Let It Snow

by Heidi Cullinan

  “That’s not what I meant,” Marcus said, trying to backpedal.

  “It’s what you said.” Frankie put his hands on his hips and leaned in to Marcus. “If you don’t want to try, come out and say it. Don’t hide behind this faux nobility where you’re cutting us off now because it’s the right thing to do. Either you don’t want me, or you’re a big fat chicken, which if that’s the case, it’s the height of irony because being a big fat chicken is my job.”

  “I do want you.” How the hell had this gone so badly?

  “So it’s fear then.” Frankie crossed his arms over his chest, but his hard tone began to crack. “I suppose you’re right. If I’m the brave one in this relationship, we’re totally fucked.”

  Shit. Marcus reached for him, and when Frankie pulled his shoulder away from the touch, Marcus’s heart broke. Aching, panicked, and confused, Marcus grabbed his coat and headed outside so he could think.

  Even the fresh air didn’t clear him, though, and eventually he went back inside.

  “Don’t,” Marcus said before Arthur could start on his lecture. “I don’t need you yelling at me on top of everything else.”

  Arthur didn’t so much as bat an eye. “You’re fucking this up, buddy. You’ve got a good thing here, best I’ve ever seen you with, and you’re fucking it up on purpose.”

  “It’s not going to work,” Marcus insisted.

  Arthur snorted. “Not with that attitude, it won’t.”

  He turned away. Paul glared at him from the couch, and Frankie wouldn’t look at him.

  Hell. Marcus wished he’d have just stayed the fuck outside.

  Chapter Fifteen

  WHEN MARCUS HAD gone outside instead of staying and fighting for them, Frankie knew it was over. He’d cried, let Paul and Arthur comfort him and done his best to start moving on. He wished he’d gone home when he’d had the chance, and he vowed it was the first thing he was doing in the morning. To that end, he got himself packed and ready to go. At first light, he’d put Logan, Minnesota and everything here behind him for good.

  He was staying the night, and he’d be sleeping next to Marcus, but under no circumstances was he having goodbye sex. He told himself this over and over and over. He got into bed before Marcus even came over from the kitchen, pulled the blanket up high and shut his eyes. He tried really hard to go to sleep.

  He felt Marcus’s hand on his shoulder, his heart lurched, and he rolled onto his back, ready to be firm.

  Frankie took one look at Marcus’s sad eyes, his beautiful face, the face he was about to never see again, and Frankie caved in so fast there was nothing left of his resolve but fine dust.

  Their kiss was hard, their hands insistent as they pushed away bedding and clothes in their desperate need to come together one last time. Frankie trailed his mouth across Marcus’s jaw, nuzzling into his beard, inhaling the scent of him and burning it into his memory. Marcus bent to kiss Frankie’s belly, and Frankie arched into him, sliding so easily into the space Marcus always made for him when they made love.

  Made love—it truly was love, Frankie realized, his last rational thought before Marcus’s mouth closed over his cock. He was in love with Marcus, and leaving him was going to kill him.

  Would it kill Marcus too?

  He drew Marcus’s mouth back up to his and kissed him, pouring himself into his lover. He ached to feel Marcus yield to him, to feel those weather-worn hands clutch so desperately at him. The last hours of their time together slipped away like grains of sand, and he cursed himself for not locking them up in the cabin and doing nothing but drinking each other in, making the most of what little time they had.

  Except deep down he knew that even if they’d spent the entire week making love, it wouldn’t have been enough. There was no way he could get enough of Marcus.

  Frankie tugged and pulled at Marcus’s clothes until he was naked, then made quick work of his own. He stroked Marcus’s back, his hip, the curve of his buttock, his fingers grazing the furry line of his cleft. Marcus shook in Frankie’s embrace, his thighs parting to silently encourage Frankie’s touch lower.

  Shutting his eyes, Frankie slid his fingers lower, seeking. Testing. Teasing against Marcus’s hole.

  With a soft groan, Marcus shifted so he could open himself more, his anus flexing in silent, desperate invitation.

