Page 9 of Between Two Thorns

“And.” Bonnie leaned closer, closer to Del’s face than he really wanted anyone to be. “To tell you to be careful tonight, going about your…business.” Bonnie gestured to him vaguely.

And Del wanted to be pissed, but he knew exactly what she meant. At least Bonnie hadn’t been judgemental. Most people looked down their nose at him and how he survived.

“More than usual?” He asked, keeping his voice down, which was easy with his low and gravely tone.

She shrugged her sun-tanned shoulders, pushing dark curls away from her face as she glanced over to the other end of the tiny sitting portion of the room. “You remember that kid with the fake ID last month?”

Del didn’t answer, just gave a grunt of assent. That glued-together driver’s license wouldn’t have fooled him.

“Well, one’a the conditions of keepin’ our liquor license—gotta have a private EMS on busy nights—but this guy looks more like a cop.” She leaned back from Del, nodding her head in the direction her eyes had gone earlier. “And he keeps staring at you.”

That had the dirty blond tensing up real quick. She could have just gotten to that point—the last thing that he needed, that anyone needed, that would right and surely ruin a party, was a cop.

Bonnie dismissed herself to put out the next few rounds of drinks, and Del tried to be surreptitious as he looked over towards the person she had indicated.

When he did, he saw the last thing he had ever expected to see in a bar that was barely keeping it all legal in the middle of the desert Arizona.

“Sam…?”

***

Del stayed stock still as the past and the present all tried to crash into him at once. Texas was an entire world away, even if it was only a few states over. But there was the fireman EMT who ended up at the Reddick house more than anyone who was invited. Out of instinct, Del grabbed for his wrist, covering the sleeve of the green henley he wore.

But there he was, the man right out of his past, looking almost exactly like Del remembered him.

Other than a new bit of gray that made his black beard even more striking.

“Hey, stranger.” Sam’s voice was just like Del remembered. Smooth and easy, with an underlying cool confidence that just made you want to trust him.

Or, maybe, that was just how the dirty blonde had learned to respond to the man that had been rescuing him from his shitty life since he was seventeen.

Could Sam see how far he’d fallen since then? There was always a deeper and rockier bottom.

“Hey,” Del finally voice, realizing that this entire thing had taken place in his head and he hadn’t actually said anything out loud.

Though, no matter how many years had passed, Sam hadn’t forgotten what he was like. Didn’t reach out to touch his shoulder or to offer his hand, just slid into the barstool next to Del without waiting for the invite that the younger man wouldn’t think to give…but really wished he had the guts to.

The medic did really remember him.

“Long time no see.” Sam chuckled, with a roll of his shoulders, making conversation like it was the easiest thing in the world. And like Del’s staring wasn’t making it awkward. “You’ve grown up a bit.”

“Things happen when ya ain’t dead.” Del answered, and he heard another chuckle. He was being rude, wasn’t he? That was rude. Sam seemed unaffected, letting it slide off his shoulders. But Del knew himself, and he knew he couldn’t help but be an asshole. Even when he wasn’t trying to be. “You got gray.”

He winced at his own failed attempt at making conversation with a man who had meant so much to him.

But Sam Estrada let it go with a laugh, rubbing at the silvery lines of his beard along either side of his mouth. “Grays happen when ya ain’t dead.” He shot right back at Del, who was trying to stare a hole into the bar top between his elbows, as if it would swallow him up and take him the hell away from his failed attempts at conversation.

Though, the sarcastic remark made a smile finally surface to Del’s lips.

They sat for a moment in a familiar silence. Growing up, when things happened with Del’s father, with his mother, with his uncle…everyone always tried to make Del talk about it. Tell them what happened, tell them how it made him feel. Spill his guts when they’d already been ripped out.

Sam was the only one who would let him sit in the back of his ambulance and not say a damn thing. He’d just, stay. Within reach, but not touching. Because Sam had always been good at seeing what people wanted and giving them what they actually needed.

Del couldn’t help but admire it.

“So,” Sam bridged after a long moment, and the dirty blonde turned his head towards him, but never facing him fully. “Last I heard, you were headed back east to Alabama.”

“And you were staying in Dallas.”

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