Chapter 2

WILLIAM MOVED slowly, his hands and feet aching as feeling returned. He figured he should count himself lucky that it was. The fact was that he had almost died out there. The woods had been foreign and a lot thicker than he had expected, and the cold had been a lot more insidious than he had ever imagined. William had thought that he could outrun it somehow, that if he kept moving and pulled his hands and arms in, he could keep it at bay long enough to reach safety. But he was so wrong. The cold never stopped working its way through his clothes, and it became apparent after a while that it was only a matter of time. If William wanted to survive, he needed to find help. That and the fact that he knew Garvin was out there ahead of him were the only things that kept him going forward. He supposed he'd been lucky that there hadn't been wind, but then eventually it hadn't mattered. The cold still worked its way in, even as William closed each hole in his defenses, wrapping his face in his scarf until his eyes peered out between the layers of fabric, his hat pulled as low as he could get it, hands tucked into his sleeves, even the bottom of his coat pulled closed around his waist. He'd done everything… and the cold still crept in.

By the end, he had almost given up hope. The sun was setting, and William knew that he was running out of options… and it only got colder and darker.

Then he saw it, the light between the trees. It flashed on and off as he moved, but William hadn't been able to figure out why. All he knew was that light meant people. He forced himself forward, breaking out of the trees and into a slot without snow just as his numb feet went out from under him. He fell, but he felt nothing. For a second he'd wondered if he was dead, and then he heard that voice, the one he'd been looking for… and he wondered if he was in heaven. Then he was inside, and the cold abated. He could breathe again, and the familiar voice of the person he'd been so desperately looking to find grew hard and sharp… and he wondered if he was in hell .

William hissed softly as he pulled off his clothes and the heat from the room met his bare skin. He still felt cold, but once he got out of what he'd been wearing and into fresh clothes, the warmth reached more deeply inside. After a few more sips of tea, he sat back down on the sofa and pulled the blanket Garvin had given him over himself. Then he started shivering again, only this time not because of the cold but because he had nearly died, and because he had made stupid decisions yet again.

He wanted to sink into the cushions and disappear from sight. William had come up here because he had decided he wanted to live his life better and be the person he knew he could be. Garvin had always been the one guy who made him want more from himself, the one who saw William as something more than just a club kid with cotton fluff between his ears. But maybe that was what he really was—some fuckup who would never be anything beyond his looks: pretty but stupid.

"Are you warming up?" Garvin asked brusquely, and William nodded. "Finish the tea. It will continue helping you get warm, and you need fluids. The cold air is very dry." He went to the kitchen while the large dog hefted himself up onto the sofa. William tensed, watching the gargantuan creature as he stretched out, taking most of the room.

"When did you get the small horse… err, dog?" He watched the animal, wondering if he was sizing up William as his next meal.

Garvin chuckled. "He was the one who saved you. Sasha heard you outside and got me to go out." He returned with a mug of tea for himself and sat down. "And technically, you're in his spot." Garvin called the dog, and Sasha got down and went over to sit by his chair. Garvin stroked him, and Sasha leaned in for more attention. "So why did you come all this way? Willow is a long way from West Hollywood."

"I could ask you the same question," William countered. "You said you were coming up here to try to figure some things out, but then you left and we never really heard much from you again." William had found that confusing.

"That's because West Hollywood wasn't my life. I went there to try to get away from memories that followed me everywhere I went." Garvin was always so wrapped up in trying to figure out something about himself. Or maybe he was just trying to run away. William could never figure it out .

"But you had friends there," William said.

Garvin rolled his eyes. "I met people there. West Hollywood was like living in a fantasyland. There were guys everywhere, and they all looked over their shoulders in case they saw someone hotter and more interesting than the guy they were with at that moment. It was fun for a while, but I needed something else." He sighed, sipped his tea, and grew quiet, which infuriated William. "I was with a lot of guys, and none of them…."

