by Pat Henshaw
“Could you excuse me?”
When he nodded, I got up and sashayed to the order station.
“Hey, Courtney, love. You know the luscious hunk over there?”
If he’d been a lion or tiger, I’d say Max was basking in the morning sunshine.
“Mr. Greene?” Courtney asked, bypassing the two other men intent over cell phones who were sitting nearer the windows. “Sure, everybody knows Mr. Greene. My brother works for him over at Greene’s Outdoors. Ty says he’s a great boss, the best. Why?”
“Thanks, my dear.”
Okay, he’d checked out. So what the hell? I could spend an hour or two with Max before putting on my ultragay designer persona for my late-afternoon appointment. The god-awful spoiled, bitchy bride wanted me to incorporate whatever she found today in San Francisco into my multimillion-dollar house design. I’d said I’d see what I could do and then I’d tacked another twenty thou onto her bill. Her infatuated fiancé had agreed for some reason I still couldn’t fathom. Max at least would add a little spark to an otherwise dull day.
“Okay, I’m free until four,” I told him as I replaced my day planner and zipped up my bag.
“Yeah, um, yeah, okay,” Max agreed. “Cabin’s about forty minutes.”
We both got up, and I followed Max to the door.
I’d spied the much-too-handsome Max around town a time or two, but hadn’t known his name. If Courtney knew him, he must be someone prominent in the community. I hadn’t lived here long enough and hadn’t taken time from my busy schedule to explore the local business scene. If nothing else, this job would let me break into the local hierarchy. Yay, me.
I stopped by my banana-yellow hybrid. “I’ll follow you. Which one’s yours?”
He stood by my car, looked down at it, then back at me with a slight smile upending his lips. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and his dimples peeked out from behind his mustache. His cuteness factor went off the charts. Little Fredi wanted to jump him right there on the sidewalk.
“Uh, better ride with me,” he purred. “The road’d kill that thing.” He flicked a finger at my car. “I’m over there.” He pointed to a monster truck.
Well, howdy. I’d never ridden in one of them before, but I’d certainly fantasized about what could be done in them. This would be a new experience and definitely enrich my bedtime fantasies.
After hauling myself as delicately as I could into Max’s behemoth truck and fastening the seat belt, I looked around, scoping out all the nooks and crannies where someone could climb over the driver or the driver could grind into the passenger. Yeah, monster trucks had it all.
With a shake of my head while Max fastened his seat belt, I rebooted and settled into interior designer mode. I’d done so many vacation home makeovers it was second nature. Somebody says “I want to remodel” and the professional me usually takes over my mind and body. Today? Not so easy staying on track.
“So, Max, tell me about your cabin. What do you really like about it?”
Max shrugged.
“No, no, I need words. This doesn’t work without words,” I playfully chastised him.
He looked over at me, one elbow stuck out the window, the fingers of his hand barely touching the steering wheel. On the surface, he looked laid-back, not a care in the world. But I could feel the tension rolling off him. Max was definitely too tense for my usual interior design spiel to work. I tried a few more questions.
“Okay, then. Why’d you buy the cabin? Just to fish and hunt and have a warm bed to go to at night? Somewhere you could cuddle and moan without the neighbors hearing?”
Max blushed, which made me step back a moment. Did my mention of bed upset him? Cuddling and moaning? Maybe he wasn’t one of us after all. I’d set it up so all he needed to do was fill in the bedroom blanks.
Max mumbled, his ears flaming, “Didn’t buy. Inherited it.”
“Oh, uh, okay.” I sighed. This give-and-take was sounding like a long, drawn-out process, a real pain in the ass—and not a nice one. “Well, let’s try it this way, then. What don’t you like about the cabin? I just need a few ideas here to help me see it through your eyes when we get there.”
The color receded from Max’s face and he looked as if he were considering my words. As he drove, he’d been giving me the side-eye, checking me out but not pulling away in disgust, I didn’t think. He was just a mess of mixed messages.
