The Embrace of Evergreen (Unexpected Love #2)

Blue

Blue

Thank the gods that I sold a piece at the gallery this week. I make enough money waiting tables to pay my rent and buy groceries without having to stick to a tight budget, but once in a while, it’s nice to get to the end of the month without feeling like having an extra drink during Friday Night Friends Date will break the bank. As grateful as I am, I find that I can’t stop wondering who bought it. I try not to become overly attached to the pieces I exhibit at the gallery; I know they’re not really mine once I put them on display. Someone is going to buy them and take them home, and I’ll never know where they end up. Still, they’re tiny pieces of my soul, and I worry that they won’t be cared for. What if someone buys one as a gift, and the recipient hates it? Will it end up at some thrift shop? What if someone having an extremely bad day walks into the gallery and thinks that buying some glass to smash into smithereens is the best way to work through their anger? It doesn’t matter, I suppose. If that were to happen, it would still have served a purpose. In the end, it is just a piece of glass, but I like to think that wherever they end up, they’re enjoyed. I like to think they make someone somewhere feel…something.

“You’re looking way too serious for Friday night karaoke, hun.” Evie nudges my shoulder with hers as she slips into the booth next to me.

Her gentle prodding is enough to pull me from my introspection, and I grin at her and finish my drink in one harsh shot. Good whiskey is made for sipping, not shooting, but she’s right - tonight is for having fun. I’ve been a bit off my game lately, and I can’t figure out why. Normally, my darker moods only peek out when I’m lost inside my head, playing with fire and glass and emotion at the shop, but there have been moments over the past couple of months where I’ve felt almost…empty. Nothing is really wrong; the world just seems a tad less colorful than it usually does, and no matter how hard I examine my life and myself, I can’t come up with an explanation.

“Momentary lapse, I assure you.” I grin broadly as I shake off the whiskey’s burn.

“So…” Evie leans her head onto my shoulder and moves the conversation forward. She either believes my statement, or she doesn’t want to get drawn into a discussion about the meaning of life on party night. I can’t say I blame her. “Who are you taking home tonight?”

A laugh bubbles up at how well my friends know me. It’s not exactly a secret that our Friday Night Friend Dates are my hunting ground, but I like to believe they know that because they pay attention. I like feeling that I matter enough for them to take an interest in my life, even if they’re really just curious about who might be my type this weekend. In general, I don’t really have a specific type, so I understand their curiosity. I tend to prefer slightly larger men to slightly smaller ones for the most part, but I don’t exactly have a checklist of criteria for my hookups. I’m not overly particular once we get to the fun stuff either. While I have preferences, as everyone does, I’m usually happy to just go with the flow and enjoy whatever acts my partner wants to engage in. I’m comfortable taking control if that’s what they want; I just don’t feel the need to make that choice for us. I’m a versatile guy with no particular kinks, and I’m open enough to try just about anything once or twice. It makes enjoying myself easier. For most people, there is a nervous energy that comes with a one-time hookup or the first time with a new partner. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of trying to both please the other person and still get what you need out of the experience that often, neither person ends up having a good time. Because I truly don’t have a lot of preferences, it takes the pressure off, and it’s rare that I don’t enjoy my sexual encounters.

“Hmmmm…” I drag the sound out, dramatically tapping a finger on my lips as I gaze around the karaoke bar. “Not sure yet.”

“Oooo, how about that gorgeous fuzzy bear in the corner?” Her words are slightly slurred, and she’s added at least an extra four z ’s to fuzzy .

I follow her gaze and take a moment to examine the man she’s less than covertly pointing at. I have to admit, not for the first time, that Evie has good taste. The idea of letting the stranger take me home and rail me for a few hours is appealing, but for some reason, it just isn’t appealing enough. Fortunately, I’m saved from having to come up with an explanation as to why he isn’t what I’m feeling tonight when a slightly younger man steps into his side, and the bear’s arm wraps around the younger man’s shoulders. Their stance is one of comfort and familiarity, and something in my chest aches at the scene. Clearly, it’s time for another whiskey.

“Looks like he already has plans. I’m going to keep looking on my way to the bar for a refill. You want anything?” I ask as I slip out of the booth.

