Arctic Adventures 1.5: Polar Tales Read online

  Arctic Adventures 1.5

  Polar Tales

  TT Kove

  Arctic Adventures: Polar Nights © TT Kove

  Published by Arctic Circle Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except for in the purpose of reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction and as such all characters and situations are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people, place, or events is coincidental.

  Arctic Adventures is set in Norway, and as such uses British English throughout.

  Copyright © 2016-2018 by TT Kove

  Contents

  About

  Cabin Nightmare

  Polar Christmas

  Back Home

  Mistletoe

  Family Issues

  Emergency Contacts

  Follow Varg & Jonathan in Arctic Heat

  About the Author

  About

  A collection of shorts.

  Cabin Nightmare—I’m ready to murder Varg as Varg decides to get frisky with Jonathan in the tiny hunting cabin we’re staying in.

  Polar Christmas—I’m celebrating Christmas with my dad, his new girlfriend, and her brother—who also happens to be my lover. Which they don’t know about. We’re going to have such an awesome time together, the four of us, I can just tell.

  Back Home—Christmas is over and we’re home. And it’s time to switch our normal routine around.

  Mistletoe—Varg’s strung Mistletoe up in the office. I am not amused.

  Family Issues—Thanks to Jonathan I now can’t stop thinking about home-made dildos. That arse.

  Emergency Contacts—It’s time to have a serious conversation, one that involved feelings. I hate those types of conversations.

  Cabin Nightmare

  I was going to kill Varg. Really, I would. Where the hell did he get off thinking he could have sex in a tiny cabin in the bed right next to us and expect not to wake us up?

  Well, he gets off right there next to you, obviously.

  I gritted my teeth at the sounds they made. They weren’t half as quiet as they thought. While it was hard to see them in the dark cabin, the fire still wasn’t out completely, so it wasn’t like I couldn’t see anything. They were on the floor, Jonathan sitting on his arse, and Varg was on his lap, riding him.

  I turned over onto my back and completely forgot about Kristian for a minute there until my shoulder rammed into his chest. He jerked in surprise but grabbed onto me to keep us both steady. I’d been of half a mind to pull back—which would’ve ended with me tumbling to the floor, so that was good, considering. What wasn’t good was that he’d clearly been awake for a while too. So he knew as well as I did what exactly went on on the floor right next to us.

  We stared at each other. He seemed not to know what to do.

  I was still angry. Still planning ways to kill my best friend and get away with it. It was easy really. I could just throw him out the door and let the arctic winter do my job for me. Or the bears. Same shit.

  ‘Ah, fuck.’ That was Jonathan.

  ‘Come for me,’ Varg murmured—but in a cabin the size of this one, with the only other sound being the fire crackling faintly, it was easy to hear. ‘Come inside me.’

  My expression must be murderous because Kristian clearly smothered a laugh against my shoulder. I’d rather walk outside bare-arsed naked into the freezing cold arctic than listen to the two of them get off. But if I got up now they’d know I was awake, that I’d heard them.

  ‘There you go.’ This was Varg. ‘Now what are you going to do about me?’

  Oh for fuck’s sake. He hadn’t got off yet?

  The other bed creaked, Varg squeaked, and really, I didn’t want to look—but my head turned off its own accord. Varg was stretched out on the bed now and Jonathan was… Oh god!

  Varg’s groan was enough to tell me what was going on. I didn’t need to see Jonathan bend over him with Varg’s bare feet spread on his shoulder. The fucking bed was more than enough to tell me what was going on. When Varg bucked his hips, it creaked.

  I literally wanted to die. If I’d ever been curious about voyeurism—which I never had been—I definitely knew the answer now.

  Kristian seemed to find it funny. I didn’t see the humour.

  What if we had—no. Just no. We never would. Sex was something to be done in private. Not right in front of other people—not even if you thought they were asleep. It was just disrespectful.

  ‘Well, fuck me,’ Varg groaned then, and I ground my teeth again. They better not get back to the fucking part again.

