Chapter Fourteen

Somewhere in those early days, on a stretch of highway between Montana and Idaho, Nate decides that he wants Reid.

He's not the best at the subtleties of interpersonal communication, but he isn't stupid. He knows that something is going on between them, that some detail of their interactions goes beyond normal behavior. And if it were a year ago, a time when Nathaniel was still a man with some sense of self and power and independence, he might have guessed that Reid found him attractive.

It happened at times. Nate sometimes did something about it; ignored it more often than not. Mostly he just didn't think about it. His life was too violent, too secretive to really entertain the idea of sharing it with someone.

But now he's just a ward of the state, one that Reid is stuck with. So it's not Nate's place to ask when their hands brush against one another as they walk, or when he looks over to see that Reid is staring just a little too intently.

Besides, Nate is sure that there's nothing really there. He constantly reminds himself that Reid is just doing his job. That any time he watches Nathaniel closely, it's just to make sure that he is protected, that the dirty details he knows make it to the deposition and then to the trial.

But for Nate... oh, for Nate it's something more. Nathaniel wants Reid in a way that has nothing to do with the convenience of being stuck together and far beyond physical attraction. Nate wants him just for himself, just to finally have something that is beautiful and wonderful and good. Something that is his out of love, not fear.

But, ironically, he's too afraid to tell him.

So he forces himself to be content with the times where he wakes before Reid and just stares in the pale early light, taking in the way he sleeps on his stomach with one hand hidden under his pillow (and, most likely, on the gun he keeps there. Nate knows because he used to do the same thing.) And how Reid tosses the covers off one leg when he gets hot at night so Nate can see his muscular, tanned leg and half of the black boxer briefs he sleeps in. How his long lashes flutter against his lightly freckled cheeks when he dreams. How young he suddenly looks, how relaxed, once the lines on his face are erased with the peace of sleep.

And Nate begins to dread his trial date for something beyond having to face his family or listing his past sins for all the world to hear. It's now the day Reid will leave him and - if Nate survives that far - he will be totally, permanently alone.

*******

After Yellowstone they drive north to Glacier National Park.

Nate listens intently to a park ranger describing the power and formation of the massive ice floes; Reid stares into the glacier's shockingly blue depths and tries to stop himself from coming up with terrible poetry comparing the color to Nate's eyes.

Roses are red,

This glacier is blue,

Just like your eyes, Nate;

I'm so into you.

...Jesus, Reid, you're such a sappy, stupid, son of a bitch.

*******

They head south to the Grand Tetons, where Nathaniel decides to take up trail running.

"This sucks, Nate." Reid stops on the side of the trail, bent over and gasping. "I said the plan was to take an extended vacation, not start training for a fucking triathlon or some shit."

Nate jogs in place fifty feet ahead of him, barely breathing hard. "The exercise is good for you. Your problem is all those cheeseburgers, Reid. They're bad for your health."

Reid straightens up and glares. "Are you calling me fat?"

"You're the one who can't run up this mountain."

Reid stalks up the trail to catch up to Nate, jabbing a finger into the air as he talks. "Yeah? Well, I'm going to get two more cheeseburgers when we get back - one to eat, and one to tie around your neck as bait before I parade you out into the woods. Let a bear put us both out of our misery."

Nate shakes his head. "I'm not worried about a bear."

"No?"

"No. All I have to do to survive an attack is outrun you - which we've already proven I'm more than capable of."

And Nate sprints away, smiling as the sweat rolls down his neck.

*******

So Reid takes over the event planning when they get to Colorado, dragging Nate into a local brewery for what starts as a beer tasting. It quickly devolves into a full-on bender at the bar next door, complete with a dart game that goes so horribly wrong that Nate has to drunkenly patch up a puncture wound in Reid's left butt cheek when they get back to their room.

"Quit squirming."

"Damn it, Nate, it hurts. And it's your fault!"

"I didn't stick you with the dart."

"No, but you get so goddamned honest when you're drunk that you went and told the giant, scary biker I was hustling that I'm 'actually quite good at darts and most likely just trying to take his money.' And then, because you opened your damn mouth, he had his buddies hold me down and he THREW A DART INTO MY ASS."

Nate ignores Reid's swearing and ranting as he pours hydrogen peroxide into the wound and slaps some gauze over it. He also denies taking longer than necessary so he can stare at Reid's bare ass (and grope it just a little) and he doesn't allow himself to notice that - despite the pain and copious amount of alcohol in his system - Reid has become visibly aroused by the whole thing.

