There are two places to get a room in Dell. One is the Midnight Motel, a half-circle of shabby but painstakingly well-kept one-room units; it was built in the fifties with a moon-and-stars theme and an excellent, if slightly chaotic, rose garden where there used to be a small swimming pool in the middle of the parking lot.
The other place to pass a night is the Holiday Inn, a place just as large, rectangular, and sanitized as most of its chain. It sits out by the highway, ringed in anemic-looking juvenile trees.
Danny used to say that where someone decided to get a motel room in Dell told you all you needed to know about them.
At least the establishment takes snow removal seriously. Through a combination of plowing and spreading what must have been a square ton of rock salt, they’ve kept their parking lot completely clear. Lance doesn’t have to dodge a single patch of ice as he walks from the lot inside the building, past an early-twenties clerk who doesn’t look up from her phone, and straight to the stairwell.
When he gets the phone from his pocket to confirm the room number from Niall’s text, he sees that Niall has sent a few impatient messages since that one. Lance only skims them, grimacing, before he drops the phone back into the pocket of his pea coat. It’s his own coat, rescued from the backseat of the Mercedes. Actually, everything he has on now is his own—an undeniable pleasure, though he’ll probably always have oddly fond memories of wearing Johnny’s clothes. Lance is a little ashamed of how important clothes are to him; he knows it’s shallow, but he feels so much better when he’s wearing his own, carefully chosen things.
Right now, that just means dark jeans, leather ankle boots, and a sky-blue cashmere sweater under his coat. He brushes his fingertips over the styled curls at his temple, absently; clothing wasn’t the only thing that he was reunited with in his luggage. The citrus pomade was frozen solid, and thawed to a grainy kind of texture, but a conservative application has still given his curls just the right amount of separation and a subtle sheen.
Niall is on the third floor, in a room close to the stairs. So, Lance is at the door to his room less than a minute later, still unprepared for what he’s about to do. But determination, and a reminder of Robbie’s hands cradling him back against his chest while he was lost in Lance’s body, steels Lance’s resolve. He knocks.
Niall answers the door immediately, his hair flat on one side, his reading glasses on and slightly askew. His ears are a little crooked, which means glasses need constant fine-tuning—a fact that Lance used to find charming.
“Good God,” Niall says shortly, “it took you long enough.” He pauses as he looks Lance up and down, and then his scowl softens to a wry smile. “Oh, Angel, did you stop somewhere so that you could get cleaned up for me? I appreciate the gesture, but you could have done it here.”
“That’s not—” Lance’s words don’t quite get past his mouth. Startled, he swallows. It’s been so long since he’s had something to say and couldn’t get it out.
Or has it? Yes, he’s had an easier time with words since he was a child, a child who used to feel the truth roaring at him to be spoken, but was so afraid to speak it that he didn’t say much at all. In the years since, he’s learned to talk, sure; too well, he thinks, sometimes. He’s had no problem charming people—guiding them to think of his ideas as their own. But that’s not the same as what he wants now, which is to give Niall a piece of his mind straight-out, no games.
And he’s not sure he can do it.
Niall’s bemused smile has faded fast, and he’s quickly turned impatient. “Won’t you come in here?” he says tersely. “We don’t know who might be prowling these halls. Honestly, this place makes my skin crawl.”
The sound of Niall’s voice alone triggers Lance’s anger, which seems to help loosen his tongue, too. “I’m just here to give you your keys.” He reaches into his pocket. “And the phone, too. I don’t think you could have me arrested for keeping a phone—I just don’t want it.” He holds out the phone in its sleek case, and the keys, in one hand extended toward Niall.
Niall stares back at him, his mouth unbecomingly slack and his eyes wide behind his crooked glasses. It’s almost time for him to have another Botox appointment, Lance thinks with cruel satisfaction. The skin beneath his eyes is starting to part and sag again. He’s never looked less impressive to Lance than he does in this moment, all of his affectation stripped back by shock.
Then, Niall gets himself under control and gives Lance a pitying smile, ignoring the phone and keys held toward him.
“Now, now, Angel,” he says, the words hardly more than a gust of breath. Lance’s heart instantly kicks into overdrive, his pulse an audible pounding in his ears. “Think about what you’re doing. Your life is with me.”
“I am thinking,” Lance says. His voice rises as he goes on. “For the first time in a long time, I’m thinking clearly about my life. And I know, without a doubt, that the best thing I could possibly do is to get away from you.”
Niall’s cool smile has slipped from his face. Lance realizes that the other man has never heard Lance raise his voice—hardly anyone has.