William set his nearly empty mug on the side table. "Were John." He knew that refrain well enough to be able to finish the tune. The entire time William had known Garvin, he had screwed a ton of guys, but he never got serious about any of them because they didn't measure up to his dead lover. It was the one thing William always knew about Garvin and the one reason he never got involved with him—physically, anyway—even though William swore the first time he laid eyes on Garvin that the gods had made that man for him. Too bad no one else ever thought that, including Garvin. "And have you found what you're looking for here?"

Garvin didn't answer. "You need to get some rest. I'm going to make something to eat." He got up, and William watched him leave the room, tension rolling off him in a constant flow like evening ocean fog over the coastal hills. William pretended not to see Garvin's anxiety. He was good at that sort of thing. Lots of his friends thought he was kind of dumb. He'd heard them talking when they thought he couldn't hear. Garvin had never done that, even when William messed things up all to hell and needed to be bailed out yet again.

The kitchen was in the one corner of the cabin, and as soon as Garvin got to work, Sasha came back over and jumped up on the couch once more. "You're not going to attack me, are you?" Sasha blinked at him like he was crazy. Then he plopped his enormous head in William's lap. "Maybe you're smelling me to try to figure out how good I'm going to taste."

"Or he wants you to rub his head because he's looking for attention," Garvin said, and William gently patted the dog's head. "Sasha is a good dog. He hasn't eaten anyone in at least a month."

"Har-har." William stroked down Sasha's head and over his back. "That's not funny." Especially with how his heart was racing a mile a minute.

"He's a really good dog, and he isn't going to hurt anyone," Garvin clarified. "I got him just after I moved up here. One of the guys' dogs had a litter, and Sasha was the runt. They gave him to me, and it's pretty much been the two of us ever since." He continued working in the kitchen, and William relaxed a little as he petted Sasha, letting go of his anxiety until the huge dog stood on the cushions, turned in a circle, and lay down next to him, his back pressed tightly against William's side.

"What was that for?" William asked.

"He knows you're cold, so he's trying to warm you up. It's part of their pack mentality. These are dogs bred for the cold, and part of how they survive is to group together. If you're cold, his instinct is to try to warm you, and he can generate a lot of heat."

William nodded. Now that he was warm, fatigue set in big-time, and he could barely keep his eyes open.

Garvin brought over a sandwich on a small plate and placed it in his hands. "Eat this. The cold saps all your energy. I'm still heating up dinner." He returned to the kitchen, and William wolfed down the turkey sandwich in a few bites, kicking in his appetite, which was ravenous.

"Thank you… for everything." He set the plate on the table and sat back, feeling more than a little stupid.

"How did your car break down?" Garvin asked.

"I hit some ice, I think, and ended up in a snowbank. I think I'd rather drive in LA traffic. There was no one else anywhere, and I figured that if I didn't try to get some help on my own, no one was going to find me."

"Well, it's winter, and while people do travel, we're gearing up for a storm in the next few days." As if to punctuate the point, the wind whistled outside. "Though tonight should be clear, and if we're lucky…." William wandered over to the window as streaks of green, yellow, and even touches of blue and red appeared in the sky.

"Is that the aurora?" William asked, feeling as well as hearing when Garvin drew near to him. He had always had this sense of whenever Garvin was close, and he could almost feel him, as if he were actually touching him.

"Yes. It doesn't happen every night. Only when solar activity has been enough to trigger it. But yeah, that's it." His voice was soft and gentle. "There are many cultures where it's considered good luck to make love under the aurora. Some of them even say that a child conceived under the aurora will be charmed and that they are destined for great things."

They grew quiet as the lights danced and undulated across the sky. "I've never seen them before. I always wanted to." He wanted to take Garvin's hand. This seemed like a special moment, and William couldn't look away. He found himself leaning toward Garvin, but William straightened up again. William turned toward Garvin and found him looking back, watching him. Their gazes locked, and William's pulse raced a little faster.

William shivered with excitement, but Garvin stepped away to add more wood to the stove. "It's going to get even colder tonight because of how clear it is." He closed the stove door and returned to the kitchen, leaving William at the window to watch the aurora alone.

WILLIAM FINISHED the last of the hearty soup that Garvin had heated up for dinner. He was finally warm and full. His hands and feet had stopped tingling, and while his skin was still red, at least none of it had turned black.

