Chapter 12 Seth
TWELVE
Seth
He pulled a sleek black car in front of the dormitory building, chains on the wheels leaving a pattern in the one inch of fresh snow that covered the street.
Damon hopped out wearing an elegant black coat and a brown silk scarf, walking around the car to open the door to the back for my duffel and the front door for me.
“And they say chivalry is dead,” I said, sitting into a warmed-up passenger seat and buckling my seat belt.
Damon walked around casually and hopped inside, strapping in before leaning close to me and kissing me on the lips. That was what husbands did, right? They greeted each other with kisses without even noticing they were doing it.
Fuck my life. We were as married as we could be without Nick committing a crime.
He had gone home sulkily after I’d spilled a story about a ton of work I had to do at the lab.
I tossed out some terminology that Nick couldn’t care less about, some science lingo that bored him, and he rolled his eyes, surrendering.
“I get it,” he’d said. “But tell that to Mom and Dad when they leave an empty seat at the Christmas table.”
It would be a lie to say those words hadn’t hurt. What the hell was I doing, driving away with my hookup instead of joining my family for the holidays? Yet as Damon drove away, “Far from Any Road” playing from the speakers, I couldn’t get myself to feel any remorse.
“I love this song,” I said, dialing up the volume a little.
Damon shot me a glance full of warmth, like melting chocolate, before leaving the campus and driving down the street. “It’s a long drive,” he said. “And the snow’s falling just a little more than I was hoping.”
“You were hoping for a clear, sunny day,” I pointed out.
Damon nodded. “Yeah. So, tiny difference, eh?” His right hand fell into my lap, searching for my hand. I gave it to him without thinking. “I’m a good driver, though,” he assured me.
“I don’t doubt you.”
“That makes one of us,” he said. When he laughed, a little bit of that residual anxiety lifted.
The car was hot, and so was the coffee in Damon’s thermos. I was tasked with pouring cups of coffee for us and managing the snack flow as we drove north toward Clear Lake State Park. Not far from it was a private ranch with log cabins and a mix of rustic vibes and contemporary comforts.
Damon drove slowly, chatting about the trip to Chicago last week when the Titans played against the Steel Saints. “And you better believe they didn’t forget about last,” he said, bragging about the two years of victories.
“Wasn’t it the other way around for a few years before that?” I asked.
Damon shot me a killing glance. “We don’t speak about that.”
“Oh?” I bit my smile back.
“But Griffin and Andrei are now friends with the Saints’ captain and his boyfriend, apparently, so they betrayed us and built a bridge there. Traitors.”
“How dare they?” I cried.
“You get it,” Damon said proudly, then laughed.
Jeremy Messersmith’s “Love You to Pieces came on, and I sank a little lower in my seat. The particular brand of hopefulness and overwhelming melancholy of the song strangled me. We were creating an unforgettable memory with this trip. They would stay with me long after this thing flickered out of existence, as it eventually had to. I wouldn’t fool myself into thinking we’d keep doing this into our eighties and nineties, though it had crossed my mind.
I imagined a porch with a little flower and herb garden, and two chairs, and a pitcher of iced tea, and Damon’s wrinkled hand covering mine on the table between us.
And then I’d rushed into the bathroom to wash my face because the tears had unexpectedly flooded me.
No, that was never going to happen. But Clear Lake would happen in an hour or so, and I would have it for the rest of my life. I would have the scent of coffee and the sound of music and the warmth of the car and Damon’s wicked, rumbling laughter all to myself for the rest of time.
There weren’t many travelers on the road we took. Snow came and went in flurries, fields covered in an undisturbed blanket of whiteness, smoke rising from distant chimneys.
I looked at Damon, his profile sharp, his cheekbones high, and his lips defined like he was a marble statue come to life.
His eyebrows were flat above his eyes, gaze focused on the road, face flushed with the heat inside the car.
He was so devastatingly pretty that it physically hurt.
I wondered if a good doctor could diagnose this pain.
“He was beautiful, Doctor, and I looked at him for too long.”
My heart gave a quiet, aching throb, and I forced my gaze back to the road. We came around a bend, and Damon soon got off the highway. “Almost there,” he said. “I hope you brought your cards.”