Seeing that Niall is not, apparently, going to take the phone and keys from him, Lance just tosses them on the floor at his feet.
Niall’s eyes drop to the floor where the keys and cell phone landed. Then he slowly raises them again. “Very well.” He straightens up from his graceful lean in the doorway. “A fussy, self-important whore I could tolerate. But ingratitude—that is not a flaw I can stomach.”
Lance blinks; Niall’s words skate close to the profanity he so abhors, which is almost as shocking as the words themselves.
Niall seems pleased to have struck Lance speechless. “You think you can just walk away?” When he’s truly emotional, truly furious, it’s easier to remember that wealthy, cultured Niall was once a roughneck growing up on the south side of Chicago. “I’ll ruin you. Don’t think you can just walk back into the business. And you can forget about the series. It’s mine; my lawyers will make sure of that.”
Lance’s eyes narrow, his fingers curling into the end of the wooden railing in the stairwell, his foot half-raised for the first step. He knows he shouldn’t take Niall’s bait, but somehow he can’t help himself. “You’re bluffing.”
Niall’s smile is serene. Then, he bends down with the ease and grace that Lance used to admire in him, and plucks the keys off the carpet. He tosses them in the air and catches them jauntily before giving Lance a mirthless wink.
“I suppose you’ll find out whether that’s the case. Take care, Angel.” The door to his hotel room closes with a snap. The phone remains discarded on the floor in the hallway where Lance left it.
Lance looks at the phone lying on the carpet for a few long moments, focused on breathing in and out. Niall didn’t have to specify which series he meant. There’s only one that Lance could claim any ownership of; it’s the one he modeled for and shot himself, the one that he pitched to a gallery himself. He’s been waiting to hear back, but the curator had all but promised their answer would be yes.
He’s not sure what he’s going to do yet, but there’s no way he’ll let Niall strip him of his rights to work Niall had nothing to do with.
He hunches his shoulders and rushes down the stairs, past the hypnotized young woman still fused to her phone and out into the parking lot.
Robbie gets out of the Chevy at the sight of Lance and meets him by the hood, his big, warm hands encircling Lance’s wrists, his eyes pinched with worry.
“You okay?”
Lance nods mutely, trying to shake off the uncertainty he feels over Niall’s parting shot and focus on the jubilation he felt when he was yelling at him. “I’m okay.” He shivers. “Let’s just go home.”
He catches his slip a second too late, but when he freezes and stares up at Robbie, Robbie is grinning.
“Home. Yeah. Let’s go there.” He squeezes Lance’s hands, his touch lingering, before another gust of wind nudges them apart. When they’re in the cab of the truck, though, Lance doesn’t buckle himself in on the passenger side. He wedges himself into the bucket seat, which is much trickier now than it was when he was younger and smaller, but he manages. And once he’s there, the awkward position is worth it; he can feel Robbie’s chuckle through his ribs where they’re pressed together, side-to-side, and Robbie’s arm is the perfect headrest after he snakes it over the back of the seat behind Lance’s shoulders.
They don’t speak until they get back to Riverside. Lance is lulled halfway into a doze by the sunshine coming through the windshield to warm his hair, and Robbie’s arm and body warming him everywhere else. When Robbie puts the truck in park, neither one of them stir at first. Robbie had to pull his arm from around Lance’s shoulders to downshift, and now he splays his palm over Lance’s thigh. Lance looks up at him and finds that Robbie is staring down at his own hand between the parted lapels of Lance’s coat, his thumb grazing the fabric of Lance’s jeans gently, like he’s testing the thread-count.
“If you need to get back to Chicago, I’ll drive you. Or I’ll loan you the truck, if you want to go alone,” he says, taking Lance by surprise.
A funny feeling turns in Lance’s stomach. “That’s what you’re thinking about?” He tries to keep his tone light, like he’s making a joke. “How to get rid of me?”
Robbie’s eyes snap to his. “Of course not.”
Lance smiles weakly.
Robbie sighs. “I just don’t want you to feel like you’re stuck here. Or stuck with me.”
The funny feeling grows and twists. “I want to be stuck with you.” I love you, he doesn’t say, because he doesn’t know if he can. It’s too terrifying—which is ridiculous, because they both already know about Lance’s love, and have for a long time.
Robbie’s mouth pulls into a small smile, but it doesn’t last. “I hope you’ll stay as long as you want to. But you have work, friends, a life. I know that.”
