Jason was remembering how Luigi had picked him up. It was the second or third day after he’d
arrived in Australia. He remembered
making love with Luigi, and how vulnerable and fragile Luigi had seemed
afterwards, as they lay in bed. It had
been the first time since Brent had died that he’d made love, and he’d
forgotten how good it felt to bring pleasure and comfort to another and also to
receive pleasure and comfort from another.
He remembered how Luigi had wept after sex and how he’d persuaded the
other man to tell him about how he feared that straight macho-acting men like
Jason would win his heart and then desert him.
Luigi hadn’t told Jason then, but he’d been thinking of Cody when he
talked about how straight or bisexual men weren’t to be trusted. The whole disaster of Luigi’s relationship
with Cody had only emerged later. Jason
remembered how their fragile friendship had strengthened and deepened, until
Luigi had become one of the people in his life who were truly important to
him. Two
of the most important people in my life are in this car, he thought. And another
is on the mountain up ahead terrified for his life. He was so afraid that Luigi would be killed. He’d been angry with the ineptitude and
homophobia of the police, but now that was gone. Instead, his anger and rage had hardened into
ice, a determination that he would do whatever he could to save Luigi, without
letting his anger make him do stupid, ineffective, impulsive actions. He would save Luigi and Cody and he would
deal with the Killer. Even if right now
he had no idea how he was going to do this.
