by Willa Okati
Where that had come from, Gavin didn’t know. Or maybe he did. Maybe it’d been building for a while now. No. No maybe about it. Gavin mentally circled the concept. Built tight and held water.
He tried it again on purpose: I want to grow old with this man. Never leave him.
The truth of it glowed deep within him. He could say it. If he wanted to.
Maybe he would.
* * *
The sun looked amazing at it climbed skyward. Golden warm after a cold night that hadn’t been what Gavin pictured for a honeymoon. But it had been what he’d needed, even though he hadn’t known it.
Kind of like Ford, he mused, pulling the Jeep into park.
“Mmm?” Ford stirred when the Jeep stilled. Figured. Even after four hours of Gavin spelling him and four more hours fast asleep while the rocky road roared beneath them, and he woke up when they came to a stop. That was Ford for you. Gavin rumpled his lover’s sleep-messy hair as he sat up, blinking around them.
“Unless I took a wrong turn somewhere off the highway, I think we’re here.”
Ford winced as he sat up. He blinked at the world outside. “I think you’re right.”
“There by dark, huh?” Gavin said, teasing him gently. “Sunrise was half an hour ago.”
Ford grinned sheepishly. “I remembered how to get here. I forgot how long it’d take. One out of two isn’t bad. Come on, I want you to see this.” He fumbled the Jeep door open and stepped outside.
Gavin didn’t want to be parted from Ford, not even for a second, and neither was he willing to miss out on a moment of this adventure. Or waste a second he could spend looking around himself.
If this was what following flights of fancy led to…
All they could do was look.
Gavin sensed Ford reaching out for his hand. He took it without comment, letting Ford’s warm, dry palm and strong fingers engulf his.
“Worth every second of the trip,” Ford said quietly, watching Gavin.
Blue stretched out in front of them, ringed about by trees that stretched high in a circle around a lake perhaps the width of two soccer fields. They’d come as close as they could without driving off a wooden pier into the water.
Off to one side, four or five cottages spread out in a rough five-sided star shape. Small, some with smoke drifting from their chimneys to stave off the early-morning nip from the breeze off the lake, though the day itself would be nearing hot. Gavin would have thought for sure they’d stumbled upon a residential neighborhood if he hadn’t seen a discreet wooden sign swinging from two posts and some chain: NORTHPOINT LAKESIDE RENTALS.
Ford engulfed Gavin from behind and hung on almost too tightly. Gavin didn’t mind; it only meant Ford was as excited in his more exuberant way as Gavin. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s you. The last thing I’d have expected.” And the best. Gavin leaned back into Ford, letting Ford bear him up. They didn’t say anything else. Nothing needed to be said.
Gavin had thought he was tired. In need of some coffee first and a nap second. Who wouldn’t be after a night’s drive? The wind off the lake woke him up instead -- or maybe that was Ford. Not that he wanted to move. That was Ford’s thing, always on the go.
He wanted to stay right here, like this. He’d never been on a honeymoon. Too many years spent regretting that. Maybe they’d been worth it, to make this worth waiting for.
We’ll see, he thought. It’s like a test, isn’t it? It could be. I could grow old with this man. Maybe I should.
One weekend on the lake. If it’s all as good as this, then maybe I’ll… Maybe if he asks, again… Maybe I’ll change my answer.
Gavin’s shoulders shook with a sudden fit of amusement. Ford nudged him. Jostled him, playful again. “Share the joke.”
“Nothing.” Just that I realized you’ve got me thinking like you. Looking for signs. “No, honestly, nothing.”
“Uh-huh.”
Gavin turned in the circle of Ford’s arms and stood on tiptoe to kiss as high as he could reach on Ford. “It’s not anything bad. Leave it at that.”
He could tell Ford wanted to press but didn’t. Instead, Ford bent to rest his head atop Gavin’s. “Let me go make sure they’ve still got our room reserved.”
“You’d better. I’m not going anywhere but here. It’s gorgeous, Ford.” Gavin thought he knew what Ford meant by his “worth it” when he saw the way Ford lit up with happiness at those words. He turned Ford about and pointed him toward the nearest cabin, the one with its door propped open and a sign Gavin couldn’t read at this distance, but which he’d bet said OFFICE. “I’ll wait for you.”
