Ned shrugged. “So… Which corner do you want? You got a preference?”
“No. No preference.” Even now, after everything they’d been through, Cole regretted hurting Ned’s feelings last night, but there was no point in trying to take back what he’d said. It was better to have this clean break. They would part forever, in hopes that each of them would find a place to call home and live out his days in safety.
But Cole’s heart wanted what it wanted, and as he avoided Ned’s eyes, his gaze ended up swiping along Ned’s deliciously firm hands, covered by too many freckles to count and auburn hair that used to tickle Cole’s bare skin.
He would remember their touch till the end of his days, and once his time came, he hoped the angel to come for him would have Ned’s face.
Even breathing the same air hurt.
Ned grabbed his bedroll off the desk and tossed it into the right corner. He cleared his throat. “This is awkward, but it is yours. I had no right to wreck it.” He passed Cole the other half of the photo they’d ripped last night. He’d folded it in two, to hide the image, but Cole knew what it was anyway.
He snatched it out of Ned’s hand, and slid it into the inner pocket of his duster, where the upper part of Ned’s naked picture was. “Thank you. That’s… thoughtful of you,” he said and met the green gaze. There had been a time when staring at Ned was like resting in the heat of the sun in the lushest of valleys, even when in reality they’d been trudging through the desert with the Gotham Boys.
Back then, Cole had so often felt like he was drunk without any liquor touching his lips, but the past still seemed clearer than the vague future he now envisioned. With the old Ned at his side, there had been no obstacle too big to overcome. He was alive, and joyful, not at all like the rotting shell he’d become.
He missed that naive Cole Flores, but there would be no going back to him, so he kept staring at Ned, because one of them needed to look away first, and it would not be him.
Ned turned away and glanced at the door. “All safe out there?”
“You already asked.”
Ned’s shoulders sagged. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Do you want to see my pictures?” Cole asked right away, stuffing his hands down his pockets while the back of Ned’s neck reddened.
“Are they all of naked men you fucked?” he snapped, clenching his fists.
Cole had to stop himself from recoiling. “That’s a no then,” he forced out of his stiff lips and stared at his saddlebags, which rested by one of the walls.
Ned groaned and patted the desktop next to him. “Come on. Show me. We have time to kill.”
Cole swallowed, staring at the empty space where Ned held his hand, at his chest, at the tension around his lips.
He should walk away from this self-imposed torture, yet instead he approached the saddlebags and retrieved two tins filled with pictures—both recent and older.
He’d only taken them for his own benefit, to capture moments in time that he might never experience again, but where Lars had been annoying in his constant nagging for portraits, Ned was someone who’d appreciate the views imprinted on paper. He was always one to contemplate things and see beauty where most people did not. That was why his stories about the stars had been so captivating, and why Arizona Territory had been more beautiful with Ned at his side.
He’d surely see something new in Cole’s photographs too.
Cole hesitated, but in the end climbed onto the desk and sat cross-legged alongside Ned, handing him the first tin. He could hardly believe they were able to talk at all after last night’s brawl, but he welcomed it nevertheless.
Ned pulled the lamp closer and opened the tin with care. Cole noticed the red scratches he’d left on Ned’s palms, but there was nothing he could do about those now.
Curiosity sparked in Ned’s eyes when he pulled out the first photograph. “And where is this?”
“That’s the Hudson River. I took this last year, on the way to New York City,” Cole said, looking at the white blur that remained where a bird had flown in front of his camera.
“What did you do there?” Ned asked, flipping to the next photograph as he put the previous one on the desk.
Cole swallowed and showed Ned the next picture, this one of a street so densely packed with people the view brought back the heat of that day, and the odor of so many bodies in one place. “I traveled there because I managed to track down Tom’s widow. You know, the woman he’d married in church, before he set off for the West. I thought she’d appreciate a visit from someone who knew him.”