Chapter Thirteen

Dane fell asleep later that night thinking about Seth, who had never followed up on the answer to the question, “Can I tell you something?”

What had he been going to say? Dane wondered. Here, in the privacy of his own bed, he wanted to believe Seth was about to utter flattering words, or something along the lines of wanting to see Dane again. But such thoughts were quickly quashed by the realization Dane was lying there in the bed he’d once shared with his wife. On sheets she’d picked out at the local Walmart, under a quilt she had made one winter when she was inspired by the idea of taking up the craft. Dane tossed in the bed, made uncomfortable by the polar opposite ends of his thoughts.

And the guilt. He was a widower, for Christ’s sake. And Seth was a peer, a coworker. What was the crude way his dad, a welder, had once put it? “You don’t shit where you eat.” Yeah. Lovely. But it was true. He’d seen enough teacher-teacher romances go south to know the common-sense thing to do was to avoid them. The result was never pretty when they didn’t work out.

Whatever awaited Dane out there in terms of meeting—and connecting with—a man, it probably shouldn’t be with someone with whom he worked. The fact that Seth was so in his radar, and so cute and so gay, was convenient, but it probably wasn’t a good idea.

He turned over again and punched his pillow into submission. Was it just proximity that attracted him to Seth? Or was there something else? Maybe something about how their gazes connected and held in delicious suspension until one or the other forced himself to look away. Or maybe it was that Seth seemed genuinely interested in him. That fact, and Dane didn’t think he was exaggerating, was as terrifying as it was exhilarating. He could imagine the two of them together in all sorts of settings, and not just the naughty ones—although there were plenty of those when he allowed his mind, and his id, to wander—but also simple domestic scenes. He could see cooking his mother’s pot roast for Seth, or snuggling up in a darkened room with a shared bowl of popcorn between them as they watched a movie together, covered by his grandma’s windowpane-patterned afghan. There was this incredible mix of sweet and sexy both within Seth and within Dane’s own fantasies.

No. I can’t entertain thoughts of seeing another teacher. That’s just wrong. For Christ’s sake, think of Clarissa. She goes to the school. Can you imagine how hard it would be for her to deal? I mean, she hasn’t come anywhere near to terms with accepting my gayness, let alone the idea that I might be hooking up with another faculty member. The thought made Dane laugh, but it was a giddy sort of laugh, born of a kind of excited hysteria.

The words “hooking up with another teacher” put a match to the flame of Dane’s desire, entirely unexpectedly. And completely unbidden, an image rose up in his head of Seth spread out, not on a bed, but on his desk at school. In this almost involuntary fantasy, Seth was naked and prone on his back on the desk, his legs in the air.

Dane felt his breath coming a little quicker as he mentally eyed up Seth’s taut body, the fine dusting of hair he imagined on his chest and then narrowing down in a thin line across his navel—an innie—and then to another burst of hair that provided a frame for a gorgeous uncut cock rising up, its purple head oozing precome and just peeking out of its sheath.

Dane couldn’t help it. He touched himself and, with very little effort, squirted into his boxer briefs.

The image of Seth on the desk vanished, as though it were a wisp of smoke and a strong wind had come along. Dane shook his head, troubled that he had let his mind go there, but suddenly so tired. It was as though his orgasm, powerful as it was, had drained the life from him.

He knew he should get up and go in the bathroom and clean himself off. He knew he should put on clean underwear, but all the energy he could muster was only enough to struggle out of the boxers, wipe himself with them, and fling them on the floor beside the bed.

Sleep came to him quickly, like deliverance.

*

This time they’re in a room that seems vaguely familiar to Dane. Maybe it’s someplace they’d once stayed on a vacation, perhaps in the Appalachians. The room has the look of a cabin, with its knotty pine walls and early American furniture. Again, there’s silence as Dane moves through the room.

Katy is seated in front of a fieldstone fireplace. Flames dance and flicker before her, and she wears an emerald green sweater, one Dane remembers because it looks so good with her auburn hair.

