From the Ashes (22 page)

“That he’s gay or that you are?” Michael crossed his arms, clearly unwilling to believe a word Jesse said.

“That we’re dating.” Jesse was pretty sure Tomas hadn’t said
I’m gay
out loud to anyone. But admitting you were dating a man seemed like enough.

“I bet he doesn’t let you top.”

That one came so out of left field that Jesse’s mouth fell open. He had no interest in topping with Tomas, and he didn’t think that had anything to do with the signals Tomas gave off. It was just…that wasn’t how things worked with them. He could see how a guy like Michael, obsessed about equality and pride and rights, might see switching it up in a relationship as a moral imperative.

Eventually, he leaned into Michael’s side and said, “We’ve only done it once.” Customers started to line up, so Jesse didn’t go into any more detail. He queued bread and started making sandwiches.

“How was it?” Michael asked when he turned to hand Jesse a slip of paper with an order.

Jesse’s cheeks heated. He smiled down at the bread he was cutting.

“That good, huh?” Michael sighed in exasperation as he took the plate from Jesse’s hands and gave it to the customer.

“Oh yeah.” Jesse blew out a long breath, a grin stretching to his ears. “Really good.”

Michael yanked a filter into the espresso machine. He started the water, which filled the air with enough noise for him to whisper, “So he expects you to suck him off all the time?”

The guy at the front of the line let out a snort, making it clear that he’d heard. Either he was gay, or straight but really open-minded, because he put his fist in front of his face to hide his smile as he walked away.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no.” Since the showdown with Tomas’s family, they’d fallen into a pattern a lot like their old one. Most nights they kissed and Tomas jerked them off together. Unlike before Halloween when Tomas was rough and aggressive, he’d been tentative lately and almost always blew Jesse for a while before stroking them to the finish.

It wasn’t bad. Not exactly. But it felt like Tomas was apologizing, and Jesse was apologizing right back.

“Then maybe I’ve been wrong all along.” Michael’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Y’know, you can think what you want,” Jesse snapped. “I’m sick of you acting like you know everything about my boyfriend when you’ve had it out for him since the first moment you saw him.” He put his hand on his hip, impersonating Michael’s stance. “Oh sorry. The first moment you saw him, you thought he was hot.”

When the customer he was serving left to add toppings to his coffee, Michael shot Jesse a glare. “Thinking someone is hot is not the same as thinking they’re a good person.”

Jesse slid his jaw forward. “Yeah, but being hot doesn’t automatically make them a bad person, either.” He and Michael stared each other down until the bell on the door rang.

Another customer pushed in from the rain outside.

Michael took his order. When he handed the slip with their sandwich request to Jesse, his expression was tight.

Jesse probably looked the same. “I want you to be nicer to Tomas.” Michael tried to avoid Tomas, but given everything, he was bound to interact with him again. “Please.”

Michael scoffed, frightening the girl at the front of the line. Recovering, he plastered on a fake smile and took her order.

“That’s perfect,” Jesse said as he started making the girl’s sandwich. “Smile just like that.”

Tomas started the weight room fan and pulled a couple dumbbells off the rack. Sitting on the bench, he got his feet in position and curled his biceps until the muscles burned.

A couple guys pushed into the gym, and Tomas looked up in time to see that one of them—Saul—stepped right back out of the room. The other guy was Rick, who ignored Tomas and walked over to the leg press.

“Hey,” Tomas said, because he wasn’t going to pretend his friend was invisible.

“Hey.” Rick stuck the pin at a weight level. He sat and positioned his feet, shooting Tomas an angry stare—as if Tomas would get turned on by his bunched-up gym shorts. Straightening his legs, Rick lifted the weight stack.

The dull whir of the fan wasn’t loud enough to mask their huffs as they lifted. The grunting was almost sexual, and Tomas had to say something to fill that awkwardness before it curdled and turned to concrete. “Where’d Saul go?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Rick’s voice was strained with heavy breathing.

