by John Inman
I was so surprised by the sensation, I repeated what I’d said before. “I really didn’t do anything, Dario.”
“Yes, you did,” he said. “You know you did.”
Again his tongue slid out to probe the scab. I longed to add my own moisture to his wounded lip but didn’t dare. Not yet. Maybe not ever, I suddenly realized. Maybe bringing Dario here wasn’t such a good idea after all. Not for him and certainly not for me. There was too much potential for heartache here. Far too much. At least for me. He was probably in danger of nothing more than death from boredom. A weekend with the old guy. How exciting could that be for him?
For the umpteenth time, I cringed thinking of the age difference between the two of us.
Apparently, Dario’s thoughts were elsewhere. He stared down at the naked mattress. “Want me to make up the bed?”
“Sure,” I said. “You do that—the sheets and blankets are in that cupboard there—and I’ll run a broom around the floor downstairs and maybe sweep the leaves off the porch. After that, we’ll relax and have a drink. Or maybe we can go for a walk if you’d like. We’ll stay away from the cliffs since you have no depth perception, and I’m not up on CPR and don’t have a helicopter to rescue your ass if you should tumble into a canyon.”
“Wise guy,” Dario said, then smiled and pressed a thumb to my chin, sort of like he was pushing the Off button. “You make snarky jokes when you’re nervous. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“No, I don’t, fuckface.”
He laughed, then just as quickly his face sobered. “Yes, you do. Don’t be nervous. I hope you’re not sorry you asked me here.”
“On the contrary, I think it’s the only smart thing I’ve done in a very long time.”
His grin hit full wattage at that. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I could feel the blood rushing into my face while I fought the urge to drag him into my arms and lay my mouth over that poor split lip. Never knowing when to leave well enough alone, I added, “I hope you’re not sorry I asked you here.”
He huffed out a breath of impatience, but he was still smiling while he did it. “Jesus, you need a lot of reassurance, don’t you? Okay, how’s this?” He stepped forward until our toes touched and taking two fistfuls of my shirt, he dragged me forward like I’d been wanting to do to him ever since the moment I met him. He held me tight against him as he rose up on tiptoe and whispered in my ear, “I like being here with you, Robert. I like your cabin, I like your cat, I like you. I like the fact that you rode in on your white horse and carried me off to safety from the evil dipshit who punched me in the face. I still don’t know which evil dipshit punched you in the face, but I imagine we’ll figure it out sooner or later. In a little while, after we prep the cabin and go for our walk, or whatever you want to do, I’ll make you dinner by way of thanking you for all that.”
That cheered me up. I really hate to cook. “You will?”
“Yes.”
At some point during his announcement, I noticed, my own arms had gone around him. I could hear our two heartbeats thudding away, almost in tandem. His breath lay warm on my face. He was still on tiptoe, and his cheek still rested against my own, both of us clean-shaven. The softness of his skin on mine was a wonder. Down below, I felt pressure growing in my pants. I eased myself back from Dario a fraction of an inch so he wouldn’t notice it too.
Dario wasn’t born yesterday. He knew exactly what I was doing. Tightening his grip on my shirt, he pulled me back to where I started, and it was then I felt his own erection poking me in the leg.
I sucked in my breath. Holy Mary, Mother of God, with Franken Berries and Marshmallow Bits.
“I like you close,” he whispered, peering up at me. “I feel safe when you hold me.”
I nodded, swallowed hard, and said, “Good to know.” What a dumb thing to say.
He oh so carefully laid his mouth over mine. He tasted of strawberry Twizzlers. He’d been eating them in the car.
I watched him close his eyes into the kiss, and only then did I close my own.
His kiss was gentle and unhurried, with minimum pressure—undoubtedly due to his injuries—and no tongue whatsoever.
It melted me.
When he finally released me and lifted his lips from mine, my heart was going a mile a minute. Our eyes opened, and we regarded each other a little less shyly than before.
The words fell from my mouth before I knew they were coming. “You’re so beautiful.”
His blush grew deeper, but he looked pleased. His tongue explored his lips as if retasting our kiss. When his hand came up to rest against my cheek, I leaned my head into it to feel the heat of his palm. As I did, his fingertips stroked my ear.
“I think you’d better let me make the bed now,” he said, his voice sleepy and soft. “You go sweep.”
I nodded.
“Are you still nervous?” he asked.
I wondered if he could hear my hammering heart. While I was wondering, I shook my head, so lost in the golden flecks of his one brown eye flashing in the light streaming in through the bedroom window that I couldn’t quite remember how to speak. My toes curled inside my shoes when I tasted his kiss on my mouth yet again, reliving the heat of it, the gentle pressure. I recalled the sensation of his erection against my leg, and it took every ounce of my self-restraint not to gaze down there now.
I finally found my voice. “I’m not nervous.”
“Liar,” he said, inhaling a long, shaky breath.
I laid my hand to his chest to feel it heave with his intake of air. He tucked his chin down over my fingertips as if to capture my touch.
The next thing I knew he was steering me toward the stairs so he could make the bed.
“Go!” he commanded, his voice gravelly, his face mockingly stern, his smile radiant.
