Glacier Gold

by Crystel Greene

  But he did hit the wrong keys, because of me. It makes me flutter all over.

  Shit, I knew it; I knew I’ve still got a chance. Shit, I’ve never been this wired over a guy in my life.

  The moment we sit down at a table, I order another Gletschergeist. The stuff has started to grow on me. And also this is a special situation. I don’t need alcohol to hit on people, normally. I’m the opposite of shy. Normally. But I already got the brush-off once. And I really, really want this man.

  Oh shit, they have stopped playing and switched to the playlist on the stereo. Shit, I resolved to make my move the next time the band took a break. And they are doing it now. All five Fitschtalers are climbing down from the stage and walking over to their table on the side of the stage.

  Andi sits down next to the drummer, laughing at some joke the guy just cracked. I remember he said the man’s name was Jo when he presented the band members to the audience last night.

  He seems to be quite intimate with this Jo person, but Jo is balancing Eva, the singer, on one knee.

  So far, so good.

  Telling myself this is going to be my final attempt, I wait till Andi has finished his beer and Jo has turned to his girl for some recreational making out. Then I pull my V-neck tee in place, blank out my friends’ grimacing, and walk over.

  “Hey, Andi. Would you like to join me for a glass of Gletschergeist?” I shout over the music. It might be a little rude to ignore everyone else at the table and push past Jo and his girl like I did, jostling them midkiss, but I need to be in talking distance to Andi, and I’m on a clock.

  “And also, I didn’t mean any offense when I said I liked your lederhosen,” I add.

  Andi is staring at me like a bunny at a snake. Now, as if the mention of his lederhosen were some kind of cue, he jumps up from his chair.

  He mumbles something unintelligible and disappears in the crowd on the dance floor, leaving me standing there like a prize fool.

  Everybody has seen this. His friends have seen it.

  Worse, my friends have seen it.

  “Seriously, dude, salvage your pride!” Jay cries the moment I’m back at our table. “Wow, that was hard to watch!”

  “He actually got up and left the moment you tried to talk to him,” Carl observes.

  Why does he have to spell things out like that, for fuck’s sake? God, I really hate him!

  “The same moment,” Jay supplies.

  “As if you have never been told to take a hike by a chick!” I flare up. “Where’s Antje, huh? Looks like she’s not so keen on a repeat!”

  Antje is sitting on the lap of a guy wearing a bright orange Happy Powder shirt a few tables away from us, busy licking the man’s tonsils.

  Up to now, I’ve kept tactfully silent about it.

  At the second glance, I see the man is actually Andi’s brother. Complete with earring.

  “It didn’t take you long to get yourself replaced, did it, Jay,” I snap. “And by a guy you told me was gay too!”

  “At least I got her to sleep with me!” Jay cries, clearly stung.

  “Fuck, I know how to get people to sleep with me too! I know how to make them see stars! People have told me! I’m the most popular top on campus, I—”

  “TMI, dude,” Carl chimes in, pulling the bowl of french fries the waitress just brought to the table down onto his lap.

  It’s true, though. I am the most popular top on campus, and for a reason too.

  Only what do you do with all your hookup expertise and fuck skills when a guy simply refuses to talk to you?

  Shit. Shit, this is starting to get to me. Shit, what’s that horrible pressure building behind my eyes? It must be the fucking schnapps. I’m not sad. I don’t do sad when it comes to hooking up. It doesn’t make sense.

  “Maybe Austrian men aren’t up for casual sex,” Carl muses, making short work of a handful of french fries.

  It’s always funny to listen to Carl talk about sex, a bit like when my mother talks about shoot-and-run games. Carl is a virgin that doesn’t even watch porn. The man has no sex life besides food.

  But he isn’t done sharing his theories.

  “Maybe people are mostly social conservatives here, and generally opposed to intercourse outside of a relationship—”

  “That’s bullshit,” I cut him short, then blow my nose. “When I went on that trip across Europe with my mom two years ago, we spent a night in Vienna, and I hooked up with three different guys in less than eight hours!”

