Dreamspinner Press Year Eight Greatest Hits

by Brandon Witt

When we reached the van, Peyton helped Nick into the vehicle with practiced ease. Nick curled his hand in Peyton’s hair and kissed him before he shut the door, and I turned away. I wasn’t jealous of the man, but that moment… that moment stole the wind from my lungs. Replaced it with water. It was that secret, special moment couples share that only takes a second—a shared dance that only they know the moves to. A sudden longing for Jordan was expected but still surprising for its strength. I hadn’t known all the steps to our dance yet. But I’d wanted to. I didn’t know why my eyes suddenly pricked with tears, but I swiped at them, hard. I would not spend this vacation thinking about Jordan.

  The five-minute drive from the dock to the inn was uneventful, and despite myself I grew excited as the lush, green scenery flew by. When the Sugar Valley Inn finally broke free of the landscape, I goggled, feasting on the sight of the sprawling two-story house nestled in the mountains. Sugar Valley Inn was exactly what I thought it would be—gorgeous views, a home-style, natural-stone-covered house that blended into the landscape, an actual picket fence, and meticulously manicured lawns.

  “God,” I breathed, stepping out of the car. My boots crunched on the gravel drive. “Nick, this is beautiful.”

  “Surrounded by 200 acres of majestic mountains,” he declared proudly. “Meadows. Ponds. It’s like being part of nature.”

  “Amazing.”

  “I knew you’d like it,” he said smugly. “So I done good?”

  “You done spent a crap load of my money, paying for this trip,” I said, giving him a halfhearted swat. “But yea. You done real good.”

  “I told you; you’re not paying us,” he said, wheeling into the beautifully decorated lobby. He waved to two of the guests exiting and pointed a finger at me. “You and Jordan are our guests.” His brow crinkled. “Speaking of….”

  “I am paying you,” I said, not wanting him to start in on me about Jordan. Somehow, I knew he would make it my fault. It was, but that was beyond the point. “I already arranged it with Peyton. Paid two days ago.” I stuck out my tongue. “So there.”

  His incredulous gaze swung to Peyton. “You took his money? I told you—”

  “Now, babe.” Peyton’s voice was neutral. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer—”

  “I told you how he is,” he hissed as I poked around the lobby, snagging an apple and several brochures for activities I probably wouldn’t do. “You can’t give him the opportunity to negotiate. You just do it and tell him later.”

  “Funny. That’s exactly what he said about you,” Peyton said, and I could hear the laughter in his voice.

  I plucked my duffle from his shoulder and decided to leave him to Nick’s outrage.

  “I’m going to see if the upstairs matches the beauty down here, or if there’s flowered wallpaper and antiques to contend with,” I said.

  I waved at Peyton. I didn’t know him yet, but I could recognize a how-could-you-desert-me look anywhere. Better him face Nick’s wrath than me explain where Jordan was.

  Upstairs didn’t disappoint—big, comfy beds and crackling, warm fireplaces, with the same spectacular view of the mountains. Immediately, I could tell that Peyton had put me in a room better than the one I paid for. The top floor of the home was split into two gigantic rooms, and my key fit one of the gigantic wooden doors.

  There was a bowl of red apples, acorns, and nuts on the dresser, which I passed before dumping my luggage next to the huge bed. The whole effect was comfy and cozy, and I hardly blamed Finn for snuggling down next to the fireplace. Well, first he shook his long, wet fur everywhere, spraying me, and then he snuggled down next to the fireplace.

  I put my hand on the wall, feeling the rich wood paneling that went all the way to the pitched ceiling, which had three skylights that flooded the room with light. I prowled the room like any curious guest, and when I was done, I wasn’t sure which impressed me more—the Victorian king-size or the deluxe whirlpool tub.

  There was a perfunctory knock at my door, and I called out, “Come in.”

  Nick rolled in, balancing yet another goodie basket on his lap and a map in his teeth. I rescued the map and goodie basket and set them on the side table.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Guest amenities,” he said, smiling. “I want you to be comfortable.”

