Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
God, Bohdi smelled so good his mouth watered, and River’s cock rose hard and fast. Honestly, this guy was like a Christmas gift, falling into his lap.
In fact, he could totally see having a little vacay romantic vibe with this guy. Sandy blond hair in a shaggy extreme sports kind of cut fell over Bohdi’s forehead and into his eyes. It looked sun-bleached on top and darker underneath, and that was a pretty picture.
Shockingly green eyes fringed with dark gold lashes took in everything with the sort of wide eyed panic.
Bohdi had an athletic body, not exactly tall but not tiny and definitely a little stocky and corded with muscle.
It was as if he was designed to snowboard or surf or something like that.
His center of gravity would be low to the ground so that he could balance on small things.
In fact, he was just River’s type, and River wasn’t sure he wanted to go down to the office and work all of this out. They could totally share a bed. Of course, knowing his luck, Bohdi was straight.
Sighing, he opened the door to the cabin and stopped on a dime before he tripped over the stuff that was sitting on the stoop.
“What the hell is all of that?” Bodie asked.
“Um, it looks like gift baskets. Two of them, to be exact.” Wrapped in cellophane, too, which was good because it was snowing pretty hard now, and there was about a quarter of an inch dusting each basket’s little tied off top and bow.
“Are you having birthday or something?”
“Nope.” He bent down to pick up the note that was attached to one of the baskets. It was folded cardboard, so the snow hadn’t managed to make the neat blog printing disappear yet.
It read:
Dear Mr. Almeida,
So this one was for him.
We’re terribly sorry for the inconvenience of double booking your cabin.
Unfortunately, the front desk staff has been called away due to a family emergency, and the manager is out of town for the Christmas holiday.
When the front desk staff returns, the lodge will be perfectly happy to make things right.
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy your stay and please accept this gift basket as a token of our apology. Sincerely, Branson, Front Desk Staff.
He read it out loud to Bohdi, who blinked at him, and the panic seeming to rise as evidenced by the pink stain on his cheeks and the set of his lips, which became mutinous and obstinate.
“What the fuck does that even mean? Does it mean there’s not gonna be another cabin? I mean, we’re stuck here together? On Christmas Eve? I’ll just go sleep in my car or something.”
River grabbed the note from the other gift basket. The wording read exactly the same, except he assumed it was addressed to Bohdi, because the last name on it was Depford.
“Look, don’t be hasty.” He picked up a gift basket, finding it surprisingly heavy. “Get that other one and bring it back inside, and we’ll sit down and talk about it.”
“What is there to talk about? They double booked the cabin, and now they’re telling us they can’t do anything about it.
A family emergency, my ass.” Bohdi did grab the other basket, though and then slammed the door behind them striding into the little living room of the cabin and putting the gift basket down on the coffee table before he started to pace.
“So, the least we can do is see what’s in the baskets, I guess.” River plopped down on the couch.
Bohdi whirled on him, throwing his hands up in the air, his expression incredulous.
“Really, that’s the best you can do? Look I came here to get away from people.
My family drives me crazy at this time of year, and I just wanted a freaking vacation, and now I’m stuck here with you, who I don’t know, and the most inept desk worker in the history of the world.
I don’t even know if they’re going to have food now because there’s nobody working at the front desk!
Does that mean the kitchen staff is gone too?
Are we here by ourselves in the middle of nowhere?
Is this like a serial killer situation?”
River simply watched him rant a little bit.
It was good to get that kind of thing out of your system.
He wasn’t really the panicky type, but then again what did he have to do except sit around and read a book and then go swimming in his other form?
That was why he wanted the creek. Otter shifters liked to swim.
He wondered what kind of shifter Bohdi was, because he smelled really damn good. Which led River to wonder if maybe he wasn’t another otter, because a lot of times he found other shifters sort of gamey smelling.
“Hey, I’m not sure what you want me to do. They basically told us nobody’s going to be at the front desk before tomorrow, at the earliest, so I can sleep on the couch if I need to. It’s not bad.” He patted the cushion next to him.
