17. Ford
Ford
A few days after the best sex of my life—and seriously, it really was—Dylan and I were settling into a new rhythm as a couple.
My early morning workouts had shifted to late morning ones because staying tangled in the sheets with Dylan was an irresistible indulgence.
It was an adjustment, but the undeniable upside was more snuggle time, and as a bonus, the rising heat of the late morning sun meant my workouts were now hotter and, consequently, harder.
I had been chasing new ways to push my body to its limits my whole life, so the change was worth it. Plus, I loved the feeling of working up a sweat.
Each day, by the time I returned to the cabin, I was a glorious mess—hair plastered to my forehead, sweat dripping down my bare torso, smelling undeniably ripe .
I knew better than to bring my shoes and socks inside, so I’d leave them on the porch.
On the way through the kitchen, Dylan, ever the pragmatist, would just grin, lean in for a quick, teensy kiss that barely grazed my lips, and then point me firmly towards the shower.
“Sex sweat good, run sweat bad.”
“If you say so.” I always made sure to pull off my shorts and jock before heading upstairs so he could groan at the sight of my ass.
“Nice try, but I like the results, but not the aroma.”
There was just one small, increasingly irritating, problem: my organic almonds. Every morning before my workout, I'd come downstairs to find the bag open on the counter, a few missing. Dylan swore it wasn't him.
“Are you sleep-eating?" I asked him one morning, gesturing to the half-eaten bag.
"I told you, it's not me," he replied, stifling a yawn. "Maybe it's rats?"
"God, I hope not," I muttered, shuddering at the thought.
“Well, something’s obviously eating them,” Dylan said.
A few days later, after I'd deliberately shoved the almonds deep into a cabinet, I found them pulled out and spilled onto the kitchen floor, the bag gnawed open. This was getting ridiculous.
“We can go get some glass containers with lids that snap closed,” Dylan suggested.
“I’m not doing that.”
“Suit yourself.” Dylan waved his hand, as if dismissing me.
Later that night, around two in the morning, I decided to play detective.
“Where you going?” Dylan mumbled as I extricated myself from big spoon duties.
“The kitchen.”
“Bit late for a snack.”
“I’m checking on the almonds.”
Dylan groaned and threw the covers over his face as he turned away. I snuck down the stairs as quietly as I could, phone in hand, ready to confront my almond thief. After flipping on the kitchen light, I had my answer.
Squirrels.
Two of them. Perched brazenly on my counter, their bushy little tails puffed into the air in triumph. They froze, unsure what to do. One of them had an almond stuffed in his mouth and the other was looking at me.
I let out a yell, lunging forward, waving my arms like one of those inflatable tube men at a car dealer. The squirrels shrieked, scattering across the counter, knocking over a coffee mug as they scrambled for cover. They darted around me and disappeared into the darkness of the hallway.
“Damn it,” I muttered, embarrassed that my heart was pounding. I should’ve thought to open the door to shoo them out. Clearly, rodent wrangling was not my specialty. I tiptoed into the darkened hall, trying to listen for squirrel noises, but they had disappeared.
The mystery was solved, but the problem remained. And they were settling in.
Over the next few days, I found almonds in my running shoes, behind the toilet in Dylan’s old bathroom, and in the couch cushions.
“It’s a miracle they aren’t shitting all over the place,” Dylan observed.
“I don’t even want to think about that right now.”
But a few nights later, the tell-tale scratching above our heads made it clear their main residence was the attic.
“How’d they even get in here?” I asked Dylan.
“The squirrels? Probably because we had a giant hole in our roof for a few weeks.”
“I put the tarp up that night.”
“And the squirrels squeezed their way in.”
Ugh.
The next few days were spent in a futile battle against the fuzzy little squatters.
I tried setting humane traps, but they were either completely ignored, or sprung without catching anything.
An old boombox blasting classic rock only served to annoy Dylan, and, to be honest, myself.
After an hour, I got sick of it and turned it off.
I even tried leaving the kitchen window open one evening, hoping they’d find their way out, but that only resulted in a raccoon visiting us for a rather alarming staring contest after dinner.
“I like raccoons and all, and at first I thought this obsession was kind of cute, but it’s affecting our sex life,” Dylan said.
“I’m aware of that.” I leaned onto the table, head down, trying to figure out what to do next. The almonds were almost gone, and I was afraid of what they’d go for next. “Do you have any bright ideas?” I asked, looking over at him.
