By the time I make it back, not only am I huffing and puffing, but Jake is there already. Dave and him are talking, standing next to Dave's car. As soon as Jake spots me, he excuses himself and then comes barreling towards me as fast as he could given the deep snow. I can't help myself; I crack up at his flailing. He looks ridiculous. And when he reaches me and gives me a big hug, we almost tumble down to the ground.

"Hey buddy!"

"Howdy, Jake."

Jake pulls away and looks at me, holding me at arm's length. "I've missed you."

I chuckle. "You too." I then point to his rather large, grey SUV with huge tires. "That yours I assume?"

Jake looks over his shoulder, hands on his hips, smiling. "Yup." In a fashion that I've only seen him and Orion do, he scratches his forehead with his thumb. "Sorry, I didn't even think about it. I'm so used to coming up here with The Beast it's never an issue."

As we make our way back to the car and Dave, I chuckle. "You named your car The Beast?"

"Well, c'mon, just look at it!"

I laugh and we reach Dave. "So, you two met already?"

"Yup," Dave says, smiling.

"Here," Jake says, "let's get your bags, load 'em into my car, and we'll be off."

"Er, what about my car?"

"Besides some hunters," Jake says as we begin transferring our belongings, "I'm the only one on this road. It'll be fine. We can come back later and tow it up."

I look at Jake, surprised. He rolls his eyes. "I have a chain back at the cabin. Why does that surprise you?"

I can't help it, so I tease. "You seem too prissy for such things."

Jake scoops up a fast snowball and flings it at me. "Fuck off."

I turn, and the splash from the hasty snowball hits Dave too, who laughs.

Once we were in the car, with Dave in the back seat, me up front with Jake, Jake glances back at Dave and grins. "Dave forgot who exactly I was. He had a, 'Oh shit, you're famous' moment."

Dave laughs, and when I look back I catch him covering his red face. "Yeah, I did."

Jake laughs as we take off. "Don't worry, it was cute."

That just makes Dave blush even more.

In the quick amount of time we're in the car, we manage to hear most of John Legend's song All Of Me, and it admittedly depresses the fuck out of me. Jake is doing his best to make Dave comfortable, but I don't really hear what they're saying, staring out the window.

"We're here!" Jake says, pulling me out of my funk.

I'm shocked by what I see. A beautiful, large cabin with red wood and a huge window showing the interior sits before up. It has a porch the length of the entire house, with a waist-high railing. A few steps made from the same wood lead up to the house. I catch the scent of firewood as we grab out stuff, and I see smoke billowing softly from a chimney. Jake punches in a key-code and then opens the door for us.

The inside is even more impressive than seeing it from the outside. The ceiling is vaulted, to the left a set of stairs leading to a second floor, which has an open area you can see down to the main floor from. To the left is a fireplace, snapping and crackling. Immediately to the left of the door is a shoe bin, and we follow Jake's lead when he slips off his boots and puts them there.

"Make yourself at home," Jake says, slipping off his coat and hanging it up on the wrought iron pegs that are above the shoe bin. He then gestures at us to give him out coats. "Straight back is the kitchen—on the way there's a bathroom on the left, if either of you need it."

We both, in fact, needed it. Once we're done, Jake, who is all smiles, helps us with our bags and leads us upstairs. There is a grand bedroom (his, obviously), and a rather expansive guest bedroom.

"Just one bed, sorry," Jake tells us with a wink, dumping our bags on the floor. "I'm sure that's not an issue though?"

I laugh and Dave turns slightly red. We go back downstairs, getting situated. Jake sits in a high back plush chair, while Dave and I cozy up on a couch. Jake is drinking wine. He offers us some; Dave declines.

"Beer?" I ask.

Jake grins at me. "You can have one or two. You guys are underage, I don't need to get it trouble for that."

"Hey, you offered!"

"I know."

As the night drags on, it begins snowing again. The day had been lovely, relaxing. Unsurprisingly, Dave and Jake get along well. I'm pretty sure Jake would be able to befriend a wall.