“Nope, I’m good.” She grins and wiggles her half-full glass of frozen purple monstrosity.

I take my time on my journey to the bar, diligently leering at every man in the place as I try to convince myself each time my gaze lingers on strong jawlines or thick thighs or long, slim fingers that I want the person attached to them to take me home and touch me. Try as I might, I just can’t seem to picture any of these strangers’ hands on my skin. It’s a slightly upsetting realization for a man as in love with sex as I am.

Even though I’m starting to recognize that I’m likely not interested in spending the night with anyone, I don’t even flinch when strong arms wrap around my belly, and a hard, sweaty body presses up against my back. Before the fingertips even brushed my skin, I noticed the scent of pineapple and coconut lotion mixed with a trace of high-end cigar smoke. There is no way that anyone else in this bar smells like Gabriel. Hell, he doesn’t even actually smoke; he just lights the cigars for a few moments and then puts them out as if they’re nothing more than strange and expensive incense. Every time I’ve asked him about it, he’s just shrugged and said he likes the scent.

“I require more drinks.” He pouts with his jaw resting on my shoulder.

“Surely every human in this bar wants to buy your hot ass drinks. Is there a reason you need to spend my money on them?” I don’t even finish my sentence before I signal the bartender to make Gabriel another.

“You’re the only one who really loves me.” He sighs dramatically.

“That’s probably true.”

“Hey!” As his voice rises in pitch, his hand slides up my belly.

I smack it back down before he can pinch my nipple, eliciting a growl.

“You know me too well,” he complains as he pulls away from me and spins to lean back with his elbows behind him, propped up on the bar .

“Agreed.” I grin.

His perpetual smile falters slightly as he searches my face. “You okay tonight, sweetie? You’ve seemed a bit off for a couple of weeks.”

Observant bastard. “Just tired. Maybe I need to head into the woods for a while. I haven’t been in a month or so, and it is prime outdoor weather season. You know how I get when I don’t spend enough time hugging trees.”

“Maybe that’s where you should take tonight’s conquest. Nothing like cleaning dirt and creepy little bugs out of your bits for a week to remind you why humans invented the great indoors.” He snickers.

While Gabriel likes the sun and the sky as much as the next guy, he prefers to enjoy them lounging next to a pool or in a lush rooftop garden, preferably with a drink in hand and a hot man to lust after fetching him towels and snacks. He is definitely a domesticated cat. He’ll let me drag him on hikes and beach runs on occasion, but his endless whining makes it brutally clear that he accompanies me only as a friendship favor, not because he feels the same connection to nature that I do. And the less said about his constant tree-hugger jokes, the better.

“Na, that doesn’t sound like a good time, even to me. I think I’ll just head out to the peninsula next weekend and wander for a while. You want to come? ”

“I’m meeting up with Charlize to get started on the choreography for the boat festival thing. You want me to reschedule and come with?”

“Nope. Thanks though. I’ll just head over and spend next weekend recharging, I think. Remind myself that there is more to life than work and fucking.”

It’s so easy to get sucked into the daily grind and forget that one of the reasons I love living in Seattle is the fact I can easily reach a plethora of overgrown forest trails and relatively deserted sandy beaches in under an hour. I just need to spend a day or two listening to the sound of leaves and birds and skittering little fuzzy creatures bouncing through dense undergrowth. The forest has always been able to soothe my soul in a way nothing else has ever managed. Even as a child, I spent every free moment I could lost in the embrace of evergreen.

The town I grew up in was small and poor. Really poor. The entire town barely clung to life thanks to the handful of jobs at the nearby paper mill. Work at the mill was hard, and the whole place stank like rotting wood pulp when the winds blew inland and the cloud cover prevented the steam’s escape. It’s not the kind of place anyone ever dreams of working. It kept people employed enough to survive but too destitute to leave in the hopes of building a life somewhere better. The single grocery store was small enough that it might have been called a convenience store in other towns, and I spent my teenage summers bagging groceries in a building filled with dingy floors and flickering lights, my lungs saturated with the scent of lemon detergent and overripe produce. There was an old, run-down diner that employed one cook and three waitstaff, all dressed in stained uniforms that had seen better days. The school was entirely publicly funded, and every year, it barely managed to maintain enrollment levels high enough to avoid being shut down. There was no such thing as extracurricular activities because no one would have been able to afford things like football uniforms or band instruments or art supplies.