Dylan’s smile widened. "About time you asked for my help. Time to get rid of these freeloaders. No one touches your nuts but me." He vanished into the dark with a flashlight.
“Where are you going?” I called out.
“The shed.”
In a few minutes, he returned with…a flexible plumbing snake used for clearing drains, and duct tape.
“Really?”
“It’s not finished.”
“How did you even know we had that stuff?”
“Everyone has duct tape, and I just looked around at what was out there. I haven’t even started yet, cool your jets.”
Dylan's solution to the squirrel problem involved a surprisingly clever, and uniquely Dylan approach.
I watched him grab the scissors from the drawer and cut part of the bottom of a plastic two-liter bottle off.
He fed the end of the snake into the spout of the bottle and taped it securely.
Next, he dabbed a few dollops of peanut butter inside the bottle, and after receiving a few of my precious almonds from me, he smushed them into the peanut butter.
“I give you, Operation Nut-Bait," he announced with a flourish.
“There’s no way this will work,” I said, pushing my chair back.
“If it works, you have to fuck me senseless like you did last week.”
“If it doesn’t work, I’m still going to fuck you senseless.”
Dylan shrugged. “Works for me.”
His plan was to use the snake device to maneuver the tempting container right into the squirrels' alleged hiding spot in the attic, lure them inside, then quickly pull it back out and take the entire contraption outdoors where they would escape.
It seemed absurdly impossible, yet, knowing Dylan, it was probably going to work.
As ridiculous as Operation Nut-Bait sounded, I was willing to try anything after my week of failure. When he insisted I act as his assistant, handing me the flashlight, I didn’t object. I followed him up the stairs to the landing outside of our bedroom.
“Close the door,” he said.
After opening the attic hatch, he shoved the device, plastic container first, through the opening, and used the rigidity of the snake to push it farther into the darkness. The scratching sounds from earlier had stopped.
"Maybe they're watching?" he whispered.
Yeah, right. I held the flashlight steady as Dylan finished feeding it into the attic.
“Now, we wait,” he said, his face practically glowing. Even if this didn’t work, it was clear I should’ve asked him for help sooner.
Minutes crawled by, punctuated only by the occasional gust of wind. I could hear Dylan’s soft breathing, and the frantic beat of my own heart.
I wasn’t patient. I was about to suggest we give up, then I heard it. Dylan did too. A faint crinkle, like plastic being bent. Then another, followed by a flurry of scratching.
“Got ‘em!” Dylan yelled, a triumphant grin.
“Pull it!” I yelled, way more excited than I had any right to be.
He began to pull the snake back, slowly at first, then with increasing speed as the noises grew more frantic. The bottle came into view and sure as shit, there was a squirrel inside.
“I did it!” Dylan screamed.
“Get it out of the fucking house!”
He pushed past me, running down the stairs. “I didn’t think of this part!”
“Don’t let it climb out of the bottle!” I chased after him. The last thing we needed was an angry squirrel rampage.
“How?!”
“Just run faster and move the bottle around a little.”
“I’m not going to shake the poor thing,” he yelled over his shoulder.
But it didn’t matter. In another few seconds, he was out of the house and the device was on the ground. Since the frenetic movement had stopped, the squirrel figured his way out pretty quickly, though it was covered in peanut butter. More importantly, however, it was no longer in the cabin.
“One down, one to go,” Dylan said.
“The other one isn’t going to be that easy.”
We climbed the steps to the porch and before we could even get inside, another squirrel ran out the door, in between us, and down the stairs. We both turned to watch the reunion.
“Aww, he missed his little friend,” Dylan said, clasping his hands in front of his chest.
“I think he was probably more like ‘I need to get the fuck out of here!’”
“Regardless,” Dylan turned towards the house, an extra swish in his step, “ that is how you deal with that.”
“Thank you, O wise squirrel whisperer.” I wrapped my arms around him from behind and squeezed. We made a good team, even if it was just a minor annoyance—that annoyed me for an entire week.
“I can’t blame them though,” Dylan said.
“Why is that?”
“Those little thieves had excellent taste in nuts,” Dylan answered, sliding his hand in between us to grab my junk. “I might need a taste right now.”
I groaned as he started to fondle me. “They’re all yours.”
"When did you know I was gay?" Dylan asked, his voice cutting through the gentle lapping of water against the shore.
Without thinking, I answered, "I think a part of me has always known.”
"You can't say things like that," Dylan said.
I could hear it in his voice. I knew I’d messed up.