Six months after the wedding. The first nor’easter of the season. Three days alone in the inn. Tom’s POV.
The Long Night
Tom
The first nor’easter of the season hit on a Tuesday in late December.
Twenty-eight inches in fourteen hours. The Vermont kind. The kind that closed the inn for the count of three days, by my own forecasting at six on the Monday morning, when I had — at the kitchen island, with him at my left elbow over coffee — looked at the radar on his laptop and said, very quiet — “Tuesday into Wednesday.”
He had said, “All right.”
I had said, “Twenty inches at least.”
He had said, “Cancel.”
I had said, “Cancel.”
We had cancelled the small specific Tuesday-night booking — a couple from Boston, a two-night anniversary stay, refundable through Sunday under our small specific weather clause — and the woman from Boston had — by my count — been gracious about it. She had said, on the phone, all right, sweetheart, you boys stay safe up there. She had said boys in the kind of voice June used.
We had been — by Monday at noon — the only two people on the property.
June had — at her own request — gone to her sister’s in Burlington for the duration of the storm.
We had been ready. Firewood from the carriage-house porch up to the back kitchen door. Long-life batteries for the small generator in the basement. Bottled water in the pantry. Hand-crank lanterns in the parlor by the chair we had glued back together.
We had been ready in the small careful steady way two innkeepers were ready for a December nor’easter on the seventh month of being married, which was the seventh month of being the Price-Hales.
The Price-Hales were going to use the three days.
The storm hit at noon on Tuesday.
I was at the kitchen island prepping a stew — short ribs, root vegetables, the kind of stew Aunt Rose had been making for forty years — and Gabriel was at the back door putting his lavender muck boots — Aunt Rose’s spares, which he had been wearing for fourteen months now — onto the boot scraper after a small specific run out to the carriage-house apartment.
He came in with the down comforter folded once over his right arm and snow in his hair and the small specific pink at the tip of his nose he got at the small careful steady cold of December in Vermont, and he closed the back door, and he kicked the snow off the muck boots on the boot scraper, and he came up to my left elbow at the kitchen island.
He set the down comforter on the small bench by the door.
He came up.
He put his hand at the small of my back.
He said, very quiet — “Tom.”
I said, “Yes.”
He said, “It’s started.”
I said, “I know.”
He said, “Three days. Just us.”
I said, “Just us.”
He said, “Tom. I have a list.”
I almost laughed. I have a list was — by my count of fourteen months — the small careful steady way Gabriel Price-Hale told me he had been thinking about a thing.
I said, very quiet, “What’s on the list.”
He said, “Three days. Three nights. The inn closed. June in Burlington. The fireplace in the suite. The down comforter. The bottle of port we never opened on the night of the wedding because we said we were going to save it for the first time the inn was closed for snow. The small bottle of olive oil on the bedside table. The small folded square of cotton on the bedside table. The two robes June gave us for the housewarming.”
I said, “All right.”
He said, “Tom. I have been — for the count of the past three weeks, since we put the storm clause on the booking calendar — building this list. The list is the list. And I am going to ask you a thing. Will you — for three days — be on the list.”
I held his look.
I said, very quiet — “Yes, Gabriel.”
He said, “Stew first. Stew at five. And after five — Tom — I am going to take you up to the suite, and I am going to start the fireplace, and I am going to put you on the bed, and I am going to —”
I said, “Gabriel. It is noon eighteen. Five is four hours and forty-two minutes from now. I am not going to be able to do four hours and forty-two minutes of stew prep next to you with the list in my head.”
He said, very quiet — “All right, Tom. Then put the stew on at one. Slow cooker. Five-hour braise. We can leave it. We can come back down at five forty-five and the stew will be done.”
I said, “All right.”
He said, “And in the meantime, Tom, we have, by my count, four hours and forty-two minutes.”
He said, “Tom. Take me upstairs.”
I put the stew on at twelve fifty-eight. Slow cooker, low. Lid on. Timer on my watch for five-forty. Hands washed. Hands dried.
