Chapter 1

 

 

February

 

I TOSS my bag in the door of my rental car and practically throw myself in after it. Once the door is safely closed, I slump into the seat, close my eyes, and curse the entire state of Michigan. If Michigan didn’t exist, then I wouldn’t be sitting in a rental car at the edge of Sleeping Bear College’s tiny campus, having a premature midlife crisis at thirty.

I just spent the day interviewing for a job at Sleeping Bear, a small liberal arts college I’d never even heard of until six months ago. My interview went well, my teaching demonstration went even better, and I’m pretty sure I never let my cuffs slide up to show my tattoos. I could tell they liked me, and they seemed enthusiastic about hiring someone young to help them build the department. As they talked about independent studies and dual majors, I mentally catalogued all the bear puns I could. Of course, what they’d think if they found out that I associate bears’ hairy chests and lumbering gaits with large men drinking beer instead of the college, the nearby dunes, and the animal they are named for, I can’t say.

I’ve been working my ass off to get where I am today, and all I can think is that I’m a fraud. I’m not an English professor. I’m just some queer little punk from Philadelphia who the smart kids slummed it with. Just ask my ex. Just ask my father. Ask my brothers, especially. God, what the hell am I doing here?

Sleeping Bear is the only college where I got an interview and it is in the middle of fucking nowhere—near some place called Traverse City (which is definitely not a city, based on anything I’ve ever seen). I had to drive for nearly four hours after I flew to Detroit to get here. I could have gotten closer with a connecting flight in a tiny plane, but I’ll be damned if the first time I ever flew I was going to crash into one of the Great Lakes. No, overland travel was good enough for me, even if the flight, the rental car, and the suit I bought for the visit put me even deeper in the hole than I was before. At least I saved a hundred bucks getting the red-eye from Detroit to Philly tomorrow night.

I shudder when I think what my credit card bill will look like this month. Good thing I can turn the heat off in my apartment in a few weeks when it gets above forty degrees. Not like there’s anyone there except me. My friends from school never want to come to my neighborhood, claiming it’s more convenient to go places near campus. Richard, my ex, wouldn’t be caught dead in my apartment, which he referred to as “the crack house.” Asshole. And I only see my brothers and my dad at their auto shop. Still, I love Philly; I’ve lived there all my life. Moving—especially to the middle of nowhere—well, even the thought is freaking me out.

Now, all I want is to go back to my shitty little motel room, order a pizza, and fall asleep in front of crappy TV. I sigh and start the rental car I can’t afford.

I have to admit, though, the road from the school to my motel is beautiful. All the hotels near campus are cute (read: expensive) bed and breakfast joints, so I booked in at the Motel 6 outside of town. It’s down a two-lane road that seems to follow the tree line. To my left are fields and the occasional dirt road turnoff with signs I can’t read in the near-dark. God, I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since an ill-advised Dunkin’ Donuts egg sandwich at the airport.

It’s really cold so far north, but I crack the window to breathe the sweet smell of fresh air and trees anyway. It’s actually really peaceful out here. Quiet. It isn’t something I’m used to—quiet, I mean. Library-quiet and middle-of-the-night quiet, sure. But in the city there’s always noise. This is a quiet that feels like water and trees and, well, nature, I guess, like the time my parents took us to the Jersey Shore when we were kids and I hid under the boardwalk away from the crowds, listening to the overwhelming sound of the ocean and the creak of docks.

And peace? Well, never peace. If it wasn’t one of my asshole brothers starting shit with me, it was my dad flipping his lid over me being gay. Of course, later my lack of peace came in the form of Richard, my ex, who, while we were together, was apparently sleeping with every gay man at the University of Pennsylvania.

My hands tighten on the wheel as I picture Richard, his handsome face set in an expression of haughty condescension as he leveled me with one nauseating smile. “Come on, Dan,” he said, like we had discussed this before, “who believes in monogamy anymore? Don’t be so bourgeois.” And, “It’s not like we’re exclusive.” That, after we’d been together for two years—or so I’d thought—and I’d taken him to my brother Sam’s wedding.

Anyway, I hate being called Dan.

I grit my teeth and force myself to take a deep breath. No more thinking about Richard. I promised myself.

I glance down at the scrap of paper where I scrawled the directions to my motel. I can almost taste the buttery cheese and crispy pizza crust and my stomach growls. When I look back up a second later, something darts into the road in front of me. I swerve hard to the right, but I hear a sickening whine the second before the car veers into a tree.

 

 

ALL I can see is blackness, until I realize I scrunched my eyes shut before I hit the tree. I open them slowly, expecting to look down and see that my legs are gone or something, like in one of those war movies my brother is always watching, where a bomb goes off and the soldier thinks he’s fine, laughing and smiling, until the dust clears and he looks down and has no lower body. Then the pain hits. It’s like the cartoon physics of awareness: we can’t hurt until we see that we’re supposed to.

