Carol of the Bellskis (7 page)

“Come on. Let's get dinner started.” He led Seth into the kitchen.

As soon as the kitchen door swung closed behind them, Lars clasped Seth to him. Lars was

a good six inches taller than Seth and stronger, and so he was able to fully cocoon Seth in a

protective embrace.

Seth felt too shaky to force himself out of it, so he relaxed and enjoyed the comfort and the

heat.

“It's going to be okay, Seth,” Lars said softly. “Don't worry.”

“How can I not worry?” he complained.

“We'll get through this.”

“Through what? Hanukkah?”

“Through everything. The holiday, the missing relatives…and everything else.” Lars

leaned down and kissed Seth's forehead. “Trust me.”

Seth let out a shaky breath. “I don't.”

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Astrid Amara

Lars frowned.

Any minute now Seth was going to lose it completely. “I don't trust you. I know you love

me, but not enough. Not more than your ego or your career. You care, but just not enough. So I

can't trust you to put my well-being on par with yours. I don't trust you, Lars, and it's killing me.”

Lars opened his mouth and looked ready to argue. His expression had gotten stony,

lawyerlike once again. But before he said anything, he clenched his jaw and turned away.

“I'll start dinner.” He began unloading the paper bags of groceries.

Seth felt miserable. But for better or worse, Lars was here, and at least for now, he was

helping. So Seth swallowed his pride and held out an olive branch.

“Can you make latkes?” he asked.

Lars paused, holding a head of cabbage. “Latkes?”

“Yeah, you know. Potato pancakes. Were they on your CD of kosher cooking?”

Lars's mouth curled up. “Yes. I know how to make latkes.”

“Cool.” Seth nodded. “So could you make those first? To eat with the candle-lighting

ceremony in an hour? It was one of Judi's traditions, sort of an appetizer before dinner.”

“Sure. No problem. I'll start right now.” Lars grinned as he unloaded the last of their

purchases and immediately hunted down a cutting board and a canvas bag stuffed with potatoes.

“I'll help,” Seth offered.

“No, you should just relax,” Lars said. He started peeling the potatoes. “You've been

running around since the moment you got here. This was supposed to be your vacation.”

“Yeah, but it's three.”

“So?”

“And it's Friday,” Seth added.

“Yeah?” Lars peeled potatoes like he'd worked in a kitchen his entire life. He didn't even

look down. He made eye contact with Seth while skinning the hell out of those potatoes.

How many lawyers peeled potatoes at the speed of army cooks?

How many lawyers, for that matter, didn't think twice about tucking a dishrag with the

words
Thank God it's Shabbat!
written in curly pink letters into their belts?

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39

Lars was a bundle of contradictions. Against his better judgment, Seth smiled.

“It's Friday,” he told Lars. “And sunset is in one hour. That means Shabbat begins.”

Lars's eyes narrowed. “Shit. What does that mean?”

“It means everything switches on to timers. You aren't allowed to change the world around

you. You're really supposed to pray and sit around and read and take it easy. But of course my

aunt and uncle never bothered to do that part.”

Lars looked around the kitchen frantically. “Am I going to lose everything in here?”

Seth closed his eyes, recalling the memories from the last time he had stayed at the B and

B.

“The lights stay on until eleven, and then they switch off. The coffeemaker needs to be

primed to start up tomorrow morning, and we need to precook anything we plan on serving for

breakfast. You can cut things, but you can't cook them. But the toaster oven is also on a timer, so

sometime tomorrow morning, that will crank to life.”

“This is insane.” But Lars already was scrambling to face the challenge, pushing aside the

potatoes and yanking ingredients out of the two fridges. “Okay. Peel potatoes, then grate them.

Do about fifteen. I gotta strategize here.”

Seth got to work, watching out of the corner of his eye as Lars investigated cupboards,

refrigerators, wielded odd-looking cooking instruments. A spark was in Lars's eyes, and Seth

realized that this had gone from being a chore to a game.

