Checking It Twice, page 2
“I can help you, sir,” a handsome man behind the large wooden desk said, jarring me from my admiration for my best friend. I checked his nametag and saw that it read Bryan and he was the day manager.
“Oh, sorry, Bryan. I was daydreaming. I’m Sutter Thompson and we have a cabin reserved?”
The smiling clerk began tapping away on his keyboard. My sight kept skipping to the boys to Wat and back to the boys. A rush of fatigue swept through me now that the drive was behind us. Flying had simply been out of the question. Our team coffers were pretty low, so renting a van was the frugal choice. And overall the trip had been enjoyable. Aside from bored kids with incredibly small bladders who insisted on drinking mega-large sodas at every stop. I had to wonder if the boys really had to pee that often or if they simply wanted to stand in a line and write their names in the snow every fifty miles. Probably the latter.
“Yes, sir, we have you in the Blue Spruce Cabin. We have a nice array of cabins for the scouts who come here year-round for outings as well as for businesses that wish to do team building weekends. The various teams from your league, along with couples who are wishing for a more rustic getaway, will soon fill each cabin, which are named after a tree. We’re so thrilled to be hosting your awards ceremony this year! Thank you for choosing the Retreat Inn.” I’d had nothing to do with the choice of venues the league had chosen without any coaching feedback, but I smiled as if I had while ingesting all information Bryan had tossed out as he registered us. Within a minute or two, we were logged in and had our keys in hand. “If you give me a few minutes, I can round up a porter to take your bags.”
“That’s not necessary,” I quickly said as I hefted my duffel to my shoulder. “The boys carry their own gear but thank you.”
I got an odd look, but that was to be expected from a person who wasn’t a rink rat. Hockey players did not—or should not—rely on parents to tote their gear or pack it. It was one of the first lessons on responsibility that hockey taught. I’d had a few players sit in the stands on game day because they’d not packed the proper equipment. You can bet they learned really quick to ensure what they needed was in their bag. That was a lesson in accountability. Don’t blame your mommy for not having things ready for you and do not expect daddy to run home to save your backside. And don’t even get me going on wheeled bags. Most guys and gals over the age of twelve get chirped badly for having wheeled bags. Was that harsh? Maybe some thought so. Wat and I did not, nor did most involved in youth hockey. Hockey was more than a game. It was a way to build a responsible man or woman, and those lessons started young.
“Okay, team,” I called as I turned to face the lounge. Five small heads whipped up lips coated with cocoa. “We have our keys. The cabin is out back. Let’s go get settled in, then we’ll come back over for dinner.”
The boys grabbed their gear, bag, and sticks and followed along like ducklings. Wat fell in beside me, offering me the dregs of his cocoa. I took it with a nod, downed it, and then tossed it into a trash receptacle along the shoveled and salted path. The side door led us to the back of the inn. Mountains stood on either side of us. With the last rays about gone now, the setting sun offered little warmth and made the snowy slopes breathtaking.
Soft snow lightly fell from the darkening sky.
The kids paused to try to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Living where we did snow was a rarity for us. Most of the snowstorms we encountered to the south of Albuquerque could be cleared off with a broom. Seeing this much snow, with more falling, was a thrill not just for the young ones. There was no denying the beauty of a fresh snowfall. I will cop to being happy not to shovel the stuff, though. My back was not a fan of big snow removal.
To our right at the end of a long drive was a huge barn for events, I assumed. Before us were well over a dozen or so cabins. Some small, some larger. Each had a small sign on the door so locating the Blue Spruce was simple.
Breath fogging in front of my face, I swiped the card and threw the door open. The cabin was large and open, with three sets of bunk beds along the log walls. There was a kitchenette with a hand pump that was functional and not just for looks we quickly discovered when Seth pumped water all over the place right out of the gate, a large table with ten or so chairs, and a corner area with sofas and a large screen TV bolted to the wall. The boys hooted and charged at the beds, each wanting the top bunk. After a small scuffle broke out that we had to mediate, the boys all had their beds. Watley and I made a fast sweep of the two other rooms in the cabin, one a huge bathroom and the other a master bedroom done in shades of brown, green, and rust. Dark wooden dressers, a desk, and a small loveseat filled the room. A sliding door looked out at the dark Colorado woodlands. It was incredibly masculine, right down to the moose antlers over the twin beds.