But my legs are there, as is everything else. I do a quick stretch, but aside from some soreness where the seat belt locked in, I actually feel okay. The car, however, is another story. I can already see that I’m not driving out of here. I jam the door open and slide out, a little unsteady on my feet. And then I hear it. A terrible whining noise.

Fuck, what did I do?

The dark seems to have settled in all of a sudden and it’s hard to see the road. I take a few cautious steps toward the noise, and then I see it. A dog. A brown and white dog that doesn’t look much older than a puppy, though it’s already pretty big. I don’t know anything about dogs, have no idea what kind it is. But it’s definitely hurt. It looks like maybe I broke its leg when I hit it.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I say. The dog is whimpering, its big brown eyes wide with pain. “Fuck, dog, I’m so sorry,” I tell it, and reach out a hand to try and soothe it. As I reach for its head, though, it growls and I jerk my hand back.

“I know, dog, I’m sorry. I’m not going to hurt you. Hang on.”

I rush back to the car for my phone and try to call information so I can find an emergency vet, but I can’t get a signal out here at all. I put the car in neutral and try to rock it away from the tree enough so that I can look under the hood—growing up with a family auto shop means you can’t help but know how to fix cars, even if you don’t want to go into the family business. But there’s no way. The undercarriage must’ve caught on the tree’s roots or something.

I grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder, and go back to where the dog is lying, still whimpering. I can’t leave it here. It’ll get run over by a car in the dark. Or, worse, it’ll just lie here all alone, terrified and in pain. The sound it’s making is ripping my fucking heart out. I can’t believe I did this. Christ, how did I even get here? I ease to the other side of the dog and gently run my fingertips over the soft fur on its head. It whines, but doesn’t growl.

I keep petting it, talking low as I ease my arm underneath.

“Okay, dog, you’re okay. Don’t worry, I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be fine.” I’m saying things I haven’t heard since my mother said them when I was little. Words that are meant to comfort but mean nothing.

I roll the dog into my arms and it whimpers and growls as I jostle its hurt leg. I cuddle it close to my chest to keep it immobile and try to stand without falling over and hurting it worse. I’ll just walk a little ways. There has to be a gas station, or a house, or something, right? I’ll just ask someone to call a vet. Hell, maybe this is what police do in a nothing town like this. Rescue dogs that get stuck in trees, or something? No, wait, that’s cats. Cats get stuck in trees. Right?

I walk for what feels like forever. The dog has gone quiet, but I can feel it breathing, so at least I know it isn’t dead. What it is, though, is getting heavy. I stop for a second to check if I have phone service for what feels like the millionth time. I haven’t come across a single gas station and I’m not sure how much longer I can walk.

“Okay, dog; it’s okay,” I say again, but my voice is as shaky as my legs, and, really, it isn’t the dog I’m talking to anymore. Still no service. Fuck.

Then, off to my right, I see a light. A shaky beam of light that’s getting closer. Just as I pull level with the light, a man steps out of the woods. I rear away from the large form, and the dog whimpers softly. The man looks huge and the way he’s shining the flashlight is blinding. My heart beats heavily in my throat. This guy could take me apart. Squaring my shoulders and setting my feet so I look as big as possible, I plan how I can set the dog down without hurting it further if I have to fight. Or run. Then a warm voice breaks the silence that stopped feeling peaceful the second I swerved.

“You okay?”

His voice is deep and a little growly. For half a second, all the puns about bears that I was making earlier dance through my head and I laugh. What comes out sounds more like a hysterical squeak, though.

“Do you mind?” I say, squinting and hoping my voice sounds more threatening than the noise I just made. He lowers the flashlight immediately and walks toward me. I take a half step back automatically. All I can really see in the dark, with the ghost of the flashlight leaving spots in my vision, are massive shoulders clad in plaid.

“Are you okay?” the man asks again, and he puts out a hand as he takes the last few slow steps to my side. I nod quickly. His hand is huge.

“I, um.”

He bends down and looks in my face. I don’t know what he sees there, but his posture shifts, the bulk of him softening ever so slightly.

“I didn’t mean to,” I try to explain when it’s clear he isn’t a threat. “Only, it came out of nowhere and I couldn’t—” I break off as he shines the flashlight on the dog. It whines and I gather it closer to me, suddenly unsure. “I tried to find a vet, but I can’t get a signal here and my car hit the tree so I couldn’t drive and I—”

“You were in an accident? Are you hurt?”

“No—I mean, I’m not. I’m… but my car’s fucked. Do you have a phone? Can you call a vet?”

“No vet,” he says. “Nothing’s open this late.” It’s maybe 7:00 p.m.

“Please,” I say. “I can’t let it die. Fuck! What the fuck am I doing here? I can’t believe I—” I break off when I can tell my next words won’t be anything I want a total stranger to hear.