“Having fun?” Seth called out as Lars rapidly beat something in a large ceramic bowl.

“Christ, this is like
Iron Chef
, only without a narrator.” He grabbed a block of cheese,

nearly put it into the meat fridge, and turned the other way. “This is such a crazy way to live

one's life. Thank God you aren't religious, Seth.”

“The way my personal life is going, I may need to turn to God.”

“Ha-ha.” Lars found something in the bottom of a fridge drawer that made him hoot. “Yes!

Arugula!”

Seth rolled his eyes.

The kitchen was a disaster in no time flat, but Lars had a steaming pile of perfectly fried

latkes ready just in time for sundown. Seth invited Lars to join in the Hanukkah ceremony, but

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Astrid Amara

Lars begged off, saying he needed every last second to not only finish dinner but also finish

tomorrow's breakfast and lunch for the two of them as well.

Seth should have said something then. Lars wasn't going to be around for tomorrow's

lunch. But then Chana Siegel was heralding sunset, and Seth rushed into the dining room to start

the festivities.

After prayers and candle lighting, the guests asked politely about the Bellskis in quiet

tones, but their own happiness seemed obvious, and for that Seth was grateful. He handed the

singing part of the program back over to Ben, who initiated a tribute to “Hava Nagila” that

involved pantomiming the words and gesturing emphatically with one's fingers in the form of

Hebrew letters. As he sang, Doctor Mister jumped into his chair and went to work finding every

last hidden crumb.

Seth slipped back into the kitchen. “How's it going in here, Iron Chef Judaica?”

Lars looked up from where he kneaded dough. His eyebrow quirked. “What's that hideous

noise?”

“Old Ben Berkowitz.”

“That's enough to turn me off Judaism completely.”

“I think he's an actor.” Seth sniffed at the food in the oven. “Or else a scam artist. Haven't

pegged him completely.”

“And what's with the smiling corpses?”

“The Rosenbaums.”

“Your aunt attracts the weirdest people to her place.” Lars's hands came around Seth's

waist. Seth nearly protested, but Lars just moved him gently out of the way and reached into the

oven. He pulled out a big pot full of vegetarian
cholent.

“I'm sorry, baby; it's gonna have to be beans,” Lars said. He flashed Seth a smile. “But I

got chicken salad too.”

“Thanks,” Seth said before he could censor himself.

Lars beamed, turning on the timer of a slow cooker full of another meal for the following

day. “I have to say, I'm impressed myself. All this on about an hour of sleep.”

“Didn't like the couch?” Seth asked, grinning.

Carol of the Bellskis

41

“It felt like something from the Spanish Inquisition. Where's your room, by the way?”

“Up in the attic.”

“Aunt wanted you out of the way?” Lars smirked.

Seth pulled out plates for dinner. “No. For your information, the attic is the Chuppah

Room, the nicest suite in the whole B and B.”

“Chuppah? Isn't that some wedding thing?”

“It's the canopy over the couple.” Seth yanked open the silverware drawer. “She gave me

the most romantic and secluded suite because she thought I was coming up with you.”

Lars froze his preparations. His hands hovered over his sliced chicken.

“She… Wait a minute. She gave us her
honeymoon
suite?” Lars burst out laughing.

“What's so funny?”

Lars had to wipe his eyes. “Jesus! I mean, it's great they're all touchy-feely accepting of

their queer nephew, but Christ! The honeymoon suite?” He laughed again. Then he went back to

cooking.

“
I
thought it was fucking touching,” Seth snapped.

“
I
think it's hilarious.” Lars moved closer and lowered his voice. “Or maybe she just

wanted us separated from the rest, knowing how often we'd be fucking and waking the whole

house up.”

“Well, too bad that's all over,” Seth said.

Lars stared at him hard. His eyebrow raised. Seth couldn't exactly tell how he knew, maybe

after a year of dating he picked up on these things, but he was certain that Lars now had an

erection. His baggy trousers didn't show it, but Seth could tell just by the glint in Lars's eyes.

