by KD Fisher
“But I never told you how hard it was the first week. The kids had no respect. I had no idea what I was doing. It was hard being a working woman in those days. Always when I walked home I cried. One day this big, rough man sat down on the bench next to me. At first he was a little scary. He handed me a handkerchief. His hands were dirty, but the cloth was so clean. I sat down on the bench again the next day. He was there again, this time with a little bag of cookies. We sat on that bench together every day for a whole month and talked. And then he asked me to marry him, and I said yes.” I knew she was smiling.
“Seriously? How have I never heard that story? It’s, like, rom-com material.”
Nonna scoffed. “No. Our love was quiet. But it was easy to love him. When I met him, I knew he was right for me.”
“I gave Matt Nonno’s necklace for Christmas,” I admitted in a rush, all of my breath leaving me.
“Oh, caro, you really love him.” Her voice was soft.
“Yeah. I do,” I murmured.
“You’re strong, Mikah. You will be fine on your own. You know this. But if this man makes you happy, why turn your back on that? Try.”
When we ended the call a few minutes later, my body was relaxed, and my mind was clear. If Matt still wanted me, I wanted to try. I hated myself a little at the thought of how much I’d hurt him by walking away from something so good. With Matt, I was a better person. With Matt, my world was a brighter place.
Chapter Fourteen
Matt
THE farm was too quiet. The wind rushed through the open field, rocking my truck and whistling through the spider web of cracks in the passenger side window. It had been ten days since Mikah left.
I’d driven back from the Jackson Hole Airport in silence, knuckles white on the steering wheel. Listening to music felt wrong. Breathing felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. When my front door clicked shut behind me, I’d slumped back against it, sliding down onto the doormat, gripping Mikah’s necklace so tight, I thought the small symbol might stay imprinted into my hand forever. Moose laid his head on my lap, and I cried.
He’d texted me once. Two words. Miss you. That was it. Even though he’d left, he lingered in my mind’s eye: Mikah’s face illuminated by firelight on Christmas Eve, the joy in his voice when he told me he loved me, the way he had turned to me in bed on New Year’s Eve, deep brown eyes shining. He’d squeezed them shut and a tear trailed down his cheek. I had rubbed it away with my thumb, but more and more followed as I put my arms around him and let him cry.
Now I was hulled out and sick with sadness.
Mikah was bright energy, the glimmer of the sun on the snow. I didn’t want to lose him. Part of me wished I’d said aloud what I’d been thinking as I dropped him off at the airport. Please stay with me. Please let me take care of you. Because I want to be with you. Because being with you is coming home. The words had expanded, filling my mind, but the thought of saying them felt useless. He’d made his choice, and, even though I didn’t understand it, even though it hurt like hell, I had to respect it. One day at a time, I had to get on with my life.
My days were the same as any other winter days on the farm. Get up, work in the greenhouse, tend to the horses, fix what needs fixing. I had gotten used to the empty gut feeling of being lonely. I had gotten used to stretching out alone in my big bed and drinking my coffee in the silent early-morning dark. I had gotten used to rushing through solitary dinners, barely tasting the food I made myself. But being lonely didn’t feel normal anymore. I wanted Mikah with me: rolling his pretty brown eyes, waving his hands wildly as he ranted about politics, getting himself worked up and then going all soft and snuggly against me as I kissed him.
Time stretched out, too long and too slow. It was hard to fill my days. My cabin was spotless. I’d tinkered with the tractor so much John told me I was getting close to rebuilding the damn thing. I designed a new logo for the farm. I drove to the library in town and checked out a CD of The Nutcracker. Listening to it over and over, I wished I could hear Mikah play the music one more time. Desperate for any distraction, I even paid for expedited shipping on my order of a half-dozen gay cowboy romance novels. I liked them fine, but the happy endings made me weirdly jealous, and I tucked them away on the bottom shelf of my bookcase. A small part of me was bitter, wishing I had never glimpsed the bright satisfaction of loving Mikah. Part of me wished I didn’t know what a full, complicated life with someone by my side could look like. But most of me just wanted Mikah to come back.
