Almost Home - 1. Almost Home

“I don’t know why you have to go…” James said, stepping out of the way so Bryson could close the rear door of the Jeep.

“It’s just one test,” Bryson commented, lifting the tailgate with a metallic thud as it locked into place. “I’ll be back in plenty of time to see you, sliding on your ass down the bunny hill,” Bryson smiled, giving James’ rear a firm slap that turned into a lingering hold.

“I could go with you,” James commented, staring into Bryson’s blue-grey eyes as Bryson pulled him closer to his chest.

“You could, but why bother? We’d just be back up here in less then a day,” Bryson smiled before kissing James’ pouting lips, allowing their noses to nuzzle in an effort to fight off the red brought on by the bite of the winter air that swirled around them like glitter in a snow globe.

James accepted the kiss but would have much preferred they be inside, huddled under the centuries old quilt his mother kept spread invitingly over the sofa back, enjoying mulled cider in front of a blazing fire. “I guess,” James sighed with the broken kiss, his eyes washing up Bryson’s face, lingering on a curl of brunette hair that had escaped the confines of Bryson’s beanie. “Then again you could just stay… screw the test,” James smiled suggestively, “Er… Forget the test and screw…”

Bryson silenced James with another quick kiss, “Rain check?” he asked as his lips left James’.

James, pursing his lips, thought the offer over for a second before letting the smile that warmed his frozen cheeks answer Bryson’s question. Leaning in, he planted one last fleeting kiss on the set of lips he found so perfect, so soft, even as chapped from the cold as they were. “Be careful, ace the test, and shag your ass back up this mountain,” James commented before letting his hands slide from the comfortable perch they had found on Bryson’s hips.

Bryson wore a lingering smile as he backed away from James, turning only to climb into the driver’s seat of the Cherokee Chief as he reached it. Reclining easily into the worn embrace of the fabric seat, Bryson winked at James in the rearview mirror before moving the shifter into drive. James followed in step with the Chief’s slow ascent as it pulled from the driveway until all he was left with was the lingering odor of the old trucks acrid exhaust and the memory of red tail lights as they faded from view.

Bryson wanted to go as much as James wanted to see him leave, his heart aching as he watched James fade into a flurry of drifting flakes in his rearview mirror. “One test,” Bryson resigned as he steered towards the highway that would take him down the mountain and out of the winter of white, into something more grey, dreary, and wet. One test and he would run back, as fast as the Highway Patrol and road conditions would allow, ditching his initial plan of spending the night off the mountain as he drove further from James…

The chief gone from sight, the clanking growl of its engine long since faded, James turned slowly in the crisp flakes that where floating around him, aloof to the laws of gravity, and headed back into the warmth of the rustic little cabin. Once inside, James spent the next several hours straightening up the master bedroom, moving his and Bryson’s bags to the guest bedroom, in preparation for his parents’ arrival.

The fact that they were intruding on what remained of his break annoyed James to no end. It was their cabin after all; he rationalized while lugging the two large duffles’ the scant walk that separated the two rooms, and they did spend every New Year there he reasoned. However intrusive he may have found their company, it wasn’t unexpected.

Their clothes moved, James set about gathering fresh linens for the king sized bed. Sheets changed, waste baskets emptied, and the master bathroom sauna shower cleaned to exacting standards, he moved to the family room and threw another log into the smoldering fire before relaxing on the couch, wrapped in the very quilt he had thought about hours earlier when he tried to convince Bryson to stay.

James woke slowly, the sound of his mother rattling away in the kitchen, complaining about, of all things, the weather and local wildlife.

“You think they would know to stay off the roads,” she rattled on, unaware that her comments were irrational, especially when concerning the local wolves and roads. “In a blizzard no less, you can hardly see them when it’s clear.”

A slow smile crept across James’ face as he pulled himself into an upright position on the leather sofa. “You’re the one that wanted a cabin on the Mountain,” James reminded her with a groggy smirk.

His mother stopped what she was doing, staring at him from the open kitchen. “Get a bowl smartass,” she responded, ignoring the sniggers coming from her second husband.

James laughed easily and let his nose lead him to savory smell of home made venison stew wafting from the kitchen. The dinner was good, the conversation bad, still revolving mostly around poor weather and suicidal wild life, led of course by his mother while he and his stepfather practiced the time tested method of nodding and smiling.

