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Champagne Sunrise
“And that’s when I realized that the handsome stranger who took my virginity was none other than Sean Connery, Mr. James Bond himself,” Alice said with a triumphant slam of her mimosa on the table.
Her glass was mostly empty—we were all on our second or third at that point—and she reached to fill it up again before realizing the final bottle of champagne was empty.
“No more?” she said, turning a pair of wounded looking eyes on me and Trevor as we sat around the breakfast table on the porch at the cabin.
“Alice, if we have any more mimosas, Lola and Camille are going to have to roll you home,” Trevor said with a smile.
“Yeah. Besides, I call bullshit on your Sean Connery story. No extra mimosas for fibbers.”
“I have a napkin with his phone number on it back in Minneapolis!” Alice protested. “He left it in case I ever wanted to call him again.”
Lola and Camille exchanged glances and laughed.
“I guess you’re lucky it wasn’t up here at the cabin during the fire,” Camille said. “Almost enough to make you believe in divine intervention.”
“Not the fact that I wasn’t in my cabin that night?” Alice asked, trying to look shocked and offended and failing miserably. “It’s the napkins continued presence on earth that you care more about?”
“Hell yeah,” Lola said. “That thing sounds priceless.”
“Well I think you have to bring it up here, once Charlie finished your new cabin,” I said, giving Alice my sternest look. “I want proof, or I might never share alcohol with you again.”
“Joshua, that’s downright cruel.” She turned to Trevor. “Tell him he’s being too cruel to me, darling. Defend my honor.”
“Alice, I’d love to, but think of what Josh would do to me if I didn’t stand by him,” Trevor laughed. “You’re putting me in a tough spot here.”
“Traitor,” Alice said darkly.
I grinned at Trevor. “Love you.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Trevor said. “Bring the napkin back with you the next time you come back from a trip to Minneapolis. And if you have proof, I’ll make you a frame to hang it in above your mantel.”
“Heck no.” Alice snorted. “I’m not wasting an opportunity to get a hand-crafted Trevor Thurston carving on a picture frame. I’ll pick one up from the dollar store. Ever since I saw what you did at the resort, I’ve been dreaming of something like that for my cabin.”
Trevor’s face blanched and I couldn’t help but laugh. After he’d let Sarah start telling people that he was the artist behind the carvings for sale at the Dream Catcher, he’d been getting tons of requests. Jack had commissioned a large-scale sculpture for the lobby of the resort and things had sort of spiraled from there.
“Come on, Trevor,” Camille grinned. “You wouldn’t renege on a deal with an octogenarian, would you?”
“Young woman, I resent your comment,” Alice said tartly. “But if that’s what works to get Trevor to agree, then by all means. I’m a feeble old lady with no one who loves her. Please, have some pity.”
“Aww, Alice, you know I could never say no to you.” Trevor smiled.
“Piffle, you’d choose Josh over me in a heartbeat.”
Trevor laughed. “Hey, Alice, the offer still stands. If you ever want to join me and Josh…”
Things only got raunchier from there, but eventually we packed Lola and Camille up with extra muffins and they got a sloshed and slightly staggering Alice to her feet and walked out the porch door. I heaved a sigh of relief.
It was so much fun to see them—it was Lola and Camille’s first week back up in Maple Springs for the season—but it was nice to have a bit of peace and quiet again. The morning sun was streaming in through the windows on the porch, the lake beckoning us outside. I glanced at Trevor as we pushed our chairs back and began to clean up.
“You were downright chatty this morning,” I said, smiling. “And to think there was a time when Alice used to be able to make you blush.”
Trevor snorted. “What can I say? It’s an ego boost. Now that she knows I’m taken, I kind of like it when she flirts with me.”
“Well, she can’t have you. Besides, do you really like it, or do you just want her to say you’re hotter than Sean Connery?”
Trevor looked at me in shock. “Wait, am I not hotter than Sean Connery? Fuck, I might have fundamentally misunderstood my place in the world if that’s the case.”
“Ehhh, it’s hard to say.” I put a finger to my lips and gave Trevor a long, assessing stare. “I mean, you’re pretty good. But he does have that accent.”
“He’s also 85.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? I like older men. Now help me do these dishes. As soon as we’re done with these and I finish my grading, we can go lay around in the sun and be lazy. I wanna make the most of this weekend before I go back to teaching on Monday.”
