Chapter Twelve, Part I

Dinner went well

“Us, for the next two nights.”

Adrian looks at Jack.

“That sounds suspiciously like a plan.”

“It is.”

“I didn’t know you made those.”

Jack lifts Adrian’s bag into the back of the truck, a faint smile pulling at one corner of his mouth.

“I make plans. I just don’t hold meetings about them.”

Adrian places a hand against his chest as if wounded.

“I feel personally attacked.”

“You should.”

Jack closes the tailgate and walks around to the driver’s side. Adrian watches him for a moment before climbing into the passenger seat.

The inside of the truck smells faintly of leather, old coffee, and whatever Jack has been working with recently. Not dirty. Lived in. There is a jacket folded behind the seats, a paper map in the door pocket, and two bottles of water waiting in the cup holders.

Jack starts the engine and points at one of them.

“Drink.”

“You’ve known me for less than two weeks, and you’re already giving orders.”

“You crossed an ocean, slept four hours, and took a train halfway down California.”

“Not halfway.”

“Drink the water.”

Adrian opens the bottle. “You make a compelling argument.”

“I know.”

They leave the station behind.

Paso Robles gives way to low buildings, vineyards, and long stretches of dry grass turned pale gold by the late-afternoon sun. The road curves west through the hills, gradually climbing toward darker trees in the distance.

For the first few minutes, neither of them says much.

Jack drives with one hand resting easily on the wheel. The other lies near the gearshift, close enough that Adrian is aware of it without looking directly at it.

He looks anyway.

Jack catches him and glances down at his own hand before returning his attention to the road.

“You were staring at my hand.”

“I was looking.”

“I noticed.”

Adrian studies the road ahead as though the distinction matters. “It’s a good hand.”

Jack turns his head just far enough for Adrian to catch the amusement in his eyes.

“Just the one?”

Adrian looks out of the window, unable to hide his smile. “Drive.”

Jack’s laugh fills the cab.

The road rises higher. Between the hills, Adrian catches brief glimpses of distant blue-grey sky and something beyond it that might be the ocean.

He has crossed oceans for most of his adult life, but usually from the sealed distance of an aircraft window. This feels different. Slower. Close enough to notice fences, dust along the roadside, trees bent by weather he has not yet felt.

Jack glances over. “You falling asleep?”

“No.”

“You can.”

“I travelled all this way to see California.”

“You’ve seen hills before.”

“Not these hills.”

“They’ll still be there when you wake up.”

Adrian adjusts himself in the seat. “I’m not sleeping.”

“Fine.”

Five minutes later, his eyes close.

He wakes when the truck slows.

Jack’s hand is resting on his knee.

Not gripping it. Not trying to wake him.

Just there.

Adrian opens his eyes fully.

The dry hills have given way to tall trees and denser green. The air beyond the window looks cooler now, touched by the first coastal haze. A sign announces Cambria.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“You could have woken me.”

Jack’s thumb moves once against the fabric of Adrian’s trousers before his hand goes still again.

“You looked like you needed it.”

Adrian looks down at the hand on his knee.

Jack removes it to turn the wheel, but Adrian can still feel the warmth of his hand on his knee.

The town appears gradually. Low houses. Old shopfronts. Gardens grown thick around wooden fences. People walk in light jackets despite the summer, and the evening light has softened beneath a bank of cloud.

“This is Cambria?” Adrian asks.

“This is part of it.”

“And Sam owns the rest?”

“According to Sam.”

“I’m beginning to think your sister may be dangerous.”

“She is.”

Jack turns away from the main road and continues toward the coast.

The place he has rented is not a hotel.

It is a small weathered cottage set back from the road behind wind-shaped trees and tall grass. The wooden siding has faded to soft grey, and the windows face west toward a narrow strip of ocean visible between the houses below.

Adrian gets out and stands still for a moment.

The air is cooler here. It smells of salt, dry wood, and something green he cannot identify. Somewhere beyond the road, he can hear the steady rhythm of the sea.

Jack retrieves their bags. “Sam found it through a friend.”

“Of course she did.”

“She said a hotel would make it feel like another layover.”

Adrian turns toward him.

Jack’s shoulders are tighter than they were at the station. He glances at the cottage, then back at Adrian, and his hand tightens briefly around the handle of Adrian’s bag before he sets it down.

