“Hello,” I half whisper as I slowly creep through the house. I’m not feeling half as courageous this morning as I was last night. Yes, he’s a big gay mountain man who saved my life, but I can’t be sure what his intentions are. He could have saved me for nefarious purposes. What I am sure about is that I’ve seen Motel Hell one too many times as a kid and I’m not keen on becoming beef jerky.
“Hello?” I whisper louder and get no response. The only sound that answers back is the howling of the wind outside and the creaking of this old farmhouse, which for the record is beyond creepy. I’m barely holding onto my imagination as it tries to run away with me.
Wandering, I enter another large room with the door wide open. It must have been a family room as some point, but all that remains now is a beat-up recliner sitting in the middle, a small side table next to it, and a brand new 60-inch flat screen TV mounted on the wall with a hockey puck stuck in the middle of it. It’s for moments like these that the phrase stranger than fiction was coined.
A sound alerts me that I am no longer alone. A snort of sorts. I walk around to the front of the recliner and discover gay Santa sleeping soundly. I clear my throat, hoping that’s enough to wake him, and get nothing in return. Not a twitch, not a lifting of an eyelid. No wakey.
So I move closer, with only an arm’s length separating us. It’s the first time I get a good look at…my savior? Meh, too melodramatic. Good Samaritan? Yeah, that sounds a little more dignified.
Barely fitting in the chair, he’s as big as I remember from the night before. His forearms bulge against the faded red thermal he’s wearing. The sleeves pushed up to the elbows reveal a black tattoo branching up his arm. It’s then I notice his shirt is covered in paint. So are his hands, loosely hanging off the arm rest. I can even see a streak of green on his forehead. As for the rest of him––well-defined trapezius muscles bridge the distance between his neck and shoulders. His biceps are thick but not bulky, and his forearms corded. Covered in grey sweatpants, his long legs hang past the foot rest.
His face makes a much better second impression. He’s younger than I first thought. Maybe early thirties. His hair is a deep rich brown and in need of a trim, his jaw is covered in a very short beard. His nose has seen better days; it looks like it’s been broken a time or two judging by the bump on the bridge. But it’s his eyes that get all the credit. His brows are dark slashes that end in an exaggerated natural arch, and his lashes are thick and spiky.
His face is too harsh to be pretty, but he has a certain appeal. I’m sure he drives the boys crazy in his own way. I mean, if you like that sort of thing––the alpha, he-man, gym rat type.
Which I don’t.
I like men that can debate the merits and detriments of the European Union, sophisticated men who like to travel and share books, who know more about the world than I do. Ben, in other words, that motherfu––
Gay Santa snorts and repositions his head. This guy sleeps like the dead.
Time to wake the sleeping beast. I tap a very hard forearm with my index finger, then wait. “Umm, hey guy…hi…hello?”
No reaction, so I tap again. This time his face puckers, brow contorts, lips nearly disappear. If I met this face in a dark alley I would definitely run. Unless, or course, it was in the middle of the mother-of-all-snowstorms. In which case I would need him to save me before he turned into beef jerky.
Aside from the face scrunching business, good Samaritan doesn’t budge. On the carpet next to the chair, my attention falls on a shiny object. An empty bottle of whiskey. Jesus, is he hung over? Leaning in, I sniff, sniff again. Definitely sauced. Which makes sense now. He said some strange things last night. I just happened to be too cold to care at the time.
“Hello. Hey there. Hiii.”
The forced cheerfulness finally does the trick. His eyes crack open, focus on me with all the intensity of a sniper rifle, and wait.
Automatically, I reach up and touch my buns. I may be half dead, but I’m still a girl. No surprise, they’re destroyed, hanging off my head. More limp biscuits than cinnamon buns. In addition, my eye makeup is undoubtedly down my face with all the crying, and my arms are sticking out to the side with all the clothes I have on. I must look a fright, but that works in my favor right now.
“Hi. Sorry to wake you but…hi, I’m Carrie Anderson, the woman you saved last night from, well, basically freezing to death. I can’t thank you enough. Really, thank you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t found me…umm, I mean, except die. Anyway, do you have a landline? I don’t have any bars on my phone.” I hold up the phone as evidence, but he doesn’t seem to be interested. His gaze hasn’t left my face once since he cracked them open. Not to mention, his silence is starting to unnerve me.
It’s then it dawns on me…he doesn’t speak English. That’s why he sounded strange last night. He was speaking in Spanish.
“Shoot…shoot. I’m sorry I don’t speak Spanish. No speak Español.” I make a face because it really is a travesty that after four years of living in Arizona and four more living in L.A. and listening to my Spanish For Dummies audio on my way to work, all I can say is, “Dónde está el baño.”
“Do you understand? Phone? Telephone? I need to call people,” I repeat with some deadass cringe pantomiming of a phone.
He blinks. “Turner.”
Turner? What the heck does that mean? It doesn’t even sound like Spanish. This is where Google translate would come in handy.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I reply, my exasperation coming through loud and clear. By the way he’s staring at me, he must think I’m insane. “I can’t believe the month I’m having! Make that the year. 2020 sucks!” I tip my head back, searching for guidance, a sign, anything.
The silence persists and my attention returns to big gay Spanish Santa. His brows draw down.
“I’m not mad at you. I’m sorry I’m shouting. I have a bad habit of talking to myself out loud…”
A habit I picked up during all the late nights I spent in an empty office doing research. As a way to quiet the fear of being there alone. Why I’m telling this guy is beyond me. “Dónde está telephono?” I whine one last time.
Sitting up, he stretches his neck side to side. Then, once again, he aims the full power of his attention at me, and I shrink back. Those dark blue eyes are very intense.
“Step aside please.”
What the heck…what the heck. Burning shame crawls up my neck. “Oh, ha…uh, yeah, sorry.”
I’m having a really bad month.
I scoot out of the way and he rises from the recliner in one fluid motion. Then he stretches. Arms to the ceiling, he bends left, then right, and his shirt tags along for the ride, revealing a happy trail and a set of grooves next to his hip bones only comic book villains and gym rats possess.
The shirt comes down and my eyes slowly climb over him. It’s hard not to. This is when I get the full picture of how powerfully built he really is. His shoulders, his chest, his thighs. What’s equally hard to miss is how powerless I am in comparison.
Despite that I’m no slouch at 5’6,” I have zero muscle and even less desire to build any. I’d go so far as to say my thumb is my strongest appendage, clearly due to all the ill-advised tweets I like to send. Or maybe my tongue for obvious reasons. Either way, this guy could squash me with one hand if he wanted to. Let’s hope he doesn’t.