"I think you owe me an explanation," Garvin told him. "And don't be surprised if the police stop by tomorrow. I called to let them know that the person they were looking for had been found and that he was physically okay." That glare told William a lot.

"You're angry with me," William said.

Garvin shook his head. "Of course I am. You fly all the way up here, rent a car, which you abandoned in the snowbank, and then nearly get yourself killed by traipsing through the woods in ten-below weather in order to find me. What I really want to know is why. I left West Hollywood almost two years ago."

William shrugged off Garvin's anger. "I know you're upset because you're worried, and I know that you care." He wasn't sure what reaction he expected, but Garvin ground his teeth and his eyes blazed. William thought it was kind of cute. Not that he liked making Garvin angry, but at least the guy was feeling something.

"Of course I do. But I've built a new life here—"

William leaned over the table. "And you think, what? That your old life and those of us who care about you just didn't matter anymore? You announced one day that you were leaving… and then poof, you were gone and we didn't see you anymore. You sold the house you and John had, and then a few days later you were off to Alaska. Did you figure that we just stopped existing… or maybe we didn't matter to you? Or was it John's memory that didn't matter to you?"

Garvin smacked his hands down on the tabletop, making Sasha jump and hurry over to him. "I left because I couldn't take it anymore. John had been gone five years and I wasn't healing. I should have been, but I couldn't. John was everywhere—in the place where I lived, in the things I was surrounded by. Every day I went to bed and woke up to the things that were part of our lives together. I tried cleaning out parts of the house, but he was everywhere, even in all of my friends. So I decided to try to build a new life. My aunt Susan and her second husband built this place, and she left it to me when she passed away. So…."

"You decided to come up here and live in a summer cabin all year long. It was like you dropped off the face of the earth. We never heard from you, and some of us…." William felt his own anger rising. "Some of us really cared for you—still care for you—and you just flew away like some bird and never returned."

"It's been almost two years," Garvin repeated.

William drew his lips into a harsh line, glaring at Garvin. "And you think that we're going to stop caring for you, stop loving you, just because of a matter of months?" Okay, he was exaggerating the time, but Garvin's departure had left a hole in William that he didn't know how he was supposed to fill.

"Almost two years—"

"Potato, po-tah-to," he countered and realized he sounded like a kid having an argument with his father.

"Let me get this straight. You came all the way up here and nearly died… for what exactly? What did you have to say to me that you couldn't have just picked up the phone for?" Garvin's eyes blazed with what might have been confusion or anger. William wasn't sure .

"You don't get it, do you?" William asked. "You never got it. After John died, there were plenty of us who were there for you. We stayed with you and made sure you didn't feel like you had lost everything, even though we missed him too. John was also my friend, you know. I knew him before I knew you. He was the best man I ever knew, and then he was gone, poof, just like that." William realized he was saying poof a whole lot in this conversation, but it fit, and every time he did, Garvin's expression softened a little. "We—I missed him too. The same way you did, and I thought…." Maybe he was stupid. People seemed to think that about him, so maybe it was true.

"That still doesn't explain why you made this whole trip up here. I have email, or you could have called."

"Because if I did, you would have blown me off just like you did Shawn. He sent you emails and texts, and you never answered. We figured you were being an ass and shit. He gave up. But I knew where you were. I had the address of this place, so I decided to come up here and brave the elements like some gayboy yeti so I could see you and actually talk to you." William sighed, but he refused to back down. If he was stupid, so be it, but at least he'd acted based on his heart.

"Okay, you wanted to see me. But there are easier ways and ones that don't involve risking your life. And for the record, I never got anything from Shawn. I live out where things are rough, and I had to change a lot of things in my life. But still—"

William stood up and looked down at Garvin. "You want to know why I came all this way? Why I tried to walk all the way here?" He walked around the table and stood next to Garvin. When Garvin angled his head up to look at him, William thought about punching the man in the fucking nose just because he was being such an ass. But William had come all this way… and what the fucking hell. He'd do what he needed to… so he leaned down and kissed Garvin with every damned ounce of energy he had.