Smoky Mountain Dreams (45 page)

Christopher agreed, though the idea of drinking wine with
Little Debbies seemed entirely absurd. Jesse grabbed a bottle and uncorked it
quickly, pouring two glasses and passing one to Christopher.

“Happy Black Friday,” Jesse murmured, and clinked against
Christopher’s glass.

The taste was fruity and had a vague musky aroma. It did, in
fact, taste pretty good with the sickly sweet Zebra Cake.

“So,” Jesse said, clearing his throat. “I guess I should
explain.”

“You don’t need to explain yourself. Or your bedroom. You’ve
never asked me to explain where I live.” Christopher touched Jesse’s shoulder
tenderly. “She was your wife. You loved her. And no matter what happened or how
things were at the time of the accident, it would be hard to change something
as intimate as a bedroom. Hard to let that go.”

Jesse’s lips curled up with a small, self-deprecating smile.
“No, that’s not it at all.” He shook his head and took a large bite of the
Zebra Cake, swallowing it down with wine. “I always hated that room. Everything
about it was so…not me. And it wasn’t Marcy either, actually.” Jesse snorted. “It’s
kind of funny when you know the story. See, after Will was born, my mother
hired a decorator to help Marcy finish up the house. She did it as a favor,
like a baby gift. That’s my mother’s idea of a good baby gift.” Jesse laughed
again, his white teeth flashing in the darkness of his nighttime stubble. “Anyway,
we’d put our room off until last because we argued a lot about what it should
look like. I wanted something soft and comforting; she wanted stark lines and
minimalism.”

Christopher sipped the wine and watched the way Jesse’s eyes
twinkled at the memory, and he was glad. He wanted Jesse to think of Marcy with
joy, but not longing, and he wondered if that was still selfish. Strangely, he
wished he had memories of Marcy too, so he could share them with Jesse and it
could be something they had together, instead of his life before they met being
so entirely separate.

Though Christopher supposed he had his own
separateness—Nashville, private school, and his family. These were all things
Jesse could never fully know. Maybe relationships were a force of forward
motion, creating something new out of the present and future, until eventually
that became shared past.

Jesse chewed and swallowed the last of the Zebra Cake. He
pulled the second from the cellophane package, talking as he nibbled the icing
edges of the cake, and then took a sip of wine. “So, the designer came in to
help us out with our bedroom. I swear to God, it was the strangest thing I’d
ever seen.” He chuckled and licked some of the icing from between the two cake
layers, his pink tongue shining in the brightness of the lights over the
counter. “Like I’ve said, Marcy was always hard-headed and no-nonsense, but
this designer was a voodoo master or something. He had some kind of magic sway
over her, I swear, because anything the guy suggested, she just nodded along
like,
of course
.”

“Was the guy good looking?”

“Yes, but he was also seventy-three years old. And no, Marcy
wasn’t into older men.”

“What was it then?”

“I have no idea!” Jesse’s eyes were wide and he flung his
hands out. “It was insane. I just stood back and watched it happen because I’d
never seen Marcy so docile before.”

Christopher chuckled and took a sip of the wine.

“Anyway, when all was said and done, that was the bedroom we
ended up with. I hated it, and she hated it, and we would just lie in bed at
night, gagging at the walls, and then laugh and laugh at what a disaster it had
turned out to be.” Jesse sighed happily. “It ranks as one of the most bizarre
experiences of my life, and that’s saying something, honestly.”

Christopher loved the way Jesse’s cheeks were flushed, and
how his long fingers scratched at his stubble, and then covered his mouth to
yawn. He was so handsome and it made Christopher want to laugh and maybe cry
that he could reach out and touch if he wanted.

“Go on,” Jesse said, rolling his hand Christopher’s way. “Ask
the obvious question.”

Christopher grinned. “All right. Why didn’t you change it?”

“Well, at first it was just too funny to change, and my
mother loved it, and I don’t know. Will was a baby. We were sleep deprived and
delirious. We didn’t have the mental capacity to even figure out how to
accomplish a do-over.” Jesse sighed, and the smile that had been twinkling in
his eyes faded away. “Then our marriage trouble started and the last thing we
wanted to do was start a new home-improvement project. Or even think about our
bedroom, since that was the source of the problems. After a while the room just
kind of ceased to exist in my mind. It was a place I slept and a place where we
tried not to hurt each other too much with what we wanted and weren’t getting.”