Grudgingly, I did as he asked.
DARIO STOOD behind me, watching as I arranged firewood in the fireplace. From a box against the wall, I extracted a few old newspapers and stuffed them in around the wood.
Dario spotted the fireplace lighter on the mantle and handed it to me. “I love a fire,” he said.
I waited until I was sure the flames had caught before saying, “Me too. There’s a chill in the air already. Plus it’ll be even cooler here tonight. We’ll need the heat.”
Dario didn’t say anything, so I looked up from where I crouched on the floor to see what he was thinking. I found a light in his eye just shy of incredulous as he stared back at me.
“I think we’ll be all right,” he said, fighting back a smile.
“What? You think we won’t need a fire?”
He studied me for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. “I think we won’t need any extra heat.”
In that instant I seemed to lose all inhibition. I grabbed his pant leg and pulled him close enough so I could plant a kiss on his knee. Gazing up at him from this new and exciting vantage point—holy moly, what a view—I felt my eyesight go all swimmy. “You’re toying with me, aren’t you?”
Dario dropped to his knees beside me. He stared into the gathering fire for a minute before turning to me and asking politely, “Robert, did you really think this would be a platonic weekend?”
Suddenly my inhibitions came rushing back. Boy, they hadn’t been gone long. “I didn’t want to be pushy. I guess I was more worried about you liking me than letting my expectations go any further than that.”
“I do like you.”
“Oh.”
“And not only because you wrote my all-time favorite book.”
“Oh.”
“And I think you’re sexy.”
I blinked back tears.
“Holy shit,” he said, horrified. “Don’t cry.”
Then we both realized I was blinking back tears because the cabin was filling with smoke. I tried not to cough, and then I tried not to barf. “I didn’t open the flue!”
Dario laughed, reached his arm up into the fireplace, and with a clank, he opened the flue to
draw out the smoke as if he’d been opening flues ever since he was old enough to walk. He didn’t even hold his breath and pray for divine protection when he did it, as I always did because I figured there were black widow spiders up there in the chimney waiting for a human hand to come along so they could unload all the venom they’d been storing up in my absence.
Dario settled back on his haunches and dusted the soot from his hand on his pant legs. He was still watching me with one eyebrow cocked high. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I forgot what it was,” I lied.
He rolled his eyes and let out a big melodramatic sigh. “I asked if you thought this would be a platonic weekend. Because I have to tell you, from where I stand, it’s not looking platonic at all.”
“No?”
His smile broadened. “Nuh-uh.”
“Umm—what about your injuries?”
“We’ll work around them.”
“Oh.”
He lifted my hand in his and gently pressed it to his mouth. I felt the softness of his lips on my fingertips, but I also felt the roughness of his scab against my skin.
“Easy,” I said. “That has to hurt.”
He nodded. “A little.”
“Then why do it? I’m not rushing you. I would never try to rush you.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I like you.”
“So you really do like me?”
“Jesus, Robert. You sound like Sally Field. I thought writers were perceptive.”
He opened his lips slightly and brushed the palm of my hand with the tip of his tongue. I closed my eyes, trying to make my growing hard-on go away, knowing it was a losing battle before I ever started.
Dario eyed me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking and doing. He drew back and, still holding my hand, said, “Take me for a walk now. Show me your mountain.”
“It—it’s just a hill,” I stammered, stalling for time, hoping my dick would go down before I had to stand.
He shook his head. “No. As long as you’re here, it’s a mountain. I think maybe every little rise and grassy knoll you stand on automatically becomes a mountain, just by association.”
I coughed up a chuckle on that one. “You’re full of shit.”
Snickering, he said, “Ooh. Testy.”
He stood and pulled me to my feet. “Come on,” he said around another smile. “Show me your mountain. And don’t worry about your boner. I’ll act like I don’t see it.”
“Sweet Jesus,” I mumbled. “Is nothing sacred to you?”
Dario howled with laughter and dragged me toward the cabin door.
THE SCREE-COVERED trail led down the hillside through a tangle of sagebrush and beavertail cactus. Yellow desert candle poked up here and there in the brittle foliage like spears of color in a sepia photograph. Even the recent rains hadn’t brought some of the sagebrush to life, but the flowers were blooming all the way down the slope to as far as the eye could see. Purples, mauves, yellows, pinks. The colors were breathtaking.
Dario plucked a creamy white virgin’s bower in passing, and stuck it in my shirt pocket like I was his prom date. We both laughed. His laugh was a little more sincere than mine, because actually I was touched by the gesture. It was such an innocently sweet thing to do. I couldn’t help wondering if I could find a way to put it in a book.
Dario stopped on a rise, and with the desert sprawled out below us, he closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of wildflowers. I followed suit. It was a funny thing, but I had never before noticed how lovely the aroma of a mountain full of wildflowers could be. Not until I had Dario there to share it with.
While his eyes were still closed, I watched his face. The way the tiniest smile played at the corner of his mouth. The way his nostrils flared when he breathed in the smells of desert springtime. How a vein throbbed in his neck, pulsing the tempo of his existence for me and me alone to see. When a freshet of air wafted up the slope and lifted his hair, I found myself longing to reach up and touch it, to feel its softness.