“Hey, only two more weeks though til the end of the semester, right?” Trevor said as we loaded up the sink.
“Thank God. Don’t get me wrong—I’m grateful to have my job back and I love the kids, but I am so ready for summer.”
“No regrets, then?” Trevor turned and gave me an intense look.
“What, about teaching?”
“Yeah, that. And staying. Keeping the cabin. Me. This whole past year, really.”
I snorted. “I’m sorry, are you crazy? Have you not been living the same past year that I have, watching your amazing boyfriend become so rich and famous for his woodwork that he no longer works his day job at the marina?”
“Weird, no, I haven’t,” Trevor said, looking confused. “My past year’s been spent with my amazing boyfriend who’s the most patient, kind, supportive person on the planet and has been holding my hand as I’ve come out to everyone I know and begun trying to establish some kind of relationship with my mother.”
“Huh.” I shrugged. “Strange. Gotta say though, your boyfriend does sound pretty awesome. Can I meet him?”
“What, and give you an excuse to dump my sorry ass? Not a chance.” Trevor leaned in and kissed me, then smiled as he broke away. “Mmm, you taste like champagne.”
I clapped a hand to my mouth. “Oh my God, Trevor. Shit, I forgot to tell you!”
“What?” Trevor looked concerned.
“Okay, so remember I told you I went out with Graham and Ryan on Thursday night while you were still in Duluth installing that sculpture at the gallery?”
Trevor rolled his years. “Yeah, and I told you you must really like Ryan if you’re willing to put up with Graham to be around him.”
“Ugh, you guys are supposed to be friends now,” I said, swatting him with a dish towel. “You don’t need to be fighting over the Kayla thing anymore.”
“Hey, I’m trying,” Trevor said with a grin. “But we’ve spent the past 20 years convinced the other one’s a jackass. Or, at least, I have. I’m extrapolating on Graham’s part here. It’s gonna take some time.”
“Well try harder, becauser Ryan’s one of my good friends. Anyway, that’s not the point of the story. The point is that Carol called me and asked me to swing by the marina. She and Winslow had found this whole basket of mail sent to the marina from last year that had never gotten delivered. Some kind of mix-up with the renovations. There’d been some sort of check in there for them so they were celebrating with champagne but they’d found a card addressed to me at the cabin address—from Trudy.”
“Holy shit.” Trevor blinked. “How—what—what did it say?”
“Apparently she’d left it with her lawyer with instructions for it to be mailed to me at the cabin in the event of her death. Trevor, it was a fucking housewarming card. It was the sweetest thing. She wrote me the kindest letter and it just—God, I can’t talk about it without wanting to cry so I’ll just let you read it when we get back to the apartment. But the craziest part is, she said, ‘If you have any questions about the cabin, talk to Trevor Thurston at the Red Moon Marina. He knows everything there is to know and he’s a sweetheart. I think you two will really get along.’”
“Wow.” Trevor folded me into a hug and I let myself sag into his embrace. “That’s amazing.”
“I miss her,” I said after a moment. “I still do.”
Trevor rubbed my back as he pulled apart a little to look me in the eye. “You always will. And that’s a good thing, honestly. But it hurts a little less with time, I promise. It gets easier to remember the good things. And the bad parts sting a little less.”
“I love you.” The words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush, as though it were my first time saying instead of the five thousandth.
I reached up and brought my hands around to the back of Trevor’s neck and pulled him in for a kiss that I thought was going to be quick. But Trevor slid one hand to the back of my neck and the other around my waist and deepened the kiss.
I hummed into it, tilting my head back and opening my mouth to let Trevor’s tongue inside. He tasted like blueberry muffins and champagne, but also coffee, and sleepy Saturday mornings, and the beginning of summer, and sunshine, and hope, and love. And maybe it was insane to think I could taste all of that but in Trevor’s arms, I was pretty sure I could.
Trevor backed me up against the counter and I let my hands run down along his arms and then onto his waist. I slipped them underneath his shirt, feeling the heat of his smooth, tan skin and the solid strength of his muscles. I arched my back, pushing up against Trevor as his lips slid off of my mouth and down to my jaw, then back to suck on my earlobe.
