I rented the cabins steadily and made enough money to live comfortably, but far from luxuriously.
I didn’t want luxury, had never wanted it. I might one day get it (or some semblance of it), though not soon as I’d taken a second mortgage to do some of the work on the house and cabins and I still hadn’t paid off my dad.
So spring always was a bitch.
And this was what I told Deacon (though I didn’t get into the second mortgage stuff, just the complaining about non-peak season stuff). I did this feeling the contradictory feelings of weird and maybe a little frightened we hadn’t yet gotten to the place where I could unload my life on him and elated I finally had someone to unload my life on.
“Up the rates.”
That was what he said when I finally quit babbling.
“What?” I asked.
“You rent those cabins too cheap, Cassidy. They’re the shit. Up the rates.”
I was experiencing a heady warmth from his they’re the shit that was somewhat overwhelming but I still managed to ask, “You think I could get away with that?”
“A year ago, two, no. Economy was in the tank. No matter how great your cabins are, you’d have to take that hit to get them rented. Now, you got the business you got because people are gettin’ a deal. They know it. You up nightly rates by ten, twenty dollars, weekly rates by fifty, they’d still rent them, because they might not be getting a deal, but they’re still the shit. You do that, helps you during the lean times.”
“That’s actually a good idea,” I told him because it was. I could do this. I’d have to honor the bookings I had at the rates they’d booked, but it’d be super-easy to change the website to increase the rates for future bookings.
“Not the scarecrow.”
Deacon’s bizarre words had my head jerking and my mouth saying, “Sorry?”
“Got a brain in my head, Cassidy.”
He said this with his deep voice bearing a thread of humor, not insult, which was good.
Still.
“I didn’t say you didn’t,” I replied.
“Woman, that was an offer.”
Again, I was confused.
“What?” I asked.
“Got a brain, I can use it,” Deacon answered. “You do what you do day to day. It’s your life. You’re up to your neck in it. Can get mired in that, unless you got someone to kick ideas around with. Since I got a brain, and you got me, that someone is me.”
The feeling of heady warmth that gave me was just overwhelming. So much so I couldn’t speak.
“Woman, you there?” he called.
“Yes, honey,” I forced out and kept doing it. “Thanks for the offer. I’ll take you up on it. I just hope I make it so you don’t regret it.”
“How would that happen?” he asked, sounding genuinely perplexed, which I found unbelievably sweet.
But still.
“You remember Grant?” I inquired.
“Who?”
“Grant. My boyfriend when I, uh…first met you.”
“Lazy fuck,” he stated, paused, then said before I could confirm, “Stupid fuck.”
“Yeah,” I replied, smiling. “Him.”
“I remember.”
“Well, my dream, this dream that transformed when I found these cabins, wasn’t being here doing it alone. I actually thought most of the fun would be being here, taking care of these cabins, and doing it together, at the time with Grant. He didn’t agree. His fun came a different way. The weight of the work, and me, ended up too much.”
“Cassie,” he said quietly. “Respect, but you two were too young to take that on. Man his age back then, all he wants is to get drunk and do it findin’ someone who’ll give him a blowjob after he’s done gettin’ shitfaced.”
This was absolutely true.
“Sayin’ that,” Deacon went on, “all a man’s gotta do is look at you, any age he is, and know he struck gold and has to get his shit together to keep it shiny, but more, keep it his. But he didn’t just look at you, he knew you, and doin’ that, no excuse for bein’ the way he was.”
The warmth I got from that settled so deep, I could ride it for weeks in the Arctic with not even a blanket.
“What I’m sayin’ is,” Deacon kept on quietly, “you are not a weight. Those cabins aren’t. Life isn’t. It’s just what it is. It’s part of livin’. It’s part of bein’ together. If it matters, if it’s good, nothin’ weighs it down.”
“I really wish you were here right now,” I blurted, and it was the truth, mostly because I wanted to kiss him and do it hard.
It was then Deacon said nothing.
This lasted some time, so I called, “Deacon?”
“Same here, Cassie.”
He wished he was with me.
And that felt warm too.
Needless to say, after that conversation, I thought we could do it, Deacon taking off, me staying home, us connecting from afar, learning about each other, helping what we had to grow, making it good, then connecting when he got back.
That was, until he left again. And when he did, he never picked up when I called and only twice phoned me back. These were short calls that lasted less than a minute and mostly were him saying he got my calls and couldn’t talk, but he’d call when he could.