“Come with me,” the man says, and turns and walks back into the woods. What the hell?

“Um,” I say. Am I actually supposed to follow a total stranger into the woods? In the dark? In the middle of nowhere? In Michigan? I know stereotypes about cannibals who live in the woods and eat unsuspecting tourists are just that: stereotypes. Maybe I’ve watched The Hills Have Eyes one too many times, but still. Isn’t it, like, a statistical fact that most serial killers come from the Midwest?

While I was distracted by regionally profiling the man, he’d come back out of the woods and is now standing directly in front of me, close enough that I can kind of see his face. He has dark hair and eyes, and a sharp nose. That’s all I can see in the dark. But he is definitely much younger than I assumed. His low voice sounded older, but he looks like he’s in his midthirties. And up close, he is massive, with hugely broad shoulders, powerful arms, and broad hips—how much of that is flesh and how much is flannel remains to be seen. He’s nearly a head taller than me, and I’m not short.

“You need to come with me,” he says, and his voice suggests that he’s considering the fact that I might be an idiot.

“Er, sure,” I say, figuring that if worse comes to worst, at least I can run; I have to be faster than this guy, right? I take an experimental step toward him and, in the way it sometimes happens when you rest after an exertion, nearly fall on my face as my body takes longer to wake up than my brain. The man catches me with one easy hand under my elbow and steadies me. Shit, that was embarrassing.

“Here,” he says. “Let me take the dog. You take this.” He shrugs something off his shoulder and hands it to me. It takes a few seconds to process the unfamiliar shape in the dark.

“Is that a gun?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Why do you have a gun?” I ask warily. Though, I guess I should be reassured that he’s handing it to me and not pointing it at me.

“To hunt with,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Right,” I say. Hunting. Michigan. Michigan.

He gently sets what I can only assume is a rifle on the ground next to me.

“Let me.” He slides his hands under the dog. His hands are huge, covering practically my whole stomach as he worms them under my arms. “I’ve got him,” he says.

“I don’t know if it’s a boy,” I say. “I don’t know anything about dogs. I mean, I guess I would’ve been able to tell by looking, but I didn’t think of it. But it’s really common, defaulting to male pronouns to refer to things of indeterminate gender.” Christ, I’m babbling.

He cocks his head at me and walks away. I pick up the strap of the gun gingerly and take off after him, holding it as far away from the trigger as I can. With the luck I’m having today, I’d trip and end up shooting the man. Or myself. Or, shit, probably the dog.

 

 

“HAND ME the scissors,” the man says. I’m petting the dog’s head and surreptitiously trying not to look at the poor thing’s leg, which the man has determined is, indeed, broken. His house was only about a ten-minute walk from the road.

I hand him the scissors and examine his face in the light of the lamp. I tell myself it’s just because I’d rather look anywhere but at the dog’s leg. He has a really good face, though. Strong, high cheekbones and a straight nose; straight, dark eyebrows, one with a white scar bisecting it, and dark brown hair that waves slightly. His eyes are lighter than I thought in the woods: a kind of whiskey brown that looks almost gold in the light. Maybe one is a little narrower than the other, but he hasn’t made eye contact with me long enough for me to be sure. His mouth is set in a grim line of concentration while he works, but it’s soft and generous. He hasn’t smiled yet, but he probably has a nice one.

He stripped off his outer layer of flannel as he laid the dog down on the kitchen table. It was a bulky, quilted jacket, but even without it, he’s huge, his shoulders and the muscles of his arms tightening his blue and gray flannel shirt. He rolled up the sleeves to reveal a white waffle-knit shirt that’s too short in the sleeves, exposing thick wrists and powerful forearms. His huge hands are gentle on the dog’s fur and I can’t help but imagine what they’d feel like on my skin. What it would be like to be held in those hands, to be enveloped. My hand tightens in the dog’s fur and I force myself to relax as it makes a sound.

“She’s a girl, by the way.” His voice startles me and I meet his eyes, praying that he can’t read what I’ve been thinking about on my face. The last thing I need is for tomorrow’s local paper—if they even have a paper in this town—to carry a story that reads, “Out of town gay man found beaten to death in cabin of unfairly handsome local straight bruiser. Police assume queer panic ensued after out of town gay made a pass at straight bruiser.”

“Huh?” I say. He swallows, like he isn’t used to talking.

“The dog. You were right, she isn’t a boy.” He pats the dog gently and scoops her up, depositing her in a nest of blankets in front of the fireplace.

“Oh,” I say. “Great.” I stand and follow him. I realize I’m nodding compulsively and force myself to stop. He touches a long match to the newspaper and kindling below the logs in the grate.

“Is she going to be okay, do you think?” The fire consumes the paper and there’s a delicious, earthy smell as the bark on the logs starts to crackle. With the fire lit, he turns toward me.

