“Spence?” he asked. “Do you have any medication allergies?”
Spencer grunted. “Penicillin.”
Theo’s gaze flattened. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Nope—have to take Keflex instead. Bet you don’t have that in your ice chest, right?”
“No, but I do have amoxicillin, which I think just proves that your entire existence is centered around my personal frustration.”
Spencer’s shoulders shook, but he looked too tired to laugh. Theo grabbed the Gatorade and sealed the ice chest, then snagged two foil packets of food from the built-in utility box, complete with little quenelles attached to the bottom of the packet.
Spencer took the ibuprofen and the Gatorade without comment and washed one down with the other, but he looked at the MRE and shook his head. “That’s kind,” he said softly. “It is. But I don’t think I can keep that down.”
Theo let a long slow breath out through his nose and nodded. “Okay, then. Lift up the blankets, though, and let me in. You’re hogging the warmth.”
Spencer did, and with the foil blanket above them like an umbrella, and the one covering their legs as well, Theo got a sense of peace and even warmth tucking next to Spencer.
For his part, Spencer looped his arm around Theo’s shoulders and drew Theo’s head to his chest, and for a moment they sat and listened to the roar of the water and the thunder of the rain.
Tempting Fate
FOR a moment, Spencer closed his eyes and tried to overcome all the funky bullshit going on with his body. He was good with this from the military—compartmentalize his pain, deal with what was at hand.
What was at hand was Theo’s warm body, the sort of implicit trust of his head on Spencer’s chest, and the evergreen smell of the trees around them, along with the clean smell of the water, albeit there was too damned much of it for comfort.
But Theo’s warm body was, of course, the most important thing.
“What time is it?” Spencer asked woozily. “Are we getting close to nightfall?”
“Why?” Theo asked, sitting up, alarmed. “Do your people stop looking for us at night?”
“God no,” Spencer said, laughing a little. “But if we’re getting that close, we should do something to secure the boat. I don’t know about you, but I’m beat. We can’t stay up all night retying the garden hose, you think?”
Theo scowled, his brow wrinkling. “Maybe if we use one of the barge poles to secure it. I can jimmy-rig that in a sec.”
“Good idea,” Spencer approved. “You should eat too. I may be a fragile fucking flower right now, but you need to keep calories up to keep your body warm.”
Theo nodded. “And when I’m done, I’ll come back here and we can keep each other warm.”
Spencer sighed. “Theo, you need to not get attached to me.”
“Why Elsie?” Theo said, obviously done with Spencer’s excuses—and Spencer couldn’t blame him. They were sounding increasingly pathetic to his own ears. Once upon a time, yes, Spencer had hoped for someone he could be close to, he could trust and even love. But too much time had passed, too many disappointments. Spencer felt dirty, not with sex, but with sadness, with cynicism. He wouldn’t wish his baggage on Theo for all the snuggling in the world.
“Why Elsie what?” Spencer asked, but he knew. Know your enemy, know their friends. It was a good tactic and, he had to admit, talking about Elsie was comforting.
“You and Elsie seem to have mated for life in the work-partner department. Tell me about her.”
Theo handed him the two foil packets of food for a moment while he sat up and rearranged himself.
His warmth—even through their layers of protective gear—was comforting. Spencer was used to feeling alone, even when he was with a bed partner, but something about Theo getting cozy pinged something inside him that didn’t usually get pinged.
Spencer handed him back his food and turned his head, because even the smell coming off the MRE bothered his stomach. “She was the smartest,” he said, thinking. “I was a Second Lieutenant, and they made me a squad leader. We were supposed to pick our squad seconds after some basic drills, and she’d pretty much outclassed everybody else. So I’m looking at the group, and most of them are white and only a handful of them are women, and she gives me this look like I’m nothing to her. I liked that look, you know? My opinion didn’t matter. She knew she kicked ass. So I picked her, and instead of taking a step forward, she said, ‘I don’t need your pity, sir.’” He snorted, remembering his surprise. “I said, ‘It’s not pity, Airman. I want someone who’s gonna help me dine on the heart of my enemies, is all.’ She cracked a smile and said, ‘Can do, sir!’ We’ve been inseparable ever since.”
Theo chuckled and took a bite of chow. “What made you two decide to leave?”
Spencer grunted. He didn’t really like that story. “We got tired of this man’s military being for that other asshole over there,” he said vaguely.
Theo grunted and looked at him. “There’s more to the story than that,” he said perceptively, and Spencer leaned his aching head back and closed his eyes.
“There is,” he conceded. “But it’s your turn to talk. Why’d you come out here after college?”
Theo seemed to consider the question as he took another bite. “I wanted to make a difference. I thought about teaching, but the thought of little kids all day long was exhausting, and I wasn’t interested in any one subject enough to get a degree in it. I wanted to learn them all. I thought about being an EMT, but at the time my mom was here by herself—she hadn’t been diagnosed until I was almost done with school, and the hours aren’t great, and there are only so many needed in a tiny area, so odds were I’d be working farther out. I got my EMT anyway, because I figured it would be useful, and got my degree in management because I remembered Imelda and the community center. The opportunities for stupidity in a place this far out—opioid addiction, fun and games with guns, domestic abuse—are well established. I figured a community center, someplace that educated adults and kids alike, gave the teenagers constructive things to do, let the adults know they had options. That was like being an all-around community resource, you know?”
“That was some good thinking,” Spencer told him, impressed. “Did it work out like you thought?”
“Oh yeah!” Theo said, and Spencer heard the bittersweet ache in his voice. “Last year we got five of the ten graduating seniors into college in Portland. I took a group of junior high students to a soccer tournament out there too. We got our asses kicked, but we visited the college on our way out, and the kids got to see that school—and bigger places—weren’t just for people on cable. We had interventions for domestic abuse and sheltered a couple of mothers before finding them someplace safe to go. I loved what I was doing.”
Spencer heard it. The realization then.
“Maybe some of the town—” he began, but Theo shook his head violently.
“Don’t bullshit me,” he said, voice so thick Spencer didn’t even give him crap for the word “bullshit.” “My entire town got blasted out over the canyon. We both know it. I just don’t see any other outcome from all this water rushing for one exit. I mean, last year we were building firebreaks around the town because the whole world was on fire and there was literally no way out. Mother Nature had it in for us, that’s all.”