“Just asking.” Tomas tried not to be paranoid, but the guys had been avoiding him all week.

Rick paused for a second, before extending his legs again. He grimaced with the effort.

“Watch out for your knee, man.” Tomas glanced over to Rick’s weights. He must have upped his goals since before Halloween, because Tomas didn’t remember him lifting so much. “Don’t wanna fuck up all that physical therapy you did last year.”

“What are you, my mother?” Rick’s answer was angry, but it was nice to hear him talking the way they did normally. Maybe it was a short-guy thing, but Rick was always lifting or pressing more than he should. Tomas would bug him to take it easy, and Rick always told him to go fuck himself.

Stupid, but Tomas missed that. “No. But I don’t want your knee going out when you’re hauling my ass out of a fire.”

“As if I’d ever haul your faggoty ass—” Rick stopped short. That’s how Tomas knew he’d just been joking around like he used to, not making any jab about what he knew about Tomas and Jesse.

“Yeah.” Tomas wanted things to be normal between them, so he breezed past the slur. “Well, when the roof caves in, you’re on your own too, bitch.”

Rick laughed. Not because Tomas’s joke had been so funny, but maybe as a way to say thanks to Tomas for not getting pissed. Rick lowered his weights, wincing—and Tomas was pretty sure it was about his knee.

“Hey, could you spot me on the bench?” Rick asked.

Tomas smiled at the floor. “Sure.” He did a few more reps, making sure not to act too happy that they were on good terms again. By the time he’d set the weights on the rack, Rick was already laying on his back with his hands on the barbell.

The rest of their workout went about the same. Rick never did chill enough to tell Tomas any stories about conquests on Halloween. Tomas wasn’t sure whether that was because he’d decided Tomas didn’t want to hear about pussy, or whether he thought it would get Tomas turned on.

Tomas didn’t question it, though. At least they were talking again.

A text message sounded on his phone, probably Jesse asking how his shift was going.

“I should get—”

The siren went out, echoing through the fire station like lightning and thunder combined. Training kicked in, and Tomas tossed his phone into his locker and changed as fast as he could.

Jesse stared at his phone. All around him, students shuffled papers into backpacks and slammed textbooks shut. The line was backed halfway down the auditorium, so Jesse hung out in his seat, waiting for Tomas to reply.

Students inched up the stairs, but nothing appeared on Jesse’s screen. Not even after fifteen minutes.

Drat.
Jesse had hoped to swing by Capitol Hill to say good night to Tomas before he went home for the night.

Shoving his books and notes into his backpack, Jesse pushed up to standing. He was the only one left in the auditorium. A janitor opened the security door at the back of the room, dragging in a vacuum cleaner.

“Oh, sorry.” Jesse hurried to clear out of the room so the guy could start his job. With nothing better to do, he went to the library to study, but when no message from Tomas appeared even after an hour, Jesse gave up and headed out into the afternoon drizzle.

The wetness crept under his fleece jacket, and he hitched his backpack over his head to keep his hair dry. With his free hand, Jesse scrolled to his Seattle Metro app to look for what system of busses and trains would get him home the fastest.

Students crowded the tiny covered bus stop, so Jesse had to wait in the rain. Luckily, he caught an express bus. Listening to music, he grasped the handle and tried not to bump into any of his fellow passengers on the turns. It was slow going, but the bus stopped pausing after Madison and barreled the rest of the way through the city to the rail station.

Riding the escalator up to his train, Jesse started to get nervous. It wasn’t pitch-black. Twilight was long in the winter and would continue for at least another half hour. But something about the purple-gray closing in made Jesse uncomfortable. Tomas should have texted.

He knew he shouldn’t worry. Firefighters went out all the time for small stuff like medical calls or minor car accidents. Even when there was a fire, it was generally smaller than the one at Jesse’s house, and though Jesse was sure it had been dangerous for Tomas and his team at the time, none of them had seemed traumatized by the fire.

The train pulled up and the doors slid open, revealing an inside that was bright and extremely clean. Jesse picked his phone from his pocket as he stepped on the train.

