“Heading out?” I asked from my spot perched at the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

Mallory finished pulling his arms through his jacket sleeves. “For a bit, yeah.”

I took another bite of cereal and nodded.

Moments later, I realized Mallory still hadn’t left. He wasn’t usually one to linger or tell me when he was going or where, but he stood in the front foyer looking at me hesitantly.

“Want to come?” he asked.

I didn’t bother asking where we were going. “Yes.”

So I finished my cereal quickly and met him in the front entrance. He was patient as I slowly pulled my coat on, careful not to jostle my arm still in its cast.

“Bet you can’t wait to get that thing off, huh?” he asked.

“You have no idea.” I slowly bent over to pull on my shoes.

“What’s the first thing you’ll do?”

From where I was kneeling on the floorboards, I grinned up at him. He laughed, his cheeks turning red.

“That’s not what I meant,” he continued.

“I know. I’ll go to the shooting range.”

“First thing?”

“First thing. Don’t feel like myself lately.”

“Yeah, you said that last time I asked you.”

“Just as true today.”

He tipped his head toward the door and we walked out to the truck.

I watched the mountains in the distance, as I always did, and Mallory stretched his arm along the back of the seat, letting his fingertips brush against my shoulder. When I looked at him, he smiled at me.

We parked in the loading zone in front of the market. Mallory hopped out but left the engine on. He said, “I’ll only be a minute. Wait here to make sure I don’t get towed.”

“So that’s what I am? A boot for your truck.”

“Exactly.”

I laughed but knew he’d be back. There wasn’t a lot of traffic that early in the morning. While he was gone, I counted seven other vehicles on the road.

When Mallory came back into the cab of the truck with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, it took several seconds to realize where we were going.

He didn’t say anything, but I was sure he could read the look on my face. As close as Mallory and I had become, and even though we both knew first-hand what grief looked like on each other, I wasn’t sure I was ready to face that. But even if I wasn’t, I would—for him.

The parking lot of the cemetery was predictably deserted. Thick, white fog still clung to the tops of the mountains, and the chill in the air still hadn’t quite left. But the grass was beginning to turn green and some of the trees had tiny, fresh branches.

Mallory left the truck, bringing the flowers with him. I followed behind.

“Danny bring you here?” Mallory asked as we walked slowly down a cobblestone pathway through the line of headstones.

“Yeah.”

He nodded, mostly to himself. “I thought he would. He deals with things differently than I do. Another way he takes after his mother.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I looked up into the sky.

When we stopped in front of the headstone for Mallory’s deceased wife, the world around us had fallen into silence. He crouched down, ran his fingers over the headstone, and placed the flowers gently against it. The movement felt—and looked—private. I wondered for the tenth time since seeing those flowers if I’d made the right decision coming with him.

He stood up and took a step back, his shoulder brushing up against mine. The air from his hot breath puffed out in front of him when he sighed. “I haven’t been out here in a while.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I looked at him. He didn’t look nearly as crestfallen as I’d expected. The look on his face wasn’t one of resignation, but almost lightness.

“No?” I asked. It surprised me. Danny told me his father used to stop by almost every day.

“No,” he admitted. “Not since you’ve been around.”

Immediately, I felt terrible. I turned to him. “Mallory, if I’m—”

“Sorry.” He suddenly put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “No, that came out wrong. That’s not what I meant.”

“I don’t want to take this time away from you.”

“You’re not. You’re not taking anything away from me. You’re giving me something—a kind of happiness I didn’t expect.”

I swallowed hard. “You make me happy too.”

Happy.

A simple word for something that felt magnitudes larger. Happiness is something I’d taken for granted up until my parents died. And then after, I’d convinced myself it wasn’t something I’d ever feel again.

But here, in a town built between the mountains, standing next to my best friend’s father, I knew that I truly did feel happy.

“You and she are nothing alike, you know,” Mallory whispered. “Almost polar opposites. She was loud and fiery. Her whole family was. I don’t think there was ever a period of more than ten minutes when she wasn’t talking, unless she was asleep. God, I miss the sound of her voice.”

I looked down at the inscription on the tombstone. “My mother was quiet. My dad said I took after her.”

“What do you miss most?”

“About my mother?”

“Anything.”

“I miss the smell of my dad’s rifle wax. The whole garage used to smell like it. He said it was some vintage kind of wax he used to buy at the local farmer’s market from one of his friends who was on the force but retired. It smelled hard, like chemicals, but there was a hint of something else I can’t place. I think I’d give up a year of my life just to smell that smell again one last time.”

