2016 Top Ten Gay Romance Read online

  “Where was this?”

  “A little town called Woodson, about three hundred miles from here.”

  “What happened to your car?”

  “Somebody stole it a week ago while I was pissing in the bushes.”

  Dane marveled at the man’s poor luck. “Well, you don’t have to leave here any time soon,” Dane said.

  “I can’t impose on you, just like I couldn’t impose on my friends.”

  “Look, man,” Dane leaned forward, face serious, “sometimes you’ve got to accept some help.”

  “I am accepting help, right now. You’ve given me food. I’ll get a good night’s sleep and be off tomorrow.”

  “Off where?”

  “Boulder, first, then if I can’t find work there, some bigger city.”

  “There’s absolutely no reason you can’t stay here, at least until after Christmas.” Dane hated to see the man run out into the bad weather again.

  “It’s nice of you to worry about me, but I’ll be fine.”

  Sayer finished reading the paper, and Dane watched the logs crackling and spitting sparks.

  After a while, Sayer set the paper aside and picked up the clock on the table, which had stopped working years ago. He seemed the sort that had boundless energy, always moving. He immediately began fiddling with the insides.

  “Think you could fix it?” Dane watched as Sayer opened the back of the clock and fiddled with its insides.

  “I might be able to.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you could. It was my grandfather’s and hasn’t worked in a decade.”

  Sayer held the clock to the light, and Dane went to get his tools. He set them before Sayer and left him to it.

  In the kitchen, Dane put some coffee on to brew and fed Boone. He paused in front of the photos on the wall, which he hadn’t taken the time to look at in a while. They were all nature scenes: waterfalls, the mountains, Blind River.

  “I miss you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Dane returned to the living room with two cups of coffee and sat down in his chair again. Sayer had the inner workings of the clock laid out before him on the coffee table and was tweaking a gear with a small Phillips screwdriver.

  “I know what you’re doing, you know,” Sayer said.

  “Drinking coffee?” Dane lifted a brow.

  “No, wise-ass. You’re giving me something to do so I’ll stay. It’s going to take me days to fix this clock, but you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I might have.” Dane smiled behind his cup.

  “Think you’re smart, huh?”

  “Pretty smart.”

  Sayer’s mouth quirked. “Fixing this clock won’t earn me room and board.”

  “Hey, I told you it was my grandfather’s. It means a lot to me.”

  “This isn’t old enough to be your grandfather’s.”

  “Sure it is—he bought it at JCPenney’s when he was ninety-three. I didn’t say it was an heirloom, did I?”

  Sayer broke out laughing. “You sorry son-of-a—”

  “Watch the language, Boone’s listening. Drink up.” Dane motioned to the steaming cup.

  Sayer gave Dane an exasperated look but drank the coffee.

  Chapter 2

  “You don’t have a Christmas tree,” Sayer said over a breakfast of oatmeal and toast. They sat on the back porch, looking out at the snow.

  “I haven’t had one in three years.”

  “Because your wife always put it up, and you can’t bear to do it now?”

  “You really don’t mince words,” Dane said.

  “Sorry. It’s a fault of mine. You want to get a tree?”

  Dane looked up from his bowl. “You want to?”

  “You seem determined to keep me here until after Christmas. We might as well celebrate it.”

  “All right—we’ll go to the tree farm this afternoon.”

  * * * *

  The tree farm had plenty of cut trees, but Sayer wanted to cut one himself.

  “Any particular reason you’re making us do this?” Dane asked.

  “Just seems more fun to cut it ourselves.”

  “More work, you mean.”

  “Don’t be so grumpy.” Sayer rested the saw they’d been given on his shoulder, and they made off through the rows of trees.

  “How about this one?” Dane pointed to a spruce.

  “Too small.”

  “This one?”

  “Too fat. Looks like a bush.”

  “This?”

  Sayer scrunched his mouth up while he walked around the tree, sizing it up.