John and Katie had used the extra cash from the Christmas tree sales to take Abby to an indoor waterpark near Boise she’d been talking about since last summer. So aside from Moose, I really was alone. I knew John felt guilty for going. He could see that I was broken up. He’d even invited me along, saying we could afford to skip a market every now and again. Maybe a change of scenery would do me good. But I’d stayed home, wanting to sleep in my own bed while my sheets still smelled like amber and citrus. I usually washed them every Sunday, but I hadn’t been able to. Not while they still smelled like him. Mikah was everywhere. When I rubbed sunscreen onto my face every morning, I thought of the way his eyelashes cast shadows on his smooth, pale skin. When I took down my Christmas tree, I realized Mikah would never see what kind of colorful, glittery ornament Abby put together next year. When I caught a glimpse of the sunset or the stars, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Today had been rough. As I drove to the winter market in Jackson, dread sat heavy in my limbs at the thought that I might see Naomi or Stefano among the crowd of shoppers. As I sold bundles of kale and chatted with market regulars, my mind was a million miles away. Or, really, it was two thousand miles away. I kept trying to picture Mikah in New York, waking up in a tasteful apartment, buying a cup of coffee, his slim body moving through crowded streets I’d never seen before. I couldn’t focus. I gave people the wrong change and realized halfway through the market I’d forgotten to bring our entire stock of carrots. I was a total mess.
To make matters worse, it had started snowing hard, big flakes whipping in the wind. The drive back into Idaho from the Teton County Fair Building had been slow and painstaking. Now, as I eased my truck to a stop in front of the barn, I could hardly see two feet in front of me. Moose, who usually dozed in the passenger seat, perked up. He let out a low whine.
The moment I opened my door, my damn dog jumped over me and slipped out of the truck, bolting toward my cabin. It only took a moment for his black shaggy body to disappear into the swirling gusts of snow. What the hell was that about? Moose was a good dog. He never ran off, not even when coyotes or elk drifted out of the forest and into the fields. Quickly, I tossed the bushel baskets and empty coolers in the barn and made sure the horses were set for hay and water. Then I ran after my stupid dog, grumbling the whole way. In all likelihood he would be waiting for me on the porch, soaked but otherwise fine. Tail wagging, eyeing me like, dude, what took you so long? The idea of losing him too, of being truly alone, made my stomach clench.
I squinted through the haze of white at a large dark shape outside my cabin. It was too big to be Moose. It was too big to be an actual moose. A car? My boots pounded the frozen ground faster. My heart raced. It was the one car I’d desperately hoped to see. Mikah’s dented Subaru, covered in a good four inches of snow. Moose was sitting next to the driver’s side door like a fluffy, snowy guardian. Then my heart raced for a whole different reason. Was Mikah okay? If he’d seen Moose, I had no doubt he would have let the dog into his car.
When I wiped the glass and bent to look down through the frosted-over window, I grinned, savoring the wave of relief that seeped down to my bones. Mikah sat crumpled in the front seat, wrapped up tight in his black Carhartt coat, fast asleep. His hair was a rumpled mess, and dark circles shaded the thin skin under the spread of his long lashes. His lips were parted and a little swollen, like he’d been biting them nervously. He looked exhausted and so vulnerable. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Gently, I knocked
on the window.
Mikah started awake, eyes flying open. Through the closed door came a whole lot of mumbling going on as he fumbled with the handle.
“Fuck.” The door, which must have been frozen shut, finally gave, and he toppled out of the car, a mess of dark hair, slim limbs, and muttered curses. “Shit. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. God, I had this whole big romantic plan. I was just going to, like, show up at your door and kiss you… I mean, only if you wanted that. It kind of occurred to me halfway through my flight that you might not actually want to see me at all again after I was a total asshole and left. And… yeah. Then you weren’t home. Obviously. And I guess I fell asleep.” His eyebrows crashed together, and he shook his head like he was angry with himself. Moose let out a happy bark at the sight of Mikah. The dog’s tail was wagging so fast, it was a black-and-white blur.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. It didn’t work. My smile stretched so big, it hurt my face. But I didn’t mind. I felt like a little kid, buzzing with the knowledge of his acceptance. His love. “Nice to see you too.”