Lance bites his lip, unsure what to say. He does need to go back to Chicago at some point, but it’s the last thing on his mind right now—especially when he’d rather not dwell on Niall’s parting threat. “My life has been there. But lives change,” Lance points out.
Robbie smiles at him again, but there’s a definite sadness in the expression. “We shouldn’t sit out here in the cold. Come on.”
They’re both quiet as they walk up the steps to the hayloft. Robbie only takes off his boots and gloves before he goes into the kitchen. Lance pauses halfway through stripping off his own shoes. “Are you going back out?”
Robbie glances at him, his smile warmer now. “Well, I have a calf to feed.” A complicated look crosses his face. “I kind of…stole her.”
Lance is startled into a laugh. “What?”
Robbie tells the story, and Lance listens intently, fascinated and delighted. When Robbie finishes, his guilty look makes Lance laugh out loud again.
Robbie frowns. “It’s not funny,” he murmurs, filling the mixing bowl with warm water and reaching for the whisk he’s been using to break up the powdered milk in the water. “It’s a crime.”
“As the hardened criminal here, I disagree,” Lance assures him. “It isn’t like you lied.”
Robbie gives him a flat look.
Lance grins and shrugs. “Okay, so maybe I’m arguing a technicality.” He frowns thoughtfully. “I’d say, at worst, it was some petty fraud. We’ll have to ask Danny.”
“Fraud sounds even worse,” Robbie groans. “And we’re never telling Danny.”
The “we” and the suggestion of a future where they’re both talking to Danny—and by implication, each other, too—lights Lance up from the inside. He re-laces the boot he just untied. “Well, I’ll be your accomplice.”
“No,” Robbie says, still seeming half-serious in his worry, to Lance’s amusement. “I’ll take responsibility for my own felony, thanks.” He finishes mixing the bottle and screws on the lid while Lance chuckles. He notices Lance is still standing, dressed and in his coat, at the door. “You’re coming?” Lance nods. “Okay, but change first. I don’t want to get you dirty.”
Lance buttons his wool coat. “I’ll just watch, I promise.”
In the end, though, he can’t resist trailing after Robbie into the straw-strewn stall and petting the calf’s warm, white fur while she nurses the bottle. She’s standing with sturdy balance, and her eyes are bright. When the bottle is empty, she bawls in protest and butts her head so hard against Robbie’s legs that he has to take a backward step.
“What a little fighter,” Lance says, grinning. “It almost makes me want to change her name.”
“What?” Robbie frowns. “No. Her name is Baby.”
Lance, who hadn’t realized Robbie had latched onto something already, groans. “No. She won’t be a baby forever. Her name is Bubbles.” When Robbie just stares, Lance rolls his eyes. “Because of the tub.”
“I don’t remember any bubbles.”
“Come on, it’s an adorable name.”
“So is Baby.”
“No.”
Robbie rubs the calf’s head, tipping his head toward the stall door to beckon Lance out while she’s still distracted. Then, he quickly slips out after him, sliding the door shut before the calf can follow. She gives a low, disappointed moo, then licks the milk off her upper lip with that remarkably long black tongue.
A grin spreads over Lance’s face. “I know what we should call her.”
Robbie looks at him askance. “I told you, her name’s—”
“Felony,” Lance supplies, and to his delight, Robbie bursts out laughing.
Lance can’t find the right segue back to the topic of the future. Hoping it will help him think, and figuring that it’s definitely his turn to feed them, he insists on making dinner. He enjoys Robbie waiting on him, but he doesn’t want to seem entirely useless.
Robbie, seeming to expect a show, settles on one of the stools across the counter to watch. Lance opens a drawer at random, and blinks at the unexpected sight of a Christmas card.
“Is this from Johnny?” Lance muses, holding it up. Sending an overly formal card with gilt edges seems like the kind of prank that Johnny would find amusing. But when Lance sees Robbie’s grimace, his smile falls.
Robbie shakes his head. “No. My uncle. Go ahead, you can read it.”
Lance hesitates, but Robbie seems sincere, so he unfolds the card and skims the message. There’s a printed script that reads Season’s Greetings!, and below that, in a cursive so elegant that it looks like calligraphy: Best wishes to the honorable custodian of my ancestral home.
He looks up at Robbie, brows raised. “Wow. That’s not very subtle.”
Robbie laughs mirthlessly and rubs his beard, leaning his elbows against the counter. “No, it’s not, is it?”
“He sends these every year?”
Robbie nods.
“Damn. What a stone-cold douchebag. But why keep it?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I kept them all. I had a whole stack in the house, and when this one came, I had that same…urge. I don’t know, it seemed like I needed the reminder, I guess?”
