Let It Snow

by Heidi Cullinan

  Frankie ended up walking for a full half hour. His phone still didn’t have reception, but it did have a clock, and it was getting on to eight when he saw the opening of a lane and the little red postal flag that said someone lived at the other end of that access road. Whimpering in relief, Frankie trudged faster, spurred on by the thought of rescue. He didn’t even care if an axe murderer lived there, so long as he killed Frankie somewhere warm.

  The cabin at the end of the drive didn’t look like much, neither ominous nor welcoming. Someone clearly lived there, judging by the various bits of detritus on the porch and the furniture visible through the window, but they weren’t home—either that or they were deaf, because Frankie had put everything he had into pounding on the front door.

  What the residents of the cabin were, thank God, was trusting, because they hadn’t locked the front door. It swung open easily when Frankie tried the handle.

  “Hello?” he called out as he stuck his head inside. “Anybody home?” No one answered, and he shut the door behind him as he stomped his boots hard on the mat in the area that constituted a sort of foyer. “Hello?”

  Warmth surrounded him—the main room wasn’t a sauna, but compared to the outdoors it was practically balmy. Even so, Frankie kept his coat and blanket wrapped tight around him as he stood in the entryway and surveyed the home he’d invaded. The cabin wasn’t big. The entire first floor was one room, except for a door by the kitchen which looked to lead to a bathroom and another Frankie would bet was a closet. Stairs led to a loft, but it could only be one room up there given the floor plan and slope of the roof. It almost looked like a hunting cabin, but someone lived here full-time right now—mail littered the table and half-finished dishes rested beside the sink. What appeared to be oatmeal sat congealed in a pan on the stove.

  Someone lived here, and they weren’t tidy.

  No obvious implements of axe murder lay in plain sight, though, so Frankie shed his blanket long enough to hang up his coat on a peg behind the door and take off his boots. Padding in his stocking feet, balaclava and mittens resting on the bench beside the door, Frankie wrapped back up in the blanket and made his way around the cabin, taking stock. The power was out, because none of the switches worked, and there wasn’t a phone. When he reached for his own to see if it had service, he couldn’t find it—he’d lost it on the lane, he guessed, and he felt empty at the knowledge, like he’d cut off part of himself. He didn’t know his parents’ phone number since they’d moved, and had never memorized either of their mobiles. It was too easy to just search their name in his contacts and let the phone do the remembering for him. Same for work, same for his friends.

  You’re safe. It’s warm in here, and you’re safe.

  Exhaling, Frankie curled up on the sofa in front of a cold fireplace. Wood sat stacked neatly beside it, as well as starter logs and a box of matches, but Frankie left that alone, choosing to pile himself beneath the blankets folded neatly on the other end of the couch, trading them for his damp one which he draped over a chair by the hearth. If matters came to it, he’d start a fire, but for now he’d just stay warm. He’d stay warm and wait for whoever lived here to come home, and then he’d see what happened.

  He tried not to think about how this was the smallest of small towns, about how poorly they welcomed someone like him. That got hard, though, because he was all too aware there wasn’t even a whiff of a feminine touch in the room. A man alone lived here, one who wasn’t going to think Frankie was a real man and might have some choice ways of pointing that out.

  Stop, Frankie scolded his rabbit brain. For once in his life, it listened.

  God, but it was quiet in the cabin.

  And cold.

  And lonely.

  Frankie shut his eyes and pulled the blankets up over his nose, shutting out the cabin, the snowstorm, the world.

  He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but he must have, and pretty hard, because the next thing he knew firm hands shook him awake. When he blinked sleep away and looked up, three bearded faces peered down at him in various stages of surprise, though one in particular seemed annoyed.

  Papa Bear, Frankie realized, thinking he must be dreaming, but the chill in his body and the insistence of his bladder told him he wasn’t. He stared up at the men, disoriented, confused, and terrified. Mama and Baby Bear too, the three lumberjacks from the café.

  The ones who reminded Frankie of the guys who liked to torture him in high school, all grown up and living in the remote North Woods.

  Oh. Shit.

  Baby Bear leaned forward, squinting. “Say, aren’t you the guy from the café?”

