Eight
EIGHT
ETHAN
“T hree days?” Ethan bemoans into the phone.
“Maybe more. The damage is widespread throughout the area. I’ll make it as soon as I can.”
That’s the last thing Ethan wanted to hear this morning. The resort is one giant mud puddle. Leaves and branches clutter the walkways. It’s going to take all day to restore order.
Samara and Amy arrive in a week. Samara’s friends the day after. Nothing less than perfection is proper for his princess’s sixteenth birthday. His heart aches each time he thinks of her. He will work overtime to ensure there’s not a single hiccup so they can enjoy their fleeting time together.
Gabriel stands nearby, nervously inspecting the damage.
“All right, Lee. Thanks for letting me know. Shoot me a message when you can.” Ethan shoves his phone into his pocket, Amy’s imagined disapproval already loud in his ear. “Let’s get the tarp, I guess.”
Gabriel, a chatterbox usually, remains quiet as they head to storage. Ethan feels a little bad for how hard he laid into him this morning over the emergency line situation last night, but in the cold light of day the roof damage does look much worse than he had originally concluded. Just because they’re friends, doesn’t mean that he isn’t still his boss.
Though, as they lug the tarp and tools back to the cottage, he realizes there was little more Gabriel could’ve done last night that Ethan didn’t. Regardless, an answer and a fast response from Gabriel would’ve saved Taylor having to run through the entire resort straight to Ethan’s door looking like Mr. Darcy in that movie version of Pride and Prejudice Amy made him watch a million times.
So maybe that’s where his disgruntlement lies. As they position the ladder up against the cottage and he drags the heavy plastic polyethylene sheeting to the roof, he considers that maybe his harsh words weren’t coming from a place of boss-like anger, but emotional fear.
Fear that he enjoyed drinking tea and eating cookies and talking with Taylor too much. Fear that he liked hearing Taylor moving around on the other side of the wall before he went to sleep. Fear that he could get used to someone else filling his home with laughter and lightness and… Whoa, he’s getting ahead of himself. Which causes his boot to slip slightly on the rain-slick surface.
“You okay up there, Ethan?” Gabriel calls to him before summiting himself.
“Fine, just be careful when you get here.”
Gabriel uses a broom to sweep away the debris. Branches and leaves leap off the sides of the roof, parachuting back to the ground where they belong. “Look, I’m sorry again.”
“Don’t sweat it. I’m sorry for how I acted this morning. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.” He organizes the two by fours they’re going to nail down the tarp with and makes sure the plywood is the right size for the hole they’re covering.
“Where did the assistant end up sleeping last night?” Gabriel asks.
“Samara’s old room.”
“You had an overnight guest?” A near delighted shock prances across his face.
“I didn’t have much of a choice.” Pointedly, he drills the thick piece of plywood into the roof. The vibration of the drill rolls through his entire body. He’s always his most clearheaded when he’s working with his hands. Tools feel like an extension of his power.
“I see,” says Gabriel. “Makes sense why you didn’t get a lot of sleep then.”
“Watch it, Esteves,” he says, standing. “I got him settled, we had some tea and we stayed up talking. That’s it. Nothing else happened. Why would you insinuate something else happened?”
“Hey, I didn’t say anything about something happening. You said something about something happening.”
“Now you’re purposefully confusing me.”
“I don’t know. Alls I was thinking when I said that was that maybe you weren’t into Kurt because you prefer twinks…”
Ethan chortles at this. The laughter rumbles through him and nearly throws off his balance again. “Twinks? Where did you learn that word from?”
“Kurt taught me. I had no idea gay guys had so many subgenres.”
“Genres? We’re people, not movies,” he says. “And you know I’m bi.”
“Yup, a bi bear. I got the lowdown. I know the lingo.”
It’s impossible to stay mad at Gabriel for long. He’s too affable. “Unroll the tarp.”
Ethan moves to the far side of the roof on the other side of the peak. There’s no damage to the front, but if they don’t do this, water is likely to drip down and inside the walls. Mold would be a nightmare to get rid of. He takes his edge of the tarp and his first two by four and rolls it up before fastening it.