I turned around at the kitchen island and he was in the doorway with the small bottle of port I had been keeping in the wine cabinet since June — the bottle we had not, in fact, opened on the night of the wedding because we had been, by midnight on the wedding day, asleep in each other’s arms — in his right hand. Two glasses in his left.
He had on, over his work jeans, the small specific cream wool sweater I had given him for his birthday in October, the one he had been wearing on the porch swing on the morning of the photograph June had taken of him in October that was now, framed, on the small side table in the parlor beside Aunt Rose’s chair.
He held my look.
He said, very quiet, “Tom. Up. Now.”
The bed was made in the soft white set we had brought back out of the linen cupboard for the winter — the set we had had on the bed on the night of the storm in May at twenty months ago, the set we had been keeping for the small specific occasions the soft white set was the set for, and the soft white set was, on a Tuesday in late December at the start of three days alone, the set.
The fireplace was laid. I had laid it that morning at seven, with the small specific kindling on the bottom and the small specific stack of birch on top and the small specific dry oak above the birch, and Gabriel had — at one oh-one — set the bottle and the glasses on the small bedside table and crossed the suite and crouched at the fireplace and lit the kindling with the brass match holder on the mantel.
The fireplace caught.
The room got the small specific gold of firelight.
He stood up. He turned to me at the foot of the bed. He held my look.
He said, very quiet, “Tom. Three days. Let’s slow it the fuck down.”
I made a sound at the back of my throat, very small.
He had not, in seven months of marriage, in fourteen months of being on the property together, used the word fuck in the small specific way he had just used it.
He used it now.
I said, very quiet — “All right, Gabriel.”
He came across the suite to me.
He undressed me at the foot of the bed in the suite at one oh-four in the small careful steady gold of firelight. He pulled my flannel out of my waistband and undid the buttons one at a time from the top, and he kissed the place each button uncovered. He was taking his time the way he had on the workbench in the workshop on a Tuesday in May twenty months ago when I had said take care of me, except that on this Tuesday in late December he had three days, and he was, at one oh-five on the foot of the bed in the suite, in no hurry.
He kissed the hollow of my throat. The place where my throat met my collarbone. The small clavicle scar on the left side. The soft middle. The small dimple at the top of the belly above the navel. The line of dark blond hair below the navel. The place at the top of the waistband of my work jeans.
He undid my belt. The button. The zip. He pulled the work jeans down off my hips. He helped me step out of them. He folded them once. He set them on the chair by the window.
He took my boxer briefs off the same way.
He undressed himself with the same care, more slowly than usual.
He turned to me. He held my look.
He said, very quiet, “Bed. On your back.”
I got on the bed on my back, on his side, with my head on the pillow on his side.
He came up to the bed. He poured a small glass of port at the bedside table. He held it out to me. I took it. He poured one for himself. He held my look across the rim of his glass. He drank. I drank.
He came up over me on the bed with both hands flat on my chest, with one palm over the small clavicle scar on the left side and the other on the soft middle, and he — Christ — he held my look.
He said, very quiet — “Tom. I love you. I am going to — for the next four hours — take care of you very, very slowly. In three different ways. Then we are going to come down for stew. Then we are going to come back up. Then we are going to go again. Look at me the whole time. Don’t close your eyes. Tell me when it’s good. Tell me when it’s better. Tell me when you can’t take any more.”
I said, “All right.”
He kissed me.
He took care of me with his mouth at one fourteen on a Tuesday in late December in the suite in the firelight, on his knees at the foot of the bed, with my legs over his shoulders, and his hands at my hips, and his eyes — every count of the way through it — locked on mine. I held his look. He had told me to look at him. I looked at him. I did not close my eyes. I held the look. He went slow. He took his time. He used his hands. He used his mouth. He held my look. He let me come on him in his hand and on my own stomach and on the inside of his wrist, and he let me make the sound — the lower sound, the sound he had taught me to make on the workbench in the workshop in May twenty months ago — into the suite at one twenty-eight, and the sound was the sound he had been getting out of me for fourteen months.