Christopher finished his first cake and started on the
second, not meeting Jesse’s eyes.

“After the accident, well, I had too much going on to even
consider what kind of room I wanted for myself. I mean, it took me a long
enough time to even believe that she wasn’t going to come back. And then there
were the kids and their grief. There was my fear. My guilt. I was just trying
to keep my head above water as a single dad.”

“You did a great job. The best you could,” Christopher
murmured. “You put them first.”

Jesse nodded, rubbing the pad of his thumb over his eyebrow,
apparently agreeing with Christopher, but then he said, “For a long time, I
really didn’t have the space in my mind to think about what I wanted for myself
at all.” He looked at Christopher, his eyes intense and serious. “Do you
understand? This, you and me, it’s the first time I’ve let myself want
something…someone…since the accident. For the first time I’m considering what
life might look like for me, and for Will and Brigid, if I just let myself…move
on.”

Christopher swallowed, his heart fluttering and his lips
trembling. “I…I’m glad.”

“About the room, it wasn’t until I had you in there naked
that I suddenly realized, ‘What the fuck am I doing? This isn’t even my room.
It’s like I’m fucking him in, I don’t know, some old gay man’s idea of a
heterosexual woman’s boudoir.’”

“Yeah?”

Jesse laughed, his dark curls shaking with it. “Yeah. I
mean, what the hell? Jungle-scapes? Toucans? I need to do something about that.”
He stopped laughing, growing more serious as he finished up his second Zebra
Cake and opened another package, taking out one and handing Christopher the
other, though Christopher hadn’t finished his first package yet. “And I
realized that was basically my whole life. A gay man’s idea of a heterosexual
life. That bedroom is pretty much exactly what was wrong with my marriage. It
wasn’t me. It wasn’t even us.”

“Marriage wasn’t you?”

“No, being married to a woman—living this life and being
this person. It wasn’t who were we supposed to be in the end. I mean, don’t get
me wrong, I think Will and Brigid were supposed to happen. But I think in the
end we’d have divorced, stayed friends, and Brigid and Will would’ve ended up
with a couple of stepfathers.”

“Stepfathers?”

“Marcy’s husband and…the man I fell for.” Jesse met his
eyes. “Because this feels like it was always coming along, doesn’t it? You and
me. This. Us. Here and now in this room. Eating Zebra Cakes, drinking wine,
talking about the disaster of my room. The disaster of my life.”

Christopher’s heart skipped.
Us.
“You
believe in that kind of thing?”

Jesse seemed to ponder the question. “I believe that not too
long ago the best things in the atmosphere of this house were at the bottom,
put down shortly after it was built: baby laughter, love, and optimism. And
then—” Jesse moved his hand up to show a middle area of the room. “There was
anger, and disappointment, hurt and humiliation. After the accident the house
filled up with loss, tears, and a top-note of grim determination.” He shook his
head. “Will eventually healed enough to add a decent dose of happy-go-lucky
that took the edge off the misery, thank God. But Brigid and I didn’t do much
to improve the atmosphere here. Then you came over, just a few times now, and
somehow you’ve added music and sex and noodle wars to the mix. It’s made the
house feel better than it ever did before. And that’s because of you.”

“Jesse…” Christopher’s chest ached beautifully.

“I know—it’s too soon.”

“No, it’s not. I care about you too. You make me feel
important.”

“You are important.”

“You show me that all the time. By making the time for me.”
Christopher smiled ruefully. “I’d have been a great booty call for you, you
know? I’d have happily hooked up with you over and over and never asked for
anything more. But you gave me so much more than that—texts, calls, dates.”

Jesse took his hand and stroked his thumb gently over
Christopher’s skin. “Chris, you’re selling yourself short. As usual. I didn’t
do those things because I took pity on you or something. I did it because I
enjoy being with you.”

“I know, but I’ve never had anyone show that much interest
and simple consideration. I’ve never felt like someone sees me and thinks I’m
important—like they value me in their lives. I mean, Gran did. But never a guy.”