Confession time. In some dark, naughty corner of my lecherous mind, I had kind of been hoping for a single bed. One that Wat and I would have to curl up to each other in, two grown-ass men in one twin bed was the stuff of my pornographic dreams. But alas, it was not to be. Probably for the best as I’d do something embarrassing—like wake up with morning wood and rub it against his firm ass—and he would freak the hell out. We’d never had that kind of relationship. No one-time drunken fucks, blow jobs, or even gropes. Just friends. The very best of friends. And as much as I adored the man, I was not willing to jeopardize the most special relationship I’d ever had with another adult human being. And yes, that included my ex-wife. Which was why she was my ex-wife.
“This is nice,” he casually said. I nodded and placed my bag on the suitcase rack at the foot of my bed.
“Thank God they’re not bunk beds. My back can’t do skinny mattresses and wooden frames.”
“Seriously.”
I padded to the sliding door as he gave the bed his patented ‘how firm is this mattress’ punch. A security light on a pole illuminated the rear of the cabins. We’d have to draw the drapes to sleep for…holy hell, there was a hot tub sitting out there on the snowy back porch. A fantasy flashed to life as I stood there staring at the now covered round jacuzzi. Me, Wat, and a bottle of fine red wine. No kids, no clothes, and no inhibitions. My dick suddenly didn’t seem so tired. Christ. If only…I chanced a look at Watley and felt my body tighten with lust. Shit.
“…bunch of married executives up here glamping. Seems kind of silly to me to spend a week in a tent that’s got luxury accommodations. That’s not camping. If you want to be pampered stay in a hotel. Leave the spider-filled cabins and leaky tents to us real men.”
“Remember that time we were in the Poconos for that intercollegiate sports faculty weekend that the dean insisted we attend? You saw a spider, and you nearly fainted,” I joked.
“That was a brown recluse spider.” He was rolling his shoulders, his T-shirt stretching tightly across his back with each slow circulation. Shit and damn. My cock was really invested now.
“There are no brown recluse spiders in Pennsylvania,” I hurried to say just to fill the awkward silence.
“You don’t know that for sure.” He toed off his sneakers. “You also said that about that game camera photo of a puma that my cousin in Bucks County captured.”
“That’s because there are no mountain lions in Pennsylvania. That was a picture of someone’s big, yellow house cat.” Wat mouthed ‘So says you’ over his shoulder and then began massaging his bum knee.
“Such a doubter.” My eyebrows knitted, and he glanced my way. “Also, just as a warning, my gut feels bubbly.”
His expression was pure devil. That impish smile of his was stunning. My heart did a stupid flip-flop every time I saw it.
“God save us all,” I tossed out.
“Hey, the burrito was the only choice at that gas station we stopped at around lunchtime. I wanted to stop at the burger place, but you were all about making good time so…” He shrugged before falling back into the bed with a sigh. Outside our room, one of the boys let one rip. A massive explosion of gas that set the others off into peals of laughter, followed by groans of misery. “That must be Adam. He has trouble with burritos like his father does,” Wat tossed out as the boys howled in glee.
Looked like it was going to be a long, uneasy, and possibly fragrant night in the Blue Spruce cabin.
Chapter Three
Bedtime came far too quickly.
It was really weird being the one who was begging the kids to stay up. Talk about role reversals.
“Hey, we can do another Avengers movie!” I had said around midnight. The only person awake to hear me was Watley, and just barely at that.
“Let’s get them into their beds,” he had said around a yawn. Knowing I was defeated—kids nowadays had no staying power—I picked up the remnants of our snacks, consisting of bowls with a few popcorn kernels and empty lemon-lime soda cans, while Wat roused and herded the boys to bed. They were out instantly. Watley made his way to the bedroom. I puttered around in the kitchen as long as I could without it being obvious that I was stalling. Sucking in a steadying breath, I turned off the light over the small stove and gave each boy one last bedtime check.
