Page 25

Chapter Seventeen

Being kissed awake may have been the best alarm clock ever. Jovian rubbed his nose where Dixon had kissed it, tickling him with his mustache and beard. “Stop that,” he pled, laughing.

“Not a chance. I couldn’t help but kiss that nose. You have a very cute nose.”

“I know. It’s one of my best features.”

“So fucking cute,” he said, laughing. “Breakfast is ready, then we need to sneak back to the camp.”

“Why sneak?” he asked, scared Dixon was afraid to be seen with him.

Catching onto that, Dixon growled, “I took your hand and led you away in front of the entire camp. I just don’t think it looks good, being I’m an instructor and you’re a camper for us to spend the night together. Not that we’re fooling anyone.”

“You think they know?”

Dixon sat back against the solid wood headboard and sighed heavily. “This camp is like a small town, and every camper and member of the staff are all the ladies hanging over the back fences.”

Jovian slowly turned his head to Dixon. “Excuse me?”

“Oh. That’s something my mother used to say.

Gossips, like ladies hanging over the back fence, talking about the other people in town, or in their neighborhood.

Your friends know, and as good as they are, and they are good, I’ve always liked Mike and Kathy, and Alan’s great too.

They will gossip. Sure, there is a lot to do here, but one of them is gossiping. ”

“That’s…underhanded.”

“Not really. If you heard a piece of juicy gossip, you wouldn’t listen?”

“Well, of course!”

Dixon simply stared.

“Oh. Right. Okay, well, it may not be PC to date a camper, but…we’re not just fucking each other.”

“No. That…I jumped the gun. I didn’t want us to start out with sex, because, like it or not, that fades in time. I want something that could be lasting.”

Jovian knew what he was saying but got out of the bed and pulled on his pants before he lifted his chin and announced haughtily, “I’m starving to death and you offered food.”

“Right. Let’s eat and we can talk after.”

“You and all this talking. You’re much more fun when you’re grunting and groaning.”

“Oh, am I?”

Jovian took his hand once he’d made it around the bed and nodded. “I like both, for sure, but yeah, you’re fun when you’re…being all sexy like.”

Dixon pulled him along to the kitchen, and Jovian loved the room, maybe more than the rest of the house. And he loved the rest of the house.

The cabinets were lightly stained wood, the few there were, and even the counters were butcher block.

The floors were more thick planks, dark, inviting. The planks looked like bars of swirled chocolate, and they just set off the light cabinets.

More plants, and the big window over the sink had plenty of room for plants to grow. The walls were thick, the size of the logs that made up the cabin, so the sill and shelves above it held at least twenty plants. “You like plants,” he said in awe.

“In here, they’re mostly the plants I used to flavor food. In the window, all the herbs most people know, and then I’ve found a few that not many know. Wild garlic and wild onion, some angelica, horehound for medicinal purposes, others like that.”

“You’re all holistic, huh?”

“I try to be, unless I can’t. I’m no fanatic. If I have a little cough, a cold or allergies, I deal with it. Broken bones, hospital.”

“You really are self-sufficient.”

“Why does that surprise you?” He pulled out the chair from the round table where the food was set and waved a hand. “Sit, and we can talk.”

Jovian sat, and the food looked wonderful. Fluffy scrambled eggs and thick toast, ham sliced thin.

After Dixon sat across from him, he asked again, “So why does it surprise you?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’ve met no one that wasn’t dependent on…well, other people, or things, or money.”

“You’ve met one now. I have a little money, Jovian. I’m not so dirt poor that I couldn’t go buy the food I eat or put in a heater instead of chopping wood. I choose to live this way.”

After he took a bite of the eggs, eggs that were seasoned perfectly with fresh herbs, he swallowed, moaned a little and then said, “I both admire it, and will admit it confuses me.”

“Oh, well, I can see the confusion. Most people are confused about how I manage. It’s not hard when you’ve lived this way all your life. I wouldn’t know how to live in your world. So many people, so many bills, worries, concrete!”

“I guess you would be. And…well…this food is amazing.”

“I traded some elk meat for that pork from a friend who raises pigs. We trade a lot. I always have a lot more eggs than I can use, and he can’t grow certain vegetables to save his life.”

“Do I get the tour you promised?”

“Sure. I’m figuring…well, I don’t have a class until this afternoon, so we can sneak in any time. And, uh, well, I’m caring less and less about the gossip.”

“Good. Let them talk. We are providing a service. Gossip is fun, as long as it’s not mean.”

Dixon smiled at him and pinched his chin. “God, you are so cute.”

“Thank you. I will take the compliment and leave you with one. You’re so hot, I could just fuck you all day and night.”

“Oh! Well, I’ll take that.”

“Good.”

It was so…easy with Dixon. He was laid back, handsome, sweet, and tough. Jovian was drawn to him, every bit of him. The food was so good; he took his time eating it, savoring every bite. “This is so much better than the Mess Hall food.”

“I won’t tell you said that. True would be mortified.”

“He cooks?”

“No, but he’s determined for it not to be regular, bland cafeteria food.”

“It’s that, for sure. But I have good taste in food. That’s not conceited, either!”

“I didn’t say it was.”

