Shoulder Season Read online

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  About the Author

  By Jackie North

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  Shoulder Season

  By Jackie North

  Two young men from two different countries find a common language as they recover from broken hearts and broken bones. Can they rebuild their lives together?

  Ben’s boyfriend has not only dumped him, he’s also cancelled their mutual travel plans. Since Ben has the time off and the money saved up, he decides to travel anyway, and based on a last-minute, very inexpensive red-eye airline fare, ends up in Reykjavik, Iceland.

  He’s ill-prepared for the weather and knows nothing about the country, so he considers flying home the next day. Except his new neighbor, Solvin, a local Icelander who is currently on leave from work due to a car accident, shows up with a cane and shoulder sling and literally falls into Ben’s apartment. It’s the beginning of an adventure that might show Ben how good life can be… and that coming home sometimes means traveling halfway around the world.

  World of Love: Stories of romance that span every corner of the globe.

  This story is for all the lovers out there, no matter what country you call home.

  BEN PUT the hefty Icelandic key in the solid-feeling Icelandic lock, turned it to the left, and shivered. He was not dressed for Reykjavik; he was dressed for Germany, and except for his thrift-store army boots, was completely unprepared for the weather. But who knew it would be so damp and chilly in early October in Iceland? Not him, that’s who. The last-minute red-eye ticket on Icelandair had been irresistibly cheap because it was shoulder season, and now here he was, Alan-less. His boyfriend had cancelled Ben’s ticket to Munich to attend Oktoberfest in Germany at the last minute because, as he said, the thought of going anywhere with Ben where he’d have to explain him, yet again, to his friends, was a burden he could live without. He’d said it that way, exactly that way, as if he’d memorized lines from a play and was enjoying his own drama: “It is a burden I can live without!”

  But Alan was like that, had been like that, a well-to-do college student who was attending CU Boulder, where they had met during Ben’s last semester, which had ended in May. Ben had been working in a garage since then because engineering jobs were thin on the ground. All of his friends had gone off to successful, high-paying positions either in LA or New York, it seemed, and he had been left behind to survive on his own in Boulder, which was not a cheap town. Though, when he met Alan, it was fun being with him because Alan was still in school, and Ben could hang out on campus, or join Alan and his rich friends for beers and pretend he was still in school, too, when life had seemed much simpler.

  Alan would probably be in school forever because his pop could pay for it. His grades didn’t matter because his pop owned a mining company in Utah, and all Alan had to do was step into his father’s shoes when the time came. CU, in the meantime, was a holding place so Alan could get a taste of the real world, though “real” was a relative term. He’d taken up with Ben because, as he liked to say after a few beers, Ben was his downtown boy. Actually, when he said it, it had capitals: Downtown Boy, like that old Billy Joel song where Billy sang about being a downtown boy in love with an uptown girl. Only in this case, Alan made it clear that he was the uptown boy and Ben was the downtown one.

  Ben had always thought, even from the very beginning, that what drew him to Alan had been the fact that Alan didn’t care that Ben was not well-to-do (read: poor). He seemed genuinely interested in Ben’s job at the garage and his funny little apartment that could barely contain Ben’s things, let alone Ben’s roommate, Shawn, who was a quiet guy who had never cared for Alan, and was always gone when Alan came over. But Alan always ignored Shawn and seemed turned on by Ben and found him to be, as Alan would put it, a lively and engaging companion.

  But that turned out to be more drama, as in their last face-to-face conversation, Alan had told him, in no uncertain terms, he could do better and would do better. Which was when Ben realized that Alan had been embarrassed all along about Ben and his lowly lifestyle. But it was all he could afford on a garage mechanic’s salary. Alan had, it turned out, hated Ben’s thrift-store army boots, his five-dollar thrift-store jacket, and his fifty-cent yellow-ticket cashmere sweater. Yes, the sweater had moth holes beneath the arms so that Ben’s T-shirt showed through, but they were his clothes and he liked wearing them. Now that sweater and the boots and the jacket were all that was keeping him from freezing to death as he stood on the single concrete step of his little Icelandic apartment he’d rented online while at the airport waiting for his flight.