“You don’t want to come with me?”
“I want to stretch my legs first. Go on,” Gavin said, giving Ford a little push. “I’m still in your hands.”
Ford’s kiss warmed everywhere the cool wind touched, and lingered long after Ford hotfooted it into the open-doored cabin. Gavin hugged his chest and turned his gaze to the sun emerging from behind a handful of clouds.
Maybe that’s the thing, was what circled around and around in Gavin’s head. Maybe belief is a choice, even if you’re not sure.
Maybe not being sure is what makes believing worth taking the chance.
Chapter Nine
Ford took longer in the rental office than Gavin had expected, but no longer that he might have figured it would. Ford could find a friend anywhere he went. He’d probably struck up a conversation with the manager and was halfway down a cup of coffee by now, spinning some elaborate tale about signs and omens.
He’d come back.
Gavin wandered away from the Jeep, down to the pier. It proved to be sturdier than it might seem at first glance, and though the struts holding it up from beneath were slicked with green moss, they held firm.
He walked that wooden road as far as he could, right before the ninety-degree turn that’d take him around on his way to heading back. Not wanting to go back, not yet, Gavin let the rising wind off the lake pluck at and tickle him. Felt good. He’d reached that place in his second wind where he felt a little too large for his skin and a little too light on his feet, but the cool air helped.
His eyes had still drifted mostly shut by the time he heard the heavy tread of Ford’s footsteps and caught the smell of a good dark roast drifting in front of him.
Gavin smiled.
Ford’s body heat blanketed Gavin from behind, long arms wrapping him round about, coffee pressed into his hand. As good as it smelled, Gavin only took a sip for the taste of it and was content to rest back against Ford. “Well?”
“They rented the cabin I reserved, but another one opened up not half an hour before we got here. The last one available.”
“Lucky us,” Gavin said, not sure if he was teasing or… “You’d say that was a sure sign we’re meant to be here, huh?”
Ford’s chuckle sounded sleepy. “Guess so.” He shivered when the wind picked up abruptly. Gavin felt him go still for a moment. He knew Ford well enough now to know he’d seen something. Well enough still to know when it was something that gave Ford pause. Or that he didn’t like. “What’s wrong?”
Ford held Gavin a little tighter.
Gavin frowned at the horizon. He didn’t see anything different. The wind blew harder, but that was all. Maybe they’d get a shower or a good hard rain. “What’s bad about the wind off a lake?”
“It’s coming from all different directions. It’s confused.”
Gavin didn’t exactly know what to say to that. He didn’t like Ford’s peculiar attitude.
However, he thought he could guess the cause, and he knew the best cure. Sleep.
“Tell me again,” Ford said before Gavin could give him the order to go to bed. “Do you like it here?”
“Yeah, I do. It’s perfect.”
“There’s not much perfect in the world,” Ford remarked.
“Shut up and let me enjoy this.”
Ford’s laughter felt more convincing this time. �
��Yes, sir.”
Gavin fought the blush. “Thank you.”
“Other way around,” Ford said, rocking Gavin in time with the ripples off the lake. “Other way around.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
“Then I have to believe you, don’t I?” Gavin sipped his coffee, the dark liquid cooling fast in the chilly wind. He said, turning about in Ford’s arms where he could reach up and loop his arms around Ford’s neck, “What happens now?”
Ford’s eyelids were heavy, giving Gavin his answer before he said a word. “I’d love to suggest we drink about a gallon of coffee each and then inaugurate this place.”
Right. Sleep. “If you weren’t weaving on your feet, maybe I’d say yes.” Gavin patted Ford’s cheek, a tap to keep him awake long enough not to take them tumbling off the pier. “What you need is some sleep.”
“Sucks being this big.” Ford rolled his shoulders. “I’m not built for snoozing in a moving vehicle, extra legroom or not.”