Mikah buried his face in his hands. “Ugh. I seriously am the worst. Matt, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left. I don’t care about that stupid job. I canceled the interview. I love you and I want to be with you. I need to be with you. I want to try, okay?” The words came out fast, muddled together and a little shaky. Mikah paused and swallowed hard, tugging on his hair. He lifted his eyes to meet mine. “Well, uh, I get if you don’t want to be with me, though. I acted like an asshole and—”
His words died against my mouth as I pulled him into a tight hug. His warm, soft lips and tiny sigh were everything I’d missed as I lay awake every night, staring at the ceiling in the cold solitude of my cabin. He collapsed against me with a soft whimper. Then Mikah’s thin arms twined around my neck, and I could feel him smiling. I lifted him against me, and he wrapped his legs around my waist. We kissed and kissed until my hair was soaked with snow, and I could feel Mikah shivering in my arms. I set him down gently but kept holding him close. He nuzzled into my chest. The snow had drifted around us, piling up over the tops of my work boots. I was getting cold. But I didn’t want to stop holding him. Ever.
As much as I loved the sweetness of Mikah’s lips and I really couldn’t wait to take him to bed, it was the perfect weight of him in my arms I’d missed the most. Until I met him, I’d never exactly held anyone. One-armed bro hugs with John. Quick hugs with Katie and Abby. My parents weren’t huggers. But hauling Mikah in close against me, wrapping him up in my arms, feeling his chest rise and fall in time with mine, was undeniably right. I felt not just needed but wanted. Like this was where he was meant to be. Where I was meant to be. I pressed my lips to the top of his head and breathed his smell. “Baby, you know I want you here. Always. I love you so much.” I had to clear my throat.
Mikah’s eyes locked on mine, the deep brown burning with need and love and possibility. “I know you do,” he murmured. He cupped my face with one cold hand, his slim fingers rubbing over my jaw, my cheeks, the cold exposed skin on the back of my neck. He pulled me down to him.
Our lips were only inches apart when Moose snuffled at Mikah’s black boots and whined. Clearly the dog was feeling starved for attention. “I think he missed you as much as I did.” I laughed.
Mikah grinned down at Moose, squatting to ruffle the frosty fur on top of the dog’s head. Moose leaned so heavily against his delicate frame that he almost tipped over into the snow. Mikah shot to his feet. “Oh, no. Not today, dog. I am not ruining this moment even more by getting knocked on my ass. Not happening.”
“Well, if you want, you can come inside and defrost. You can even borrow my clothes again. Might even make you hot chocolate.” I smirked. Damn, if I’d known selling Christmas trees was going to bring the love of my life right to my door, I might have been a hell of a lot more enthusiastic about the idea when John first brought it up.
“Oh, thank God. It’s freezing out here.” Mikah’s smile was pure joy.
I took his hand in mine and kissed him as the snow swirled around us. Then, together, we made our way inside, where I knew everything would be warm and bright.
Epilogue
The Following Christmas Eve
Matt
“SHIT!” Mikah’s eyes went wide and frantic as he slid his hand between the couch cushions. There was a smear of flour on the sharp line of his cheekbone, and his black jeans were dotted with white handprints. He tugged hard at the neck of his loosely knit dark-gray sweater, a sure sign he was getting stressed. Now I knew why all of his sweaters and T-shirts were in such rough shape. “I can’t find it anywhere.” He shot me a pleading expression.
“This?” I held up his cell phone, which I found right where he left it, on the kitchen counter surrounded by a mess of recipe cards. I tried to hide my smirk but knew I’d failed when Mikah rolled his eyes.
“Oh, don’t be so proud of yourself.” He snapped the phone out of my hand. But almost immediately his expression relaxed, and his cheeks flushed an adorable shade of pink. “Sorry. Thank you. I really want everything to be right,” he murmured, pushing up onto the balls of his feet to brush his lips over mine. He tasted like orange and vanilla. I moaned into the heat of his mouth, my skin tingling with arousal. Even after a year together, everything about Mikah turned me on so fast, it was almost embarrassing. I couldn’t help but deepen the kiss, sliding my hands down to his slim hips and tugging him close. He gasped and licked into me, going pliant against my body for just a moment. “No! I don’t have time for this. Stop distracting me.” He grinned and swatted my ass before darting back to the kitchen, cell phone in hand.
I tried not to pout. “Baby, it doesn’t have to be perfect,” I reminded him for what felt like the hundredth time. “And you can let me help you, you know.”