  The door slid open silently. It was a thick metal-encased door that seemed alien in a way that had Ben staring at it before he bent to pick up his duffel bag and backpack. But that was just jet lag, so he waved goodbye to the taxi that had been more expensive than he’d anticipated. Had he tipped the driver? And had he managed to say his one Icelandic phrase: takk fyrir, which sounded like “tack fear.” It meant “thank you,” and he’d seen glimpses of Icelandic faces when he landed in Reykjavik, faces that were pleased and quietly amused at his attempts to speak their native language. This told Ben it would be better to try than not, and any little bit would help him navigate his first trip out of the country on his own. The trip was supposed to have been with Alan, who would have, much to Ben’s embarrassment, footed the entire bill. Ben had done his best to save money, and Shawn hadn’t wanted to come to share costs, so now, on his own, he had a limited amount of funds in Icelandic krona that looked like play money to him, no companion to explore the country with, and no real idea of what the big tourist draw was.

  As he slung the duffel bag and his backpack into the tiny apartment, another taxi pulled up, looking for all the world like a shiny metal bug and not unlike the one Ben had ridden in. He was so tired that he could not be sure it wasn’t the same taxi, but then, all the taxis in Iceland were different, rather than being yellow like in New York or black and round like in London, at least from the pictures he’d seen.

  Just as he was about to go into the warmth of the apartment, out from the newly arrived taxi stepped a silver-blond-haired, blue-eyed man, who was at least six foot two, with wide shoulders that tapered down to a narrow waist. He was an Icelandic god. There were no other words to describe the man the driver—who leaped up and came around to help his passenger—was assisting out of the back of the taxi. The man, Ben noted, was hobbling on a cane and had his left arm in a sling. He looked red-faced and frustrated, his hair hanging in his eyes as the driver bounced up to the apartment next to Ben’s and unlocked and opened the door.

  Ben understood the situation at once: the Icelandic god did not want help or pity. He just wanted to get inside his apartment and shut the door and be alone with his misery. The fact that he had his arm in a sling, and the awkward way he handled the cane, indicated the damage to his body was recent and perhaps not permanent, and he intensely disliked being helped like that. The breadth of his shoulders beneath his sensible arctic-wind-worthy quilted jacket told Ben that Mr. God was fit and healthy and definitely not used to going at a slow pace, encumbered by assistance from another, the cane, and the shoulder sling.

  Ben watched as the driver leaped back to the taxi and pulled out two bags of groceries. Mr. God stepped aside, his face going pink as the taxi driver barreled inside the apartment and then flung himself out like he’d been shot from a canon. It was obvious the driver meant to be useful and did not care about the tip Mr. God was struggling to get out of his pocket, and then he got in his vehicle and sped down the road back toward the center of town.

  BEN PUT his duffel bag and his
backpack on the sensibly brown and square couch and went over to the radiator beneath the window to turn it on. Just as he opened the curtain to catch the last of the daylight, he heard a loud thump from next door. The thump was followed by a crash, and Ben’s head came up as he listened. Through the wall, and perhaps only because Ben was listening, he heard a low moan; the Icelandic god had fallen. Without thinking about it, Ben raced out the door and, with only a light tap, let himself in.

  The Icelandic god was on the floor in an ungainly sprawl, his hands splayed out as if he’d tried to stop himself but forgot both the cane and the arm sling and thus probably injured himself more than he’d helped.

  “Hey,” said Ben. He knew how to say “hello” and “takk fyrir,” but neither of those would work in this situation. Kneeling down, he moved the cane out of the way and then found the Icelandic god looking at him. His eyes were as blue as the bluest sky, and the pink flush to his cheeks told Ben he was embarrassed and trying not to be.

  “I don’t speak Icelandic,” said Ben, helplessly falling into using a loud voice, as if that would help the words translate themselves. “But can I help you up? Are you hurt?” With emphatic hand gestures, Ben reached out, trying to telegraph what he was going to do.