“I like you the way you are,” Gavin said and meant it. Thought Gavin would just bet Ford ached. Sore and creaky in all the wrong places and his back aching. “C’mon.” He took Ford by the hand and turned them around, okay now with going back. “Which cabin’s ours?”
“The one on the farthest end. Number four.”
Something in the way Ford said that made Gavin look back. “What’s wrong with that?”
Ford winced. “Remember what I told you about the word ‘four’ in Chinese?”
“So? We drove all night in a 4x4 and got here just fine. Stop that,” Gavin scolded when Ford shivered. “If the difference is in how you say the Chinese word for ‘four,’ then say it right.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It’s just a word.”
“Yeah.” Ford stood too still for too long. Enough of that. Some sleep, some food, and he’d be back to his old self.
“Follow me, you. Let me take care of you for a change.”
Strange how that seemed to help. How Ford brightened despite his sleepiness. This, Gavin didn’t understand, but he’d take what he could get. Gladly.
Walking to the cabin took all of three minutes, even with dodging around neatly stacked woodpiles and the temptation to be distracted by the slow chatter of early-morning risers inside other cabins. Gavin made it up the stairs before Ford and tried out the cockiest smirk he’d ever attempted to summon.
It did and didn’t work. Ford dissolved into laughter; Gavin guessed it truly hadn’t come out as he’d hoped. “That looked ridiculous, didn’t it?”
“Kind of,” Ford said. There was a gleam in his eye that --
Gavin backed up fast, sand crunching under his sneakers as he skittered across the porch. “Ford, this is a make-believe honeymoon, not the real thing. Ford, don’t you dare try and carry me over the threshold. Ford --”
Too late. Gavin oofed and thumped Ford hard in the back with one fist, but nothing stopped Ford from toting him in a fireman’s carry through the door and all the way to the bed. There, he dropped Gavin -- tossed him, more like. Gavin bounced, then again, nearly off the bed this time with the shock wave when Ford’s much greater weight crashed across the mattress by his side.
Gavin grumbled. Ford wasn’t the only one who’d gotten knotted up after a day and a night’s worth of driving. But when he turned to Ford to complain, he stopped before he’d even started. Ford had landed on his back, faceup, his eyes closed and his breathing already slowing down. Fast asleep.
“A double handful of trouble, that’s what you are,” Gavin said. “My handful.” He tucked Ford’s hair behind his ears. With the last of his energy, he crawled off the bed and rummaged at a trunk at the foot that -- aha -- held some extra blankets. He spread three over Ford, keeping only one for himself -- all he needed, whereas Ford was big enough that two wouldn’t be enough.
When Gavin settled back down, he could feel the same exhaustion that’d TKO’d Ford drawing him inexorably down. He fought it only for a moment longer. There was something he had to do first.
He kissed Ford in his sleep, stifling his laughter when even off in dreamland, Ford smiled and turned toward him. Who could get tired of that?
But that wasn’t the one thing Gavin needed to do. Now, with Ford out cold, was the time he had to try. A test run.
Gavin lay on his side, his head on Ford’s chest and his arm wrapped around the man, and whispered it to him. “I love you.”
Ford turned -- probably not aware he’d done it -- and wrapped himself around Gavin like a human-sized teddy bear.
“Such a child,” Gavin chided, not meaning it. How could he when, right after, a yawn made his jaw creak? “Some kind of honeymoon where we fall asleep before the good stuff,” he grumbled, not meaning that either. And he hadn’t even gotten a good look around at the cabin yet.
That could wait. Right now, Ford’s heart beat steadily beneath Gavin’s ear, Ford’s arms and legs wound around Gavin to keep him steady as a rock, and Gavin could do nothing but let himself drift away on the ebb and flow of Ford’s breathing, one after another after…
* * *
No one ever remembered their dreams. Not really, or for more than five hazy minutes after their alarm clock went off, the details already fading to one or two quirks that made a man shake his head at himself in dismay or disbelief. The quiet corners of the mind were strange places.
Fifteen minutes after Gavin awoke and maybe five minutes after he knew Ford knew he’d drifted out of sleep, Gavin’s dream was as clear in his mind as if he were still asleep and watching it cycle around and around. He rubbed his index finger in a continuous circle, slow whispers of skin on skin that he thought weren’t audible beneath the wind off the lake or the crackling of the fire he guessed Ford had built.
