Page 47 of Untouchable

And even as Harp says it, the big male at the front who'd spotted them takes a step towards them, still alerted but obviously curious. Parker lets a little ohmygosh slip out. With one arm still absentmindedly thrust in front of Parker, Harp digs a bright yellow handkerchief out of his back pocket and holds it out like an offering. Two more of the pronghorn turn now, intrigued.

Wind gusts across the valley. Harp and Parker hold their breath and smile. The moment is rare and special and they both know it.

A dog bellows somewhere in another holler and the spell is broken. The pronghorn speed together, back to a tight group, and bound off across the valley. Parker laughs.

“That was so fucking cool,” Parker whispers—the pronghorn are long gone, but he feels like if he talks too loudly, it might somehow shatter the moment. He glances over at Harp, whose arm is still pressed across Parker’s chest. It’s only then he realizes that at some point his hand is on Harp’s arm, as though he’s holding on for dear life. He doesn’t remember grabbing him, and he quickly lets go.

“Thank you,” Parker says.

He’s not even quite sure what he’s thanking Harp for—for his patience, for his ability to see things, to see Parker, for the simple fact that he’s shared this corner of his life with Parker.

And suddenly Parker realizes just how close they are, how Harp’s smell reminds him of a pine forest after rain, how he’s never realized the extent of the height difference between them, how Harp’s body is pressed against his, almost protectively. His breath catches slightly.

* * *

Harp feelslike a dad as he eases off of Parker and then brushes down the back of his hoodie, trying to dislodge some of the straw and grass that's now stuck there because of Harp, transferred from his work clothes. He knows he's a goof, that he gets jumpy and touchy, that strangers find this completely incongruous with the rest of the way Harp presents himself.

He's just thankful, as they walk on, that Parker doesn't seem put off by the treatment.

"They're not usually in the mountains," Harp says. "Wonder what's got those ones up here."

"Oh yeah?" Parker asks, sounding genuinely interested. Harp turns to search his face but Parker is craning his neck to see if he can get a glimpse of the long-gone animals. "Where do they live?"

"They're plains animals. Like antelopes—but, well, they're not really antelopes. It's an artiodactyl mammal, so it's it's own thing. Like pigs or antelopes or hippos or giraffes are all their own things." Harp doesn't know why he's tempted to talk to Parker about even-toed ungulates but maybe it's just that he's finally found a topic that he can't possibly fuck up.

"They puff up their butts like that the way a white-tailed deer would flag their tails. They're just smart and really hard to kill," Harp says, stuffing his hands down into his pockets. "I mean, not for humans. For anything out there without a gun. They're the fastest land mammal in North America because they evolved when we still had lions and cheetahs. They're pretty, uh... they're cool animals."

God I hate myself.

“Wait, there were cheetahs in North America?” Parker asks.

“Well, not exactly,” Harp says. He spends the entire walk to the car talking about the evolution of North American apex predators, and Parker peppers the conversation with genuine-sounding questions. Harp finds himself wishing Parker’s car were further away, just so they could keep bantering on about such an innocuous topic, painless and with no chance for missteps.

Harp isn't used to talking so much and his mouth is dry by the time they flank Parker's car where they left it on the path. His lecture seems to reach a natural stopping point. They get in and take the bumpy road back to his driveway in silence. Harp glances over every few seconds to make sure Parker doesn't seem bored—but he's not. Not bored by silence, not bored when Harp is talking.

They roll to a stop.

"Anyway," Harp says, as if he's picking up a thread of unspoken conversation between them. "I know I just fucked your afternoon up royally. Thanks for your patience with... you know. My time management and... not remembering. Anything. Ever."

Harp hauls himself out of the car before Parker has a chance to say anything.

Harp goes into the house first, and when they reconvene with the table between them in the bedroom upstairs, it is no longer as people who have just rescued a dumb dog together and vaguely bonded over their sexuality. It feels… transactional again.

Harp decides that’s fine with him, in the end, when he’s smiling at Parker and pressing another fifty into his palm after the session, thanking him for his help with Bo—and wanting to ask more, so much more about Parker, about when he realized he was gay and what his family thought and whether or not he’d ever dated women.

It’s none of your business,Harp tells himself gently as he smiles at Parker, as he says goodnight in the late afternoon.

It is going dark already in the valley, and Harp has forgotten what he was doing this afternoon when Bo escaped. Not knowing what else to do with himself, he feeds the dogs, pours a few fingers of whiskey, and sits in the window seat where Parker had sat a few weeks ago, the first time they’d really talked. It feels like a lifetime ago.

Harp watches the sun set and thinks about what Parker had said. I see it… Why you like it up here.

It’s true: Storm Mountain is his home, and it is not lonely to be here alone, to love this place.

Still, some part of Harp wonders suddenly about what exists beyond his solitude.

* * *

Parker tries notto let this new piece of information change things.

So he’s gay, he tells himself. So what?

At some point, though, Parker gives up pretending he doesn’t care. Over the course of the following days, his crush on Harp takes on new depth and texture. It feels realer, more substantial. He has, Parker realizes as he’s trying to fall asleep that night, moved on from hypotheticals. As impossible as Harp returning his affection is, it’s suddenly… slightly more possible than it had been.

And that little sliver of hope is far more intoxicating than it has any right to be.

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