  “At this point, if I was any more comfortable, I’d be dead.”

  “We deliver breakfast in the morning,” he informed me. “I would tell you all about our menu, with the finest of seasonal and locally sourced foods, but I know where your heart is. Peyton makes a killer blueberry cheesecake french toast.”

  I simply stared at him. “You had me at deliver.”

  He laughed and swatted me. “I guess your order is in.”

  “With bacon,” I said slyly, testing my luck.

  “With bacon,” he parroted back.

  “And coffee.”

  “Vermont-roasted, dark.”

  “Mmm.” I shouldn’t be this excited for breakfast. “That covers tomorrow, but what about today? I feel like I could eat a bear. Or at the very least an elk.”

  Nick looked amused. “Sorry, no big game served here. Only the occasional venison when Peyton gets his way. I did prepare some lunch, but I wanted you to get settled first.”

  I used my foot to move my duffle closer to the dresser. One inch. “Settled.”

  He grinned. “Come on. We can eat in the kitchen and catch up.”

  My evading lasted until we were ensconced in a comfy kitchen nook, our plates loaded up with heavy chicken salad sandwiches with crisp lettuce and plenty of juicy vine-ripe tomato. Peyton dropped off tall, sweating glasses of iced tea and dropped a kiss on Nick’s forehead. “I’ll be out back.”

  “Don’t be late for dinner.”

  “Where’s he going?” I asked as he strode toward what I assumed was a door to the back.

  “Out to chop wood. We’re expecting more cold weather in the next few days. We’re trying to be prepared.” Nick followed Peyton’s tall body all the way to the door with his eyes, and he didn’t blink until the door swung shut. When Nick looked back my way, he colored at my amusement and shrugged. “What?”

  “Don’t worry. I love to watch my man walk away too.”

  He dug into his sandwich. “Speaking of which, where is this Jordan you’ve been going on and on about?”

  “We didn’t….” It was harder to say the words than I thought. “We didn’t work out.”

  Nick’s eyes went wide. “You didn’t.”

  “Now, why does it always have to be my fault?” I asked, forgetting for a moment that this time it absolutely was.

  “Well, was it?”

  “Well. Yeah, I did dump him but—”

  “I knew it!” Nick shook his head, mumbling around his food. “I knew you would screw it up before it had a chance to succeed.”

  “Very nice,” I growled, biting into my own sandwich. “But this time, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Jordan and I didn’t work out because he is having a little trouble letting go of his ex-fiancée, who is now pregnant. And being gay, even if he won’t admit it.”

  “That’s a lot of change at once,” Nick said, nodding understandingly. I had a feeling his understanding was for Jordan and not me, which he soon confirmed. “Babies are a big deal. What a wonderful addition to your life, though.”

  “Well.” My brow furrowed. I guess that was one way to look at it.

  “And as for being gay, you and I both know it’s hard enough to fall in love without it changing everything you believed about yourself, all at the same time.”

  “Well. Yeah, I’d imagine….”

  “Not to mention the sexual changes at that. Looking at everyone differently, yourself differently, wondering if everything you ever knew was a lie or just half the truth of who you were. Are his parents very supportive?”

  “I don’t exactly know… if he told them,” I trailed off, picking at my napkin.

  “Well, at l
east he had you to confide in.”

  “Hmm.” I thought back to all the times he tried to talk about this new “lifestyle,” as he called it. How angry I would get and usually shut it down. It had just seemed like the more he analyzed the new things happening to him, the more I was afraid he would see that I was a mistake. That he didn’t like where the new things were taking him. That he wanted things to go back to the way they were. “I didn’t really—”

  “Jesus.” Nick shook his head. “You are truly determined to be alone forever.”

  “Not fair,” I said angrily. “I may have not been the perfect confidant for him, but he did lie to me.” And I explained in detail exactly how he had lied. Nick could not have been less sympathetic.

  “Good to know you’re judge, jury, and executioner.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand, Mackenzie. I understand you better than your brother, better than your father ever did. I was there when your dad told you the truth about your mom, remember? And I saw you change into someone who was so afraid of losing everyone that you pushed them away first. The more Jordan analyzed the relationship, the more confident you became that he would find out what a mistake it was and leave you. So you left first.”