  It felt like a dream to Frankie—reaching for the lube, slicking his fingers and working them inside Marcus’s eager opening. The tight heat thrilled him, the thought of pressing his cock inside that close, intimate space erasing his self-consciousness of never having done this before. By the time he had two fingers thrusting deep, his whole body was taut and ready to follow them inside.

  “I want you.” He caught Marcus’s mouth in a sensual kiss and pushed his fingers in to the last knuckle. “I want to be inside you.”

  Marcus gripped Frankie’s shoulders, strong and yielding all at once. It was amazing. “I want you there. So much.”

  They kissed a little longer, but then Frankie had Marcus get on his knees and hold the back of the couch. He knelt behind and admired the view: Marcus spread open, waiting, almost shaking with his need. The sight undid Frankie, filling him with lust and love and sorrow.

  I can’t leave this. I can’t leave him. Yet he knew Marcus was right. How could he stay?

  Frankie kissed Marcus’s cheeks, first one and then the other. He slipped on a condom, worked Marcus wider with his fingers, then lined himself up. He stared at the sight of his cock ready to spear the finest, most sensual ass he’d ever known. Marcus quivered, and he stroked his spine in reassurance.

  He pushed inside, and he knew he was home.

  Frankie went as slow as he could, but Marcus felt so good, so amazing, so hot and tight and right that he couldn’t contain himself, could only pump and thrust and claim him, wishing it were Marcus’s skin his come sprayed against, not a sheath of latex. He kept his cock inside as he helped Marcus over the edge too, wanting to fuck Marcus every day for the rest of their lives. They were so right together. Better than any fantasy Frankie had ever had, and when he was with Marcus, especially like this, he didn’t have any doubt that they were meant for each other.

  Why wasn’t it enough?

  He lay awake a long time after Marcus fell asleep, wrapped in the circle of his lover’s arms, the question echoing over and over in his head. Why wasn’t love enough? Why couldn’t the feelings they had for each other in a blizzard make things last? Should he stay? Should he fight for Marcus? How did he do that? Did he quit his job? Did he hedge his bets, visiting as much as he could? Did he try to convince Marcus to move back to the city?

  What did he want, outside of Marcus? Would loving Marcus mean wherever he lived wouldn’t matter?

  Could he even truly be in love in just one week?

  Frankie didn’t know the answer to any of these questions. He didn’t know, and he didn’t know how to find out.

  Frankie slept fitfully, waking almost every hour, and at five he gave up and got out of bed. He got dressed and made tea. He stood at the window a long time, staring out into the darkness. He thought about Marcus’s doubts, about his own. He thought about the schoolhouse apartments, the care center, the café. He thought about his job at Oasis. He thought about Josh and Andy. He thought about Arthur and Paul.

  He thought about what the odds were that a week-long blizzard-based relationship would last. He made himself look at it, really look at it, in the hard light of day, and he peeled all his romantic notions away. The truth stared him cold in the face, worse than anything the blizzard had dished out.

  There wasn’t any logical way they could work. Even if there was, Frankie certainly wasn’t the man to beat those odds.

  Heart aching, he found some paper, sat at the table and wrote a note.

  At six Arthur’s alarm went off in the loft, but Frankie was already halfway out the door. His sleeve damp from brushing away tears, Frankie quietly shut it behind him and hurried to his car.

>   Chapter Sixteen

  EVERYTHING FELL APART for Marcus after Frankie left.

  To start, it had hurt him far more to wake and find Frankie gone without so much as a goodbye than it had to find out Steve was cheating on him. But the brief thank you for everything note and the abrupt departure were nothing next to the express package he got the Wednesday after, a package which contained the phone he’d bought for Frankie. No note this time. No nothing, just the last link they had to each other returned. Now Marcus had no number, no address, not even the name of the salon where Frankie worked. They were over in every way possible.

  It was what he’d told himself was best. Somehow, though, it felt like the worst, and he kept finding new versions of rock-bottom with every day that went by.

  “Go after him,” Arthur insisted a week after Frankie had left as they worked on a stand of trees. “Take some time off, drive down to Minneapolis and go after him.”

  “I don’t know where he is,” Marcus argued, and Arthur tossed a glove at his head.

