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Me: Fuck me, Ginge—this place is ridiculous. I’m probably the only queer within a hundred miles. There’s a park near here called Gaylord, and I bet no one even thinks it’s funny. Seriously, if I get this job I’ll have to be celibate. Until some cute little gay undergrad catches me in a weak moment, after I haven’t had sex in seventeen years, and then I’ll get fired for inappropriate conduct, or put in jail for sexual harassment.
Ginger: Look, kid, you’re flipping out over maybes and you’re overthinking, as usual. Just see what this job is before you’re so positive it has nothing to offer you. Ride the wave. Besides, you know the stats. I don’t care if it’s the lunch lady, your accountant, or the butch lumberjack; there have got to be homosexuals, even in that godforsaken little slice of Minnesota.
Me: Michigan.
Ginger: Whatever, pumpkin.
She’s right, as usual. And, of course, her mention of butch lumberjacks brings me right back to… shit, I don’t even know his name.
I MAKE my way back into the living room, holding up my borrowed sweatpants in an attempt not to trip and kill myself. The T-shirt sleeves reach past my elbows. It’s like when I used to have to wear my older brothers’ stuff, only worse because I wasn’t concerned about looking attractive in front of my brothers, who would’ve told me I looked like an idiot no matter what I was wearing. Of course, it makes no sense to worry about how I look in front of this man either, since it’s not like some super masculine straight guy is going to care. These clothes do have one advantage over my brothers’, though: whereas my brothers’ hand-me-downs smelled like stale sweat beneath industrial-strength bleach, these smell like fabric softener and cedar.
As I walk past the fire, the dog lifts her eyelids and regards me sleepily, but doesn’t stir. I can hear noise coming from the kitchen.
“What’s your name?” I ask the man’s broad back, where he’s bent over the sink, washing a plate.
The muscles in his back and shoulders tense, as if I startled him. He turns around and his eyes immediately go to my hips.
“Those things are gonna fall off you,” he says. “Come here.” He rummages around in a drawer next to the sink.
Be still, my fantasies, I insist as I step toward him. The last thing I need is to pop a boner in this guy’s sweatpants and have him kick my ass. Not that it’d be the first time.
He squats down, gathers the excess fabric around my hips, and folds it over, then holds it together with a binder clip. I must look confused because he shrugs and mutters, “I use them for chip clips.”
“Thanks,” I say, and roll the T-shirt sleeves up a little so I don’t look like a child.
“What’s yours?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m Daniel.” I stick out a hand to him in a weirdly professional gesture, as if we haven’t been together for an hour, as if he didn’t just binder-clip the waist of my borrowed sweatpants. But he just takes my hand in his large palm and shakes it firmly. God, his hands are so warm.
“So?” I ask again.
“Rex,” he says, and ducks his head a bit shyly. Rex. King. It suits him.
“I guess I should go,” I say, making a vague gesture toward the door. “Oh shit, my car—I have to call someone—and I didn’t even check in to my hotel yet, so I need—” God, I’m tired.
“I took care of it,” Rex says, turning back to the sink. “Here, do you want another drink? You look like you could use it.” He pours another whiskey and holds it out to me.
“Thanks. What do you mean, you took care of it?” I sip this whiskey a bit slower. My head feels like it’s full of cotton.
“I called someone and had your car towed. It was a rental, right?” I nod. “So, you can just pick one up at the airport. It’s right near here.” Relief floods me that I won’t have to handle that. I can’t even remember the last time someone took care of anything for me.
“Thank you,” I say, and I can hear the relief in my voice. I finish the whiskey in my glass and hold it out for a refill without thinking about it. Rex gives me an amused nod and refills my glass, pours one for himself, and then gestures me into the living room.
I sink down onto Rex’s green plaid couch and pull the blue flannel blanket over me. The couch dips with Rex’s weight as he sits beside me and I open my eyes. In the firelight, he is a god. The flames flicker over the planes of his face and the straight lines of his eyebrows, create a shadow under his full lower lip, turn his stubble to velvet and his eyes to molten gold. I slug back the rest of my drink and put the glass down. I can’t look away from him. He’s regarding me calmly and I can smell him on the blanket I’m wrapped up in.