“Let’s value each other, Chris. Really, let’s do it. Let’s
take it as far as we can make it go.”

Christopher stared, his mouth gone dry. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, let’s…be important to each other. Let’s see what
that looks like. I want to make you part of this house. Part of our lives.”

“Really?” He was breathless, his heart pounding.

“Hell yeah. I want you here a lot, all the time. I’m not
asking you to move in. That’s a way off still, but I want to wake up knowing I’ll
see you. Maybe not every day, but most days.” He squeezed Christopher’s hand. “Chris,
I want you to spend the holiday with us. Say you will.”

“Spend Christmas with you?”

“Yeah. It’ll be you and me and Brigid and Will. It’ll be
great. A real stay-at-home Christmas. A family Christmas.”

“I…I want to say yes. I mean, I have no place else to go now
that my mom…” Christopher frowned and pulled his hand out from Jesse’s, taking
up the wine and sipping it again. The pull of the alcohol was making him fuzzy,
as was the lack of sleep and the exhaustion from the difficult day. Part of him
just wanted to agree and throw himself into Jesse’s arms and rush headlong into
this seeming promise of a family, but…Brigid.

“I don’t think we should plan something like that without
asking your children. And Brigid won’t like it, Jesse. I don’t want her to be
pressured into it, either. I don’t think that’s a very good idea. She needs to
want me around before we do something like that.”

Jesse’s shoulders slumped. “But what will you do?”

“I’ll figure something out. Maybe I’ll go with my friend
Shannon to sing carols in the nursing homes around here. She and her boyfriend
have done that for years. I’m sure she’d let me come along for the ride. That’d
be plenty merry, wouldn’t it?”

“I take it you haven’t spent much time in nursing homes.”

“Just my Gran’s and I usually just go to her room,”
Christopher conceded. “But it would be a good thing to do, wouldn’t it? And
Shannon asks every year. I’d be making her happy at least.”

Jesse’s brows drew together as he studied his drink. “But if
Brigid came around to the idea? If she got to know you better and liked you? If
she agreed?”

“If things changed with her, sure. I’d love to spend
Christmas with you. But I wouldn’t want her to feel coerced. That won’t make
her like me any better.”

Jesse looked thoughtful. “How could she get to know you and
not like you?”

Christopher laughed. “I think we both know the answer to
that.”

Jesse rubbed his finger around the rim of his glass, and let
out a long breath. “Yeah.”

“I’m not her mom, and I’m not a woman. It’s going to be hard
for her.”

“I know. It’s just…you make me so happy. I know you’d make
her happy too, if she’d just let you.”

Christopher wasn’t sure about that. Making a little girl
happy seemed entirely outside his realm of expertise, even after years of
working at SMD. Still, his heart fluttered to hear Jesse say that Christopher
made him happy.

“Come on,” Christopher said. “Let’s go back to bed.” He
crumpled up the cellophane Little Debbie wrappers, throwing them into the waste
container in the cabinet under the sink.

“Let’s go to the guest room, though,” Jesse murmured, taking
Christopher into his arms and running hot hands up and down Christopher’s back,
evoking shivers and a stirring in his dick. “I think I’d rather sleep with you
in a room with green walls and a painting of a naked water nymph over the bed
than in a room that’s like a jungle vagina.”

Christopher snorted. “I was thinking a womb—a jungle womb.”

“Great minds.”

A few minutes later, they clung together in the darkness of
Jesse’s guest room, the blankets and sheets shoved down to the foot of the bed
as they rutted against each other, cock sliding against cock, and hipbones
colliding. “I need to bring that mattress in here, though,” Jesse mumbled
against Christopher’s slick lips. “This one isn’t as comfortable.”

“You’re going to move into this room?” Christopher gasped.

Jesse rolled onto his side, his hips still working against
Christopher’s and his hand gripping Christopher’s cock. “Only when you’re here
and just until I can have the master bedroom re-done. I’m thinking white and
cream with blue accents.”

“Green accents would be nice,” Christopher murmured.

Jesse dug his fingers into Christopher’s back, pulling him
on top and sliding his legs apart to let Christopher drop between them. “I’ll
keep that in mind.”