Smoky Mountain Dreams (23 page)

The last two weeks had been a whirlwind of feeling and
emotion. He’d met Jesse for breakfast on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The first week
had been mainly over-the-desk sex—blow jobs the first day, and fucking the
second. The screw had been too hot and fast, leaving Christopher’s ass tender
and both of them wishing for more privacy and time. Unfortunately, life seemed
to constantly conspire to keep them from getting another all-nighter or even a
few hours to go slower.

The second week both meetings had been brief. On Thursday,
Jesse had been distracted. He’d mentioned a man’s name to Amanda when she’d
come in, explaining to her why she needed to reschedule a ten a.m. appointment,
saying in an undertone that if Ronnie wasn’t going to be there for the
procedure, then he sure as hell was.

The procedure.
Christopher had no
idea what it meant, but it didn’t sound good. He’d asked if everything was all
right, but Jesse had shrugged.

“I’m just glad you’re here this morning.
Reminds me I have things to look forward to.”

It’d been an obvious cue to leave behind whatever it was
that had Jesse’s frown lines in evidence. So Christopher had let it go, happy
when his story of some of the most over-the-top backstage shenanigans between
the male ice dancers at SMD made Jesse smile and laugh again.

They’d texted every single day, and if Christopher wasn’t
doing a late show, Jesse called him after the children were in bed. They weren’t
intense conversations, usually just small updates about their day and their
plans for the next, but it was a connection Christopher had never experienced
before. It felt real, intimate and important, and like it could become a habit.
It felt good, even crazy-making at times—like he could possibly burst out of
his skin from his inability to hold back his hope and joy.

Christopher sighed, listening to the wind in the trees up
the mountain behind Shannon’s house. The sounds of the party seeped out onto
the porch and he considered going back inside, but leaned against the rail and
took deep breaths of the night air.

Things with Jesse were going so well, but he did wonder
about the speed they were moving. In some ways, it seemed fast. Emotionally and
physically, he was more onboard with this man than he’d been with anyone in his
life. But he wasn’t sure if Jesse felt the same and there wasn’t any good way
to ask without making himself more vulnerable than he wanted to be. Jesse had
lost his wife. He had two kids to take care of. A shop to run. A life that was
bigger than Christopher’s could ever be.

Christopher could sit back and wait. He could be happy to be
the man Jesse wanted to see when he had the time. And, truly, Jesse made the
time, didn’t he?

He does more than call for your booty,
boy. If that was all he wanted, he wouldn’t call to chat, now would he?

“I know, Gran.”

A strange vibration in his front jean pocket made him jerk,
and he laughed at himself.
Right.
The phone.
His stomach did a somersault as he pulled it
out and thumbed open the text message.

Brigid’s school poetry
jam/slam/whatever yesterday made me wish human beings only spoke in couplets.

Christopher grinned and typed in his response.

And what, good sir, would you say
If you were forced to rhyme this way?

Jesse’s reply came quickly and Christopher smiled to see he’d
replied in couplet too.

I’d say that I hope your party is fun
Despite me not being your plus one

Christopher glanced back through huge windows into the
well-lit house to see one of Drew’s burly friends standing on the ottoman,
talking and gesturing wildly with his beer while the women and men around him
laughed and cheered him on.

It’s full of people loud and drunk
And not a single one I’d fuck

Jesse’s reply took a while and Christopher’s palms started
to sweat. Had he said the wrong thing?
Back in my day, we
didn’t have these new-fangled devices. We talked face-to-face or not at all.
“Thanks, Gran,” Christopher murmured as he quickly typed:

Forgive me for being crude
And my rhymes for being loose

Jesse’s reply came through immediately after he’d pressed
send and the length of it made it clear to Christopher what had taken so much
time.

Is it just a fuck you want? Because, ah
hell, I have no rhymes for “the kids aren’t in bed yet, and won’t be for a
while because Brigid and Will are having post-trick-or-treat let’s-drown-ourselves-in-candy
sleepovers, but if you’re up for just hanging out, I’d like for you to come
over.”

Relieved, Christopher thumbed in:

I hear from kids these days
That fucking is so passé
Conversation is all the rage
An address please and I’m on my way

Jesse’s reply didn’t come as quickly and Christopher paced
the porch, grinning, his heart doing jumping jacks in his chest. Sex would be
great, sure, but seeing Jesse, talking with him, seeing where he lived—that was
good enough. His body tingled and a bubble of laughter felt trapped in his
chest.

Jesse’s reply let those feelings loose and he laughed out loud.

Jesus, fuck, who knew couplets
Could get me hot as a fried cutlet
Sorry for that bad rhyme
I really wanna “make you mine”
In the sense of “cock in ass”
But the kids are awake! Alas!
Just know I’d screw you if I could
I’m in the cul-de-sac, two-twelve Sourwood

It’d been hard enough to get the Halloween sleepovers
arranged. And not because the parents weren’t willing to send the kids off in
the care of a man known around town for being queer, though that had proved
difficult at times in years past. And not because parents weren’t eager to get
their sugared-up children out of their own hair, but because Brigid hadn’t
wanted to lose time working on the origami crane project to “suck up to girls
who don’t get me.” Jesse had thought he was still a few years away from bouts
of misunderstood angst, but Brigid’s new tween status had proved him wrong.

Will, for his part, was willing to let his sister boss him
into another evening of endless folding, but now that Charity and Meredith were
here, and the cranes safely stored in Jesse’s bedroom, Brigid had loosened up
and seemed to be having fun.