I was so lost in the beauty of him, I didn’t tear my eyes away quickly enough when he turned toward me. He caught me staring.
“Do you miss your boyfriend?” he asked out of the blue.
I didn’t even take a heartbeat’s worth of time to consider the question. “No,” I said, and only moments later did I realize I had spoken the truth. I didn’t miss Jason at all. Not now. Not as long as I had Dario with me. Once again I wondered what the hell I was getting myself into. Was flipping from one heartache to another going to get my life back on track? Hardly.
“You worry too much,” he said.
“What makes you think I’m worrying?”
He grinned. “If we were chatting online this would be an LOL moment. You don’t have a very deceptive face, Robert. I’m beginning to understand why you’re a writer. Not only is your work an open book—literally—but so are you. I don’t imagine you’re very good at poker.”
“My ex told me he could tell every time I drew a good card.”
Dario laughed. “I rest my case.”
He apparently decided to take pity on me. He turned away and studied the pathway leading down from where we stood toward a tangle of chaparral.
“This is a game trail,” he said. He pointed to the ground. “Look. Rabbit pellets.”
“There’s a lot of game around,” I said. “I’ve seen foxes, coyotes, skunks, you name it. I love the wildness of the place.”
“Do you come here often?” he asked.
I sighed, wondering how he always knew exactly the right thing to say to make me open up a little more about myself. I quickly realized Dario was one of those people who could be with someone for only ten minutes and still end up learning everything there was to learn about them. I, on the other hand, could spend a year never digging out the good stuff from a person’s past.
“I don’t come here as often as I should. My ex hated it here. And I guess I’m not crazy about coming alone. When you’re with someone you… you care about—I think this place is perfect. But when it’s just me and the cabin and the desert, it’s too lonely and silent. This place needs to be shared, I think. It needs another pair of eyes before everything can be seen.”
Dario was nodding his head before I ever stopped talking. “You’re right. This is the perfect place to be with someone.” Again he breathed in a great gulp of desert air. There was still moisture in the air from the storm. Three months from now the heat would be oppressive, the flowers would all be gone, the sagebrush as dry and brittle as shredded wheat. But right now the temperature was perfect, the colors lush and vibrant, the plant life fragrant and supple.
“I’m glad you’re here with me to see it,” I said, closing my eyes and letting the cool wind blow the scent of wildflowers across my face. I kept my eyes closed, wondering if he was watching me now. Wondering what he thought of what I’d said.
When I felt his hand at the back of my neck, I got my answer. He gently massaged me there with his fingertips.
I opened my eyes to take a peek, but he wasn’t watching me as I thought he would be. He, too, was standing, eyes closed, head thrown back, breathing in the scent of wildflowers, letting the spring wind wash across his face, tousle his hair, stir his shirt around him.
As I stared, once again admiring his beauty, he spoke as I had done. Eyes closed, words barely audible enough to move through the drifting breeze.
“I’m glad I’m here with you too, Robert.”
Chapter Eight
I BURPED. “Great hamburgers. You’re an excellent cook.”
“Thanks. Starving student. I’ve been known to grill a cheese sandwich with a clothes iron and press a shirt at the same time.”
“Yeesh. I couldn’t grill a cheese sandwich if I had Chef Gordon Ramsey and the cast and crew of Hell’s Kitchen as backup.”
“You watch that show?”
“Hell no. I feel inadequate enough in the kitchen as is.”
“Does this sense of inadequacy extend into the bedroom?”
I offered him a half-masted glare. “Not yet, but you’re starting to plow some serious inroads into my confidence.”
He grinned. “Hmm. We’ll have to work on that.”
I blushed. If he noticed, he made no mention of it.
We sat on the front porch watching a tangerine-streaked twilight shimmer low in the western sky. Our dirty dinner plates were scattered on the floor around us. We were sipping at beers, and the potato chip bag was still making a racket every time Dario stuck his hand in for another chip. House finches, their breasts as tangerine as the sky, fluttered and sang in the eaves of the porch above our heads. Clutch sat on the railing in front of us watching them, chittering and lashing his tail back and forth like a bullwhip.
Dario nodded in his direction. “Somebody’s craving poultry.”
“Is a house finch considered poultry?” I asked.
“Don’t get technical.”
“Sorry I spoke.” I went through the motions of zipping my mouth shut and throwing the key over the porch rail.
Dario scrunched the chip bag shut, took a long pull from his beer, and scooted his chair a few inches closer to mine so he could reach out and take my hand.
“Tell me a secret,” he said, twining his fingers through mine.
“Huh?” I was so thrilled he had taken my hand, I was barely listening to a word he said.
“Tell me a secret, Robert. Tell me something you’ve never told anybody. You tell me one, and I’ll tell you one.”
I finally tore my eyes from our clasping hands and thought about what he was asking. I guess I thought about it a little too long.
“Well? Come on. Spill your guts. What are you thinking?” His voice sounded mockingly impatient. At least I think it was mockingly. Or maybe he was simply impatient. He had a devious look in his eye.
“I’m thinking of the word ‘insidious,’” I said. “It just popped into my head. Not sure why.”