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“Cool, I’ll call and tell her whenever works for her. Jacob’s got school and stuff, so maybe Labor—”

“I said fine,” Tor snapped, all of his previous good humour gone.

Jake froze, then lowered himself into his chair slowly. “Uh. Okay. Later, then.”

Tor scowled at his plate and both Kirk and Elias tensed as silence took over the room.

Jake reached for the salad tongs, his cheeks heating in embarrassment and confusion. The meal passed in an uncomfortable silence, no one looking at the others, and as soon as he was done, Tor stood up.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” he said gruffly. He dropped his plate into the sink and pulled the fridge door open, grabbing a bottle of beer. He didn’t look at any of them as he left the house, and stomped off the porch stairs.

Jake and Elias stared at each other for a moment, and Kirk sat there with his mouth open, finally sputtering, “Aren’t you going to stop him?”

Jake turned his stare to Kirk. “Stop what? A tantrum?”

Kirk was still looking stunned. “No, the beer. Tor doesn’t drink—I thought it was ‘cause you both—”

“Oh, that,” Jake dismissed it with a shrug. “Nah, that’s just me. Tor doesn’t drink ‘cause I don’t like the taste, is all. Not the same thing.” He exchanged another look with Elias.

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“But if he’s reaching for beer, something pretty unpleasant is going on in his head. This isn’t just a fit of temper.”

Elias nodded. “Don’t envy you.”

Jake shrugged, pushing his own concern and discomfort away. “Part of being together.”

He had to remind himself of that when Tor came back an hour later in just as foul a mood, and when Tor made grumpy noises at the TV, and again when they were getting ready for bed and Tor bitched about the way Jake squeezed the toothpaste.

When they finally got into bed Jake made the apparent error of either waiting too long to loop his arm around Tor, or it was on the wrong part of Tor’s waist, or his body temperature was wrong. In any event Tor stiffened and rolled away, taking the last of Jake’s patience with him.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Jake demanded.

Tor froze, and Jake was sure he was going to get up and leave, that the door would slam and they’d be back at square one again.

Before Tor could move, Jake touched his arm; not holding him there, just giving him some contact. “Sorry.”

Tor was still unmoving, but at least he wasn’t storming off. Jake thought quickly, sure that whatever he decided to do wouldn’t be right, but he had to do something. He had no idea what Tor wanted him to do, what Tor needed from him.

So he asked.

“What do you want me to do? If you need some time to be alone I can go.”

Tor looked at him, his eyes unreadable in the dark, but his body tense. “What?” he finally asked.

Jake sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I have no idea what’s going on. Give me something here—I don’t know if I did something, or if you’re pissed at life in general, or what. I only know that this is the first time since you came back that you’ve come close to leaving instead of talking, and I don’t want to go to sleep wondering what’s going on.

This where we have to do that talking shit, Tor.”

For a moment Tor didn’t move, nothing changed at all, then his body relaxed and he lay back down. Jake almost grinned in relief—they were getting somewhere.

“You told me…you promised me this wouldn’t happen,” Tor said, his voice rough.

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Confusion slammed into Jake, a quick punch to his gut. “ I never said we wouldn’t fight,”

he began, defenses building.

“Not that,” Tor hissed. “Not everything is about you, you know.” And then Jake could hear the pain in Tor’s voice, the complete agony.

“Tell me,” Jake said softly, anger and hurt melting away.

“Do you now what today is?” Tor asked.

Jake remembered Tor looking at the calendar that evening and cursed himself for not cluing in earlier. Quickly he ran through their family, hoping a birthday or something would come to him. The logical place to start was with Maureen. but her birthday was in the spring. He couldn’t remember any possible anniversaries Tor might consider significant for either of them. “No,” he finally admitted.

“It’s the nineteenth anniversary of Kin’s death. Half my fucking life he’s been gone, and this is the first time I ever forgot. You said I could let him go and not forget—and I did. I fucking forgot.”

Emotions coursed through Jake, one after another as he lay there, but not so fast that he couldn’t name them. Sorrow for Tor’s pain. Jealousy that a man dead almost twenty years still mattered so much. Shame about the jealousy. Anger that Tor was taking it out on him, and fear that he wouldn’t be able to fix it this time.

