“Welcome home,” he said as I followed Jack to the elevator.
Jack
It was the next afternoon before I saw Perrin again. It’s a good thing, though, because I was much too attracted to the man, and I didn’t even know if he was gay. I shouldn’t be thinking like that, it was too intense, too intimate for someone I didn’t know. He was also here to stay, and that complicated things.
I was in that strange place of my early thirties where I knew I wantedmorewith someone, yet had kept finding myself another hook-up, another man who would be gone at the end of his reservation. I was too careful, too afraid of what I wanted and was so unsure how to get.
But, hey, at least I knew that about myself, right?
And now there was a guy I would like to get to know, but mostly I avoided him.
Because hookups you can do, I reminded myself.
And so days passed, and my own erratic schedule and Perrin’s obvious adjustment to time change meant I saw him at odd hours. We had shared a joking ride in the elevator – full of smiles and dry wit. He shared a handful of hello’s with Matt and Piper around the Inn that I caught from afar. It didn’t matter, though. When Perrin was in the room, I was on, all triggers tripped, all switches fully thrown and engaged.
As soon as the slopes were open, I saw Perrin in his snow gear and out the door while I was still stumbling for coffee before work, and he didn’t return until late that afternoon. His eyes weregolden when he came into the lobby from puttingawayhis gear, cheeks reddened from the wind, and the look of pure bliss on his face. The guy was askier, if the pro-level equipment he used didn’t already tell me that, seeing him walking in after an afternoon on the slopes certainly did.
The look on his face when he came in that day was the most stunning thing I had seen my entire life.
Although I didn’t know the guy at all really, I had noticed a few things. He kept to himself, even after he had slept off most of the time-change. But, whenever he saw Piper around the Inn or in town, he greeted her with a high-five and by name, and she already lit up when she saw him.
Apparently, she had found him walking from the Inn to Maxine’s Coffee one day and coerced him into sledding with her and her friends. My sister CJ, who was Piper’s mom, had told me later. The sledding had lasted hours, I was told, and Matt sent me a picture to prove it when he served up hot chocolate for the group afterwards.
I also knew from Matt that Perrin wandered in at odd hours in those first days. Matt’s role as Executive Chef for the Bear Valley Inn meant he was there early and left late. Perrin’s time-zone adjustment meant Matt had a ready guinea-pig for a few new things he liked to try out in the kitchen.
It seemed Matt and Perrin had struck-up a friendship of sorts, Matt needing someone to test his culinary talents on, and Perrin having no real internal clock and a willingness to try whatever Matt offered. I had found out from Matt and my own observations, that those late night sessions - sometimes when I was there, or my other brothers Baylor and Quinn, or my sister CJ or some combination of siblings, had yet to reveal much about Perrin himself. Mostly, he asked questions, listened to stories, and gotto know some of our other friends from around town that would roll in to join from time to time.
It was almost midnight the Saturday after he arrived; almost a week since Perrin had been at the Inn when I wandered into the large kitchen myself. I couldn’t sleep, of course, so I thought I would see if Matt or one of my brothers were around. The kitchen was where we often gathered if everyone had gone out for the night, it was Saturday after all, and at least I could find some wine.
The sleep thing was becoming a problem. My mind replayed seeing my ex, my first attempt at something more than casual, with another guy - hurt more by the betrayal and what it could mean about my ability to be a good partner with someone, than the loss of the relationship. And sometimes I couldn’t get out of that thought-loop in the early hours of the morning.
I could hear Matt laughing at something in the kitchen, and instantly recognized Perrin’s voice.
“ . . .so the guy totally loses it when he comes out of anesthesia, starts talking about how he’s floating on dreamy clouds and wants to just go through them . . .” I heard Perrin’s voice say.
Matt was on the opposite side of the kitchen, flipping something that smelled rich and meaty in a pan, and Perrin was standing at the long stainless steel prep table in the middle of the kitchen, slicing something, per the directions Matt was giving over his shoulder.
I took a minute to gage the body-language cues between my brother and the guy I’m lusting after. Despite the small town nature of Bear Valley, and the fact we were all adopted by our moms because we were queer in one way or another, we never had entanglements with lovers.Itsimply had never happened between four gay-ishbrothers. I sent up a silent prayer to whoever wanted to take it that this wouldn’t prove to be the first time.
As I watched the easy way Perrin and Matt interact, I felt a clear slice of jealousy. But, I watched Matt, looking for his obvious tells of interest and flirting or, god-forbid to the sticky feeling in my gut,intimacy. There were none, I found. Whatever Perrin and Matt had struck up was clearly friendship, not flirting. I breathed out at the relief I feel at that, surprised by the intensity.
What I wanted to do was go in full cave-man;to lunge in and make my mark in some wayand tell all my brothers, and the rest of the world, to back the fuck off until I could wrap my head around Perrin and how I reacted to him. But, instead, I just rounded the corner, where two faces smiled at me, equally happy to see me there.
“Can’t sleep, Jack?” Matt asked first, concern on his brow as he took in my athletic pants and long sleeved tee. I certainly hadn’t been out that night - why bother, when the object of my desire was sitting right there.
“Not really,” I said lightly, moving over by Perrin.
“Hey, Jack,” he said.
He looked like me, clearly in for the night as well in an almost identical outfit to mine, except his shirt was plain and gray, and he had a hoodie over it. Perrin alwaysseemed to have on one more layer of clothing than anyone else. I noticed a drink on the prep table beside where he stood chopping vegetables for Matt. There was something in his eyes that was a little less guarded,interest maybe, and he topped it with that asymmetrical smile.
“What are you drinking tonight?” I asked Perrin, as Matt slips back toward the pantry to retrieve something.
Perrin’s cheeks flushed pink a bit as he watched me. “Not sure what he called it? But, it’s in that pitcher,” he said gesturing to one sitting on the stainless table. “And it’s good.”
I smiled and moved around him to grabtheglass to refill his drink. My hand landed easily at his hip and I slid close behind him to grabitfrom his opposite side. His eyes latched to mine, gold rings, and a flare of desire I could read like a book. I smiled as I moved away from him, catching whiff of the slight herbal-clean scent that was all Perrin.
I turned over the look he gave me in my mind. It definitely was not theway he had been looking at Matt.At all.
