The second time, he was supposed to pick Gunner up from football practice and drive him home, but he’d gotten off work late, and Gunner had been alone in the boys’ locker room by the time he arrived.
Yeah, it was cliché. Blow jobs in the locker room. But damn, it had been hot. The danger of discovery had added an edge to that encounter that had both of them so turned on, it had only taken a few minutes to bring Gunner to a shouting orgasm he’d muffled with the sleeve of his varsity jacket stuffed in his mouth.
After that they’d snuck away whenever they could. They never spoke of it, never even acknowledged it. But surely teen Gunner had known teen Chas was hopelessly in love with him.
Chas sighed. He’d have done so many things differently if he had it to do over again. He’d have confronted Gunner about what was going on between them, forced him to acknowledge the mutual attraction. He wouldn’t have let Gunner float along pretending it was just sex—sex he could have had just as easily with any of the girls in school.
He’d watched Gunner like a hawk back then, and the guy never—never—got a hard-on when one of the cheerleaders made a point of rubbing up against him or some girl threw herself at him at a party. But all Chas had to do was arch an eyebrow or let one corner of his mouth turn up from across the classroom, and Gunner was shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
He wasn’t sure why the universe had given them this second chance, but he was not planning to waste it. To that end, he said, “You may get away with pretending you’re not gay to everyone else, but this is me you’re talking to. I know you, Gunner. Better than anyone else on this planet.”
“You don’t know everything about me,” Gunner retorted.
“Oh yeah? Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“I’ve killed people. Lots of them. In lots of ways. I blew some up—watched chunks of their bodies go flying. I’ve slit throats and heard a man’s death rattle as the guy died in my arms.”
“Well, of course you have. You’re a SEAL, for crying out loud, not a Girl Scout.”
Gunner frowned.
Apparently, that grand declaration of being a killer was supposed to scare him off or something. “Why do you think I called you when I got into trouble?” Chas asked reasonably. “I needed someone who could handle serious danger and get me and Poppy out of there safely.”
“So you only wanted me for my violent skills,” Gunner responded. He stated it as a fact, not a question.
“In part.”
That made Gunner look over at him. “What’s the other part?”
“I wanted to see you again. We left a whole lot unresolved between us the last time we saw each other.”
That did it. Gunner clammed up tighter than an oyster hiding a pearl, refusing to even look at Chas across the front seat.
Dammit, had he pushed too hard again? Was Gunner still having a hard time with his sexual identity? He was tempted to force the man to admit he was in love, but maybe this wasn’t the moment. Chas stayed silent, unwilling to chance pushing Gunner into his cave of denial for another ten years.
It took a long time, but Gunner’s fists eventually relaxed around the steering wheel.
“Where are we going?” Chas asked casually.
“We’re heading toward Pennsylvania. It’s as good a place as any to park while we figure out what the hell’s going on with Poppy.”
“Don’t swear,” he murmured automatically.
Gunner glanced in the rearview mirror, presumably to check on Poppy, and murmured, “Fuck off.”
Chas grinned at him, and praise the Lord, Gunner grinned back.
Chapter Eight
GUNNER LOOKED around the small cabin with approval. The log walls would hold up well in a firefight. Its placement, high on the side of a mountain, gave him great sight lines to the road approaching it. The lock on the front door was sturdy. It was probably meant for keeping out bears, but it would work on humans too. And best of all, it had two bedrooms, which meant Poppy would have her own room and he and Chas would have their own space.
To do what, he wasn’t sure, but he thought he might just want to find out. Last night’s encounter before the hostiles had shown up had been… enlightening.
He still had it as bad for Chas as he ever had, apparently.
“What’s wrong?” Chas asked from the little kitchenette in the corner.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You were frowning as if you were bothered by something about this place.”
“Oh. No. It’s fine.”
“You wanna go take a nap? You drove most of the night. I’ll watch Poppy for a while.”
“I’m okay.”
“Weren’t you the one who told me to sleep whenever I could because I wouldn’t know when I’d get to sleep again?”
Gunner rolled his eyes. The guy had a point. “Fine. I’ll go take a nap.”
He stretched out on the big bed and sighed at the comfort. He’d slept on the cold, hard ground more often than in a bed over the past decade, and he’d learned to appreciate having a soft mattress beneath him, with no stones poking him.
He woke with a lurch sometime later to the sound of a car engine coming to a stop outside. He rolled out of bed and pulled the pistol out from under his pillow, all in one fast move. He raced on silent feet to the living room. There was no sign of Chas. He had to be in the other bedroom with Poppy. Good. Safely out of the line of fire.
The knob on the front door moved, and he crouched in the bedroom doorway, using the log wall for cover as he took aim. He exhaled slowly as the door cracked open and his finger began a smooth pull through on the trigger. He would have a millisecond to see the tango’s face and memorize it before he obliterated it with a couple of rounds of hot lead.
The intruder slipped inside as the firing pin began to engage.
Shit.
He yanked the pistol up at the last possible second, shocked that it didn’t actually fire. He released the trigger carefully and made sure the weapon was safe before he lowered it. He couldn’t say the same for his heart. It pounded like a jackhammer in his chest as he straightened in disgust and moved into the living room.
“I almost shot you,” he bit out.
Chas set down several bags of groceries on the counter and turned, staring at the weapon gripped in his fist. “I thought you might want something to eat when you woke up. The only restaurant around here is the one up at the main lodge, and I figured you wouldn’t want to be seen there, particularly not with me and Poppy.”
Gunner sighed and shrugged into his shoulder holster. When he’d buckled the leather harness in place, he stuck the gun in it.
Chas started unpacking groceries and asked, “Don’t you worry about shooting your own ass with your gun tucked in your pants like that?”
“It has a safety. I wouldn’t stick a gun in my pants if it didn’t. Some of the Sig Sauer models don’t come with safeties, for example. You always use a holster with one of them. Otherwise you do risk shooting off some important body part.”
“How would I know if the safety was on or off if I looked at your gun?”
Gunner moved over to the kitchen counter and drew the weapon. “Some weapons have a grip safety or a decocker, but mine has a simple thumb safety. See this little lever here? If it’s pointed down, like this, the weapon is safe. If I flip it up, like this, pointing down the barrel, it’s off. You can remember it by thinking of it pointing in the direction a bullet would travel if the trigger were pulled. It would stay down in the clip if the safety is pointing down, but would travel down the barrel and fire if the safety is pointing forward.”