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We interrupt our regular program to bring you an important weather bulletin from the United States Weather Bureau. A severe thunderstorm has been reported moving eastward across the region. Residents should prepare for high winds, heavy rainfall, and frequent lightning.
Wind gusts may reach speeds of up to 50 miles per hour. Localized flooding of low-lying roads and farmland is possible due to intense rainfall.
Farmers are advised to secure loose equipment and livestock. Motorists should exercise caution on country roads, as visibility may be greatly reduced.
This storm is expected to continue through the evening hours.
Stay tuned to this station for further updates as they become available. We now return you to our regularly scheduled program.
Hawk ground out the last of his cigarette in the ashtray and set aside the final page of the newly translated instruction manual. He rubbed at his eyes, worn from hours of staring at paper, of moving between English and Italian. He hadn’t even noticed how dark it had grown outside. When he lifted his gaze to the window, it took him by surprise. The light was failing, darker than an October afternoon had any right to be.
He checked the clock. Tim would not be home until six. Hawk did not like the thought of him out in a storm like this on his bike. He could strike a fallen branch or skid on the wet road. He could be hurt. He might not come home.
Hawk drew in a slow breath and held it, forcing the spiral to still. There was nothing to be done but hope the shop owner had sent him home early. He must have had the same notice on the radio. It would be the sensible thing, to close up rather than have people out in weather like this.
For a moment he considered taking the car into town to fetch Tim. He put the thought aside almost at once. He could not. It was as simple as that. If anyone saw them together and thought to look twice, their quiet, hidden life would be over soon enough. It might end with one or both of them in prison.
A reality other couples, the acceptable sort, would never have to consider. Any other man would simply take the car to collect his wife or his girl. People would smile and nod in approval, because that was what a gentleman did. He wanted to be that man for Tim. For his sweet, innocent Skippy, who still blushed when he did something kind for him, who lit up as brightly as the sun when he was happy.
As he lifted a hand to his hair, he caught sight of a figure on the long drive.
Tim, bent low over the handlebars, driving the pedals as though something were after him. Hawk watched him jump off, let the bicycle fall where it would, and come on at a near run. A moment later he was on the porch and inside.
“Jesus, Skippy,” Hawk said, surprised even as relief spread warm through his chest. “It isn’t storming yet.”
“No,” Tim said, breathless. “But it’s going to. I think I heard thunder out past the ridge.”
“Well, you’re home now. You can take it easy.”
Tim did not take it easy. And Hawk knew then that something was wrong.
There was something in the way Tim moved, in the restless tap of his fingers against his bag as he carried it into the kitchen and set their few groceries out on the counter. His eyes blinked too quickly. His nose twitched.
Usually it meant he had something to say, that he was nervous, tripping over his own thoughts. Most of the time it came back to Hawk, to something he had done, something that had upset Tim. But it could not be that today. Hawk had made breakfast that morning. They had talked about Halloween, about what to expect, about the chance that a group of children might come down the drive on a dare and knock on the door for cookies.
So he could not have done anything wrong today, he thought, leaning against the kitchen doorframe, watching Tim.
Tim shot him a quick look, then sighed. “It was a day.”
“A day?” Hawk asked.
“One to forget.”
Hawk frowned. He did not like the sound of that. “What happened?”
“You know Mr. Patwin, the shop owner. He’s very traditional. He keeps at me to find a girl, like all the others in town who know me by now.”
Hawk rolled his eyes. “Well, you can’t. You’ve already got a man.”
That, at least, drew a smile from Tim. “I can’t tell them that.”
“I know.” Hawk gave a small shrug. “So they annoy you?”
“Yes, and today…” Tim sighed and rested his forehead against the cabinet door. “Mr. Patwin said people might start talking.”
“Talking?” A hot knot formed low in Hawk’s stomach.
“Yes.” Tim turned his face, looking at him while his head stayed braced against the wood. “They might think I’m one of those queers.”
“Oh, Skippy,” Hawk said softly.
“One of those homosexuals.” Tim swallowed, then closed his eyes. “For a second I wanted to shout at him that I am, that he shouldn’t talk about things he doesn’t understand and doesn’t even try to understand.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Of course I didn’t. I don’t want to get myself looked up. But I hate to lie, and I hate this… panic.”
When Tim opened his eyes again, he looked so young. As young as the day Hawk had met him at the bar, ordering a glass of milk, looking like his suit was wearing him.
“Nothing that we do is wrong,” Tim said, his voice strained. “Love isn’t wrong. And who I love is no one’s business but my own.”
“Come here for a moment,” Hawk said, opening his arms.