“I think so. If she can stay off this leg tonight, I’ll take her into town tomorrow. Have the vet check her out for any internal injuries.”

I’m suddenly so relieved that I go a little woozy. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t hurt the poor dog beyond repair. I’m not a total fuckup.

“Whoa,” he says. In one step, he’s there, grabbing me by both shoulders to keep me upright. My vision is a little blurry and I blink up at him. God, he’s handsome. His brows are furrowed with worry, his eyes narrowed.

“Sorry,” he says, looking down. “I should’ve made sure you weren’t hurt.”

“No, I’m okay,” I say, stepping out from under his hands.

“You were in a car accident. Come here.” He steps behind me and puts his hands back on my shoulders, guiding me to the bathroom. When he flips the switch, I wince at the harsh light after being so long in the dark. In the mirror, I can see why he’s concerned. My black hair is messy and there’s a smear of blood on my cheek from the dog. A bruise is already coming out on my forehead, though I don’t even remember hitting my head. I blink at my reflection. My pupils are huge, even in the bright light, leaving only a thin ring of green around them.

He’s looking at me in the mirror, his light eyes fixed on mine. I can smell him behind me: wood smoke and damp wool and something lightly piney, like deodorant. Or, hey, I guess in the woods it could actually be pine. I can feel the warmth he’s giving off and it reminds me of how cold I am. He turns me around by the shoulders again, like he’s my rudder.

I shiver. I dropped my coat by the door, but even though it was cold out, I sweat through my shirt and suit coat while I was carrying the dog, and now they’ve turned cold and clammy. The tie I borrowed from my brother, Sam, and the new white shirt I bought for my interview are both streaked with blood.

“Shit.” I halfheartedly swipe at the blood. As I rub a little harder, I wince, realizing that my chest is sore.

“Were you wearing your seat belt?”

“Huh?” I feel like I’m processing everything five seconds after he says it. “Oh, yeah.”

He slides my suit jacket off my shoulders and starts to unbutton my shirt.

“Um,” I mumble. He bats my hand away and pulls my shirt apart. When I look down, I can see a purple bruise forming in the shape of my seat belt. Well, good to know it worked, I guess. The bruise is long, disappearing into the tattoos that cover most of my torso.

“Tell me if it’s particularly tender anywhere.” He probes the length of the bruise gently.

“No, it’s okay,” I say, half because it’s true and half because I can’t think with his fingers on my skin. His hands are warm the way big guys’ are sometimes—great circulation, I guess.

“Wasn’t expecting those,” he says, gesturing to my tattoos. It’s funny. Anyone who meets me when I’m dressed professionally is surprised to find out I have tattoos, but anyone who knows me from my real life—at concerts, coffee shops, or just around—thinks my professional drag looks out of place.

I shrug and he gives me a cursory once-over, looking for other bruises.

“Take your pants off.”

“Oh, um, I—” I scooch backward, away from him. There’s no way I’ll be able to keep it together standing in front of this gorgeous man almost naked. “Maybe, could I just take a shower?”

He doesn’t say anything, but turns the water on and grabs a towel from a shelf on the wall. It’s forest green. It seems like everything about him and this house is green and brown. Earthy.

“Here, give me your clothes,” he says. “I’ll get you something of mine to wear.”

When he leaves, I toe my dress shoes off, trying not to notice that anyone who looked could see the soles are worn almost through, but they’re polished to a mirror shine—or, at least, they were before my trek in through the woods. Five-dollar-new-shoes: that’s what my dad always called a shoeshine.

He knocks a minute later and hands me a pile of neatly folded sweatpants and a T-shirt. Then he hands me a drink.

“I thought you could use something to warm you up.”

I sniff it. Whiskey. I down it like a shot.

“Thanks.”

He backs out of the bathroom and I undress and step under the hot water with a sigh.

I can’t let myself think any more about this shit show of a day—much less the fact that I’m in the shower of a total stranger who may or may not be about to axe murder me and wrap me up in this shower curtain—or I’m going to lose it. Instead, I pretend like Ginger is giving me a stern talking-to because, unlike mine, Ginger’s talking-tos sometimes work. Well, first Ginger would tell me to have a fucking drink, so I’m good on that count. Then it would probably go something like this:

Me: I’m having a nervous breakdown. I have no clue what I should be doing with my life. What if my dad is right and academia is for assholes who think they’re better than everyone else but never do a day’s work in their lives?

Ginger: Your dad is a fucking idiot. We know this. First of all, you don’t have to know what you’re doing with your whole life. Just what you’re doing right now. And right now, you’re being a professor. Second, you don’t think you’re better than everyone. Third, you’ve worked hard your entire life.

Me: Okay, but what if Richard’s right and I’m not really smart enough to do this? I mean, I wasn’t smart enough to realize that he was having sex with approximately 10 percent of Philadelphia, even though everyone else knew.

