Page 55 of Hard Check
“Yep.”
“I’m going to need a ride back.” Leo kept his voice even. “I know you’re busy right now, but I was thinking you could follow me down there so I’m not stranded.”
Dawson took a sip of his coffee. “I could probably arrange to have the day off.”
“How generous of you.” Leo pressed a hand to his chest. “Clearing your whole schedule on such short notice.”
“Huge sacrifice.” Dawson’s mouth twitched. “Get in the car, Leo.”
Leo took the rental.Dawson drove the Audi. An hour south on the highway with Dawson three car lengths back in his rearview, and Leo spent most of it watching the mirror instead of the road.
He dropped the rental, signed the paperwork, and came out to find Dawson leaning against the Audi with his hands in his jacket pockets, squinting against the midday sun.
“So, what do you want to do?”
Dawson looked at him. Looked past him, at the street, the buildings, the sprawl of a city where nobody knew either of them. His shoulders dropped a fraction, his jaw unclenched, and his weight settled on his feet like a tension that was always there had quietly released.
“I could eat,” Dawson said.
Leo drove south toward Bay View, and Dawson rode with one arm braced on the door, taking in the city without commentary.
“Where do you go when you come here?” Leo asked.
“Parts stores. Supply runs.” Dawson glanced at him. “I don’t come down for fun.”
“That’s depressing.”
“It’s practical.” Dawson stretched his arm along the door panel, settled deeper into the seat.
“Same thing.”
Dawson’s mouth did the thing where he almost smiled before catching himself. Leo parked on a side street, and they walked two blocks to a sandwich shop with a counter, twelve seats, and a line that moved fast.
They ordered and found a table by the window. Dawson sat with his back to the wall, which Leo had noticed he did everywhere. Bars, restaurants, the diner in Port Haven. Always the seat that faced the door. In Port Haven, it read as caution, the constant scan for someone who might see, might know, might connect the dots. Here, he was able to let his guard down. Dawson looked at the menu board, at Leo, at the street outside. His eyes stayed where he pointed them instead of sweeping the room. Unhurried. Present. Leo sat across from him and felt a knot between his own shoulder blades ease that he hadn’t noticed he was carrying.
“This is good,” Dawson said, halfway through a Cuban that was bigger than his head.
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m from a town where the best restaurant is a bar whose claims to fame are fried pickles and cheese curds.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin and balled it up, and Leo watched his hands because he always watched his hands.
“The Penalty Box curds are incredible, and you know it.”
The words were out before he’d thought about them. He was defending the food at a dive bar in a town he couldn’t wait toescape before he’d even arrived. He let that sit without looking at it too hard.
Dawson conceded this with a tilt of his sandwich.
They ate. Leo talked about the road trip to Duluth, the bus, the hotel that smelled like carpet cleaner, and Jonesy’s pregame playlist that nobody could get him to change. Dawson laughed, head back, chest open, and Leo lost his train of thought mid-sentence and had to start over.
After lunch, they walked. No plan, no destination, just picking a direction and going. The sidewalks were wide enough for two, and the neighborhood was quiet enough that nobody was paying attention to them. Leo walked with his hands in his jacket pockets because the wind off the lake was sharp and he didn’t have gloves with him.
Dawson walked close. Not touching, but closer than usual. Their arms brushed when the sidewalk narrowed, and Dawson didn’t drift away. A couple passed them holding hands, and Dawson’s eyes tracked them for a second, then came back to Leo, and there was an expression on his face that Leo couldn’t quite place. Not longing. Quieter. Like he was seeing something he’d told himself he couldn’t have and wasn’t sure that was true anymore.
They stopped on a bridge to lean against the railing and look at the water. Leo was about to say something when Dawson reached over and took his hand.
Not a brush. Not an accident. Dawson laced their fingers together on the railing, and the air went out of Leo’s lungs.
His heart was hammering. His whole body had zeroed in on the point of contact—Dawson’s rough palm, the calluses on his fingers, the grip firm and deliberate. In Port Haven, Dawsononly touched him in the dark, in the truck, or behind closed doors. Every touch back home had an exit built into it. This was a public sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon with people passing in both directions, and Dawson was holding his hand like he’d been doing it for years.