I threw back my shoulders and entered the bedroom. And stopped cold. Wat was standing there in his boxer briefs, his back to me, as he rummaged around in his duffel bag for his pajamas. I knew the man was built since I’ve seen him in the gym for years. Even though he was over fifty, he kept himself in great shape, as I tried to do, but his frame was leaner than mine. Sleeker. Whereas I was stacked like the defense man that I used to be and he was a forward. Built more for speed and agility. I had to swallow harshly so as not to drown in the drool filling my mouth. His brown gaze flickered to me at the loud gulp.
“Hey, you look spooked. Did you see a mountain lion through the window?” He gave me a waggle of an eyebrow while he pawed through his clothes.
“I did yes.” His nonchalant attitude fled instantly, dark eyes flaring. “He was bright pink wearing a collar, black tie, and two cuffs. When he saw me, he exited stage left.”
“You asshole.” He whipped a pair of rolled up socks at me. I caught them and lobbed them back into his bag. The joking did help my unease. Seeing him in his underwear did little to calm the twitching in my pants. “Man, I should never be allowed to pack my own clothes. This is why Paul always did our packing when we went on vacation.”
He held up a terribly wrinkled shirt. I grimaced. “They have irons in the closets. We’ll get you pressed and ready to go for the awards ceremony.”
“Cool.” He hung up his dress shirt and trousers in the tiny closet, still parading about in his shorts and socks. Sexy fucker. My Gods the man was edible. “I’m whipped.” He pulled on a gray tee, then yanked a pair of flannel sleep pants up over his hips. None too soon either. I dove into the bed, eager to get the covers over my groin. The headboard slammed into the wall, and Wat spun to look at me in shock.
“What the hell is that on your shirt?” I pointed to the green clay humanoid on the front of his shirt.
“I’m Gumby dammit!” He barked, and I snorted. He did a pretty good Eddie Murphy impersonation.
“You’re so old.” I sniggered while scrubbing my bare feet back and forth to warm up the covers.
“Says the man with the Cyndi Lauper Fun Tour shirt.” He had me there.
“That was one hell of a show.”
“Yeah, it was.” He slid into bed, pulled the covers up to his scruffy chin, and rolled to his side to face me. “Paul never understood your love for Cyndi.”
I wanted to snark back about his ex, but held my tongue. If Paul didn’t understand how amazing Cyndi was by now, the ignoramus never would. “How is Paul?”
Watley yawned, a dark brown curl flopping down to his brow. “Oh, he’s fine. Last time we heard from him, he was taking Winchester to Florence for a holiday.”
“Ah.” Winchester was Paul’s new husband. Significantly younger than Paul who had left Watley and Adam to pursue a career as an international correspondent for the BBC about the same time he had filed for a divorce. “I hear Italy is lovely.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t know. Travel for me is this.” He waved a hand at the inn. “But it’s okay. I’d rather be home with Adam than sipping wine with some younger man in Italy.”
“Paul was always career oriented. I was shocked when he conceded to have a child, to be honest.” Wat bobbed his head sleepily. I’d said that to Wat a thousand times since the end of their marriage. He knew I didn’t care for Paul or how he had simply tossed their child to Watley to raise. Oh sure, he sent cards and gifts for the required holidays, but parenting meant doing the dirty work too. And that was where he had always failed in my eyes. I could see a lot of bad things about Paul. That might be because I’d been sour and jealous for years but kept swallowing it down. Kim was the only one who ever really saw that seething dislike I held for Paul. She’d called me on it a few times when we’d been splitting up. I’d not denied it, but I never acknowledged my envy either.
“Mm, yeah, I know now that he only gave in to keep me happy. Looking back on it, I shouldn’t have pushed him into fatherhood. He sincerely didn’t want it.” He stared at me with such emotion I had trouble keeping my ass on my overly soft mattress. The man needed a hug badly. “That drove a wedge into our already shaky marriage. Now, with far less anger, I can see the mistakes that I made as well as his.”
