Page 10 of Grumpy Bear

Luke

This man was… kinda fucking scary. Scary hot too. But still scary.

He’d appeared out of nowhere while I’d been playing, looking like the ghost of some drowned mountain man from a campfire tale.

A sexy ghost. All brooding brown eyes, bushy beard, and dark barbered haircut. His hair was wet for some reason. I couldn’t tell if he was unbelievably sweaty or if he’d fallen in the creek. Mud was matted in his chest hair and smudged on his long Tarzan arms. He was only a little taller than me, but he was ripped with the kind of upper body earned through hard labor. Out west, I’d seen all these men who were considered gorgeous and perfect—movie stars, models, rock stars—but this man was easily the sexiest I’d ever seen in real life. He was a man, strong and mature, confident in a way that made me feel like a teenaged boy in comparison. So much for Austin’s assurances. I was totally out of my league.

Austin looked curiously between us. “Boss, if it’s cool with you, I’m gonna go put away my stuff in the bunkhouse and say hello to some of the guys. I’ll come find Luke in a bit and help him set up his tent.”

Coleman Sawyer awkwardly clapped Austin’s shoulder. I could tell the physical affection didn’t come easily to him. “Good to have you back again this year.” His voice was deep and serious, but his eyes were warm. I chocked it up to the effect Austin seemed to have on everybody. This man sure didn’t have much warmth for me. After a few initial blazing stares right into me, he was now avoiding eye contact. He turned to exit the lodge, assuming I would follow.

I reached for my backpack and guitar case, calling after him, “Is it okay to leave my stuff here?”

He shrugged. “Nobody’s going to mess with it. No point bringing it. We’ll be right back.”

I followed him out, down the steps, and across the parking lot to one of the badass Batman vehicles. The black and green cart was streaked with bright orange mud that radiated from fat, deeply-treaded tires. He reached into the back and grabbed a towel, scrubbing away the mud from his chest and arms before climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Is this Bruce Wayne’s golf cart?”

He scowled. “No, it’s mine. Get in.”

So much for a sense of humor.

It was impossible to avoid our legs touching. The bristly hair on his calf prickled my own, the sensation reaching my groin. I held onto the roll bar above my head, but when he peeled off down the gravel drive at considerable speed, I had no choice but to brace myself with my other arm behind him. Whenever we hit a pothole, we were thrown together. I was basically side-hugging the muscular monster of a man. His back was damp.

He smelled like mud, lake water, and sweat. Underneath, there was a faint scent of shaving cream.

I became fully, uncomfortably hard. It was unusual for me to have such a physical response to someone I’d just met.

To keep myself from leaning all the way over and sniffing the hair on the back of his neck, I tried to make conversation. It was a social mechanism I guess I’d developed growing up in church where my practiced friendliness disarmed most people and allowed me to easily talk to strangers.

Most strangers, anyway. Not this beast.

Unfortunately, with less responsive personalities, my attempts sometimes came across as nervous babbling. Which is pretty much exactly what happened in the cart with Sawyer.

“Jim seems cool. Have you known him a long time?”

He glanced over at me, but I couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses. It was impossible to read his expression. It didn’t look like he had one. He kept his eyes on the road, swerving to avoid the biggest ruts and potholes. “Yeah. Pretty long time.”

“Awesome.” I knew my enthusiasm was a little too much for what he was giving me. It didn’t warrant this clipped conversation though. A lot of times, it was like I stood behind myself, observing and listening, cringing at my inability to tone down the perkiness. To not be so aggressively friendly. To say less. But I got nervous around hot men, and it made me talk more. And quiet people made me doubly nervous. I felt compelled to fill the gaps in conversation. “That’s cool. To have people in your life long-term like that.”

He twisted his lips in acknowledgment, an approximation of a polite smile. He clearly wasn’t interested in chitchat.

So, what did I do?

Well, of course, I kept rattling on. “Have you both always worked here? I mean, of course, there’s no way you always worked here.”

He put me out of my misery. “I’ve been here sixteen years. Jim has been here… a little longer than that.”

We came around a bend in the road near the bottom of the mountain, still at a narrow point in the head of the small valley. Directly beneath us was a swimming pool partially covered in sad blue plastic smeared with orange mud. Beside it was an enormous redwood deck, an open-air bar, and a sand volleyball court. A few buildings were clustered nearby. Beautiful plants surrounded everything. They looked natural at first, part of the mountain, but as we got closer, I could see they were intentionally designed and planted with precision. The boulders may have already been there, but the water features and tropical plants had to be careful additions.

It would be nice when the pool was uncovered, blue water sparkling in the sun, filled with naked men.

There were some half-naked men at work around the pool complex. Behind an anonymous gray industrial building, there were a few shirtless guys who looked a little younger than me or maybe my age, mid-twenties. It was hard to tell them apart at first glance. It was a rapid succession of crew cuts and sunglasses, white teeth in beards, tanned muscles, and chest hair. No wonder Austin loved this place so much. These men were clearly his people.

They were dressed alike as well, in the same cargo shorts and boots, their uniform T-shirts invariably tucked like tails through their belts.

One of them was rearranging bags of ice in a large exterior cooler like the ones outside convenience stores. Two others were removing pool skimmers and gallon drums of some kind of chemical from an open storeroom door.