Page 36 of Melting His Grumpy Heart
Ru’s smile was like a solstice sunrise itself, bright and warming, and full of promise. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
Jake nodded, something loosening within him even as another kind of tension built. The thought of spending the long night with Ru, sharing this piece of himself, was another boundary crossed, another way in which this man was becoming more than a temporary guest in his home.
“It’s not exciting,” he warned. “It’s mostly just waiting. Keeping the fire going, and staying present.”
“Sounds perfect,” Ru said, his enthusiasm undimmed. “What do we need to do to prepare?”
Thewesettled deep inside Jake, warm and weighted. “Nothing complicated. Food for the night. Something to drink that’s not alcoholic because staying alert is part of it.” He paused,then added, “Keeping a clear and open mind.”Opening yourself up to whatever the night brings.
Ru nodded. “I may need to borrow another jumper. If that’s okay?”
“Have whatever you need.”
Ru swathed in his clothes, it felt like territory marking, like claiming him. Warmth spread low in Jake’s belly. Christ, but he had to stop thinking like that, because Ru wasn’t his to own, and he needed to remember that.
Jake cleared his throat. “I’m going to bring in the rest of the wood from the barn.” Although where he was going to stack it, god alone knew.
“And I’ll take care of the food. I may not be able to split logs but I can make a mean midnight feast.”
Jake nodded, grateful for the chance to escape back into the cold, to clear his head before the intimacy of the night ahead. As he tugged on his coat and boots and stepped outside, the winter air sharp in his lungs, he wondered if he’d made a mistake in agreeing to share this with Ru. The solstice vigil had always been a time of reflection, of setting intentions. What intentions could he possibly set when everything within him was in conflict?
Stay strong. Honour boundaries. Remember why he’d pulled away.
But beneath these thoughts ran a deeper current, one he was less willing to acknowledge: it wasn’t only the pull of sex, it was the pull of Ru himself. The man who made him smile, the man whose company he was liking more and more with every passing minute.
The man who was awakening emotions Jake had thought dead and buried.
And that, Jake knew, was the most dangerous thing of all.
CHAPTER TWENTY
By late afternoon, the house was ready. The wood pile was fully stacked, food prepared for easy snacking, and lamps at the ready should the power fail again. Jake had cleared a small area, partially protected from the worst of the weather by a stone porch, on the eastern side of the house, the sheltered spot allowing for a clear, uninterrupted view across snow covered moorland towards where the sun would eventually rise.
Now, as the early dusk of midwinter descended, Jake banked up the fire while Ru made tea. The domesticity of it was disconcerting, of how easily they’d fallen into an easy rhythm together.
“So what exactly do we do?” Ru asked, settling into the sofa and wriggling down into the cushions.
Jake sat beside him. “We wait, acknowledging the darkness as we reflect on the past year, and the one to come.” He felt self-conscious explaining it, aware that to anybody who’d not grown up with it that it probably sounded like a load of New Age bollocks at worst or at best a rag bag of quaint and colourful but essentially silly customs, rather than an integral part of life. “Sometimes I read. Or just watch the fire.”
As darkness settled fully outside, their talk ebbed and flowed, nothing taxing, nothing that delved too deep. Jake sank deeper into the cushions, in the warm room lit only by flame and lamplight, his limbs grew heavy; it had been years since he’d been at such bone deep ease.
“Your nan,” Ru said during one quiet moment, the fire casting his face in warm gold. “She must have been remarkable.”
Jake nodded, memories surfacing of the single-minded, and sometimes fierce woman, who’d loved him with everything she had.
“She was the centre of the universe. The rest of us orbited around her. Tough as old boots but soft hearted when it mattered.” He stared into the flames, at the sparks, at a section of log that collapsed into embers. “Nan was a farm worker’s daughter. The family had lived at one with the land since the time of the ancestors, she always said.” Jake smiled. “She was a romantic at heart. The prosaic truth is that I come from a line of poor farm labourers, my parents being the first as far as I know who worked at jobs that had no connection with the land. One thing she always said, though, was that modern life had lost touch with the natural cycle.”
“I think she was right,” Ru said quietly. “We’re all so disconnected from the natural world now. Always rushing, never pausing to notice the turning of the year.”
Jake glanced at him, surprised by the understanding. “That’s what she said. Almost exactly.”
Ru smiled, the firelight catching in his eyes. “Great minds.”
The night deepened. The midnight hour came and went. The only sound the pop and crackle of the wood burner. Even the wind had fallen silent.
“Can I ask you something?” Ru said. “You don’t have to answer, but…”
Jake had fallen into the shadowy world between sleep and wakefulness, but there was something in Ru’s voice that snapped him into wide awake alertness. Ru was staring at him, looking like he’d wished he’d not asked.
