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Fuck.
Eventually, he made it upstairs. Outside the door to the flat, he stopped to listen for a minute—Eric was tinkering away on the piano, and Adrian didn’t recognise the sweet, gentle melody. One of Eric’s own, then.
As soon as Adrian entered, Eric ceased his playing. One look at Adrian, then he got up and grabbed him in a hug. Adrian sagged into it, closing his eyes. Spots of grey flitted through the space behind his lids.
“How bad?” Eric asked quietly.
Adrian cleared his throat. “It could be worse?”
“Not an answer to my question.” The words were infused with enough warmth to make Adrian swallow against the sting of tears.
“Well, it’s not a threat to the structural integrity of the building.” Yet. Another year and it might have been. “The way it’s spread, the guy told me that as a temporary measure, we can treat it with fungicides. We’ll have to block off six rooms, though, to make sure there’s no health risk to guests. And then we’ll have to replace the affected wood when we close in March.”
Eric’s arms tightened enough to register. “Did he give you an estimate?”
“Said it’s not his expertise. I pressed him for his best guess, and he said it might fall between eighty and a hundred thousand.” Might as well be a million given how insurmountable it seemed to Adrian. He had a backup of maybe eighteen thousand, and while he knew he’dfind a bank to cover the rest, he hated draining his reserves down to nothing.
“If you’re already fixing those rooms, is that a chance to upgrade them?”
“That’d take even more money.” They’d had this conversation already, hadn’t they? “Matteo said the wiring won’t pose a challenge as such, but if I take those six rooms and turn them into four premium ones with bathrooms, it’d mean quite an additional investment—plumbing, rewiring, all that.”
“But if you have to renovate them anyway because of the dry rot—wouldn’t it be better to invest more money once because it’s a big step towards where you want to go?” Eric sounded hopeful rather than stubborn, and that was why Adrian didn’t snap at him.
He shook his head, drawing back to meet Eric’s eyes. “On paper, maybe. But I’m scared of biting off more than I can chew.”
“I get that.” Eric’s smile was tiny, barely even there. “You told me you hate asking for money. So that’s still true if it’s from some bank?”
“I guess that’s a bit better.” Adrian considered it. “I mean, it is. Lending people money is literally the bank’s job. But I don’t like being in debt, and I don’t like feeling like a burden. I’ve always wanted to pay my own way. ”
“What if people don’t see it as a burden?” Eric continued quickly, one hand flattening against Adrian’s belly. “You took over this hotel from your parents—they wanted to pass it on to you. How is that different from someone shoving a pile of cash into your arms and telling you to take it, pay it back whenever?”
“Because the Gletscherhaus would have fallen to me eventually.” Adrian slotted his own fingers into the gaps between Eric’s. The contact soothed the hectic buzz under his skin. “That’s different from, say, asking my parents to up my monthly allowance when I know they need money for fixing stuff around the hotel.”
“What if they didn’t need the money?”
Adrian shot Eric a wry look. “What’s with the twenty questions?”
“Sorry.” Eric looked immediately contrite, drawing Adrian in foranother hug. “I’m just trying to be logical, help you think this through. Maybe that’s not what you need right now.”
Adrian clenched his jaw until the pressure behind his eyes eased. He aimed for a light tone. “I kind of just feel like having a proper sob right now. I’m an ugly crier, though, and I don’t want to scare you away.”
Eric’s chuckle was a gust of warm air against Adrian’s cheek. “At least your sense of humour is alive and kicking.”
“Well, I’m a half-Brit. Using dark humour as a coping mechanism is our national sport, isn’t it?”
“Thought that was football,” Eric said, and Adrian turned his head, nose dragging along Eric’s cheekbone.
“We finished second in the last World Cup. Dark humour, though? Pretty sure we’re the reigning champions.”
Eric’s lips brushed Adrian’s as they curved into a smile. “But who’d sponsor something like a Dark Humour World Championship?
“Undertakers,” Adrian said. “Also, imagine the sportsmanship.” He paused to nudge their mouths together, voice taking on a Scottish lilt. “‘Crackin’ joke about death by taxes, mate. Really killed it.’”
Eric laughed, soft and warm, and God, Adrian wanted him to stay. Preferably forever. Since that was a pretty tall order, he swallowed the words and closed his teeth around Eric’s bottom lip for a gentle tug.
Spring was a long way off. Plenty of time for Adrian to come up with a plan.
It hadn’t snowedin nearly two weeks. That, of course, did not stop the official Grindelwald app from declaring the snow conditions ‘good’.Sure. The forecast predicted a couple of centimetres for the day after tomorrow, though, and Adrian hoped it would prove true—fresh snow made for happy hotel guests.
