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He had no idea how good he was, did he?
“Not unless you want to.” Adrian nodded his chin at the other room. “People sure are enjoying it, so until you run out of songs, feel free. I just came to check if you want anything.” Damn Martin for priming Adrian’s brain to embellish the words with innuendo that didn’t exist. “Like a glass of wine, or some water? A French Kiss? The cocktail, I mean.”
Ugh.
“Oh.” Eric looked surprised, then flattered. “Some red wine would be nice? Thank you.”
“Coming right up.” Adrian saluted him, only to feel silly a moment later. Jesus, what was wrong with him? He didn’t get self-conscious around guys—never had, and he didn’t intend to start now. Blushing, stammering, and shuffling his feet? Thanks, but no thanks.
With that resolve firmly in mind, he sent Eric an easy smile and turned to leave, the first notes of another jazz standard trailing him out of the room. He found his parents making the rounds and Martin mixing two drinks at once, guests chatting or reading, no phones to be seen and the velvety melody of the piano twining with the smell of burning wood. If you ignored the clothes and hair styles, it could have been ten years ago, or fifty—a time capsule that, ironically, invited people to be present in a way they so rarely were these days.
It was home. And yeah, that was a quaint concept—everyone wanted to travel the world, live abroad or in the big city, be somewhere else, anywhere else. Not Adrian. He’d done Berlin, and he’d visited other places too, places like Cyprus and Ibiza and Costa Rica, and he’d liked them just fine. But here was where he belonged.
Others could have New York, Paris, and London. This, here, was all he needed, and he didn’t mind if his parents and Martin were the only ones who understood.
Adrian poured a glass of wine for Eric, then one for himself, andtwo more for Martin and Kojo because why not? It was, after all, a Saturday night, and this was about as crazy as things got around here.
And there was nowhere else Adrian would rather be.
5
Eric had worried that helping out part-time at the hotel would prove too much of a distraction, that he’d fall behind on his actual work, namely writing songs. It turned out to be the opposite.
Spending some four hours a day focused on others got him out of his head. At the same time, he drew inspiration from the interactions—the way people talked and what brought them here, how a couple touched hands across the table, how friends ribbed each other over a game of Trivial Pursuit. Martin and his quick grins and equally quick tongue, Adrian and the way he listened to guests and their stories, his blinding smiles and how he switched between English and German without missing a beat.
“It’s not something I think about,” Adrian said when Eric asked him what it was like. “It just … is.”
Eric straightened a tablecloth, the two of them working together to set things up for dinner. “Like flicking a switch?”
“More…” Adrian hesitated, a crease between his brows. “Sorry, I never really thought about it, you know? It’s not as conscious as flicking a switch, though. There’s no decision involved. I look at my dad and think and speak German, I look at my mum and think and speak English.”
“What language do you dream in?” The moment it was out, Eric wondered if that was too personal, but Adrian didn’t seem to mind.
“Both. I count in German, though.” One corner of Adrian’s mouth lifted. Temperatures had been on a steady climb since the beginning of the week, with only patches of snow left in the hotel’s immediate vicinity. Clearly, that didn’t stop Adrian from wearing an oversized Norwegian jumper that hung loose on his athletic frame. “Probably down to how I went to school here, so numbers and figures are German.”
Eric laid out forks, moving from one table to the next, Adrian a couple of steps behind with the knives. Six days in, they’d found a rhythm together—working with and around each other, knowing which guests fell to Eric and who’d be better served by Adrian. It was even easier now that the hotel was no longer at full capacity and Eric had picked up some very basic German expressions, small things likethis wayandjust a minute, pleaseandyou’re welcometo get guests settled until Adrian took over.
“That makes sense,” Eric said. “And it’s pretty cool, isn’t it? How the brain just does that.”
“I guess it is pretty cool.” Adrian snorted. “Although it’s not without fail. I have these moments when I speak one language, but the other gets in the way—like I’m trying to say something in English, for example, but somehow the German expression is closer to the surface and I translate it without realising what I’m doing. The result can be awkward.”
“Like…?” Eric prompted.
Adrian considered it for a second, then grinned. “Like this one time I wanted to tell Martin that I honestly couldn’t care less about some stupid fight he and Matteo were having. So I told him ‘it’s none of my beer’ because I grew up with my dad saying that.”
“‘It’s none of my beer’?”
“Das ist nicht mein Bier.” Adrian followed Eric to the next table. “Means it’s not my bloody problem. Anyway, Martin almost peedhimself laughing and spent the next few weeks telling me it was none of his beer any chance he got.”
Ah, yes—Eric could easily picture it. “Sounds like Martin.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Open affection coloured Adrian’s voice. By this point, Eric no longer tripped over what Adrian and Martin had been to each other, at least in front of the cameras.
Finished with setting out the forks and knives, Eric grabbed the tablespoons and Adrian the teaspoons. Next would be glasses, then nicely folding the napkins—between the two of them, it took some fifteen minutes altogether.
“How was the snow today?” Adrian asked.
“Mushy.” Eric had caught the first post bus in the morning, making it onto the slopes early enough to enjoy some corduroy. “As soon as the sun came out, it was a bit like water skiing.”