He cleaned me up with the small folded square of cotton on the bedside table.
He kissed the inside of my thigh.
He came up on the bed beside me. He held me for a count.
He took care of me with his hand at two oh-three on a Tuesday in late December, after the count of holding me had ended, after he had — at one fifty-eight — kissed the side of my neck and said Tom, again, and after I had said Gabriel, I am going to need a minute, and after he had — at two oh-three — finished the minute and pushed me onto my back on the bed and put his hand on me. His hand was the hand of a husband who had been taking care of his husband with his hand for fourteen months, and the hand was the hand, and he took his time, and he held my look, and I held his, and I — at two seventeen — came in his hand for the second time, and he held me through it.
He had not, in any single specific way, come yet.
He had been — for the count of an hour and three minutes — taking care of me.
I said, very quiet — “Gabriel. Your turn.”
He said, “Not yet. Tom. Listen. I have been — for three weeks — building the list. The list has, on it, three things for you, before the first thing for me.”
I said, “Gabriel. I have only — by my count — done two.”
He said, “I know.”
I said, “What is the third.”
He said, “I am going to fuck you.”
I made the sound. The lower sound. The sound he had been getting out of me for fourteen months.
He held my look.
He said, very quiet — “Tom. I am going to take my time. I am going to take care of you. And — Tom — I am going to — for the third time on a Tuesday in late December — get you to come for me without coming myself.”
I said, “Gabriel —”
He said, “Tom. Trust me.”
I said, “I trust you.”
He said, “On your back.”
He fucked me at two twenty-six on a Tuesday in late December in the suite in the firelight, on the bed, on the soft white set, with my legs around his hips and my hand laced through his on the pillow above my head and his other hand flat on the front of my chest and his mouth at the count of an inch above mine and his eyes on my eyes and the snow coming down outside the suite window at the rate of an inch and a half an hour. He took his time. He held my look. He — Christ. He — at the count of fourteen months of practice at being on top of me — was the man.
He was the man.
I held his look the whole count.
He held mine.
He said, very quiet, into my mouth — “Tom.”
I said, “Yes.”
He said, “Tell me.”
I said, “Now.”
He said, “Tom.”
I said, “Now, Gabriel.”
He went the rest of the way in.
I came under him on the bed in the suite at two thirty-nine on a Tuesday in late December for the third time in an hour and twenty-five minutes, and I made the sound, and he made the sound back, and he — by his own honest count — did not, in any single specific way, come.
He held me through it. He stayed on top of me. He kissed me. He held my look.
He said, very quiet — “Three. All right, Tom. Now bath. Stew at five forty-five. And after stew — Tom — after stew — you take care of me.”
I said, “After stew, I take care of you.”
He said, “All right, Tom. Bath.”
He helped me up off the bed.
The bath was the bath. He had the small specific candles on the rim of the tub lit. The small specific bath salts in the water. He had — for me — kept the water hot. He was at the foot of the tub, with his knees drawn up. He held out his hand.
I got in.
I sat at the head of the tub with my back against the porcelain.
He was between my knees with his back against my chest with his head on my shoulder.
He was — at the count of his head on my shoulder — saying, very quiet — yes. yes. yes. all right, Tom. all right. all right.
The stew was at five forty-five.
The stew would be the stew.
We would eat it. We would come back up. We would be — for the second night, and the third night — the men in the suite. I would, on the second night, take care of him. I would, on the third night, let him take care of me again.
We would, on the fourth morning when the storm was over and the road was plowed and June came back and the inn opened again and the next guest checked in at three, be the men we are.
We would be Hale and Price-Hale.
We would be the innkeepers, plural.
We would be — at the count of the rest of the count — the boys.
The wisteria, on the south porch, would, on a Tuesday in May four months from now, come back.
It would come back.
It would come back.
It would come back.
— T. Hale, The Linden House, Hadley Falls, Vermont
December 2026 — The first nor’easter — Day one of three
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