” Dustin said. “You're coming in.”
He got out of the truck. The gravel crunched under his boots. The air smelled like sage and dry grass, a smell that took him back to happier days.
Almost, he smiled.
What the hell.
He climbed the porch steps. Greg followed, clipboard tucked under his arm, managing to look like a nervous census taker.
Dustin knocked.
Footsteps inside and then the door opened.
Cathy looked at him.
She was smaller than he remembered. Not physically—she'd always been average height—she seemed diminished. Tired around the eyes. Her hair was pulled back and there were more grey streaks than the last time he'd seen her in person, whenever that had been.
Her gaze moved from his face to the sling to the road rash on his cheek. “What did you do now?” she said by way of greeting.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said stoically.
She almost looked as if she wanted to argue, and then her eyes slid to Greg.
“This is Greg,” Dustin said. “He's…” What? My reaper? The supernatural entity assigned to collect my soul? The guy I'm sleeping with? “…a friend,” Dustin finished.
Cathy looked at Greg. Greg looked at Cathy. He straightened his posture and clutched his clipboard and opened his mouth, and Dustin could see the speech forming — the honest, earnest, completelydisastrous introduction that would include the wordsreaperandsoulandnatural orderwithin the first sentence.
“He's helping me with something,” Dustin added quickly. “Can we come in?”
Cathy's gaze lingered on Greg for another moment. Then it came back to Dustin. To the sling.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
