“Gentleman, how are you?” Tanner’s voice was deeper than Lars remembered. But it still had that same blistering effect on his nerves as when they had been younger.

“Captain Mason!” Hank cried as if he was greeting an old friend. Thomaston and George nodded in approval as Tanner began walking to the bar. They moved down a stool each, making room for him in the middle, which would place him dead center in front of Lars. Lars hadn’t been able to stop staring at him as he had walked through the door. It was like his nightly dream had just come true, but when he looked into Tanner’s hazel eyes, he was looking at a man who wasn’t as carefree and happy to see him in his dreams, but a man who was deeply disturbed and haunted by the things he had seen out in the big wide world.

If the three older men noticed the weighted discomfort between Tanner and Lars, they didn’t say anything. They had always been keen on the goings on of town, and Tanner and Lars had been pretty open about their friendship turned to lovers in Senior year. Before Lars Dad had passed away, George had made mention of them once in the bar. Not in a way that was phobic or harsh, more out of curiosity and Lars’ Dad had made it perfectly clear to the entire room that he was well aware of how his son was and it didn’t matter to him one lick. He told the room that if they didn’t like being served by him, they could get the hell out because the pub down the street was sure to have the same alcohol, even though it didn’t taste any different because it wasn’t tended by someone like him. Lars had never loved his Dad more in that moment, and no one had ever commented on it since and funnily enough, only a couple of patrons who bounced between the two pubs every night ever left and didn’t come back. Hank, Thomaston and George had all remained sipping their brews quietly and saluting Lars as he passed that night, but not saying a word otherwise.

“Hello.” He said quietly as Tanner sat down. He noticed everything about him. The shadows under his eyes, the light smattering of freckles across the bridge of his very tanned nose. The wavy chestnut hair and even the jeans and black jacket with the coast guard emblem on the front. Lars’ hand shook as he tossed the cracked glass in the trash and reached for a new one. He didn’t even have to ask as he capped the glass mug with a frothing white head. He passed it across the bar and Tanner took it, nodding gratefully. He took a sip and closed his eyes and Lars noticed the way his eyelashes still fluttered lightly on his cheeks. He had spent hours staring at him as they had slept after a night together, out in the cabin off the highway.

“I haven’t had an Allagash White in years. They don’t make it down in Miami.” Tanner stated. Hank clapped him on the back.

“Welcome home, Son. Welcome home.” Lars searched his gaze for any sign of recognition or re-kindling. How could he sit here so casually, after the way things had ended? He remembered the fight as if it had happened yesterday.

“You can’t go! You can’t just leave me here!” He had screamed at him.

“Lars, I can’t stay here forever. There’s nothing here. It’s a Maine shaped trap! I have to get out of this place, there’s nothing!” Tanner had screamed back at him.

“What about me?” He cried. It was one of the few times he had ever cried. Sure, Ollie had been bullying them for years, but nothing had ever hurt quite this much. “I’m here.” His lips trembled.

“Come with me.” Tanner urged, kissing his quivering lips. “We’ll go together. Me and you. We’ll get out of this place. You said it yourself, it’s like stepping into a post card, here in Maine. It’s like time got stuck and Maine stayed with it. All people will ever see are rednecks, blueberries, moose and lobsters. Let’s go find other places to explore.” He urged.

“Tanner, you know I can’t. We’ve been through this. I have to take over the business. I’m the only child. I have to stay. Can’t you find any reason to stay with me?” He asked. He circled his hands around Tanner, holding him close. It was the first time he had felt resistance to his embrace, and he let go immediately, as if Tanner’s unwillingness to stay had burnt him.

“You know it isn’t you. You know that’s not the reason. But I have to go. I can’t stand it here anymore…I have to.” Tanner was shaking his head. He was denying something. Himself? Or maybe Lars? Lars hadn’t been certain. All he knew was that was the look of a man resolved. Tanner had talked for so long about leaving, but he had denied himself in believing it. Now that the moment was here, he had been sure he would be worth fighting for, but Tanner had quit. Quit Boothbay Harbor. Quit him.

“I thought you loved me.” He had said quietly to Tanner, defeated.

“You know I do.” He replied.

