 As he’d done at the coffee shop, Forge stepped ahead and opened the door to his suite, waving grandly for Blair to enter. Moose trotted in, heading straight for a round, dark table a few feet from the door. There was a copper coffee set in the middle. Blair walked in and stopped, taking a look around. This man, Forge, was an enigma and the biggest study in contrasts Blair could imagine. Forge set the box on the table beside the coffee set. He tossed his car keys into the sugar bowl and lifted the top of the coffee pot, pulling out a dog treat. “Who’s my best boy?” Moose sat and woofed, catching the treat out of the air. He munched it happily, then sat and woofed again, making Blair laugh. Forge threw the dog another morsel. “Is that an antique?” Blair asked. “Yeah. One of Simon’s attempts to civilize me. Makes a convenient dog treat container. Boiled coffee is the pits. I like coffeemakers or a French press. Old is not always best.” Blair laughed when yet another treat sailed through the air. “He has you well trained.” Forge arched an eyebrow and nodded, grinning sheepishly. “You have a nice laugh. I like it,” he said and took off his leather jacket, hanging it on a coat rack near the door. “You can look around. Be comfortable. I only bite the tender parts.” When Blair sucked in a breath and stared, Forge held both hands in the air. “Joke.” “Funny,” Blair said. What he really wanted to say was damn. The sitting room had a deep green sectional couch facing the fireplace, with high end tables and a long, narrow table against the back. The floors, like Simon’s, were hardwood, finished to a soft luster. Instead of Oriental rugs, there were oval, braided lodge-type mats in deep burgundy and dark green. “No coffee table. Tail,” Forge explained and pointed at Moose. A stereo system, just as kickass as the one he’d seen in Simon and Ben’s suite, sat in one corner. Hanging on the walls were prints of nebulas and star clusters. Another section was a collection of photos of all sorts of dogs. Some of the photos were older, and all of them had different types of frames. Several were actually sketches, not photos. None of the dogs were purebreds. “Moose’s predecessors. The ones I have pictures of, anyway,” Forge said quietly. He moved about, unpacking the box. He carried the food containers into one of the bedrooms. “Declan did the drawings and paintings.” “Who is Declan?” Forge avoided eye contact and said, “The guy who is the artist.” There was more to it than that; Forge’s explanation was too thinly veiled. Blair felt how it bothered Forge to talk about this Declan person. He sensed it would be a case of waiting for more information to be offered. Asking for too much more right then wouldn’t get Blair anywhere. An American flag hung on each of the three walls between the bedrooms, encased in glass. Blair counted the stars on each. “Are these real?” “Yep, authentic, and were new when I bought them.” “And a real Confederate flag? You were a Reb?” Blair gazed at the flag, also in glass hung to one side of the fireplace. Wouldn’t it be just his luck to hook-up with a man who thought what that flag represented was okay. Beneath it was a framed newspaper article. Blair squinted at the heading, Little Big Horn. Forge laughed. “Hell, no I wasn’t a Reb. That flag is from Sherman’s March. Not our finest hour, by the way. I keep that and a few other things as reminders of bad times. People tend to get rid of pieces of history they don’t like. Problem is, then a generation or two later no one remembers the cruelty represented by those symbols, or worse yet, glorifies them. There are events I witnessed and I don’t want to forget why they happened in the first place.” He sighed. “So, I have a Confederate flag, a few Nazi propaganda posters, that article about Little Big Horn and a copy of a book Custer wrote, reminders like that.” Blair relaxed and moved closer to the fireplace and mantle. Mounted over the fireplace were two Calvary sabers, blades crossed. Above them were three rapiers, from ornate to simple in design. “Those are cool, they’re from Europe?” “French, 1700s.” “Are they yours?” Blair asked. Again, Forge avoided meeting Blair’s gaze directly. One quick headshake was the only answer offered. The name Declan popped into his head. No matter how hard he tried, Blair couldn’t get away from that name. Blair moved along the mantle, looking closely at the line of small, clear cases, each holding a gun. On each end of the rough stone mantle sat a bugle. Blair rested his fingertips on the mantle near one of the bugles. “This one’s old, Civil War?” “Hmm, maybe. I was a bugler during World War One, that was handed down to me from an older soldier.” “Older than you?” Forge chuckled. “Not really, but he looked older. The other one I used in Korea.” That made Blair smile. “You play the trumpet, too?” A quick glance back and Blair saw Forge grin and shrug.     Comments are closed.
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