I moaned, then tugged Trevor’s shirt up and off and it was like I’d pulled the plug out of a dam. Suddenly, Trevor’s hands were everywhere and before I could catch my breath, we were both naked and Trevor had spun me so my stomach was pressed up against the counter and I was staring at an old tin breadbox of Trudy’s while I felt Trevor’s cock press up against my ass.
Trevor brought one arm around my shoulders and chest, snaking the other around my waist to find my cock. He stroked up on it and I shuddered in pleasure. Fuck, I was throbbing already and I could feel Trevor slicking my shaft with the precum leaking from my tip. I glanced down at the counter and out of nowhere, a laugh bubbled up from my chest.
“What?” Trevor asked, his voice ragged. He didn’t stop stroking me, but his lips paused in their dance down my shoulder.
“It’s just—look at the breadbox.”
I’d kept it because it was functional, but I hadn’t given it much thought until today. It was old, and had a poem printed around its four sides.
Monday’s child is fair of face, it began. Tuesday’s child is full of grace. And so on and so forth until it got to Sunday, which just so happened to be the side facing outwards:
And the child that is born on the sabbath day is bonnie, blithe, good, and gay.
“I was born on a Sunday,” I said with a grin. “It’s spookily close to accurate. I guess it’s just harder to come up with rhymes for bisexual.”
Trevor laughed. “You’re ridiculous. I’m moving us upstairs if you’re going to get so easily distracted.”
“No! I’ll be good.” I ground back against him. “I promise. No more distractions.”
“Babe, we gotta go upstairs anyway. No lube down here.”
My eyes scanned the countertop and landed on a jar of coconut oil. “Wait! We can use that.” I pointed.
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” Trevor said, kissing my neck lightly. “What if it does something weird to you?”
“Shh, it’s fine. I’ve seen it on the internet,” I said, smiling over my shoulder. I grabbed the jar and unscrewed it, grabbing a dollop with my left hand and transferring a little bit to my right fingers. “Here. Watch.”
Still leaning up against the counter, I brought my right hand behind me and extended my index finger, sliding it down along my crack until I found my hole. I swirled around it in a circle, gently teasing myself open. I could feel Trevor’s hand on my hip and head is heavy breathing. I smiled and decided to put on a bit of a show for my audience of one.
I hummed and thrust my ass out a bit, pushing my finger in a little deeper on each swirl until I finally slid it all the way inside. I moaned, partially for Trevor’s benefit—what can I say? I was having fun performing—but also because fuck, it felt good.
Trevor swallowed audibly behind me. “God, that’s the hottest thing I’ve seen in… fuck. I don’t even know.”
Taking that as encouragement, I began to fuck my finger in and out of my hole, stroking slowly at first, then faster. At times I brought it all the way out before sliding it back in and relished the sounds of Trevor’s breath hitching.
Soon, I had to add a second finger, desperate to feel more inside me. I didn’t bother to contain the groan at the added pressure. It felt good to stretch myself out, warming myself up for Trevor. I thrust back onto my fingers, driving them into my ass, and heard Trevor growl behind me, his fingers gripping tighter on my hips.
“Still not sure about the coconut oil?” I asked with an arched eyebrow, glancing over my shoulder.
“I… I think you’ve convinced me.”
I slid my fingers out and turned around fully, taking a step towards Trevor. I slid the remaining oil in my left hand onto the head of his cock as I took it and began to stroke. Trevor’s eyes fluttered shut at the contact and his arms wrapped around me. I gasped when I felt one of his fingers slide into my entrance.
“Fuck, I need you inside me,” I whispered. “You ready?”
Trevor’s pupils were blown wide when he opened his eyes again and he looked down at me with flushed cheeks, his face painted with desire. He spun me around again and I brought my hands up to brace against the countertop. Trevor waited until I’d stopped moving, then brought the head of his cock to my hole and pressed it inside, sinking to the hilt in one smooth motion.
The stretch and the pressure made me moan, but fuck, his cock felt good inside me. I could feel my body relaxing around him, familiar with the sensation but never growing tired of it. I craved this, this feeling of being filled, of being used, of giving and receiving pleasure.
I groaned as he began to stroke in and out of me, letting a hand fall to my cock. But Trevor’s hand encircled my own after a moment and he began to stroke my shaft as he kissed the back of my neck.
