Coda 01 - Promises

his backbone. I had seen it before but never asked him about it. I brushed one finger over it and felt him shudder a little.
    “What happened?”
    “I was climbing through a barbed wire fence on my grandpa’s ranch.” He stopped short, and I thought he was done, but a minute later he started talking again. “I was just a kid. It was Easter, and my mom had me dressed up in my nice clothes. I wasn’t supposed to go into the pasture, but I wanted to see the horses. I figured she wouldn’t ever know, but I kind of tripped going through the fence and got caught on the wire. Ripped a huge hole in my new shirt and got blood all over my pants. I thought for sure my dad was going to tan my ass for that one.”
    “He didn’t?”

    “No. My mom sure was mad, but for some reason, my dad just laughed.”

    “Really?” That was surprising.
    “Yeah.” He was quiet for a second and then said quietly, “It was a long time ago.” And I knew by the way he said it that he didn’t want to talk about his dad anymore.
    “Brian and I once managed to knock over the entire rack of bulk nails at the shop. Hundreds of loose nails, all different sizes, all over the floor. Maybe thousands, I don’t know. A fucking lot of nails, I know that much.”
    “Did you get in trouble?”

    “Dad was pissed as hell, but my parents were always big on the idea of punishment fitting the crime.”

    “So what happened?”
    “We spent the next five hours picking them all up and sorting them back into the correct boxes. Customers would come in and see us and start to help, and my dad would say, ‘they made that bed of nails themselves, they can clean it up themselves too!’”
    Matt laughed a little, and I kept rubbing. His skin was darker than mine and, except for the scar, completely flawless. “Your grandpa has a ranch?”
    “ Had , past tense. It belonged to my mom’s parents, but they’re gone now, and the ranch went to my uncle, and he sold it. I had so much fun there as a kid with my cousins. But we didn’t go there often. My mom’s family never liked my dad much.” It seemed we kept coming back to his dad tonight without really meaning to. “For two years, we lived less than thirty miles away from them, and I got to see them almost every weekend. But then we moved again. We never stayed anywhere very long. The longest we stayed in one place was three years, ninth grade through my junior year. And then we moved again two weeks into my senior year. I hated it.”
    “Is that why you didn’t join the military?”
    There was a brief hesitation and then, “Part of it.” But I knew from his voice that topic wasn’t going any further either. “It must have been nice living in the same place your whole life.”
    “In some ways. But coming back here after college felt a little bit like failure. Like everybody else was moving away, and I was just coming back to my parents. It seemed like only the losers were still stuck here. Like Dan and Cherie.” I stopped short, realizing maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but he didn’t seem to notice, so I went on. “I guess I got used to it. I love it. I love Colorado. I don’t think I could ever live away from the mountains. Whenever I get far enough east that I can’t see them, it just feels wrong. I can’t explain it. It’s like losing sight of home base. Like I have a compass inside, but it points west instead of north.” I stopped short and wished I hadn’t said all that. “There. Is that better?”
    He leaned back with a sigh, his head on my thigh, and looked up at me. “Yes. That did help. You were right.”
    “Told you.”
“Thanks.”
    But he didn’t move. His eyes had closed, and he seemed to be half asleep.
    His head was practically in my lap. It didn’t seem to faze him, but it felt incredibly intimate to me. Suddenly, my heart was racing and my mouth was dry. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Nothing else existed at that moment. I had never seen anything as ruggedly beautiful as him. His jaw was strong and square, and at least a day’s worth of dark stubble covered his cheeks. His lips were soft and full. He never wore sunglasses, and there were small squint lines around his eyes, slightly pale against his tan face. His lashes weren’t long, but they were thick and jet black.
    I could have looked at him all night. I was aware of some strange feeling which seemed to suffuse my entire being. It was overwhelming—almost painful yet not unpleasant. I felt