Page 35 of Laying Low

“Yeah, but before we leave San Francisco, you need to figure out where we’re sleeping tonight, even if it’s off a sideroad.”

“I can tell you one thing,” Reg said.“It’s not going to be anywhere near Portland.”

And with that they were off.

GETTING OUTof the city before twelve was a good move, Anthony decided later.They stopped once for gas and chocolate, chips, gum, and every other snack known to man, and once for dinner at a fast-food place along the way, and then they had a half hour before coasting into a little mom-and-pop lodge north of Crescent City in that hazy hour before sunset.

The boys were cranky and exhausted, and Anthony couldn’t blame them.Reg was the one who suggested they take a walk down to the beach after loading their knapsacks in the small cottage and parking the SUVbehindthe tiny bank of rooms so it couldn’t be seen from the road.

Anthony didn’t tell any of them, but he’d tucked his very legal .22 in the back of his pants after locking their stuff in the room.He had a license for concealed carry, and after Ilia’s phone turned on like it had, he didn’t wantanybodygoing anywhere without protection.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the deep sand and pounding waves as Ilia and Reynaldo took off their shoes and played race-the-surf.

Reg stood in his bare feet as well, attention on the boys as he executed some very regimented yoga poses.

Anthony watched him for a moment, fascinated.It looked like he did this alot.

“You’re making me self-conscious,” Reg muttered, switching poses smoothly.

“You’re turning me on.We’re even.”

Reg stumbled and turned to glare at him before catching himself and turning back toward the boys in the distance.“I run in the early morning,” he said.“Yoga at night.”

“I approve,” Anthony told him.“It makes your boyfriend a happy boy.”

“Are we boyfriends?”Reg asked suspiciously.“I do read social media.There’s a lot in there about how many times two guys have to sleep together to be boyfriends, and I seem to recall missing that part.”

Anthony chuckled.“I just committed to follow you cross-country to do illegal things.I think that ranks as boyfriends, don’t you?”

Reg gave him one of his classic guarded looks.“You can always break up,” he said, as though giving permission.“It’s okay if you change your mind.”

Anthony chased away his first charge of anger.“Do you really think so little of me?”he asked, feeling like a wronged Regency era gentleman.

“I think the world of you,” Reg snapped, and it didn’t look like the formality of language bothered him at all.“This is just… you know.”His voice took on the timbre of an adult lecturing a child.“You can rescue the cat, Reg, but you have to give it away.You can rescue the dog, but we need to give it back to the people who lost it.Yes, you can bring your friend over to sleep, but….”He turned away angrily and checked on the boys again.

The boys were fine—not that Anthony didn’t share his paranoia about keeping them in sight at all times—but Reg, it appeared, was not.

“Is this one of those things?”Anthony asked softly, coming up behind him to wrap his arms around Reg’s waist.

“Sure,” Reg muttered.“Do you really need one a day?I think after this one we get to skip tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Anthony said, resting his chin on Reg’s shoulder so he could keep an eye on the kids.“You can have a day off.We have enough challenges this week.”

Reg grunted, and then, like he had the night before, seemed to relax into Anthony’s arms.“Jeremiah Chambers.”

“Okay….”

“He was my best friend in first grade.We did everything together—even watch Chance.He thought babies were cool.”

“Should I be jealous?”Anthony teased, hoping for a little more relaxing, a little less intensity.

“He’s dead.”

“Yikes!”Anthony straightened.“Jesus, Reg, warn a guy!”

“Well, he went home one Friday night over a long weekend, and the next morning he was sick, and four days later he’d gone septic, and his parents took him to the hospital, and he never woke up.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!”Anthony felt traumatized justhearingthat.