  “He’s in a fucking hair salon. A high-end one in downtown Minneapolis. Book a hotel, visit each one and ask for Frankie Blackburn until you find him. Shouldn’t even take you a full day.”

  “Then what do I do? Take him out for lunch?” Marcus picked up his chainsaw and headed for another stand of trees. “It’s never going to work.”

  Arthur followed him. “It’s not working now, you idiot. You’re more miserable than I’ve ever seen you, worse than when Steve fucked you over. You’re not just grouchy, you’re lost. Pretty soon you’re going to lose your mom, and you’ll have nothing left but Paul and me, and at the rate you’re going you’ll fuck that up on purpose just to make a nice hat trick out of the deal.”

  Marcus stopped walking. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means what I said. You’re fucking your life over before it can fuck you, Marcus, which might sound smart in theory, but in real life it’s fucking stupid.” He gripped Marcus’s arm through his coveralls. “So maybe you go after him and it doesn’t work. How is that worse than this?”

  Marcus set his jaw and tightened his grip on the chainsaw. “I got work to do.”

  Arthur didn’t bring up Frankie again, but a wall had risen between them, and by the end of that second week of December, they hardly spoke at all. Paul wasn’t angry, but he seemed disappointed. Paul fought more with Arthur too, and Marcus wondered if he was the source of their fighting. He should move out, give them some space. He was overdue, really, to strike out on his own.

  He checked out at a few places the realtor in town found for him: an apartment over a store on Main Street, a cabin not far from Paul and Arthur. The realtor pointed out the office would be a great place to open a law practice.

  Marcus couldn’t help thinking it was big enough to split in half, one side a law office, one side a hair salon.

  Because that was the horrible truth underneath it all—he did want Frankie back. He wanted Frankie to come here. He wanted Frankie to move to Logan, to move into his life, not the other way around. Even scouring hair salons in Minneapolis was more than Marcus had left in him, because Marcus wasn’t the brave one, just like Frankie had said. The truth was Marcus was tired and scared and more vulnerable than he’d ever thought he could be. He’d spent all the bravado he had fighting being gay and trying to be a hotshot city lawyer and being the big strong boyfriend, and in the end he’d lost everything, including the ability to pretend anymore. All he had left now was being in love with Frankie, wishing he’d come home.

  He wanted to be the princess this time, but there was no way it was going to happen.

  FRANKIE’S RETURN TO Minneapolis wasn’t exactly smooth sailing.

  He missed Marcus, and Arthur and Paul and even the care center. With every day that passed, he realized he felt more at home in Logan than anywhere he’d ever been. He confessed this to Josh and Andy, bawling because he was sure he’d fucked things up by leaving the way he had, how he’d made it worse by mailing back the phone. He told them how desperately he wanted to go back and fight for Marcus whether he growled or not but that he was afraid he didn’t have it in him to try. They were no help at all.

  “You probably did the right thing,” Andy insisted. “It wouldn’t ever work unless you moved up there, which you shouldn’t do because God, the North Woods. If he came here instead, he’d resent you. It’s sad, but it is what it is.”

  “Bullshit,” Josh fired back. “Frankie, you gotta go. You should drive right back up there and duke this out. You’re miserable, and you’re not going to feel better until at least you give it a shot. Don’t be so afraid. Just do it.”

  Frankie’s mother was even more of a mixed message. The first week after he’d come back, Frankie hadn’t brought up the topic because she was so fixated on worrying about him, fussing over his health, obsessing over long-range weather forecasts and promising him up and down he wasn’t traveling at Christmas if there was so much as a chance of flurries. One night as she started on the panic run again, he cut her off, redirecting her, and that’s how he ended up confessing about Marcus.

  He’d been talking about Josh dragging him out to a bear contest at a local bar, and he’d said it made him homesick for Logan, which had him explaining he didn’t miss literal bears but big hairy gay men. That had made her laugh, so he’d told her all about his own personal three bears, leaning heavily on Arthur and Paul, sliding into the story of how he ended up playing stylist to the care center.

  “Oh, Frankie,” his mom said when he wound down from talking about Mimi’s pride over her hairdo. “You miss it. And you’re in love with the grumpy one.”

