Dillon’s voice was choked with emotion, but he kept his eyes locked with Sadie’s. “Because I’m gay, and I’m in love with him.”
Instead of the stunned silence he expected to come from his announcement, Sadie nodded and said, “Thought so.”
Dillon felt like he’d been whapped with a brick. “You knew?”
Sadie shrugged. “Just because I never married doesn’t mean I don’t know what love looks like, nor does it mean I couldn’t see the way you and Jamie smiled at each other when you thought I wasn’t looking. And it didn’t take an act of genius to realize why the two of you spent so much time up in Jamie’s room. Didn’t take me long to put together the reasons why you broke off all ties with him, either. You were afraid your parents would find out, weren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He got up and paced the length of the room. “I got scared and ruined everything.”
Sadie leaned back into the soft cushions of the sofa and smoothed her fingers over the skirt of her dress. “And what about now, Dillon? Aren’t you still scared? You and I both know your parents have been nothing if not vocal in their opposition of homosexuals.”
Dillon turned back to face her, his voice stronger this time. “I am scared. I won’t lie about it. I know that my folks will toss me out, and I also know that I’ll be basically on my own. I’m scared of their reaction, scared of the future, and scared of having to face it all. But I intend to tell them--and everyone else--all the same.”
“If you’re so frightened, then why come out at all?”
Dillon came back to sit beside her on the couch. “Because, as scared as I am of what’s gonna happen to me once I come out, I’m that much more terrified of living without James for another minute, much less the rest of my life.”
Sadie reached out and ruffled his hair the way she had when he and Jamie were kids. “You know you’re going to have your work cut out for you, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, you have my support.”
The front door opened and Nate came back in before Dillon had a chance to tell her how much that meant to him. The look on Nate’s face was grim as he removed his coat.
“Brandon’s on his way here. I’ll let him explain everything.” He hung his coat on the hall tree and tucked his gloves into the pocket. “I’m not sure how much of what he has to say will help James, but we can always hope. I’m going to check him over one more time before Bran gets here.”
Sadie and Dillon both nodded. Dillon longed to go upstairs with Nate, but forced himself to wait, instead. He prayed that whatever the sheriff had to say would give Jamie some peace, but the gnawing in his gut told him otherwise.
* * *
Jamie fought his way through a fog of whispers and stirrings. He kept the truth about Ben at bay by pushing at it with a blank wall, a wall of carefully crafted ignorance. He could hear someone talking to him, but in the fuzzy blankness, it didn’t matter. Here, in this place, Ben was still alive because Jamie said it was so.
Gradually, though, the fuzzy comfort began to ebb. The reality of someone in his room, prodding at him, urging him back, proved to be too much. He didn’t want to go. He fought and struggled, but in the end, he was no match for the hypnotic pull of consciousness. He opened his eyes to see Nate Nash standing over him.
“How are you feeling, kid?”
Good question. He wished to God he knew how he was supposed to feel. Be nice if someone would just tell him how to feel and be done with it. Instead of saying all that out loud, his only response was a feeble shrug. He hoped his non-response would prompt the doctor to leave.
Nate more than matched him with persistence, though, and he showed no signs of giving up or going away. He sat down on the side of the bed. “Do you hurt anywhere, James? Any nausea or dizziness?”
Jamie’s reply was little more than a soft grumble. “No. I just wanna go back to sleep.”
Nate’s eyes were filled with sympathy. “I know you do, but I need you to stay with me for a few minutes. Can you do that?”
He didn’t want to. He wanted to yell, to tell the doctor with the kind words and soothing tones to get out, to leave him alone. But being raised by Sadie Banks marked a person with good manners for life. He heard his own voice betray him by saying yes.
Nate said, “Good. Brandon will be here in a few minutes, and I think he’ll want to talk to you.”
Jamie’s voice sounded small, fragile. “About Ben?”
Nate reached forward and smoothed Jamie’s hair away from his brow. “Yes, James. About Ben.”
Jamie backed away from the touch, as far as he could without unwrapping the layer of covers he had banded around him. Nate backed off, but didn’t move from his post on the edge of the bed. “I know you’re hurting, James, but you have people who care about you, who understand what you’re going through. Let us help.”
Jamie’s initial shock was slowly being replaced by anger. How dare this guy come into his room and start claiming he knew how Jamie felt? Manners be damned. Jamie sat up.
“You don’t know how I feel.”