  “For fuck’s sake, man, make a decision!”

  “You always this impatient?”

  Dane sighed and looked to the heavens for help. When none came, he looked back at Sayer. “Well?” Dane threw up his hands.

  “I guess it’ll do.”

  Sawing the thing down wasn’t as easy as it appeared when watching others doing it, and even Sayer became edgy, pulling off his coat and throwing it in the snow when he began to sweat. Finally they got the tree down and onto the sled.

  Once home, Dane dug the tree stand out of the shed, and it fell to him to screw the tree in place while Sayer attempted to keep it straight. Every time they thought they had it right, Dane would crawl out from under the limbs and the two men would back away to look at it. And it would be crooked.

  “I think the damn trunk is crooked,” Sayer finally said. “Just leave it.”

  “Fine with me.” Dane threw himself into his chair. The smell of pine was everywhere, and already the house felt more festive.

  “You have decorations, right?” Sayer asked after a moment. He’d sprawled onto the couch and looked rumpled, warm, and oddly inviting, like Dane wouldn’t mind curling up beside him.

  “Somewhere, yeah.”

  “We can decorate later, when we’ve rested. Why don’t you let me cook dinner tonight?”

  “You cook?”

  “Just because I live on the side of the road doesn’t mean I’m a barbarian.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m just playing with you. Don’t be so serious.”

  “Maybe I’m just half-dead from holding up that tree for the past hour.”

  “I was the one holding it up. All you had to do was screw it in.”

  “Yeah, about fifty times.”

  Sayer rolled his eyes and walked into the kitchen. He made spaghetti, and Dane broke out some red wine to serve with it. After the meal, they sat before a roaring fire finishing off the bottle.

  “This would be even nicer if the tree was lit,” Sayer said.

  “Yeah, it would. But I’m beat, and that’ll have to wait for tomorrow night. Don’t you ever wind down?”

  “I am pretty hyper, I’ve been told.” Sayer took another sip of wine.

  Dane leaned in and topped off his glass with the last of it. “Should I get another bottle?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  Relaxed by the wine and good food, Dane sank back into his chair. The fire crackled and spit, and Boone came to lay his head on Dane’s knee to be petted.

  “You’ve got it made out here,” Sayer said after a while. “A little place in the woods away from the hustle of the city…a dog for company. Who could ask for more?”

  Dane was about to agree, but Sayer suddenly shook his head.

  “Sorry, man. That was stupid of me. Of course things aren’t perfect—you don’t have your wife here. Christmas must be hard.”

  “It is.” Dane fiddled with Boone’s soft ear. “She died at Christmas.”

  “God.”

  “It’s okay, really. It feels good to talk about it.”

  Dane leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, the wine fuzzing his brain just enough to take the edge off the painful memories.

  “Liz was great. She was sweet and outgoing and a lot of fun. We met in college and bonded over our mutual love of nature and animals. We both had this dream of living out in
the woods, and we made it come true. Marriage seemed the obvious next step.”

  When Dane didn’t speak again for a while, Sayer put down his glass. “Listen, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “It isn’t that,” Dane swallowed. “I mean, it isn’t the memory of the happy times that gets to me. It’s the fact that I let her down.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t feel that way.”

  “She deserved so much more than I could ever give her.”

  Sayer frowned, obviously confused.

  “See, I wasn’t in love with her.”

  “It sure sounds like you loved her.”

  “Oh, I loved her. But I wasn’t in love with her. What I’m trying to say is that Liz deserved a man who could love her completely. I wasn’t that man because…because I’m gay.”

  Dane stared at his hands. When he finally met Sayer’s eyes, Sayer didn’t look all that surprised.

  “I don’t know how important being in love is. My guess is it’s overrated.”

  “Physical love is important to a marriage, and things were never what they should have been. I lied by omission when I married her. I wanted to be ‘normal.’ I think, with time, I would have realized it wasn’t enough and then I would have let her go, but fate had other plans.”