  I looked at him, feeling raw and exposed. My eyes burned a little, and I was glad no one else was there to see me like this. The faint chop, chop, chop was soothing, as Peyton chopped wood methodically.

  When Nick spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper over the classical music piping in over the sound system. “And how do you feel now?”

  “I… hurt.”

  I realized that my sentence-making ability had broken down completely, but it described my insides perfectly. I hurt, and there was no fancying that up. Deep down to my chest, where it seemed to seep into the bone and settle there, cold and weary. I had thought I’d made a clean break before things got messy. But irrespective of how long we’d known each other, I was already in too deep. There was no clean break.

  I buried my head in my hands. “I hurt.”

  He grabbed me into a hug, face in hands and all—really just wrapped his arms around me so tight I was afraid my bones would crack. “See, Mac, that’s why getting out before anyone can hurt you doesn’t work. You hurt anyway.”

  “Well, I was right, wasn’t I?” I cried out. “He accepted it with little more than a ‘see ya’ in return.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said, over and over into my hair. “I’m sorry.”

  I was too. Sorry I had ever loved. Sorry I had ever lost. Sorrier still when Finn made off with the rest of my chicken sandwich, plucked delicately off my plate while I cried in Nick’s arms.

  “Shoo!” Nick said, waving his hands, and Finn took off with his treasure to parts unknown. “I’ll make you something else.”

  I shook my head.

  “You want to take a nap?” He rubbed my hair soothingly. “Or are you up for a tour? Take your mind off things.”

  I nodded. “I’ll take that tour.”

  Chapter 31

  “I’M NOT doing it.” I glared up at Nick.

  He just grinned and beckoned me forward. “We’ve almost reached the summit.”

  “I’m lame, dammit. Don’t you have any sympathy at all?” I pointed to my bad leg, which actually felt limber from all the exercise and stretching.

  He snickered. “Trotting out the old leg injury, Mac? Sad. Come on, the trip down will be cake.”

  My cooperation had reached its eventual limit. I had forgiven him the canoeing. The hiking. The kayaking and all manner of other activities that couch potatoes shouldn’t attempt. But the biking up Mount Fuji was just wrong. All right, it wasn’t Mount Fuji, but it was tall enough, dammit. Day four, and I was starting to wonder which of us needed Nick’s wheelchair… or whatever that contraption was he was currently riding in. It looked like some sort of dune buggy for one person, and he used his strong arms to muscle up the trail with ease.

  “There had better be cake waiting at the bottom,” I muttered, cranking the pedals that seemed mired in mud.

  I complained, but I had to admit—I was having a good time. Vermont seemed as far away from Florida as Mars at this moment. We had pedaled through quiet roads and farmland, and a sleepy village with a tiny church. I’d seen more apple orchards and hayfields than I could count and snagged more maple candy than I cared to admit. I would admit, however, that I was a little in love with Vermont.

  “Wow.”

  I coasted to a stop at the top of the pass. (Okay, okay, it wasn’t a mountain at all. But it was steep. Sheesh.) River valleys surrounded by hills, flanked by abundant maple trees, stretched as far as the eye could see—a gorgeous clash of green, red, and orange, vibrant as only nature could provide.

  “This is fairly incredible,” I said.

  “Isn’t it?” He beckoned me closer. “Sit next to me. I want to watch the sun go down.”

  For sharing this with me, he could have whatever he wanted. I laid my bike down off the trail and sat in the soft grass next to him.

  “I gotta admit, this is better than my plan for today.”

  “Which was?”

  “Sleep. Followed by more sleep.”

  I looked his way as he laughed, and his laugh made me smile. Backlit by the sun, Nick’s eyes appeared more golden than light brown, and we didn’t look away.

  “You look good,” he said.

  I ducked my head. “Thanks.”

  “Tan,” he continued. “Been surfing again?”

  “What else is there?”

  “Such a fucking Florida stereotype.”