If Nate was surprised by the venom in Jamie’s voice, he hid the reaction well. “I know it seems that way to you right now, James, but I swear, I do know what you’re going through.”
That did it. “Oh yeah? Did you lose your best friend?” Jamie was all but snarling.
Nate’s reply was basic, matter-of-fact. “Yes.”
Nothing dampens the fires of anger better than being proved wrong smack in the middle of a boiling rage. Jamie looked down at the covers. “Oh. Sorry.”
Nate actually smiled. “It’s okay, James. I was angry when I lost my Amy, too. Perfectly natural reaction.”
Amy? That name sounded familiar. Then it hit him. “Wasn’t that the lady doctor who was killed in an explosion?”
Nate’s eyes took on a far-away gleam as he nodded. “That was her. Dr. Amy Vaughn. She and I came here together from Georgia to open a medical practice. I won’t re-hash all the details, but the explosion which cost Amy her life was actually meant for me. I was a complete basket case after she died. It took me nearly a month just to function like a normal human being again.”
“How long were you guys friends?”
“Almost twenty-years.”
Jamie felt shame overtake him. “Damn. I’m such a prick. You lost your best friend of twenty-years, and here I am making you relive it when I barely knew Ben a tenth of the time you and she were together.”
Nate reached for Jamie’s hand, and this time, Jamie didn’t pull away. “Two years or twenty, it doesn’t matter. It still hurts to lose someone you care about. Every thing you’re feeling right now is perfectly natural. Don’t be surprised if you have a wide range of emotions to deal with over the coming days and weeks.”
Jamie sighed. “When does it stop hurting so bad?”
Nate squeezed his hand. “I don’t think the sense of loss ever goes away completely, but it does get easier to handle. I wish I could give you a time table, but it’s different for everybody.”
A knock on the door stopped further conversation. Nate looked to Jamie. “I imagine that’s Brandon. Are you ready for this?”
He wasn’t, but that didn’t keep him from nodding in agreement. Nate called out, “Come in,” and Brandon Nash entered the room.
Nate crossed over to where he stood and greeted him with a bracing hug and a peck on the cheek. “How’d it go?”
Brandon draped his right arm around Nate’s waist. “We won’t know anything more for a few days, not until the coroner’s report comes in.” He glanced towards the bed. “Is he ready for this?”
A spark of anger returned. Jamie sat up straighter on the bed “You don’t have to talk around me like I’m not here.”
Brandon grinned. “Sorry about that. According to Nate, that’s a bad habit of mine.”
Jamie hunched one shoulder. “S’okay.”
“So, are you ready to hear this?”
Jamie leaned back against the pillows. “No, but I want to hear it, anyway.”
Brandon nodded and dragged one of the chairs closer. Straddling it backwards, as was his favorite position, he waited for Nate to resume his seat on the edge of the bed, then said, “I’m only gonna be able to tell you part of it, because this is an ongoing investigation, but I’ll do my best to tell you all I can.”
“Okay.”
“Just after breakfast this morning, I got a call about an accident out on Tully Road. The body of a young man was found, fully clothed, lying on the side of the road not far from a black, older model Firebird.”
“Ben.”
“Yes. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy before we declare an exact cause of death, but all preliminary reports indicate he was the victim of a hit-and-run.”
Jamie clutched the blankets tighter. “He was murdered? You’ve got to launch an investigation, call in the F.B.I., whatever it is you do. You’ve got to put out an A.P.B. on the killer’s car. You’ve--”
“Hold it.” Brandon put up both hands to stop Jamie’s tirade. “Do all you kids O.D. on T.V. crime dramas?” Under his breath, he said, “When I get my hands on that idiot Morgan, I’m gonna rip his ass a new one for making that damn announcement.” He turned back to Jamie. “In the first place, nothing found at the scene indicates that Ben Lewis was murdered.”
“But you said--”
“What I said,” Brandon spoke slowly, much like one would speak to an unruly five-year-old, “was that Ben was the victim of a hit-and-run. Yes, it’s a crime to hit someone and leave the scene of an accident. When I find the person who did it, you can bet your last buck that I’ll see his ass prosecuted. I’ve got my men searching for the car even as we speak. But that doesn’t mean that it was a case of intentional homicide.”
Jamie’s blank look more than conveyed his lack of understanding. Nate stepped in. “What he means, James, is that Ben’s death was probably unintentional, and the guy who hit him ran scared and left the scene. Tully Road hosts a string of beer joints a mile long, literally. More than likely, the guy was drunk, didn’t see Ben standing there, hit him, and then panicked.”
