Gathering Storm

by Alexa Land

  He stared at me for a beat, then spun in his chair and headed for the kitchen. “I’m going to go load the dishwasher,” he said, and I grinned at that. Once he was gone, I gathered up the pictures and stuck them inside an old, dusty photo album, which had been wedged haphazardly on the cluttered built-in bookshelves. Then I went back to work.

  Probably two hours later, Brian interrupted me. I had scaled the aforementioned floor-to-ceiling built-in shelves, taken everything off, and dusted thoroughly. Now I was putting things back, arranging them nicely as I went.

  “That doesn’t go there,” he said, then took a sip from his can of beer. He’d been watching what I was doing for the last few minutes, and I’d just put a little earthenware vase beside a glass candy dish.

  “Given what this place looked like when I got here, are you really going to get weird about knickknack placement?”

  “Yes. The vase goes one shelf up, and the glass bowl goes on the next one down, on the right side.”

  I glanced at him over my shoulder. His expression was grave. This was about more than just knickknacks, obviously, and I followed his instructions to the letter, putting everything back exactly where it had been. When I finished, he looked a little embarrassed, and said simply, “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” I brushed my palms on the legs of my jeans, then ventured, “That stuff was your mom’s, wasn’t it?” I knew Brian and Kieran had grown up in this house, and that their mother had died over ten years ago. Maybe in some way, keeping things the way she’d had them was a little memorial to her.

  Brian gave me a ‘well, duh’ look, and said, “No. I’m just really partial to frilly little candy dishes.”

  “Okay, Sarcasmo. I was just wondering.”

  He changed the subject by saying, “So, you’ve been working like a maniac for about four hours straight. How about if you take a break, and I order us some dinner?”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  He sighed and said, “Would you just let me do something nice, for Christ’s sake? You’re cleaning my house, and I want to be able to repay you in some way.”

  “Okay, fine.” I picked up a dust rag, and he rolled forward and plucked it out of my hands.

  “If you don’t take a break, I’m going to collapse from exhaustion, just from watching you. Look,” he said, pointing across the room. “You found the couch. Why don’t you try sitting on it? I’ll bring you a beer and my take-out menus.”

  “But I’m so close to finishing. And as soon as I do, I’m starting on that kitchen. It’s horrifying.”

  “It’s not that bad. Kieran gets totally repulsed by it a couple times a year and gives it a thorough cleaning.”

  “When was the last time he did that?”

  “I dunno. Four, five months ago?”

  I shuddered dramatically and began to dash for the kitchen. “I should have done that room first. I can just imagine the Salmonella growing in there. And Botulism! Ebola. Dengue fever. The Black Plague!” I was joking, but only slightly.

  He caught my arm and pulled me back. “Wow, you’re hyper as a five-year-old. Do you ever actually stop moving?”

  “Only when forcibly restrained.”

  “Literally. Go sit down, I’m bringing you a beer. Let’s see if you can make it all the way through dinner without actually cleaning anything.” Brian headed to the kitchen and I followed him, which elicited a big sigh.

  “Not to sound ungrateful,” I said, “but do you have anything besides beer?”

  He looked over his shoulder at me and raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. The stuff’s nasty.”

  “You’re the first guy I ever met that doesn’t like beer.”

  “Well, you don’t get out much, I can’t imagine you meet a lot of people.”

  “This is true.” He looked in his liquor cabinet, and said, “So, what do you like? But just FYI, I don’t know how to make anything that requires an umbrella.”

  I rolled my eyes and said, “My drink of choice is a whiskey sour, hold the umbrella. Is that butch enough for you?”

  Brian grinned and said, “Why yes. Yes it is. I finished off the whiskey a couple days ago, though.” He reached into the cupboard and pulled out a square bottle. “How about tequila shots?”

  “Are you trying to get me drunk?”

  “I was trying to offer you a beer, but you shot it down. Now I’m looking for alternatives.”

  “I could do tequila, but just until dinner arrives. Where are your take-out menus?”

