Spencer caught his breath. “That’s, uhm….” All he’d been able to think about, his whole adult life, were the people he’d wronged in his thoughts as a kid, before he’d known how truly mistaken he’d been.
“Yeah. Mind-blowing. I can see that.” Glen chuckled a little. “You’re a good man, Spencer. You’ve worked for us, what? Getting close to three years now?”
“Yeah,” Spencer said, swallowing hard.
“I wish I’d been your first job out of the Air Force. I wish Damien and I had known you when we’d been in the Navy.”
“And Elsie,” he said, because even in fantasyland, they came as a team.
“And Elsie,” Glen agreed. “But also you. You’re a prickly, snarly, irritating man, Spencer Helmsley—but you’re also one of the best I’ve known. That young man currently planning to be your roomie with benefits isn’t stupid. He’s not starry-eyed. He has cursed your name for the last week because dammit, you are a handful. But with a little push, he could be very much in love, and I think the same could be said for you. Give it a thought, would you, Spence? Your body is going to heal, and it’s going to be slow and there’s not much we can do about that. But your heart—you’ve been working on that for, what? Twenty years now? And judging by the quality of the company you keep, I think you’ve done just fine. Think about giving it a test run, would you? Wouldn’t it be great if your heart could soar like your birds?”
Spencer’s breath caught, and he bit his lower lip, his entire body feeling empty, weightless with the possibility of easing some of the burden on his heart.
And then he started coughing because dammit to hell.
“Fuck—” Cough, cough, cough. “—me.”
“I’m engaged,” Glen said diplomatically. “But I will pass the sentiment along.”
Spencer fell back against the pillows, exhausted as Glen said, but also, he knew, smiling.
The Details of Home
THEO was used to Preston’s routine by now, and he and Oscar had a rhythm for helping to feed the dogs and assist with the dog bathing and disposing the waste. (Preston had installed a septic tank for this very purpose, and added enzymes to it at least once a week to facilitate the breakdown. Theo was very impressed.)
Apparently Spencer put in a few hours every day, when he wasn’t out of town, working with Preston to clean the kennels and do the training. It was a tremendous job—Oscar, Preston, and Belinda worked full-time to keep the dogs healthy, fed, and happy. Preston had started recruiting help from the local junior college and high school. He couldn’t pay anything, but kids could get their volunteer work certificates for all sorts of service organizations through his ranch, and a lot of them stayed on. But that didn’t mean they didn’t need adults who knew what they were doing to supervise.
Spencer hadn’t been released in the hoped-for two weeks. Instead he’d been transferred to a nearby hospital in Napa while his body fought off the infection that had taken such a quick hold. Preston had three vehicles—two big trucks and a minivan—and when he or Oscar or Belinda weren’t using those for work or household needs, Theo was given carte blanche to take one into town and visit.
But town was forty miles away, and Theo—who had grown up in a small town, where a trip to a big one was something of an event—understood that it wasn’t practical for him to live at the hospital, and that, given how much pain Spencer was in, it would probably make Spencer hate him if he was there all the time.
So he’d set up his own bedroom—Spencer hadn’t even put a bed in the spare room; it had been mostly toys for Colonel—and he’d refurbished the weight room with all of the things the physical therapist had suggested Spencer would need. He’d ensconced Stupid in his bedroom, complete with cat box and—using some of his savings—a cat tree with dangling things to play with. The cat didn’t seem to miss the great out-of-doors, and, in fact, seemed to be growing alarmingly fat. Colonel was overjoyed by Stupid’s company, and the poor dog seemed to keenly miss Spencer as well. Theo was currently sleeping in the guest bedroom, yes, but he’d been decorating the trailer, because it was a bit austere and Preston said he could, and every time he went into Spencer’s room, Colonel and the cat were stretched out on his bed, cuddling. It would have been weird, but neither of them were conventional animals. Theo was just glad they were getting along.
And he’d figured out how to help Preston with the dogs, so he didn’t feel like dead weight.
He was in the middle of taking a scooper full of poop to the septic tank when his phone buzzed. He paused, looked around at the foggy day, and set down his scooper and his rake before pulling out his phone.
Up to your eyeballs in shit already?
He laughed a little. Glen must have given Spencer his phone number, because for the last two weeks—ever since the move to Napa—he got texts like this once or twice a day. Or, well, he’d gotten one or two a day when Spence had first started texting him, but now, it was more like six or eight or twelve.
Not too many, really.
You know my schedule?
Nothing else to do here. Brain’s all squirrel, body’s all rotting oak tree.
Maybe it’s just a sleeping bear. Theo had been working to keep him from getting too depressed. He hadn’t needed twelve hours on a raft to figure out that standing still wasn’t Spencer’s strong point, and the last month had only proven that first assumption right.
Nobody has EVER called me a bear before!
Theo snorted. Once again he’d texted something perfectly innocent and Spence had heard sexual innuendo.
I wouldn’t know, would I? For all I know, you’re covered with fur. He wouldn’t talk about seeing Spencer in the hospital gown, pale and worn, furious at being sick, trying so hard to keep his temper.
Don’t lie to me, Woodchuck. You haven’t exactly seen me at my best.
Well. Damn. Leave it to Spence to hit him in the soft places. Spencer wanted honesty? Fine.
You have a little bit of brown hair in the center of your chest, he texted. Happy? Not a bear. Not furry. Just right.
There was a pause, and in pique he put the phone away and strode to the pipe at the edge of the kennel property that they dumped the dog waste into. Apparently it got fermented with the enzymes and came out perfectly respectable dirt. Theo was going to take Preston’s word for it.
When he’d finished his task and leaned his tools up against the equipment shed that sat at the hub of all the kennels, he washed his hands at the outdoor sink, dried them on one of three pairs of jeans he now owned after a trip to Walmart with Elsie, and picked the phone up again.
And cursed Spencer again.
I have to look at myself in a mirror every day when I’m doing PT, he’d written. I’m even a disappointment to myself.
Oh heavens. Well, that’s why other people look at you. We see the good parts too. Send me a selfie.
No.
Theo grunted, turned his camera on himself, and sent one first. He didn’t pause to look critically at it, didn’t even wonder what Spencer was seeing. Spencer had spent twelve hours looking at him frazzled and terrified and sopping wet. He’d lost a little bit of weight since then, but that was mostly worry. He was still the same guy.