“You’re telling me you don’t find the twink assistant cute?” Gabriel calls from the other side of the roof. He’s bolder now that they’re not face-to-face. Ethan isn’t within distance to nudge him for being nosy.
Not that he’d have the presence of mind to. He’s overrun with images of Taylor in Amy’s old Christmas robe last night. The flaps precariously close to splaying open. “Cute or not, he’s off-limits. Especially while he’s staying under my roof.”
“Bless you!”
“What?” Ethan asks, confused by the non sequitur. “I didn’t sneeze.”
“Oh, my bad. Thought you did,” says Gabriel earnestly. “Since you’re obviously allergic to the idea of fun.”
Ethan rolls his eyes and shakes his head before getting back down to work.
A half hour later, after he’s sent Gabriel off to fetch the wheelbarrow to clean up along the tree line, he lets himself into the Snow White cottage.
It stands exactly as he left it last night only much quieter and, if he’s honest, slightly drabber than he remembers. The Snow White cottage is, much like the welcome sign, in need of a face-lift.
It was part of the original design for their fairy tale oasis. Initially, Storybook Endings was only the barn, seven cottages and the pond. It wasn’t until a profile in a major magazine and some TV coverage naming them one of the best summer destinations that a tourism boom swept up their small business. With the influx of capital, they were able to buy the land on the opposite side of Sunshine Road and expand exponentially—The Castle, the grotto and the heated pool.
Motionless now in the center of the room, he contemplates what life may have been like had that first domino of success not fallen and caused him to lose the life he always pictured for himself. He’s not certain he would’ve ever fully explored his bisexuality, nor would he have gotten his late-in-life ADHD diagnosis.
The ghost of Taylor’s voice from last night sweetly haunts him. If you treat your brain like a villain, it’s going to act like a villain. Treat it like the world’s coolest sidekick. It’s almost unimaginable that someone not-yet thirty could be so insightful.
His attention is grabbed by the sound of a family walking by the cabin, chattering loudly. They sound happy that the storm has passed, and they can enjoy their trip again. This makes him smile.
Thankfully, the dripping from the roof has ceased, but the bucket is full. As he hoists it up, some shards of glass twinkle in the overhead fan light. Forgetting that he took off his gloves, he reaches for them only to end up slicing the palm of his hand.
“Fuck,” he shouts, dropping the glass and the bucket, creating a brand-new mess for him to attend to. Right now, the only mess he concerns himself with is his bleeding hand. There are no shards in the gash that he can see so he grabs one of the hand towels to wrap himself up before swiftly heading home. He’s got a first aid kit in the bathroom.
For the last five years, he hasn’t had to knock unless Samara was visiting, so as soon as he’s through the front door and down the hall, he doesn’t hesitate to enter the bathroom. The lock’s been broken for the last six months.
Surprise thumps him back hard into the door when he’s met with Taylor Frost’s toned, naked body stepping out of the steamy shower. The towel rack is far enough away that there are whole seconds between the intrusion and any option for modesty.
Don’t you dare look down.
The chiding does nothing to stop his uncooperative eyes from tracking several beads of water racing from Taylor’s Adam’s apple, down through a light patch of chest hair sitting between two rounded pecs, and straight toward a cock more hung than Ethan has seen in porn videos.
Ethan twists around and fumbles with his nondominant hand to grab the doorknob. “Sorry!” In the process, the bloody hand towel falls. Christ. He scoops it up, scrambles out.
“Is your hand okay?” Taylor asks, sounding concerned and not the slightest bit self-conscious.
Ethan’s heart is in his throat as he stumbles away from the scene and back to the safety of the kitchen. His hand stings from how hard he’s clutching the towel to it now. There might be no glass in there, but he’s probably getting little filaments in the wound, causing mini spikes of pain.
The hot water takes a minute to plunk out of the kitchen sink. There’s a sharp sensation that shoots up into his fingers as he cleans the wound. He pushes through until Taylor speaks behind him. “Let me take a look at your hand.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got it.” Ethan’s embarrassment causes his voice to shake. He hopes the back of his neck is not as red as his face definitely is.
