If Danny had asked, he might have realised that at no time did Rusty say that he'd be involved.
#02 - Touch
His own papers came by expedited courier, and Danny had to sign for them because Rusty wouldn't get out of bed; but at least Danny left them on the kitchen counter and crawled back under the blankets without saying anything, pressing close so that Rusty could feel the heartbeat against his back.
#03 - Memory
It had a been a hot damp summer's day and maybe neither of them had been thinking, but that didn't change the fact that Rusty had said, "Yeah, but I'd be right there with you."
#04 - Vanilla
Rusty was fifteen and she was wearing cheap vanilla-scented perfume -- she looked like the kind of girl who wouldn't laugh if he told her he'd never done it before, and she didn't.
#05 - Chocolate
Danny said, "Would you stop crinkling that bag?" but Rusty wouldn't, and just kept eating his M&Ms.
#06 - Ways and Means
"Did I say it was foolproof?" Rusty asked, and stormed back out to the car -- it wasn't like he could be everywhere.
#07 - Belief
He felt that as a gambler, he had to believe in luck; but as a guy who'd lost Danny to a girl and then to the law, that much was easier said than done.
#08 - Linger
Even though she later told him she'd known it was him all along, that she would never have done it, could never have turned him in, he still thought he'd stayed too long -- and besides, there would have been no point if Danny was getting out.
#09 - Illuminance
Light from the TV was flickering across the planes of Danny's face, and Rusty thought that if he could kiss him just once, just right, then just maybe that could change everything.
#10 - Ornament
They'd only had a trailer to contend with, but even his mom would spring for a real tree at Christmas; he still didn't think that telling Tess as much would have in any way endeared him.
#11 - Coup de foudre
"What else would it be about?" Danny asked, curving his fingers against Rusty's cheek, and he brought their mouths together until their breath was one and the same.
#12 - Archway
He could imagine few more uncomfortable things than a Mediterranean wedding, but she wanted to be close to home, and her father wasn't going anywhere -- and besides, it wouldn't kill him, just once, to do what she wanted.
#13 - Fate
Tess left a message on his answering machine on the day of the sentencing, but there was nothing to say to her, and besides, he'd already bought the plane ticket.
#14 - Pulse
One day, he was certain, he was going to wreck his car and kill himself just trying to get away from this kind of shit.
#15 - Envelope
He spent the middle six months composing letters in his head that he never wrote and probably would never have sent anyway, and in the end he stuck a box of cookies in the mail -- it amounted to about the same thing, anyway.
#16 - Cold
The first thing he'd noticed after coming back to Jersey was how much colder it was; it was damp and chill in ways that Europe had never been, in ways that Rusty hadn't expected.
#17 - Need
Rusty had pushed and pushed and pushed, but when Danny finally touched him, there was nothing in it that he couldn't have gotten anywhere else -- nothing he hadn't gotten everywhere else.
#18 - Drunk
"And this is why I say I prefer no drinking at the poker table," he said, and got up; even after all these years, the sight of a grown man crying still gave him the creeps.
#19 - Mask
The thing was, Tess had honestly believed him when he said he was Danny's business partner -- he could hardly blame her, and it was technically true.
#20 - Rose
He thought, maybe, if you really had to say it with roses, maybe you shouldn't be saying it at all; and then he put them in the garbage.
#21 - Two
"It takes two, Danny!" he yelled, but he knew that argument wouldn't hold with Tess, who didn't understand her husband and probably didn't want to -- of course, Rusty wasn't sure that he did any better.
#22 - Fresh
They still went through the drive-thru every morning, even though Danny always asked, "do you ever eat anything that hasn't been deep-fried?" because Rusty was nothing if not a creature of habit.
#23 - Bribe
Most of the time, Isabel felt too guilty even to take part in anything he did, but she always pretended to approve, like it was something she'd been doing forever and not just something she was doing for him.
#24 - Error
The worst of it was that he'd really believed, if only for a little while, that this was Danny's way of apologizing to him and nothing else.
#25 - Appetite
They gave him free stuff as part of the gig -- and he deserved it, didn't he, teaching the world's most obnoxious B-listers how to scam their friends? -- but most of the time he had no stomach for it; couldn't imagine taking things that weren't his if he hadn't even earned it.
#26 - Refrain
But on the other hand, what was he even supposed to say? -- she was Danny's wife, after all, and that wasn't the kind of law that Rusty liked to pick fights with.
#27 - Family
He used to spend every holiday with Danny, casing joints and sometimes even smoking joints, but after Tess came along that became more and more awkward, and less and less done, until finally he stopped even asking.