“I sure did,” I said, warmth filling my chest maddeningly fast.
Music switched to Tom Odell’s “Another Love,” which felt a bit too on the nose, and I had to look out the window to blink away the sting in my eyes. “You have the same taste in music as my fifteen-year-old cousin. She also likes boys.”
Damon laughed out loud and dialed up the volume, singing along. “You can pretend you don’t like it,” he said after singing a verse. “But I saw you mouthing the lyrics three times already.”
“Yeah, well, if you can’t beat them, sleep with them,” I said.
“You’re most welcome to do just that,” Damon said. “We have four nights and no other entertainment.”
It was a detox trip of sorts. We had our phones with us and an alright connection, but the idea was to be available for emergencies only, and to surrender to the wilderness of the area and the warmth of the fire.
It was another thirty minutes before we checked in to our cabin, and Damon left the car in a garage on the edge of the ranch.
There were yards and yards of space, trees, bushes, and mounds of snow between each cabin.
Ours was built out of dark logs, making me think of some Nordic winter fantasy.
It only had one floor, and amber warmth poured out of its windows as we neared it on foot, snowflakes falling and melting on our faces.
Damon had picked up the keys at the long log house where the reception was. There, we had noticed a large dining area and were told about the breakfast times.
Now, as Damon unlocked our cabin, happiness flooded me so swiftly and fully that I wanted to cry. I was being deeply irrational today, and I had to remind myself of that. It was just a trip, and its purpose was to have good sex and nice company away from sneaking around. No more and no less.
The door opened, and warmth embraced me, pulling me inside until I felt like I was standing in heaven.
Every detail was cozy, from the large, soft sofa with a chaise lounge to the built-in fireplace, where fire already crackled, with a stack of firewood nearly beneath it.
There was a small kitchen on the side, and a dining table with two chairs was positioned near the large windows overlooking the winter scene.
A bathroom was at the back, and a hallway led to a small deck behind the cabin with a hot tub. Up in the loft, there was the bed.
“You like it?” Damon asked, pushing the door behind us.
As it clicked shut, silence settled around us, and I turned to him, stepping close enough to put my arms around his body. “I love it. I absolutely love it.”
Damon lifted one corner of his mouth, smiling devilishly, and looked into my eyes. “I knew you would.”
“When did we stop casting curses on one another and start being sweet?” I asked.
“You never know. I might lock you outside when we get out of the tub,” he said. “Gonna make myself a Seth popsicle.”
“That…sounds dirty,” I said, narrowing my eyes suspiciously.
“And that is why it’s you here with me and not anyone else,” he said, laughing to himself as he carried our things to a corner and plopped down into the sofa. “God, I love a nice fireplace. Why don’t we always live like this?”
“I could live like this,” I said, coming over and sitting next to him. I casually scooted closer and into the fold of his arm where it rested along the back of the sofa. “It’s always ‘you up?’ and never ‘let’s build a log cabin and make preserves and collect firewood all year long.’”
“Romance is truly dead,” Damon agreed.
My gaze traveled from his warm eyes to the fire in the fireplace.
String lights stretched along the walls, lamps hid in various corners, candles burned in brass holders in many places, and the entire cabin smelled like orange peel and cinnamon.
The daylight was already draining from the sky as I leaned against Damon, head resting on his shoulder.
A faint reflection of us played in the window. We looked…
We looked like boyfriends.
We looked like we were home, together, only missing a playful cat running around, raising hell. And my heart beat a little faster as the image burned itself into my mind.
Damon leaned in and kissed the top of my head. He did that a lot. At first, I’d thought it was a way to tease me about my height, but then he kept doing it when we were in bed or sitting near each other, and I got used to it.
My hand rested on his chest, moving lower bit by bit until it was on his stomach, and tears burned in my eyes.
He wasn’t breathing either. Poor guy. He had no idea what to do with an irrational hookup, and neither did I.
So I got up, mumbled something about washing my hands, and shut myself in the bathroom.
My eyes were red-rimmed already, and my breath was shallow as I held back a sob. What the hell was happening to me?
I exhaled slowly, water running in the sink, and splashed my face a few times before I trusted myself to hold on to my senses.