Mallory turned to look at me. After a few moments, he said, “Thank you for coming with me, Archer.”

“Anytime, Mallory.”

“I thought it would be harder with someone else here. Maybe it makes it easier because you’re grieving too. Maybe it makes it easier because you’re you.”

I laced our fingers together. “Do you need a moment alone?”

With one last glance toward his wife’s grave, he said, “Not today.”

---

As usual, when Mallory came home after a day spent at his shop, he found me sitting in the big chair in his workshop. I was thumbing through one of the books I’d found on the bookshelf in the living room when I heard the door handle twist.

“Hey,” Mallory said, huge grin on his face.

“Hey. How was your day?”

He shrugged. “Long. Boring. How was yours?”

“Long and boring.”

“Want to go out for dinner?”

“Only if you let me pay.”

He laughed. “You got yourself a deal.”

I followed him back inside the house and went into my room while Mallory went into his own. It was strange thinking of the space as my room, and even stranger was the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I showered, shaved, and put on cologne. When Danny originally packed my suitcase, most of the clothes he’d packed for me were sweatpants, worn jeans, and T-shirts. But luckily, when I had unpacked weeks prior, I’d found one button-up dress shirt and a pair of charcoal slacks.

When I was done dressing, I checked myself over in the mirror. My hair had grown a little longer, but it wasn’t that I had noticed first. I looked different, somehow. Less… hollow.

Mallory was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. He’d trimmed his beard and had dressed in an outfit similar to my own. Except, like with most things, Mallory looked ten times better.

He smiled wide when he saw me. “You look great.”

When I reached the bottom stair, I gave him an obvious once-over. “So do you.”

He hooked his finger into the waist of my slacks. Immediately, all the blood in my body rushed to the spot his finger touched. It might’ve been him who pulled me closer, but I leaned forward, wrapped my hand around the back of his head, and kissed him.

His moment of hesitation was quickly replaced with lust when I pressed my tongue into his mouth.

Almost reluctantly, he groaned, then pulled away.

“Archer.”

When he said my name like that in his low voice, it was hard to be deterred. I moved into him again and he chuckled.

“Hey,” he said. “This is all kind of… new to me.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“I haven’t kissed anyone in years.”

“Have you ever kissed a man?”

“Yes.” He took my hand, brought it to his mouth, and kissed the palm of my hand. “You.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. I didn’t know…” His voice trailed off.

“That you were even attracted to men?” I guessed.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was young when I met my wife. I was so in love, I never thought about anyone else, man or woman.”

I nodded and took his hand. “I’m starving.”

Mallory adjusted his pants and said in a voice so quiet I don’t think I was meant to hear it, “Me too.”

---

We ended up going to a pub called The Anchor of the Sea. It was a medium-sized pub off the main road, and when we drove past it, I told Mallory I liked the sign, so we stopped. The crowd inside was quiet, and the clientele seemed to range from young to very old.

There was quiet rock music playing off the sound system; thankfully all the lights were on. Framed old pictures of Banff lined the walls, along with a few large prints of the seashore or a few crisp, blue waves.

Both of us took a seat in the corner and were promptly handed menus by the waitress. I ordered the pale ale and pasta carbonara while Mallory ordered an Irish stout and the house burger.

“So, what’s this place like in the summer?” I asked.

“The Anchor of the Sea?”

“Banff.”

“Oh. Touristy, like it is year ’round. But still beautiful. There are a lot of gorgeous hiking paths and the feeling of that fresh morning air is something else.”

“I want to see the lakes. I’ve seen pictures online and they look beautiful.”

“They are. Almost impossibly blue. In some lakes, you can take out a canoe and go right out into the middle and practically see the bottom. Past all the fish, of course.”

I started to say that I couldn’t wait to see it, and ask if he’d go canoeing with me, but stopped.

This was one of those things Mallory and I never seemed to have the courage to talk about: the fact that this wasn’t my home and I was leaving.

“I sold that old desk today,” Mallory said.

I perked up. “Really? The writing desk with the leaf carvings in the sides?”

The waitress dropped off our drinks with a smile and left. Mallory took a sip of his and leaned back against the seat. “Yep.”

“Hopefully to someone who will give it a good home. That desk is gorgeous.”

He grinned. “I told you that you could have it.”

“I don’t have the room. Besides, if I took everything you said I could have, I don’t think you’d have a shop anymore.”

“I can always make new things.”

“I’m going to hire you one day to make me something.”

“Oh, yeah? And what’ll it be?”