#28 - Grieve
Rusty came home to find the tape full of Tess's crying -- he thought about calling her back and reminding her it was prison, not death, but he wasn't sure that she'd see the distinction.
#29 - Vapor
He could see the streak marks on the mirror where Danny had wiped away the steam with his towel, and he tried to imagine Danny showering in his shower and shaving in his sink, but mostly it just gave way to him sucking off Danny on the edge of the tub, and Danny's fingers in his hair and Danny's calves against his ribs; and still he just couldn't picture it.
#30 - Tea
The town had a general store with a picnic table, and so maybe the drink selection consisted entirely of eight varieties of iced tea, but Rusty had a car and Danny had an idea, and maybe, just maybe, this could really work.
#31 - Medicine
"Remember," Danny said, and laid a cool hand on the back of Rusty's neck, "if the room starts spinning, just put your foot out."
#32 - Moth
If he concentrated hard enough on the buzz of the bug zapper on the balcony, maybe he could drown out the sound -- still, it didn't seem as though either Danny or Tess really cared if he heard.
#33 - Perfect
Isabel had smiled at him just before she kissed him, and said, "I don't know where they find people like you."
#34 - Rope
"I'm more worried about how we're going to get out," Rusty said, tugging on the end of the rope -- he had a feeling this was going to be one of those things that only seemed like a good idea at the time.
#35 - Wind
With the top down, Rusty had to yell just to be heard, but Danny was rapt, or at least nodding in the right places, and Rusty wouldn't have traded that for the deafening silence he'd have otherwise been facing.
#36 - Crossroads
"Right or left?" Rusty asked, but Danny had slumped back hard against the seat, and Rusty knew he'd probably already lost them.
#37 - Summer
Belize was the last place he wanted to be at the height of summer, but Reuben had money and Danny had a plan, and Rusty couldn't argue with luck if that's what it handed him.
#38 - Candy
Danny had been drinking, but all Rusty could taste was the coating of sugar slicked over his own tongue -- it was almost like Danny wasn't part of it at all.
#39 - Photograph
He kept a picture in his wallet that he liked to say was of his mother, because he knew women liked hearing that -- but for all that he'd loved her and she hadn't thrown him out of the house, he could never quite remember if that was what she'd really looked like.
#40 - Spoon
Rusty'd sucked on a spoonful of honey until he could taste nothing but the metal and his throat started to burn again, and Danny said, "If you had any common sense, you wouldn't have these kind of problems," and even Rusty thought that was a bit rich.
#41 - Forest
"I think you're missing the bigger picture, Rus," Danny said, and patted him on the shoulder -- but all Rusty could think was that even now, Tess was still right there.
#42 - Mirror
There was a print of red water lilies hanging in Danny and Tess's bathroom, across from the medicine cabinet, and its reflection in the mirror did nothing to reinforce the effect but only to highlight how wrong and unnatural the colouring of it looked.
#43 - Smoke
The weed made Danny twitchy, but never so bad that he wouldn't still immediately if Rusty pressed his thighs, his hips, his mouth against Danny's -- but never so still that he wouldn't press back.
#44 - Shine
They came to stay at the hotel exactly once since he bought it, and Tess spent most of her time tanning, and Danny spent most of his time watching her; and all the time, Rusty still felt like the asshole.
#45 - Balloon
It was a little-known fact that they'd actually met at the fairgrounds, when Rusty was only thirteen -- there were some pretty obvious reasons for not wanting to talk about it.
#46 - Vine
Isabel had talked about buying a place in Tuscany and retiring, just the two of them, but for all that Rusty liked the idea, he still couldn't imagine staying in Italy, or even staying with her.
#47 - Butterfly
Rusty took another drink and looked sideways at Danny: "Did you ever think this is how we'd turn out to be?"
#48 - Gloves
"If you're going to drop it, maybe you should let me do it," Rusty said, watching as Danny manoeuvred the stone out of its casing, his fingers trembling in his gloves.
#49 - Venom
"It shouldn't be that hard for you to understand why she wouldn't want to stay married to a criminal," Rusty said, and he should have felt bad -- it wasn't like Danny's marriage was his business or ever had been -- but he didn't think that Tess and Isabel had been the only ones who'd been looking for an out.
#50 - Remain
He woke up and thought about selling the hotel and signing the papers and leaving the country, changing his name and maybe taking up golf -- but when he rolled over, Danny was still there, breathing, and warm, and looking at him.