Besides, all it ever took was the mere suggestion of fucking and Lars went hard as a rock.

Seth grabbed the plates, the silverware, and the napkins.

“Dinner!” he cried out before his own body joined forces with his stomach, his guests, and

the rest of the world and decided Lars should stay.

42

Astrid Amara

Chapter Four

The phone was ringing.

It took Seth a blurry moment to figure out where he was and what the sound could be. He

blinked and saw that it Saturday and seven in the morning.

Shabbat. Damn. He couldn't answer the phone.

But then he realized it was his cell phone ringing urgently in his discarded pants pocket at

the base of his enormous, satin-covered honeymoon bed. He fumbled around to quickly answer it

before the rabbi or any of the other conservative guests heard.

“Hello?” he whispered, feeling like a traitor.

“Seth! Thank God you answered! I didn't want to call the main line. Mom hates it when I

break the Sabbath rules.”

Ahava. Of course. He was supposed to call her yesterday.

“Hey.” Seth rolled onto his back and staring up at the ceiling.

“What's going on? Did you find them? How panicked should I be?”

Seth thought of several conciliatory answers, before finally deciding on, “You should be

concerned.”

Ahava screamed.

Seth clenched his eyes shut. “I alerted the RCMP. Rabbi Chaim, one of the guests, is going

to shul this morning and promises to spread the word to the entire Jewish community that they're

missing.”

“Oh great, so that's four people who will be alerted!” Ahava complained.

Despite himself, Seth laughed.

“I'm coming out there,” Ahava declared.

Carol of the Bellskis

43

Seth sat up. “No! You don't have to. It isn't going to make them show up any faster.

They're either okay or they're not, and trust me, if anyone can weather a disaster, it's your mom

and dad.”

“I don't care,” she said. “I can't relax knowing my parents have been ingested by bears.”

“I thought it was an avalanche,” Seth joked.

“It was?” Ahava cried.

“I'm just kidding. We don't know anything. Don't jump to conclusions.” Seth had managed

to calm her down and get her to agree not to come, when he saw that he had a call waiting and

that it was from his parents.

“My parents are on the other line. I gotta go.”

“Tell your dad to fly out and help you!” Ahava shouted.

Seth switched over, went through the niceties with his mother, and then pretty much

repeated the entire conversation he'd just had with Ahava.

By the time Seth disconnected, it was already seven thirty, and he knew the folks around

the house stirred.

What was it with old people getting up in the morning? What made them rise at five? Was

it the aches and pains? The lack of sleep?

He didn't know, but sure enough, all his guests over the age of sixty were already wide-

eyed and cheerful, greeting him as he stumbled in his sweatpants down the stairs.

In his pocket, his phone rang. He hastily muted the ringer and grinned embarrassedly.

“The coffee's on a timer. Help yourselves,” he said, gesturing to the coffeepot in the dining

room. As their backs turned, he switched his phone to vibrate.

Seth went into the TV room and checked on Lars. He was still asleep, flat on his back, his

mouth slightly open, his hands crossed over his chest like a vampire. He always slept like that.

He looked at once innocent, sweet, and ridiculous.

Seth touched his shoulder. “Wake up.”

Lars didn't move. His body smelled musky and warm. Golden stubble, a shade slightly

redder than his yellow hair, covered his chin and cheeks. His lips pouted as he dreamed. Seth

wanted to lean down and kiss him.

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Astrid Amara

He gently touched Lars's hair. It felt so clean, so good in his hands. Why did Lars have to

be such a jerk about all this? How could Seth love someone so much who was so bad for him?

No one had ever warned him that he would be in a situation where he'd have to break up

with someone he still loved.

Lars mumbled something and shifted over, turning toward Seth. Seth saw that Lars had a

large morning erection poking through the hole of his boxers. Seth's hands longed to reach down

and pull that hot flesh into his mouth. How many mornings had he woken Lars that way? Hadn't

he loved it?

It's not worth it, he reminded himself. Heartbreak. Shame.