Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

CHRISTOPHER

M ark didn’t speak as he drove south. After ten minutes, Chris had enough of Mark’s silent act.

“We going to talk about this or are you going to leave me hanging? What’d I do wrong?”

“Nothing,” Mark said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then what the hell , dude?”

“Really? You didn’t see a damned thing wrong?”

“No! I don’t! That’s why I’m asking you!”

Mark didn’t look at him, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. “You don’t find it the slightest bit sus she won’t say what she does for a living, that she’s driving a fancy-ass car, and she works for her father?”

“Telling a strange guy—make that two strange guys—what she does for a living when she’s traveling alone doesn’t seem fishy to me. Seems smart.”

“Do the math, Chris. She works for daddy. Money, because hello , look at that car. And she’s evasive with her answers. I mean, she could have said anything vague. Like, ‘Oh, I’m in software,’ or, ‘I sell bull sperm to farmers.’”

“Yeah, like there’s a lot of bull sperm salespeople,” Chris said.

“You know what I mean. If she has a job requiring security clearance, she could have said that. But she didn’t.” He finally looked at Chris. “You’re really not seeing a problem here?”

“No!”

“She’s likely a spoiled-brat daddy’s girl. Which you know is a massive turn-off for me. But worse, she might be a drug mule.”

“ What ? She wasn’t even drinking alcohol.”

“Exactly. Like she’s doing everything in her power not to give away her true identity or draw attention to herself for a traffic stop. What better drug mule than a cute young white woman with a classy car? I know if I pulled her over for a traffic stop I might not suspect anything. And she wasn’t exactly dressed for going out. Much less dressed like someone who owns a car that expensive.”

“She was dressed comfortably,” Chris said. “I mean, hellooo?” He pointed at his own boots. “You’re jumping to conclusions so hard I’m starting to think you have an invisible trampoline under your ass.”

“I just…” Mark shook his head. “Maybe it’s a cop thing. But something about her did not set well with me. Was she cute? Yes. But so was the first girl you were talking to.”

Christopher’s face heated and he stared out the passenger window, not bothering to respond.

After another ten minutes of uncomfortable silence, he felt Mark’s hand on his thigh. “I’m sorry,” Mark softly said.

“It’s not your fault.” Still, Chris didn’t face him.

Mark’s hand stayed on his thigh for another uncomfortable quiet spell.

Then, “I might have also been a little jealous I missed seeing you go outside with her.”

Christopher sighed and laid his hand over Mark’s. He finally looked at him. “And you say I have issues?”

“Thankfully, Mark smiled. “ I have issues— you have subscriptions.”

Christopher squeezed his hand. “She needed to grab ear plugs from her car. When we walked back, the deck was right there, and I didn’t want to have to shout over the music. I wasn’t trying to ice you out.”

The quiet now felt more relaxed, comfortable. Mark kept his hand on Christopher’s thigh, their fingers laced. They were still twenty minutes north of Gardiner when Mark spoke again.

“We have to guide that scientist through the park,” he said. “How about we take a couple of days off after that, drive over to Bozeman, make this official, and spend a weekend in a hotel where we probably don’t know any of the people working there so we can spend some uninterrupted quality time together?”

Christopher blinked, needing a moment to process that. “Are you proposing?”

They approached a scenic turnout. Mark pulled in and shifted the truck into park, turning to Christopher. “I am,” he said, meeting Christopher’s gaze. “I wouldn’t mind wearing a wedding ring. Which is something else we can do in Bozeman—go ring shopping.”

“Don’t you usually want to strangle my autistic ass?” Christopher half-joked.

“Sometimes.” He smiled, his hazel eyes glinting with mirth. “But you’re my sparkly vampire unicorn. You put up with me. And I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else.”

Christopher studied him. “You saying we’re ending our unicorn hunts?”

He shrugged. “They haven’t been a priority for either of us, right? I’m not saying we can’t still do that if we’re both in the mood and in agreement. Just like tonight. But I’m not going anywhere. And I know you’re not going anywhere. Soo…”

Mark shrugged again. “We’re both building our savings and if something happens to me, I want you making the decisions, not my mom or step-dad. And if the worst happens, I’d want everything to go to you, not them.”

Christopher leaned in, cupped the back of Mark’s neck, and kissed his guy. “Yes,” he quietly said. “I would love to get married. Just one condition,” he added as he nuzzled his forehead against Mark’s.

“What condition?”

“We also get a set of those silicone wedding rings to wear when we’re working. Because sometimes we’re doing stuff that we don’t want to risk getting our fingers ripped off. And if we lose a silicone ring it won’t hurt our hearts or wallets so much.”

Mark laughed. “See? That’s why we’re perfect together. You think about the little details.” He kissed Christopher back. “I was even thinking maybe we could talk about looking at houses. I don’t mind our staff cabin, but it’s not ours . And while I like stacking money in savings, I don’t like the fact that the park service could boot us without warning.”

“Yeah. I like that idea.”

MARK

Relief flooded Mark. “I mean, if you want some of your family here for the wedding, we can?—”

“No,” Chris said. “I’ll tell them we eloped. I know it won’t hurt their feelings that we excluded them. It’ll relieve them that I didn’t ask them to put themselves out coming, or force them to have to come up with an excuse they think won’t hurt my feelings as to why they can’t.”