  We ended up ordering pizza and salad. The guy on the phone sounded way too jovial, like maybe he, too, had been doing tequila shots. Then we carried the bottle and a couple glasses through to the living room, where I settled on the couch.

  And we proceeded to get totally, ridiculously shitfaced.

  It started with a challenge. Brian teased me, saying he was sure I couldn’t hold my liquor. I, in turn, bet that I could match him shot for shot. He actually laughed at that. But as it turned out, big, beefy Brian didn’t stand a chance against little ol’ me.

  We’d intended to stop drinking when the pizza arrived. Only, it never did. Maybe I hadn’t been too far off in thinking the guy at the pizza parlor had also been drunk off his ass.

  The more Brian drank, the more cheerful he became. I beamed at him and said, “I’m so glad you’re a happy drunk, and not an angry one. I would have put my money on angry.”

  “Nah.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Angry is for when I’m sober.” Then he said, “Hang on, I need to pee. Don’t go anywhere. And don’t start cleaning again.”

  “How are you going to go to the bathroom? It’s all busted.” I’d been using the one upstairs.

  “I’ve been peeing on a bush in the backyard all day, like a Rottweiler or something,” he said with a tipsy grin, then held a finger to his lips. “Shhh, don’t tell anyone. It’s gross, I know.”

  For some reason that struck me as hilarious, so apparently I was pretty drunk, too. As I fell back on the couch and laughed myself silly, he spun on his wheels and headed to the kitchen door.

  He returned a couple minutes later and said, “Scoot over, I want to lie down.” I moved to the end of the sofa and he slid out of the chair and onto his knees, then easily swung himself up beside me and reclined against the armrest. “Normally, I wouldn’t want you to see that,” he said. “It’s so damn awkward when I try to maneuver myself out of that chair. But right now, I’m too drunk to give a shit.”

  “That wasn’t awkward at all. It was actually pretty graceful.”

  “Oh yeah. Graceful is definitely the word for me.” He grinned and picked up the tequila, then took a swig directly from the bottle before passing it to me. We’d given up on the formality of glasses over an hour ago.

  I took a drink and watched him for a while, the alcohol making me feel all fuzzy and relaxed, then told him, “You’re a pleasant surprise, Brian. You’re so much nicer than I’d expected, given what I’d heard about you.”

  “That’s ‘cause I’ve been happier since I met you. You’re like this cute, blond, little ball of sunshine. Even when you’re being a total pain in the ass, it’s still fun to be around you. Go figure.”

  I laughed at that as I handed the bottle back to him. “I can honestly say no one has ever called me a ball of sunshine.”

  He took another drink, then blurted, “I really wanted to take that job you offered me, even though I know it was a total pity thing. I really wanted to keep you safe. I can’t be a bodyguard, though. I wish I could. But I’m not capable of that, and if something happened to you because I couldn’t protect you, I’d never forgive myself.”

  “You could totally do the job. Right now, I feel safe because you’re here with me.” I then illustrated my level of drunkenness by climbing on top of him and resting my head on his chest. Surprisingly, his big arms wrapped around me and held me securely, and I sighed with pleasure.

  “Okay, maybe I’m slightly
better than being alone,” Brian conceded, “But only slightly.” He nuzzled my hair and said, “Wow, this feels good. Do you know how long it’s been since I held someone? Almost four years.”

  “God, I would die. I can barely go five minutes without physical contact.” After a while, I murmured, “I can’t believe you’re not freaking out right now. I mean, you’re cuddling with a guy.”

  “You think I’m such a homophobe,” he slurred. “You don’t know.”

  “I don’t know what?”

  “You don’t know this,” he said, and tilted my face up with a finger under my chin. Brian’s lips met mine, sweetly, tenderly. His kiss was so soft, so easy, like we’d been lovers for a hundred years and had done this a million times. I sank into it.

  We kissed for a long time, and when he finally ended it, my heart was racing. I put my head on his chest again and murmured, “Why did you do that?”

