Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

By the end of their third day, Tyler decided that Martin was a nice guy. Not that he hadn’t thought that from that first grocery delivery or the rock-carrying incident. Things happened that kept making Tyler want to smile, which then morphed into the desire to grab Martin and kiss him all kinds of inappropriately.

Yep. Kiss. Again.

Like when Martin had stood in that excavation and wiped his face, then tilted his head toward the sun. Tyler had never seen anything so perfect, with damp curls escaping from the thin tie that held back the majority of his mahogany hair. Add in the glimpse of the skin of his belly, and Tyler was gone. Then he’d fucked it up when Martin had caught him staring, compounded by the nonsense that had fallen out of his mouth.

The kiss he’d thrown at Martin had been clumsy and ill-timed, but from his point of view, it had also been one of the most perfect first kisses he’d ever experienced. Then Martin had kissed him back, but was that just to even the playing field, or had it actually meant something?

Then there was the fact that Martin remembered everything he read. Tyler had never met anyone with a true eidetic memory, and the concept fascinated him, but the last thing he wanted to do was ask questions from a scientific point of view. That would be like treating Martin as if he was a bug under a microscope. Today he’d been quiet and blamed it on not sleeping. There was tension in him that even the least observant person could’ve spotted, in the way he walked and worked and in the fact that answers to questions were even more monosyllabic than usual.

They’d worked hard, the concrete was dry, ceramic tiles in place, and in the next couple of days they would be able to complete both vaults and fill in the spaces between them. At the moment it was about the satellite dish, which ordinarily was one of the most straightforward tasks to do. Dig a hole, install wiring, get the thing to stand up.

It wouldn’t stay at the right angle, a combination of soil issues, rock placement, and general bad luck.

“Just take it slower,” Tyler explained, balancing the wire as Martin moved the array.

“I am.”

“Not slow enough, one inch, no more.”

Martin was growing tenser at each failure to get the solar panel to stay in the position they needed it to be. At first, Tyler had laughed off the fact that the expensive equipment wouldn’t connect to the right wires, but Martin didn’t seem that impressed with his attempt to diffuse the situation. If anything, he was taking things personally, and Tyler got the feeling he was spoiling for a fight. Then as Martin tried for another go, his movements became shaky, and Tyler placed a hand over his to stop him.

“Leave it, Martin. I’ve got it.”

Martin stared at him. “I can do this.”

“I know you can, but this is expensive equipment, and I don’t want you going all Hulk on it,” he was teasing, but Martin’s expression turned hard, and he stepped back.

“I’m fucking it up.”

“No, you just need to appreciate that this is?—”

“Understood,” he snapped, then strode down the hill, his hands in fists at his sides.

Tyler took a few moments to make sure everything was secure and then jogged after him. He felt as if he owed Martin an apology or at least a moment where he listened to Martin’s reasons for walking off and for them to come to a solution. There was no sign of him at the camp, but a glimpse of denim confirmed he was back in what Tyler thought of as Martin’s thinking spot. Only this time he wasn’t sitting on top of the drop stone; he was on the ground next to it, his legs drawn up, his arms wrapped around them, and his face tilted to the sky.

“You know we’ll get it to work eventually,” Tyler offered lamely, and Martin glanced at him, looking exhausted. Forget apologies or sane conversations about procedure. All Tyler wanted to do was go to his knees next to him and hug him.

That would be seriously crossing the lines.

“I just need a minute,” Martin murmured.

Sometimes Tyler did stupid things, like asking questions when he shouldn’t or prodding at people who clearly wanted to be left alone. With hindsight, he should have walked away and left Martin to chill for a few minutes, but no, he didn’t want Martin stressing over things that could be easily cleared up, so in his infinite wisdom, he proceeded to poke the bear.

“Was it because I kissed you yesterday?”

“No.”

“Because you kissed me back, but if I overstepped?—”

“Go away.”

Tyler should have taken the hint then, but no, he went after Martin even more. If it wasn’t the kiss, then what was it exactly?

“What happened up there? You looked as if you were going to throw the panel off a cliff.”

Martin shot him a glance that spoke volumes, but Tyler ignored him and pressed ahead.

