by Roan Parrish
“You’re just cute, that’s all.”
“What? No way. Why?”
I put the last paper on the table, their wet tops fanned out to dry. Rex is grinning at me. He shrugs a little.
“You’re just…. Sometimes you’re so professional, and you look real intense while you’re working. Then, the next minute, you show up here drenched, with all your papers wet, and you’re a mess.” He steps closer to me, and the soft look is back. “Sometimes, you’re sweet and nervous and you look at me like you have no idea what’s going on. And the next minute you’re all… prickly.” He swats my ass.
“Hey!”
“And sometimes,” he continues, tilting my face up, “you’re so damn sexy I could just kiss you for hours.” He kisses me, and I can feel myself relaxing into his arms, when he pulls away and looks at me again. “Then, I don’t know. There are moments when I think you could kick my ass if you were mad enough.” He looks at me assessingly, but I don’t say anything. I wonder if I could.
Just to be sure it didn’t get wet, I take out my laptop case and look inside. Nope, my piece of crap computer is totally dry, thank goodness.
“So, do you need to work? I have the Internet now, if you need it.”
I look at him, curious.
“Why’d you decide to get it now?”
Rex looks a little embarrassed, but he says, “Well, you said you use it a lot, so I got it. I thought maybe you could do some work here instead of the library. And I know you don’t love your place, so….”
Holy shit, Leo was right.
“You bought me the Internet.”
“Well, in a manner of speaking.” He fidgets. “Is that—I mean, is it useful to you?”
“You….” I don’t even know what to say. I can hear Ginger in my head, yelling at me to just act normal, act like myself, don’t overthink every little thing. What would I say to Ginger? What would I say to Ginger?
“You’re so fucking nice,” is what comes out. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
Rex laughs and grins at me. Yes! I said the right thing. Note to self: just pretend Rex is Ginger. Wait. That’s a terrible idea in several contexts.
“You’re welcome,” Rex says, and runs his hand through my drying hair, which probably looks like I got stuck in a thresher. “So, do you? Need to work, I mean?”
I do. When I regard the paper proposals drying on the table, though, my stomach growls.
“Well, they’re wet just at the moment,” I say.
“So, dinner?”
I nod and follow Rex into the kitchen. He starts pulling things out of the fridge and the cabinets. I never know what he’s making until he puts it on the table, but I kind of like not knowing. It’s like watching one of the cooking competitions he loves where you get the big reveal at the end.
“Can you cut things up and listen at the same time?” Rex teases. At least, I think he’s teasing. He pushes four apples, a knife, and a cutting board in front of me.
“Oh god, this isn’t one of those things where you’re going to put fruit in all the food, is it? I keep seeing, like, cherries in all the salads here. It’s disgusting.”
“Well, Traverse City is the cherry capital of the world. They find their way into almost everything up here. But, no. I thought we’d make an apple crumble for dessert. Seems autumnal. That’s the word, right? Autumnal?”
“Yeah. You bake too? Damn.” Why is that kind of turning me on? Something about Rex’s big hands and thick shoulders making delicate pastries in a white apron is crazy hot.
“Well, I don’t do anything fancy. But this is easy. So, just take the cores out and the cut them into chunks, okay?”
I nod, and he starts doing… whatever else he’s doing, cutting and sautéing and slicing a million things at once.
“So, how’d you end up here, anyway?”
“Huh?”
“In the cherry capital of the world,” I say.
“Oh.”
“Sorry,” I say when he doesn’t continue. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”
“No, it’s okay. I just—no one’s ever asked before. It was because of Jamie, actually. He was from here, originally. Well, near here. I’d only ever lived in hot places when we met and I used to complain about how I hate the heat. When it was really hot and we’d be in the park or have to walk in the sun, he’d tell me stories about the winter in Michigan. The snow, and how he and his brother would build forts out of it and drink hot cocoa in there. It sounded magical to me. I’d never even seen snow in real life.”