It lasts only a second, but Adrian sees it.

Jack is nervous.

“And what is this supposed to feel like?” Adrian asks.

Jack looks at the cottage. “A trip.”

“Just a trip?”

Jack meets his eyes. “Let’s start there.”

Adrian lets the answer settle. “Good place to start.”

Jack’s shoulders ease slightly.

The key is waiting in a lockbox beside the door.

Inside, the cottage is simple and warm. There is a small living room with a worn leather sofa, a kitchen with open shelves, and a fireplace that looks as though it has been used even in summer. The windows face the ocean.

A narrow hallway leads to two bedrooms.

Adrian looks from one doorway to the other. “Two bedrooms?”

“I was trying not to assume.”

“How long do you expect that arrangement to last?”

Jack watches him for a beat. “Depends how dinner goes.”

“No pressure, then.”

“None.”

Jack’s raised eyebrow says he doesn’t mean that.

He places both bags near the front door.

They leave again before the light disappears completely.

Jack has chosen a small restaurant near the edge of town, with dark wooden tables, low lighting, and windows facing a garden. It is busy enough to feel alive but quiet enough that they do not have to raise their voices.

A woman leads them to a table near the back.

Jack orders a beer.

“Wine?” he asks.

Adrian smiles. “Yes, please. Red, I think. And thank you for asking.”

Jack gives him a small smile. “I’m learning.”

“Red,” he tells the waiter, without looking at the menu.

The table is smaller than it first appeared.

When Adrian shifts his chair, his knee touches Jack’s beneath it.

The contact lasts less than a second.

He expects Jack to move.

Jack does not.

Neither does Adrian.

They begin with the easy things.

The flight. The missing meals. The passenger who had insisted his seat was broken when it had been functioning perfectly.

“Maybe he just wanted attention,” Jack says.

“He received attention.”

“Good attention?”

“Professional attention.”

“That means no.”

Adrian takes a drink of wine.

“Mike called twice,” Jack says.

“I know.”

“You know?”

“You sent me a message.”

“Right.”

“Did you call him back?”

“No.”

“You ignored him?”

“I’m on a trip.”

“That sounds almost healthy.”

“Don’t spread it around.”

Their food arrives.

Jack has ordered steak. Adrian has chosen fish.

Jack glances at the plate, then at Adrian, with the faint scepticism of a man who has never once in his life ordered fish at a steakhouse.

“What?” Adrian asks.

“Nothing.”

“You’re judging my dinner.”

“I’m observing it.”

Adrian points his fork at him. “Careful.”

“Wasn’t talking about the fish anymore,” Jack says, and does not look away.

Adrian sets his fork down slightly slower than necessary.

Jack smiles and takes another drink.

Their knees remain touching beneath the table.

Not pressed together. Not moving.

Simply present.

For a while, the conversation stays light.

Jack tells him about growing up as the oldest of three. His father’s garage. His mother’s habit of standing in the kitchen doorway until whichever child had caused the latest disaster confessed without being asked.

“She never had to raise her voice,” Jack says.

“Terrifying.”

“Completely.”

“And you were the responsible one?”

“I was the oldest.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Jack leans back. “I fixed things.”

“Things you broke?”

“Sometimes.”

“Things your siblings broke?”

“Usually.”

Adrian studies him. “That explains the water.”

“What?”

“You’ve been looking after everyone for so long, you no longer know when to stop.”

“I know when to stop.”

“You gave me four instructions before we left the station.”

“You needed all four.”

Adrian smiles. “And your father?” he asks. “Was he like you?”

Jack considers it. “Quieter.”

“That is difficult to imagine.”

“He didn’t waste words.”

“Ah.”

“What?”

“So exactly like you, but without the running commentary.”

Jack’s leg presses against his beneath the table, deliberately this time.

Adrian feels the pressure through both layers of fabric and keeps his face still on purpose, not letting the reaction show.

“You do that on purpose?” Jack asks.

“Do what?”

“Keep a straight face when I do that.”

Adrian meets his eyes. “Sometimes.”

Jack looks at him for a beat too long — long enough that the teasing look in his eyes turns into something more direct, more openly interested, closer to how he’d looked at Adrian in the workshop doorway.

The conversation has stopped being just conversation.

Neither of them says so, but they both know it.