She doesn’t seem aware that he’s there.

He creeps softly up to her, wondering if this time he’ll see her face. It’s weird he has this consciousness, he thinks, even within the confines of the dream.

He stands directly behind her. There is no sound. The only light is from the flickering golden and orange illumination of the blaze in the fireplace.

He’s afraid to look at her, afraid that when he tries to see her face, he will only get the back of her head again—which is an image ripped straight out of a nightmare.

And he doesn’t want this to be a nightmare.

So he leans forward slowly, gently, as though he doesn’t want her to realize he’s there, so close. He whispers, “Katy?”

She turns to him. His heart gives a little leap because he can see her face, her smile.

She stares at him, and even in the dull, flickering light, her green eyes are alive. She’s alive. His Katy.

She reaches up with her hand to touch him, and he reaches out with his own, but it seems their fingertips just can’t connect.

Not for a real touch.

They are this far apart, an inch, maybe less.

Her voice breaks the silence. “I’m okay, Dane.”

Dane finds his own voice isn’t accessible. He moves his lips, yet nothing emerges.

Katy says, “And so are you.”

*

Dane sat up suddenly in bed. His room was filled with the slate gray light peculiar to dawn. He looked to his side, expecting Katy to be there, perhaps snoring softly.

It took a moment for his conscious mind to catch up. He let out a small laugh and felt grateful for having had this moment with Katy. He lay back and wondered, Did she know? Had she always known?

*

Across town, in his little one-bedroom apartment, Seth lay in his own bed. Like Dane, he too had fallen asleep wondering what he would have said if Dane had answered his question, “Can I tell you something?”

Seth had drifted off thinking the something revolved around his attraction to Dane, from the very first moment he had laid eyes on him in the school parking lot. He would have said that the mere sight of Dane had taken his breath away. And it wasn’t just physical—although there was plenty of that. It was also kind of spiritual, if that was the right word. Seth had seen thousands of handsome men, and they always registered with a silent little “woof” in his brain, but there was something more when he saw Dane, something soulful, an innate knowledge that this was a good man.

He would have gone on to tell Dane that he didn’t know where these feelings—so strong he couldn’t deny them—had come from. He didn’t want to find someone new. Lord no! Not after having his heart stomped on and his faith shaken in relationships so resoundingly back in Chicago.

He had come to Summitville to get away, to be single for a long time, to just teach and appreciate the treasures solitude could bring.

His last thought before slumber took over was, Damn you, Dane! Toppling all my carefully laid plans.

And now, lying awake as dawn crept in around his blinds, he recalled snatches of dream, images that might have been what brought him to sudden and jarring consciousness.

He had been following Dane on a beach. Maybe it was a Lake Michigan beach in Chicago. There was the requisite tall grass and aquamarine waters, looking tropical the way even the lake could on hot summer days. Dane wore only a pair of board shorts, imprinted with a pattern of sea turtles on an orange background as he strode away from Seth. Or maybe he was leading Seth somewhere? Whatever the case, Seth remembered that he liked the view from back there: Dane’s broad shoulders, kissed with freckles from the sun; his smooth back, tapering down into his shorts; his calves, crowned with golden hair, so shapely and muscular.

Suddenly Dane vanished from sight, and even in the dream, Seth believed he knew he was dreaming and this was just a trick of that odd state.

But it wasn’t.

As Seth moved forward, he saw there was a huge chasm in the sand, as though the earth itself had ripped open, cracked.

Down in the abyss, Dane crouched, looking up at him, terror in his eyes.

Seth couldn’t remember if Dane had said anything.

The last image he had was of getting down on his belly so he could reach down to Dane. He stretched his arm, his hand out to Dane.

Had their fingers met?

Seth turned over. He wished he knew.

The wind rattled his windows. The room brightened, and his furniture, all of it rental, all of it vaguely Scandinavian, became more defined.

It was time to face another day.