Rattlesnake (23 page)

A few shelves down, Shane chose another book and stared at it for an especially long time. When he moved to put it back, Jimmy took it. “Neil Gaiman. I like him. I’ll borrow this one.”

He started to walk toward the stairs, but Shane hurried after him and caught his arm. “That one’s not gonna last you long. It’s thin. Pick two more.”

“Two more?”

“My mom always let me check out three books at a time,” Shane replied, grinning.

Jimmy chose the others quickly and almost at random: one about a wizard who was also a private eye, and the other, just for the hell of it, a thick collection of western stories. He wouldn’t have time to read any of these before he left. Well, maybe the Gaiman, if he stayed up late tonight.

Seemingly satisfied with Jimmy’s selections, Shane took him back down the stairs—slowly—and to the circulation desk at one side of the big downstairs room. The librarian was in her sixties and thin, with long gray hair held back by a large beaded barrette. She wore glasses on a chain around her neck, a filmy multilayered blouse, and a long tie-dyed skirt.

“Shane Little!” she exclaimed, more loudly than a librarian ought to. “It’s so good to see you again!”

“Hi, Miss Heather. This is Jimmy Dorsett. He’s our new handyman at the Snake.” Shane took the books from Jimmy and plunked them on the counter. “And he needs a library card, please.”

Jimmy almost choked. “L-library card?”

“Well, yeah. So you can check books out?” Shane was looking at Jimmy as if he was the dumbest man he’d ever seen. Which Jimmy possibly was.

“I thought… I thought we’d use your card.”

“I haven’t had one for ten years. It’ll just take a minute to get you one, right, Miss Heather?”

Before she could answer, Jimmy shook his head. “Don’t you need to be a resident?”

“Of course. Your address at the inn will work fine. I’ll vouch for you.”

The rushing in Jimmy’s ears was so loud, he was surprised Miss Heather didn’t shush him. And he was hot—stifling—as if the fever had suddenly returned with a vengeance. He made an inarticulate little noise and ran across the room, out the fancy front door, down the stairs, and through the middle of the little park. He kept on running, down the street, down the hill. Might have continued all the way to the San Joaquin Valley, but he tripped over a rock and fell hard on his hands, scraping the skin from his palms. He limped to the edge of the road and leaned against a tree to catch his breath.

His hands stung. So did his eyes.

At a much slower pace, he walked back to Main Street. Mercifully, the bench near Mae’s was codger-free. He sank down onto it and waited.

Shane appeared, turning onto Main from the side street, carrying three books under one arm. He hesitated momentarily when he saw Jimmy, but then continued. He waited for an SUV to drive by before he crossed the street and sat heavily on the other end of the bench, the books between them.

Neither of them said anything for what felt like a long time. A couple more cars passed, and two kids on bicycles. A few shoppers strolled by, gazing at the window displays. One of the shoppers had a golden retriever on a leash; the dog paused in front of their bench for a moment so Shane could scratch its ears.

“So,” Shane finally said. “Explain?”

Jimmy didn’t want to. He set his jaw and looked down at his feet, but Shane sighed and poked him in the arm. “Explain?” he repeated.

“I don’t know.” Jimmy sounded like a sullen twelve-year-old. Great.

“Library phobia?”

“No. I like libraries.”

“Scared of old hippies? Miss Heather’s a nice lady, even if she does smell like patchouli.”

“No, she’s fine.” Jimmy rubbed his forehead using both of his palms. That hurt; he’d forgotten that he’d skinned them. “I just… I don’t live here.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were going to get me a library card as if I’m a resident. But I’m
not
a resident.”

“You could be.” Shane said it mildly enough, but there was a hint of an edge to his voice.

“But—”

“Aunt Belinda likes you a lot. I know she hasn’t said so; that’s her style. Believe me, she wants to keep you on. If that little room is too cramped, you can rent an apartment over one of the shops real cheap. Or share with me.”

Jimmy shot to his feet. “No! That’s not—I’m not staying. I’m just passing through, remember?”

“Like a tumbleweed.” Now something dangerous had definitely crept into Shane’s tone.

