Page 6 of You Otter Know
“That makes sense.” He finished laying out the little tin of oysters that he found hidden under the tray. “Voila. All set.”
“There’s even little toothpicks, huh?” Bohdi took a cookie and broke it in half, eating that in one bite. The motion was like a little kid stuffing something yummy into his mouth because he didn’t want to share it.
“That’ll come in handy. This way we don’t have to touch everything with our fingers, just in case you’re squeamish.” River like to eat with his hands. It brought his otter side to the forefront. He uncorked the wine with the corkscrew that had been provided in the basket, letting it sit for a minute.
“You’re not gonna pour?” Bohdi asked around the cookie.
“It needs to breathe.”
“It needs to what?” Bohdi’s brows drew down.
“Red wine, when you uncork the bottle, needs to sit for a few minutes to breathe. I guess it lets the structure of it all open up again, and then makes it taste better. Something about thetannins. I don’t know. My dad was big on wine; he grew up on a farm that had a vineyard.”
“Oh, wow, that’s cool. So, uh, why aren’t you with your folks for Christmas?” Bohdi was picking his pants leg as if he had lint on it, not meeting his eyes still.
“Because they drive me crazy. I didn’t want to listen to, ‘You’re the only one who’s not married yet. River, why don’t you get married and have babies?’”
“Oh my God.” Bohdi glanced up and met his eyes finally. “Me too. My mom makes me insane. She’s constantly poking me about finding someone and settling down.”
“Yeah, as if it would be that easy to find a mate, but you know, there’s so much to consider, right? Like are we compatible. If we’re gonna have kids it kind of means that we have to be the same kind of creature you know?”
Now Bohdi’s frown was back, and his cheeks were stained pink. “Um, is that like a euphemism of some kind? What does that mean to you? A creature?”
River frowned, too, busying himself with setting out the wine glasses so he could pour. Maybe he had misread the situation or maybe Bohdi didn’t like to just admit to anybody that he was a shifter. River thought for sure this was a shifter holiday situation from the way it had been described on the website, but maybe not. Or maybe the guy was in the closet in more ways than one.
“Hey, you know, just a figure of speech.” He tried not to fumble on that because he hoped Bodie would come around to talking about it in his own time. One way or the other he wasn’t gonna push the guy to tell him anything he wasn’t ready to.
“Right, right, a figure of speech. Creatures. Are you some kind of a furry?”
That had River laughing. “Not in the way you mean, I don’t think, but oyster?” He held out a toothpick with an oyster on it trying to recover from that question.
“Sure, I’ll try one.”
They tucked into the charcuterie, and River decided to let it go for now. They had a lot of time to get to know each other, he figured.
They could tackle the weird and wooly stuff later on if they needed to. He was just going to enjoy this pretty man for now.
Chapter
Four
So Bohdi hated to admit it, because he didn’t like being forced into situations where he had to be social, but he really liked this River guy. They’d shared cookies and wine and surprisingly yummy salty little nuggets of seafood from cans, which he hadn’t even known he liked, and now they were sitting together in front of the fire, snow falling outside, the silence companionable.
Oddly enough, they had quite a bit in common. River was totally an outdoor sports kind of guy, although from what he’d said he stuck mostly to water stuff like swimming. They were both avoiding their families for the holidays because of pressures to get married and produce children. They both worked in technology fields when they weren’t out doing more fun things like snowboarding.
And River kept sneaking looks at him that told Bohdi maybe he was just as attracted to Bohdi as Bohdi was to him.
He really, really hoped River didn’t end up being a serial killer or something who attacked him while he was in bed.
They had tried the front desk twice more on the phone just to see if what’s his name was back up there so they could get this dealt with, but nobody answered. They had decided not to go todinner, because what if they got there and found out the guests in the dining room had been poisoned and shit. There was safety in small numbers or something like that.
“Want to sit on the floor in front of the fire?” River slid off the couch, looking like some super slinky animal. So damn hot.
“Sure. Might as well.” They had tried the TV, but obviously the satellite dish or whatever they used for their streaming was not working because they’d got nothing but an error message. “You want to play a game or something?” He’d seen some board games on a shelf over by the front door.
“Just come sit with me, man.” River patted the rug in front of the fireplace, which looked comfy enough, so Bohdi did exactly that.
He slipped off the couch, landing next to River on the floor, and took a deep breath. The gas log smelled like nothing but burning rather than like a wood fire odor, but that meant that he could smell River, which was super-hot. The man was musky and intense, but layered over that was the citrusy pine scent of maybe soap or cologne. He didn’t know one way or the other, but it made his cock twitch in his jeans.