“Why would Ben be out of his car in the first place?”
Brandon leaned his arms on the back of his chair, resting his chin on his forearm. “I can answer that. Ben’s front tire on the driver’s side was flat. Since his car was pointing back in the direction of the Reed City limits, he’d have been facing traffic while trying to change it. We found a disassembled jack and a tire iron not far from the body. Most likely, he’d just gotten them out of the trunk and was headed back to the front of the car when he was hit.”
Jamie wasn’t sure what to say. He appreciated the sheriff’s honesty, and he was glad to know what happened, but that didn’t take away the loss. If anything, knowing that Ben’s death was probably the act of some drunken asshole made it worse. His death was meaningless, just one more statistic on some nameless tally somewhere.
Nate cleared his throat. “Do you have any questions for us, James?”
“Just one. Did he,” his voice cracked. “Did he suffer?”
Brandon shook his head. “I can’t say for sure, not until the report comes back, but I honestly don’t think so. Going by his injuries, I’d say death came quick, if not instantly.”
Jamie went back to picking fuzz balls from the blankets. “Thanks.” He took a deep breath. “If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to be alone right now.”
Nate stood up, and Brandon did the same. “We understand, James. I’m gonna leave a prescription for a mild sedative with your aunt, just in case you need it. And I’ll make sure she has all our numbers. You can call us anytime, for any reason. Also, if you’re okay with it, I’ll come back tomorrow to check on you, just to make sure you’re all right.”
Jamie nodded and lay back down, burrowing beneath the covers again, his eyes already closing. Brandon gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder before leaving, but Jamie barely felt it. He sank back into the merciful darkness and was asleep before they even left the room.
* * *
How long he actually slept, Jamie had no idea, but the first face he saw when he woke up was Dillon’s. He was sitting in the bedside chair, doing his homework. The minute Jamie stirred, though, Dillon was at his side, his books and papers scattering across the floor in his haste.
His green eyes sparkled in the dim light from Jamie’s bedside lamp as he leaned over to better see him. “Hey, you’re awake.”
“Yeah. What time is it?”
Dillon checked his watch. “Eight-thirty.”
Jamie sat up, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He turned to Dillon. “I thought you had to work tonight?”
Dillon eased down on the bed beside him, tucking one leg under his body. He was careful not to touch him, but they were close enough that Jamie could feel the heat coming from Dillon’s body. “I told my boss I wouldn’t be in this evening.”
“Why?”
Dillon shrugged, but Jamie noticed he was starting to look a little bit wary. “I thought you might need me, and I wanted to be here in case you did.”
For the first time since waking, Jamie gave Dillon a good looking-over. His hair was mussed, and his eyes were bleary, He looked tired, and the worry he was feeling was plain to see. For some reason, the sight of Dillon angered Jamie. So he’d been worried? So what? Jamie had just lost his best friend, the one person who was there for him when his life fell apart. No, when Dillon ripped it apart. For the first time since learning of Ben’s death, Jamie felt warm--hot, even--as two years of pain and an afternoon’s worth of grief mingled and came spewing to the surface.
“You thought I might need you?” Jamie was all but snarling, his sudden outburst startling Dillon so much that he jumped off the bed as if he’d been shocked. “That’s funny. You thought I might need you. What, like I needed you two years ago? Like I needed you to touch me instead of using me like some blow-up doll to get your rocks off?” He came out from beneath the covers and stood, oblivious to the fact that he was wearing only his thin, cotton boxers. “You know what, Dillon? I didn’t need you. Know why? Because I had Ben. When you fucked me over and tossed me away, he stepped up. He was there for me. You think now that he’s gone you can just slide in and take his place?”
Dillon took a step back. “No, that’s not what I think. I told you, I want us to be friends again.”
Jamie kept advancing. “Uh-huh. Like we were friends two years ago? What’s the saying? Friends with benefits? Someone to watch movies with, go to ballgames together. Oh, and lets not forget, someone to bend over and take it up the ass whenever you’re feeling froggy.”
Dillon swallowed, his eyes misting. “I know what I did to you, James. I’ve lived with the guilt and shame of it until it feels like I’ve never been without it. There’s nothing you can say to me or about me that I haven’t said to myself.”
Jamie was so close that he was practically in Dillon’s face. “Oh, yeah? Well, how about this? Get out. Get out of my house and out of my life.”
Dillon’s spoke softly, but his voice was strong. “You don‘t mean that.”