“Then stay. Stay for me.”

“It’s not that simple. Come with me. Tell your Dad you don’t want to run the bar. Tell him it might be time to sell it. There are plenty of bars in Miami.”

“But I do want to run the bar. This bar. You know that. I’ve told you that before!”

“Just as I’ve told you I’ve always wanted to go.” Tanner replied. They were at an impasse. Neither willing to give up on their life’s ambitions. “I guess this is goodbye, then.” He had said quietly. “Unless you can think of anything…unless you can think of a reason to come with me.”

They had been standing on the front lawn just outside the cabin. It was an old cabin with only candles for lights, and the closest thing to running water was the spring that ran past the back of the cabin and fed into the ocean. The property had been in Tanner’s family for years, they kept it, for a place to escape from the town. It was only a few miles up the highway from the town, but the driveway only cut off the main road for about a half a mile and then you had to walk the rest of the way in to the cabin.

Shirley hadn’t kept the place up, but Lars had occasionally popped in for reminiscent sake. It was a single room with a bed and a fire. An old shaggy couch which had been replaced at the second hand store a few times, any time the mice decided to move in and make a home in the cushions. Lars had the roof repaired a couple of times, and the tiny kitchenette was only stocked when someone would go and stay, which wasn’t often anymore. He had gone to check it a few times throughout the year, but rarely stayed overnight like he used to when Tanner had left those first few years. The bed covers had smelled like him, and he would curl on the bed and cry himself to sleep. He didn’t go out there much anymore though.

They had been standing under the spruce and pine trees, with the sun trickling down, filtered through the leaves, and for the first time, they had been unable to think of a single thing to say to one another. Lars felt his chest tighten with anger.

“You’re giving me an ultimatum?” He demanded. “Why does it have to be your way or the highway?” He asked.

“Because I’m not the one stuck in the rut of the past.” He had said quietly. His tone was fixed and final.

“Well you can take your way and shove it!” Lars had hollered at him. He turned and stomped away.

He hadn’t seen Tanner again after that fight. He had seriously considered telling his Dad he didn’t want the business too, but he had decided against it, favoring stability over the uncertainty that if he did chase Tanner to Miami, what if he wouldn’t have him back after that fight?

“So, can I go now?” He heard a voice.

“What? No!” He hollered.

“But Lars, you remember I asked you about the movie tonight, with Amy?” It was Jesse talking to him. He looked around at him wildly as the other men paused in sipping their beers. He hadn’t realized he had become so lost in thought that he had forgotten he was standing at the bar, in a stupor because of Tanner’s reappearance.

“Right, sorry Jesse. My own stuff…sorry. Yeah, you can go. Hey, I’ll text you if I need you to come in this weekend. If we get the amount of snow they’re predicting, I’ll probably shut down.”

“Yeah, ok. You sure you don’t need me to stick around Lars? You look a bit sick.” Jesse commented.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m ok. Go, have fun. Say hi to Amy for me.” Amy was sweet. She kept Jesse in line when they had been in high school. He had started to run with a bad crowd, but she pulled him out of it and had followed her to college where they had been thriving together. If only Lars had been that intelligent to follow Tanner. He grunted at himself and turned his back to the bar, absentmindedly re-arranging bottles that he would just put back in place later. He couldn’t face Tanner another second. His keen eyes had observed the whole encounter and he had been looking at Lars questioningly, but Lars wasn’t ready to get into it with him yet. Especially with an audience.

Hank, Thomaston and George were peppering him with questions about what his plans were for tourist season. How he had done with working a beat in the big city down south, what his policies would be for the fishermen etc.

“Well, I plan on patrolling and reporting back to the station daily. Mostly I’ll be looking for tourists in danger if they don’t know the coastal waters well and decide they are experts on sailing and all that. As long as the fishermen aren’t doing anything illegal, I have no control over Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s state laws, I just uphold them. I won’t interfere with however they have the harbor set up for traps, that’s not my job to piss off the locals. The work in Miami was not at all what I expected, which is why I am back here.” He murmured the last. He took a swig of beer, so he wouldn’t have to elaborate. Lars wondered what that was all about. Had something happened? He certainly looked changed in the way a man changes when tragedy has struck. There was the haunting in his eyes that was a dead giveaway, but if he was looking at the same Tanner, deep down, that he had been when they were best friends, Lars knew it was pointless to try to wheedle any information out of him that he wasn’t ready to divulge.