People got up, went to work, and came home exhausted and barely able to glance at their kid’s homework while heating up a dinner filled with too many preservatives before drinking just enough to make it to bed without crying, only to get up and do the same thing the next day. Once or twice a year, someone would host a neighborhood BBQ that served only hot dogs because they were cheaper than hamburgers, store-brand soda, and nearly expired beer. Everyone would laugh and talk and drink just a bit too much, and for an instant, they'd remember that maybe there was more to life than the monotony of their everyday existence. Then Monday would come, and they'd move on as if it had never happened. Maybe they needed to forget about the brief moments they felt free in order to survive.

The only thing that made the place bearable was the old-growth forest that surrounded us. The town itself is still there, tucked in near the edge of the Pacific Ocean. It’s a place so small that it’s easily missed by most, nothing but a speck on the side of the road, nearly hidden by endless stretches of towering trees: hemlocks and firs and spruces, pines and redwoods and cedars that extend farther than the eye can see in every direction save one small glimpse of grey sand beaches and endless turquoise waves that peeks through the tightly packed branches along the narrow main street exit.

The trees stretch up and up and up, creating canopies that nearly obscure the sky with only narrow rays of bright golden light reaching the earth. Their branches hang heavy, draped with arching ropes of stair-step and spike and clubmoss that connects them in a way that feels as if each tree is silently reaching toward the next. As if they’re clinging to one another, locked in a tight, immortal embrace. The forest floor is cut through with footpaths, some created by man, wide and studded with plaques filled with information about the flora and fauna that call the forest home. Others created by the creatures the plaques speak of. Swatches of warm, dark earth and nearly red fallen bark and pine needles cutting through the endless maze of sage and emerald. Their long, twisting routes are speckled with mushrooms and flowers; tiny white trillium blossoms, patches of pale-pink budded clovers, and clusters of heavy purple foxglove tucked cozily in together, all reaching toward any small streaks of sunlight they can find.

The forest’s scent is wild and heavy and green. The humidity is cloying, the temperature always slightly too warm, even during the colder months somehow. The dense air seems to absorb any sound that isn’t the trill of a bird or the snapping of a branch. It's thick and untamed and overwhelming. It’s peace and life and the whispering of magic and old-world gods.

A handful of tourists would drive through every summer to wander along only the carefully cultivated pathways and take a few photos before quickly escaping back to civilization to enjoy dinners at restaurants none of us could afford. But for those of us who lived in that small town, the forest was life. Life away from responsibility and obligation and thought. It's where we would escape after school to find sticks for sword fights and chase one another with the hollowed-out claws of Dungeness crabs we’d found along the shore where the ocean kissed the tree line. It’s where we built campfires and had our first beers. It’s where I stole my first hesitant kiss as an awkward fifteen-year-old and where I went to stare into the edge of the universe the first time my heart was broken.

The woods help me find serenity, not just moments of silence outside of work and the city, but real peace with myself, with my past. Some choices we make, and some are made for us, but they shape us either way. It's so easy to forget that we have the ability to think and change and adapt. So easy to get lost in routine and circumstance and forget who we really are.The forests don’t forget. They've been through hail and hurricanes and droughts and fires. They've withered and wilted and been burned to ash. But over and over, no matter what they've endured,they always return to emerald. They may have to work harder during some periods than others, but eventually, they always find their way back to their true form. They inspire me, and somewhere along the line, the sound of rustling leaves and the heady scent of green became my compass, and my solace. It became a part of my soul. Surely all I need is to lose myself within a boundless maze of evergreen boughs, and I’ll find myself again.

“Sweetie.”

Gabriel’s voice pulls me back to reality. Back to loud music and laughter and the scent of alcohol and sweat. His voice is gentle and his expression almost one of concern as he slips his arm through mine to drag me back to our table by the stage with a quiet sigh. He knows me too well to believe that nothing is wrong, but for the moment, we’re both content to lose ourselves in a night of karaoke and distraction and pretend that everything is okay.