Chapter 2
Kellan
I was a romantic. That was a blessing and a curse, really.
When I was younger, I liked the hookup culture, because I was very serious about my studies. I didn’t have time for a boyfriend, and I didn’t want to lead anyone on, so I… didn’t.
Instead of filling my evenings with hanging out with a boyfriend, I filled them with romantic comedies, romance novels, British cop shows, and having hot, dirty sex with men whose names I never felt the need to ask.
Then, five years, three months, and about a week ago I met a guy. I’d heard whispers about him at the clubs I went to in Manhattan. He was some hotshot advertising guy or some such, fucked like a god, and didn’t do strings.
Yeah. I had to get myself a piece of that.
But the issue with being me was that I was 6’5”, a bit ganglier than I would’ve liked, and a total twink back then. An oversized twink, but one nonetheless. Men I was attracted to normally went for the smaller guys, because they were easier to handle. You could try to throw around even a willing man my size, but you’d soon realize it wasn’t that easy. Physics didn’t work like that.
I’d been turned down by many an experienced top. I was a bottom first and a switch if I absolutely must, and sometimes beggars couldn’t be choosers and I was the one taking a twink home. It was… scratching an itch but never left me satisfied like a good dicking would.
So that guy. Yeah. I managed to catch his eye, exchange some fun banter, and he took me home into his amazing apartment and fucked me through the mattress. The weird thing was, all I’d ever heard about him was that he didn’t do repeats. Yet somehow I ended up waking up in his bed two mornings in a row.
It was a great weekend. We chatted about his extreme hobbies and my love of British detectives. He even managed to get me to admit my love of all things romance. For some reason, he didn’t look down on that, by the way—a miracle in itself. We also got dehydrated from all the bedroom acrobatics. It was… fun , and the sex was out of this world.
We even made plans of meeting up the next weekend, but he never called. Which… I suppose I should’ve expected. He didn’t do repeats, after all.
It sucked. The romantic in me had thought we’d made a connection.
I stopped hooking up at that point. I held everyone to a certain standard, and nobody measured up. If I needed a release, I used Grindr and I was whatever the guy wanted me to be just so I could get off with someone else on occasion.
But then my work at PS 215 got really intense when a colleague got severely ill and I had to fill in for her classes. And so I forgot about him. Or at least I tried.
I began to settle into my job as a fourth-grade teacher, and eventually it became my whole personality outside my romance addiction. I became Mr. Huntley and I settled into a partially closeted life for the time being, because our principal wasn’t very queer friendly when it came to the teachers. He was fine with kids who had queer parents or hell, even the queer kids. Now teachers though? Apparently that was too much to ask.
Couple of years later, I found myself tired of the city. I wanted something less hectic, less… I don’t even know. It was just a lot on my brain with how tricky the parents had become to manage. The kids were fine, they were mostly just children and that was nothing new, but the parents? Whoa boy.
My favorite colleague moved to South Carolina and suddenly I felt like a big, sore thumb in the teachers’ lounge. So, I put some feelers out, started to look for jobs, and I decided not to limit my search to just the state of New York.
While I was pretty close with my parents, we mostly did holidays and bi-weekly phone calls at this point, and I didn’t have siblings, so there wasn’t anyone I needed to stay in the state for.
I saw a job in a very progressive private school in California, but didn’t even apply because the cost of living was a lot. Then, this listing for a little town called Fairville in upstate New York popped up on my radar.
I don’t know what made me look into it. I felt like I’d heard about the town somewhere, but I couldn’t remember where, exactly. Either way, I applied, and I got the job.
My parents, who still lived in my hometown two hours from New York City in an eastern bend of the Hudson River, were glad I wasn’t going to move to a whole other state. I’d be farther away, but still in the same state and it would be a driving distance for them to come visit me or vice versa.
That’s how I ended up moving into the hometown of the man I’d tried to forget for a couple of years but never quite managed.
I rented a little house with pretty much the same amount I’d paid for my room in a shared apartment in Brighton Beach. I got a small house and a large backyard because of the location, and the neighbors on either side were great.
It was twenty minutes’ drive from the Fairville Academy—much less pretentious than the name made it sound. I could get everywhere quickly by driving my sedan which was roomier than it looked so I didn’t have to be folded like a… a folding chair. Look, it wasn’t easy to be as tall as me sometimes.
