Chapter Text
“Excellent sense of direction my left arse cheek...” Ragnor grumbled as he waited for Magnus to decide which way they were going.
Magnus squinted down at the map he was holding, determined not to acknowledge Ragnor’s griping. A weekend in the woods wasn’t exactly his idea of fun either, but he'd be damned if he wasn’t going to make an effort.
Catarina coughed pointedly, and then leant over to rotate the map 180 degrees. “That might help.”
Magnus opened his mouth to disagree and then abruptly thought better of it. Behind him, Ragnor continued muttering under his breath.
“Come camping with us, Ragnor. It’ll be fun, they said. Never mind the back-breaking ground and the hideous clothes and the spaghettios you’ll have to eat for dinner...”
Magnus stopped listening as he spotted a flash of white through the pines. He wandered off down the track, turning the corner to find a folk-style Victorian manor with dove grey cladding and white-framed windows. On the left-hand side, an octagonal tower rose above two sets of bay windows; on the right, a white painted porch wrapped around the side to overlook the lake.
Overcome with curiosity, he drew closer.
There was a ‘for sale’ sign in the garden, though it looked like it had been there a while. Through the ground-floor bay window he could make out a tiled fireplace bracketed with wingback armchairs and an arch that led to a formal dining room. The rooms were dark, and a thick layer of dust covered the wooden coffee table.
“Magnus?” He looked back to see an exasperated Caterina had come to fetch him. “It's getting late.”
“I’ll just have a quick look,” he assured her, climbing the steps to the porch. The first few windows were a toilet and a study, both unremarkable for their part, but once he turned the corner he found a gorgeous open plan kitchen with a double range and an oak breakfast table.
“...and what exactly is Magnus doing around the back of someone’s house?” Ragnor asked pointedly, the sound carrying around the porch with ease.
“Leave him be,” Cat replied, “I haven’t seen him this excited in a long time.”
Magnus swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat and dragged his eyes away from the sliding French doors and the open expanse of the lake as he returned to front of the house. “I’m coming, I’m coming...”
Cat gave him a soft smile as he swung himself down off the porch and Ragnor helped him back onto the path with a belaboured sigh. As they picked their way back to the main road, Magnus fell silent, uncharacteristically pensive.
He’d been going through the motions ever since he’d left Camille, throwing himself into work and whiskey and meaningless one night stands. Caterina had done her best to steer him away from total self destruction, but she couldn’t take away his heartbreak.
The camping trip had been her idea, of course. Magnus had only said yes to make her happy and Ragnor had been dragged along under much duress. Quite frankly, he’d be amazed if she wasn’t regretting it – so far the two of them had broken a tent pole, spilled sangria on the groundsheet, and nearly come to blows twice.
But somewhere amid the squabbling and chaos, he’d finally sat back, looked at his life, and come to an overwhelming conclusion.
Something needed to change.
“Is that a diner?” Cat asked suddenly, interrupting Ragnor’s latest grievance and pulling Magnus from his thoughts.
Magnus took one look at the neon letters and then turned his best puppy eyes on his friends. “Please pretty please?”
Caterina sighed. “We’ll have to find the tent in the dark.”
“It might be worth it for food that doesn’t come from a tin,” Ragnor pointed out.
Ten seconds later, Magnus was pushing open the door and revelling in the smell of grease and cheap meat. The diner was empty, and the waitress behind the counter didn’t look up when they came in, engrossed in what looked like a biology textbook.
When Ragnor cleared his throat, she pointed at the sign behind her that read ‘please take a seat’.
Caterina raised her eyebrows but slid into a booth without further comment.
There were plastic menus between the salt and pepper shakers, which Magnus quickly handed over to his friends. He didn't need to scour them himself – he’d already spotted the words ‘bacon cheeseburger.’
