‘And he just walked away…?’

Justin’s voice is pitched high in outrage and incredulity at the callous way in which he perceives JC to have been treated; yet his body language is relaxed and languorous beneath the warm sunshine of late afternoon. JC smiles a little, runs his gaze across the worn out body of his friend and reaches out a hand to steal a half of the sandwich that Justin has been absently chewing on for the last twenty minutes of their break.

‘Yeah.’ He says quietly, ducks his head to stare down at the dirt stained folded knees of his pants. ‘Just looked at me like I was something that crawled out from beneath a rock, and stomped off out of there…’

‘Bastard.’ Justin says, but there’s no real heat to his words, no malice, simply a sleepy warm amusement. ‘Wade said he had issues. Guess he’s right, man!’

There is a slight, thoughtful pause before an elbow knocks purposefully against JC’s ribs, and he turns his head, peers through narrowed eyes at Justin, takes in the wry twist to his mouth and the sparkle to his eyes.

‘You want I should kick him?’ Justin laughs softly. ‘’Cause I will, y’know, man. Anything you want me to do – I’ll do it!’

‘Mm…’ JC breathes, lifts his gaze away from Justin’s tanned, contented expression and looks towards the cluster of people who have settled a little further down the hillside from him. Chris sits amidst them, Briahna settled in the crook of his arms, tiny hands tugging determinedly upon the horns in his beard whilst he laughs and snaps his teeth at her fingers to make her squeal, and JC cannot understand the small swirl of warmth in the pit of his belly. He watches them for a while, wonders at how Chris can be so abrasive to the rest of the adults upon the excavation and yet so gentle with Joe’s tiny daughter, then sighs and looks away again. ‘No,’ he says quietly, avoiding looking at the broad smile that he just knows is spread across Justin’s face. ‘It’s okay, Justin. I can handle him… it…’

‘Whatever.’ A tired yawn fills the air immediately beside JC for a moment, and he stifles another grin, wonders at how much sleep Justin is lacking now that he’s sharing a tent with Wade. The yawn completes itself with the wet noise of smacking lips and limbs being pushed out to their full length upon the grass beside his own folded body. ‘Don’t you want to know who this AJ is, though, C? I know I do – and Kirkpatrick hasn’t done much more than yell at me so far!’

Concern furrows JC’s brow, and he looks round once more, meets Justin’s open gaze with anxiety thrumming through his own. ‘He’s yelled at you? What for?’

‘Oh, you know -,’ his voice is a wry, bemused drawl, and he shrugs, wriggles further down against the hillside until he is stretched out, sprawled lazily beside JC. ‘Apparently I’m an arsehole for having dragged you all the way over here, just to drop you the first time someone pretending to be a better deal smiles at me…’

‘What?’

‘Dunno.’ Justin admits, his eyes closing against the sunlight and his breath starting to settle into the soft, easy rhythm that precedes sleep. ‘Doesn’t make much sense to me, either…’

Methodically chewing on the sandwich half that he stole from Justin, JC barely tastes the tuna and sliced cucumber that it contains as he covertly starts to watch Chris once more. As he inadvertently recalls the breathless way in which Chris choked out the wrong initials, the wrong identity to coincide with the man whose throat swallowed down on the head of his dick, JC ignores the flash of indignation that his wounded ego sends sparking through him, forces himself instead to ponder the inflection of the tone in which the wrong name was spoken. Usually, JC knows, he is good at interpreting the emotion behind the sounds of voices, but this time… he doesn’t understand the way in which Chris felt.

He cannot stop himself from wondering…

At the end of the break, when Lance’s voice rings out above the genially muted chatter and Briahna’s giggles as Joe throws her casually, effortlessly into the air and catches her once more, JC pushes and shakes at Justin’s shoulder until he wakes, snuffles into the curve of JC’s knee as he realigns himself with the world. He tries to ignore the heat of the glare that Chris bestows upon him, but it is difficult, JC realises, understanding that he wants to hurl similar abuse to that which has been thrown at him – to snap and snarl that whatever there may, or may not be lingering between himself and Justin, it isn’t any of Chris’ business…

But he knows that he won’t.