Rex smiles at the memory, his hands gone still and his eyes distant.
“Jamie told me he’d take me to Michigan with him one day for a real Christmas—he said Christmas without snow didn’t even really count. So, I just kind of made my way here after my mom died. I was doing odd jobs. Fixing stuff for folks. I got here just before Christmas one year. I love Christmas,” he says sheepishly.
He starts stirring again and continues.
“Anyway, I lived around here for a few years, really liked it. Then I was walking one day and I saw this place.” He chuckles at the memory. “Man, it was a fall-down mess. Half the wood was rotten and the kitchen was a disaster. I asked around, found out the guy who lived here died and the county was going to tear it down. I convinced them to let me rebuild it instead. Took a while.”
He’s running his hand along the countertop as if he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
“Jesus. You built this cabin?”
He nods.
“Most of it. A bit was salvageable.”
“That’s… amazing.” Rex smiles. “I guess now that I look at it, it does seem like a nicer kitchen than you’d expect to find in a cabin.”
“You have much experience with cabins?”
“Um, no.”
I turn back to the apples, unsure of what to say so I concentrate on cutting them into chunks while not chopping off any parts of myself. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to build your own home. It must be amazing.
“So, about Will,” Rex says, and my knife skids off the skin of the apple and thumps onto the cutting board, coming within a millimeter of my finger. Rex’s head snaps up.
“Are you okay? Did you cut yourself?” I shake my head. “Here, give me that,” Rex says, and takes my knife, tests it on his thumb, and hands me a smaller one. I open my mouth to say something, but he says, “I think I need to sharpen that one; this one’s sharper.”
I go back to cutting the apples up, but Rex is watching me now, probably worried I’m going to require his emergency services. When I look up, though, his gaze is fond. And he seems a little bemused.
“What?”
“It’s not brain surgery, sweetheart,” he says. “You can just cut them up.” I look down at the cutting board. My chunks of apple are perfectly uniform. I cut the apple into rings and then strips and then chunks. Wasn’t that what he asked for? I look back up at him, puzzled.
“Never mind,” he says. “They’re great—they’re perfect. I just meant, you don’t need to try so hard to make them perfect. It doesn’t matter if they’re all the same.”
“Okay,” I say, but I don’t really know any other way to do it.
“Never mind,” he says, and pats my shoulder.
“Okay, so about Will?” I prompt.
“Yeah. I just… he’s my friend. A good friend. And I don’t make friends real easy.” He sounds sheepish. “I don’t want my friendship with him to be a problem for you. That’s all. And I didn’t know he was coming to town. Sometimes he just shows up. If I’d known, I would never have let him just come over like that.”
“How long did you date?”
“About a year.”
“That’s a long time.”
“I think we both knew it was never going to be anything permanent,” Rex says, and he sounds a little sad.
“Why?”
“We were just too different. And Will was never going to sti
ck around here, you know? He couldn’t wait to leave. I’m surprised he stayed that long. He got a job offer in New York and he took it. He stops in here when he goes to Chicago. His sister still lives nearby, so he comes to visit.”
“And to see you.”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“Do you still—I mean, if he hadn’t left, would you still want to be with him?”
Rex pauses, like he’s sincerely considering the question.
“Will and I had fun together,” he says slowly. “I met him at a time when I needed someone who didn’t take things too seriously. But, no. I don’t think we’d be a good fit in the long run.”
“What’s he do in New York?”
“He does graphic design for a publishing company.”
“Like book covers, or what?”
“Yeah, for… I don’t remember what the company is.”
“Hunh, that’s cool,” I admit reluctantly.
“He’s a cool guy, Daniel. I actually think you’d like him.” He shakes his head and chuckles. “You were something last night.”
I raise my eyebrows at him, nervous he’s about to call me on being a possessive psycho.
