Chapter 10 Conversations At the Cabin
CHAPTER TEN
CONVERSATIONS AT THE CABIN
“He looks exhausted,” Nate whispered to Joshua.
They both stood near the back door of David’s cabin, gazing out to where Colin stood, gazing down toward the small lake that shimmered at the bottom of the hill.
After a moment, Joshua sighed and turned back to Nate. “He is exhausted. But…” His eyes once again sought out his husband, but Colin had wandered down the path and out of sight.
“But…?” Nate queried.
“But it’s not just fatigue. He’s tired on the inside… you know? Too much ugliness on his plate lately.”
Nate scoffed. “Far as I can tell, that’s part of his job description… or it should be.” He patted Joshua’s shoulder. “But you’ll get him past it, Josh. You always do.”
“I wonder, Nate,” Joshua murmured, leaning against the doorframe as he gazed down the path Colin had taken. “I wonder sometimes if there’s pain so deep that even love can’t reach it.”
“Don’t talk like that, Josh.”
“I don’t want to, but...”
“Is he still in therapy?”
“We both are.” He drew in a deep breath, still staring toward the path that led to the lake. “I hoped that coming here would ease him out of it a bit.”
“Maybe it has, Josh. Just because Colin’s quiet doesn’t mean he’s suffering.
We’re too used to him bouncing around tossing out wisecracks, but there is a quieter Colin…
a more introspective Colin. I’ve seen him be like that when he was perfectly happy and just thinking things through. Maybe it’s that.”
Joshua turned back to Nate. “You’re right.”
Nate jerked his thumb in the direction Colin had taken. “Well, I know a good way to find out!”
The screen door squeaked as Joshua pushed it open, the sound oddly satisfying.
When he reached the path, he saw Colin standing alone near the lake.
He was looking out across the water, his hands clasped behind his head.
For a moment, Joshua hesitated, wondering if his presence might not be an intrusion, then continued down the hill until he stood at his husband’s side.
Colin didn’t speak but dropped one arm around Joshua’s neck, his eyes still fixed on the water.
“You enjoying the view?” Joshua asked finally.
“I’m enjoying the fact that I don’t have any cases to prep.” He turned to face Joshua and dropped his other arm around his neck. “I’m enjoying not having a folder full of medical reports on sexually abused thirteen-year-olds to get through before breakfast.”
Joshua shuddered, and noticing, Colin nodded. “Yeah.” He turned back to the lake. “I’ve looked out over this lake a thousand times in the past five years or so. And the purity of this view never fails to calm me.”
“Water has a cleansing effect on the psyche,” Joshua told him.
“Just looking at it?”
Joshua nodded and leaned against Colin’s shoulder, his fingers brushing lightly along his arm.
“Even the sounds help us.” He indicated the small waves as they touched the shoreline, their soft lapping sound caressing the air.
“It triggers the same reactions in our brain as meditation.” He wound an arm around Colin’s waist. “Water is good for us. Looking at it. Listening to it. Being near it. Hell, even looking at pictures of a lake like this has a healing effect.”
Colin nodded and sank to the ground, drawing Joshua down beside him. “Well, since I always seem to gravitate to this spot, I must have a need for healing.”
Joshua shrugged. “You and every other human on the planet.” He nudged Colin with a gentle elbow. “Who doesn’t like sitting beside a lake or river?”
“You have a point.”
“Nate thinks you’re in an introspective mood.”
“Nate may be right.”
“You’ve had a rough couple of months.”
“We both have.”
Joshua nodded, then took Colin’s big hand in his and rubbed his cheek against his knuckles. “Yeah, but I weep and wail all over the place. I spew out emotions like a feelings volcano. You carry yours inside you.”
“Well, you’re a very handsome feelings volcano.” Colin offered with a faint smile. “And I do talk to Deena about… about things,” he murmured, referring to Dr. Deena Mallory, their therapist.
“But not me?”
“Some of this stuff is too ugly to share, Josh. Especially with you.”
“I’m tougher than I look.”
Colin reared back, scoffing out a breathy laugh.
“I’m the last man on earth to whom that needs to be explained.
” His mouth quirked as he gazed at his husband.
“It’s not that you couldn’t take it. It’s that I couldn’t take telling you about it.
” He shook his head, turning his gaze back to the lake’s placid surface.
“I don’t want to drag you into that world, Josh. Bad enough that I have to be in it.”
Joshua didn’t speak, just held Colin’s hand tighter, silently deepening their connection. The breeze carried the scent of cedar and lakeweed, and the soft brush of water against the shore filled the silence.
Finally, Joshua said, “I understand, my yedid. But… you don’t have to protect me from your pain.”