  “Lucky for you,” said the Icelandic god in that particularly sharp-edged way Ben had heard other Icelanders speak English, “I speak English very well, and no, I’m not hurt, but—”

  The reason for the hesitation was obvious to Ben. Mr. Icelandic God had ripped his trousers in the fall, from calf to hip, exposing a good bit of a strong, well-shaped thigh. He didn’t want to get up because he was modest, or seemed to be.

  “I won’t look,” said Ben, and he meant it. “Just let me help you, or are you hurt? Can I call an ambulance?”

  “No,” said the Icelandic god. “I mean, yes, you can help me, but there’s no need for an ambulance. I’ve had worse.”

  What was worse was whatever accident the man had been in to cause him to need a cane and a sling, so he probably knew what he was talking about. With careful hands, Ben helped the Icelandic god to the sofa, keeping his eyes averted from any exposed swath of skin, and when the man was settled on the couch, he stepped back.

  Ben looked at the sprawl of Icelandic god on the sofa and felt somehow short and ugly in comparison. Yes, he was almost six feet, and not bad-looking, and Alan used to love running his fingers through Ben’s almost black hair, which he called witch-weed, though that had been in the beginning. Toward the end, Alan had started wondering aloud when Ben was going to get a haircut.

  “Can I—” Ben paused, not sure how his offer would be taken.

  All the Icelandic people he’d talked to (three, including the taxi driver) had spoken English very well, were amused or pleased at his attempts to say his one Icelandic phrase, and none of them seemed inclined to want to get to know him beyond that. Whether that was Ben’s own personality (obviously off-putting on account of he was American, and his country’s reputation preceded him) or because Icelanders were a naturally reserved people, he didn’t know. Nevertheless he didn’t want to put his foot wrong from the first step. At the very least he could wait until he’d taken several more.

  “Can I pick up your groceries or anything? Here—”

  Ben took control of the situation, not waiting for permission, bent, and started gathering up supplies. There wasn’t a lot, just what a single man who couldn’t haul very much had bought: ground coffee beans, cream, a small packet of brown bread, two little containers of yogurt, a stick of butter, and a squat jar of what looked like very expensive honey. He arranged everything on the counter and then saw the two prescription bottles that had rolled beneath the table. With no dignity whatsoever, Ben retrieved them and placed them on the counter.

  When he turned around, Mr. Icelandic God was looking at him with a smile that seemed a bit forced and he had the same pink flush of embarrassment he’d had before. Ben thought he might know how Mr. God felt, for there had been more than one occasion when Alan had insisted loudly, for all to hear, that Ben couldn’t possibly pick up the tab on his mechanic’s salary, and that Alan would take care of everything. Ben had hated that helpless feeling every single time, and he wouldn’t want to wish that on anyone.

  “Hey, it doesn’t matter,” said Ben. “I was going to go to the grocery store anyway, just to see what it looked like, and here I get a nice close-up of the labels, all in Icelandic.”

  “I’m supposed to have paid a taxi driver or someone to fetch anything I wanted,” said the Icelandic god, a little defensively. “But I wanted fresh air, and so I went myself.”

  The Icelandic god seemed stubborn about this and at the same time had pressed himself against the couch as if he thought Ben might scold him for his temerity. As if Ben would; had he been trapped in his apartment overly long, he would have done the same.

  “I hear you,” said Ben. “Seriously. I’d go crazy if I had to walk with a cane. Hey, there’re pills here. Do you need one? Or both?”

  “Both,” said the Icelandic god. “But please don’t fuss.”

  “I won’t fuss,” said Ben, because that much was clear. He wasn’t the fussing type, anyway, though he was starting to wonder where were any of the man’s friends or his family to help take care of him, especially when he could barely walk. “Where are the glasses—?”

  Ben didn’t quite want to start going through the Icelandic god’s cupboards without permission, what with how close to making a fuss getting someone a glass of water to take their pills with was.

  “To the right of the sink,” said the Icelandic god.

  “My name is Ben, by the way,” said Ben, as he started looking for the glasses.

  “Been?” asked the Icelandic god, his brows coming together as he seemed to search some internal English dictionary for the right reference. “You’ve been where?”