Lance imagines a shoe box or something, full of years’ worth of these poisonous little notes, and for the first time, he’s almost glad of the fire. He doesn’t realize he’s muttered the sentiment out loud until Robbie laughs again.
“I can’t really disagree. You know, losing the house was awful. But losing all of the stuff—that was more complicated. Some of it felt like weight around my neck. I don’t know how to explain it.” He shifts on the stool, frowning. “Sorry, I’m being—” He waves his hand in substitution for an actual word.
Lance looks at the card again. “Well, this deserves to be burned.” Without asking permission, he walks over to the wood stove, carefully opens the door, and shoves the card into the embers with the poker.
Robbie is watching him with his brows raised, but he looks more pleased than distressed. Lance approaches him and Robbie twists the stool around so they’re facing each other, parting his knees so that Lance can step between. He settles his hands on Lance’s hips.
“I’m sorry you lost all that stuff,” Lance murmurs, leaning into him and butting his head against his shoulder. “Especially all your parents’ stuff. Your dad’s things.”
“There’s really just one thing I strongly associated with him, honestly, and it actually made it out of the fire.”
Lance leans back to see Robbie’s face. “Yeah? What?”
Robbie smiles, but it’s not exactly a happy expression. “He had a silk handkerchief. An old-fashioned one like cowboys wore around their necks in the movies. My mom got it for him before she realized that’s not really a thing in modern-day Nebraska.”
Lance’s heart has taken on a panicked rhythm.
Robbie, apparently oblivious, strokes Lance’s hips and goes on, looking a little lost in thought, smiling fondly at the memory. “I used to keep it with me all the time. It was a little too—I don’t know, pretty? At least for me to wear. But I kept it in my shirt pocket. Sometimes, I liked to reach in and touch it there, or get it out and play with it.”
“I remember,” Lance manages, and Robbie’s eyes rise to his, as though pleasantly surprised.
“Yeah?”
Lance swallows and nods.
“I lost it a few years ago. Before the fire, that is. I was really upset at the time, but…well, at least it didn’t burn, you know? It probably fell out of my pocket or something. Maybe it’s stuck in a tree or got carried out to the river.” He shrugs and smiles lopsidedly. “Anyway. That’s the only thing that always made me think of my dad.”
There’s a lump in Lance’s throat that feels like the moon. He slips out of Robbie’s loose embrace and walks over to the sleeping area, his heart pounding in his ears.
“Lance? Are you—sweetheart, are you okay?”
Lance closes his eyes at the endearment, feeling woefully unworthy. He opens his suitcase. The scarf is folded on top, where he tucked it right before carrying his luggage into the hayloft. He turns and holds it out all in one movement before he can lose his nerve.
Robbie has been walking after him, and is close enough that Lance’s hand, and the handkerchief, are only inches from his chest. His eyes slowly lower, and he blinks several times in surprise.
When he looks up, Lance flinches. But there’s only surprise on Robbie’s face, and no ire—at least, not so far.
“I took it,” Lance blurts. “The day I left.”
He falls silent, unable to say more, as Robbie lifts a shaking hand and takes the dangling corner of the handkerchief between his thumb and forefinger. Then, unable to stand another second of silence, Lance babbles some more.
“It was something I always thought of as being with you. Like, this—this part of you, that I could have. It was so wrong, I already knew that, even before I knew it was your dad’s. And now that I know that, I—”
Unfathomably, Robbie is smiling. He tugs the handkerchief out of Lance’s weak grasp and steps forward, so that Lance’s arm folds between them, trapped, and he can only clutch at Robbie’s neck with his other hand, knees unsteady.
But Robbie’s there, big hands a firm cradle on Lance’s hip and thigh. He kisses him.
“My little magpie,” he says, so very fondly. Lance stares up at him, dumbfounded. Robbie puts the cloth around Lance’s neck and knots it. “My dad used to say wearing this scarf made me look like a real Chase.” His smile turns softer, and so does his voice. “I like the look of it on you.”
Lance can’t speak, but when Robbie looks into his eyes, wide and stinging with tears, he seems to see in them what Lance can’t bring himself to say.
“Will you stay here with me, at least for a while?” His forefinger is hooked between the silk scarf and Lance’s neck.
Suddenly, Lance finds that words come easily. Or, one word does.
“Yes.”
Thank you for reading Long Winter. If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review at the retailer where you found it.
If you want more of Robbie and Lance, you can find the rest of their story in Signs of Spring.