“Okay. Gotcha. What do I like?” he asked. “Mostly the outdoors. The seclusion, you know?”
I gave another little sigh and nodded in encouragement. Okay, now we were back on track: back to boring. I still couldn’t figure out where the blushing and hesitancy had come from. Didn’t all men—both straight and queer—talk about bedrooms and moaning and groaning?
Max rambled for a few minutes, one or two words at a time with a lot of silence in between. He talked about nature and wanting to bring nature inside but keeping busybodies outside. Hmmm, busybodies? Interesting.
“Just want to go up there. Do my own thing without people gettin’ in my way,” Max finished.
Even more interesting. What was his “own” thing? I hoped he meant men and sex. “Okay, so now think about how you feel when you get there. Do you feel free? Able to do whatever you want? Or is there something wrong with the cabin to make you feel like you’re locked in maybe?” I typed away as I listened for innuendos.
“Yeah, okay. Gotcha.” Max stayed quiet, squinting as if he were looking at the cabin anew.
I waited and let my eyes caress him. I still loved everything I saw. He was a man’s man—something that was like catnip to me. If I let my out-and-proud take over now, I’d be sitting next to him, running my hand along the man’s arm and up his leg, giving him little kisses as I whispered in his ear.
With a quick shake of my head, I erased the picture in my mind. Not the time, not the place. Down, Little Fredi. Not that Little Fredi is all that little, mind you. But he’d stirred up some inappropriate pheromones in the truck cab.
Max’s eyes had slid toward me a couple of times. He was frowning as he did so. Stand down, Fredi, stand down.
Finally Max cleared his throat.
“Here’s the deal,” he said, low and slow. “I get to the cabin, I want to open the door and feel the forest. Want the trees and birds and critters to welcome me to their house.”
Wow. Max had shown his poetic side. I was in love. Well, in lust, happily in lust. Obviously, not true love, not like my friend Jimmy and his man Guy. I felt the subliminal pull of Max but knew jumping him would be a deal breaker, so I shut it down. I didn’t get to be a semifamous architect and interior designer by having sex with every male client I came in contact with, even if I wished I could.
“No connection with the forest when you walk in now?” I murmured and typed.
“Naw,” Max muttered with a slow shake of his head. “Just feels like another trashed-out building.”
“Uh-oh, not good.”
“Can you fix it?” Max asked, this time his head and eyes turned toward me for a second.
“We’ll see.” I knew promises made before I found out what we had to work with and what Max’s budget was were worthless. “So you own Greene’s Outdoors?”
“Yeah. Sports equipment, raft trips, flyfishin’, huntin’, you name it.”
“You like running the store?”
“It’s okay. I get outside a lot of the time.”
Discussion died with his reticence and the change in topography. The road leading up to the cabin was abominable. I was afraid I was going to lose teeth as the truck lurched and rocked like a ship in a bad storm. I hung on for life with the handhold above the window. Max was right. My little car would have been challenged by the driveway. It would probably have face-planted in the first gully.
Max turned to me, a weird look on his face, partly chagrin and partly stifled laughter.
“Need to fix the road right away, huh?” he asked.
“Only if you want delivery tru
cks and workmen to get up to the cabin easily,” I managed over the bump and grind. Talking and being heard over the road noise were difficult, so I didn’t say any more.
When the truck stopped in front of a solid-looking log cabin, I had to take a moment to gather my body, my wits, and my bag before I climbed out of the truck. Max had bounded out as if the last few uphill minutes hadn’t existed.
I patted myself down and straightened my suit, wondering if I’d lost any body parts. Wearing a vintage three-piece suit and tie, while natty and professional, was definitely overkill out here. Gingerly, I walked up to where Max waited for me on the rickety wooden porch.
Max watched me every step of the way, a tiny smirk on his luscious lips.
“I should have gone home, changed clothes, and met you here,” I said with a smile. I wished Max had said a little more about how primitive the road and the surroundings would be.
Then I caught myself. Max had said the cabin was in the middle of nowhere and the terrain was rough. Why had I imagined a paved driveway, curbs, and lawn grass? Silly me, I chided myself. Time to get real.
