by Anne Tenino
“Hey, buddy.” Nate dropped to his haunches next to the dog and buried his hands in Tarkus’s ruff. “Sorry, we don’t have time for duck-fetching right now. After dinner, okay?” Your dad is too busy stressing out over—God—his first sort-of-date in three years.
Right on cue, a knock fell on the door. Tarkus’s plumed tail started wagging like mad—the reason Nate had nothing on any horizontal surface lower than four feet off the ground.
He stood, wiping his hands on his jeans—basically transferring Tarkus-fur from his damp palms to his jeans. So much for dressing to impress. Although clean jeans and a Henley in a shade other than gray probably wouldn’t have gotten him many points anyway. Maybe washing his hands before answering the door would be a good idea. “We’re . . . uh . . . having company tonight, Tark,” he said as he scrubbed up at the kitchen sink. “Not Morgan though, sorry to disappoint. Think you can behave?”
He’d adopted the dog from the rescue league barely a month before he’d moved to Bluewater Bay, and since Morgan was the only person who ever visited, Nate hadn’t had much chance to socialize Tarkus in what the dog considered his space. He was a big hit at Bluewater Bark, the doggy daycare run by the high school as a community service project, but the only other humans who came near the cabin—the UPS guy, the FedEx driver, and of course the mail carrier—sent Tarkus into a barking frenzy.
Another thing you should have considered. The last thing he needed was for his dog to be as big a dick as Nate had been himself. Or what if Seth was allergic, like Jorge had been?
Another knock sounded. Right. Answer the door before he thinks you’ve bailed on him again.
Nate strode to the door, Tarkus at his heels. “Sit.” Tarkus dropped to his butt. “Good boy.” He opened the door, and there was Seth—fist raised as if about to knock again. He had that eager, interested look that had drawn Nate in the first night, and a smile ambushed Nate’s face. “Hey. You made it.”
“Yeah, but seriously? I don’t imagine you get many other visitors, especially townies. I mean, the log cabin is kinda cool, but nobody I know would risk living next to the cemetery.”
“Really? It was a selling point for me.”
Seth nodded. “Right. I get it. The whole town history/genealogy thing.”
“Exactly.”
Seth held up the six-pack of microbrews in his other hand. “My grandma says nobody should ever arrive for a dinner without a hostess gift. She recommends wine, but I don’t really go for wine, and you’re not technically a hostess, so beer?”
“Works for me.” Nate took it. “I haven’t seen many of these before.”
“I picked out a bunch of the locals. Thought we could try ’em out.” He shifted from foot to foot and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “So . . .” He cocked his head and grinned. “Can I come in?”
“Oh. Shit. Yeah. Sorry.” Nate stepped aside. “I should have warned you. I have a—” Tarkus scrabbled over to Seth and laid down at his feet, turning over to expose his belly “—dog.”
“Cool.” He dropped to his haunches next to Tarkus, scratching the furry chest as Nate closed the door. “What’s his name?”
“Tarkus.”
“After Tars Tarkas? In those old Princess of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs?”
A shiver skated down Nate’s back. “Sorry. It’s from Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, actually. Tark-u-s, not Tark-a-s. But you read vintage sci-fi?”
“Newer stuff mostly, but everyone’s heard of those.” He gave the dog one last pat and stood up. Tarkus scrambled to his feet and leaned against Seth’s leg, gazing up in adoration. “What kind of dog is he? He looks kinda like a German Shepherd, but those ears . . . and his fur is different.”
Nate grinned. “Yeah, his ears are great, aren’t they? He’s a GSD/Keeshond mix, with maybe something else thrown in. The previous owners didn’t know.”
Seth sniffed the air. “Smells great in here.”
“Yeah, about that. I should have asked. Do you like eggplant?”
“Sure.”
“Ceviche?”
“Sounds great.”
Nate let out a relieved sigh. “Thank God. I had visions of throwing together mac and cheese at the last minute.”
“Nothing wrong with a good mac and cheese either. I’m not picky.” Seth wandered into the living room. “Nice. Not as rustic on the inside, but it still fits. You don’t see many like this anymore. Most of the ones they put up nowadays are the luxury kind—hardly even qualify as a cabin.”