After dinner, conversation revolved around the week James and Bryson had spent in the cabin. His mother laughed to the point of tears as he told her of their adventures snowboarding, his adventures snowboarding rather, while Bryson slid down the trail on his rear. James withheld a few details of their stay however, deciding nothing short of the promised sweet release of death would ever pry those memories from his lips. Tired from the drive, his parents slipped off to bed early, and with nothing better to do himself, James followed soon after.

He awoke from the gentle embrace of a dream, his mind replaying the first time Bryson ever kissed him as it often did on the rare night he slept alone. The day was warm, not yet the sweltering summer Southern California was known for, but a glorious spring day, which was accented by a slight cool breeze, a breeze that made the warmth of radiating sun appreciated. James first thought as he woke was the muffled vibrating he heard was coming from outside, the howling of wind, or perhaps a barren tree branch being drug against the eve of the cabin. James soon figured, in his bleary state, the noise wasn’t from a wind whipped limb, but rather it was coming from the night stand next to his bed and the small phone that was slowly walking its way across the wooden top.

“Hullo?” James answered, his voice thick with sleep.

“I lo… ou…” the phone crackled with static.

“Huh?” he asked groggily, pulling the small phone away and attempting to focus on the bright screen, squinting before being able make out the word, BABE, on the caller ID.

“I said, I love you,” Bryson’s voice crackled, sounding distant, barely loud enough for James to hear as a gust of wind, which was strong enough to have the solid cabin tremble on its foundation, howled through the dark morning.

“Bry?” James asked, still bleary but waking up at the sound of Bryson’s voice. “What time is it?” He asked neither Bryson, nor himself as he searched the dark room, his eyes settling on the alarm clock on the bedside table.

“I shouldn’t have woke you,” Bryson purred in his raspy southern tenor, not sounding a bit remorseful, “I just never told you enough.” A slow smile curled James’ lips as he writhed around in the lonely expanse of bed Bryson wasn’t there to share with him.

Bryson had come up with idea, begged James to beg his parents, he claimed, with success, that they needed a retreat from the perils of college, needed to seek solace and ‘us’ time among the squirrels and pines. They both had a week free of exams or classes. James gave in with little resistance, wanting no outside interruptions, a whole week where Bryson was his and he Bryson’s. It had been a great week spent racing one another down the slopes during the day and racing to pleasure one another during the long nights. A week cut short three days by an exam Bryson became aware of the Friday before they packed.

“I was just dreaming about you,” James sighed, settling back into the bittersweet rapture the warm bed provided.

“Yeah?” Bryson asked, his voice warming James a hundred times better then the thick goose down comforter he was huddled under ever would.

“Yeah,” James sighed, the alarm of his initial waking state slowly melting into a fuzzy half conscious delirium. “It was about our trip to the river,” he mumbled, nestling into the phone, imagining the hard plastic and pillow was Bryson’s chest.

That had been a good trip, James reminisced, foregoing the usual spring break Mecca of some exotic sandy beach littered with naked women and alcohol advertisements for the serenity of a secluded mountain stream. No five guys crammed into a small dirty motel room, instead just Bryson and him in a small two man dome tent.

Bryson chuckled lightly, and even half awake, James could hear the smile in his voice. He could see Bryson’s cheeky grin as if Bryson was snuggled next to him sharing the same pillow and staring at him. James could even feel the phantom sensation of the small hairs on Bryson’s ankle scratch against his as there feet slowly rubbed against each other under the covers.

“Did you make it home okay?” James asked, curling under the warmth of the comforter, figuring he should have been home hours ago.

“I’m almost there,” he answered, the smile washing from James’ vision of him.

“You left…” James paused, pulling the phone from his ear and squinting at the display again to read the time, “…almost seven hours ago.”

“It was slow going,” Bryson sighed heavily into the receiver, his voice stuttered, sounding distant with the bad connection. “The weather turned bad, there was a blizzard and…”

“Are you almost home?” James asked confused as to why it would take Bryan seven hours to make a three hour trip, even in the worst of weather conditions.

“Almost,” Bryson sighed, almost choking on the words as the strength of his voice wavered, “I just wanted to call you first, and tell you that I love you.”

