“Calm down, will ya?” Hank tried to keep his voice somewhat neutral and serious, but it was just too hilarious, this young man in his birthday suit, swinging that horrid lamp from side to side like a crazy school patrol. “You ain’t fit to go anywhere like that,” Hank nodded at the guy’s flaccid dick, swinging from side to side between his lean, pale thighs. “In case you didn’t know, it’s freezin’ outside, and your clothes ain’t dry yet.”
Hank’s words seemed to have some sort of sobering effect on the stranger because he suddenly looked down at himself, taking in his naked form. Then he looked back up, and for just a split-second Hank thought he saw a glimmer of recognition and understanding in the stranger’s dark-brown eyes, but it was a little too premature to be hoping for a miracle. Especially when you hadn’t set foot in a church since the ripe old age of twenty-one. In near slow motion, the guy’s face grew rosy, then a light pink, to finally end in a deep scarlet. His brown eyes turned black and angry, his nostrils flaring ominously. With an animal-like growl, he leapt from the floor and jumped up onto the bed, his longish blond hair tumbling into his face.
“What the fuck have you done to my clothes, you fucking maniac?” He yelled, proceeding to swing the lamp at Hank likehewas, in fact, a certified maniac. To avoid death-by-ghastly-heirloom,Hank stumbled back, bumping into the dresser, causing Walter’s collection of model airplanes to fall to the hardwood floor with a succession of crashes.
“I swear to God, you motherfucker,” the stranger howled. “If you touched me, I’m gonna fucking kill you.” The stranger’s broad chest rippled with panic, his eyes wild and unseeing, almost as if he was driven by pure unfiltered fear and instinct. Sighing, Hank dropped to his knees with a wince and started gathering the planes from the floor. Some had landed under the bed and his knees were already protesting over the hard surface. Attempting to bend and reach under the bed was not going tobe doing his back any favors, either. Leaning up, he held his hands out in front of him in the universalcalm down, I’m not dangerousgesture. Looking at the stranger, he tried to make his voice as low and unthreatening as possible.
“I didnottouch you in any inappropriate way, okay? I helped you, actually. I could’ve left you to rot or freeze to death, but that’s obviously—and, I’m starting to think, unfortunately—not my nature. Alright? So, calm the hell down, will ya?” The stranger stood shaking on top of the crumbled sheets, his chest heaving with panic. If it weren’t for that foul mouth of his, he looked almost like a fallen angel who’d made an emergency crash landing on Hank’s guest bed.
“What… What’s that in your hand?” His voice trembled, his brown eyes squinting curiously at Hank’s right hand.
“Oh, this?” Hank opened his hand, inspecting the small plane. “It's just some old model airplane, I guess. Just some old piece of junk.” The guy seemed to deflate, anger slowly evaporating as he dropped to his knees on the bed, his face growing increasingly more interested as he finally let go of the lamp. What an odd picture he made, sitting all naked and handsome—because there was no doubt the stranger in Hank’s bed was very handsome. But mostly, he just looked lost, eyes fixated on the small plane as if it would somehow prevent him from spinning out of control again. Squinting even harder, he licked his chapped bottom lip.
“No, it’s not,” he mumbled, his voice hoarse from screaming. “It’s not junk.” He swallowed a couple of times. “It’s a Bristol Blenheim,” he whispered in awe, an excited glimmer replacing the confusion in his eyes.
“A what now?” Hank asked, brushing at his sweaty forehead, still panting from the excessive excitement during his usually quiet morning routine.
“A Bristol Blenheim,” the stranger repeated softly, his voice now entirely devoid of any kind of anger or aggression. “Can Isee it?” He held out a shaking hand towards Hank. “I’ve never seen a model of one before. They’re pretty rare.”
“Uhm, sure.” Hank held out the plane and dropped it in the palm of the guy’s hand. “A Bristol Blen… a what?”
“A Bristol Blenheim.” Eagerness was painted all over the younger man’s face as he inspected the small plane. “It was a British light bomber,” he continued, speaking to no one in particular, it seemed. “It was built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company, hence the name.” Who the hell used the wordhenceanymore? A fallen angel with the mouth of a sailor and the vocabulary of an 18th-century poet, apparently. “It was used regularly during the first two years of the Second World War by the RAF. It was designed by Frank Barnwell, a Scottish Captain and aeronautical engineer. He also designed the Bristol Fighter and the Bulldog…” He trailed off, twisting and turning the small plane in his hands, a mesmerized expression on his sweaty face.
“So, the Brits used it?” Hank had gotten strangely interested, the soft melodic voice of this remarkable stranger alluring now that he’d stopped throwing curse words at him.
“Yeah. Its virgin flight was in 1935 and it was used by the RAF during the war…” A faint blush swept across his cheeks. “I already said that, didn’t I?” He looked at Hank curiously, his brown eyes no longer wild and apprehensive. “Who are you?” he whispered, tilting his head to the side, his shaggy hair brushing against his naked shoulder.
“My name’s Hank. Hank Dietrich,” Hank held up a hand in warning. “And no, before you freak out again, you’ve not been catapulted back in time and taken as a German prisoner of war.” A weak smile tugged at the younger man’s mouth, then he nodded.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Am I still in Nebraska then?” he asked carefully.
“Yes, you are. Hayley’s Peak, to be exact.”
“Why… what happened to me?” he held up his right hand and inspected the gauze-covered skin. “Oh, yeah… I hurt my hand.”
“Yeah, I found you in my nephew’s shelter yesterday and I brought you here. You were… You were all cold and wet. That’s why I took off your clothes. I’m… I’m not some pervert, if that’s what you think,” Hank murmured, his gaze turning towards the guestroom window. “The weather ain’t exactly great for sleepin’ in shelters with a fever and an infected hand.”
“I… I’m sorry about before. I… I just…” The stranger spoke, and Hank turned towards him again. He looked frail somehow. Embarrassed. The cautious look in his eyes spoke to something—some protective part—deep inside Hank.
“Nah, you’re good. Don’t worry about it.” Hank shrugged. “Who knows how I’d react if I suddenly found myself stark naked in a stranger’s bed?” A quiet chuckle slipped from the younger man’s torn lips.
“Still… I must’ve looked like a crazy Hun coming at you like that…” He brushed the back of his uninjured hand against his sweaty forehead, the small plane still clasped securely in the palm.
“A Hun?” Hank asked.
“Yeah, you know. The nomadic warriors who terrorized Europe in the 4thand 5thcentury,” he replied as if he’d just mentioned some mundane, common knowledge.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t know about that.” Hank shrugged apologetically, suddenly feeling like exactly what he was. A middle-aged, uneducated nobody from rural America. Looking down at his rough hands, oil smears around his nails, cuticles torn from manual labor every day of his life, he asked, “So, what’s your name then? I assume it isn’t Hubert the Hun?”
Again, that breathy chuckle swept towards him, only this time, the smile reached all the way to the stranger’s eyes, setting them on fire.
“No,” he laughed, shaking his head, a wayward straw-blond lock spilling onto his forehead, covering the small pale scar. “It’s Finn.”Finn.
“As in Huckleberry?” Hank grinned.
“No, well, yeah, but no.” Finn chuckled. “I think from the mad behavior you’ve just witnessed, it’s more like the Irish Finn.” He blushed again and the pink spilled like watercolor down his neck and settled in the small hollow between his prominent collarbones. It was the weirdest conversation that Hank had had in ages, if ever. A naked encyclopedia of a man sitting in the middle of his guest bed, holding a model airplane in his hand, a look of subtle awe on his face like he was holding some rare gemstone.
“The Irish Finn?”