After they ate, Jovian offered to help clean, and saw that there was a regular faucet that produced water. “I thought…you had a well or something.”

“There is a well. I have a pump that goes here and to the bathroom. The shower and sink here uses hot water from a water heater that only heats water when it’s needed. It uses a lot less of my stored electricity.”

“On demand! My mother has one. They’re terribly expensive.”

“Not too bad for the small ones. I don’t use a lot of water, even for showers.”

“God, I shower for an hour, at least. I like to bathe too, when I have the time.”

Dixon glanced over at him, and Jovian could tell that it bothered him.

“I mean…I just do because I can.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

After they cleaned up, Dixon showed him out the back, and the first thing Jovian saw were the two long lines of trees in the back. “They’re pretty! What are they?”

“That’s my orchard. Apples and peaches, and behind them I have berry bushes, all kinds of different ones.”

There was a small greenhouse off to the left of the beautiful patio.

On the patio, that was covered with a pergola that reached from the house out ten feet, was a wicker couch and two matching chairs, a trunk for a coffee table, and of course, more plants. “This is so pretty, Dixon.”

“You know, you can call me Cherokee. The campers all use my last name, but you’re…not just a camper.”

Jovian smiled shyly, a smile that felt strange to his lips. “I’d like that.”

Farther to the right, next to the greenhouse, was a huge garden. There were plants of every size and shape growing in wood encased, raised beds. “This is my peace right here. When I’m playing in the garden or in the greenhouse, I feel…peace.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt that before I met you,” he confessed, then felt his face flushing hot.

“Maybe you needed a little peace in your life.”

Jovian grabbed both his hands and smiled at him. And then, the waterworks started all over again. “Dang it! I cry way too much around you.”

“All those emotions, just begging to get out for a long time, and now they can.”

After swatting at them, he turned away from Dixon…Cherokee. “Let’s get back. I need to shower.”

“You can shower here.”

Turning, shocked, he asked, “Without a change of clothes and my products? Are you for real?”

“Sorry,” he said with both hands raised. The laughter he tried to keep inside leaked out, however. “Let’s get you back to your products.”

He showered, dressed and readied for the rest of the day, finding his friends in the Mess Hall, just starting lunch. He got a tray of the fish and rice but picked at it as he told them about his adventure. “He’s the sweetest man that ever lived.”

“Wow. You have it bad,” Alan said. “Did you guys…you know?”

“I will not kiss and tell.”

“Hell, we don’t want to hear about the kissing,” Mike said, laughing.

“Fine, but don’t tell another soul!”

“We won’t,” they said in unison.

“Telling secrets like this to gay men, well, I know it’s going to get out, but…yes. We did.”

As they both squealed with delight, Jovian was busy trying to hush them.

“I don’t need the world knowing!”

“Tell us everything,” Mike whispered.

“Not everything! I’m no cad.”

“Cad,” Alan mocked. “Don’t be a cad, Michael.”

“Not a chance, Alan Birmingham the third.”

“Birmingham?”

“I had to think fast.”

Clearing his throat to get attention back on himself, Jovian grew annoyed by the two. “I was speaking.”

“Sorry, sorry, go ahead,” Alan said.

Jovian wasn’t thrilled with them, but they were funny. “Bastards, the both of you. I shouldn’t tell you a thing.”

“Please?” Mike pled. “We’ll behave.”

“Fine. Well, he took me to his cabin, which wasn’t some shack in the middle of nowhere! It was quaint.”

“Quaint,” Alan whispered.

“Are you starting again?”

“No! I’m behaving. We’re behaving.”

Jovian was smiling. He couldn’t help it! Thinking about Cherokee and the house and the time they’d spent together…

“Okay, stop wistfully thinking about it and talk,” Alan said.

“Oh. Oh, right. Well, we were just going to have tea and talk, but then, we…did more than talk, and I’m telling you he was the best. I mean…he was so good.”

“I knew he would be,” Mike said in awe. “How’s the…you know?”

“I refuse to describe his genitals, but let’s just say, they more than lived up to expectation.”

Alan and Mike high-fived one another. “We had a bet going, and neither of us wanted to bet on it being…not large,” Mike informed him.

“That person would have definitely lost.”

“Le sigh,” Mike whispered.

“Where’s Kathy?”

“Having lunch over there with her new beau.” Mike nodded to the right of them, and Jovian caught her laughing with him.

“Lovely. They make a nice couple.”

“So do you and Coach,” Alan said. “So, tell us…are you two together?”

That was a question Jovian wasn’t sure he could answer. “I mean…we like each other a lot. He doesn’t want me to date anyone else, not that I had any thoughts to. I suppose we are, but…no one officially asked, and no one officially answered.”

“That’s confusing,” Mike said. “But, knowing him, and knowing he likes you, I’d say that yes, you are.”

Jovian felt warmth travel through him. “Well, regardless, I wasn’t planning on being with anyone else. He’s…so wonderful.”

“Jovian’s in love,” Alan said. “Nice to see.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but very much in like.”

That afternoon, when the survival training began, Jovian hung on every word. Cherokee’s deep, rumbling voice put him in a place of peace. Maybe Cherokee’s place of peace was his garden, his home, but for Jovian, it was him.

Cherokee Dixon.