  ‘I thought I already did that.’ This was Jonathan, speaking in a lower voice. ‘I’m not doing it again. Not tonight. Now can you sleep?’

  Their bed creaked.

  ‘I think I’ll manage,’ Varg answered.

  Thank fuck they’re going to sleep. It was about damn time.

  ‘Think we woke them?’ Varg asked.

  ‘If we did, let’s not ever talk about it,’ Jonathan replied, and… yes. Let’s never talk about it.

  Though I was going to kill him. I really was.

  * * *

  I didn’t get a chance to speak to Varg one-on-one until the next day. But when I got that chance, I sure took it. ‘What the hell kind of stunt was that last night?’ Talking wasn’t my strong point on the best of days, but last night had just royally passed me off.

  ‘What stunt?’ he asked as if he was all kinds of innocent. If only he had been!

  I all but vibrated where I stood inside what was technically my own bedroom. ‘You know perfectly well what I’m talking about.’ I crossed my arms defensively—hoping he wouldn’t make me actually say it.

  ‘Pretty sure I don’t.’

  So that’s how it’s gonna be. I narrowed my eyes at him. He blinked in return and preceded to zip his suitcase shut. ‘You had sex in the bed right next to us,’ I hissed, feeling a slight flush creep up my neck.

  ‘Oh, that.’ He rearranged his face in an apologetic expression. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Why is it that you don’t sound sincere at all?’ How we had stayed friends for so long was beyond me.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep in that damp, dreadful cabin. What’d you expect me to do?’

  ‘Suffer through it like normal people.’ For God’s sake, was this so hard to get?

  ‘You know I don’t like to suffer if I can be comfortable.’

  ‘So you’ll just make me suffer instead?’ No, really, how come I hadn’t killed him yet? It was a wonder we kept in contact. I could’ve saved myself a lot of headaches if I hadn’t, but… Well, he was my best friend. He’d always been there for me.

  ‘I’ve only got two days left.’ He turned to face me fully now, seemingly more dejected than I’d seen him in a long time.

  ‘Shit, Varg.’ I dragged a hand over my face, stubble raping against my palm. ‘You never should’ve come here. Falling for him is gonna come back to bite you in the arse.’

  ‘You don’t know that!’ He sighed. ‘Yeah, probably. But I want to make the most of the time we’ve got left. Please forgive me? I know I’m here to see you, but I can see you whenever. This is probably the last I’ll see of him in a very long time.’

  ‘Of course I forgive you.’ I always did. Or else we wouldn’t be standing here now.

  ‘You’re the best, you know that?’ He beamed.

  I gave a put-upon sigh. ‘Never have sex where I can see and hear again.’

  ‘Don’t make me promise something I might not be able to keep.’ He stuck his tongue out playfully.

  ‘Varg,’ I warned.

  ‘Okay, okay.’ He held his hands
up in the universal sign for peace. ‘I’ll promise to try my best at not having sex again anywhere you can see and hear. How’s that?’

  ‘The best I’m going to get, apparently,’ I grumbled. I should be happy I even got that, really.

  He stared at me. ‘You enjoyed it a little, didn’t you?’

  ‘I most certainly did not.’ Even if I had, I’d never tell him that. And I had not enjoyed last night at all.

  ‘Not even a tiny little bit?’

  ‘Varg—’

  He threw his hands up. ‘You seriously need to get laid. Go find a girl if you don’t want to I delve into that bi-curiosity. Just get laid with someone.’

  Oh, if only you knew, Varg. If only you knew. I wasn’t about to share that piece of information though. Not ever if I could help it. I could live happily the rest of my life if Varg never found out exactly what went on in my sex-life.

  Polar Christmas

  The thing about being used to sleeping both with and next to someone else is that it was damn hard to go to sleep when you were all alone in the bed. The sex I could do without for a week, but the absence of Kristian’s warm presence next to me was harder to bear.