  “And your mom?”

  “No idea. Hey, why do you even ask!”

  Carl has finished the french fries and digs a box of Mozart balls from his pocket.

  “What I mean is, your mom didn’t mind you hitting the gay clubs?”

  “Dude, my mom has known me since the day I was born, and she has known I’m gay for almost as long!”

  “What I mean is, your mom took you to Vienna and didn’t mind you left her to go to the opera on her own?”

  The man is making no sense tonight.

  “The opera? My mom is a rock chick, you know that. And why are we talking about my mom all the time? Why aren’t we focusing on my problems here?”

  Carl puts his chocolate box onto the table with an impatient-sounding thud.

  “Okay, Justin, that’s what we’re doing only all the time.”

  “Only all the time!” Jay echoes.

  “You’re kind of ruining this, you know?” Carl goes on. “I didn’t want to say this, but you haven’t been fun to be with from the moment we came here!”

  “Yeah, no fun at all,” Jay says. “And you’ve been really nasty to me just now too, you know that? You’re taking shit out on me, dude!”

  “You are,” Carl says gravely. “Projecting your frustration onto a friend isn’t cool, Justin. And it isn’t like you. It isn’t like you at all.”

  Okay. I’ve just suffered the worst kind of romantic rejection, and for the second time over too, and now my friends are pissed at me for being nasty and frustrated and projecting shit and ruining everyone’s vacation.

  It’s kind of the last straw.

  If only I could at least share the whole story with them!

  “Sorry,” I say. “Sorry, dudes. I know I’ve been… I didn’t mean to…. Shit. It’s just that he… I just don’t get it! I mean, why would he keep brushing me off like that?”

  I rub at my eyes with the back of my hand. Apparently I have trouble dealing with all the European-style smoking going on around us.

  Looking alarmed, Jay shoves me in the arm. It hurts, but I know this is him trying to make up with me and comfort me, and I appreciate it.

  Carl offers me a Mozart ball. I shake my head. I’ve had too much alcohol; even looking at the fatty thing gives me a queasy stomach.

  “It might not even be you, you know,” Carl says. He stuffs the oversized chocolate ball into his own mouth. Talking around it, he continues, “I still think he isn’t playing for your team. Maybe your gaydar doesn’t work in Austria.”

  “Yeah, you know, maybe it doesn’t,” Jay offers.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say weakly.

  I’m through with this. This is the end. I’ll stop being a pain in everybody’s neck and forget about Andi.

  The house track that’s been playing over the stereo comes to a choking halt, and the next moment, a swift cascade of keyboard harmonies sparkles from the speakers.

  The band is back. Andi is back.

  “Wanna go upstairs? Do a little gaming? Combat Force?” Carl asks.

  “Yeah, let’s go play Combat Force,” Jay says.

  We’ve been doing that quite a lot over the last two days, chilling on our beds and playing online games together. It’s great how you can do that when you’re together in the same room, no different from back home where everyone is living in a different town.

  I’m ace at Combat Force. They know I’m going to seriously kick their asses, and they know how much I love doing that.

  I
love winning.

  And I fucking love my friends. They’re straight but great, and I love them. Part of it is the Gletschergeist, I know that.

  But the rest is fucking real.

  I’M ALONE in the lounge. Outside, a thick fog has settled, filling the valley with smoky white.

  Jay, Carl, and I hit the runs in the morning, but by noon, visibility had turned so poor we decided to call it a day and get back to the hotel.

  Jay and Carl are down in the spa again. They tried to persuade me to join them, but I told them I’d rather sit in the lounge and draw for a bit.

  Jay claims the lounge is for guests who are eighty or over only, with the harp music and the cupboards full of books. But I love this place. The thick fur rugs, the beeswax candles, the fluffy cushions with the red-and-white handwoven Tyrolean designs—even without a fire burning, the coziness borders on the obscene.