“Like I told you from the start. It’s what I do. Only you’re trying to get me a library card, and I know the waitress’s name and that her kid’s a spelling bee champ, and people wave at me, and this morning Jenn the cop had a whole little chat with me about whether I’m over the flu yet, and I even know all the details about the knee surgery for Eddy’s goddamn dog! And none of that should be happening, because I don’t live here. I don’t live anywhere.”

“Why?”

Such a simple fucking question, and it made Jimmy want to puke again. “Because… because I want to see—”

“‘What’s around the next bend in the road.’ Bullshit.” Now Shane stood too, abandoning the books on the bench. “You know what’s around the next bend? Another town a lot like Rattlesnake. Or you can go down into the valley and find some overgrown cow towns, complete with strip malls and cookie-cutter subdivisions. You don’t give a shit what’s next on the road.”

Jimmy almost growled with frustration.

But Shane wasn’t done. “You say you’re chasing after something, but you’re not fooling anyone with that lie. Not even yourself. You’re running from something, Jimmy Dorsett. ’Cause that’s what you do, isn’t it? Trouble finds you, you just move on. Only you’re never gonna get away from it, because what you’re trying to escape is inside you.”

Jimmy would have left right then… only that would have proved Shane’s point pretty well. “I’m not running from anything,” he muttered.

“Give me one good reason why you can’t stay here.”

“Give me one good reason why I should!” The words were out before Jimmy could stop them.

Shane narrowed his eyes. “Me,” he rasped.

“God.” Jimmy realized that people were watching them from inside Mae’s. He and Shane were making a scene. He only hoped the café patrons couldn’t hear the argument too. “I get that there’s not a lot of gay men in Rattlesnake, Shane. And I know that it’s hard for you to go anywhere else. But Jesus! You can do a lot better than me. I don’t even know…. The sex is pretty good, but that can’t…. You’re a great guy. You’re kind and strong and gorgeous and totally fucking amazing, actually. You’re special. Everybody here knows that—I can tell. I’m just me.” He held up his arms, displaying his nondescript body, his nondescript face. His nondescript self.

Shane stared at him for a minute. “You were interesting the first night I met you, and even more the next day at Mae’s. Real interesting. And the funny thing is, the more I get to know you, the more interesting you get. It’s like you’re one of those paintings, the ones… the French guy. Can’t remember his name. From far away you see a nice picture of some people walking in the park. But the closer you get, the more detail you see, and then you figure out the painting’s actually a bunch of little colored dots and you’re kinda stunned by the whole thing.”

“I’m a Seurat painting?” Jimmy asked, all the anger replaced with confusion.

“Yeah. And you know what else? When I first saw you, I thought,
Okay, he’s not bad-looking
. But the more I look at you, the more I see. You got really soft hair, and I like the way the dark and the gray are mixing together. And your eyes, they’re deep.”

“They’re brown.”

“They’re the color of madrone bark—we have a couple madrone trees on the ranch—only yours have little flecks of gold. And I can tell just by looking in your eyes that you’ve been through a lot of shit, but also that you’re real smart. Which you are. You know a lot even though you told me you never graduated high school. And your smile…. When you forget yourself for a second and really
smile
, your whole face lights up and you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Jimmy sat down on the bench. Nobody had ever called him beautiful before. Or compared his eyes to… anything.

Shane pushed the books aside and sat next to him. “I can tell you other nice things about you too. You work hard. You’re real polite. You take obligations seriously, when you make ’em.” He shook his head slightly. “Another man might have taken a bunch of those antiques from the Snake’s basement and sold them. Pocketed the money. Nobody would ever have known. But you weren’t even tempted, were you?”

“I’m a prince,” Jimmy sighed.

“You’re someone who I like spending time with. And the more time I spend with you, the… the
more
you are. I’d like to spend a lot more time together.”

They were nice words to hear, but at the same time, they ripped Jimmy to shreds. He couldn’t give Shane what he wanted, what he deserved. And hell, if Shane kept on looking at Jimmy’s goddamn dots, he was going to discover that all those pretty colors were an illusion. That Jimmy was made up of nothing but lies and emptiness.

“I can’t,” Jimmy said quietly.