  “The tumor.”

  “Yeah. It all happened in a span of weeks, and when the hospital gave her the diagnosis—that it was inoperable and she had only a few months—she just gave up. She died four days before Christmas.”

  “That’s today.” Sayer frowned.

  Dane nodded. He’d been trying not to think of it since the moment he woke up that morning.

  The room was quiet for a long time before Sayer spoke again. “Did you ever tell her you were gay?”

  “I did at the end, when she had a lucid moment.”

  “How did she react?”

  In spite of himself, remembering those last moments with Liz undid Dane. Tears filled his eyes.

  “Hey.” Sayer got off the couch and sat on the arm of Dane’s chair. “Hey, you don’t have to tell me.”

  Dane wiped his face. “She said she knew all along. She said she loved me so much it didn’t matter.”

  Chapter 3

  To Dane’s surprise, when he entered the living room the next morning, the tree was lit.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Sayer said. “I’m an early riser, so I took Boone out and fed him, made coffee, and when you still weren’t up, I went out to the shed to find the lights.”

  “You make me feel really lazy,” Dane said, shuffling bleary-eyed to the kitchen. “I’ll feel human as soon as I have some coffee.”

  When he’d sat in his chair and taken a couple of sips, feet in blue woolen socks resting on the ottoman, he said, “The tree looks good.”

  “Thanks. Did you sleep all right? You were, well, really upset last night.” Sayer winced. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “You’re fine,” Dane said. “I did sleep well. Thanks for listening to me; it really helped.”

  They drank their coffee in companionable silence.

  “I have to go into work today. I have a twenty-four hour shift, so you’ll be on your own.”

  “You’re a firefighter, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Figures you’d be a hero.”

  “I’m not a hero, I’m just a guy.”

  “Uh huh, saving people from burning buildings by day and taking home the homeless by night.”

  Dane rolled his eyes. “Do you mind taking care of Boone while I’m gone? I have a friend who usually comes by a couple of times when I’m on one of these long shifts, but if you’re here, I’ll just tell him not to.”

  “Don’t mind at all. Anything else I can do for you?”

  “I can’t think of anything.” Dane gestured to the dismantled clock. “You’ve got that to work on.”

  “Do you mind if I get out the tree decorations? I saw them in the shed.”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  Dane got up and took a shower. Sayer put together some sandwiches, and they ate at the kitchen table before Dane headed to work.

  When Dane told the guys at the firehouse he’d picked up a guy off the side of the road and let him stay at his house, they thought he was crazy.

  “He could have been a murderer!” Zack, the youngest in the group, bounced a red rubber ball off the wall and caught it before doing it again.

  “I knew he wasn’t. I’m a good judge of character. Liz always said so.”

  Silence.

  “Listen, guys.” Dane looked around the room. “It’s time you stop tiptoeing around the subject of Liz. Sometimes I’d like to talk about her.”

  “We just don’t know what to say,” Chris said, leaning back in his chair. “We know how broken up you were, and we loved Liz, too.”

  “Then let’s not let her memory die. I’m okay now. Really.”

  “Sure, man.” Rod patted Dane’s shoulder. He caught Zack’s ball in mid-air on the next bounce. “We can do that.”

  * * * *

  As usual, Boone was waiting for Dane when he walked in. The guys had teased him about coming home to find his house stripped and vandalized; he couldn’t wait to tell them that instead he came home to a delicious-smelling dinner, clean house, and a decorated Christmas tree.

  “Hey, there, boy. Something smells really good.” Dane scratched behind the Leonberger’s ears. “Where’s Sayer?”

  “Slaving away over a hot stove!”

  Dane smiled and walked into the kitchen.

  “Oh, my God…you made coffee. I think I’m in love.” When Dane realized what he’d said, his cheeks turned pink, but Sayer only winked at him.