  “Just wanted to. Why’d you kiss me back?”

  “Same reason.”

  Chapter Four

  Brian woke up shortly after sunrise, blinking and stretching out on the couch. We’d both spent the night there, sort of tangled up together. He pressed a hand to his forehead and murmured, “Oh man. Has anyone ever died of a hangover?”

  I’d been awake for at least an hour and was across the room, finishing the last of the cleaning. I said, “No. They just wished they were dead.”

  “What was I drinking?” he muttered, rubbing his forehead.

  “Tequila.” I crossed the room to him and picked up the bottle from the floor. “Lots of tequila.” I gave the empty bottle a little shake to illustrate my point before setting it on the end table. “You don’t remember?”

  He shook his head and said, “Damn. It’s been a long time since I drank enough to black out.”

  A sinking feeling settled over me. I reached out tentatively, brushing the hair from Brian’s eyes. As I predicted, he pulled back reflexively and glared at me. “Dude. Personal space issues much?”

  For some reason, I was struck with a sharp pang of disappointment. The comfortable camaraderie we’d shared last night was completely gone. Forgotten.

  It shouldn’t matter to me. But somehow, it did.

  I kept my tone light as I said, “I have somewhere I need to be. I’ll see you later.” He just nodded and went on rubbing his forehead, pressing his eyes shut.

  As I hurried out of his house and in the general direction of my apartment, the disappointment lingered, and that was annoying. So what if Brian didn’t remember what happened between us? That kiss hadn’t meant anything. We’d both been drunk, and shit happened when tequila was involved.

  I was so distracted that it took me a while to realize just how early it was. After walking two or three blocks, I stopped abruptly and looked around. No one was out yet, and fog hung thick in the air, making everything cold and grey and slightly foreboding. It was so heavy that I could only see a few feet in any direction.

  A shiver snaked down my spine, more from fear than from the cold. I was all alone out here, in an unfamiliar neighborhood. And that man was out there somewhere, the stranger that had broken into my home. Suddenly I felt so exposed. Vulnerable.

  Oh shit.

  Abruptly, my messed up little brain decided to make the situation so much worse by serving up a full-blown panic attack. Really? Now? I huddled against the façade of the apartment building beside me, hugging my knees to my chest.

  I used to have these fairly often in my late teens, but they’d died down over the years. Apparently, it was like riding a bike, though. You never really forgot how to totally lose it.

  My breathing was too quick, too shallow, my heart racing, a cold sweat on my skin. Oh God, this was bad. Really, really bad. I was close to hyperventilating, and didn’t want to pass out. Not here, not out on the street, where I was already so alone, so vulnerable. “Oh God, oh God,” I murmured.

  The more I tried to talk myself down from the panic, the worse it became. “Breathe, breathe, breathe.” It was almost a chant. I hugged my knees tighter and rocked back and forth instinctively, trying to soothe myself as it all just kept building. The panic felt like a tangible thing, pressing down on me, almost crushing me. Getting air into my lungs became a struggle. I wasn’t getting enough. Not enough. Suffocating. Oh God. Please. No. No.

  “Holy shit, what’s going on?”

  The voice close beside me made me cry out, startled, my hands flying up to shield myself.

  “Hey. It’s okay, Hunter. It’s me, Brian. Look at me.” I tilted my head up and focused on his blue eyes. “You’re having a panic attack, aren’t you?” All I could do was nod. “Take a slow, deep breath, you’re hyperventilating.” I did as he said, forcing air into my lungs. “Good. That’s good.”

  I didn’t even think about it, I just launched myself onto his lap, and his arms came up to hold me tightly. “Just keep breathing,” he said gently, stroking my hair. “You’re going to be fine, I promise.”

  It took a long time, but finally, my panic began to ebb, my breathing leveling out. “I didn’t know where I was,” I said after a while, as my heart rate gradually decreased. “I couldn’t really see in this fog, and all of a sudden I got scared. Not that that’s any reason to have a panic attack.”