Taking a pull of my beer, I thought about it. “Not sure yet. But I’ll figure it out.”

“I can’t make sniper rifles out of oak,” Mallory teased.

“Damn. What about a slingshot?”

He laughed. “And have you running around like Dennis the Menace? I don’t think so.”

“Hey. I’m going to be an officer of the law, you know. I can be trusted with a slingshot.”

“Yeah, okay. It’ll be your present when you graduate from the academy.”

My mind began to wonder what kind of police force Calgary had or if I could get a student visa to attend training there.

“Hey,” I said, “that reminds me. Can I help you out this weekend in your shop? I was reading one of your woodworking books, and well, I find it pretty interesting.”

Mallory beamed at me. “Yeah? You want to learn some?”

“Yeah. I like watching you, but most of the time I have no idea what you’re doing. Reading up some kind of helped me put some of the pieces of the puzzle together.”

“Shit, I’m sorry, Archer. I could’ve been explaining what I was doing to you if I knew you were interested.”

I chuckled. “You’re not my teacher, Mallory. But yeah, I’m interested. I still have no clue what the difference between staining or dyeing is. Hell, don’t even get me started on varnish.”

His eyes lit up. “Staining is a little more solid, while most dyes are a bit more transparent. Dyes are usually subtler. But there are so many types and brands, it depends what you’re looking for.”

“I watched a video online of a carpenter using a card scraper to smooth out the top of this piece of wood. It’s like sandpaper—but not. Wouldn’t mind trying to learn how to use one of those some day.”

Mallory put his hands over his face and groaned. “Don’t talk dirty to me in public, Archer.”

“Hey, Mr. Patel.”

We both looked toward the end of the table to see a woman standing there, about my age, smiling at Mallory. She had strawberry blond hair and wore a bright green sweater.

“Oh, hi, Lindsey. How are your folks?”

“Great, thanks. My dad’s planning on an early retirement and can’t stop talking about it. It’s already driving my mom crazy. How’s Danny?”

“Good. Still in school. Speaking of—Lindsey, this is Danny’s friend, Archer. He’s staying with me for a while.”

I smiled at her and then tipped my head toward my right arm.

“Nice to meet you,” she said. She nodded toward my arm still in a cast. “That sucks.”

“Sure does,” I replied.

Lindsey looked nervously between Mallory and me. “Sorry, I know this is kind of strange. But do you see my friend over there? The gal with the brown hair and the white T-shirt?”

Both Mallory and I looked over at her. “Yeah,” I said, brow furrowed.

“That’s my friend Tara. She was wondering if maybe you wanted to go out and have a drink with her sometime. She kind of has a thing for blonds—but you didn’t hear that from me.”

Leaning back against the booth seat, I said, “I’m gay.”

“Oh, okay,” she replied kindly. And then after a moment, she glanced at Mallory. “Oh. Yeah, right. Of course. Sorry.”

Mallory looked like he was about to say something, but I said, “No problem.”

Lindsey said goodbye and went back to her table of friends. When I looked at Mallory, he was grinning ear to ear.

“What?” I asked.

“I think that was your first time.”

“Being hit on? Thanks.”

He chuckled. “No. I meant telling someone that you’re gay. Telling a stranger.”

After a moment, I realized he was right. It didn’t feel like an immediate, huge weight off my chest. It felt like that weight hadn’t been there to start with. Maybe the time spent in Banff with Mallory had chiseled it all away.

“I think you’re right.”

Mallory held up his beer. I brought mine to his and clinked the brims together. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

Under the table, I playfully kicked the toe of my shoe against his. “You know what else?”

In reply, Mallory lifted his eyebrows as he took a drink from his pint glass.

I leaned forward to say quietly, “You are so damn hot.”

He began choking on his beer.

I laughed.

---

We were laughing when we passed through the threshold of the front door to the house. The moment the door shut behind us, I pressed Mallory against it and kissed him. He responded by pulling me closer and kissing me harder.

I pulled away from him for a moment, only to take off my coat and toss it to the floor. Mallory followed suit, dropping his jacket on top of mine. Together we moved down the hallway, kissing when we could, losing our shoes along the way to the staircase. We ascended together and eventually found our way to Mallory’s master bedroom.

Mallory went to the bedside table and flicked on the lamp. I followed close behind him and began unbuttoning his shirt the moment he faced me. I shoved it off his shoulders. His chest was strong, hard muscles with a dusting of hair down to his navel.