“You already did the cookies. And these need to come out of the oven….” He glanced at the clock and scrambled for the oven mitts. “Three minutes ago. Fuck.”
Of course when he slid the panettone out of the oven and did some complicated inversion involving string and a cooling rack so the Christmas breads could cool upside down, they were perfect, golden-brown domes. The whole cabin smelled like citrus and warm butter with the ever-present resin undercurrent of pine. Moose snoozed by the fire, his big white belly rising and falling with his loud snores. Outside it was snowing, light flakes drifting slowly toward the already thick blanket of powder that had fallen overnight.
I smiled to myself at how much my house—hell, my whole existence—had changed since Moose knocked Mikah into the snow the year before. My cabin was no longer a meticulously tidy, lonely place. Mikah made sure of that. In August, after weeks of a simmering argument that had finally boiled over into our first actual fight, I’d finally convinced him to move out of the tiny studio he’d been renting in town and into my cabin full-time. When Mikah blew back into my life that January afternoon, we’d spent the first few days after his arrival holed up in bed. Then we’d spent the next few talking so much I’d been pretty sure I had used up my lifetime supply of words. I’d listened while Mikah panicked over applying for the job at Teton High School. He’d held my hand in his and murmured reassuring words as I admitted I was worried he might leave again. And we’d talked together for a long time about what we wanted an actual relationship to look like. Twined together in bed, we’d whispered into the dark the things we wanted for the future: adopting another dog, traveling to Italy, maybe even having a family someday. But Mikah explained that he wasn’t quite ready to live with me full-time yet, so he’d found a place to rent in Driggs. At first, I’d totally understood his need for space and his desire to take things slow. But by the time summer rolled around, he’d been spending so much time at my place anyway it seemed ridiculous for him to pay the rent on that dump of an apartment.
When he’d finally decided he was ready to move in, Mikah brought so many books, I’d only been half joking when I grumbled about having to build
a whole second house to hold all of them. Now, though, the poetry books and classics and the surprisingly large collection of romance novels I’d built up over time were neatly arranged on the simple pine bookshelves I built to accommodate them. Most of the time, the kitchen counter was a mess of essays and worksheets that Mikah claimed were organized in a specific “system” but mostly seemed like an explosion of haphazard binder-clipped piles. He was forever leaving his shoes in the middle of the rug and abandoning half-full coffee cups on top of the dresser. He never hung his coat on the hook, always throwing it over the back of his favorite armchair. He had stuffed the bathroom medicine cabinet with so many face serums, moisturizers, and clay masks that I grimaced every time I opened the thing, thinking one of the expensive vials was going to crash to the tile floor. So I’d built a small shelf for the bathroom too.
I loved it. For the first time in the ten years since I’d built the place, the cabin felt lived in. Like home. Big abstract paintings by New York City artists Mikah’s mom knew hung on the walls alongside Abby’s portrait of Moose and a painting she’d done of Mikah and me for my birthday. I’d actually laughed out loud when I unwrapped it. As much as that kid loved making everything as colorful as possible, she’d been true to life, using only shades of black, white, brown, and gray to paint my boyfriend.
Mikah’s phone buzzed on the counter, and he scrambled to unlock the screen, almost dropping it in the process. “Oh God,” he yelped, “they’re on their way already. Shit.” His eyes darted from the Christmas tree, a big spruce we cut down together and decked out in colorful lights and the usual mess of Abby-made ornaments, to the arrangement of daisies, white roses, and pine springs I had set on the coffee table.
I knew he was nervous about his nonna and mom, who had both arrived the day before, seeing our place for the first time. To ease his mind, I had spent the morning making sure everything was spotless and cheerfully decorated. I’d even driven to the flower shop in Jackson that Naomi recommended instead of picking up a bouquet from the supermarket. The place looked as nice as it possibly could. And really, I was the one who should be nervous. I’d skyped with Mikah’s nonna a handful of times and had spoken on the phone with Mikah’s mom, or Luciana as she’d insisted I call her, on a few occasions too. But meeting them in person was different. Especially tonight. Blood rushed in my ears, and my hand went instinctively to my chest, squeezing quick and tight around the necklace. I was definitely the one who should be nervous.