Trevor picked up the pace and I whined in pleasure as his cock drove into me. It didn’t matter that we’d fucked last night, it didn’t matter that we could do this whenever we wanted, ever since I’d moved in with Trevor three months ago. I couldn’t get enough of him.
Trevor’s breath was warm on my back and I shivered. My cock was aching now, desperate for release, and I began to push back onto Trevor’s cock, meeting his thrusts each time. His breath hitched, coming faster, and I knew we were both close. I didn’t even have to ask Trevor to take me harder now. He knew me, inside and out, and when we were together like this, I wasn’t always sure where he stopped and I began.
“Fuck,” I gasped as Trevor thrust into me. “Fuc, Trevor, yes.”
Trevor’s grip on my cock tightened as he pumped me and then I felt the stubble on his chin graze my neck as he leaned forward to nip at my earlobe.
“I love you,” he whispered.
The words sounded like velvet, like champagne and sunrise, and they filled me with an incredible warmth, pushing me over the edge. I came into Trevor’s hand, my body’s motion stuttering in surprise, heart pounding, and I felt Trevor’s motions grow, ragged, as he came into me, filling me deeply as he thrust a few final times.
I whimpered when Trevor pulled out, but he kept his body close, wrapping his arms around me from behind as we both stood, shaking, trying to come back down to earth.
Long minutes later, somewhat recovered, I looked down at where I’d dripped onto the floor and chuckled.
“I guess we’ve christened the cabin for the season,” I said, turning around.
Trevor kissed my forehead. “Perfect. Though I have to say, I don’t think I’ll ever look at coconut oil quite the same again.”
“Just be happy Lola’s lactose intolerant.” I smiled. “Otherwise that could have been butter.”
Later that day, I lay flopped on the bed in the big bedroom on the second floor, my students’ essays spread out across the blankets, willing myself not to feel frustrated. So maybe this grading project had taken longer than expected. And maybe I’d seen the better part of the afternoon slip by outside the windows as I lay cooped up in here, trying to finish. This was the last big project I’d assigned my students—as soon as I was done with this batch of grading, it would be smooth sailing for all of us.
“How long have you been in here?”
I looked up to see Trevor standing in the doorway, a bemused grin on his face. He’d been outside at the workbench the last time I’d checked, but, admittedly, that had been a while ago.
“I’m not sure.” I chewed on the end of my pen, looking around the room. “I can’t find my phone so I’m just gonna guess and say it’s been forever.”
Trevor laughed. “Sounds about right. When’s the last time you saw your phone?”
“What? Oh, I dunno. Downstairs sometime, maybe.” My mind was having trouble remembering anything outside of the mountain of papers before me. “I’ll get it later.”
“I’ll call it so you can get it now.”
I looked up at Trevor and shook my head. “Don’t bother. It’ll only depress me to see how much time’s gone by.”
“Yeah, but you don’t wanna lose your phone,” Trevor said. “I’m calling it now.”
I raised an eyebrow at him but hauled myself upright. I didn’t see what the big deal was about not knowing my phone’s whereabouts, but maybe it was time for me to change position anyway. It’d be pretty fucking terrible to finish grading only to be carried off by a blood clot.
I heard a faint ringing sound and stood up, looking around in confusion. It definitely wasn’t coming from this room, but it didn’t sound far enough away to be coming from downstairs. I brushed by Trevor as I walked through the door, seeing but not really noting the inscrutable look on his face.
I walked into the little bedroom next door. The ringing was definitely coming from in there. But where? It wasn’t anywhere I could see.
“Oh, is it in here?” Trevor asked, coming up behind me to fill the doorway.
“I haven’t even been in here today,” I muttered as I stepped further into the room.
I bent down and checked underneath both beds. Nothing. But what was that—there was some kind of weird shadow under the nightstand. Throwing a suspicious glance over my shoulder at Trevor—who returned it with far too innocent a glance of his own, if you wanted my opinion—I pulled the nightstand out of the way and gasped.
The little cubbyhole in the floor underneath the nightstand was open, the loose board removed and lying next to it. My phone was lying in that secret compartment and next to it, a small wooden box.