“You didn’t forget Kin,” Jake said as calmly as he could, looking up at the dark ceiling.

He wanted to touch Tor, but didn’t; he knew it wouldn’t be welcomed. “You still have him, you just…you remember his smile, right? You remember the way you felt. That’s more important than holding onto his death, isn’t it?”

Tor was silent for a long moment, then he rolled over to face Jake. “Do you ever fucking listen to yourself?”

“Pardon me?” Jake asked, startled.

“I don’t need platitudes, Jake—”

“Then what do you need?” Jake snapped. He wanted to take the words back as soon as he’d said them. Resentment and hurt were leaking out around Jake’s edges and Tor was still stiff, holding himself away.

“I need…fuck, I need to know that I’m not losing him.” Tor sounded tired now, his voice lower. But his eyes were still angry. “I need you to listen to me, not give me crap about remembering his smile and it being okay to forget the day he died.”

Jake sighed. “Fine. You stress yourself out about it, and I’ll just lay here, wanting to help, not doing anything. ‘Cause everything I try is wrong, when it comes to this. I don’t know
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what it’s like, Tor, and I’m glad I don’t. But I don’t like seeing you hurting, and I’m sorry you are.”

Tor didn’t say anything, but Jake thought that his eyes softened a little.

“I know he’s important to you,” Jake said, more softly. “And I know you don’t want to forget him. But I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”

Tor sighed. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what? Trying to get you to see that Kin’s so important to you that you’re not gonna lose him? Ever? That you hold him so tight that sometimes—” He stopped, horrified.

“That sometimes what, Jake?” Tor asked quietly. Too quietly.

Jake looked away. “That sometimes you get so wrapped in holding onto him that you forget what you do have.”

“I don’t.” Tor sounded sure, but his eyes were searching. “Do I?”

Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. But sometimes it seems more important to you that you don’t let any part of him escape, and you wind up yelling at me. And I want to make it better for you, take the pain away, but you won’t let me.”

Tor sighed and closed his eyes. “I don’t mean to push you away. And you can’t make it better.”

Something stabbed through Jake, quick and too sharp. “Why can’t I make it better?”

“It’s not your job. Not with me, anyway,” Tor said.

That just made no sense to Jake. Of course it was his job to make things better. That’s what he did. So he said so.

“No, Jake, it isn’t. And again, do you ever listen to yourself? It’s like you’ve got this switch—Jake, my partner, and Jake the boss man, always looking to find solutions, to make it all better.” Tor sounded calm enough, his voice low and serious.

“I do? I mean…what? Yeah, I’m trying to fix this. Isn’t that—”

“Nope.” Tor rolled over and touched Jake’s cheek lightly. “Just need you to listen. Don’t have to fix it. I just need to know that you’re here. And I swear to god, I don’t mean to make Kin more important than you. I just don’t.”

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“But you blamed me,” Jake protested. “It ain’t my fault, and I don’t want to make it worse, and now I’m fucking talking like a redneck, and I don’t know what you want from me.”

Tor suddenly rolled on top of him, his hands catching Jake’s wrists. “I blamed you ‘cause I was—am—pissed at myself. I’m sorry. And I’ll say I’m sorry again in the morning. But I need you to be you, not my boss.”

Jake felt completely out of control, which was reinforced by Tor’s grip on his wrists.

“Uh, you wanna be the boss for a bit?” he asked in confusion.

Tor made a noise in his chest and his hands tightened. “What do you think?”

Jake tried to free his wrists and Tor tightened his grip again. “I think…I think I’m getting turned on.” He was too, his cock filling as he tugged against Tor’s grip. “And I’m wondering if this isn’t just you and me fighting and fucking again.”

“This is you and me fighting, talking about why, and me being the boss.” Tor ground down against him and Jake moaned, friction and adrenaline affecting them both.

“What if I want to be the boss?” Jake asked, knowing full well that he didn’t. Not right then.

“Then fight back, Taggart. But it’ll be a lie. You like it when I take charge.” Tor licked Jake’s neck, all the way up to his ear. “Like it when I tie you up. Like it when I bite. I can feel you, Jake. Can feel your cock throb when I say that.”