Gavin faced that fire, the abrupt light in the darkness teasing him back into the world. He lay as long as he could before he had to open his eyes and see; once he’d looked at the fire, he didn’t want to look away. If he did, it still came as a peculiar shock to see his ring finger bare instead of banded about with slim gold.
Ford would call a dream like that a sign. Maybe it was. Maybe a cigar was just a cigar. Or maybe it was all in what you wanted it to be.
He could hear Ford moving around behind him, trying to be quiet and failing so thoroughly that it made Gavin want to laugh. He kept it to a small smile instead, still playing the “I’m still asleep” game.
“I know you’re awake.” Ford tousled his hair, then finished the brisk rub with a slow caress around the shape of Gavin’s head and down his neck, a touch that made Gavin shiver and look up. “Here.”
Gavin sat up to take the steaming mug Ford offered him. He sniffed the contents. Just coffee, black, a hint of sweetness. “How’d you know? Signs?”
Ford settled across the way from Gavin, good for looking at, but out of arm’s reach. He’d propped himself against the wall facing the bed, perpendicular to the fireplace. “Absolutely. I could go through the list, but the big giveaway? You stopped snoring.”
Gavin wanted to throw a pillow at him. He settled for a glower. “I do not snore.”
His quietly conceived plan worked; Ford laughed. “You really do.”
“Not too loud?”
“More like a purr.”
“Oh God. I’ve heard Oscar.”
“You’re not as bad as Oscar.” There. Ford levered himself off the floor, and his smile didn’t go back into hiding. Gavin studied him as he settled closer, on the foot of the bed. “It’s cute.”
“Cute,” Gavin scoffed automatically. He drank his coffee quickly, never minding the heat of it, wanting it out of the way and the caffeine at work so he could have both hands free.
There wasn’t much of the cabin he could see. Dark outside and only the fire to light it from within. Gavin got an overwhelming impression of brown, from polished wood floors to throw rugs to bed, all different shades. Ford stood out like a cherry in a pile of sawdust in a new re
d plaid flannel shirt.
Wait. “We slept the entire day?”
“You did.” Ford moved a little closer still. “I woke up maybe midafternoon. You were more tired than you let on, huh?”
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Gavin drained the last of his coffee and set it aside, rubbing his chest where he could feel the burn.
“I dunno.” Ford looked at his feet. He’d kicked off his boots and socks, leaving him able to toe the floor. “I guess I wanted to watch you sleep.”
“Hmm.” Gavin licked the taste of sugar and coffee off his lips and watched Ford lose himself in thought. Maybe he couldn’t read signs like Ford did, not that he believed in them. Even though they led us here. What he could do was use his eyes.
It didn’t take long. A rush of wind off the lake made the windows rattle, thought it had no effect on the temperature of the cabin. Ford still shivered and turned his face toward the outside as if inexorably drawn to listen.
“Ford.” Tired of waiting, Gavin closed up the distance between them. “What are you hearing?”
Ford flicked a surprised look at Gavin. “I thought you didn’t believe.”
“You brought me coffee. I owe you one.” Gavin laid his head on Ford’s shoulder, worried by the tension in the muscle. “Seriously. Tell me.”
“Ah, it’s stupid.” Ford picked at a hole in the knee of his jeans. “That wind, blowing from all different, confused directions? It’s a Jonah wind.”
“A what, now?”
“Jonah wind.”
“And it’s not a good sign,” Gavin guessed. “What with the Jonah reference and all.”
“You could say that.”
Gavin considered it. “I could, but I won’t. Don’t listen to the wind. What’s the wind got to do with anything?” He covered Ford’s lips with his fingers. “Come back to bed.”
Ford grinned broadly at him. “Is that how you seduce all the men? And you say my approach is too strong.”
Gavin moved out of the way to make room for Ford. “No, just you.” Ford obeyed but frowned at the rise of the wind, and that wouldn’t do. Gavin had had enough.