By now, Jamie was full-on yelling. “The hell I don’t. You threw me away two years ago, and now it’s my turn. My turn to hurt you, to make you feel like you’re bleeding internally, deep down where nobody can fix it. Like Ben probably bled.” The tears came, damn them, but he blinked them away. He had to finish this, had to wound Dillon the way he’d been wounded. “You wanted Ben dead so he’d be out of the way. For all I know you hit him yourself, then left him to die on the side of the road like some dog.” No amount of blinking was gonna stop the tears this time, but Jamie ignored the flow of water down his cheeks. “I hate you, more than I’ve ever hated anybody. You took him. You took Ben. Oh, God, he’s gone.” It was too much. Jamie’s knees gave way beneath him.
Two strong arms caught him before he hit the floor. Dillon scooped him up, cradling him to his chest as Jamie sobbed through the pain, the misery. He felt himself being carried back to the bed. He thought he should probably protest, but he didn’t have it in him.
Dillon laid him in the middle of the bed. As Jamie watched through the sheen of tears in a strange mix of fear and fascination, Dillon pulled his shirt over his head. Jamie heard his shoes fall against the hard wood flooring as he toed them off, along with his socks. He made quick work of shedding his jeans, but the disrobing ended there, leaving him clad only in a pair of tight gray boxer-briefs. His body was even more defined, even more beautiful, than Jamie remembered. The anger began to fade as Dillon slid under the covers and gathered Jamie against his chest and into his arms.
Jamie shuddered from the contact, causing Dillon to pull the covers tighter around them, the hard muscles of his chest bunching beneath Jamie’s cheek as he moved. “You warm enough?”
“Yeah.” Only after he said it did Jamie realize that his sobs had stopped.
Using one corner of the blanket, Dillon wiped Jamie’s eyes and cheeks. Jamie felt like he should say something, but he wasn’t sure what. “Dillon--”
“Don’t try to talk right now. Just rest.”
He shouldn’t have been tired, but he was. Still, as crazy as it seemed after ordering Dillon out of his house not ten minutes earlier, there was one fear he had to cast aside before he could go to sleep again. “You won’t . . .leave, will you?”
He could feel the soft rumbling against his ear as Dillon chuckled. “I think it’s a safe bet that you aren’t gonna get rid of me anytime soon.”
Jamie closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against Dillon’s bare, heated skin. “Dillon?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t hate you.”
Dillon ran his fingers through Jamie’s hair, brushing against his scalp and making Jamie tingle down to his toes. “I’m glad you don’t, James. Now rest. I promise I’m not going anywhere.”
Jamie nodded and then allowed the sound of Dillon’s heartbeat to lull him to sleep.
* * *
Dillon woke with a start to find Jamie’s left leg draped over both of his. He took a minute to savor the feeling of Jamie’s body wrapped around him before he looked down at his watch. Damn. Eleven o’clock. He was gonna catch hell for this one.
Taking care not to wake Jamie, he disentangled himself and then sat up, rolling Jamie onto his other side. He couldn’t help but smile over the way Jamie grumbled in his sleep and then scooted back over to find the warmest spot. He allowed himself only a minute to enjoy the sight of watching the man he loved sleep before reaching down and picking up his jeans, retrieving his cell phone from the right front pocket. Dillon punched in the number, watching the whole time to make certain he wasn’t disturbing James. Other than the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing, Jamie didn’t make a sound.
His mother picked up almost on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hey, Mom. It’s me.”
“Dillon, where are you? Do you have any idea what time it is? You were supposed to be home two hours ago.”
“Yes, ma’am. I do know that, but something came up.”
“It had better be a matter of life and death, young man, to justify staying out to all hours like this.”
Well put. “Actually, it was. Ben Lewis’s body was found today. I’m sure you heard about it at school.”
“Yes, I did. Most unfortunate, but not surprising considering the lifestyle he chose. Those people usually come to a bad end.”
That again. Dillon was a stone’s throw away from telling her that he was one of those people, but he stopped short. Tonight was about Jamie, not him. There’d be time enough for true confessions later. Gritting his teeth, he said, “Regardless of whether or not he was gay, the guy’s dead, Mom.”
“As I said, Dillon, that’s unfortunate, but I don’t see what that has to do with you? I mean, you and Ben Lewis were hardly friends. The two of you did your level best to tear each other apart at the dance. I talked to Principal Morgan today. He said the only reason he didn’t expel the both of you is because Sheriff Nash hauled you downtown. He figured that was punishment enough. You’re lucky.”