“You’ve already slept in the bed.”
“Yeah, but I took a shower right before I did. It’s not like I was skanky or anything.” He smiled, hoping his expression won Bohdi over some. “I’m here to get away from my family, too, so we have that in common at least.”
Bohdi gave him a stony stare. “I would imagine everyone is here to get away from their families. I didn’t see any kids, so it doesn’t look like a destination for the Disney crowd.”
“Dude, there’s not even a playground,” River agreed. “I think it’s mostly single folks.” He tilted his head. “Maybe it is kind of a serial killer situation, like Camp Sleep-away or whatever.”
“Great. Just great.” Bohdi threw himself down in the armchair across from the couch, which didn’t look quite as comfortable as the cushion he was sitting on. “What’s in the basket?” he asked, enunciating every word like a twelve-year-old who was pissed off at his dad.
Biting back a snort, River untied the bow on his basket and pulled the cellophane down to flatten it out on the table. “Let’s see.” He started tugging out items out one by one. “Hmm, well we have some sardines, some mussels, and some clams. Canned of course.”
Bohdi scoffed. “That sounds nasty.”
“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.” He loved canned clams. He didn’t have to break them open, which was awesome.
The mussels were pretty good too, but those had to go on a cracker or something.
Maybe a piece of bread. “Baguette.” That was nice.
It was crispy, and it didn’t look stale at all, so mussels on bread.
“There’s truffles, and not the mushroom kind.
There’s some fruit.” That was okay; he would eat fruit, but he really preferred seafood and meat.
“Is that, like, charcuterie?” Bodhi pointed to a stick of salami that was standing up in the basket.
“Looks like it. And there’s some cheese, too. Ooh.” He pulled out a bottle of wine. “Now this is nice.” He was familiar with the vintage, and it wasn’t like an eighty dollar a bottle wine, but it wasn’t twelve dollars a bottle wine either, so that was pretty good.
Bohdi blinked. “I’m not much of a wine guy.”
“Have you tried it?” he asked. River got it. He liked beer, himself but Dad was Brazilian, and the old man had grown up on a farm that had a small vineyard attached to it, so River knew his wine.
“Not really, no. I mean, I’ve had some cheap wine.” Bohdi wrinkled his nose, which was so damn cute it made his heart clench. Wow. This guy was really doing it for him.
“We’ll have to have a glass then.” River held the bottle up, looking at the neat label. He loved it. Packaging was like a passion of his; he could totally do marketing if he put his mind to it, he thought.
“Sure, I mean what else are we gonna do? It’s snowing, and there’s nobody here working at the lodge.”
River scoffed. There was no way this place was going to be completely deserted.
It was just that Branson guy at the front desk trying not to have to deal with them.
But that was all right because it suited his purposes too.
He’d decided he wanted to get to know this guy because he was adorable, seriously available since they were stuck in the same room, and he smelled like a fellow shifter.
“Well, were you hungry now?” He kind of figured Bohdi might be since he had just shown up. He didn’t know how far the guy had had to drive to get here, but heck, his own belly was rumbling at this point, so River was like, why not?
“Uh, I guess?” Bohdi struggled with an elaborate sort of casualness. “I guess I could be hungry. It was a long trip.”
“Cool, why don’t you get the fire going? I think it’s a gas log. They don’t want us to burn the place down I guess. I’ll lay out charcuterie.”
“Did they send any of the cookies? They were putting out the cookies when I first checked in. I didn’t think to grab any.”
River dug through the basket, finding a little wrapped package of warm goodness. “They did send cookies.” He opened up the paper. “It looks like there’s chocolate chip and white chocolate macadamia.”
“That’s something at least.” Bohdi grinned, making him blink with how sweet that smile was. “I will fight you for the white chocolate macadamia.”
River waved a hand in the air, the one not holding the wine. “No fighting required, man. I’ll just eat whatever you don’t.”
“That’s decent of you.” Bohdi wandered over the fireplace. “It does look like a gas log. I guess maybe that way nobody has to chop wood or order it in or whatever.”