“Mmmmm…” James purred rubbing his feet together in an effort to fend off the chill in his toes, imaging as he did that it was Bryson warming his cold digits. James’ eyes grew heavy sleep again reaching out for him. “Oh,” James said suddenly, snapping his eyes open, struggling against the warmth that was begging him to rest. “You forgot…” he stumbled, fighting the fog enveloping his mind, trying to remember just what it was that Bryson had forgotten as he left on his drive down the mountain, “…something…” James managed.

“Nothing too important I hope,” Bryson chuckled, their connection becoming fuzzy again as he did. “Jame,” Bryson’s voice cut through the static of the worsening connection. James loved that Bryson called him that, to everyone else he was Jamie or James or even plain old Jay, it was only Bryson who ever called him Jame. “I’ve got to run now, let you get back to sleep.”

“I love you Bryson,” the words left James’ lips easily, a rush of warm air flooding his lungs before he exhaled.

“I love you too Jame,” Bryson’s words brought another slow smile to James’ lips. There was a point where James would have told anyone who asked that it didn’t matter how many times he heard those three words, curling velvet thick from Bryson’s accented tongue. The truth was however, every time he heard them his heart swelled and a feeling of confidence rushed through him. This time, those three inconsequential words left James feeling content, his eyes slowly drifted closed, allowing the small phone to slip from its perch between his ear and the pillow.

Had James been more aware, he would have hit the end button and placed the phone back on the nightstand, yet he was somehow aware of the fact that once Bryson disconnected, the call would end itself.

The rapping at James’ bedroom came too early. The insistence that he shovel the driveway only cemented the fact in James’ mind as he stretched in the bed, his fists colliding with the headboard as he did. Scratching an odd itch through the fabric of his boxers, James crawled out of bed and padded the short distance to his window. The scene that he beheld was one of serene beauty, dazzling white everywhere, blanketing the deck and railing, clinging to evergreen branches in puffy white clumps, the whole yard looking like a giant snow cone itching to be flavored.

The artist in James wanted to take a picture of the magical sight before him, or give it color like the blank canvas it was, the realist however knew that now matter how inviting the white landscape appeared, snow was heavy and cold, and shoveling a driveway full of it would lead to him being wet and miserable.

After showering in a shower he decided was much more cramped then the spacious steam shower his mother and step father enjoyed, James donned a pair of his snowboarding pants and two pairs of the thickest socks he owned before cramming his feet into a pair of waterproof boots. Noticing his cell missing from its usual perch on his nightstand and remembering Bryson’s call, James rummaged around in the bed clothes until he found the minuscule device and slipped it into one of the pockets on his pants.

A muffled digital chirp caught James’ attention as he wandered into the kitchen in search of food. He pondered a steaming bowl of leftover stew before deciding on instant oatmeal instead. The chirp sounded again as he rummaged the pantry, retrieving the box he was searching for, the chirp sounded again while hit lit the flame under a cast iron tea kettle.

James tossed the two envelopes of oatmeal on the counter top and headed in the direction of the tiny digital cry, a shiver racing along his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as the sound echoed again, begging him on like a siren song. James located the noise on its fifth cry. The sound coming from his mothers ‘catch all’ drawer, the drawer that always caught items left on the counter top, pens, keys, name tags and, the occasional candy bar.

Sliding the drawer open, James expected to find someone’s ‘wandering’ pager or some other misplaced device. Peering down into the drawer James realized the digital chirp wasn’t coming from a wayward piece of electronics after all. The squeal was coming from the item he remembered telling Bryson he had forgotten in a dream he had last night.

A chill scurried the length of James’ spine as he remembered fishing the phone from the bed clothes and not its usual home on the nightstand adjacent to his alarm clock. Pulling the phone from the knee pocket of his pants, James flipped the small device open and navigated the menus with practiced ease until he arrived at the recent calls menu, the last entry read ‘BABE 12:11 am’. Expecting the phone to dial through to Bryson’s home number James hit send.

The low battery warning on the cell phone that rested in the drawer switched to read ‘Jame’ on the caller ID display before giving a weak vibration and squealing out the opening chords to Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.

James had always teased Bryson about having a song about a sociopath as a ring tone, he wasn’t laughing now though, tears stung the corners of his eyes and the breath he had taken as he started the call burned for release. The singing ring tone continued as James emitted a pained moan, leaving his cell phone slip from his sweaty palm, the ringing of Bryson’s phone halted abruptly as James’ phone collided with the kitchen floor.

In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities…

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