For a long moment, Colin was silent, and then he drew in a deep breath. “I think I’m trying to protect me from the look in your eyes when you take it in.”
Joshua leaned his head against Colin’s shoulder. “Shrinks hear a lot of bad stuff.”
“Coming out of your own husband’s mouth?”
Joshua’s eyes met his. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
“Point taken.” He turned his head and kissed Colin’s shoulder.
“Just please remember this… I’m the guy.
” He pointed to himself. “This is where you bring your pain, Colin. Right here.” He turned his finger toward Colin’s chest. “And this is where I bring mine.” He flattened his palm over Colin’s heart.
“And yeah, it might hurt me to know what you’re going through.
But that’s the whole point of the ‘better or worse’ promise we made.
” He pressed his lips together. “It’ll hurt me a whole lot less to share your pain than to be isolated from you while you bear it alone.
” His hand balled into a fist that he tapped against Colin’s chest. “That is the only pain I truly could not bear.”
Colin was silent for a long moment. Then he drew Joshua in, wrapping him in a fierce, wordless embrace. His chin rested on Joshua’s hair, his breath slow. “I hear you, my love,” he murmured at last. “I swear I do.”
They sat together in stillness, the lake before them like a mirror — deep and peaceful, its subtle movement a quiet balm to their spirits.
When they returned to the cabin, Nate was setting up the karaoke machine. “We’ve got new songs!”
“Oh, lord god,” Joshua moaned, collapsing onto the couch.
“Whatcha got, Natey-baby?” Colin asked. “Anything good?”
Nate spun around, brandishing the remote like a game show host. “Only the finest cheesy gems the internet has to offer. Boy bands, Broadway, and—wait for it—1980s hair metal ballads.”
Colin’s eyes lit up. “Please tell me ‘Bye, Bye, Bye’ is in the queue.”
“Oh, it’s first in the queue,” Nate announced. “Followed by ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. So warm up those vocal cords, Campbell, because you’re about to sing like you left your dignity at home.”
Joshua groaned from the couch, pulling a pillow over his face. “I barely survived the last time you two got into a karaoke duel. Didn’t someone end up under the coffee table?”
David lounged in an armchair, sipping a cognac. “I intend to numb my brain to the point where I barely notice them.”
“Hey!” Colin protested. “I regret nothing.” He paused from perusing the song list; his face quirked in an expression of sad regret. “Except maybe that heavy-metal version of ‘Memory’. That might have been a mistake.”
Nate giggled as he plugged in the mic. “A mistake? That is something of an understatement. I still have nightmares.” He placed a hand over his heart and drew in a deep breath as if preparing to sing, but Colin’s hand covered his mouth.
David held up his glass, eyes a bit bleary. “To be clear, I do not want to be touched. By anyone. Even if they are a cat!”
Colin shook his head, then released Nate and returned to the song list. “No Irish songs on this damned thing?”
Nate flopped dramatically onto the couch beside Joshua. “It’s a crime against humanity.”
Colin scowled at the screen. “Disgraceful! Not a single High Kings song? What kind of soulless karaoke machine doesn’t have ‘Wearin’ of the Green?’”
Joshua peered up at him. “You could just pick Queen like everyone else.”
Colin knelt beside the couch. “I’m Irish, Josh. If I don’t sing something mournful and tragic at least once a month, the ancestors start rolling in their graves.”
Joshua rolled his eyes. “You’re Irish? Gee! I had no idea.”
Colin smirked and kissed his nose. “Did you think our honeymoon was just a vivid dream?”
David sipped his cognac. “If even one of you starts riverdancing, I’m leaving. Just sayin’.”
Several hours later, only Colin and Nate remained. David had slipped quietly away, carrying his brandy glass, the moment the first notes of “Baby Got Back” echoed through the room. Joshua had hung in longer but threw in the towel when Nate began to warble “We Are the Champions”—for the third time.
Colin was sprawled on the couch while Nate stretched out on the floor, legs extended under the coffee table. He lifted his arm, his hand containing a can of Murphy’s Irish Stout. “Hooray! We are the champions, my Irish friend. Our better halves can’t seem to handle our extraordinary talent.”
Colin chuckled, then reached to one side to ruffle Nate’s hair. “Tonight was fun. Thanks, buddy.”
Nate leveraged himself to his knees and turned to face his friend. “You OK, Irish?”
Colin nodded. “I’m fine.” He shot Nate a glance. “I’ve been in a bit of a funk. Just… work stuff. But being up here always helps.”
“Josh has been worried about you.”
Colin huffed a soft laugh.
“Yeah, I know. Josh is always worried about you.”
Colin’s nose wrinkled. “Well, he’s a bit of an overthinker.”
“And then some.”
“But at least he thinks.”