After texting Christopher, he’d made sure Brigid and the
girls were good to go in the basement with
The Hunger Games
,
popcorn, and half-a-dozen board games. Then he’d gone upstairs to encourage
Will and his pal Frankie-Jones in their building of an elaborate fort in Will’s
bedroom.

Now he felt safe to leave them to it while he waited for
Christopher to arrive. Heading into the kitchen, he grabbed a bottle of Merry
Edwards Sauvignon Blanc from the wine cooler and poured himself a glass. He
closed his eyes and took the layers of the wine apart the way he did with the
atmosphere of a room—full-bodied, balanced, creamy, with Bartlett pear and
gentle green melon. It finished dry and elegant, a refined wine.

He considered Christopher’s wide green eyes and full-lipped
smile. Chris struck him as the type of guy to have a stronger opinion on beers
than on wine. Homey, warm, and comfortable. Southern.

Jesse checked to see he had some microbrews in the fridge
and then returned to stand by the kitchen window, gazing out toward the road
where Christopher’s car would wind its way up the side of the mountain hopefully
any minute now.

“Dad?” Brigid’s small voice came from behind him.

“Need more popcorn, sweetheart?”

“No.”

Jesse turned to her and observed her pale face and saw that
she was holding a sheaf of square white paper. “I thought we weren’t going to
make cranes tonight?”

“Just three, okay? I’ll go back down after we both make three.”

He’d called Dr. Charles earlier in the week to talk about
the cranes, and the therapist had said it was fine. A coping mechanism. A way
to feel in control and accomplished in a world that had failed her. Still,
Jesse wished that her teacher had never sent that damn book home. Things had
been crane-crazy ever since
Sadako and the Thousand Paper
Cranes
had been required reading.

“All right.” Jesse sat at the kitchen table and Brigid slid
into the seat beside him. He studied her newly too-large nose and chin in
profile as she counted out six sheets and then handed three to him and kept
three for herself.

“Wait,” she commanded, placing her hand on his and closing
her eyes. She took six deep, slow breaths, and then opened her eyes again to
gaze at him with a shining, calm wonderment. “Now.”

They folded in silence. Jesse finished before Brigid and he
sipped his wine, watching her fingers, long and slim like his own, tucking and
bending the paper into three perfect paper cranes. He could hear the swelling
music from
The Hunger Games
drifting up the stairs
from the basement and he wondered if her friends even noticed they’d been
temporarily abandoned.

“One more?” she asked as she completed the final bend of the
crane’s head.

“Go on back down to your friends. It’s important to be a
good hostess, all right? Make sure everyone’s got enough to drink and eat.
There are more snacks and sodas in the kitchen down there, okay?”

Having a kitchen in the basement had been Marcy’s idea. She’d
thought there might come a day when Nova and Tim might need to move in with
them, and she’d wanted to make sure they could prepare their vegan meals in
their own kitchen without any concern of meaty cross-contamination. Of course,
Nova and Tim weren’t vegans at all anymore and Jesse used the basement kitchen
to store junk food for the kids, leaving the appliances to go to waste.

As Brigid reluctantly went to join the other girls, Jesse
heard the doorbell and his heart clenched hard and beat with a rapid joy that
made his blood sing.

“Ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath, but the grin
spreading over his face and the sweat on his palms didn’t stop in the face of
his scorn.

He keyed in the security code and opened the door. His heart
bloomed at the sight that greeted him: Christopher with tousled, shaggy hair,
cheeks red from the cold, his lips pink and wet, and his long, golden lashes
framing those green eyes with their sparkling brown flecks. He wore a navy blue
peacoat and a red scarf over jeans that skimmed his lean legs down to dark
black Timberland Earthkeeper leather boots.

Damn.

“Hi,” Christopher said, almost timidly. “You look… comfortable.”

Jesse glanced down at his black track pants and green Ryan
Adams
So Hot, So Cold
tour T-shirt.

“And good. I mean, you look good,” Christopher amended.

Jesse grinned and held the door open wider. “You too.” He
clapped Christopher on the arm, letting his hand linger and slide up to his
shoulder to squeeze in an almost-hug.

“Come on in. I was in the kitchen having some wine.”

He led Christopher down the hall, past some boxes of
Halloween decorations that were half-emptied on the floor. “Excuse the mess.
The kids were putting out even more stuff but then they got distracted.”

They walked through the living room and into the kitchen. He
glanced over his shoulder and saw Christopher taking in the size of the place.
He forgot sometimes how ridiculous the house was, probably because it was only
half as big as the house he’d grown up in. People joked that his father’s place
had been a mountain palace, not a mountain cabin.

“I’ve got some beers if you’d rather have that.” Jesse
motioned at the fridge.

“Wine’s fine,” Christopher said, taking off his jacket and
holding it in his arms, half-obscuring the nice deep blue of a soft-looking
oxford shirt.

“Just drape it over the back of one of the chairs at the
bar,” Jesse said, pulling a wine glass from the cabinet.

Christopher stood by the kitchen table, looking down at the
six completed cranes. He reached out and touched one.

“Those are Brigid’s.”

“I made a ton of these my sophomore year in high school. For
a school play. Stage decorations.”

“You’ll have an in with her, then,” Jesse said, grabbing the
wine bottle. “She’s obsessed with them.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s trying to make two thousand of them before Christmas.
She’s enlisting all the help she can wrangle out of me and Will, so if you tell
her you can make them, expect to be put to work.” Jesse poured a generous
glass.

Christopher picked up one of the cranes and tweaked its
drooping head, straightening it. “She’s trying to make two thousand?”

“Yep. She read a book. Found it inspiring, I guess.” He didn’t
mention what the therapist had said. “Did you have a hard time finding the place?”

“No, the GPS in my car knew the way.”