Tim stepped in without hesitation, resting his head against Hawk’s shoulder. Hawk closed his arms around him and drew a deep breath, letting his favorite scent settle over him like a warm blanket. Tim smelled of warm skin, a trace of sweat from the ride, and something that was simply his, woodsy, clean, faintly sweet.
“Don’t let that man get to you,” Hawk murmured against his hair, the soft strands brushing his lips.
“I’m trying.” Tim sighed. “But it’s hard. I write those articles and send them to Washington, and at work I hide. I feel like a hypocrite.”
“You’re not.” Hawk let his hand move slowly up and down Tim’s spine. “You’re keeping us safe. That’s not hypocrisy.”
“We don’t have another choice,” Tim said quietly.
“We don’t. Not like this. Not now.”
Tim was silent for a moment, then his voice came softer, threaded with frustration. “You know, days like this make me wonder why. Why are people so cruel to one another? Why do we make these rigid rules no one can truly live by? Why do some think they’re superior, better somehow? It doesn’t make sense to me, Hawk.”
“Because it doesn’t,” Hawk said just as quietly. “Not if you look at it the way you do. People justify what they want to do. They make up stories, and then they make others believe those stories are the truth. It’s as old as anything. I’ve done it myself at the State Department. Helped do it. Made one politician look better than another.”
“I can’t wait for it to change,” Tim said, his breath catching slightly.
Hawk tightened his hold on him.
By now he was used to these moments, the way Tim felt things so openly. Back in Washington, he had condemned him for it, had been embarrassed. Tim at the Cozy Corner, drunk, asking him not to marry Lucy. Hawk had been ashamed of him then, convinced he needed to learn the cold shape of the world, to be told the truth.
He had been wrong.
Tim was, in many ways, brighter and sharper than most men Hawk had known. He had a rare kind of courage, the ability to question himself, to question others, to unlearn what he had been taught. From a good Catholic boy to a young man writing openly about civil rights.
“I think I’m going to lie down for a while. Maybe have a sip of your whisky,” Tim said softly. “Better that way, in case some children come by for Halloween.”
“I don’t think they will. We’re miles from the nearest house, and there’s a storm coming, remember?” Hawk nudged him lightly. “And you wanting a drink? That worries me.”
“Because I’m not without fault? Because sometimes I’d like to forget I have feelings too?” Tim’s voice sharpened.
Hawk let it pass. He could hear the day in it, the strain. “Fair,” he said simply. He would not fight him like this. Tim deserved a little peace, a little rest after a day like that.
“I almost forgot,” Tim said, stepping out of Hawk’s arms. “There’s a car parked on the drive. Close to the road, but a little ways down. Did anyone come by today?”
Hawk frowned. “No.”
“That’s odd.” Tim looked back at him. “Do you think someone might be out in the woods, needing help? Though it would be easy enough to walk up the drive and find the house.”
“I don’t like it.” Hawk cast a quick glance toward the kitchen window, suddenly, acutely aware of how they must have looked a moment ago, standing so close.
“We’re not being spied on,” Tim said at once, catching the shift in him.
Hawk narrowed his eyes, trying to see past the pond, into the dense line of trees. “You can’t know that.”
Tim folded his arms across his chest. “Do you really think someone found us and is now sitting out there in this weather, waiting to be struck by lightning or crushed by a falling tree?”
“I think it’s suspicious.”
“Or the car broke down, and whoever was driving went to find a phone.”
The first raindrops began to patter against the window. Slow at first, scattered and uncertain, then gathering into a steady, insistent rhythm as the thunder rolled closer.
It was as if everything around the house answered at once. Rain came down in heavy sheets, the sound swelling against the roof and glass, while the wind rose to meet it, driving hard gusts through the trees and bending them low. Branches strained and shivered, leaves turning and flashing pale in the dim light.
The ducks in the pond had already vanished from sight, tucked somewhere in the high grass along the shore.
“Maybe we should make sure,” Tim said suddenly. “What if someone needs our help?”
“We are certainly not going out there in this weather. We should close the blinds, and you should lie down.”
Tim let out a sharp breath. “No, Hawk. I’m going to check. I drove by quickly. I might have missed something.”
And off he went.
Hawk could only roll his eyes, turn on his heel, and follow. He snatched his raincoat from the hanger and tossed Tim’s after him. Tim caught it one-handed.
“Changed your mind?” Tim arched an eyebrow.
“I’m not letting you go out there alone.”
“It’s not an Alfred Hitchcock picture, Hawk.”
“Thank you. I needed that in my head,” Hawk muttered.
At least Tim laughed. Hawk counted that as something.
The moment they stepped outside, a gust of wind struck them hard enough to nearly drive them back through the door. The storm pressed in on all sides. Thunder rolled and cracked through the woods, at first distant, then breaking almost overhead, while sharp flashes of lightning lit the long drive in stark, fleeting glimpses.