“I need to make the salad, but feel free to take a self-guided tour.” He pointed with the measuring spoon. “Mudroom, bedrooms, bathroom, deck, loft. And of course, kitchen and great room. Look around all you want.”
“Excellent, I will.” Seth meandered around the room, stopping to warm his hands at the fire crackling in the fireplace, peeking briefly into both bedrooms. “What’s in the loft?”
“My computer. All my genealogy crap. You know—a nerd retreat.”
“Sounds intriguing, do you mind?”
“Be my guest.”
Seth clanged up the spiral staircase. “Nice.” He looked down at Nate over the half wall. “It’s just big enough to . . . fit around you, you know? I’d love to have a place like this. Grandma’s house is the opposite of cozy.”
“Yeah, but it’s got history. Family history. That’s important too.”
Set trotted down the stairs again. “Sometimes family history can be a pain in the ass.” He paused by the bookshelf under the staircase. “Whoa. This picture—is that you with Nara Sato?”
Nate hesitated mid-tomato dice. “Yeah.”
“Wow.” Seth’s eyebrows rose halfway up his forehead. “I love her. She absolutely shredded that conservative asshole who sponsored that anti-trans bill.”
Nate chuckled. “That one was personal, but she’s been known to shred anyone she thinks is a pretentious, insensitive dick.”
“I suppose being from Hollywood, you know plenty of famous people, huh?”
“Not really. You kind of have to be famous to hang with the famous, and I’m just a special effects guy. I met Nara way before she hit the A-list—we went to the same college. Dated for about three years.”
Seth’s eyebrows drew together. “So . . . can l ask, do asexuals date?”
“Sure. Why not? Besides, ace is a spectrum, not an absolute, and it refers to attraction, not behavior. If you need labels, I’m gray asexual—grace. I feel sexual attraction, but not often—and for me, sex is the result of a relationship, not the reason for one.” He nodded at Nara’s photo. “She was the first.”
They’d been really tight—Nate was the only one she’d shared her decision not to have bottom surgery with. Their choice to call it quits after graduation was tough but amicable. They’d stayed friends—she’d introduced him to Jorge after interviewing him for a feature on modern flamenco. She’d been inclined to beat herself up over that when Jorge had bailed, but Nate never blamed her for that.
Seth bit his lip. “I can’t be a little bit nosy without going all the way. It’s one of my more endearing flaws.”
“Ask whatever you like. If I don’t want to answer, I’ll say so—although I’ll promise you this: whatever I tell you will be the truth.”
“Okay then, since you don’t mind my asking, how many have there been?”
Nate took a deep breath, suppressing his knee-jerk none-of-your-damn-business response. He owed Seth the full story. God knows hiding information had never worked well in his own family. “Two.”
“Two besides her?”
“Two including her.”
Seth shot Nate a flirty glance from under his lashes. “May I ask how old you are?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“Hmmm.”
“Weird?”
“Different. So your second . . . um . . . attraction. Did it last a long time?”
Nate smiled wryly. “The attraction doesn’t exactly disappear, even if the relationship en
ds. Nara and I broke up after graduation. Jorge—I was with him for six years.”
“If the attraction didn’t fade, then what happened?”
“First he wanted to open the relationship so we could have occasional sex with other people.”
Seth nodded as he sat on a barstool across from Nate. “Like threesomes?”
“No. I mean he wanted each of us to be free to hook up with others. Of course, me being me, I never took advantage of the opportunity. He did. Three years ago, he left me to marry one of his ‘casual hookups.’”
Seth clicked his tongue. “Harsh.”
Nate shrugged. “What we had wasn’t working for him, I guess. I can’t blame him for wanting to be happy. So.” He forced a smile. “The eggplant won’t be ready for a while, but how about an appetizer?”
Seth opened a beer for each of them and was gratifyingly appreciative of the ceviche. “This is better than anything at Il Trovatore. And that”—Seth put on his fake posh accent again—“is the height of Bluewater Bay Italian cuisine, don’t you know.”