Shane’s face mirrored the misery in Jimmy’s heart. “You
think
you can’t. But sometimes we’re capable of a lot more than we give ourselves credit for.” Before Jimmy could protest, he set a hand on Jimmy’s thigh. “I don’t want to fight. Let’s just…. You’ll stay a little longer, won’t you? We’ll need your help tomorrow, and then it’s Sunday. I was hoping you’d come with me a couple hours while I take some photos.”

And Jimmy couldn’t refuse that much, especially when he owed Belinda some work. “All right. A little longer. But then I have to go.”

Shane nodded, but the look in his eyes told Jimmy that his departure was never going to be harmless.

T
HAT
EVENING
,
after Jimmy and Shane shared some sandwiches for dinner and Shane returned to work, Jimmy took a nap. He didn’t really want to go to sleep yet—he felt too restless—but he hadn’t completely shaken the last of the flu. It was a good nap, cozy, with the taste of Shane’s postdinner kiss still on his lips. When he woke up an hour later, he felt refreshed but lazy. He picked up the Neil Gaiman novel, which had somehow ended up in his room, and began to read.

He was still reading when the door creaked open and Shane slipped inside. “Thought you’d be asleep by now,” Shane said.

“I was for a while.”

“Can I join you?”

Shane had never asked before—he’d just climbed into Jimmy’s bed—and his hesitancy was a little heartbreaking.

“Please,” said Jimmy.

He watched as Shane took off his boots and socks, his shirts, his jeans and underwear. Aside from the little pool cast by the bedside light, the room was dim. Jimmy wished he could see Shane better. But
feeling
Shane as he pressed close on the narrow mattress was good too.

“I see you’re enjoying your library book.”

“How’d you check them out, anyway?”

“Miss Heather gave me a new card.” While Jimmy remained propped up by some pillows, Shane scooted down, nestling himself against Jimmy’s hip. “You should get your rest. Tomorrow will be busy.”

“Soon. Let me finish this chapter.”

“Okay. You have a nice voice. Will you read out loud?” He punctuated his request with a noisy yawn.

“But I’m in the middle of the book.”

“Don’t care. I just wanna listen to you.”

Jimmy had never read to anyone. But he had to admit, it was a pretty nice experience, especially when that someone was practically in his lap, almost purring with sleepy contentment, and the old inn creaked companionably around them. By the time he reached the end of the chapter, though, his voice had gone rough and was punctuated by yawns. He put down the book, clicked off the light, and lay down beside Shane.

“Too tired for sex,” Shane said. “But can I sleep here? Just this once?”

Actually, he’d slept in Jimmy’s bed when Jimmy was sick, but that didn’t count. “We’ll be kind of squished.”

“Don’t care. Do you know how long it’s been since I slept with someone? Ten years. That’s a long time, Jimmy.”

It had been longer than that for Jimmy, but he didn’t say so. “It’s a long time,” he agreed. He fell asleep with Shane spooning him from behind.

J
IMMY
HAD
to disentangle himself from Shane when he woke up. Shane kept right on sleeping, though, his curls wild and his face young and vulnerable-looking. His eyelids twitched as if he might be dreaming, and Jimmy hoped it was a good dream.

Some mornings Jimmy wished he had a bathrobe. It would make trekking to the bathroom and shower less complicated. That was what happened when you settled into a place for a few days—you started wanting things. He slipped on his jeans, grabbed his other clothes, his towel, and his toiletries, and he left the room.

When he returned, still rubbing his wet hair, Shane sat up in bed and smiled sleepily at him. “You snore,” Shane announced.

“I’m still a little stuffed up from the flu. You drool.”

Shane grinned and climbed slowly out of bed. He must have been stiff, because he moved with extra care, but he looked delicious when he stretched and yawned, the morning light illuminating his pale skin and coppery hair. “You hog the blankets.”

“Not used to sharing them.”

“Maybe you need a bigger bed with bigger blankets,” Shane said, his mouth quirked in an apologetic smile. Then he began searching the room for his discarded clothes. Considering the size of the room, he’d managed to scatter his small amount of clothing over a surprisingly wide area. Jimmy enjoyed the view every time he bent to retrieve something.

“I’m gonna go shower and change,” Shane said when he was dressed.

“Won’t Belinda see you walking from my room and know you slept over?”

“She probably knows already. I’m thirty-three. If I wanna have a sleepover, I’m old enough to make that decision.”