Ginger: Richard is a fucking idiot. Also, he looks like a boring version of an Abercrombie and Fitch model. You hate that all-American shit. You only went out with him because you were insecure about being the only one at Penn whose parents weren’t professor-types. You were flattered when he wanted to go out with you because you thought it meant you were smart. Well, you are smart, but that was stupid. You’re smart enough to be a professor; that’s why you’re going to get this job.

Me: Fuck me, Ginge—this place is ridiculous. I’m probably the only queer within a hundred miles. There’s a park near here called Gaylord, and I bet no one even thinks it’s funny. Seriously, if I get this job I’ll have to be celibate. Until some cute little gay undergrad catches me in a weak moment, after I haven’t had sex in seventeen years, and then I’ll get fired for inappropriate conduct, or put in jail for sexual harassment.

Ginger: Look, kid, you’re flipping out over maybes and you’re overthinking, as usual. Just see what this job is before you’re so positive it has nothing to offer you. Ride the wave. Besides, you know the stats. I don’t care if it’s the lunch lady, your accountant, or the butch lumberjack; there have got to be homosexuals, even in that godforsaken little slice of Minnesota.

Me: Michigan.

Ginger: Whatever, pumpkin.

She’s right, as usual. And, of course, her mention of butch lumberjacks brings me right back to… shit, I don’t even know his name.

 

 

I MAKE my way back into the living room, holding up my borrowed sweatpants in an attempt not to trip and kill myself. The T-shirt sleeves reach past my elbows. It’s like when I used to have to wear my older brothers’ stuff, only worse because I wasn’t concerned about looking attractive in front of my brothers, who would’ve told me I looked like an idiot no matter what I was wearing. Of course, it makes no sense to worry about how I look in front of this man either, since it’s not like some super masculine straight guy is going to care. These clothes do have one advantage over my brothers’, though: whereas my brothers’ hand-me-downs smelled like stale sweat beneath industrial-strength bleach, these smell like fabric softener and cedar.

As I walk past the fire, the dog lifts her eyelids and regards me sleepily, but doesn’t stir. I can hear noise coming from the kitchen.

“What’s your name?” I ask the man’s broad back, where he’s bent over the sink, washing a plate.

The muscles in his back and shoulders tense, as if I startled him. He turns around and his eyes immediately go to my hips.

“Those things are gonna fall off you,” he says. “Come here.” He rummages around in a drawer next to the sink.

Be still, my fantasies, I insist as I step toward him. The last thing I need is to pop a boner in this guy’s sweatpants and have him kick my ass. Not that it’d be the first time.

He squats down, gathers the excess fabric around my hips, and folds it over, then holds it together with a binder clip. I must look confused because he shrugs and mutters, “I use them for chip clips.”

“Thanks,” I say, and roll the T-shirt sleeves up a little so I don’t look like a child.

“What’s yours?”

“Huh? Oh, I’m Daniel.” I stick out a hand to him in a weirdly professional gesture, as if we haven’t been together for an hour, as if he didn’t just binder-clip the waist of my borrowed sweatpants. But he just takes my hand in his large palm and shakes it firmly. God, his hands are so warm.

“So?” I ask again.

“Rex,” he says, and ducks his head a bit shyly. Rex. King. It suits him.

“I guess I should go,” I say, making a vague gesture toward the door. “Oh shit, my car—I have to call someone—and I didn’t even check in to my hotel yet, so I need—” God, I’m tired.

“I took care of it,” Rex says, turning back to the sink. “Here, do you want another drink? You look like you could use it.” He pours another whiskey and holds it out to me.

“Thanks. What do you mean, you took care of it?” I sip this whiskey a bit slower. My head feels like it’s full of cotton.

“I called someone and had your car towed. It was a rental, right?” I nod. “So, you can just pick one up at the airport. It’s right near here.” Relief floods me that I won’t have to handle that. I can’t even remember the last time someone took care of anything for me.

“Thank you,” I say, and I can hear the relief in my voice. I finish the whiskey in my glass and hold it out for a refill without thinking about it. Rex gives me an amused nod and refills my glass, pours one for himself, and then gestures me into the living room.

I sink down onto Rex’s green plaid couch and pull the blue flannel blanket over me. The couch dips with Rex’s weight as he sits beside me and I open my eyes. In the firelight, he is a god. The flames flicker over the planes of his face and the straight lines of his eyebrows, create a shadow under his full lower lip, turn his stubble to velvet and his eyes to molten gold. I slug back the rest of my drink and put the glass down. I can’t look away from him. He’s regarding me calmly and I can smell him on the blanket I’m wrapped up in.

Something is happening to me. It’s like there is a magnet drawing me toward him and I am in actual danger of making an idiotic move on a stranger who is, as far as I know, straight, in a cabin in the woods, when no one knows where I am. Okay, now is when I need to remind myself of all those stereotypes of rural cannibalistic serial killers. Remember The Hills Have Eyes, Daniel! Texas Chainsaw Massacre! Or, more realistically, I just need to focus on how much it actually hurts to get hit in the face, which is what’s likely to happen if I get any closer to Rex than the other side of the couch.