I fell in love with the town, the school, the people, and the fact that I didn’t have to count every penny to make sure I survived.
Eventually I got to know the ladies who bought the inn and renamed it for their dog Steve. Black Dog Inn was a haven for all the queer people, and more of them moved into town because Nic and Dana hired their friends and family.
The community they shared, a proper family, made me feel all warm and fuzzy.
When Law Caldwell moved into town and his three kids came to the Academy, I’d heard whispers in the teachers’ lounge about how well-adjusted those kids were. They were children of a divorce, but one that was so amicable they all seemed mostly happy. Then their dad began to date a younger guy in their family/friend group, and the teachers were abuzz.
I mostly rolled my eyes and sat in the corner with Tabby, the first grade teacher, who was a bit younger than me and a proud ally of the LGBTQIA+ community.
“They do know that people are bisexual, right?” she asked one day, sipping her coffee while I was scrolling on my phone.
“Wait, what ?” I gasped loudly enough for the gossipers across the room to hear. “Bisexuality is a real thing?”
Tabby almost spewed coffee out of her nose and thwacked me on the chest, hard. “Holy crap, Kellan!”
I widened my eyes at her. “What? I thought it was a myth! I’m strictly dickly myself, so how was I to know?”
The gossipy ones harrumphed and left the room to our giggles. I was pretty sure one of them would tell Susan Altmann, the principal, who would give me the mandatory “this is not proper behavior, Kellan” speech I’d gotten a few times already while working here. Then I’d remind her that those other teachers were listening in on a private conversation which would make her roll her eyes and tell me to go teach some kids.
T his year was the second year in a row when I’d be running my summer camp for the kiddos. It was a week in July where I took the kids to places to teach them about real life, and we’d have playful tests about what we’d learned, and then they’d go home for the evening and night.
Last year I had hosted it at the Fairville Community Center, but this year they were renovating it and I’d needed to get creative.
Luckily, Nic and Dana had been very much into the idea of me and the kids using the dining room at the Black Dog Inn for all our indoor needs, including lunch time. The outdoor areas, including the hiking trails, were also available, which sweetened the deal even more. It was a good deal for them, too, extra income, and I was nothing if not willing to boost a small, queer owned business.
That, naturally, led into more of the Inn family being recruited to help me out. Law, who had helped with the renovations of the cabins and did all the outdoors stuff, would be taking part. I knew he wanted to ask me if I’d take at least some of his kids in because of that.
Of course I would. Hell, I’d take all of them if I could, but I needed to check what the insurance policy covered, as we were only allowed a certain number of students. It was easier that all of them were students at the Academy.
I was a bit of a perfectionist when it came to the summer school, so I wanted to have all the information as soon as possible, even though we were still six or so weeks out. It made everything easier to plan to a point where I could feel happy with it, and knew that if those plans got wrecked for whatever little disaster that might happen, I would still be on top of it. So of course I wanted to go check out the paths for myself. Law had been making sure they were safe for the kids and Inn guests alike.
His middle child, Marlie, was my third-grade student, but I’d met the two others, too. Tristan was a firecracker at six, and Harper was eleven and such a little adult.
Marlie was likely on the spectrum—Law and his ex-wife Caitlyn had explained that to me when they’d first been transferring the kids over to Fairville—but they hadn’t put her through any testing. They were of the mind that she didn’t really need much help in her daily life other than the ability to take a break in a quiet spot if she became overwhelmed. She had a special interest—dogs, all dogs, but especially her own dog Ranger and the two that belonged to the Inn, Cricket and Steve—and on the surface that was about it.
She wasn’t always great at reading social situations, but the adults in her life, myself included while at school, were there to support her through everything.
I was certain that as soon as Law and I managed to go on this hike, there would be three kids and three dogs tagging along with us. I didn’t mind. I just needed to remember that I would still be Mr. Huntley to them even in their home environment.
Marlie had told me all about their new home, the Yellow House that was on the Inn’s property, and the hiking paths were nearby.
“Uncle Charlie went missing there once!” she had whispered at me very loudly and with wide eyes.
Her father had explained to me that yes, his brother had gone hiking alone with the dogs, but he hadn’t been missing. He’d just forgotten to take his phone. Then, once Marlie was out of earshot, he’d told me everyone had freaked out, but since those dogs were with Charlie, they’d known he’d be fine.