  “Yes.” Frankie tried to sit up straighter, but he was cold and dizzy and scared. “I swerved to avoid a moose and ended up in a ditch. I couldn’t get cell service, so I walked until I found somewhere safe. This was it. I’m sorry, I fell asleep waiting.”

  “Jesus, I didn’t even see your car.” The other two men frowned, but the blond sat on the end of the couch and smiled. “Glad you’re okay. Sorry we weren’t here when you showed up.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Paul.”

  Frankie threaded his right hand out from under the blankets and accepted Paul’s greeting. “Frankie.” Please don’t eat me for your breakfast.

  “Arthur.” The red-haired one spoke gruffly, but he grinned as he did so, adding a wink as he nudged the tall, dark one in the arm—the tall, dark one who still glowered. “This is Marcus, whose bed you’ve been sleeping in.”

  Frankie took one look at grumpy Papa Bear and wanted to crawl back under the blankets. Instead he said, “Sorry,” and forced himself to smile.

  Papa bear only grunted, turned around, and walked away.

  Frankie took deep breaths and pointed out to himself that so far nobody seemed inclined to hit him and demand his lunch money.

  So far.

  Chapter Three

  THAT THE CITY boy from the café had turned up back at Arthur’s house—in Marcus’s bed, as Arthur found so amusing—was such a cruel twist of fate Marcus half wondered if Arthur and Paul had set this scenario up. Except they hadn’t been privy to his inner grumblings about how much Frankie reminded him of Steve, and anyway, he couldn’t see how they’d have managed it. Quite obviously the whole thing was stupid coincidence. Dangerous coincidence too. The guy could have died. Had he hit his moose much farther on, he would have had even farther to walk to find shelter. Arthur’s cabin was the last for a long time.

  Arthur’s cabin had shit electrical service too, and it had gone out again, the wire to the house no doubt taken down by a tree limb or, hell, maybe a whole tree. The heat had gone off, and the house was cool enough to indicate it had been so for about an hour, probably shortly before their unexpected houseguest had arrived. The kitchen was foul, likely because Paul was angry at having the task of cleanup always fall to him, and as usual Arthur was oblivious. Having left for work before either of them, Marcus wasn’t responsible for the mess, but he was pretty sure he’d be cleaning it up, and with cold water at that.

  Grumbling under his breath, he bundled up and went out to the shed to drag out the generator to the portable overhang next to the house and hooked it up to the transfer switch. Normally Arthur helped him with this chore, but he didn’t this time, and when Marcus came back into the house, Paul and Arthur sat on either side of Frankie on the couch, warming themselves in front of a glowing fire and chatting up the boy from the city as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Stylist?” Paul was saying as Marcus hung his winter clothes on the pegs by the door. “You mean you’re like one of those fancy consultants to the movie stars?”

  Frankie’s laugh was musical and soft, and it cut sideways against Marcus’s middle. “No. Mostly that’s a fussy way of saying I cut hair, though I’ve actually done a lot of training in how to put together certain looks. Sort of like the movie stars, I guess, but more for business people and anchormen.”

  Marcus set his teeth and went over to the kitchen, t
urning on the light he knew was part of the generator’s circuit before he attacked the crusted-over dishes. Jesus, Frankie even sounded like Steve, except their snow refugee had more of that soft-spoken, lilting-lisp, tonal quality to his voice than Marcus’s ex had. The only difference was that Steve’s voice always had a playful edge which in the end had become hard and biting. Frankie seemed subdued, almost demure.

  He was a hairdresser, he had a lispy voice, and a glance across the room confirmed the effeminate hand gestures Marcus had been sure would be there. That, and Frankie had been oh-so-carefully avoiding Marcus’s gaze. If the man wasn’t gay, Marcus would eat that crusted-over oatmeal.

  Gay and stranded with them for the duration of a storm which, according to the radio, had promised to measure in days, and that was just the snowfall, not the cleanup.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  Not that Arthur or Paul saw this as a problem. They were cozied up to Frankie like he was their long-lost best friend, like they hadn’t gotten drunk a thousand times with Marcus and bitched about gay stereotypes and how they were all stupid and so were the gays who perpetuated them, the gay stereotypes Frankie was practically a poster child for. Like they hadn’t hated Steve right along with Marcus when it all fell apart, maybe more so. Now, however, the pair of Judases were cozying right up to the interloper, asking about his life in the big city.