  I slugged him. “Look at those lily-white knees,” I said. “You could use a little sun. Or daylight at the very least.”

  He grinned. “Keep it up. I make muffins for tomorrow’s breakfast—yours can be bran or it can be blueberry like everyone else’s.”

  “With crumble?” I asked hopefully.

  “How else is there?”

  I ruffled his hair. “You look happy.”

  “I am happy,” he said softly.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” I was. Learning that Nick had lost the ability to walk was one of the lowest points of my life. God only knew what it had done to him. “I’m glad you found everything you were looking for.”

  “Looks like you found something you needed too.”

  I winced. “I thought I did.”

  He shook his head. “Same old Mac. Don’t give up on him just yet.” He knocked shoulders with me in a way that was so familiar, I almost went weak at the knees. “Look how much time we’ve missed. I don’t want that for the two of you.”

  I looked at him thoughtfully, head cocked like Finnegan’s. Truth was, baby or no baby, I didn’t want that either.

  We held hands as the sun finally disappeared, and as we made our way back downhill, I was full with the surprise and joy that closure was a very real thing.

  PEYTON WAS pacing the porch as we rounded the gravel drive, and Nick waved. “Aw, my honey was worried.”

  He did look worried as he hustled down the steps to meet us and gave Nick an absent kiss. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

  Nick and I exchanged looks and shrugs before I went off to turn in my bike to the sour-faced activities manager, Darren, in the back barn. Darren circled the bike like it was made of solid gold, and I whistled tunelessly, hoping he didn’t notice the nicks I’d put in the metallic blue exterior.

  “It looks damaged.”

  I shrugged. “I got it like that.”

  “My equipment is pristine,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

  “I don’t know what to tell ya.” I migrated over to the glass-covered sugar cookie tray on his desk. “Are these maple?”

  He scowled, and I took that to mean “Yes, take three.”

  “I’m going to need a voucher for a bike tomorrow.”

  “Very well.” He ended the Vermont Inquisition and rounded the desk. “Are you going on the Ben & Jerry’s factory tour?”r />
  I stopped and stared. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Ben & Jerry’s? The ice cream factory?” He went back to writing my voucher, and I slapped a hand over the paper.

  “Hold on a damn minute. You’re telling me there’s a Ben & Jerry’s factory to visit, and this fool has had me reenacting the damn Tour de France?”

  The sour man grinned. I didn’t know he had it in him. He held up the voucher. “Are you still going to need this bike?”

  “Not at all, Darren,” I proclaimed, snagging another sugar cookie. “I suddenly have other plans for tomorrow.”

  I made my way from the barn to the main house, which certainly took longer without my trusty bicycle. I soothed my nerves from walking about in the semidarkness by eating sugar cookies and licking the crumbs off my fingers. It had been fun traipsing around the countryside with Nick, but now it was time for some Mackenzie-approved fun. The kind that involved one of those fluffy Sugar Valley Inn robes, some hot chocolate in a mug, and a hefty dose of liquor of some kind.

  As I approached the main house, I heard Peyton say, “I thought you said they broke up.”

  I popped up on the porch in time to make them both jump. “Who broke up? And whose van is that?”

  Nick smiled weakly. “Airport van.”

  “Are you expecting….” My voice trailed off as a figure emerged from the van.

  I had to blink a few times before I convinced myself that, yes, it was Jordan emerging from the van. I had plenty of time to think of something to say, recover the ability to speak. From the time he heaved a heavy bag onto his shoulder, spoke briefly to the driver, and walked up the drive to the porch, I should have been able to come up with something. Anything. But I couldn’t think of a single thing to say as Jordan stood before me. He didn’t look pleased as he stomped his boots, pink-cheeked from the cold.

  His black trench and gloves should have looked out of place next to our rugged wear, but he wore it so comfortably, it looked natural. I did my best not to sniff him, but my nostrils did flare a bit. He always smelled so good. I wanted to fling myself at him, go rolling down the porch steps. But when my eyes made it up to his face, his jaw was hard. Eyes flinty. He looked pissed.