“It’s not an issue. That wiring is notoriously hard to get right, and it’s my fault.” He wanted to lower the angst going on here, so to add insult to injury, he inserted a joke. “I should have given you the manual so you could read about the installation. Then you’d remember the procedure with the super expensive government equipment.” He let out a soft laugh at his own lame joke.

This time Martin looked right at him. “Seriously, you went there ?”

“What do you mean? I was only joking. It doesn’t?—”

“Fuck you,” Martin snapped, and he stood in angry jerky motions. “I know I’m shit, but don’t you dare think that reading some manual will instantly make me fucking perfect. I’m allowed to get things wrong. It’s okay to make mistakes.” With every statement, he moved closer to Tyler, and even though he thought Martin wouldn’t hurt him, there was genuine temper in his expression. What the hell had happened? Was this some kind of breakdown?

“Of course it’s okay, Martin. Can you just?—”

Martin shoved past him, “I said I need ten fucking minutes. That’s all I asked for.”

“Martin, stop being so melodramatic?—”

“Jesus!” Martin snapped and stalked away.

Tyler watched him go, right through the camp and into the trees beyond. His first instinct was to follow, but there was something seriously wrong here, and it was all his fault. He kicked the drop stone, something he regretted immediately and then hobbled away and limped back up the hill to the site with a view to getting things done.

Martin came back after ten minutes, but in the way of men when the atmosphere was shit, they went about what they were doing in silence until finally the satellite dish was situated. The solar panel was less trouble to put in place, and when the time came when they couldn’t do any more until the concrete had dried, they’d actually achieved the list of things that Tyler had in his head for today.

“Okay if I get a shower?” Martin asked, waited for Tyler to nod, then disappeared into their bathroom tent, lugging a huge container of spring water. Tyler tried not to think about Martin in there, naked, under the water, and instead focused on whatever had happened to get inside Martin’s head and have him freaked out for most of the day.

“It must have been me. I shouldn’t even be allowed out among normal people,” Tyler berated himself quietly, then took one of the cloth bags he’d stuffed into his duffle and stalked up the hill, toward the point where the stream came out of the mountainside after its underground journey. He collected as much gravel as he could carry, then tied the top. That was for the next spare minute he had, for the downtime when he came back down to the camp, Martin’s tent was zipped up. Dinner wouldn’t be for a while, he had fucked up being in charge of this installation, and now Martin was in hiding, but instead of thinking about any of that, Tyler set about writing up notes about the day in his journal.

He got as far as putting the date at the top of the page when Martin stepped out of his tent and crossed the campsite to stand next to him.

“I owe you an apology,” he murmured. “Sorry.”

Tyler scrambled to stand. “No, I’m sorry too. I was joking, but I was also serious, and I was using the joking to cover up the fact that this is expensive equipment that I am responsible for, and today you’ve been on edge, and I should have asked you what was wrong way before you got into a personal fight with the satellite dish because that would have been good management, but then I worried about the kiss because I wanted to kiss you, and I’d like to kiss you again, but I get that?—”

“I had a shit night’s sleep,” Martin interrupted. “Too many memories, too much everything.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Martin barked a laugh, and it sounded hollow and pained. “If I talked to you about all the crap in my head, you’d run back to the ranch in an instant.”

That was some statement weighed down with emotion, almost as if Martin was daring Tyler to ask him questions.

“We’re stuck here together for a few days. I can be a friend,” Tyler suggested. He was treading in untested waters. His experience with emotions was limited by the fact that he spent most of his life with his head in a book or out in isolation, just him and his rocks. Something heavy was going on with Martin, and what did Tyler really know about him? Other than he’d carried rocks in a very sexy way. Or that he’d packed away groceries and had the strong legs of a runner and the gentle hands of an artist. Although the satellite dish might argue that Martin wasn’t gentle, but that was just how Tyler saw him. Then there were his eyes, which were chips of green ice, and when he smiled, he was the sexiest man Tyler had ever seen.

Maybe he wanted to be more than a friend, but Martin didn’t need to know that.

“Just a friend,” Tyler repeated. “If you want to talk.”

“Not tonight,” Martin said, and that was the end of the conversation.

Dinner was quiet but companionable, and when they went to their individual tents, the events of today had passed by. Or at least, they’d been hidden away.

That was enough for now.