  With a long playlist of chill EDM tracks on my phone and my earplugs blocking out the harp, I’m as fine as can be.

  And I’m all alone, which makes things even better. I’m in the mood for some me time, not for conversation.

  The two Germans left this morning, so I’m safe from any more of their overtures. It’s quite the relief, actually.

  When we stepped into the elevator to go up to our suite last night, the two guys slipped in with us and invited me to join them in their suite for a little private farewell party. They kept mentioning that Leo the blue-haired barman was coming too. When I said sorry and I was with my friends, Jay and Carl said it was no problem, the two idiots, and as good as tried to marry me off to the Germans on the spot. For the rest of the night, they kept pushing me to quit playing Combat Force with them and go downstairs and “party” instead.

  I know they meant well. All they want is to help me get Andi out of my system. I know they think I’m having a problem.

  And I guess I do. It’s not typical for me to turn down a nice offer involving sexual debaucheries. I don’t even know why I did it. Guess I was being plain stupid. But I just know the thought of Andi would have ruined things for me.

  At the moment it feels like the thought of Andi might ruin the rest of my life.

  The problem is he’s even more perfect than I realized.

  I only discovered this morning at breakfast it’s him who does the graphic design of the Fankhauser News. It says Layout: A. Fankhauser in very small print on the last page. Same with the hotel brochure. He hasn’t done anything wildly artsy with the design; there’s just some fancy initials, and he seems to like corner flourish swirls. It’s all rather retro, really. But still.

  The idea of him sitting in front of his computer by night with his glasses on, adding this stuff to the text files, adjusting things till he’s satisfied with the effect—it makes me want to swoon with happy adoration.

  Made me want to swoon. Yes, he’s perfect, and probably in more ways than I’ll ever know, but it’s over.

  He has seen me buck naked and told me he liked the view, and he locked eyes with me in a way that completely rocked my world. With both of us fully dressed. It doesn’t even make sense.

  But now he seems to have decided it was all a mistake. Perhaps I shouldn’t have let him look at me like that. From that close, and with me being swept off my feet like I was. He must have decided in that moment I wasn’t that great a catch after all.

  Obviously, with his looks, he can have anyone. And he’s not only the son of a millionaire and, like, the prince of the valley, he’s also this whiz kid who speaks foreign languages and is all kinds of talented. Yeah, why would he care to be with someone who tries to chat him up with preplanned lines they wrote down to memorize them? With someone who’ll probably never get their act together? Sure, I never told him I’m this loser who flunks his college exams, but it feels like he knows anyway.

  Oh shit.

  All I want is to forget. And there has ever only been one thing that really does that for me: my graphic tablet.

  I’ve brought it with me to the lounge again to work on some photos.

  What I should have brought along is my laptop with my Statistics for Business books, obviously. I really should start going through those files like I promised my mom. But when I opened them just now, up in the suite, I felt the acute urge to close them again.

  I didn’t fight it.

  There is that retest, and in just a few days. But this is my vacation. I’ve paid a lot of money I don’t really have to be here. It doesn’t make sense to ruin this week for good by studying fucking statistics.

  Pushing the thought of bar charts, tests, and my mom firmly to the back of my head, I switch on my tablet and open the picture folder labeled Fitsch.

  There’s one really fine photo of the glacier in the evening light, with the Sunnzeiger as the centerpiece. It’s from our first day, from shortly before we saw Andi do that mega jump in the fun park. The snow-covered summits look as if they weren’t from this world, majestic and like dusted with gold.

  Letting the stylus take the lead, I start drawing, working on shadow and light until the contours begin to pop like I want them to. Next I play around with colors for a while.

  It’s funny how colors that seem completely wrong for a snowy mountain, like green or brown, can bring out its true beauty.

  And those clouds need a bit of yellow, maybe a touch of purple. Yeah.

  I’ve got this eagle man in my head, so I let him take shape on the screen too, a fiery, mystical shadow against the backdrop of the glimmering mountainside.