“That’s good, Son. Real good.” Hank observed. It seemed to settle the debate of what sort of influence Tanner would have over the community. The banter continued to circle through the men and with small tidbits of the last decade being thrown in. They were the inconsequential kind, like if Tanner had to wrestle with some alligators or not or if he’d ever seen a python in someone’s swimming pool or arrested a drunk Mickey Mouse or something. He smiled politely through it all and assured them that it wasn’t quite so peculiar in those ways, but the years on the force down there did have their oddities on a daily basis. He continued to waylay any misconceptions that the old timers had about the flatlanders, as they called them, and Lars held on to every word. He only paused occasionally to refill drinks and pass over some pretzels or peanuts for them to munch on.

Very few people came in that night, as most everyone was hunkering down for the storm coming, and Lars was loath to leave the vicinity of the discussion, as he found himself drunk on the cadence of Tanner’s deep voice. He felt like he had been sipping top notch all evening, but he had simply been straining to hear everything Tanner divulged, no matter how inconsequential.

About an hour after Tanner’s appearance, when the shock had begun to where off, Lars found his emotions warring between anger and longing. He wanted to touch him again, feel him under his palms. He caught himself fantasizing more than once about marching around the bar and pulling him up into his arms and kissing him. He thought about kissing all the anger and hurt away. He told himself no, that just because Tanner was back, it didn’t mean he wanted to hop back into a relationship. He was one hundred percent off limits until Tanner came to him to say he wanted back in.

Tanner was never the kind of man to grovel. He would never admit that he had been wrong in leaving, and that even after all these years, they still were attracted to one another. At least, Lars’ body, the traitor, seemed to know this despite his mind remaining stubborn. Someone had to be the bigger man, and he wasn’t sure which one of them it was going to be, but that didn’t change the physical attraction. It was instinctual when he caught a whiff of his cologne. It was the same that he wore in high school and Lars felt himself harden instantly. He stayed behind the counter for a long while whilst he willed his body to behave and not react.

He found himself staring at the freckles that were on Tanner’s neck. There were three that started one on his earlobe, another just behind his ear on his neck, and the third halfway down on the column of his neck. Lars had taken his time kissing and playing connect the dots, driving Tanner wild underneath him. He had other freckles on his stomach and one on his hip that Lars had enjoyed exploring, but it was always the one on the inside of his thigh that had gotten the best of Tanner in bed. It drove him wild and he always grasped Lars head and pushed his mouth down on…

Lars shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He made the excuse, “Need to go down cellar and bring up a case, boys. Top anything off for you?” But before they could answer, he turned on his heel and made tracks through the door just to the left of the bar and walked down the hallway, past his office and to the back stairwell. He descended into the pale orange glow cast from the overhead light in the cellar and plunked himself down on the bottom step rubbing his face in his hands.

Was it real? Was he really back? Would he stay? That was the question that was ripping at his emotions. He might be here, but that didn’t mean anything the next time he got a hankering to go out and explore. How was he supposed to handle this? He wondered to himself. He had wished, prayed, hoped and pleaded with the Heavens to bring his Tanner back. He had never expected to be answered. Yet here he was. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Lars knew he couldn’t linger in the basement for the rest of the night. He grabbed the first case he could get his hands on, despite not needing the excess of liquor, as the bar was mostly fully stocked, but he didn’t want to show up empty handed and with empty excuses. When he ascended the steps, he placed the case next to the counter where he was sure to trip on it until he had a chance to unload it or take it back downstairs. He snorted in derision at himself as he realized the irony of the fact that when presented with the very person he had been yearning for for over a decade, he had been the one to run away this time.

Lars stood up and inwardly cursed as he realized the four men were no longer alone. In his absence, Ollie had entered the bar, and it seemed he was more than happy to renew his longstanding penchant for being this town’s biggest bully, despite his sworn oath to serve and protect.

“Lars, good to see you. Hope this happy little reunion has gone well.” Ollie taunted.