Nate warmed at the praise. “Thanks. It’s my dad’s recipe. The eggplant parmigiana is his too, handed down from his own father, who’d gotten it from his grandmother, who’d actually lived in Albano, the town in Italy named after Dad’s family.”
“After your family too, right? I mean, you’re Nate Albano.”
“I am now. But I was Nate Bedrosian until I was twenty-four. Didn’t even meet my dad until I was twenty-three. I mean, we’ve got a pretty good relationship now, after fourteen years of contact.” But he’d missed out on knowing his grandparents and at least two uncles and one aunt, who’d died before he’d discovered the truth. And although he had dozens of cousins, they’d all scattered to their own adult lives by then. Their relationships would never be anything other than casual. “It’s not the same as being part of the family when you’re growing up.”
Seth eyed him over his beer. “I’m guessing there’s a story there. No pressure, but if you want to share . . .” He clinked the neck of Nate’s bottle with his own. “I am a professional bartender. We’re practically the same as therapists.”
Oddly, Nate did want to share, something that hadn’t even happened with Jorge. “It’s not all that impressive. My mom got pregnant after a fling with a colleague. Never told him. Had the kid—me—and raised him on her own. When the kid asked about his dad, she claimed there was no ‘father’ per se, only donor sperm.”
He’d only met his father by chance, and she wouldn’t have admitted it then if it hadn’t been obvious. “There’s a difference between an ‘anonymous sperm donor’ and a man you never told about his son, Mom. Talk to me when you figure that out.” That was the last time he’d called her Mom. Ever since, once they’d actually begun speaking to one another again, he’d called her Iris.
“That’s pretty cold.”
“Yeah. I’ve started taking calls from her again, after fourteen years of estrangement, but I can only handle about one a month without having an aneurism.”
“I hear you. I can’t have more than a two-minute conversation with my Uncle Kirk without wanting to slip a little arsenic into his single malt.” Seth scooped up the last of his ceviche. “That was excellent. If the eggplant is up to the same standard, I’ll be working it off at the gym for a week.”
“How about we take a walk before dinner, then, for a little preemptive exercise? It’ll be dark soon, and Tarkus needs a good run at this time of day. That way he’ll sleep while we eat and won’t give us the puppy-dog eye the whole time.”
“Sounds good to me.”
They both shrugged into their jackets, then Nate snapped on Tarkus’s leash. As soon as the hook clicked on his collar, Tarkus’s ears and tail drooped.
Seth laughed. “Why does he look like you’re about to take him to the vet?”
“He hates walking on lead. But until we’re across the road and into the cemetery, I can’t trust him off it. He’s already been hit once, and his depth perception is wonky because of his eye. As long as there’s nobody around in the cemetery, though, I can let him run free.”
“Dude. Isn’t that against the rules?”
“I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Seth grinned and shot a thumbs-up. “Your secret is safe with me.”
They walked up Nate’s gravel driveway, then down the road, Tarkus moping along at their side. Halfway across the field in front the cemetery though, he perked up, prancing along as they neared the gates. He dragged them toward the big oak tree next to the entrance and planted his butt, staring up into its branches.
Nate tugged at the leash. “Tark. Come on.”
Tarkus whined and whacked his tail on the ground a couple of times, but his attention stayed fixed overhead.
“What’s up with him?”
Nate motioned to Seth and pointed into the tree, where a crescent of red was visible in the fork of two branches. “See that?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s his Frisbee. One of our first nights here, I made the mistake of playing with him in this field.”
“Oh.” Seth gave him a cheeky grin. “Bad aim, huh?”
Nate punched him lightly on the shoulder. “No, smart-ass. He did it himself. He’s a total Frisbee hound. Half the time, once he catches it, he’ll toss it in the air again himself. That’s what happened.”
“And you didn’t retrieve it for him?” Seth propped his fists on his hips and hit Nate with a mock scowl. “What kind of pet parent are you?”
