The Rebuilding Year by Kaje Harper Page B

touch of autumn past. He had been there three months. And somehow, he was a different man from the one who sat in that welcome-to-med-school lecture, so short a time ago.
     
     
    Late December meant that there was less outdoor work on campus, at least until the snow came. John was down to the two permanent members of his crew. The campus plantings were put to bed, the hardiest annuals dug up and mulched, now that a hard freeze had come and gone. They were erecting a few snow fences where the wind might cause drifting. And planning for next spring.
    John lengthened his stride down the hill. He was pleased that he was breathing easily, despite the climb up the back of the ridge. He was getting into amazing shape. Yeah, running away from your problems will do that. Although mostly he was just trying to wear his problems out.
    He and Ryan had fallen back into their routines. Ryan still got up first and started the coffee. John still gave him a lift to campus most mornings. They still shared meals sometimes. They’d even managed a kind of Thanksgiving dinner with a roast chicken from the supermarket. For a few days, Ryan had retreated to the parlor to study in the evenings. But now without comment he had returned to spreading his books out on the kitchen table. John made a point of wandering through at the end of the evening, and grabbing a drink or a snack. Ryan would give him a nod or a smile. He’d give Ryan a hard time about whatever wimpy caffeine-free beverage the guy was drinking after ten p.m.
    It was just like it had been. Except it wasn’t. There was that edge of tension that never went away. In the past, he might have bumped up against Ryan, if both of them were going for the fridge at the same time. Or he would have put out a hand to the man’s elbow, if some move shifted Ryan’s weight onto the bad leg wrong. Because the fool refused to use his cane around the house. Now, though, there was a careful few inches of space between them at all times. And yet he was always aware of exactly where Ryan was. And of wanting him.
    He’d thought about that kiss. Hell, he’d obsessed about it. All that first Tuesday before Thanksgiving, walking around campus, Ryan had been on his mind. And he’d decided not to lie to himself. It was no freak impulse, no one-time emotional overload that had put his mouth on Ryan’s. It had been a long time coming, as inevitable as the onset of winter.
    Gay or not, he had been aware of the other man from the first day. He could remember everything from that day—the color of Ryan’s eyes as they blinked open when he lay on the steps in pained confusion, the softness of his hair as John’s fingertips cleaned his cut, the muscles of his arm, the bump of hip against hip. And every day since then, in growing intensity, he had turned to Ryan like steel to a magnet.
    By the end of that Tuesday, he had worked himself up to a panic, wondering if he could persuade Ryan not to run away. He’d figured out his preemptive strike. Before Ryan could open his mouth to say, maybe I should find another place to live, John had taken it all back. He’d played the friendship card. The I don’t know what happened but it will never happen again card.
    And it worked. Ryan was still there, in his house, in his life. All it took was pretending that he didn’t care.
    He’d tried to make it true. He’d gone out a few evenings, and deliberately chatted up women. He’d immersed himself in soft flowing hair, and rounded curves and sweet perfume. And never taken it further than that, because it was empty. One thought of Ryan, and he came to attention, and the woman in his sights faded. And while he was willing to bend himself into pretzels lying to Ryan, he wasn’t fooling himself. So he stopped fighting it.
    He admitted that all he wanted was Ryan. But he also decided half a loaf was better than none. To be comfortable again, Ryan needed John to back off, to be cool, to be a friend.
    He could do it. He could