  “It’s Ben. It’s short for my first name, which is Benjamin. I’m Benjamin Walters.”

  “Ben it is, then,” said the Icelandic god with a kind of graciousness that seemed to dispense an approval of a sort. “My name is Solvin Dagur, and try the cupboard one over.”

  “Takk fyrir,” said Ben, glad that the introductions were over so easily.

  Ben found the glasses and got the water and opened the bottles before he placed everything on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Then, after he watched Solvin’s throat work as he took his meds (pain pills, one hoped), he rummaged in the kitchen to find a clean cloth. This he ran under cold water and wrung out and folded before he brought it back to Solvin. Who, truth be told, was as handsome with his blond hair hanging over one eye as he was dejected looking, though he did take the cloth.

  “For your face,” explained Ben.

  “My face?” asked Solvin. “What, is there something on my face?”

  “No, your— You look like you could use a nice cool washcloth on your face, is all.” Ben shrugged and reached out, prepared to take away the washcloth that had obviously come very close to making a fuss.

  “Skeptor and glue,” said Solvin in what sounded like Icelandic. Then he shook his head. “Never mind, you’re right.”

  Ben stepped back while Solvin used the cool washcloth on his face and let his eyes roam around the apartment. It was small, like the one Ben was renting, with a square open living room that led straight into the square open kitchen. Between them was a very short passage that had a bathroom on one side and a bedroom on the other.

  Ben’s was a rental and, during his brief foray into it, had been sparely furnished, with only the bare necessities that wouldn’t cost a lot to replace if a tenant happened to be particularly vigorous with anything. Solvin’s apartment was spare in the same way, with not much furniture, and the muted, pale colors that seemed to be a part of every Icelandic interior he’d seen.

  The difference was an Icelandic man lived there, and there were small homey touches, such as the blue, white, and green cloth hung on the wall (Icelandic quilt, maybe?) a
nd the multicolored rug beneath the coffee table that spread a warm rainbow across the pale floor. There were other things, pictures on the walls, ceramic sheep in the windowsill, a shelf of books (all in Icelandic, definitely), and a sense of home that Ben felt. And this told him maybe he should make his exit before he intruded even further.

  “Hey,” said Ben as he jerked his thumb at the door, which, open, was letting in a great deal of crisp air. “I’m going to go and close that behind me, but can I get you anything else?”

  “Do you know how to make coffee?” asked Solvin. “Can you use a French press?”

  By rights, Ben should have laughed in his face for a question such as that, as Alan had trained him that nobody drank coffee made in a French press anymore! Anybody who was with it drank Turkish pour-over coffee! But Ben didn’t laugh, as he rather liked French press coffee, liked how you did it by hand and nothing was rushed about it.

  “Sure,” said Ben. “Where is it?”

  “To the left of the sink,” said Solvin. “Pretty much everything is where you’d think it’d be, so help yourself, and I’ll just wait for the pills to kick in.”

  Ben willingly went at it and felt only a little shy at opening cupboards and drawers in a stranger’s apartment. But the place smelled nice, and it was fun to see the inside of a real Icelandic home. He put the electric kettle on to boil and arranged the supplies on the counter, including the toaster, which he found on top of the smaller-than-American fridge, as he knew from experience that pain meds, especially the strong ones, shouldn’t be taken on an empty stomach.

  “I’ll be right back,” said Ben. “I left my door open.”

  “You don’t need to worry about thieves,” remarked Solvin as Ben hurried past him.

  Once outside, he realized it was raining, and that with his own door wide open, the small slate foyer was sopping wet. He grabbed a towel from the bathroom and laid it down, then, checking to make sure he had his key, shut and locked the door. When he returned to Solvin’s apartment, he felt much warmer and a little better about things, because who didn’t like coffee? Or was he going to invite himself to join Solvin in having a cup? That would be too American of him, so he figured he wouldn’t mention it but would make coffee for Solvin, then go back to his own chilly, rented, non-homey apartment to figure out how he was going to spend his time in a country he’d never before considered visiting.