Mark hadn’t planned to propose tonight, like this, but something about the night’s events had shifted everything in his mind, like a gear slipping into its proper place.

“I think it’s safe to say you’re not telling your family, huh?” Chris asked.

Mark snorted. “ Fuck , no. No offense.”

“None taken. So what happens if we go back for a family visit with your family?”

Mark shrugged. “We stay in a hotel and don’t bother telling anyone which one. When things get shitty, or I’ve had enough, we slide out the nearest door and dip.”

“You won’t get tired of me?” Christopher asked.

“I think if that was going to happen it would have been a couple of years ago. I mean, seriously, I’ve finally got the hang of dealing with you.” He smiled. “Why the hell would I want to have to go through that again with someone else?”

As he’d hoped, that made Chris smile again. In this dim light his brown eyes looked nearly black. “Well, I wouldn’t want to put you through that torture a second time. And I’ve nearly got your allistic ass fully trained, so why would I want to have to start all over with someone else, either?”

Mark closed his eyes and nuzzled Christopher’s forehead again. “I love you,” he whispered. They’d said it before to each other, countless times, but maybe he didn’t say it enough. “I don’t ever want to lose you and you not know that.”

Christopher leaned back and cradled Mark’s face in his hands. “I love you, too. And you’re the one I worry about every time you get on a horse or ATV or snowmobile and head into the interior. At least my job is safe and I spend a chunk of it inside an office or a lab. When I’m spending it in the field, I’m rarely at risk.”

“Maybe we should buy each other sat phones for wedding presents.” It wasn’t a joke, because it was something they’d discussed before.

“You know, I think that’s a great idea,” Chris said. “Something else we can shop for.”

When they returned home and headed inside their small two-bedroom cabin, they quickly ended up naked in bed, holding each other, kissing, hands exploring.

“Were you really jealous?” Chris teased as he rolled Mark onto his back and straddled him.

“Yeah,” he reluctantly admitted. “A little.”

He grabbed Mark’s hands and shoved them over his head, pinning them at the wrists. They both knew Mark could easily flip Chris over and off him and pin him, but he didn’t mind Chris getting a little aggressive like this on occasion. “I think that’s adorable,” Chris said, leaning in for a kiss. “My big bad park ranger getting territorial.”

They were both hard and Mark resisted the urge to rock his hips against Chris, because his guy was just sadistic enough he would delay things for both of them simply to hear Mark beg.

Because Chris was the only person in the world he’d beg for, under any circumstances.

They kissed, nibbled, teased each other, until they eventually ended up on their sides and facing each other, their hands lubed and stroking each other’s cocks. If it wasn’t the end of a long day, and if they both didn’t need to get up in the morning to deal with work stuff ahead of this unexpected trip, they could have taken more time and done more. But over the years they’d learned to work with what they had in terms of time and energy—physical and mental—and when Mark came first, after he finished Chris grabbed Mark’s hand and started fucking his fist, quickly finishing.

They laid there for a moment, nuzzling, breathing and…being.

“I love you,” Mark said. “And I mean it—I want to get married. I’m thirty-two and you’re thirty-four. I think we know who we are and what we want.”

Chris kissed him. “Love you, too. And yes. When we get back we head to Bozeman and get married.”

Chris played the little spoon tonight. Mark never would have imagined ending up with this man, but…yeah.

Things felt right with him, despite their rocky beginning. Once he’d understood his guy’s brain was tuned to a different wavelength, and Mark started unpacking the dysfunction he’d grown up with thanks to his step-father and step-brother, he’d been able to drop his expectations and start over fresh.

A reboot, as Chris referred to it.

He’d learned Chris’ unending questions weren’t defiance or challenging Mark—he was trying to understand the whys of something. Once Mark stopped trying to read “tone” into Chris’ words, and stopped expecting Chris to infer things from Mark’s admittedly sometimes passive-aggressive behavior, and started forcing himself to verbalize his thoughts and feelings, things became…

Easy.

Yes, he still joked with Chris that living with him was a pain in the ass. But that was okay, because Chris teased him back in other ways.

It was their… thing .

And it was special to Mark because he’d let Chris inside his head and heart, revealed things he’d never told anyone else.

Revealed to him how he’d felt less-than thanks to the teasing he’d received from people who were supposed to love him.

With Chris, he’d finally stopped trying to prove himself, because no one else mattered. As long as he performed his job to the best of his abilities, and kept improving himself personally so he could be the best partner possible to Chris, that was all that mattered.

And with Chris he’d also learned to look at things from a different angle. There were even times dealing with the public when he’d stopped himself mid-sentence and reframed a question or command to a visitor that took a potentially volatile situation and almost immediately transformed it into a conversation full of laughter and goodwill.

He’d once joked with Chris about him being a “sparkly vampire unicorn” when talking about Chris’ autism, and Chris had immediately latched on to that and ran with it, loving it.

And in that way Chris had also learned things, like being open with people he needed to interact with for work that he was autistic to help derail potential miscommunications.

They were both happier than they’d ever been in their lives.

Their lives were good. Satisfying .

Would they ever get rich?

No, but they had job security, benefits, and a future retirement pension thanks to working for the government.

Mark got to live and work in arguably the most beautiful place in the world, doing something he loved, with a partner he wouldn’t trade for anyone else.

To him, that was all that mattered.

I’m just glad I never shoved my head so far up my ass I couldn’t see the truth before now.