  “They don’t need a reason, panic attacks can come out of nowhere. I used to get them a lot, my first year back from Afghanistan,” he said. “And you shouldn’t have been out here alone, not with a stalker out there somewhere. It was careless to let you leave without a cab waiting, but I was so damn hung over that I wasn’t thinking clearly.” He pulled something out from under me, then draped it over my shoulders before hugging me again. “I brought you your jacket, that’s why I followed you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I managed. “I’m totally violating your personal space.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that earlier, I was being a dick.”

  “No, you just don’t like me touching you.” I started to get off his lap, but he pulled me right back down.

  Brian rubbed my back gently as he spoke to me, his tone low and soothing. “This isn’t about me right now, it’s about you. You’re getting through that panic attack, but you’re not completely out of the woods yet, so just stay put and relax.”

  “You’re being so nice to me, even though you hate me.”

  “I hardly hate you.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “If I hated you, would I have allowed you in my home? Hell no. I’d have slammed the door in your face. In fact, I would have answered the door for the sole purpose of then slamming it.”

  I tilted my head back and smiled up at him. “I can totally see you doing that.”

  He grinned a bit, too. Then he asked, “How often do you get these attacks?”

  “This is the first one I’ve had in nearly three years. I was starting to think I’d outgrown them. Obviously, I was wrong.”

  “What was it like growing up in rural Idaho?” That was random, but I knew what Brian was doing. He was trying to get me to focus on something other than the panic attack. He must have learned that technique when he was going through these himself. Either that, or he just had really good instincts.

  “Idaho itself isn’t bad, unless you grow up on a potato farm. Then it’s the worst place ever.”

  He smiled at that. “You’re the son of a potato farmer? I can’t even imagine you in that kind of environment.”

  “I’m wondering how to take that,” I said with a little grin, sliding off his lap and putting on my coat before self-consciously tucking my hair behind my ears.

  “Well, look at you. You’re about as cosmopolitan as they come. I’ll bet every single thing you’re wearing is designer this or name brand that. But you must have been raised very differently.”

  “Growing up, all my clothes were either hand-me-downs or from Goodwill,” I said. “So when I started making money, I decided I deserved better.”

  “Your parents were poor?”

 
“No. They were incredibly cheap, and didn’t think I needed nice things.” I stuck my hands in my pockets. After a while, I said quietly, “They never thought I was worth anything. I’m not talking about giving me things, I mean in general. By the time I was five, they had their minds all made up about me. They’d already decided I wasn’t smart, not like my oldest brother, Jerry. And I was uncoordinated, so I’d never be a jock, not like Oliver, the second-oldest. I wasn’t the one with good common sense, either, that was Arthur. And my sister Nina, well, she was the only girl, and that made her special. Me? I wasn’t anything, just the ‘H.’ Beyond that, I served no purpose in my family, aside from free farm labor.”

  “Okay, if that’s some kind of slang term, I’ve never heard it. What do you mean, you were just the H?”

  “My siblings and I are as follows: Jerry, Oliver, Nina, Arthur, and Hunter. Notice a pattern?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “Our first initials spell ‘Jonah.’ My mother is really religious, and she thought she’d be clever. Instead of giving us all names from the Bible, she picked secular names, coming together to form a single Biblical one.” Brian was staring at me like I was crazy, and I added, “Don’t blame me. I didn’t come up with that shit.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Welcome to my world.”

  “So, you must be the baby of the family, if you’re the last letter of the word.”

  “Nope. I’m a middle child.”

  “Wait. They spelled a name, but did it out of order?”

  “Well, no. They started out spelling a different name, John. It was meant to pay homage to my mother’s favorite Bible verse. But then Arthur and Nina fucked it up by being twins, and my parents had to scramble for a plan B.”

  “Why didn’t they just name their first born John? Why go through all of that?”

  “Because,” I explained, “my parents are idiots.”

  “Apparently.” Brian mulled all of that over for a bit, then said, “So, I have to ask the obvious question. Do they know what you do for a living?”