I clear my throat and shake my head, trying to banish the fog that’s taken over.

“Is everything you have made of plaid?”

“No,” Rex says. “Some of it’s just plain flannel.”

I start to laugh and can’t stop, even though it’s not particularly funny. All of a sudden I realize what should’ve been obvious: I’m drunk. I’ve had three whiskeys after being in a car accident and I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Can Rex tell?

“When was the last time you ate?” he says. Yep, I think he can tell. And I almost don’t care. It’s so nice and warm here, so cozy. No one I know is here to witness me potentially losing my shit in Holiday, Michigan. No one ever has to know that I hit a dog. And no one here knows that in approximately one month I will be evicted if I can’t grab a whole lot of extra hours at the bar so I can afford my rent. None of it matters while I’m warm and tipsy here, in the land of flannel and wood.

Suddenly, the middle of nowhere seems like the best possible place I could be.

 

 

I MUST’VE fallen asleep for a minute, because when I wake up, Rex is standing over me holding a sandwich.

“Daniel.”

I sit up a little and take the plate from him.

“Uh, yeah.”

“What are you doing here?”

I look around the room, my head still spacey. No, Daniel, he means in town. Get it together.

“I had a job interview. At Sleeping Bear College.” I take a bite of the sandwich and feel a little sick, the way I sometimes do if I wait too long to eat. But the second bite is heaven.

“What kind of jam is this?” I ask.

“Mixed berry.”

“It’s good.”

“What was your interview for?”

“To teach in the English department.” The words make my stomach clench with anxiety. Or maybe that’s just the peanut butter.

“You’re an English professor? You seem so young.”

“Yeah. Well, technically, I’m still a grad student, but if I get the job, it’ll start in the fall, and I’ll defend my dissertation in the summer, so then I’ll be a professor. It’s funny you think I’m younger than usual. Most people, when they hear I’m in grad school, they’re like, ‘Oh, so that’ll take you, what, two or three years?’ And I’ll say, ‘No, more like seven or eight,’ and they think it’s crazy because they’ve seen TV shows where all the characters have three PhDs by the time they’re twenty-three. It’s unrealistic and propagates total misinformation about higher education. Drives me crazy.”

“A dissertation. That’s the book you write to get your degree, right?” Rex seems to actually be listening, even though I’ve gone off on a grad school tirade.

“Yeah. I’ve been working on it for five years.” Alongside teaching every semester, bartending on the weekends, applying for fellowships, and, recently, applying for fifty-six jobs across the country, that is.

“What’s it about?”

“Oh, it’s boring; you don’t want to hear about that,” I tell him.

“Well, if you think I won’t understand,” Rex says, and his jaw tightens.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I just—no one who isn’t writing a dissertation ever actually wants to hear about them. Hell, even the people who are writing them don’t really want to hear about them; they only ask so that you’ll ask about theirs in return. Do you seriously want to know?”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

“Um, yeah. Well, I study nineteenth and early twentieth century American literature. Basically, I’m writing about authors from that time period who use social realism to explore the different models of economic theory available. So, some of them were critiquing capitalism, but didn’t offer anything in its place; some were radically anarchist; some were staunch Marxists; etc. But all of them used their writing to explore the effects of those different models.”

Rex is looking into the fire.

“Sorry. I’m boring you. That was so geeky. This stuff isn’t really interesting to anyone except me. I shouldn’t—”

“You aren’t boring me,” Rex says. “Go on.”

He has this low, authoritative voice that makes me forget that there’s any possibility except to do what he says. So I go on. I tell him about the books, about the authors’ lives; before I know it, I’m talking about literary naturalism and Marxist materialist criticism, and ranting about the job market. I never talk this much—not to anyone but Ginger.

And Rex seems interested. He doesn’t seem to think I’m a total geek or a pretentious asshole. Or maybe he just feels sorry for the idiotic city boy who got himself marooned in Northern Michigan, almost killed a dog, and is currently drunk in a stranger’s sweatpants in a cabin made of plaid and flannel. I trail off.

“So, do you think you’ll get the job?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, and sigh.

“What, you don’t want it?”

“Well, I need a job,” I tell him. “I need the money, for sure. And, no matter what, I can use this position as a springboard for another job if a better one comes along. And it’s actually a pretty good fit for me, you know. Like, I don’t want to be lecturing to three hundred unfamiliar faces at a huge university. I like how small the school is, how they’re excited about building up the English department. They even want to have a creative writing graduate program eventually. They think the—how did they put it?—’natural isolation’ will be a draw for writers.”

“But,” Rex prompts, looking at me intently.