Max turned and put a key in the front door lock as I stepped onto the undulating porch with him.
“Wait,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. Max pulled away quickly.
“What?” he yelped, turning to me, his cheeks a mottled red.
I stood my ground. How many straight male clients had reacted just as Max had? If only I had a dollar for every one. Well, I did—thousands of dollars for each one, actually.
“Turn and look around you,” I said in my most professional nongay voice, stifling my laughter. “What do you like about this porch? The front door? The setting?” I sucked in a breath. “Take your time and think about it.”
Max stood straight and crossed his arms over his chest. Slowly he looked around him, glancing at me once or twice. Did he look chagrined? Why?
“Well?”
“The trees and the bird feeders are good,” he said. “Not the chairs or the table.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
Max glanced at me, a huge giant looking down at a flea. “Pain in the ass,” he said with a sassy grin.
I nodded. “Okay.” I pulled out my netbook and started typing. “Anything else you like or don’t like?”
Max’s head crooked to the side. “This is important?”
“Only if you want me to make this place what you want it to be,” I answered without looking up. It was difficult to balance the netbook and type with one finger at the same time.
“Thought you were an interior designer,” Max said.
My head came up and I eyed Max. “I am. What are you getting at?”
“Well, thought you’d just, like, walk in and tell me how you’d change the place.”
I frowned. “You brought me all the way out here to bum-fuck nowhere thinking I would change the place to what I’d want?” I shook my head in bemusement.
“Yeah?” Max answered, pretty much making a question of it.
“No, that’s not what an interior designer does—not a good one at any rate. The point here is to make the place what you want it to be. I don’t have to live here. You do. Nobody cares—or at least nobody should care—what I think this place should look like. It’s your retreat, not mine.” The netbook was falling and I had to grab it before it tumbled to the porch.
“But—” Max started.
“Look, if what you want is someone who comes in and makes your cabin a copy of a picture in a slick magazine, then you don’t want me. I’ve been doing this long enough to know if I do that, it will just make you miserable. Once you wrote the check to me, you’d want your money back. Been there, done that, Max.” I closed the netbook cover with a snap.
I turned my back to the giant with his belligerent stance and crossed arms. I started back down the steps to the truck as I stuffed the computer into my bag.
“Okay. Whatever. We’ll do it your way,” Max said grudgingly.
I turned and looked at the man who was even bigger now I’d gone down the steps. I sighed in exasperation. Did I tell him how to do his job? No. Then why couldn’t he let me do mine?
“Go to Target, Ikea, Pottery Barn, or wherever. Buy yourself some furniture and throw pillows. Put up some different curtains. You don’t need me to do all that. Knock yourself out. Now can we go back to town?” I turned to the truck.
“What? No. Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “Thought you’d just come in and redecorate. Didn’t know I’d have to answer all the personal questions.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. Personal questions? Right. These weren’t anywhere near the personal questions I could ask. Wanted to ask.
“In that case, maybe you should ask your girlfriend or wife or mother or sister for advice. I’m an interior designer. My job is to change your space into what you want it to be, to what you will feel comfortable living in. It’s not about prettying it up. It’s about figuring out who you are and what you like, then giving you a living space you can enjoy, not just put up with. Get it?”
“Huh?” Max was looking a little lost at this point, but I didn’t care. The man was beautiful, lovely, but clueless and just a tad insulting.
“Just tell some girl she can go in and change your cabin,” I added. “She won’t have a problem doing it. I don’t understand why you asked me out here if you didn’t want to answer any questions,” I grumbled, stumbling back to the truck while trying not to trip and kill myself.
“Heard you were the best.” Max jumped from the porch and crowded my back. “Even heard you’re going to redo Stonewall Saloon.”
I stopped, swiveled, and put my hand on Max’s chest, and a very nice chest it was. I pushed away from him, leaving an arm’s length between us.
“Okay, look. Either let me do my job and answer my questions. Or blow me, then let’s get out of here. Your choice.”
