Opening scene for new novel

Nic has always been an inciting incident.  Always.

 

There were rental cars parked in a weedy lot and I pulled up my rental next to them.  The Castle loomed over the lot, gray and as forbidding as intended.  I glanced up at the two towers, one crumbling, on on the  left, intact, peaked window openings offering a full view of the rolling green hills and crashing sea beyond. I had hoped for at least a single head appearing over the crenelation, even for a Monty Python berating.  But no luck.

 

I approached the enormous double doors.  A small National Trust sign, bent and battered, claimed I was well within the hours of opening.  COVID, shut down.  So much has suffered, these beautiful stone buildings were one of them.  No wonder the Trust was wiling to sell.  At least that’s what I thought had happened.

 

I tipped my head back and studied the doors.  How did Nic get involved in this?  He had failed to illuminate that tiny detail.

 

Yesterday I had stared at my buzzing phone, debating. In hindsight,  I should not have linked a photo of Nic  to his number.  He grinned up at me, the phone vibrating like an excited puppy.  My hand hovered over the phone.  I wanted to see him, I wanted him in my bed. I wanted him.  Was this maturity, desperation or just loneliness?  There was a lot of that going around.

I answered at the last minute.

 

“Hey.”  He was struggling to be casual.  

“Hello.” I tried to match his nonchalance but there was something wrong. For the first time in a long, long time I hoped it wasn’t us.

“Troy are I are flying to Dublin.  Want to join us?”

 

My heart leapt at the idea. Not because of Nic, but any excuse to board a plane and sit uncomfortably still  for three hours with only one lousy whiskey no ice to keep me company  was good enough.  I was moving the young man, Phillip, out of a now impressively restored apartment above me. I had inherited the building, the first floor was where my lovely apartment was situated, the  the second had for years been occupied by an older gentleman who was a hoarder and slob, interesting his nephew Phillip had intended to stay in the apartment for a few weeks. And we all know what happened.  While the boy was sheltering in place, he fixed it up.  But he was as anxious to move freely around the cabin as I was.

 

“And what are we doing in Dublin?  Bloomsday?”

“Ha, no.  The west coast. Where there is this castle, that apparently Troy just purchased.”  

And who could resist that?

 

No door knocker.  I glanced around the door frame for a doorbell, nada. 

I lifted my hand to knock but the door jerked open under my knuckles.   

“Great, you’re here, come in.”  Nic’s hair was standing on end, he looked a bit, wild?

“The butler, congratulations on your new career.”  

He hunched over and looked up at me with one wide eye.  “I’ll do my best Marty Feldman if you promise to stay even after I tell you what’s going on.”

I patted his raised shoulders and he grabbed me in for a bear hug that quickly became more.

He growled. “I would ask you to marry me right here, but we have no time for formalities so just come to my room for sex.”

 

“Well hello, and who is this?”

Nic released me with the groan of a Grizzly who had just wasted  precious minutes pulling the doors off a Honda Civic only to find nothing more in the glove compartment than breath mints.  

I pulled down my sweater and turned to the voice.  I had some warning, but the baby faced boy approaching me was almost too much to absorb.  My 18 year old nephew Chris looked more mature than this person. This was the boy up against  Troy Carrillos?

“Vic Gardner.  I’m a friend of Nic’s.  I was in town and he invited me to come and see this magnificent castle.  So many of them are closed because of the shut down!  How did you manage to get this?”

He took my offered hand, his was chilly and a bit clammy. I was uncomfortably reminded of the INCEL boys who harried me right before the shutdowns.  I smiled weakly making sure he released my hand first.  I resisted wiping my palm on my jeans.

 

“I own this place.”  The boy-man raised his arms to embrace the mortarless walls, the dusty chandeliers and mouse droppings clustered in the corners.

“Not yet.” Growled the bear.

To me. “Soon.”