Falling Again, the story of a few hours in the lives of Joel and Gray, isn't a master work of a short story. BUT it is a very good short story.
When I read short stories, I view them as one point in time in an ongoing tale. I find myself building back story and wondering about the possible futures of the central characters. Setting details, speech patterns, describing physical actions – everything must be in place for the short story to capture me.
In Falling Again, virtually everything from the woolen coat (why WAS Gray wearing it? Really? He's so far out of his element, in more than one sense of the word) to the dunk in the water of the inlet (shudder) to Gray's detached behavior while Joel is trying to warm him up to the fire in the fireplace helps to underscore both men's moods and reactions.
Neither man wants to damage the tentative bond they'd reestablished, and both men want, very much, to move the relationship back toward what it had been years before. Indeed, there is sex. And it's intense. But it's also the only thing that's going to break through the barriers the men have erected, each to protect himself and, I might add, each other. If those pivotal hours on the island hadn't happened, I am inclined to think that both Joel and Gray would have "careful-ed" each other even farther apart than they were at the start of the story.
That's not an easy thing to describe in the short story format,, but I think that Chris Quinton has done it well.