I had no idea what that story really was about, but I now fully believed that the Inn’s dogs were completely safe around my campers. Not that I’d doubted it, Nic and Dana didn’t seem like people who would have two very large dogs free roaming on their property if they weren’t safe.
Since Nic had time, I headed to the Inn to talk about a few details she wanted to discuss in person. Mostly it was using the space, but if I could meet Law and agree on a potential hiking day, that’d be a bonus.
As I parked at the Inn, I immediately noticed Cricket, the gigantic shepherd mix, lumbering over from the bushes lining the parking lot. Her tongue was lolling out, and she just seemed very happy to be there.
“Hey, girl,” I greeted her as soon as I got out of the car. “Were you surveying your kingdom? Queendom? Dogdom?”
She just wagged her tail and nudged my hands, then turned to walk toward the end of the parking lot where the road to the cabins and the Yellow House started.
I walked into the reception, where Nic was loving on Steve, the big black Cane Corso that was the official mascot of the inn.
“Hi!” she said brightly, getting to her feet from where she’d knelt by him.
Steve was an emotional support dog without ever having been trained for such things. I’d decided I wanted to be his friend in case I needed his services. Or hell, if any of my campers would.
I went to pet him, and he thumped his tail in an almost regal “well, I suppose this pleases me, peasant” kind of way.
“So, the dining room?” Nic asked, smiling.
I gave Steve another pat on his massive head, straightened my back, then immediately winced.
“I really need to find a massage therapist,” I murmured, for not even the fifth time. I kept putting it all off and suffered the consequences.
Nic frowned. “I wish I knew someone. If you find someone who massages both tiny and extra tall, let me know.”
We chuckled as we walked into the dining room.
I glanced over at a table in the back and wouldn’t you know it, there was Felix with Charlie and Oak. I ignored them, because Nic was talking to me.
“Yeah, I think four kids per table would be enough space for them to do whatever crafts we do on craft days as well,” I answered the question I’d almost missed.
“Great! And Dana needs those dietary restriction forms two weeks before the start date; I told you that, right?”
I grinned. “Only twice so far.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Sorry, I’m just getting excited about this thing.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I assured her. It was certainly better than the reception I’d get in most places. Not everyone could deal with a group of loud kids in their place of business for a week, after all.
Nic’s phone rang, so I nodded toward the guys to signal she could find me there after her call.
I walked over and Charlie smiled immediately. “Hi, Kellan,” he said and gestured at the empty chair between him and Felix. “Sit down while you wait for her?”
Ignoring Felix, as much as I wanted to do anything but, I sat down and looked at Oak. “Hey, do you know where your guy is today?”
Oak beamed. “Yeah, he took the kids to Sugar Rush and the library. Probably not in that order, because frosting.”
I chuckled. “Smart. I need to figure out a time with him for us to go check on the hiking trails; that’s all. But I have his number so I might as well call him.”
“Yeah, we actually talked about that. We could all go one weekend whenever you want? I want to get out there too.”
“Of course. The more the merrier.” Well, not really, but it wasn’t like Oak coming along would do anything but maybe keep the kids occupied while Law and I talked hiking route business.
Felix shifted next to me. The movement was like a magnet to the side of me that was still hooked on the man after all these years.
I looked at him. “You okay? A bad pain day?” I made an educated guess.
The emotions that flashed through his face then went by too fast for me to read. He settled into a slight snarl and opened his mouth to say something I no doubt wouldn’t like to hear, but Dana called out from the kitchen door to save the day.
“Hey, Kellan? Can you come over here for a bit?”
I stood up. “Yup, be right there.”
She retreated back into the kitchen through the swinging door.
I looked at Oak. “Whichever weekend probably works. A Sunday would be ideal,” I told him.
“What, you got hot dates on Friday nights and need Saturdays to recover?” he immediately teased me.
Felix snorted but said nothing. Charlie just sat there with his cup of coffee and tried to read the situation. Smart man.
“Hey, who knows?” I replied, then winked at Oak.
“I’ll tell Law to call you once we check the calendar,” he promised.
“Works for me.” I gave him and Charlie the two-finger wave and ignored the grump as best as I could. It wasn’t very successful. Mostly because his emotions practically rolled off him in waves. That was one of the things I had enjoyed about him during that one glorious weekend; that he didn’t hide from me, or maybe he just couldn’t.
I just wished those big feelings of his were less negative when aimed my way.