  I stop for a bit to contemplate the picture.

  Those wings need more definition. I bend over again to start shading them.

  A movement in the corner of my eye makes me look up.

  Someone is standing behind the bar.

  It’s the original Eagle Man. In a green loden jacket.

  Andi fucking Fankhauser.

  It’s a funny thing with the tablet. Whenever I start drawing on it, I get, like, sucked into it. To the point of missing the moment my target moves into the range of operation.

  And really looks at me for once too.

  Or rather stares. Because that’s what he’s doing; he’s staring at me and has been doing so for God knows how long!

  Okay.

  I might have told my friends I’d heed their advice and let this go. I might have told myself the same thing. I might have decided to write off Andi as a lost cause.

  But this is a game changer. He has sent me so many mixed signals I’ve started to doubt my memory. But there’s nothing mixed about that look he just gave me. He knows I noticed, and his lids have started to flutter, but it seems he still can’t make himself turn away.

  With my pulse at two hundred or something, I pop out my earbuds and run a hand through my hair, giving him what I hope is an inviting yet nonthreatening smile.

  On no account must I give him a reason to run off on me again.

  He quickly looks away, continuing to wipe down the counter, or pretending to do so.

  His hair has fallen into his face, but even in the candlelight, I can see he has turned a delightful shade of scarlet.

  Right. Do something, Justin.

  “Andi?” I call out. “May I have a drink? A hot chocolate? Please?”

  I’ve learned my lesson. If you order drinks for strategic purposes, don’t go for caffeinated.

  Andi clears his throat.

  “Of course. Sir.”

  He busies himself with preparing a mug of hot chocolate, clattering the dishes, shuffling through cupboards.

  Feeling nervous like a bride at the altar, I wait for the moment when he’ll come over.

  When he finally does, edging past a chair blocking his way, I’m struck again by his elegant way of moving. I so have a thing for his strong, slim hips. And they are right at my eye level when he places the mug on the coffee table in front of me.

  He’s simply serving me a drink, and I know he’s as strung up as I am, or probably more so, but even now there’s that sp
ecial air of controlled power about him that makes his boarding stand out like it does. It gives me a weird feeling to be sitting there with him towering over me. It makes me acutely aware of the fact I’m shorter than him, and I don’t know why, but I really like that.

  Surreptitiously I inhale the fragrance of outdoorsy freshness surrounding him. Oh man, I could get high on just that scent of his.

  I almost forget to say thank you. He doesn’t answer when I do, he just gives a nod and retreats, much too quickly.

  But he doesn’t leave the room. Instead, he moves over to the fireplace to sweep ashes into a copper bucket, then starts building an intricate structure out of new logs inside the fireplace.

  This is my chance to talk to him. I’ve got to say something, now. Something witty and casual—

  “Why didn’t you talk to me last night?” I blurt out to his back. “What did I do wrong?”

  He stops moving, then turns around for a fraction of an inch, still looking away from me.

  “You mustn’t walk up to me like you did.”

  Says the man who has as good as undressed me with his gaze three times in total now. Or two times, to be fair, since a honey-and-salt crust isn’t technically clothes.

  But I don’t want to fight with him. What I want is very much the contrary.

  How could I ever decide to give up on him? He’s a wet dream even when wearing a loden jacket, which should rightfully be impossible. And there’s something there between us, something that I know could be out-of-this-world amazing and that’s only just beyond reach. All I have to do is say the right thing now.

  All I have to do is make him see it would be madness for both of us to miss out on this.

  If only I were a little better at making an argument!

  I wish I were Carl. Or even Jay with his unfathomable sex magic.

  Sitting up, I flatten my hair. Usually I’m proud of my hair, but he hasn’t yet offered an opinion on it. Maybe there’s a problem here. Maybe he doesn’t like my hair. First impressions are said to be vital, after all, and he first saw it in a state of total disarray and dripping honey.