He waits until Justin has rubbed the slumber from his eyes upon the muted fabric of JC’s pants, stumbled blearily to his feet and extended a hand to haul him up alongside, before he turns his head and glowers back at Chris.

‘Don’t envy ya, C…’ Justin murmurs, bending his head a little towards JC’s. ‘Wouldn’t want to spend the rest of the day in the same trench as him!’

Biting the soft inner flesh of his cheek, JC twitches his shoulders into a trite shrug, lowers his glowering gaze from the anger that he can see simmering in Chris’ gaze, and he turns partially away to bestow a warm smile upon his old friend. It doesn’t matter, he thinks as he curves his mouth and allows the feeling of friendship to heat his eyes once more. ‘Lucky me, then -,’ he says softly, his voice such that Justin automatically leans closer to hear him speak. ‘Guess who’s supposedly on a list to help Kelly with the cleaning up from lunch…’

The laugh that escapes Justin’s mouth huffs warm against JC’s cheek and he dips his head, stifles a broad grin as he feels the familiar flush curve its way across his skin, heating him from within. ‘Dude!’ he laughs, sounds impressed as he claps a hand down against the swell of JC’s bicep with fluid content. ‘I’m impressed! Anythin’ to get away from being hassled, huh?’

‘Well,’ JC says, lightly, laughs a little despite the aching swell that curves inside his chest at the absent reminder of his past ways. ‘You know me, man…’

And the problem, he thinks, as he hurries away to help Kelly gather up plates and bags, drink bottles and discarded wrappers, is that Justin does know him.
~
It’s impossible not to like Kelly, JC thinks half an hour later as they stand by the simplistic sink that still manages to frighten him a little. She reminds him of Joe, makes him ponder the truth behind the adage that like seeks like, and he feels comfortable standing beside her as they meticulously scour the plates with water warmed with the aid of the kettle, chatting almost idly about the rest of the excavation team whilst Briahna naps beneath the shelter of a nearby tent left open to allow Kelly to watch over her.

The little girl had cried throughout the short journey down from the hillside back to the campsite, her tears seeping through the shoulder of Justin’s shirt as he’d helpfully carried her, her smile droopy and tired despite the faces that Britney and Wade pulled to try and make her laugh. Walking alongside JC, Kelly had patiently smiled at them all before making the maternal pronouncement that Briahna was simply worn out, and they should all get back to their trenches before Lance came after their behinds – but he thinks that he caught the lie to her words, and he frowns as he thinks about it.

‘She wasn’t just tired,’ he says, a little hesitantly; after Kelly has finished telling him about how difficult it is to keep a toddler at least reasonably clean on an excavation site. ‘Was she? Briahna, I mean…’

Kelly blinks at him for a moment, a hint of astonishment flickering through her eyes, before she smiles a little and shakes her head. ‘Not entirely,’ she says, ‘no. It had more to do with the fact that she was dragged away from her Uncle Chris than anything else – although a nap won’t do her any harm.’

‘He’s very good with her.’ JC absently says, wiping dry circles against a plate with the cloth that Kelly handed him as soon as she’d finished settling Briahna down. He catches the words as they drift from his mouth, flickers embarrassed eyes in Kelly’s direction and sees her bemused smile. ‘I was… uh… watching them at lunch.’ He admits unnecessarily. ‘Briahna seems to like him an awful lot…’

‘She adores him.’ Her mother says simply. She smiles easily, turns her gaze back to the sink full of soapy bubbles and dirty plates, clatters quietly amongst them for a moment or two. ‘He is good with her -,’ she concedes, then shrugs a shoulder slightly. ‘He’s good with all kids from what I’ve seen. Probably comes from the fact he’s got younger sisters – although Joe says it’s because Chris can’t help but empathise with everyone he meets in some way.’

Her voice is dark before it drifts into contemplative silence, and JC frowns curiously as he leans his hip against the sharp edge of the sink unit and eyes her. ‘What do you mean?’ he asks.

‘Oh, you know – he… well, he just has this knack of knowing what to say to make someone tell him things that, ordinarily, they wouldn’t want him to know.’ Kelly sighs heavily. ‘Or doing things that they normally wouldn’t just to please him.’

JC cannot prevent himself from remembering the previous night, when Chris had murmured about their sharing a boat, being alike, needing the same thing – and he blanches at the realisation that this was probably just an example of what Kelly means.