“I thought you were gonna drop him.” He’s smiling, so I guess that’s not a terrible thing? “Will likes to mess with people. Find the things that get to them and then push those buttons.”
“What a charming trait,” I mutter.
“Well, you know a little bit about ways to push people away too, don’t you?” Rex says gently. Is that what he thinks I do? Is that what I do? I never thought about it because I’ve never had anyone to push away.
“Here,” Rex says, tossing me a lemon. “Put the apples in that bowl and squeeze half of that over them, okay?”
He gets out butter, brown sugar, and some other stuff that he puts in a mixer.
“So, I thought maybe we could all have a drink. You, me, and Will.”
I cut the lemon in half and squeeze it on top of the apples. Rex reaches in and pulls out a bunch of seeds.
“Sorry,” I say.
“No problem. I forgot to tell you about the seeds. So, what do you say?”
Do I want to meet Rex’s ex-boyfriend slash sex partner? No. Because he seemed like a dick and I can’t stand the idea of watching him touch Rex.
“When was the last time you slept with him?” I ask. “Am I allowed to ask that?”
“Of course, Daniel. The last time was, I guess, in the spring. April.”
That’s when he met Marilyn, I guess.
“Listen, if you don’t want to, I understand. But he’s my friend and I’d really like you not to hate each other.”
“He hates me?” God knows what that asshole said after I left last night.
“No, of course not,” Rex says. “It would just be nice if you got along. That’s all I meant.”
I narrow my eyes at him suspiciously, but Rex just opens his arms. “I kicked him out right after you left. He’s staying with his sister.”
“But he usually stays with you?”
“Sometimes.”
I sigh. I know that my answer here is important. The question isn’t actually do I want to have drinks with this douchebag, right? God, I need to go to dating elementary school. So, what’s the question? Ginger, what’s the question? The question, the Ginger in my head supplies, is do you trust Rex? He’s asking you to make his life easier and if you trust him, then you should do it. Right.
“Okay, drinks,” I say. “I trust you.”
I get another of those warm smiles.
“Great,” he says. “Should I call him and tell him to come over tonight, or is later in the week better?”
“No, he can’t come over tonight,” I say, swatting him in the stomach. “My clothes are wet and I look like a rag doll in yours.”
“Mmm, I love the way you look in my clothes,” he growls, leaning down to kiss my neck and collarbone where his shirt droops.
“Well, I feel ridiculous,” I say, but I lean into his warm lips.
“Hmm, vanity,” he teases. “A whole new side of Daniel.”
“I’m not—mmhmm.” He kisses me before I can protest.
“I know, baby. You just want an even playing field.”
“Well, he looks like a fucking model, so I’d at least like to be wearing pants,” I snap, irritated just thinking about Will’s stupid face.
“He’s got nothing on you,” Rex says. Note to self: Rex is either a liar or blind. But very sweet. I kiss him again.
“Okay, how about tomorrow night?” Rex asks between kisses. “We could meet somewhere near campus and you could just walk over right after class.”
“Fine,” I say, distracted by his warm mouth.
“Thanks,” he murmurs, and he pushes me against the counter and attacks my mouth.
I’m disgusted with myself. I’ve been nervous about having drinks with Rex and Will all day. I mean, hell, I’ve poured drinks for major musical celebrities and attended lunches with academic ones, and I’m nervous to meet the guy Rex used to date? What the hell?
My stomach is tight with anxiety. I stayed at Rex’s last night and made some toast—okay, burned some toast—there this morning, but aside from that, I haven’t been able to eat all day. Even if I could’ve, I haven’t had time. A journal article I submitted around the time I had my interview here got rejected this morning and I had to spend a whole chunk of unexpected time reformatting it so I can send it out again to another journal, which is depressing, but not unexpected. Between that and Will showing up, I really need that drink.