Jake moaned, partially from the way Tor was forcing his arms up over his head, partially from the tone of voice.

“Can feel you spreading for me, Jake. Feel your body begging for it. You like it when I do this, tell you what I’m going to do, tell you I’m in charge. You like the words, and you like giving up control to me.” Tor was purring, moving against him, and Jake’s heart was racing, his prick rigid between them.

Tor pushed a knee between Jake’s legs, and sure enough, Jake opened for him, hungry and wanting. He wrapped his legs around Tor’s waist and grabbed the headboard, holding on for dear life as Tor got the lube.

He rode Tor’s fingers until he thought he’d go insane, his body sweating, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he begged Tor to fuck him. When the hot metal of Tor’s ring pushed at him he keened, hips bucking up as he tried to get Tor deep. Tor groaned and gave in, fucking him hard and fast, fingers digging into Jake’s hips.

It was all Jake could do not to scream, only the knowledge that their home wasn’t theirs alone keeping him from crying out a litany of words. He had a sudden image of him and Tor trying to fuck quietly in their seventies and would have laughed if he had the breath.

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Then all thought fled, words and praise locked in his throat as Tor thrust hard into him again and again, hand pulling him off. “Come for me, boss man,” Tor whispered. “Make me feel it.”

Jake came, Tor’s name a harsh sound that only Tor would hear.

Tor arched, filling Jake with heat. He fell onto Jake’s chest, pulling at Jake’s arms until they were holding each other, Tor still buried in Jake’s body. “I love you, Jake. And Kin is my past, a part I want to remember. But you’re my future.”

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Chapter Fifty

Jake walked from the main house to the bunkhouse as quickly as he could, hoping to get there before the rest of them. The day had finished early and he’d spent the last while in the office talking to the Boss. Now he needed to think.

He’d been putting this off for months, all through the summer and early autumn, and now it looked like he’d run out of time. He and Tor had worked their way through an amazing amount of shit since June, starting from talking about Travis and on through various things that had come up. They’d more or less laid Kin to rest. They’d had a couple of discussion about Tor seeing Jake’s boss man attitude showing up at inappropriate times, something Jake was still working on. They’d talked about family, and how to make sure Jacob understood that they loved each other without bringing up the damage that James had inflicted. They’d gone to Maureen’s grave together, and they’d even talked about finding out where Jake’s mother was buried, but had decided against it.

And through it all Jake had avoided this one. He didn’t even know if it was still an issue for Tor, though he suspected it was. Trouble was, Jake still didn’t know what to do about it. What he needed, he thought as he crossed the yard, was a hot shower and half an hour to figure out where to start.

He didn’t get it.

Elias was making supper when he walked in, and Kirk was on the phone in the kitchen, talking about a trip into town. Tor was leaning on the fridge, talking to Elias, but he looked at Jake and waved when the door opened. Between the voices and the rattle of pots and pans Jake knew he wouldn’t find the peace he was after. And maybe it didn’t matter.

He walked through the kitchen and grabbed a glass. “What kind of day are you having?”

he asked Tor.

Tor stared at him for a second, his eyes widening and then narrowing as he thought. The phrase had become a sort of code word for them, used when one of them had something on his mind that was important enough to their relationship that they needed to talk, alone, and soon.

“Good enough,” Tor said. “Walk after supper?”

Jake nodded and filled his glass with water. “Going to take a shower.”

The shower was helpful, but not what he needed; things kept flipping in his mind as he tried to see it from all angles. Finally, he just gave up and got dry and dressed. Tor would talk him through it, and they’d figure it out.

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Supper was rushed, on his part and Tor’s, both of them ignoring the looks from Elias and Kirk as they wolfed down their meal. That was another thing, Jake thought in the back of his mind. Too many people around, all the time. Normal people could talk things out in the privacy of their own home.

When they’d finished and gotten the dishes washed Jake went to their room and grabbed a spare blanket. It was a cool night, and he didn’t know how long they’d be out there. Tor raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t say anything. The other eyebrow went up when Jake crossed to the nightstand and got the lube.

“Where’re we going?” Tor asked as they left the bunkhouse.