“Are you sure? I’m the one holding the first aid kit.” When Ethan collects himself to turn, Taylor stands there in shorts and a T-shirt, holding up the white box with the red cross on it. In his other hand, he’s got a bottle of rubbing alcohol. When Ethan told Taylor to make himself at home, he really took it to heart. There’s something comforting about how he has seamlessly weaved himself into the household without needing to ask.
Ethan coaxes himself into a chair at the kitchen table and allows Taylor to clean up his wound. Taylor is gentle, lightly dabbing at the cut with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. “It’s not that deep. My brother got a worse cut in the same place once from shattering a vase when we were kids.”
“Guess you’ve had a lot of practice when it comes to expert care,” Ethan notes, feeling a tingle race down his spine. It’s been a while since someone he doesn’t pay, like a doctor or a barber, has tended to him like this.
“You have to wear a lot of hats when your parents aren’t reliable and you’re the oldest sibling in the house,” he says.
“I thought you said you had one older brother?”
Taylor tenses and doesn’t look up to meet his eyes as he places a square of gauze over the cut. “Owen, yeah. Like I said, he left when he was eighteen and I was fifteen. He and my parents never got along. I don’t think he ever quite forgave them for having six kids after him.”
“Did he not get along with you and your siblings?” Ethan asks as Taylor unrolls the wrap he’s going to bind the wound with.
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t that. I think my parents assumed he’d be the leader of the house when they weren’t around, but maybe he was too introverted for that. A loner, really. The idea of family was poisoned for him. He retreated from us and then left us and then I became the de facto oldest.”
“That must’ve been tough,” Ethan says as Taylor turns his wrist into a mummy.
“Sure, but it also made me resourceful. I developed a lot of skills I wouldn’t have otherwise.” Taylor smiles without meeting Ethan’s eyes, twisting the wrap on a diagonal and then horizontally around the back of his hand. “Is that too tight?”
“No, it’s perfect.” Ethan attempts to stay as still as possible. Unwelcome goose bumps dot up along his arms. Good thing his forest of forearm hair masks them.
Taylor continues doing figure eights with the gauze until he circles back to the wrist and secures it with a pin. “Hold up your hand like you’re doing the pledge?” Taylor pinches Ethan’s finger.
“What was that for?” Ethan asks, watching as red coloring returns under his fingernail.
“To make sure your circulation was still good. You learn a lot when your family doesn’t believe in ER visits and your siblings are prone to accidents.” He sets the supplies back inside the plastic container. “Good thing I was here.” Overly intimate and yet somehow entirely natural, Taylor rubs Ethan’s knee, which causes a bolt of lust to shoot up and into Ethan’s groin.
“Yeah, good thing.” Ethan catches his breath. “Speaking of you being here, the roofer won’t be able to come out for a few days.”
“That’s rough,” Taylor says.
Ethan nods. “The guest room here is yours if you want it, but I understand if you’d be more comfortable at the inn in town.”
“I’m perfectly comfortable here as long as I’m not in your way.”
“Not at all,” Ethan says, pleased by the response. A smile climbs onto his face. “That’s settled then.”
“Awesome,” Taylor says, flashing his own cool smile. “Is there anything I can do around here to help out?”
Ethan thinks for a second. “Do you like meat?”
Taylor’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head.
Oh, no! “Gosh, what I meant to say was, do you eat meat? Are you a meat eater? You’re not a vegetarian or vegan or—”
“I eat meat,” Taylor says quickly, almost as if he’s hoping Ethan will shut up so the awkwardness clouding the air dissipates faster.
“Great, good,” he says. “I have burgers I could grill up for us tonight. I was just thinking I’ll need a little help with the spatula.” He waves his capably bandaged hand.
“Just call me your right-hand man.”
Was Taylor playing into the accidental flirtation? Ethan’s dirty mind twists with thoughts of a task he does avidly with his right hand, and it has absolutely nothing to do with flipping beef.