‘I see him do it to Joe all the time,’ Kelly confides quietly. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s never anything nasty, and it usually benefits me and Bri in some way, but…’

‘It’s the fact that he does it.’

Large eyes turn in his direction above a small smile of gratitude. ‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘it is. I’d rather Joe come to decisions in his own time – not have to be coerced into making them, however subtly. Or -,’ she grins, ‘I’d rather it were me doing the coercing instead of one of his best friends!’

There is a brief pause during which JC focuses upon reaching for another damp plate, watches the rise and fall of Kelly’s hands amongst the soap bubbles in the sink, wonders if he’s brave enough to ask for subtle interference between the fact of reality and the fiction that presses him continuously inside his own brain.

‘Still -,’ Kelly says on a sigh, ‘he means well, and I guess that’s what happens when you’ve known someone practically forever like Joe’s known Chris and Lance…’

‘How long?’ he asks before he can prevent himself from doing so. As Kelly twists her head to look at him, he feels the heat of another blush and stammers anxiously; ‘Uh… I… sorry, that’s none of my business, right?’

She laughs gently, shoots him a slight look of reprimand, then smiles serenely. ‘Years.’ She says, rolls her eyes. ‘I know most of Chris’ indiscretions, JC – and I don’t talk out of class.’

‘Oh.’ He says, feels a fool for even trying to probe for information in the first place. He thinks that he should have known better; that trying to obtain gossip from a friend of Chris’ was not the way to go about things.

‘However!’ Kelly’s voice is bright and her smile almost sparkling as she eyes him curiously. ‘I’m in a good mood, and Chris deserves to have the tables turned on him every now and again, so – what did you want to know, JC?’

He blinks at her, astounded.

‘Ask away!’ she urges, grinning merrily. ‘The way the two of you’ve been sniping at one another all day, I’m kinda eager to help soothe ruffled feathers if I can – just to get some peace around here!’

Still, JC blinks, his mouth gaping open, unable almost to comprehend what it is that Kelly’s offering to him.

The grin that curves her mouth fades after a few moments of torturous silence, and she exhales shyly. ‘JC -,’ she says, lifts a soapy hand from the bubbles to touch it to the sun flushed bare skin of the wrist that lingers closest to her. ‘It’s okay. I’m not going to tell you anything that Chris absolutely wouldn’t want me to!’

‘But…’ he stumbles over his words, his tongue feeling thick and heavy inside his mouth as he frowns deeply. ‘But how would you know? What he would and wouldn’t want you to say, I mean.’

‘Because Chris and I go back a long way.’

‘Oh…’

‘JC, I’ve known him longer than I’ve known Joe – it was Chris who matched us up together.’ Her smile is slight, but teasing. ‘And if you’d stuck around after Joe’s little history lecture last night, you would have realised by now that those of us who keep coming back, season after season? We’re like a little family, JC – we don’t talk out of turn, but we know what’s going on. We watch out for one another.’

‘How is telling me things about Chris watching out for him?’ JC asks, needs to understand before he can dare to begin hoping that he’s going to obtain the answers to his questions.

Kelly frowns thoughtfully. ‘Joe says that you and Chris hit it off straight away.’ She tells him. ‘Even Lance said that you didn’t back off when Chris started teasing you… and it’s rare for that to happen. Usually Chris steers clear of the new intake of grunts.’ She throws him a watchful glance. ‘I mean, the fact that he told you to call him ”Chris” instead of ”Doctor Kirkpatrick”, like he makes all the other grunts, tells us a lot, JC. The last person whom he let get so close, so quickly, was -,’

‘AJ?’

Beneath his reluctant gaze, Kelly’s eyes widen almost comically in her surprise. ‘AJ?’ she repeats, her voice barely more than an amused squeak. ‘Hell, no! I was going to say ”Wade”, but…’ She stares at him, suspiciously. ‘How did you know about AJ?’

‘Well, he… that is… uh…’

‘He what?’ she prompts, the tone of her voice oddly gentle despite the amused wariness that he discerns in the depths of steady eyes. ‘What did Chris do, JC? Did he tell you about AJ, or…?’