“But…. No offense, man, but there’s, like, nothing here. I’ve lived in Philly my whole life. I don’t know shit about trees or animals or nature. I mean, I just never saw myself someplace so… isolated.” My stomach is a knot of fear. Every word I speak hammers home how totally and completely screwed I would be living here.

I spent the last eight years in graduate school, all of it leading up to this moment—a moment, I must add, that most grad students would kill for in this crazy economy and terrible job market. But now… shit. I’m just so unsure.

“And, anyway, I don’t even know if I want to be an English professor. Like, what good would that actually do, you know? Really? It’s not useful. It’s like, what, teaching a bunch of overprivileged, sheltered kids with their parents’ credit cards how to construct a thesis statement or, if I’m lucky, getting to teach one senior seminar a year in the stuff I’m actually interested in, which no one will care about anyway.”

I can hear my voice, but it sounds like it’s coming from a million miles away. I think maybe I did hit my head. My ears are ringing and I feel like someone poured cement into my stomach. God, the idea of sitting at a desk for the rest of my life, teaching kids who don’t care, talking to other professors in their fifties and sixties about the decline of the written word with the advent of texting, totally alone in this godforsaken place. My hands are fists and I shake my head to try and clear it.

“Besides, I’m probably the only gay guy in a hundred-mile radius,” I blurt out, forgetting that I’m not talking to Ginger, like I was in the shower. Fuck. I can’t believe I just said that. “And, uh, there’s, like, no music scene here?” I look around the room, everywhere but at Rex. The dog is still snoozing in front of the fire, her front paw twitching as she dreams. I wish I were her. I wish I were asleep, in front of a fire, cozy and warm, and not having to worry about anything except whether I’ll get breakfast soon.

I force myself to meet Rex’s gaze. To look at him calmly and confidently, as if what I just said is no big deal. This is what I’ve learned over the years. You just stare, like everything is normal, make them feel like they’ll be the awkward one if they say anything to you about it. Just stay calm and narrow your eyes a little like you’re not scared of a fight.

But Rex isn’t saying anything, isn’t reacting at all. I get up, clumsily, and bring my plate and glass to the kitchen sink. I pour a quick slug of whiskey in the glass and down it, then start scrubbing the plate. Everything’s fine, I say in my head. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine.

When Rex comes up behind me, the soapy plate slips out of my hand and shatters in the sink. I jump backward.

“Shit! Shit, I’m sorry.” I look up at him, expecting anger, maybe disgust. When he doesn’t say anything, I start to pick up the pieces of broken plate, but they’re slippery and I keep dropping them.

“Stop.” Rex puts his hands over mine in the sink. He dries my hands with the dishtowel, then takes me by the shoulders and turns me around so I’m leaning against the wall.

“You need to calm down,” he says, and his voice is a warm ocean of command. I nod, trying to calm down, but my heart is racing. What is wrong with me? It’s not like people don’t know I’m gay. Hell, I’ve always enjoyed letting idiots bro down with me and then just casually talking about my boyfriend to watch their surprise. It’s obvious that Rex isn’t going to hurt me; if he were, he would’ve done it already. I take a deep breath, his heavy hands weighing my shoulders down, anchoring me.

I look up at him, his eyes the same color as the whiskey I just drank. He steps closer, until I can feel his warmth. I open my mouth to tell him I’m fine, but what comes out is an embarrassingly shaky breath.

“Just calm down,” he says. And then he kisses me.

His hand is so big that when he cups my cheek his fingers trail down my neck, warm and rough. His mouth is soft on mine, but the power of his body behind it makes it clear he’s holding himself back. As one hand strokes my neck, the other cups my head, tangling in my hair. I open my eyes for a moment to make sure this is real, and his are open too, heavy-lidded and golden.

He pulls back and straightens up. He’s tall enough that he had to bend down to kiss me. I wonder if that’s annoying—to have to bend down all the time. Or, I guess if he were kissing someone his same height, he wouldn’t have to, but that’s probably pretty rare. Also, holy crap, Rex is gay! I wonder—

Then I can’t think of anything else because his mouth is on mine again, and this time it’s a real kiss. His hands are on my hips and my head is tilted back against the wall and he’s kissing me, his tongue filling all the empty spaces. I reach up and put my arms around his neck, trying to pull him closer to me. He slides a hand up my side and around to my back, and he hooks his hand around my shoulder, locking me to him. I gasp into his mouth as he pushes his hips forward, his hardness hot against my stomach even through his jeans.

He pulls back, his mouth leaving mine with a lewd smack.

“Better?” he asks, and when he gives me his first real smile, it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. His whole face is transformed. He has dimples and his teeth are a little crooked, one incisor slightly twisted.

I huff out a laugh and grin back.

“Better.” And, actually, I am. I feel calm and boneless. Well, not exactly boneless. In fact, I’m trying to psychically communicate that he could make everything a whole lot better if he’d just release the binder clip barely holding my sweatpants up and take me on the kitchen table, but he doesn’t seem to be getting the message.