I'm lightly buzzed, and by that point, so is Dave, who changed his mind about the wine. We've switched to an armchair, with Dave sitting on my lap.

"Aren't you worried about bears?" Dave asks, staring out the large window that more or less is the front wall of the cabin.

Jake sputters a little and laughs. "Bears? I haven't seen any since I bought this place."

"I still can't believe you call this a cabin!" Dave proclaims. "This is a damn house!"

"Cabin," Jake corrects.

"House!" Dave says back.

Before I know it, they're shouting those two words back and forth at one another, and we're all laughing.

"Okay, fine, I concede!" Jake says finally. "It is basically a house."

I look up at the gold and glass chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling. "It still boggles my mind how much money y'all have."

Jake merely shrugs. "I mean...We donate a lot of it. None of us have kids or anything; really, what the fuck are we going to do with all this money? Honestly I'm happy we make that much money; we're not stupid ass old white dudes who just sit on our money and have five private jets while people are literally starving."

"Or shooting yourself into space," Dave says with a snort against the bottle opening as he takes a drink.

"Right?! What the fuck was with that strange craze back in the early 2020's?"

"Okay but seriously. Aren't you worried about something breaking in through the glass?"

"Naw. It's really sturdy, bullet proof stuff. Honestly I'd be more concerned about the huge ass elk that wander through my property from time to time. Oh, and I've seen wolves."

"Wolves?" I ask a little nervously.

"Yeah. It's fine though, it's why I have that."

Jake nodded to above the door. I'm shocked when I see a double-barrel shotgun. I look back at him. "You know how to use that?"

"Yeah. Once I came up here I wanted to be able to protect myself. I mean, we're pretty much literally in the middle of nowhere." Jake winks at me then. "Just don't tell Orion—you know how much of a nature lover he is."

"Yeah," I reply without thinking, "even if a bear was mauling you, he'd of course be worried, but at the same time he'd be all, 'aw, poor thing, don't hurt him too much, can't you just tranq him?'"

Jake laughs, and I suddenly forget all about Dave on my lap. "How is he doing, anyway?"

Jake looks surprised. "Orion? Er, he's—he's good."

"Really?"

Jake shifts uncomfortably in his chair. "Yeah. He's keeping his head down. Staying out of trouble." Jake chuckles. "He's taken up ballroom dancing, of all things."

"Why am I even trying?"

Dave had said that. The room immediately takes on an icy chill that's as bad as outside. Dave gets to his feet and looks down angrily at me.

"I'm never going to get out of the shadow of him, am I?"

I get to my feet. "Dave—"

He takes a step back, shaking his head. "Yaknow, I thought maybe, maybe if given enough time, you'd start to think about him less and less."

I can feel my heart starting to rip. "Dave—"

"Dude, everyone sees it. Any time you talk about him, you get so incredibly happy."

Guiltily I throw a look to Jake, who has absolutely turned to stone in his seat.

"I'm so stupid," Dave says, looking at the ceiling. "What the fuck am I even doing here?" He looks at me then, and I'm surprised at the level of disgust on his face. "What the fuck am I even doing with you?"

"Dave," I try a final time, shocked at his words.

"Don't act like that!" Dave finally shouts at me. "Don't look so wounded. From day one all you'd talk about is him—"

"I don't talk about Orion that much!" I snap back.

"You shouldn't talk about him at all!" Dave shouts. "I'm your fucking boyfriend, Tristan! Or I was."

"Was?"

Dave looks pissed. "Don't play stupid. We should've broken this off long ago."

I want to say something, but what's the point? He's right. I look at my feet guiltily.

"Look," Dave says, sounding defeated and hurt. "you're a great guy Tristan. Stop fooling yourself and just go make Orion happy already."

Dave then turns to Jake. "I'm sorry for the drama. You seem nice. Thank you for having me, I really did enjoy myself. I'll be leaving in the morning."

"Er, oh. Um, okay. Have—have a good night Dave."

And without another word, Dave retreats upstairs, the guest bedroom door slamming shut moments later.