  Frankie slouched under his covers. His gaze fell on his window, out of which he could see the lights of their neighborhood blinking in the cold blue night. “Maybe a little. But it wouldn’t work.”

  “Living in a small town, or dating that man?”

  Frankie smoothed his free hand over the surface of his comforter. It was soft and downy and purchased as his splurge from Pottery Barn, but he missed the ragged, homemade thing he’d nestled beneath with Marcus. “I live in Minneapolis, Mom. I have my dream job. I have good roommates and a good life.”

  “Yes, sweetheart, but are you happy?”

  Frankie didn’t know how to answer that question anymore. It was like falling for Marcus had doomed him, and now happiness was beyond his reach for good. “Are you suggesting I move to Backwoods, Minnesota, Mom? Because he made it plain he wasn’t moving here.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” His mom sounded as torn as he felt. “I can’t say I wouldn’t love having you closer. And your dad and I worry about you. If anyone ever needed a partner, it’s you.”

  What? Frankie sat up straight. “You and Dad talk about how I need a keeper? Mom.”

  “Not a keeper, sweetheart. A partner. Some people simply do better with a rudder, with someone to play off of, someone to shore them up after a hard day. A partner. A husband. A helpmeet, if you want to go completely Biblical.”

  Frankie didn’t. “You don’t think I’m strong enough to face life on my own?”

  His mother sighed. “Never mind. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  She shifted the conversation to some drama within a women’s circle at church, and Frankie let her, but her comment about his needing a partner—helpmeet, Jesus Christ—rang in his head for days. On the one hand it felt spot-on, because nothing had ever sounded better than Marcus picking him up at the end of a long day at the care center, making Frankie some tea when they got home. Frankie loved the idea of that big, warm body sliding over his every night in bed. On the other hand, that yearning annoyed Frankie, because he wasn’t that weak that he couldn’t function without a guide dog. He was doing fine at life, thank you very much. He had a good job. Good roommates. Everything was just fucking fine, damn it, and as soon as he was over Marcus, he’d be happy again, and life would go on.

  One night when Josh took him out for drinks, he had a f
ew too many, and he started declaring how fine he was out loud, and Josh laughed.

  “You so aren’t fine,” Josh said, refilling Frankie’s beer from their shared pitcher.

  Frankie clutched at the glass and frowned at Josh. “I am too.”

  “Are not,” Josh called back in singsong, winking as he sipped at his own. “You miss your lumberjack. Worse, you miss the life you made for yourself up there, which for the first time in probably ever was a real life.”

  What. The. Fuck. Frankie slammed his hand on the table between them, which in his drunken state turned out to be more of a very rough pat. “I do too have a real life. What do you call what we’re doing right now?”

  Josh snorted. “This? This is me canceling a date to take you out because I couldn’t bear you watching the Hallmark channel until you go into a sugar coma anymore. I mean, how many episodes of The Golden Girls can you take before you age prematurely?”

  This wasn’t them hanging out? This was a pity gesture? “Damn it, Josh, I didn’t ask you to cancel your date.”

  “No, but I care about you, and I hate seeing you so unhappy.” Josh reached over and took his hand. “Hon, you don’t have a life. You never really have. You go to work. You come home and watch TV or sometimes do something with us. Your phone calls to your mother before bed are your only regular socialization. You have a narrow pattern to your life, and you never break from it, not even to try a different branch of Whole Foods. The worst part is I know you don’t live life because you’re scared of it.”

  “I’m not scared of life,” Frankie insisted, trying to glower.

  “You’re terrified of living. I don’t think you know what you’re really afraid of anymore, like it’s just a habit. It kills me, sweetheart. You’re gorgeous and wonderful and the whole world should see how fabulous you are.”

  Frankie blinked as he considered what Josh said, trying to push aside enough alcohol to come up with a counterargument, but the more he tried to disprove what Josh said, the more he realized it was true. He went to the same shopping centers because they were familiar—and safe. He never went out unless Josh or Andy was with him, but never close to a bad neighborhood. He didn’t date, no, and it wasn’t because he preferred sex with his left hand. He’d been that way before Marcus too.