  “I figured after a twenty-four hour shift, you might want some. Unless it keeps you from sleeping?”

  “Nothing keeps me from sleeping after a long shift.” Dane accepted the cup Sayer handed him with a smile.

  “Your dog dragged me down the road and back.” Sayer got his own cup and sat across from Dane.

  “Don’t let him do that—the human is supposed to be the leader. Get him to walk beside you.”

  “I did well to control him at all.” Sayer sipped his coffee.

  “He’ll get used to you.”

  “I probably won’t be around long enough for him to.” Sayer looked at Dane over his cup.

  “Why are you always so eager to leave?”

  “I think the question is why aren’t you more eager for me to go?”

  “I told you; it’s nice having someone around for a change.”

  “Dane, you did me a good turn by picking me up, but it was a really dangerous thing to do. I hope you don’t go around doing things like this all the time.”

  “I’ve already been lectured at work.” Dane held his hand up to stop Sayer from saying anything else. “And no, I don’t do this kind of thing a lot. I just trusted you, okay? I did pat you down, if you’ll remember.”

  “Oh, I remember.”

  Dane’s stomach flipped, and for a moment he just stared into his cup. “Tree looks great,” he finally said.

  “Thanks. I enjoyed decorating it.”

  “Did you have a tree every year in your home?”

  “Just a table tree. It seemed pretty useless for a guy living alone to put up a big one.”

  “Do you have any family anywhere?”

  Sayer shook his head. “If I did, I wouldn’t be homeless.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I was an only child, and my parents were killed in a car accident when I was eighteen.”

  “Wow, that’s young to be left alone.”

  “Yeah. It hasn’t been easy. A friend got me a job in the hotel business, and I worked my way up to manager.”

  “If your parents hadn’t been killed, what do you think you would have done with your life?”

  Resting his chin on his hand, Sayer looked out the window to where several colorful birds gathered on the snow-packed
bird bath. A yellow-headed blackbird took off to land on one of the feeders, dipping its vibrant head to pick up seed.

  “I think I would have done something with my art,” Sayer finally answered.

  “Your art? Do you make sculptures out of clothes hangers or something like that?” Dane grinned, and Sayer laughed.

  “No, wise-ass. I like to draw and paint. I don’t do it much anymore—well, not at all since I lost my house, but I used to sketch or paint during my leisure time. I still have a small sketch book and pencils in my duffel bag.”

  “Can I see what you’ve done?”

  “Sure.” Sayer got up and left the room. When he came back, he handed the sketch pad to Dane. “A friend of mine’s keeping all my artwork for me. One of the friends with kids that I didn’t want to impose on. She thinks I’m out of the country.” He looked out the window again at the birds fluttering about the feeder.

  “I’d like to sketch some of those. What’s that one with the black mask? I used to see it around my backyard, too.” Sayer pointed to a bird that had just landed on the feeder closest to the window.

  “That’s a…some kind of waxwing. Hold on, I have a bird book.” Dane leaned back and reached for Birds of Colorado on the stand behind him and pushed it across the table to Sayer.

  “These are really good.” Dane flipped from page to page of the sketch book. Some were wildlife and some portraits. “I’m not just saying that, either. You could sell these. Who are the people?”

  “Just random folks I’ve seen while I’ve been traveling. Here,” Sayer pointed to the book, “a Bohemian waxwing.”

  Dane thought traveling an interesting way to describe roaming from place to place looking for work and shelter, each day bringing more disappointment and increasing despondency. The sketches really were quite good; Sayer had a skill for bringing things to life on paper.

  “I’m serious, Sayer; I’d buy one of these. My friend Mika owns a coffee shop, and I’m sure she’d let you show a few there. Artists do from time to time.”

  “I’m not that good, Dane.” Sayer looked like a man who was afraid to hope. And who could blame him?

  “Yeah, you really are. Come on; humor me. Let me ask her to put a few up this weekend.”