“I know. It’s what I should have been calling you all along.”
His blue eyes looked a little brighter than usual behind his glasses, like maybe he was tearing up, too. “I never set out to replace your father. I know what he meant to you.”
“I can have two dads. It doesn’t take anything from him if you both share the title.”
He smiled at me and gave my shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “I’d better get back to your mother before she realizes I’ve been stuffing my face. Good night, Son. I’ll see you in the morning.” He was still smiling as he left the kitchen.
I assembled a cookie plate for Kit and brought it to him with a glass of milk. Because my parents kept the thermostat at tropical levels, he was sitting on top of the covers with his new drawing tablet, dressed in nothing but a pair of briefs.
I put his snack on the nightstand and kissed my way up his thigh. When I curled up at his side, he brushed my hair from my eyes and said, “You were gone a long time. Is everything okay?”
I put my arms around him and nodded. “Everything is wonderful.”
16
Kit
Life at the cabin was pure bliss—not that “cabin” was the right word for it. The gorgeous structure was two elegant stories of dark wood and glass, with a wrap-around balcony on the second floor. I would have called it a chalet, or something fancier like that.
The interior was just as beautiful, with high ceilings, an open floor plan, comfortable furniture, and huge windows to let in lots of sunlight and to take in the tranquil view. There wasn’t another house in sight, just a thick forest sloping down into a lush valley, and a stream that stepped down in a series of mini waterfalls, right behind the wide deck.
We came here straight from Baltimore, two days after Christmas. Our original plan had been to visit New York City first, but Devon had asked me if that could wait. I was all for doing whatever made him feel safe—and he definitely felt like that here.
We’d been at the cabin almost a month, and it had been a little slice of heaven. He’d been working on writing songs, while I’d been putting together a one-man drag show. This involved planning the music, practicing the choreography and lip syncs,and designing several different outfits. I had no idea if I’d ever get the chance to perform it in its entirety, but each song could also be performed individually. I figured that was probably what I’d end up doing with it.
Even better was the time Devon and I spent totally wrapped up in each other. We existed in a world with just the two of us, aside from a short visit every other week from the cabin’s caretaker and his daughter, who brought us groceries. Other than that, our time together was totally uninterrupted, and it was glorious.
It created a kind of intimacy I’d never known existed. Not just in terms of sex—although we made love in every room of that cabin and out on the deck, on repeat. It was also intimacy in the form of reading together in front of the fire, and talking late into the night, and cooking our meals together. It was intimacy built on love and trust, and on a willingness to tell each other everything, knowing we were going to be accepted no matter what.
The only dark cloud in our lovely little world was the countdown to Devon’s thirtieth birthday. For the most part, he seemed optimistic. While he still believed in the curse, he was starting to think he might have dodged it somehow.
He wasn’t ready to talk about the future though, or to make any plans past his birthday. Maybe he felt he’d be tempting fate or something.
Instead of pushing, I adopted his live-in-the-moment philosophy. It made me realize how much time I used to spend thinking, planning, and worrying about the future. There was a lot to be said for focusing on the here and now.
Not that I didn’t try to imagine what our lives would look like, or think about what we’d do, once we finally left the cabin. But that was a conversation that could wait until after February first, which was getting close.
It was already the end of January. His birthday was the day after tomorrow.
When I asked Devon how he felt about that over a late lunch, he considered the question before saying, “I’m trying to think positive, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I feel like I’m holding my breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know? I almost wish I could sleep for the next two days, then wake up on my birthday and have that weight lifted once and for all.”
A little while later, as we were clearing away the dishes, I said, “You barely ate.” He’d skipped breakfast, too.
“My stomach is in knots. I guess it’s my body’s response to all this stress.”
I made him a cup of tea, and we got comfortable in front of the fireplace with a warm blanket and a couple of books from the cabin’s mini library. Maybe an hour later, Devon told me, “It’s snowing.”
I glanced up from the pages of my pulpy noir thriller and smiled. We’d seen a handful of light flurries since we’d been here, but they’d all melted as soon as they hit the ground. This one already looked more substantial. “You might finally get to build your snowman,” he said.
“If this one doesn’t stick, I’m going to throw a bunch of ice cubes in the blender and build myself a mini snowman out of crushed ice.” That made him smile.
The snow kept coming down, though. We curled up together and watched as the world outside our windows became blanketed in a pristine layer of white.
After a while, I checked the weather on my phone and said, “We’re getting the outer edge of a storm that’s moving down from Canada. They’d originally predicted it was going to miss us, but it looks like it shifted in our direction.”
“The good news is, we have plenty of food and no place we have to be. And even if the power gets knocked out, we have a ton of firewood to keep us warm, so I think we’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t worried about it. We hadn’t gone anywhere all month anyway, aside from daily walks along the creek. It wasn’t like getting snowed in would make much of a difference.