"There," Nate signs finally. "All better."

"Nu uh," Reid slurs in reply. "You didn't kiss it."

Nate's mouth falls open, but before he can come up with a retort, Reid has pulled his pants back up and stumbled to his own bed, where he passes out immediately.

They wake to hangovers so terrible that they don't fully recover for two whole days.

*******

Over two weeks pass this way, climbing mountains and watching the wildlife and shivering through ever-colder autumn nights in their beds or sleeping bags or - when funds are especially low - the Camaro.

And Reid spends the whole time in hell.

He watches Nate's ass sway on the hiking trails in front of him, unconsciously memorizes the planes and curves of his back when he changes for bed, forces himself not to look over the small dividing wall in the campground showers because the sight of a naked, wet Nathaniel would probably be enough to make his brain explode.

It doesn't help that Reid finds the clothes Nate picked out when they went shopping irrationally and insanely hot. They're not even remotely sexy by traditional standards, just utilitarian button-downs and t-shirts, jeans, and boots. But all Reid can see is how the shirt collar toys with the ends of Nate's increasingly shaggy hair and shows the scar on his neck that he no longer feels the need to constantly cover. Or how the shirt buttons strain a bit across his broad chest and the way his rolled sleeves highlight his tightly muscled forearms and nimble hands. How his jeans ride a bit low on his narrow hips, a strip of taut, pale skin above them visible every time he stretches.

Or that his sweat is currently plastering his shirt to the long lines of his back, Reid able to watch the muscles bunch and twist as he trails behind Nate up yet another mountain.

And then they finally reach the peak, the sky clear and bright and infinitely bigger from that height. Nate can suddenly breathe so much better, and he wants to jump out into it and become part of the endless blue, forgetting about everything below. No family, no fear, no deposition testimony looming in the not-too-distant future. Just that sea perfect, silent sky.

He gets so caught up in the fantasy that he wanders close to the very edge, much farther than Reid feels comfortable with.

"Hey, now, come on. Can't have you falling off a cliff." He reaches for Nate's arm, every nerve in his body going electric and sharp when their skin touches.

And suddenly all these weeks of tension narrow to this moment. They're perched on the edge of the world, on the edge of so much more.

It's just one hand, wrapped loosely around Nate's wrist, but it's enough to make Reid's breath catch in his chest. Instinctively, his finger rubs across the quickening pulse he finds just below Nate's thumb, and he knows that he could pull, just a little tug, and he would step closer. So close that Reid wouldn't be able to see his whole face at once, his eyes having to flick across each feature in succession. And he knows that his gaze would land on that mouth, that ridiculous, begging-to-be-kissed, wind-chapped pout, and he'd be able to see each line on his full lips, feel his warm exhale brush across his skin.

That would be it. Reid would lose the very thin shred of self-control he's been able to maintain to this point and throw himself at the man that he was supposed to be protecting. And Nate would either shove him away and make the months until trial incredibly awkward, or - worse - he'd kiss him back. And then it wouldn't just be their lives on the line. It'd be their hearts.

Reid isn't brave enough to risk it.

So he takes a deep breath and eases back, dropping Nate's wrist and shoving his hands in his coat pockets. He has to clear his throat before he can speak, and it still comes out awkward and breathy.

"Uh, we've spent too long in this thin mountain air. I think it's scrambled my eggs or something." Reid turns away because it's easier to talk when he can't see those eyes. Those fucking eyes. "So what do you say we find our way back to sea level, huh? What about the beach, Nate? Sun and sand, miles of tanned and barely clothed skin, relaxing with cold drinks and our toes in the warm water?"

He glances back over his shoulder to see Nate frowning. Pouting.

"I thought I was in charge of the itinerary."

"You are, but it's getting cold as a bitch now. It's time to get the fuck out of Colorado. Besides, your deposition is only ten days away and it's in New York. We need to start working our way east."

Nate looks away for a long moment, his eyes narrowing in that way they do when he's trying to decide on something.

And when he looks back, Reid should recognize the calculating look in his eye, the deceptive sparkle that he learned through decades at the hands of the world's most conniving criminals. But they haven't known each other quite long enough yet.

"Okay," he replies, slyly. "We'll go to Florida. There's just one place I want to visit there before we go to the beach."