  “I’m originally from a small town just north of Mankato,” Frankie explained as Marcus used a spatula blade to chisel at the oatmeal pan. “Not quite as small as this place seems to be, but I wasn’t born in the Cities. I think a lot of us move there from smaller places, like migrants.”

  “Marcus used to—” Arthur began, and Marcus slammed down a pan.

  “Arthur Anderson, shut the fuck up,” Marcus growled.

  Arthur snorted. “Marcus used to be human, but then he turned into a big cranky bear.”

  “Yeah, right about the time I had to start cleaning up messes you couldn’t be bothered with,” Marcus shot back.

  “It wasn’t my turn to clean the kitchen,” Paul said, almost on cue.

  Arthur returned his focus to Frankie, ignoring them both. “So your folks are in Duluth. They liking it?”

  “Yes, though I wonder if they’ll be able to say so after they get through a winter.” Frankie worried his bottom lip. “Actually, speaking of my parents, I need to call them and let them know I made it somewhere safe. Also my roommates and my boss and the lady at the café, because I promised her. But first I couldn’t get service, and then I lost my phone in the snow.”

  It should have been funny the way Arthur and Paul fell over themselves to be the first one to hand over their phone, how when Frankie confessed too that he couldn’t remember the phone numbers, they fought over Paul’s smartphone to look them up. It was a hard call whether they were just fighting like usual or if they really did want to sleep with Frankie. That thought stilled Marcus a moment, the image of their threesome both arousing and infuriating.

  He is not Steve, Marcus reminded himself. Grow the fuck up.

  The problem was, in so many ways Frankie was Steve. Marcus fought the pile of dishes, and his recalcitrant brain ticked the similarities off like bullets from Paul’s rifle. Same height. Same size. Same voice. Same oh gosh, I hate to be a bother mode that made manipulating desperate men so easy. Same damsel-in-distress routine. Same gorgeous eyes, same pretty, effeminate ways that shouldn’t be so alluring, but goddamn, they were to Marcus.

  As he finished up the kitchen, Marcus thought of what a fool he’d made of himself with Steve, what a fool Steve had made of him. He played out all the memories where Steve had seemed so sweet and innocent but had been fucking some of Marcus’s closest friends—such as they were—on the side. He replayed the batting eyelashes and the coquettish smiles. He recalled their times in bed too, forcing himself to link those intimate moments with betrayal. He swam in his shame until he had his stupid, self-destructive attraction to their houseguest under control.

  He’s a guy who got stuck in a snowstorm and looks like Steve. Maybe he even acts like him, and that right there is why you’re not going to fuck him. You’re not going to flirt. You’re not even going to care if the boys manage to take him upstairs to bed with them. You’re not an idiot, not anymore. Be civil and humane, and soon he’ll be on his way.

  It was a good plan. Marcus grabbed a glass and filled it with water, stopping by the freezer to grab some ice. The humane thing to do was to get their guest some refreshment. Which he could remember to do, because he wasn’t flirting.

  When he offered it, however, Frankie shook his head. “Actually, what I really need is to use the bathroom.”

  Arthur pointed across the room. “Sure. Right over there, beside the stairs. Towels in the closet if you need them. Might even have a spare toothbrush in the cupboard.” He winked and leered. “I’ll do you better than Marcus’s lousy glass of water once you’re done, and we’ll see who you’re snuggling up to tonight, me or Paul.”

  Marcus wanted to believe he’d decided to speak up only when the look of panic hit Frankie’s face, but if he were honest with himself, he’d been ready to interject since Arthur’s damn wink. “You’re not cramming three of you into your fucking double bed.” He nodded gruffly to the couch. “The sofa bed is queen-sized. Frankie can bunk down with me.”

  It hurt more than he wanted to acknowledge that this announcement seemed to upset Frankie even more than the prospect of sharing a bed with Paul and Arthur.