The waitress was young, a mass of curly hair and sun-browned skin offsetting the shapeless uniform she wore. To her right there was a open hatch that led to the kitchen, where a giant of a man was slicing onions at a heady pace. Magnus might have worried about his fingers if he didn’t look so utterly at ease.
As he watched, the chef picked up the chopping board and raised his head, catching Magnus’ eye for a fraction of the second. His jaw was covered with a dusting of dark hair and his eyes were a rich hazel. The corner of Magnus’ mouth tipped up in a cautious smile, but the chef was already facing away, onions sizzling as they hit the pan.
Disappointingly, he was only visible from the waist up.
“Magnus.” Caterina’s voice was low, carrying a hint of warning if not of judgement, and Magnus looked away, realising the waitress was on her way.
Now she was no longer hiding behind a book, he could see deep brown eyes, full lips, and a smatter of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Apparently everyone who worked here was just preternaturally good looking.
Maybe there was something in the water.
“Welcome to Hunter’s, where the food’s so good it’ll make you howl,” she said in a voice that implied she’d rather be literally anywhere else on earth. “I'm Maia, what can I get you today?”
Magnus hid a smile as Ragnor and Cat ordered a spinach frittata and a chilli dog respectively, before asking for a bacon cheeseburger for himself.
“Do you want salad or fries with that?” the waitress asked, scribbling on her notepad in shorthand.
“To quote the bisexual motto, why not both?”
Maia blinked, a huff of laughter escaping when she’d registered what he said, and Cat rolled her eyes.
“Just ignore him... can we have three beers as well?”
“Coming right up.”
The waitress made her way over to the hatch, and then tore off the page to hand it to the chef, who'd already put three Heinekens and a bottle opener on a tray. After a walk that Caterina claimed had only been ten miles – but what had felt like much more – ice cold beer was a gift from the gods.
“Do you think they get much business out here?” Ragnor asked, pouring his beer out into the tumbler he’d asked Maia for.
Cat shrugged, setting her beer down. “Probably not in the off season – Idris is tiny and the truckers use the new interstate.”
“Shame,” Magnus hummed, “it’s so peaceful here.”
Ragnor’s reply was interrupted by the arrival of the food, which looked divine – the frittata was crisp and buttery, the chilli luscious and the salad fresh. Magnus’ burger looked frankly orgasmic, sharp cheddar coating streaky bacon, sweet tomatoes, tangy pickles, and a generous beef patty.
He removed the toothpick holding it together, and took a bite, eyes slamming shut at the taste. The beef was a perfect medium rare, juicy and well seasoned, and the roll had been toasted to perfection. Caterina was wearing a similar expression of utter bliss, and even Ragnor seemed to be enjoying his meal.
“Is it just me or is this really fucking good?” Cat asked, wiping some sauce from the side of her mouth.
“For a diner in the middle of nowhere, it’s goddam miraculous,” Magnus replied.
His gaze flitted toward the open hatch, where the chef was already wiping down the surfaces with delectably strong arms. Imagine looking like that and being able to cook like this... it was practically obscene.
When the food was mostly gone, and the three of them were picking at what remained of Magnus’ fries, he pulled out his phone and looked up the realtor from the sign he’d seen in the garden. It took him mere seconds to find the listing for ‘Dauphin House,’ and he let out a low whistle when he saw the asking price.
“Put the phone away Magnus,” Ragnor said disapprovingly.
Magnus ignored his friend, turning the screen around instead. “Tell me that’s not a steal.”
“And what exactly would you need four bedrooms and a boat house for?”
“Maybe I could rent them out.”
Ragnor put his fork down on his plate with a clatter. “Okay, I put up with the purple suede flares and the frosted tips – not to mention she-who-shall-not-be-named – but I will not be friends with a landlord.”
“Calm down,” Magnus replied, rolling his eyes, “I meant as a bed and breakfast.”
“You already have a job, remember?” Cat sounded amused, but relaxed – Magnus could tell she wasn't taking him seriously.