  Why did Dad have to become all domestic and shit and want to spend Christmas with me now? And not just me, but Anna and Kristian as well—and Kristian was just in the next room, camped out on the sofa in Dad’s office instead of in bed with me. Because Dad didn’t know about us. Neither did Anna. And I had no idea what would happen when they did find out. But as the holiday dragged on and I spent my nights alone, I was increasingly starting not to care. Not that I thought my dad had any right to be informed of my love life, but I also wanted to be able to sleep in the same bed as my boyfriend.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Kristian told me quietly on Christmas Eve, squeezing my knee under the table. ‘We’ll be home soon.’

  Which would definitely be nice, except at dinner that evening Anna started asking questions. Questions it was damn hard to answer while keeping our relationship a secret.

  ‘I’m guessing you’re staying on Svalbard, Andreas? Since you’ve been there so long. Over a year now. A year and a half, actually.’ She piled food on her plate as she spoke.

  ‘Yeah. I like my job, so I’m not about to leave it anytime soon.’ And now my leg was back to normal, I could actually do my job. The summer months had been horrible, as I’d either had to stay cooped up at home or inside the office at work. I could feed the dogs, but it had taken twice as long as usual. I could help put their gear on, but I couldn’t train them or go out with tourists. Summer was our busiest season—and I’d been incapacitated. That had certainly been a blow.

  ‘That’s nice.’ Anna smiled and handed the deep dish with potatoes over to Dad. ‘Have you started looking at a place of your own to live, then?’

  And there it was. The dreaded question. ‘Not really.’

  ‘It’s convenient for him to live with me,’ Kristian shot in, taking the potatoes from Dad. ‘We work together so it only makes sense we carpool.’

  ‘But don’t you want your house to yourself soon?’ Her question was likely meant in the best possible way, but it annoyed me to no end. ‘What if you meet someone?’ And that annoyed me even more. I didn’t know why, because I was usually pretty calm about, well, everything. Unless it was Varg talking about sex, but really… he shared too much. No one would be able to keep calm when he opened his mouth.

  Kristian chuckled. ‘That’s not very likely. We’re always at work, after all. Besides, I’ve got space. It’s nothing to worry about.’

  Anna didn’t seem to want to drop the subject. ‘It’s not impossible to meet someone just because you work a lot. Or because you live on Svalbard.’

  Kristian grinned wryly. ‘It’s not all that likely either. Just drop it, Anna.’

  I cut meat away from the bone with vigour, fist clenching tight around the knife. Why did she have to ask questions like that? What was it to her anyway? Sure, Kristian was her brother and all, but since when was it her job to tell us how to live our lives? If we wanted to live together, if that was easier for us, so fucking what? I wasn’t all that hungry anymore, but it was better to be busy eating than just sit around doing nothing.

  ‘All I’m saying is—’

  ‘Anna!’ Kristian cut her off gruffly. ‘Right now we’re happy with the current living arrangements. If that changes in the future, then okay, but for now this is what makes the best sense for us.’

  ‘Yes, sure, but—’

  ‘There’s no but. We spend all day together at work. We go out to eat dinner with our co-workers on most days. What does it matter that at the end of the day we head back to the same house to sleep?’ Well, at least he hadn’t said same bed, which had been the case for the last half a year.

  Anna subsided, but she didn’t seem all that happy about it. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Kristian said with finality—and that was the end of that. For dinner, anyway.

  Kristian and I did clean-up as Anna had made all the food—and bullied Dad into helping her set the table. Usually, years ago, when I’d still used to celebrate Christmas with Dad, we’d had a simple dinner and just taken plates directly from the cabinet and brought it all with us into the living room to spend the evening on the sofa.

  ‘Well, that was a mess,’ I murmured as I rinsed off the plates and put them in the dishwasher. ‘Should we tell them?’

  ‘I’m fine either way,’ he said, shrugging lightly as he carried plates over to the counter for me to rinse. ‘It’s all up to you, really.’

