Chapter 6
NATHAN
I pace the house for a few minutes, checking the back window every once in a while to make sure Eli is safe. He’s currently taking shelter from the snow under the firewood shed and looking up at the sky. His tears have dried, thankfully, but I can tell from his posture that he’s still upset.
I want to go out there and trade places with him, but I also don’t want him to think I’m trying to treat him like a kid again. I swipe a hand through my hair.
There’s no winning in this situation, so I focus on the one thing I can. I pull out my phone and start calling towing companies again.
The first place I try is a bust. Apparently, there was a mini avalanche from a nearby mountain range that blocked one of the nearby main roads. Thankfully, nobody got hurt, but some cars were stuck in the crossfire.
I hang up and look online to see if there are any companies I haven’t called yet. There aren’t. My only option is to try the ones from earlier again.
I call the one located closest to us. The dial tone rings a few times before the call drops. I pull my phone away to look at it. It shows I have no service.
“That’s weird,” I mutter and walk around the cabin trying to find a bar. I lift the phone high above my head in hopes that it’ll connect back online. A second later, the cabin lights flicker, and the space heater abruptly shuts off.
“Fuck,” I curse and head to see if the breaker tripped. Nothing looks out of the ordinary, so I turn off the power for the lights, unplug the space heater, and try resetting the power. The lights don’t work when I try them again, and resetting the breaker is the extent of my electrical knowledge.
I curse again and try raising my phone again, hoping to find a signal—even one bar will do—but my prayers go unanswered. The storm must have taken out the power and phone lines in the area.
Eli is not going to be happy when he finds out that we don’t have any power. The space heater didn’t even have time to fully warm up. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the lines will get fixed before he comes back inside?
Just as I think that, a loud, blood-screeching scream comes from the backyard. I don’t think. I just run to the back door. I scan the entire yard, but Eli’s not under the firewood shed anymore. He’s nowhere in sight.
Thick layers of snow cover my view of the giant lake situated downhill of the cabin, but I don’t see any footprints leading down there, so I don’t even think to check.
Eli’s wearing shoes that aren’t suited for the snow, so I doubt he’d trek down to the lake.
I look toward the forest on either side of the cabin, but I don’t see any footprints there either.
The snow is coming down so hard now that even my tracks are quickly being covered.
“Eli!” I shout, unsure which direction to search for him. Blood is rushing through my veins as every horrible scenario goes through my head.
I shouldn’t have left him out here alone in the snow. I should have forced him back inside, even if it made him hate me even more.
I should have gotten on my knees and apologized.
Hopefully, it’s not too late to make up for my last regret. I just need to make sure he’s safe first.
I go around the cabin, thinking he’d made his way to the front, but I still don’t catch sight of him.
“Eli, where are you!” I shout again. My heart thuds harder as the seconds pass, and I’m still unable to find him. “Eli!”
This time, he replies. “Over here!”
I follow his voice back around to the rear and find him dragging himself toward the cabin. He’s completely soaked from head to toe. His arms are crossed over his chest. He’s shivering so hard he looks like he’s vibrating. His teeth chattering loudly accompanies the roaring wind.
“Shit, what happened?” I ask, sprinting to his side. His being wet doesn’t even cross my mind as I wrap my arm around his shoulders and guide him inside. He doesn’t fight me, and that’s how I know this is serious.
“I-I slipped and fell into the lake,” he says, teeth still chattering. His hair is dripping ice water onto his cheeks, and his drenched clothes are already forming a puddle by his feet.
“What were you even doing down there? Did you forget your shoes have no grip whatsoever?”
I ignore the daggers he shoots my way at my nagging. Honestly, I’m grateful that he’s doing well enough to glare at me.
He’s silent and still shivering, so I unzip his coat, pull it off him, and drop it to the floor. I reach for the hem of his sweater next. My fingers graze his stomach, and he’s chilled to the bone.
“W-what are you doing?” Eli squeaks when I try to tug his sweater over his shoulders. He’s resisting me. His arms flail in the air in an effort to keep his wet clothes on.
“Undressing you,” I say matter-of-factly. I don’t get why he’s fighting. I’m sure his clothes are uncomfortable. “You need to get out of these freezing wet clothes.”
“I can do it myself,” he grumbles, then turns around so that his back is facing me. He’s quick to throw the sweater over his head and drop it. It lands in a soggy pile on top of his winter jacket.
I tell myself not to look—it’s obvious that he doesn’t want me looking since he turned his back to me—but I find my eyes wandering to him. I can’t help the scowl that forms at how thin he is. There’s barely any meat on him. That, along with his pale skin, makes him seem almost flimsy.
My eyes follow the lingering water droplets trickling down his back. My breath hitches at how it traces the sensual muscles underneath his skin that tell me he isn’t as frail as he looks, and disappears into a back dimple.
The way my heart’s pounding hard against my chest confuses me, so I look away. I’ve seen countless naked men before. It’s kind of inevitable in dressing rooms…but this is the first time I want to see more, to peel off the rest of Eli’s clothes so I can look my fill.
That’s a lie. It’s not the first time. And that’s what makes this so much worse.
I force myself to stare at the floor instead of focusing on how Eli’s jeans are plastered to his legs. Or how low they hang on his hips. So low I can make out the band of his underwear peeking out. It’s black, by the way, and the sexy color might be my fucking undoing.
“Can you get me, like, a blanket or something?” Eli suddenly murmurs, almost shyly.
