CHAPTER EIGHT Dirk

M y binoculars were high powered and it didn't take me long to spot the small clouds of white smoke about a quarter mile west of my tower location. I wasn't alarmed because I knew the source of the smoke. Mr. Sunshine had set up camp in the small open canopy just over the highest ridge to my right. Seeing him and his camp was impossible, but the wisps of wet burning wood and the white puffs the damp timber gave off were an easy visual from my vantage point.

He must have felt the drop in temperature and attempted to build a fire because my thermometer on the wraparound deck read just under freezing and it wasn't even 8 p.m. yet. Dark clouds had rolled in from Seattle and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Seattle would get rain dumped on them, but a late spring snowstorm was heading for me and the lone guest on the mountain. At my elevation there was no chance the rain would stay in liquid form. Crystal Mountain, south of Seattle and east of Tacoma was still open for skiing, so it wasn't unusual to have snow at these heights until June some years.

Blake Jensen had pissed me off but it didn't make me any less concerned for him. My sense of responsibility showed up for him the minute he arrived in my domain. It didn't help matters that he was the son of the big boss, but any person out in these conditions would get my level of worry. My concerns weren't lessened by the fact that I was attracted to him as well, despite his glowing personality.

My watch at the large window as I scanned for signs of life from Blake became a chore, so I sat in the old tattered recliner I had carried up more than a hundred steps and pulled out my cell phone. Thanks to Elon Musk and his latest satellite, I had all the bars I needed to read depressing texts about my inability to attract dates.

He thought you were a fuddy duddy and kind of boring.

I reread the text from Matt, a buddy of mine in the city that he'd sent last week before I began my three-month stint at my post.

Said you were too earthy, or woodsy? Some shit like that I think.

Matt wasn't exactly the type to soften a blow. In fact, I think he enjoyed making people feel less than. Matt had lost a leg in a car accident four years prior during our junior year at Washington State University and had plenty of reasons to be angry, and he shared every one of them with his friends. Perhaps because I was one of the few that stuck around to put up with his negativity was why I now received the bulk of his despair.

I'd become a sort of Matt-whisperer when it came to dealing with him. I was sorry for him but also went out of my way to encourage him and his goals. Like me, he'd been an avid outdoorsman, but for some reason decided he couldn't do anything for himself any longer when it came to his favorite activities. I wasn't the type to give up on him yet, but he was making it hard to like him much. Today's visitor had Matt's vibe of pushing people away. Like Matt, Blake was angry about something, and I was either curious enough or stupid enough to give a shit.

I glanced through the dozen text reasons that a blind date with one of Matt's work peers hadn't gone well . I guess I was boring . Surprise, surprise, mystery date. You weren't the first to make that claim. My blind date was a partier and liked to regale his dates with stories about how many guys wanted him from the bars. Of course, those same men were beneath him, he'd shared. He was a catch and made a half-million dollars a year at Microsoft. "Because I'm bored," he'd answered, after I asked why he went to clubs so often. I think I earned my label as boring that very night because he never called for a second date.

I'd never bothered to respond to Matt's inside information about my shortcomings. He didn't need to remind me that my social calendar was bereft of dates with interested men. Most of my dates were dudes that hit on me in the city while I grocery shopped, or when I worked parttime at REI, a purveyor of outdoor goods. Every Seattleite could spot REI as they drove by the building with the six-story indoor rock climb easily seen through the glass tower from the interstate.

My ego wasn't nonexistent and I had plenty of catcalls and interest from admirers. I knew I was a good-looking guy. People had been telling me that since I sprouted to six-three my sophomore year of high school. However, I lacked the ability for the bullshit side of dating. I couldn't play by those rules and needed a real connection that didn't start with my cock either in their mouths or their asses on date number one.

I came close once about two years ago, but he wanted us to live in the closet, going so far as asking if we could date women as a show of our masculinity and to keep up the charade. I went along for eighteen months because I was head over hills in love. But when he showed up at our apartment one evening and introduced me to a coworker chick of his and explained that they were dating, that was the end of that farce. For some reason I hadn't believed him about the hiding because it took a year and a half for him to bring a woman into our lives.

There's Pete in accounting. He has low standards. I could talk to him for you.

I gazed at Matt's text from yesterday and decided he was mean and spiteful, wondering why I hadn't deleted the entire text chain. "You're an asshole too," I mumbled, reaching for my binoculars for another look outside.

Snow was falling with huge flakes, the kind that fall slowly like fluffy fairy dust, quickly accumulating on the cold earth below me. I stepped outside to the deck and looked closely at the thermometer. Twenty-four degrees. The smoke from the campfire was gone and the sky was dark.