  Why yes it was. Kristian had already told me this, after all. I was the one who didn’t think Dad—or Anna for that matter—had any business knowing about my love life. That was how Dad and I had always operated. I’d never known his girlfriends through the years, except Anna now. He’d never met mine. And here I was, now in a relationship with a guy who was not only ten years older than me but Anna’s brother. I couldn’t see Dad taking that well in any sort of scenario I managed to cook up in my head.

  ‘Whatever you want, Andreas,’ he assured me, clapping me on the back. ‘It’s your Dad.’

  ‘It’s your sister,’ I mumbled gruffly.

  ‘Yeah, well. If she doesn’t take it well, it’s nothing much I can do about it, is there? It’s not like we see a lot of each other. Or talk much.’

  ‘You still talk more than Dad and I do,’ I pointed out drily.

  He moved his head a little, thinking. ‘Maybe so, but it’s not like we’re that close. We talk because it’s only the two of us left. Mum and Dad are dead, after all, and Anna’s kids have moved out of the country.’

  ‘Anna has kids?’ This I didn’t know.

  He smiled slightly. ‘Two. A boy and a girl. Well, a man and a woman, I suppose. He’s living down in Thailand with his Thai wife and my niece lives in France.’

  ‘Huh.’ I put the last plate in the dishwasher and started scrubbing the pans. ‘It’s been two years since I met her and I had no idea.’

  He chuckled. ‘You talk less with her than with your dad. Besides, I don’t think Anna keeps in touch with them anymore except birthdays and holidays.’

  What a lovely, tight-knit family we had. Speaking of… ‘I thought I’d go visit Mum’s grave before we have dessert and open presents.’ Presents were something Anna had insisted on, I could’ve just as well have done without them. Dad and I only used to exchange one each back when I was a kid and from the year I’d come of age we’d dropped it entirely. ‘Want to come with?’

  ‘Sure.’ Kristian grabbed a dish towel and started wiping off the pan I’d just finished. I started in on the second as he put it away and waited patiently for the next one.

  ‘We’re heading out for a bit!’ I called out as we walked past the living room to the hallway.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Anna asked, looking over the sofa at us curiously.

  ‘Cemetary,’ was all I answered, already in the hall by now
and pulling my jacket on. It rained outside. So much for a white Christmas. If we’d stayed on Svalbard we would’ve not just had a white Christmas, but a white December. A white half a year, mostly, as the snow only melted in the summer.

  ‘I miss home,’ Kristian said, huddling in his own jacket as we walked down the street.

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘Next year we’re spending Christmas at home. I still haven’t celebrated Christmas with you on Svalbard. Last year I celebrated with Varg.’

  ‘Just the two of us next year?’ He gave a small smile. ‘I like the sound of that. Unless Anna insists they join us.’

  I gave a laugh. ‘I doubt she’ll get Dad to leave Oslo for Svalbard.’ If they were even together that long. Then again, she’d stayed with him for two years, so why not another one? Clearly, she saw something in my strict, cold, grumpy old Dad that I didn’t see.

  Kristian laughed. ‘Johan is—he doesn’t say much, that’s for sure. Mostly he glowers. I’m not sure he likes me.’

  ‘That’s Dad’s usual face. He always looks like that.’ I didn’t think Dad didn’t like Kristian. They’d had a conversation during dinner last night about Kristian’s work on Svalbard and what exactly it entailed to run such a business. Dad wouldn’t have gotten involved in such a conversation if he didn’t like him.

  The wind was cold and blew the rain all around, mostly straight in our faces. It was horrid, but at the same time, it was better than being inside the flat with a silent-as-the-grave Dad and Anna who asked lots of questions.

  The cemetery wasn’t that far away, so in fifteen minutes we were there, walking through the dark plot looking for Mum’s stone.

  ‘Here she is.’ The stone itself was nice, all dark and shiny with gold writing. But other than that, Mum’s grave didn’t look all that appealing. No flowers or grave lights or wreaths like many of the other graves had. Dad wasn’t much of a flowery guy and neither was I. If the weather cleared up before we headed home, I’d buy a wreath to tie to the stone though. Just to do something for her.