“Shit, yeah, of course,” I reply, kicking myself for not doing that in the first place instead of ogling the man.
He must be freezing. I slip off my jacket, and the cold air immediately has me shivering in my sweater. I can only imagine how cold Eli is.
“Wear this for now,” I say and drape my jacket over his shoulders.
He jolts when the fabric lands on him, like he isn’t expecting me to be so close. He peeks back at me and murmurs, “Thanks.” His face is turning pink, but I don’t know if that’s from his being embarrassed or cold.
I quickly step back before I get the crazy urge to pull him into my arms to warm him up.
“I’ll look for some spare clothes,” I say over my shoulder and quickly make my escape upstairs. My heart is still pounding in my ears, but it’s less distracting now that Eli isn’t in my line of sight.
A lot of things are easier when he’s not near me.
I can do without him glaring at me and bitching in my ear, for one.
But more importantly, I don’t have to face these strange feelings he makes well up inside of me.
It’s been this way since the start of our budding friendship.
Or at least, what was our budding friendship before my friends fucked it up for me.
I hate how they took one look at him and labeled him as ‘the gay kid.’ Even worse is that Eli hadn’t even realized he was gay at that point. But the most fucked up part of this was that I didn’t stand up for him.
I swipe a hand through my hair and sigh.
There’s no point in dwelling on the past. I refocus on the matter at hand and search through the bedrooms for something warm for Eli to wear.
My uncle’s closet is depressingly empty.
Not to mention that winter clothes and all his winter garb are gone, too.
He isn’t the type to have a big wardrobe, so it makes sense that he takes his clothes with him when he travels and leaves his winter outfits at his primary residence.
There are no towels either, but thankfully, the blankets and bedding are still here. I grab the thickest ones I can find and trudge back down the stairs.
Eli has my jacket zipped up to his neck, but he’s still shivering like a scared kitten. He crawled onto the couch and bundled himself into a ball. His soaked shoes and the rest of his clothes still lay in a pile on the floor.
“Why isn’t the space heater on?” he asks when he sees me, teeth chattering loudly.
“The power’s out,” I say simply.
“Isn’t that just perfect?”
His grumbling makes me smile, but my expression quickly falls when he sneezes loud enough to echo inside the entire cabin.
“Shit, you’re freezing,” I say as I place a hand on his forehead. He’s chilled to the bone. It doesn’t help that his hair is still dripping wet.
“I’m fine,” Eli grumbles and dodges my hand. “Or I will be once I’m dried off.”
“I couldn’t find any clothes, but these thick blankets should help. My jacket’s damp, so use this to cover yourself instead,” I say and hold out the thick gray blanket I found.
Eli’s hands tremble as he unzips the jacket. I hold myself back from trying to help him because I know that will only irritate him further.
He stops when the zipper lands at his stomach, glances at me, then turns his back to me again.
I probably shouldn’t find his shyness so adorable, but I can’t stop the corners of my mouth from tilting up.
It immediately drops when I see that he’s still wearing his black briefs.
I ignore the droolworthy way they cup his ass cheeks and frown at the wet article of clothing.
“Why are you still wearing that? It’s soaking wet, and I’m sure making you even more cold,” I say and take a step forward. I drop the blankets onto the couch, then reach out to pinch the waistband of his briefs. As expected, his briefs are freezing cold.
“What are you doing?” Eli squeaks and twists out of my reach. He’s facing me now with his arms crossed over his chest like he’s trying to keep his modesty.
I frown.
“Take it off. You’re cold enough as it is. Do you want your dick to freeze and fall off?”
He blanches at my choice of words but doesn’t make a move.
“I’m fine,” he insists instead.
A frustrated noise leaves me. His stubbornness is going to be the death of me.
“Take it off,” I tell him again. “What’s there to be shy about? It’s not like what you have down there is anything special. In fact, I know it’s not as impressive as mine.”
If there’s one thing I know about Eli, it’s that he hates it when I offer my help. He responds better when I goad him, like he has something to prove to me. He doesn’t have anything to prove, but that doesn’t mean I won’t use this to my advantage.
I cross my arms and smirk at him. “You don’t have to be self-conscious about your size, you know. I get it. You have a small frame, so it’s only natural that your dick’s proportional to the rest of you.”
Eli’s turning pinker the more I speak. If he didn’t hate me to his core already, I’m sure this will do it. But hey, at least working him up seems to be warming him up, too.
“Fuck you, asshole,” he spits out. He’s shaking, either from the cold or from how pissed he is.
“I don’t see you denying it,” I say with a quirk of my lips. I make a show of looking down his body as if blatantly staring at his privates. “Too scared to prove me wrong? How about I strip first? What’s a little friendly dick comparing between friends?”
I don’t wait for him to answer as I pull my sweater over my head. My hand’s at the button of my jeans when Eli finally reacts.
“I don’t have assholes for friends,” he says with a sneer. “And I don’t have anything to be self-conscious about.”
His eyes are stubbornly locked with mine as he pulls down his briefs and kicks them off. He confidently stands there with his arms crossed and an expression that says, ‘See?’
I glance down his body and try to keep my features neutral. It’s hard to ignore my thrumming pulse or the heat pooling in my stomach at the sight of his dick. It’s nestled in coarse, dark hair, and that must be why it looks pink from here.
As he said, his size is nothing to be concerned about. Even soft, he’s long, though he isn’t as thick as I am. It’s nothing like mine, in fact. And that has to be why it intrigues me so much.
It has to be.