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The old blanket Boyd's got tucked under his seat is musty and scratchy. It's hard to recall the last time he washed it - the last time he had a place he could wash it. He'd like to have lived a life where he has something soft and luxurious and plush on hand to roll out in the bed of his truck, but he feels as though perhaps that isn't something he deserves. Soft isn't something he's earned. Musty and scratchy will do for him.
Just as he's lowering the tailgate to unfurl the blanket, headlights shine out behind him. Boyd continues along with what he's doing, spreading out the corners, picking clumps of dry, dead grass out of the worn threads. Last time he used this blanket - he can't remember when he washed it, but when he used it. It was for a picnic, a long, long time ago.
A car door opens and closes behind him, silent but for the slam.
"Hello, Raylan," Boyd says.
A pause. "How'd you know it was me?"
Boyd could tell him, of course. vBecause the door of your car doesn't screech with years worth of rust. Because you have this particular way of walking, Raylan, with your toes pointed together. Because the weight of the air changes when you're near me, thick and heavy. Because I always know it's you. And in truth, he could turn the question right back around on Raylan - how'd you know it was me? How'd you know I was here?
"Just a guess," Boyd says, finally turning around to look at him. Raylan's dressed down, jeans and a dark shirt unbuttoned at the throat, all 360 degrees of his neck exposed. Most importantly, he isn't wearing his hat. It appears maybe he was wearing it still only a few moments ago, his hair slightly disheveled and flat like he'd tried to push it back into a sort of order after deciding to forgo the accessory. Boyd wonders how last minute the decision was, or if he'd been thinking about it the whole drive here. "What can I do for you, Raylan? All the way out here."
Boyd drove out of Harlan a ways, but not so far he couldn't get back in the dark in a storm. Not too fat that nobody wouldn't be able to find him. The hill he's parked his truck on has a perfect view of a deep valley, one that always seemed almost prehistoric to him, like his fellow earthling the dinosaur might've eaten leaves off the trees down there. But above the valley, a storm is rolling in.
"What're you doing out here, Boyd?" Raylan asks, in the same tone a man might use to talk another man off a ledge. Boyd's had to use that tone before. Boyd's been on this end of it before, too. The wind picks up, and the first drops of rain plunk! on the metal of Boyd's truck like discordant notes on a piano. It's hard to hear Raylan, as if he's over the phone.
"I could ask you the same," Boyd says, loud enough for Raylan to not misunderstand.
Boyd is tired, is all. Tired of drinking all the time, tired of going underground, tired of having to come back up. He's tired of looking for God and not seeing it. Tired of Raylan stepping on the backs of shoes to scrape his ankles raw and not apologizing for it. Tired of dancing around Raylan, just for Raylan to trip him.
"I'm here because of you," Raylan says, raising his voice now and coming closer. Boyd isn't sure if he means Boyd is the reason or Boyd is to blame. This close up, Boyd can smell him, old sweat wearing off and the rain coming down reactivating the scent of the shampoo he uses, something minty that makes Boyd's nostrils tingle. A damp strand of hair falls onto Raylan's forehead, and Boyd's fingers itch.
"I did not bring you here, Raylan," Boyd explains very calmly. "You come up here by your own free will."
"C'mon, Boyd. There's a bad storm," Raylan gestures towards the sky, as if Boyd had not noticed the dark clouds above them or the rain pouring down out of the dark clouds.
He's right, however, there is a bad storm, indeed. After only a few moments standing out in it, each of them are soaked through. The lightning starts as distant flashbulbs and the thunder rolls behind it like gunfire, but it'll be on top of them soon enough.
"That's why I'm here," Boyd says, and he turns and heaves himself up on the open tailgate, his feet dangling off the ground. "Was gonna watch it."
"You can't - " Raylan says, frustrated. "Don't think the blanket is gonna help much."
The blanket - the last time Boyd used it. It was a picnic, with Raylan. He found the thing tucked in a trunk at his daddy's house, after he got bailed out the last time, and before shit went down with him after that. The grass on it might as well have been prehistoric, too. But Raylan is right. Boyd doesn't know what he was thinking, exactly. He just had a mind to come out here, lie back in his truck, let the thunder and lightning take him. Take him where, he isn't sure. He's just been tired, that's all. He wanted to see God up close. He wanted to smell God's shampoo.
"You smell that, Raylan?" Boyd says.
"What?" Raylan says. There's a flicker of hope in Boyd's chest that Raylan will hop up and sit beside him, old times made new again. But Raylan keeps standing, as close to Boyd as possible without touching. "Your fucking bullshit?"
"The lightning," Boyd says, and right after the word is out, there's a crack of it in the distance. Raylan's bare wrist brushes his. All the hair on Boyd’s arms stands up. "Smells clean, like a pool. Angels up in heaven hitting the earth with chlorine. Don't - make any cracks at me. That ain't what I meant."
"I wasn't gonna," Raylan says, his face clearly showing that he was, in fact, gonna. He checks over his shoulder, like someone is coming up behind him, but it's only rain, only thunder, only lightning. "Boyd, we can't stay out here."
"Then don't," Boyd says.
"Boyd," Raylan's teeth grind out his name. He shoves his way in between Boyd's knees, and he puts his arms up. All Boyd thinks before receiving the blow is, please, not the mouth, not my teeth.
But the blow never lands. Instead, Raylan's open palms cradle either side of Boyd's face, fingertips behind Boyd's ears. Lightning strikes nearby, electric and bright, and it's like Boyd is seeing Raylan for the first time. When the thunder sweeps in, Raylan kisses him.
"God," Boyd says into his mouth, and he means it both ways.
"Get in the truck," Raylan says, hands roaming, petting Boyd's head, thumb under his eyes as if he's wiping away tears.
~*~
Boyd forgets the blanket in the bed of the truck. It wouldn't do much to dry them off, anyway. Boyd only reaches across the seat and combs his fingers through Raylan's hair, picking droplets out of it.
"This how you normally style your hair?" Raylan says, eyes closed, clearly enjoying Boyd's ministrations. "You stand out in a lightning storm then run your fingers through it, ready for the day?"
"Hey," Boyd says. "Cut that talk out. Not all of us were blessed with - hairlines that stayed put."
"Nah," Raylan says, eyes peeling open. His thumb presses against Boyd's lower lip. "You were blessed with plenty."
A bolt of lightning whips out of the sky and cracks against the ground. Boyd’s torn between wanting to go back out into it and let it take him, and wanting to stay inside this truck with Raylan Givens like he's 19 again - heaven crashing down around them, or this heaven on earth they once had. When they kiss, it's soft and luxurious and plush. And maybe Boyd doesn't deserve it, yet, but it'll do.