‘Well,’ JC breathes deeply, closes his eyes as muscle spasms in the corner of his mouth. ‘He sort of told me, and he sort of didn’t.’

‘I don’t -,’

‘I blew him last night.’ JC’s voice is tight, his face flushed with mortification, yet he cannot seem to turn the words off, stop them from spilling from his mouth into the atmosphere around them. ‘And he…’

‘Said AJ’s name instead of yours.’

His mouth twists unhappily at the flat tone to her voice. He cannot help but realise that Kelly doesn’t seem surprised by the revelation; wonders how many times she’s found herself in this exact same predicament with one of Chris’ conquests. Swallowing thickly, he nods his head. ‘Yeah.’

‘Oh, JC -,’ she breathes, then claps a wet, soapy hand to her mouth in an obvious attempt to hide her sympathetic smile.

It doesn’t work.

JC knows it there, caught it flickering about the corners of her mouth, can see it hovering in her eyes as they regard one another across the raised damp dishes and the cloth that he attempts to wipe them dry with.

For a long moment, JC can do nothing but eye her with bitter wariness, until she lowers her hand into the water once more, reaches for the handle of the nearest saucepan, tiny bits of blackened potatoes flaking off as she tilts it to scrub it.

‘JC,’ she says, and her voice is gentle, reminds him a little of the tone his mom used to use when he’d run to her with his crushed heart in high school, ‘you have to understand that Chris is -,’

‘Strange?’ he suggests, tightly, cutting into what he presumes to be another clichéd lecture. Just like all the ones his mom used to give him. He scowls. ‘Addled in the head? Psychotic? I mean, tell me something, would you, Kelly? Was he actually dropped on his head as a baby, or…?’

Laughing, Kelly ducks the saucepan beneath the surface of the soapy water. ‘I don’t know about that,’ she says before her smile falters. ‘Chris is… he just gets these strange ideas into his head at times. Because of -,’ she throws him a brief glance, hesitates, rushes on: ‘It’s just that because of things that happened when he was a kid, and then again a few years ago. Chris won’t chase after anyone he even suspects is in a relationship, JC, so when you said that you weren’t anything more than just friends with Justin… well, you pretty much just waved a red rag in front of his eyes, I’m afraid.’

‘But he -,’

‘You gave him a challenge.’ She tells him gently. ‘With Chris, this is like some sort of -,’

‘Sickness?’

‘Yeah. Something like that… Chris just gets so fixated on chasing someone new every training season we run here. It’s… it’s nothing personal, JC, just that…’

As he waits for Kelly to finish her thought, to continue with her apparent explanation of Chris’ somewhat bewildering behaviour, JC continues to methodically dry the plates and cutlery that she’s stacked upon weather dull drainer between them. When she remains silent, however, words apparently having failed her, he frowns. ‘It’s… what, Kelly?’

‘Well, it’s nothing personal!’ she says, her voice brusque and yet oddly quiet – as though she’s reluctant to hurt him any more than she absolutely has to. ‘Chances are – with Chris – that he doesn’t even like you… y’know… that way… It’s just…’

‘The challenge of it?’ he asks, quietly, wondering at the empty void of emotion that encircles his being. He cannot even bring himself to feel hurt, wounded by Kelly’s words, the assumption made, the knowledge that she has of a man he took to his bed that he remains ignorant of.

As Kelly withdraws her hands from the water, dries them on the end of the cloth that JC holds, there is the distant mumble of a small child awakening, burbling for her ”Da” in the tent nearby. Kelly stares at the slowly emptying drainer, at the bubbles that linger in the sink, buffeted by the slight breeze that shadows the site, then shrugs a shoulder, hesitantly looks up to meet JC’s gaze.

‘Joe calls it ”the thrill of the chase”.’ She says quietly. ‘He says that Chris isn’t likely to ever change. Not after everything that’s gone on before.’ She sighs again. ‘I’m sorry…’ she murmurs, hurries to tend her sleepy child.

Gnawing upon his lower lip, JC watches her reach into the tent, carefully scoop the babbling Briahna up onto her shoulder and cosset her with maternal devotion. He considers her words, ignores the anxious lurch of his stomach as he realises that not only do Kelly’s words make perfect sense to him – but that their sentiment is also very possible.

He has been used.

And he wants to know why…