The warmth from Max’s chest seeped onto my palm. The man’s heart was beating overtime. I quickly dropped my hand, knowing a straight guy would be getting nervous so close to an unabashed gay man. Max was big, and I suddenly realized I didn’t know him well enough to be absolutely sure he wouldn’t lash out.
Max dropped his eyes, his hands loose next to his hips. His face was flaming red.
“Sorry. Didn’t know how this worked.” His voice was quiet and worried. “You’re going to ask Stone questions too, right?”
Guy Stone owned Stonewall Saloon and was Jimmy’s love. I gave a curt nod. “Already did.”
“Yeah, well, okay. Let’s do this, then.” He looked beseechingly at me. Cute remorse oozed from him. “Sorry. I didn’t know.” His voice was quieter, softer. “Don’t like to talk about myself much.”
I nodded again. How could I resist his cute? I couldn’t.
“Okay, let’s start over. Hi, I’m Fredi Zimmer, and I’m an architect and interior designer,” I said with a smile. I stuck out my hand. “What would you like me to do for you?”
Max stayed a nearly solid brick color, but shook my hand again gently.
“Could you make my cabin better?” he asked.
“Only if you’re honest with me.” I turned around and balanced my way back up onto the porch.
2
THE CABIN was in worse shape than I’d imagined. The wooden planks of the porch and stairs leading to the front door were cracked and looked unsafe, so I again gingerly stepped around the buckled, uneven surface, hoping I wouldn’t break a leg in the process.
Max had trouble opening the front door and finally resorted to giving the warped wood a grunt-inducing shove.
Inside, it was as if a pack of mountain lions had lived there and brought their prey inside to devour. The stench as Max opened the door nearly knocked me off my feet.
“Uh, it’s always, um, smelled like this.” Max shrugged and hung his head. “Tried everything I can think of to get rid of it.” Another shrug.
Oh. My. God. I’d stepped into a charnel house. I got out my hanky and pr
essed it to my nose. I’d have to have the Behr brothers come in and do a structural evaluation. There had to be termites, rodents, and other creepy-crawlies, right?
I looked up to tell Max to forget it, but got lost in the bleak look in the man’s eyes. Why was he so damned gorgeous? My buttons were again ready for business.
“Can we open some windows at least?”
Max jumped slightly. “Yeah, of course, yeah.”
While I stood there, Max moved from room to room slamming open windows. Fortunately a cool breeze moved through the rooms, not erasing but blunting the vile odor. One-handed, I folded my hanky and put it back in my pocket.
I propped the front door open, and carefully stepped into the living room. I took pictures with my phone, eyeing the ragged, minimalist flaps of cloth unable to cover the single windows on each wall. The only thing substantial looking was a fieldstone fireplace covered in ash and grease. The stuffed animal heads over the mantel and on the other walls were dusty and dingy, some showing wear and tear as if they’d been knocked down, kicked around, and stuck haphazardly back up.
“So do you like anything about this room?” I tried to keep the horror from my tone but knew I was failing miserably. The living room was not only hopeless but a complete disaster.
“Naw. Fireplace maybe.” Max looked around as if he too were offended by the room. “It’s solid, though. Had Abe Behr look at it last month. Then asked around about somebody to remodel. They say you’re the best.”
I jotted a note to ask Abe for details, then sighed. Might as well get the rest of the cabin over with.
The other rooms were no better. An outdated, thoroughly trashed kitchen, two tiny bedrooms, and two dingy bathrooms that looked and smelled like someone had gutted fish or skinned animals in them. In all the rooms, tiny sash windows barely let in enough light to see. There was a sort of screened-in porch off the kitchen with a moth-eaten couch, a picnic table bolted to the wood floor, a storage closet, and a huge dirt-encrusted Weber grill.
As far as my gathering information for remodeling, the next two hours went fairly quickly. In each room I put the netbook aside, took measurements of the space with my digital tape, asked Max questions, and then typed like crazy as he answered.