Hawk switched on the flashlight and pulled the door shut behind them, locking it out of habit, out of instinct, out of something he did not care to name. The thought of leaving it open made his skin prickle. When they came back in, he would check every room. The attic. The small basement. Just to be certain.
“Where’s the car?” Hawk called over the wind and thunder.
Tim was already striding ahead, moving up the long drive without slowing.
Rain struck Hawk’s face in sharp, stinging drops as he followed. The trees along the drive had turned into dark, shifting shapes, swaying hard in the wind, their branches twisting into forms that almost looked like faces where there were none. Limbs reached out like thin, grasping fingers. For a second, something in the brush caught the light and flashed red.
Hawk jolted, a shout tearing out of him as a deer burst past.
Tim turned. “What?” he called.
“Skippy!” Hawk shouted back. “We’re going inside.”
“It’s not much farther,” Tim said, already turning away, pressing on.
And then it came into view.
A beige Ford Plymouth, worn and dulled with age, sitting askew near the edge of the drive. Hawk swept the beam of his flashlight across it. Empty. A fedora lay on the passenger seat.
“Hello?” Tim called into the dark.
Hawk circled the car, the gravel shifting under his shoes, Tim close behind him. Thunder broke overhead, loud enough to make the ground seem to tremble, and a flash of lightning threw the car into sharp relief.
That was when Hawk saw it.
The passenger door stood slightly ajar.
“Skippy,” he said under his breath, the word tight. “That door wasn’t open a moment ago.”
“What?” Tim’s voice lifted, thin with surprise. “Of course it was. It must have been. There’s no one here.”
For a moment, Hawk had the distinct feeling of being watched. As if someone stood just beyond the reach of the light, half-hidden behind a tree, close enough that he could almost hear them breathe.
“Hello?” Tim called again, louder this time.
Hawk flinched at the sound. “There’s no one here,” he said, more sharply than he meant to. “Let’s get back inside.”
“Maybe someone is hurt nearby. Do you see any footsteps?” Tim asked.
Hawk let out a low groan and swept the flashlight over the ground. Of course he saw nothing. The rain erased everything as soon as it touched the dirt. He could barely make out their own tracks before they vanished.
“Tim, I don’t like this,” Hawk said, reaching for his arm. “Let’s assume the driver made it to the main road to get help. That’s enough.”
“We should make sure.” Tim took hold of the flashlight and angled it toward the tree line, the beam cutting weakly through the rain.
“We should make sure we don’t get ourselves killed,” Hawk snapped under his breath. “If this keeps up, we’ll be the ones crushed by a falling tree.”
“Just help me, and we’ll be back sooner,” Tim called over another roll of thunder.
“Jesus,” Hawk muttered. He could do with a cigarette. And a whisky.
Still, he followed, staying close, unsettled by the thought of Tim more than a few steps away. It was ridiculous. He knew it was. He was a war hero, for God’s sake. He had seen worse, far worse, than a storm and an abandoned car. And there were no such things as ghosts, he told himself, even as something cold crept along his spine.
Thunder rolled again, louder, closer. A flash of lightning tore across the sky and lit the road ahead.
A shape stood there.
A man.
Hawk swallowed the shout rising in his throat. Tim must have heard the sharp intake of breath, because he turned at once and swung the flashlight toward the figure. The man lifted a hand, shielding his eyes from the beam.
“Who are you?” Hawk called.
“My car broke down,” the man said, gesturing toward the Plymouth. “I walked to the nearest house to use the telephone. Who are you?”
“You’re parked on my property,” Hawk replied.
“I didn’t realize anyone lived this close.”
Better to say nothing at all, Hawk reminded himself.
“I was delivering groceries,” Tim said quickly, the lie coming with surprising ease despite his usual discomfort. “I saw the car and told the next house. We were concerned someone might have had an accident.”
“Very kind of you,” the man said with a nod in Tim’s direction. “I’ll collect my things and head back. I’m afraid the car will have to stay until morning.”
“That’s fine,” Hawk said. “Why did you leave it open?”
The man stepped closer, frowning. “Open?”
“The passenger door. It’s not closed.”
“Oh.” He gave a small, uncertain laugh, rubbing at the back of his neck. “My wife must have forgotten. She stayed behind at the house.”
“Was she sitting on your fedora?” Hawk asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Excuse me?”
“Your hat, sir,” Tim said gently. “It’s on the passenger seat.”
For a moment, Hawk considered the trees again. Whether there might be a woman out there, lost or hurt. The story did not sit right with him. None of it did. But drawing attention to himself, to the house, to them, would be worse.