Dillon loved his mother--he really did--but sometimes she could be so dense it set his teeth on edge. “I’m sure Ben will really appreciate not being expelled now that he’s dead. Must be a huge load off his mind.”
Angela Carver’s voice took on that acid tone that Dillon so hated. “Your sarcasm is not appreciated, son. And you have yet to tell me what Ben Lewis’s death has to do with the reason you didn’t come home.”
His next words would be the beginning of the end, but Dillon wasn’t backing down. “James Walker was Ben’s best friend. He was devastated by what happened. I found him out on the road after Principal Moron’s announcement, wandering around in shock. I brought him home, and that’s where I am now.”
“I thought your father and I made it clear that we don’t approve of your friendship with that boy.”
“That boy was the best friend I ever had. If I’m lucky, he will be again.” That and a thousand things more.
“Dillon, I’m not sure what’s gotten into you tonight, but we’ll discuss this when you get home. I expect you here within the next fifteen minutes.”
“No.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Dillon was shaking, but he kept his voice steady. “I’m not coming home tonight, Mom. I promised James I wouldn’t leave him, and I’m not going to.”
The ice in his mother’s voice made Dillon feel ill. “I don’t recall giving you a choice.”
He was already in it up to his eyeballs. Might as well finish himself off. “You may not have given me a choice, Mom, but I made one just the same.”
“So I see. Your father and I are going to discuss this, Dillon. I expect you to be at home tomorrow when I get in. Principal Morgan has called a teachers meeting directly after school thanks to this nasty business with Lewis, but it shouldn’t take more than an hour. I’ll ask your father to come home early, and the three of us are going to have a long talk about your attitude and your association with James Walker. That’s not a request.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
His mother hung up without saying goodbye, but Dillon didn’t care. It wasn’t like she was gonna be talking to him for much longer, anyway.
A soft voice broke him out of his revere. “I guess I got you in a world of shit with your folks, huh?”
Dillon looked down into Jamie’s face. He was glad neither of them had thought to turn the lamp off before they fell asleep. In the muted light, Jamie looked so achingly perfect that Dillon had to fight with himself not to lean down and kiss him. Instead he said, “You big faker. How long have you been awake?”
“Long enough to know that your mother is mad as hell.”
“So, what else is new?”
Jamie sat up, the sheet falling away from his waist, exposing his flat stomach and making Dillon itch to trace the slight indentation of Jamie’s belly with his tongue. It took him a minute to realize Jamie was speaking to him. “Still, I hate being the one to cause problems for you and your family.”
“It’s not your fault they’re bigots, James. I think it’s sorta like poetic justice that two of the biggest homophobes in Reed got stuck with a gay son. Talk about a karmic bite to the ass.”
Jamie laughed, the first time Dillon had heard that sound since lunch. “I guess so. I never really though about it like that.”
“Let’s not even worry about it right now.” Dillon slouched down a bit so he could see Jamie’s face. “How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s really hit me yet, you know?”
“I guess that’s normal. Probably take a few days to sink in.”
“Yeah.” He lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry for all that stuff I said to you. I didn’t mean it. I know you didn’t have anything to do with Ben’s death.”
Dillon gave a slight tug to the hair and the nape of Jamie’s neck, forcing his head up. “You have nothing to be sorry for. It was no secret that Lewis and I weren’t overly fond of each other.” His voice turned husky. “I am glad you don’t hate me, though.”
Jamie blushed, then went for the subject change. “I did rest better that last time. Thanks for . . .um, you know.”
“Stripping down and getting into bed with you?” Jamie nodded and tried to hide his eyes again, but Dillon wouldn’t let him. He turned enough so that they were facing and put one hand on Jamie’s neck, just below his chin. “It was my pleasure, believe me, but it wasn’t exactly an original idea.”
Jamie scrunched his eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”
“Did Dr. Nash--I mean Nate--tell you about losing his friend Amy?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, just before he left, Nate told me that he had a breakdown after Amy died. When he finally let himself cry it out, Brandon did the same thing with him that I did with you.”
“Well, I’m glad he told you about it, because it worked.”
Dillon moved his fingers back and forth over Jamie’s throat. “Thank God it did. It hurt me so bad to see you suffering like that.” He moved closer, so that his leg was practically on top of Jamie’s. He lowered his head. “I wanted so much to make the hurting stop.”