  FRANKIE WATCHED MARCUS’S face go stormy, and his stomach clenched all over again. He’s gay, or at least okay with two gay roommates, he told himself, but it was hard to feel like sleeping next to something that angry would be safe. “Nobody needs to give up a bed for me. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  Paul and Arthur spoke over the top of each other in protest, but Marcus’s quietly angry Papa Bear undercut them all. “We only have so many blankets, and the one you brought in is still damp from snow. The heat’s not going above fifty tonight. You’ll have to share with one of us.” He added a glower, and Frankie couldn’t tell if that was because he hated having to share or if he were daring Frankie to go upstairs with the other two.

  Maybe it was hopelessly vanilla of him, but Frankie didn’t want to take up Arthur and Paul on their blatant offer of a threesome. It wasn’t that he was against threesomes—he’d had a few, and they weren’t bad—but rather that he wasn’t sure Arthur and Paul made the best couple. They seemed angry at each other almost all the time, and there was a level of hurt radiating silently on both parties’ sides that made Frankie unwilling to get literally in the middle of that. Also, this was a vanilla excuse, but he was tired and overwhelmed and not really thinking of sex just now. Which felt like he was breaking the gay honor code or something, caught in a snowstorm with three burly bears who were actually bears and not wanting to take them up on some amateur porn practice, but that was the story of Frankie’s life, not even doing gay right.

  Josh had been all excited when Frankie had told him where he’d ended up. Frankie wandered over to the far corner while he and his roommate had talked, and he gave a quick rehash of the situation, including the orientation of his rescuers.

  “Score!” Josh had said. Had he known about the potential group action, he’d have whooped.

  God, but Frankie was pathetic. He glanced at the loft, letting himself have one last chance at being anti-humdrum, but in the end he took the coward’s way out and escaped to the bathroom.

  He’d planned to take his time, but it was damn cold in there, so he rushed, peeing, washing his face with lukewarm water and scrubbing his teeth with his finger and some toothpaste he found in a drawer. He could hear arguing on the other side of the door, Arthur bellowing, Marcus growling, and Paul alternating between petulance and trying to insert reason. Huddling against the heat vent, Frankie waited them out until things quieted. When he heard footsteps on the stairs, he opened the door.

  Marcus stood on the other
side, holding out a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

  “They’re Paul’s, but they’ll still be a little big.” He ran his gaze up and down Frankie and frowned. “May be best to toss them on over what you’re wearing. You look half-frozen as it is.” He shoved the clothes into Frankie’s arms and turned away. “I’ll bank up the fire.”

  Though his ingrained Minnesota Nice wanted him to protest and tell Marcus not to bother, Frankie truly was half-frozen, so he swallowed it and put on the sweats—over the top of his jeans and shirt as ordered—before hurrying back to the fireside. The couch had been pulled open and made into a bed piled high with several blankets. Frankie’s car quilt was draped over two chairs near the fire, which Marcus added a generous amount of firewood to.

  Marcus nodded to the drying blanket. “If you get cold in the middle of the night, that should be dry in a few hours, so go ahead and grab it. With two of us under the covers, though, maybe you’ll stay warm enough.”

  This observation came with a scowl, and Frankie sorely wished he could get away with sleeping on the floor or even in the recliner. Anything but bunking down with Captain Grumpypants. “I’m so sorry to put you out like this.”

  “What, you meant to wreck?”

  Why was the man so angry, and why did he get angrier the more Frankie apologized for bothering him? “I’m just sorry, that’s all.”

  Marcus shrugged, grumbled something under his breath and headed for the bathroom.

  Frankie wasn’t sure what side he was meant to sleep on, so he picked the one closest to where he stood, lifting the covers and climbing quickly inside. The foldout couch was bigger than most Frankie had slept in, but once he lay back he realized all foldout couches truly were the same: no matter what the quality of the mattress, he could still feel that bar in the middle, poking into his back. Still, it was as warm as Marcus promised, especially when the larger man crawled in beside him. Frankie only prayed he didn’t curl up against his sleeping partner like a heat-seeking missile during the night.