I knelt down and pulled both items out, pocketing my phone and turning the box around with my fingers. It was some kind of light-colored wood, the grain clearly visible, about six inches long and four inches wide. And on top, carved into the lid with precision, was a rendering of one of my drawings from when I was a kid—the one of the two men walking through the woods together.
I gasped and turned, looking up at Trevor. “It’s beautiful.”
“Open it,” Trevor said, grinning openly now.
I did—and my breath caught. Inside was a ring. A simple rose gold band, low dome, the weight of it perfect in my hand. I held it there, staring at it for a long moment. I knew what it was, what it had to be. But part of me was almost afraid to look up. When I finally did, Trevor was biting his lip, his eyes huge.
“Is this—are you—fuck, Trevor is this—” I stammered, not able to make my mouth form sentences.
“Shit,” Trevor said, rushing in to kneel by my side. He took the box from my hands, set it on the floor, before taking my hands in his. “I didn’t really think this through. I’m the one who’s supposed to be down on one knee, not you.”
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to hold back a laugh—not because it was funny but because I was on the wild edge of hysteria. This was really happening. “I just never thought—I mean, I didn’t know if you—”
“Fuck, Josh, you’re making me nervous,” Trevor said. I could tell he was trying to make his voice sound gruff, which he only did when he was afraid of becoming too emotional.
“No, don’t be nervous.” I shook my head frantically. “You can’t be nervous, or then I’ll be nervous and one of us has to keep it together here.”
“Shit, I think that person’s supposed to be me.” A nervous laugh escaped Trevor and he drew a deep breath, then looked me in the eyes. “Josh, I love you. You are… everything. The center of my world. And I know this is kind of soon. We’ve only known each other for a year. But I… I can’t imagine my life without you. It doesn’t even seem like anything was real, until I met you. It’s like it’s all dark, blurry, gray—and then everything snaps into focus when you arrive. You mean more to me than anything, you’ve changed my life, you’ve made me better, and fuck, Josh, will you marry me?”
“Yes, oh, God, yes,” I said, unable to stop myself from laughing now from sheer delight. “Oh, fuck, I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to be laughing. I just—I can’t believe. Fuck, I can’t believe this is happening.” I exhaled slowly and forced myself to take a moment before speaking again. I wanted to do this right, wanted to remember this moment not as one of me laughing hysterically and losing my mind—even though that was all I felt capable of doing right now. “Trevor, I can’t believe how much has changed since you came into my life. It’s not that everything’s different so much as now that you’re here, I can see that everything in my life was leading up to you. Of course I’ll marry you. I’d be insane not to. I love you so much.”
Trevor reached out with one finger and tilted my chin up. My lips pressed to his, warm and dry, before he let his head turn down and rested his forehead on mine. And then he slipped the ring on my finger.
“I love you too.” He smiled and shook his head, pulling back a bit. “Sorry I stole your phone and made you come in here and look for it. I just wanted to do something memorable.”
“Well you managed that,” I snorted. “You definitely had me fooled with the shape of the box. Not exactly your standard ring box size.”
“True. But I couldn’t have made the carving otherwise.” Trevor grinned, then paused. “I hope it’s not weird that it’s a picture of you and some random guy you had a crush on when you were a kid.”
I laughed. “Not weird at all. I always imagined he finished his summer working at the marina and then left to become a rockstar or something. I’m sure he’s not concerned about an eleven year old’s depiction of him.”
“The marina. I thought you said the guy worked at a gas station.” Trevor frowned.
“No, I said he pumped our gas. For the boat, I mean.”
A smile spread across Trevor’s face slowly and he tilted his head at me. “Josh, when you were 11, I would have been 18. I worked at the marina the summer I was 18. And every other summer, for that matter. And I definitely worked the gas pump.”
“Wait, you mean—” I stopped, my mouth hanging open.
Trevor laughed in disbelief. “I think that’s me. In those pictures you drew.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “That incredible. Though a little annoying, I have to say. I can’t believe you were right in front of me then but it took me 12 years to find you.”
“Yeah, but to be fair, you were just a kid back then. I’m not sure what meeting me at that point would have done.” Trevor squeezed my hand. “Don’t think about the years past, anyway. Think about the years ahead.”
I smiled and squeezed his hand right back. “You know? I like the sound of that.”
***
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