Chapter 160

Although there were only a couple of hundred yards between them, Beau felt like it took forever to cover the distance, his heart ratcheting up with hope with every step he took.

Finally, he stood in front of Jeanne-Marie. Breathless, he blurted, “You want me to stay.” It wasn’t a question.

Jeanne-Marie didn’t respond with words. He simply held out the drawing Beau had done of him and Beau took it, looking back and forth from paper to face and back again. He smiled. “It’s you.”

“You did that?” Jeanne-Marie asked and Beau felt a frisson of worry, wondering if Jeanne-Marie didn’t like the drawing or was somehow offended by it.

“Yes. You were asleep and the light coming in was so beautiful. I just wanted to capture you.” Beau paused, reining in his breath. “I wanted you to see yourself the way I do.”

Jeanne-Marie smiled then and Beau knew he had worried needlessly. “This is really the way you see me?”

“Yes.”

“You’re very good. You made me look beautiful, something I was long past hoping I could even come close to.”

“My drawing was a camera.” Beau wasn’t sure how to explain himself. He looked up at the darkening sky; the snow was coming down heavier now and he knew, regardless of the outcome of this encounter, he would not be coming down off the mountain today.

“Camera’s don’t lie.” Jeanne-Marie said softly.

“Neither does my hand.”

“I know.” Jeanne-Marie reached out, gesturing for Beau to return the drawing to him. Beau did and Jeanne-Marie stared down at it, as if seeing it for the first time, then he said something Beau had heard before, “It’s like you saw into my very soul.”

Beau gnawed at his lower lip, trying to hold back the rush of emotion threatening to erupt. He nodded. “Exactly.”

“You really see me this way?”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to. I’ll start to think you’re fishing.” Beau stepped closer and now, only a few swirling snowflakes separated the two men. “What made my eyes see you as you really are is that one word you wrote on the note you left for me.”

“Love?”

“Love!”

There was nothing left to say and Jeanne-Marie stepped forward. Within a split second, they were in one another’s arms. After a frenzy of kissing, Beau whispered in Jeanne-Marie’s ear, “I’m staying.”

Jeanne-Marie smiled and Beau could see only the beautiful face he had drawn, the face he loved. Beau said, “It’s cold.”

“Let’s go inside, where we can get warm.” Jeanne-Marie turned and gestured for the driver to be on his way, then threw his arm across Beau’s shoulders to guide him inside.

THE ENDA-dork-able by J.D. Walker

Every New Year’s Day, I make the resolution to be less of a dork. You’d think after ten years of this, I’d have succeeded, and maybe—just maybe—some guy would look my way and see me as dating material instead of the occasional tryst. But each attempt to transform myself into some suave man-about-town just made things worse, not better.

Like the most recent office costume party on New Year’s Eve where I’d been dressed as a Wookie, gotten drunk because no one wanted to talk to the big hairy geek, and thrown up all over my boss, Mr. Watkins—I’d removed the head from my outfit as it had been stifling and keeping me from the alcohol. Bad idea, in hindsight.

My attempts to apologize to the man who signed my paychecks had been slurred, smelly, and a bit handsy. Well, Watkins was hot and I was inebriated and desperately horny—can you blame me? His husband had not been amused. It was a wonder I’d not been fired. Naturally, I had to pay a ridiculous fee for soiling the costume, too. My coworkers still talked about the “incident.” I was surprised someone hadn’t made a meme out of it. Oh, wait…

Anyway, as far as humiliation and awkward encounters went, that one took the cake. I decided then and there that resolutions were crap and I was better off without them. I would embrace my dorkness and to hell with everyone else. And, no, that wasn’t another resolution. It was simply an affirmative statement of action that…oh, to hell with it.

My roommate and best friend Anderson Mercury—supposedly straight, great abs, sleeps with chicks and watches gay porn because “it rocks,” he says—was always telling me there was nothing wrong with the way I was, and I should be myself—with an updated wardrobe—and to hell with the world. Maybe he was right. And maybe I should tell him he was actually bi-curious and to stop kidding himself.