Dropping into a free seat, he clicked Tomas’s number. The phone rang a few times, but then went to voicemail. Jesse didn’t want to leave a message, so he hung up.

The train rolled past the city, the sky darkening the whole time. Halfway to SeaTac, Jesse messed with his phone again, wishing he had Internet so he could look up the number for the fire station and see if something had happened.

His phone rang, vibrating his fingers. The display showed Michael’s number.

“Hey, Michael,” he said into the receiver. “I’m on the train, so I can’t really talk.” Already, he got angry looks from the other passengers. In every car there were signs asking riders not to talk on their phones.

“No worries. I was calling about that shooting at Nirvana Coffee. Can you believe it? That’s like five blocks from us.” Michael’s voice shook a little, though it was obvious he was trying to minimize his fear. “Five dead inside the shop, four first responders shot, two killed, the others in critical condition. Don’t you listen to the news?”

Twisting so he was in the back corner of the car, Jesse murmured to avoid pissing off the other passengers. “I was at the library. Then on the bus.” It didn’t really matter where he’d been; Jesse never listened to the news if he could avoid it. Of course, Michael had public radio cranked in his car twenty-four seven, and spent a ton of time on social media. “You weren’t at work then, right?”

“No, I was home. But, man, I heard the sirens. Police, fire trucks. I can’t believe there was another shooting in the U District. What’s with all the crazies coming here to have their homicidal meltdowns?”

“I don’t know.” Jesse licked his lips, his mouth dry. He had a pretty good idea of why Tomas was busy. There was no reason to think Tomas was one of those hurt, but a cold needle of dread worked its way through Jesse’s chest to settle deep in his belly. He forced his breathing to be slow and even. “Are…I mean, did they catch the guy? Is everything finished?”

It wasn’t him
, Jesse repeated silently. There was no reason to think Tomas had been injured, but a little voice in his head kept whispering doubts. It niggled into his subconscious, murmuring,
The first stage of grief is denial.

“That’s the most messed-up part. The guy fled the scene. Took off in his car—not sure how since there were cops everywhere. He fired shots out his window. Idiot went for the Roosevelt Bridge, so he got caught in traffic.” Michael made a scoffing noise, like an angry laugh. “Then he was on foot. Shooting at the cops, threatening people in their cars.” He paused. A radio crackled its broadcast in the background.

“They caught the guy,” Michael said. “Well, actually, he shot himself. But whichever—it’s over.”

Jesse closed his eyes. The train was still bright, the outside still dark, the rocking motion hadn’t changed, but Jesse’s heart thudded like he’d run a mile. “Fuck,” he muttered into the phone.

“Yeah. Sucks, huh? Why they let people have guns is beyond my comprehension. Brainwashed NRA—”

“Will you shut up?” Jesse snapped. If Michael was standing there, he might have shoved him.

“What the fuck? Don’t tell me that growing up in the middle of nowhere made you a gun-toting—”

“Tomas was there.” There was a growl in Jesse’s voice he wasn’t sure he’d ever made before.

“Oh.” Michael stopped short. “Well…I’m sure he’s fine. You’ve heard from him, right?”

Jesse shook his head. He mouthed the word
no
a couple times before he could say it out loud. “No. No, I haven’t been able to reach him.”

Michael was silent on the other end of the line. After a long moment, he said, “Listen, they’re releasing information as they get it. I’ll listen for the names of the guys who got hurt. Tell you when I find out more. Is there a number you can call? His work, maybe?”

“I don’t know.” Jesse pressed his forehead against the cool metal wall, trying to pull himself together. He breathed in, then out. Though it hurt to do it, he imagined Tomas’s hand between his shoulder blades holding him steady.

“What about his family?”

Frowning, Jesse cursed under his breath. Tomas’s mom probably knew whom to contact to find out whether Tomas was hurt. She was the type of woman to know where all her kids were every minute of the day. “I don’t have their number.”