I’m a couple of minutes early when I get to the pub a few blocks from campus, so I grab us a table, praying that I don’t run into any students, and pull out the readers’ reports that the journal sent with my rejection letter. I’m having a furious internal dialogue with one of the idiot’s comments when a hand falls on my shoulder and I jerk around to grab it.
“Oh, hey,” I say to Rex. “Sorry.” He puts his other hand on my shoulder and gives them a squeeze.
“No problem. Hi.”
He leans closer, but hesitates, and I can tell he’s not sure if he can kiss me in public. Ordinarily, I’m fairly disgusted by couples who are all touchy-feely in public, and I’ve certainly never been one of them, but some equally disgusting primal neurotransmitter is screaming at me to lay claim to him in front of Will, so I tip my head back, inviting his kiss. His mouth is warm and he smells like Rex, which makes the tightness in my stomach unclench a little.
“What are you doing?” Will asks as they sit down, gesturing to the readers’ reports, which, for some arcane reason, are printed on legal-size paper.
“An article I submitted for publication just got rejected and these are the notes from people telling me why,” I say, when what I meant to say was, “None of your business.” Oops.
“The strengths of this essay are that it is clearly written and that its author takes an imaginative approach to the—” Will reads from the top of the page before I notice what he’s saying.
“Hey, fuck off,” I say, pulling the paper away and stuffing it back in the envelope.
“Will,” Rex says, disapprovingly, and pulls me into his side.
“Hey,” Will says, hands up, “at least it’s clearly written and imaginative. That’s more than I can say for about 90 percent of the stuff I read.”
Rex glances down at the envelope curiously. “Do these people have the final say?”
“For journals, yeah. They send your piece out to three people in your field and those are the readers. It’s just so frustrating because I read the comments that they make and it’s obvious that they didn’t read the whole article, because they say that I didn’t do things that I totally did. Just, in the second half. Anyway, whatever. It was a long shot to begin with.”
“Let me get the first round,” Will says, “as someone technically in the publishing industry, to express my sympathies that basically everything involved in it is crap.”
I c
an’t tell if he’s fucking with me or not.
“Thanks, Will,” Rex says. Then, to me, “I’m sorry, baby.” He squeezes my hand and I shake my head. His clothes smell like pine and I take a deep breath of him.
“Were you in your workshop today?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“You smell so good,” I say, as Will comes back to the table with a beer, a whiskey, and a martini. He puts them down in the center of the table and gestures to me. Is this some kind of test? Like, I’m supposed to guess what drink Will thinks I’d want? What the hell? Rex rolls his eyes, grabs the beer, and slides the whiskey to me. Will sips his martini and looks at me across the table. I stare back at him and down my whiskey like a shot.
“So, what do you think of Holiday?” Will asks. “You’re from Philly, right?”
I nod. “It’s okay. I like how clean everything is here. It smells kind of green. And the woods by Rex’s are beautiful. There’s not much going on, but I can’t lie. It’s nice to be able to walk around here and not worry about if it’s safe or not. I feel like I could walk through the woods in the middle of the night and be fine.”
Unease flickers in Will’s expression, but he just nods.
“Yeah,” Rex says, “unless you meet any serial killers, right?” He bumps my shoulder with his.
“I only said that once,” I mutter. Out loud, anyway. “Did you grow up here?” I ask Will.
He nods.
“I left for college but came back for a few years after to stay with my sister. That’s when I met Rex.”
“Where did you go for college?” I ask. I mean where did he live, but it came out the way all academics say it: tell me your pedigree. Let’s see if my school was better than yours.
“NYU,” Will says.
“So, you like New York?”
“Yup.” Will drums his fingers on the edge of the table in a fidgety gesture of boredom and I’m reminded of why I don’t like small talk.
“Here, I’ll get the next round,” I say, though Rex still has half a beer left. “Gin?”
“Vodka,” Will says. “Dirty.” He waggles his perfect eyebrows.
Rex is looking back and forth between us like a betting man at a dog fight. I nudge his knee and he stands to let me out.