He takes me by the hand and leads me back to the couch. He covers me with the flannel blanket, sinks down next to me, and flicks on the TV with one hand while he subtly adjusts himself with the other. When he looks at me out of the corner of his eye, I grin at him. He laughs and shakes his head.

“Just relax.”

He’s channel surfing—more channels than I would’ve expected to find in a log cabin. I think I finally have to admit to myself that I am helpless to control my dumb stereotypes about rural places and the people who live in them. As if he can read my mind, Rex rolls his eyes and points out the front door.

“Satellite dish.”

He stops changing channels at a black-and-white movie, looking totally delighted when he turns to me and points at the screen expectantly. I have no idea what movie it is. I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen an entire black-and-white movie except when I took a film class in college. I don’t even own a TV.

“Gaslight,” he says, smiling. “I love this movie.” He’s still looking at me expectantly; I shake my head.

“I’ve never seen it.”

“Really? Ingrid Bergman. I love her.”

“So you are gay,” I joke.

He fixes me with a smoldering look.

“Were you in doubt?”

“No,” I squeak. He looks back at the screen.

“This version is the most famous, but MGM actually made it only four years after the UK film version. Then they somehow cut a deal so that the UK version wasn’t allowed to be rereleased in the US. I do think this one is better than the 1940 version, though. Mostly because Ingrid Bergman’s better than Diana Wynyard.

“It’s great, although MGM’s corniness ruins it in some parts. And, you know, the Production Code. It’s Angela Lansbury’s first film role.”

He’s speaking absently, as if I know all this, his face animated even as his eyes are glued to the screen.

“You’re a film geek, huh?”

“What? No. I mean, I just like old movies,” he says, looking a little uncomfortable.

“I think that’s awesome,” I say, desperate not to have offended him. “I never saw many movies growing up, so I guess I just never developed a taste for them. It was always sports at my house.”

“Do you still follow sports?”

“Oh, no, I never did. My dad and my brothers, though. Huge sports fans. I think as long as it’s got a ball, they watch it. Well, except soccer. They think soccer’s for pansies. Oh, and golf, because it’s not violent.”

“How many brothers do you have?”

“Three. All older. You?”

“No,” he says, and turns back to the TV. We watch the movie in silence for ten or fifteen minutes.

“Hey, wait, is this where the term to gaslight someone comes from?”

“Yeah,” Rex says, looking back at me. “Ingrid Bergman’s husband—Charles Boyer—messes with her head, trying to make her think she’s going crazy.”

It is so hot to watch him talk about this stuff. He’s so, well, burly; he doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’d be into old movies. And unlike Richard, my ex, or the people I went to grad school with, he doesn’t sound like his interest is academic. There’s none of the desire to impress with his knowledge, none of the analysis asserted as fact. He’s just really excited about an old Ingrid Bergman movie. And I want nothing more than to kiss him again.

“I guess I always thought it had something to do with gas fumes making people hallucinate or something,” I murmur.

He smiles at me. “I think that’s a common mis—”

He breaks off when I launch myself into his lap. I kiss him, throwing my arms around his neck. His mouth is soft and his body is hard beneath me. When I kiss him, his hands go automatically to my back, stroking up and down my spine, sending sparks of heat through my whole body. I moan into his mouth, and he drags me down by the shoulders. I’m dizzy with lust, his scent and his warmth and his big hands making it impossible to do anything but keep kissing him.

I reach between us and fumble for his fly, but I’m pulled out of my haze by hands holding mine still.

“Hey, hey, Daniel.” He takes my hands between his and puts them back on his shoulders. He kisses me softly, but it’s a good-bye kiss. I can tell. A we’re-done-now kiss. A pity kiss. The warmth of lust is immediately replaced with nausea. My head is pounding and I’m too hot, not to mention humiliated. I move off him with as much dignity as I can muster, considering I’m straddling someone with binder-clipped sweatpants and a too-big shirt that has fallen off one shoulder like a valley girl’s sweatshirt.

On the floor, the dog has raised her head and is looking at me as if even she can tell something is wrong with me. I stare at the fire intently, wishing I could disappear into it.

“Look,” Rex says, his voice gentle. “It’s really late, and you’ve had a long day. You should get some sleep.” I nod without looking at him.

He brings me a pillow from the hall closet, and another blanket, but instead of going into his room, he lingers in the doorway, looking at me.

“You know,” he says, and he sounds a little shy. “You kind of look like you could be one of those old-time Hollywood leading men.”

I look up at him, startled. He’s looking at me intently, leaning forward, but his eyes are sad, dark.

“You’d be wasted on black and white, though. Your eyes.” He makes a vague gesture toward my face, then turns away. “Good night, Daniel,” he says. And then he’s gone.