Spencer tightened his arm around Theo’s shoulders, because how did you hear that sort of heartbreak and not give comfort.
“I’m sorry, Theo. It’s really not fair. I gotta say, I prefer the flood to the fires, though. I’m not sure if that’s any comfort, but the fires scared the hell out of me. I’d rather go out in the water.”
Theo pulled away to measure his expression. “Was your crew involved in the fires too?”
Spencer shuddered. “My boss—Glen Echo—has a little brother, Preston, who happens to be married to Glen’s best friend and business partner, Damien. It’s all very incestuous and cozy, and they’re all assholes, so we fit like that.”
“That’s the guy you got Colonel from,” Theo remembered.
“Yeah. Preston has a big stretch of land out in Napa, and it’s devoted almost entirely to dogs. He’s got a couple of horses, which is sweet because those animals are for Damien and Preston loathes them with the entirety of his being, but mostly it’s dogs. Big ones, small ones, dogs who play with rocks….” He trailed off in hopes that Theo would start singing, and Theo didn’t disappoint him.
“Good dogs, all are good dogs, and good dogs do not bite,” he hummed.
Spencer chuckled. “Thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome,” Theo murmured. “But keep on talking.”
“He’s got a big house and a mother-in-law cottage and a bunch of kennels out there. It all got wiped out.”
Theo made a hurt sound. “The animals?”
“We saved every last one of ’em,” Spencer told him, because this was sort of the point of the story. “It was something. His housemates, Oscar and Belinda, who live in the rebuilt big house now because Belinda just had a baby—they left first with the horses and one pickup full of dog crates. Preston was losing his shit because his truck was full and there were still so many damned dogs. So Glen tells Elsie and me to go help some campers who are stranded by a lake, and he and Damien go to help with the dogs. We get our people safe, and right when Glen is going to have to tell Preston that no, there’s five giant dogs he can’t save, Elsie and I land. Man, the flames were so close we had to wear masks or we would have choked on the ash. We get the dogs stashed, and Colonel’s in the front of Preston’s truck with Preacher, Preston’s personal dog. Preston says it’s on account that I ruined Colonel by smelling like cocaine, but I really think it’s because he had a soft spot for the doofus, but anyway, Colonel heard me talking, I guess, and I’m about to run around the chopper and hop in my seat and take off when that dog opens the motherfucking door to the truck and runs and jumps into my arms. Preston just shakes his head and stalks off to the truck, and me, Elsie, and the extra dogs plus Colonel get the fuck out of there.”
“Wow,” Theo said. “That dog loves you.”
Spencer sort of chuckled, but it was more fondness than anything else. “See? You see why there’s no life after Colonel, right? Anyway, we take off, and Preston gets the truck on the road and….” He shuddered. “It must have been close. Preston doesn’t talk much, and he doesn’t tell tales, but that whole section of road had been burned when all was said and done, and Preston was either a whisker ahead of it or driving through some of it. We had to treat all his dogs for heat exhaustion when he got to the hangar where we rendezvoused. It was close.”
“But you did it,” Theo said, a little bit of awe in his voice. “What happened to the dogs?”
“We kept them at the hangar until we got the place rebuilt. Glen’s boyfriend, Cash—he’s in this like, boy band. I guess they’re popular or something. He raised money for Preston’s dog shelter and training facility. It took some months of hard work, but he rebuilt the house and the mother-in-law cottage.” Spencer grunted and felt compelled to add, “And for some reason, when it was all done, he added a double-wide for me on the corner of the property. I had been rooming with Glen, which worked okay because Cash is on tour six months out of the year. But this way I can heli-commute to the hangar with Damien and….” He shrugged, because this was the best part of the bargain. “I get to keep Colonel. Couldn’t keep him at Glen’s place. So it was a real nice thing Preston, Glen, and Damien did for me.”
“You showed up in the middle of a firestorm and saved his dogs,” Theo said, and his voice sounded wobbly.
“Elsie was there too!” Spencer protested. “All she got from that bullshit was a longer drive to visit!”
“She got to help your family,” Theo said softly, and Spencer sighed.
“Yeah. Sure. When you put it that way. As soon as she and Josh find a good place to live, they’ll be up to their eyeballs in cats, dogs, and kids, and the dogs, at least, will be courtesy of Preston frickin’ Echo.”
Theo laughed softly. “Your boss’s brother. You like him?”
“He’s a good guy. Absolutely no bullshit. Not always sweet about things, and he doesn’t make innuendo or snark. Elsie says he was put into this world to keep Glen, Damie, and me honest, because otherwise we’d fill the world with BS. She’s not far wrong.”
Theo frowned. “Sometimes saying things easy-like is a kindness.”
Spencer let out a sigh. This was tricky. “Well, some people aren’t wet-wired that way. Their brains only speak the truth.”
“He’s on the autism spectrum? Why didn’t you just say that?”
Well, of course Theo would be fine with it, but it still rankled Spencer that it would even come up. “Because people don’t come with T-shirts that say Autistic or Bipolar. My ADHD banner has been lost in the mail for twenty-five damned years. We come as we are, and we are better people if we accept the people around us for who they are, glitches and all, and not get all offended by small shit that other people might not even know they’re doing. God, does it matter? If I say ‘Preston is autistic,’ does that make him more or less of a person? Or does it just make him Preston, and you have to deal with that man as he comes?” Spencer’s own thought jerked him out of his tirade. “As Damien has discovered time and time again when he’s tried to bullshit Preston when he should have been honest.”
Theo hummed against his shoulder. “That’s a good point,” he said softly. “But we shouldn’t be ashamed of those things either.”
“Are you shitting me? That man owns upwards of two hundred dogs. Knowing him is one of the coolest things about me.”
Theo outright laughed. “You fall out of helicopters on an off day, Spencer. You’re not in danger of being boring.” He finished his MRE in one bite and yawned. “I’m going to throw this away and try to rig the garden hose so it’s not in danger of slipping. You stay put. It’s warm in here, and the foil blankets are keeping the rain off.”
Spencer grunted. “And there’s no danger of sunburn.”
Theo wriggled away, leaving him empty and cold and strangely bereft. “No, but you may have to check for mushrooms behind the ears.”
Spencer laughed softly and leaned his head back under the silver-tinted light of the foil blanket, huddling deeper into the wool wrapped around his torso. Yeah, he was wet, but he had to admit that Theo had done his best to make him toasty. For a moment he was content to listen to the fall of the rain and the roar of the water and track Theo’s movements as he did those things he said he was going to do. There was a pause then, and Theo cleared his throat.