When I unlatched his trousers, he took one of my hands, pressed it flat over his heart, and with a slight hitch of laughter in his voice said, “Hey. I’ve never done this before. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Under my palm, I felt Mallory’s heart beating wildly.

I pulled my hand back and then shoved his pants all the way down to the floor.

“I’ll show you.”

Hands on his chest, I pushed him down flat against the bed. He laughed awkwardly, or maybe nervously, but I crawled up next to him after shucking off my shirt and pants.

He moved so his head was resting against the pillows. I went to him, putting one knee between his legs, holding myself up with my thighs and one good hand.

When he looked up at me, he said, “I meant what I said. I really have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve never even touched another man—not like this.”

I leaned forward and nipped at the straight line of his jaw, then pressed a kiss against the side of his neck. “Have you thought about it?”

“Since meeting you. And before, when I was younger.”

Working my way downward, I trailed wet kisses and quick bites to the junction of his shoulder, down his chest, then over one of his nipples.

He made a low sound deep in his chest.

“Yes?” I asked, inching my knee a little higher to press firmly against the erection straining the fabric of his underwear.

“Yes.”

In the next instant, Mallory’s palm was on my back, and we were rolling. He’d moved us so I was flat on my back with him hovering above me.

The slight shift in dynamic left me winded. Or maybe it was the sight of Mallory’s larger body over mine that did it. But it felt right somehow, even if this wasn’t the way things normally went during my encounters with other men.

But Mallory wasn’t just some man.

Without a word, he kissed me. His lips pressed firmly against my own while his tongue pressed into my mouth. I groaned when he bit my bottom lip.

I reached down between us and smoothed my hand into the waist of his boxer briefs. Without ceremony, I ran my fingers down his shaft from tip to hilt, feeling his erection against the skin of my hand. Unsurprisingly, that part of Mallory was big.

He murmured a curse against my lips when I wrapped my fingers around his length and squeezed. In the next moment, he pulled my hand out. I stared at him, wide-eyed, as he brought my hand up to his mouth, licked my palm from wrist to fingertip, and grinned at me in a way he’d never done before.

It was like a thunderclap to my heart.

A jolt of electricity straight to my dick.

Mallory pushed my hand back down under the waist of his underwear and wrapped our fingers around his dick. He pulled his hand back once I started the easy, jerking rhythm on my own.

“Mmm,” he moaned into my ear.

Just that sound was almost enough to do it for me. But it was once he began kissing my neck, gently scratching my skin with his beard, that I thought I’d come undone.

His dick was thick and hard in my hand, fully erect, and almost hot to the touch. He swore each time my thumb brushed against the ridge under the tip—so I did it again and again.

“Archer,” he groaned, “it’s been too long for me. Tell me what you want.”

“Touch me.” The words came out like a plea, dressed prettily in a tone I’d never heard from my voice. But I would’ve begged Mallory to touch me in that second. Hell, I would probably beg Mallory to touch me every second of every day for the rest of my life.

His touch was much less sure now. He was tentative and slow as he reached below the waistband of my underwear and brushed his fingertips against my erection.

“Fuck.” I flopped my head back against the pillow and squeezed my eyes shut.

Mallory pressed onward, squeezing my dick much the same way I was grasping his. I wasn’t allotted even a moment to collect my thoughts when he began pumping his hand up and down, mimicking the way I’d been touching him only moments before.

“Do you like this?” Mallory asked, still hovering over me.

I opened my eyes to look at his. They sparkled with humor. “Yes. Too much.”

He began moving his hips a little, thrusting into the palm of my hand as I jerked him off.

My breath caught in my throat when his thumb glided over my slit. He leaned forward and kissed me as I moaned, my body unable to handle the feel of his hot erection against my palm or his rough hand against my own.

I said his name as I came, eyelids fluttering, heart threatening to break free of my ribcage. Because how could I not? My entire world, in that moment, consisted of him and only him.

Mallory whispered into my hair, kissed the side of my face, and then came undone. I felt his muscles constrict a moment before the sticky, hot liquid spilled into my hand and over my stomach, mixing with my own.

We breathed heavily, saying nothing, Mallory still hovering above me. But we did look at each other. I studied the curve of his nose, the crystal blue color of his eyes, and the set of his mouth.

He sat up and went into the hallway. He wasn’t gone a moment before he came back with a towel that he used to wipe us both off. The towel was discarded to the floor before he crawled back in next to me.

Half jokingly, I said, “Don’t have a crisis.”

He turned his head and smiled at me. “I won’t if you won’t.”

And then Mallory rolled into me, lying on his side and tucking his head in between my shoulder and neck.