“Have you looked at that tree? No branches low enough to climb, and I didn’t feel like bringing a ladder out here and risking my neck for a plastic disk I could replace for a few dollars at the pet store.” He nodded at Tarkus. “He, however, has never gotten over it, even though we’ve gone through at least three Frisbees since then.”
“Wuss. I think you could have gotten it.”
“Yeah? Then you climb up there.”
“Think I couldn’t?”
Nate grabbed Seth’s arm before he could launch himself at the tree trunk. “Hey. That wasn’t a dare. I prefer to keep the stunts on the studio lot, where they belong.”
“Spoilsport.”
But Nate managed to entice both man and dog away from the tree and through the cemetery gates.
Like in a lot of old cemeteries, maintenance of the gravesites varied wildly. Some sections here were manicured closer than a putting green, but in others, the grass grew shaggy around the tombstones. Some areas—either for landscaping value or because the plots hadn’t been purchased—were overgrown with low bushes. Whenever Nate and Seth walked past one of these, Tarkus would leap into the midst of the shrubbery, bounding through it like a deer.
Seth laughed as Tarkus flung himself out of the latest patch, shaking himself and scattering twigs in all directions. “Is he always this enthusiastic?”
“Pretty much. I usually spend about an hour brushing all the detritus out of his fur when we get home.”
“It must be cool, having a dog. I never did.”
“I didn’t either, growing up. It wasn’t an option in college, and then Jorge was allergic. After he left, though, I decided to go for it.” He’d needed something in his life, something warm and alive and affectionate. “Tarkus is actually my third dog.”
“Three dogs in three years? That’s some seriously bad luck.”
“I adopted them from a rescue league down in LA. The first two were older dogs whose owners had intended to put them down because they didn’t want to be bothered with the end-of-life care. I figured I could give them that.”
Tarkus flung himself into another clump of bushes. “He doesn’t seem that old.”
“He’s not. He’s only four, but he got hit by a car—half blinded him and broke both his hind legs. His owners didn’t want to foot the bill and were going to—” Nate fought off the throat-closing grief at the thought of a world without Tarkus. “Anyway, the woman in charge of the league called me and I took him. It was to
ugh at first because he needed a lot of care, but I wasn’t working much at the time. Since he’s younger, at least I’ll have him with me for longer.”
“That’s good. He seems like a great dog.”
“And he apparently returns the sentiment.” Nate pointed to a headstone in the Larson section. “Check this out. This is one of my favorites. It’s pretty recent, but the epitaph is just as peculiar as some of the really old ones.” The marker read, C work at best. “What do you suppose it means?”
Seth joined him and laughed. “That’s my great-aunt. She was a teacher. She didn’t have any kids, but Grandma was her executor. She claims that’s what Aunt Beryl wanted on her headstone, and I pretend to believe her.”
“See, that’s what I mean about family. Even when the reality is annoying, it’s still . . . I don’t know . . . rich.” He pointed to the giant marble crypt at the top of a rise. “Like Fennimore’s monument. It’s the biggest in the whole place, which makes sense given that he’s the town founder.”
Seth snorted. “It’d be more impressive if the damn thing weren’t (a) empty and (b) only thirty years old. My grandfather, uncle, and father put it up because they thought Fennimore’s original tombstone wasn’t grand enough for such an important asshole.”
There. That’s what Nate had missed, what Seth took for granted, but was willing to share. History. Legacy. The connection to the past in all its weird, convoluted, messy glory. “Tell me about him. Please.”
Seth had never knowingly met an asexual person before. He definitely must have met one (much like all those straight people in the nation’s Bible Belt who’d crossed paths with a gay person), he just hadn’t had a clue.
Now that he did know one, he found himself eager to find out more. Unfortunately, it left Seth even more insecure about exactly what he was bringing to the table here, so to speak. What did he have to offer a guy who wasn’t interested in sex?
Apparently what he had to offer was the story of Fennimore Larson, which had been his best guess beforehand. He’d even brought along the knife, but he kept the fact secret until the “right time,” having some nebulous idea that it could be both a surprise and a token of appreciation, if that was really where Nate’s interest in him lay.