“Yeah, I imagine that’s true. I’m not sure how much effort a certain desk clerk would be willing to put in.”
“Right?” But Bohdi laughed, kinda unbending for the first time since River had met him. “What a messed-up situation.”
The gas log flared to life, and then Bohdi turned it down a little bit, so it was just enough to warm the room to a toasty degree.
“Really nice.” River watched it for a minute before turning back to the basket and pulling things out.
There was a little platter in the bottom that he had a feeling was meant to arrange food on, so he started doing his thing, making it as artistic as possible.
He was trying to entice Bohdi, after all.
Bohdi wandered over to plop himself in the chair across the way again. “So do you really think they intend for both of us to sleep here?”
River fought not to roll his eyes, going for looking sympathetic instead. He hoped. “I would imagine everything is booked up, and he doesn’t have anywhere else to put us, but he doesn’t want to lose business.”
“I can see that.” Bohdi tilted his head to one side. “How did you make your reservation?”
“Online. What about you?”
“Same way.” Bohdi watched his fingers move as if he was fascinated by the meat and cheese and weird little packets of seafood going down on the tray, but River got the feeling that was to keep from looking at him.
“I mean it was through a third party, not direct through their website, so maybe that’s how the double booking happened. ”
“That makes sense.” He finished laying out the little tin of oysters that he found hidden under the tray. “Voila. All set.”
“There’s even little toothpicks, huh?” Bohdi took a cookie and broke it in half, eating that in one bite. The motion was like a little kid stuffing something yummy into his mouth because he didn’t want to share it.
“That’ll come in handy. This way we don’t have to touch everything with our fingers, just in case you’re squeamish.
” River like to eat with his hands. It brought his otter side to the forefront.
He uncorked the wine with the corkscrew that had been provided in the basket, letting it sit for a minute.
“You’re not gonna pour?” Bohdi asked around the cookie.
“It needs to breathe.”
“It needs to what?” Bohdi’s brows drew down.
“Red wine, when you uncork the bottle, needs to sit for a few minutes to breathe. I guess it lets the structure of it all open up again, and then makes it taste better. Something about the tannins. I don’t know. My dad was big on wine; he grew up on a farm that had a vineyard.”
“Oh, wow, that’s cool. So, uh, why aren’t you with your folks for Christmas?” Bohdi was picking his pants leg as if he had lint on it, not meeting his eyes still.
“Because they drive me crazy. I didn’t want to listen to, ‘You’re the only one who’s not married yet. River, why don’t you get married and have babies?’”
“Oh my God.” Bohdi glanced up and met his eyes finally. “Me too. My mom makes me insane. She’s constantly poking me about finding someone and settling down.”
“Yeah, as if it would be that easy to find a mate, but you know, there’s so much to consider, right? Like are we compatible. If we’re gonna have kids it kind of means that we have to be the same kind of creature you know?”
Now Bohdi’s frown was back, and his cheeks were stained pink. “Um, is that like a euphemism of some kind? What does that mean to you? A creature?”
River frowned, too, busying himself with setting out the wine glasses so he could pour.
Maybe he had misread the situation or maybe Bohdi didn’t like to just admit to anybody that he was a shifter.
River thought for sure this was a shifter holiday situation from the way it had been described on the website, but maybe not.
Or maybe the guy was in the closet in more ways than one.
“Hey, you know, just a figure of speech.” He tried not to fumble on that because he hoped Bodie would come around to talking about it in his own time. One way or the other he wasn’t gonna push the guy to tell him anything he wasn’t ready to.
“Right, right, a figure of speech. Creatures. Are you some kind of a furry?”
That had River laughing. “Not in the way you mean, I don’t think, but oyster?” He held out a toothpick with an oyster on it trying to recover from that question.
“Sure, I’ll try one.”
They tucked into the charcuterie, and River decided to let it go for now. They had a lot of time to get to know each other, he figured.
They could tackle the weird and wooly stuff later on if they needed to. He was just going to enjoy this pretty man for now.