I shifted to my side to stare at him. The soft light from the tiny hobnail lamp on the stand between the beds made the silver whiskers on his chin stand out.
“I know what you mean. When I look back at my marriage, I can see so many mistakes that we both made. Mine were the biggest, obviously, for marrying a woman that I didn’t love, but Kim wasn’t without blame either.”
“Guess none of us are perfect,” he muttered, his eyelids falling down swiftly. Within seconds he was out, breathing deeply, his face slack with sleep.
I lay there for the longest time, simply looking at him.
“I think you’re damn close,” I whispered, then turned off the light and rolled to my other side.
It took me a long time to drift off. Nothing new there. I’d always envied how Wat could just drop off anywhere at any time. During meetings on campus, he could be talking to you one minute and then softly snoring the next. He liked to tease that he could slip off to slumber so easily due to his lack of a guilty conscience. Which was crap and we both knew it, as he carried a goodly bit of guilt about a lot of things, just like I did. My eyes eventually closed sometime around one in the morning, the soft breaths of Watley behind me working much better than any sleep app I ever tried.
The following day was simply gorgeous.
The snow had tapered off overnight and the sun was bright. Not much warmth in it, but that didn’t seem to matter to the boys.
We’d rolled out early, the yelps of young men rousing Watley and me before seven in the morning.
“I can’t wait until they’re teenagers and want to sleep all day,” Wat muttered as he left his bed to go see what the ruckus was about. I sat up, groaned at the twinge in my lower back, then kicked off the covers to join my buddy in the main room. Nothing serious was afoot, just a wrestling match. Within an hour, we’d gotten the boys to the inn for breakfast and back to the cabin to get on our hockey gear.
Borrowing brooms from the maintenance staff at the inn, we made our way to the pond. After we had swept the snow off, the boys tied on their skates and took to the ice. As they played another group of players from our league arrived. Watley and I shook hands with several coaches and a few intrepid parents as the possible award winners piled in over the course of the day. We spent most of our time on this chilly day outdoors, refereeing the shinny games while tramping back and forth to the inn for hot chocolate and snacks. By the time the sun dropped out of sight around five p.m. everyone was tired, red-cheeked, and ready to dive into a hearty dinner.
The inn supplied us with a wonderful feast and gracious servers. The kids were pretty well-behaved considering there were now close to thirty players gathered here. While the adults had entertained the idea of lingering in the delightfully woodsy eatery—give me a roaring fire, rare roast beef, and good company and I was a happy camper—but the youngsters were getting antsy by the time coffee was being sipped at the grown-up table. So, instead of making them sit there being bored, we gathered up our charges and returned to our cabins, enjoying the cold walk along paths that had piles of snow—some as high as my chest—as the stars twinkled above in the velvety black sky. I chanced a peek at Wat at my side. He gave me a soft smile. The kind of smile that, if you were watching some historical romance series, would lead you to think the smiler had some tender feelings for the smilee. I shook off that whimsy. Watley had never once looked at me as anything other than a dear friend. That was what we had, and I simply had to accept it and learn to move on. Somehow. Someway.
We piled into one of the larger scout cabins after asking permission from the night manager to do so, peeled off our outerwear, built a fire, and pulled out several board games. This cabin was much larger than the sleeping lodges. It had rows of folding chairs and tables lined up against the walls and an elevated area at the front with a podium and the American flag as well as several other flags from the various scouting organizations. Off to one side was a kitchenette with an electric stove and an old-fashioned hand pump for water. The cupboards were full of used but serviceable pots, pans, and tea kettles, along with stacks of paper plates, cups, and plastic silverware. Watley found a closet in the main room holding various camping items such as snowshoes, Coleman lanterns with fuel cans, first-aid kits, extra rain gear such as slickers and rain hats, water bottles, maps, matches by the score, and small totes filled with travel size toiletries. There were even some hiking poles, fishing gear, as well as plant and animal identification books. The scouts took camping seriously.
