“Thanks for the smokes, man, I promise I’ll buy the next pack.”

Robin grinned and maybe his cheeks warmed a little under all that velvety skin. “I’m sorry if you started smoking again because of me, your mother hates it.”

“I don’t think she was ever aware I smoked in the first place, maybe I can blame it on you when she tells me how bad it stinks; say you were smoking in the truck or something.”

Robin gave a mirthless laugh. “Are you going to tell her you accidentally took my cock up your ass too? Second hand gay?”

“What?” Peter almost stopped the car, but kept on because there was a truck behind his and they were almost to the driveway of Hopewald House anyway. When he got there he pulled in and parked. “What?”

“Are you still going pretend?” Robin turned so he was facing the passenger window. “Like it rubbed off on you?”

Peter tried for the joke. “You did rub off on me, if you recall. Or very nearly.”

Robin reached for the door handle but Peter caught his shoulder and held him still. He turned his face back around and Peter tried to read what he found there but he didn’t have a clue.

“Are you going to out me to my mom, Robin? Is that what this has been about?”

“Of course not,” Robin jerked his shoulder out of Peter’s hand. “But I told you, I’m no one’s dirty secret. That was an exception. It was good. You were hot.” Robin flashed him a dazzling smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Robin, I—”

“No worries, soldier man.” Robin gathered his bags and left the truck. He walked to the kitchen door of the big house with a catlike stride that did nothing to calm the racing of Peter’s heart. He did have worries; he couldn’t help it.

At the very least, he was being forced to give up his job. He’d planned to reenlist and his unit was probably going to be deployed again soon. The compassionate leave he was on to see his mother was only even possible because he’d been stateside in the first place when it became time critical to go home.

If he went back, he was certain to be the object of a determined blackmail scheme or face separation proceedings. Maybe he could survive that, maybe not. Peter had no way of knowing how chain of command would react to the situation, and frankly he hadn’t even begun to test the waters. He was as likely to get discharged because of his stupidity in getting himself into the situation as he was for being gay.

Yet usually the emotional crap didn’t matter to him. Not really. Life was hard work and discipline and putting it all on the line, and he’d done that. He’d hidden the parts of himself that didn’t fall in line with the world he wanted to play in. It had never seemed duplicitous to him. It was just another hard choice like did he want to smoke even though it caused cancer. It was his business what he chose to do.

At his father’s funeral there had been a picture of his dad in his police uniform on an easel next to the flag-draped coffin. There had been flowers and

pipers and many, many men and women who mourned the hero of an entire town.

Peter’s mother pulled him by the hand to his father’s picture and said, “See that? Always think of him, your father, before you make a decision and I will never be afraid for you.”

That picture sat on the fireplace mantle in his mother’s home and scarred his brain like a brand.

Jonathon Hsu was a good man, but Peter had never had a chance to know him. Never had the chance to ask him the hard questions any boy needed to ask his dad when he was growing up. So when the time came, and Peter at last realized that there was one way in which he would always be different from the man he thought his father had been, he’d disconnected himself from it emotionally.

From that point on he left his physical needs to rest in a safe place, a separate place like the garage where his mom’s Road Runner waited to be taken out and savored, but only when the weather was fine and the time was right.

Peter didn’t understand Robin’s insistence that keeping his private life a secret was wrong, anymore than he understood why people might want to know about it.

Peter got the battery from the truck and took it to the barn. While he dropped it into its place under the hood and connected up the terminals, he thought of a million different reasons he didn’t need any complications in his life. His mother was almost gone. He’d never have to look her in the eye and tell her he wasn’t the man she wanted him to be. The man his father had been. He’d never have to live in Hadleyburg again if he didn’t choose to. If he didn’t reenlist, he could make a comfortable living teaching skydiving or working on planes. He could go back to school and get a degree. His mother wasn’t going to leave him a pauper; with the sale of the house he’d have enough money to do any number of things, if he chose.

The untarnished image of the hometown hero and his son, the soldier—the fantasy that people seemed to need him to fulfill—was something that could remain in tact as long as he didn’t fuck it up now. He realized he’d been staring stupidly into the engine compartment of his mom’s car when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Robin standing there, back in his scrubs and smelling a little like disinfectant hand soap. He chewed his lip thoughtfully.

“I think I may have been—”

“Forget it,” Peter told him. “You were right and I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to be any guy’s dirty secret.” He wiped his hands on a rag and closed the hood. “You’re too fine a man for that.” Years of conditioning kept him from leaning against the front end of the car and possibly ruining the finish.

“You don’t know what kind of man I am,” Robin crossed his arms; that ready smile –the mask– back in place.

“I know that I’m comfortable with you. I’ve seen your kindness toward my mother. I know that you’re the only person in Hadleyburg who knows everything there is to know about me.”

“Surely not everything.” Robin stepped forward.

“Everything worth knowing.”

“I’d have to disagree.” Robin didn’t touch him, but still Peter felt his regard like a warm breeze. “But only because I want to know more.”

Peter put his hands in his pockets because he wanted to put them on Robin. “It’s not that simple. If I keep my mouth shut just a little longer my mother never has to find out I’m not the man she wanted me to be. No one in town finds out I’ve let my father’s memory down.”

“What about you? Haven’t you let yourself down? Did you never want something more than just pity fucks who blackmail you or jumping out of an airplane?”

Peter took a step back. “What the fuck makes you think that’s all I have?” He turned away and got into the driver’s seat of the Road Runner. He pumped the

gas once and said a silent prayer that it would work now that it had a new battery as he keyed the ignition. The engine turned over, a little weakly, but it caught and ran, idling a little slower than he liked. It reminded him of his drill sergeant at boot camp, phlegmy and growling in the morning, but then picking up speed and smoothing out as the day went on.

Robin leaned down and spoke through the window. “You’re right. I don’t know what you have. But you could have a family that loves the real you and not just the fantasy. You could have a life where who you are isn’t in conflict with what you do.”

Peter stared for a minute while he processed what Robin said. Did he want that? It might be desirable but was it necessary to integrate all the parts of his life? He was just a soldier. If he didn’t have that—

“I am what I do. A soldier. When you’re a soldier that’s what you do and who you are.”

“At least think about talking to your mother. You’ll regret it if you don’t.” Robin said grimly.

Peter leaned his head out the window. “Tell Lyndee I’ve gone into town for a while. I need to get new tires. And smokes.”