Page 6 of Secrets in a Sandstorm

Max, who let me cry on his shoulder at the funeral.

Max, who’d gotten drunk with me and tucked me into his bed to sleep it off while he slept on his parent’s sofa.

“Yeah, for Jay,” Max says, looking at me like there is something else he wants to say.

I force out a breath and stand up. I need to do something to shake off this tension and to stop imagining what he’d feel like pressed against me, all that muscle holding me down. Somehow, he grew into the kind of guy I’d like to manhandle me.

I hold out my hand to help him up because that is the right thing to do, not because I want to touch him. He reaches up and takes my hand, and the contact sends a jolt to my dick like I’m sixteen and rubbing one out while watching the rugby on TV—those guys have thighs I’d happily die between.

Max played rugby throughout high school. Still does for a local team…huh. I don’t want to think too hard about what that means, either.

I pull the torch out of one of the pockets in my pants. “Grab the drink bottle.”

The last thing I want is for us to wander around, get lost, and die of thirst. But Max is already on it, as though he doesn’t need me to look out for him anymore.

I don’t need to. He’s a whole-ass adult who patches people together for a living. I blow them up. But I like looking after him, even though the lie that I do it because he’s younger no longer sits right.

We follow the wall around our cave. I’m wondering if there’s any other exits—ones big enough for us to use—because, like him, I’m worried that if the sand banks up too much, we won’t be getting out the way we came in, which will be inconvenient at best and fatal at worst if we run out of water. I’m not a fan of digging through sand, and help will take time to arrive and dig us out.

And if the sand is piling up on all sides?

I push the thought away, not wanting to dwell on the possibility of being buried alive. “So…think we’ll find any mummies?”

“Fuck, I hope not,” he mutters behind me.

“Booby traps?” I’m stirring him now, mostly to distract myself. I doubt the cave has anything of note concealed. “Dinosaur bones? We could make a cool discovery.”

Now that’s a story worth telling.Yeah, we hid out from a killer sandstorm and found a new kind of dinosaur. A complete skeleton.

My unit will piss themselves laughing that I stumbled onto a find. A smile forms.

“Stop.” His voice cuts through my thoughts.

I freeze without questioning the order. “What?”

“I saw something glinting ahead.”

My first thought is that the eyes of a wild animal glint in the light. That doesn’t calm my heartbeat. There are no lions in the area. The biggest things out here are sand cats and snakes. Do scorpions glint?

Slowly, I slide the flashlight over the sand that forms the base of the cave. Is that proof that sandstorms havedriven in at some point? I catch the glint and pause, not sure what it is.

“There,” Max says half a second too late.

“Well, the good news is it’s not moving.” I exhale, reassuring myself as much as him. It’s different when I’m all kitted up and with an armed, trained team. Here, it’s just me and him, and the last thing I want to do is see Max get hurt.

He gives a nervous laugh. “About time we got some good news.”

“Come on, the storm is the first bad thing that’s happened.” Everything else has been grand. We saw some of the sights, roamed the markets, and ate some random street food before collecting our supplies and meeting with the guide, who helped set up the trip.

We have a camel ride booked at our next stop that will take us to see an oasis and some desert ruins. I assumed Max was having a good time, even though motorbikes aren’t his thing. “You aren’t enjoying yourself?”

Have I dragged him into this because it’s a trip I’d planned with his brother?

Is he here out of guilt?

I thought it would be fun for us to do and remember Jay.

“I am. It’s pushed me out of my comfort zone.” But his words are hesitant, like there’s something else he wants to say.

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