“I’ve been thinking about taking a sabbatical, and my lease in up in September.”
There was a pause as she wiped her hands on a napkin. “You mean it.”
It was more of a statement than a question, but Magnus nodded anyway. “I do.”
“Hold on,” Ragnor said, already frowning. “You can’t just buy a house and decide to become a hotelier. Besides, who’s going to come on holiday here?”
“We did,” Cat reluctantly pointed out.
“And imagine how much nicer it would have been with indoor heating and modern plumbing,” Magnus added. They lapsed into silence again, and he picked up the last fry. “It was just a thought.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Maia said awkwardly, “can I get you anything else?”
“The chef’s hand in marriage?” Magnus quipped. “I don’t require much of a dowry – a couple of goats should suffice...”
This time he got a chuckle, but Caterina was still wholly unimpressed. “We’ll have the bill, thanks.”
When Maia returned, Magnus was oddly charmed to find the bill was illustrated with a new moon and came with a QR code to ‘join the pack’.
It was pitch black outside, the road back to Idris stretching off into the darkness, but they were all too well fed to care. Caterina asked Ragnor how his research was coming along, and Magnus was happy to let the subject of the house drop.
A few miles down the road they were overtaken by a beaten up pickup truck driven by the mysterious chef. Maia waved from the passenger seat, and Magnus found himself wondering if they were together.
Hopefully she didn’t mind him propositioning her boyfriend if they were.
When they finally arrived, the campsite was quiet, the two other parties having apparently gone to sleep. Magnus was just about to congratulate Caterina on finding the tent unscathed when Ragnor got his foot stuck in a guy line and promptly face planted into the mud.
“I am never coming back to this godforsaken hellhole,” he hissed from the ground.
“Even if I move here?”
“Especially then.”
Once Caterina and Magnus had finished laughing and they’d all brushed their teeth, they settled down to go to bed. Heart in his mouth, Magnus pulled up the listing again, hiding the light from his phone inside his sleeping bag.
It was just as he’d remembered it – stunning, if a little unkept. At the back of the house upstairs there was a master bedroom and a queen, both with ensuites, that overlooked the lake. The front had two further rooms, a queen with a bay window and small single, that shared the family bathroom. The dining room wasn’t to his taste, but the breakfast area in the kitchen more than made up for it.
The boat house seemed to have been used as a junk room, but it was a decent size from the floor plan, and could probably be used as another bedroom at a push. If he were to live in the master and convert the dining room, that would make five rooms to rent out to guests. The doorways were even wide enough that the dining room could be made accessible, although he’d have to install a ramp to get up to the porch.
He shut off the screen quickly, wiping the condensation on his t-shirt.
This was insane. He was a financial analyst, not a innkeeper. He owned precisely one screwdriver, and he could barely spackle the holes Camille had left in his drywall, let alone renovate a house. That wasn’t even mentioning the holes she’d left in his heart – Caterina had picked this weekend to go away so that he wouldn’t sit around and mope on what would have been their wedding day.
He needed a change, a fresh start somewhere new. The city was full of Camille and their history together – the speak-easy where they’d had their first date, the park where he’d proposed... the flat where he’d found her fucking her secretary. In Idris he could make new memories, and heal his broken heart.
He’d always had good taste, whatever Ragnor said, and there really wasn’t that much to do. He could hire someone local to oversee the building work, and then take care of the final touches himself. Perhaps he could even get Jocelyn's daughter to help with the decor – her taste ran a little more conventional than his own.
Before he went to sleep, he sent an email to his solicitor with the subject ‘Do NOT Talk to Ragnor About This, or I’ll Fire You’, and then one to HR enquiring about sabbatical leave. Caterina would tell him to sleep on it, Ragnor would say he was mad, and they were both probably right, but he simply didn’t care.
He was going to buy Dauphin House, and then he was going to turn it into the bed & breakfast of his dreams.