So he said nothing.
He watched as the man went to the trunk, took out two suitcases, then shut the passenger door after retrieving his hat. The stranger tipped his head in a brief good night before turning and making his way back down the road toward town, his figure swallowed quickly by rain and darkness.
“Odd,” Hawk muttered.
“A little,” Tim said.
“Can we go back now? I’m soaked through.”
Tim shot him a look, his lips curving. “Of course. I promise I’ll protect you all the way home.”
“Ha ha,” Hawk said, rolling his eyes.
“You screamed at a deer. And then at a man.”
“It’s your fault,” Hawk muttered. “You made me read all those books.”
“What books?” Tim laughed.
“Strangers on a Train, Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Lottery and Other Stories, Rebecca.”
Tim’s laughter deepened. “Don’t worry. I don’t think the stranger will turn into Mr. Hyde.”
“Don’t joke about it. Let’s go back.”
By the time the house came into view, its warm light spilling out across the porch, Hawk felt the worst of it ease. Still, he checked every room the moment they stepped inside. One by one. Then the blinds, drawn tight. The front door, locked.
Only then did he breathe again.
By the time he reached the bedroom, Tim had already shed his wet clothes. The sight that met him made something in his chest loosen. Tim stood with a towel, rubbing at his hair, wearing nothing but his cross, his glasses, and his watch.
“I think we both deserve a sip of your whisky now,” Tim said. “To warm up.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Hawk gave him a quick, crooked smile as he began to strip off his own damp clothes.
Tim bit his lip. “Do you?”
“I might.”
Hawk let it hang there, unfinished, while he gathered their wet things from the floor and carried them into the bathroom. When he came back, he was bare, skin still cool from the rain.
Tim was staring, a faint flush rising high along his cheeks.
“What?” Hawk asked, stepping closer.
“I could protect you in here too,” Tim said, and there was something different in his voice. “From the weather. Or… ghosts.”
“Don’t mention ghosts,” Hawk said at once, a shiver running through him.
“I didn’t know you spooked so easily.”
“I don’t.”
“Of course,” Tim said, though the smile lingered as he reached out, slipping his arms around Hawk’s waist. “Still. I can protect you.” He leaned in, his breath warm against Hawk’s ear. “Make sure my boy is safe.”
The words caught him off guard. That was his line. Tim was his boy. And yet it sent a shiver through him all the same, one that had nothing to do with the storm.
Hawk swallowed. “Oh yes?”
“Hm.” Tim’s hands slid lower, settling over the curve of his bottom, holding him there. “I think I’d have to keep you close.”
“That would be a good start.”
Tim pressed a kiss to his cheek, soft, almost teasing. “And I might have to make sure you sleep very well.”
“You might,” Hawk said, his eyes slipping shut.
Tim’s grip tightened, and the sound that left Hawk’s throat came before he could stop it.
“You’ll have to listen to me,” Tim went on, his voice low now, steady in a way that felt new and not new at all. Not the boy Hawk had first known, but the man he was becoming.
“I will,” Hawk said, his voice edged with anticipation.
Tim guided him back to the bed, pressing a hand to his sternum, a quiet instruction. Hawk went down without protest.
From there, the view was almost unfair. Tim’s brown eyes caught the low light, warm and bright as he looked down at him. There was a hint of a smile as he moved around the bed, opening the drawer of the bedside table and taking out a small jar.
Hawk swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, and let his eyes fall shut as he felt Tim’s hands on him. Lifting his legs, careful but sure, guiding him into place.
“Hold on to them for me,” Tim said.
When Hawk looked again, Tim’s gaze had softened, open and steady, that familiar warmth in it. So he reached out, gripping the back of his thighs, his fingers tightening against his own skin.
Outside, thunder still rolled and the wind pressed hard against the house, but inside it was something else entirely. Tim stirred a different kind of storm in him. In the slow press of his fingers, with the deliberate pace.
Always gentle. His Skippy.
It undid him more than anything rough ever could. He knew how to meet roughness, how to give it, how to take it. But this, this softness from Tim, this patience, this quiet control, it left him coming apart piece by piece.
When Tim finally pressed into him, the world narrowed to sensation. The stretch. The pressure. That slow, burning pleasure that forced the air from his lungs.
Tim kept him close, steadying him, guiding his legs firmly around his waist as he found a slow, even rhythm. He kissed him as he moved, never pulling away, held together and falling apart all at once.
Afterward, Hawk lay there breathing hard, Tim still draped over him, pressing soft, lingering kisses to the side of his face.
And in the quiet that followed, with the storm still raging beyond the walls, Hawk felt loved and safe in Tim’s arms.