Twenty
Kaleb
After dinner the following evening, Avery and I start our journey to where I’ve planned our little overnight rendezvous for our two-day weekend. With each step we take up the trail, the late afternoon sun streaking through the tall pines, I become more aware of his presence behind me. Every atom of my body has become attuned to him lately, tingling with anticipation whenever we’re alone in close proximity, the way we are now.
It’s a sensation I’ve started to yearn for more than anything.
The crunching of our boots on the path serves as the soundtrack for our trek, along with the chirping of birds and the summer breeze rustling the trees. And, of course, there’s Avery’s bitching thrown in the mix too.
“Where in the ever-loving fuck are you leading me, LaMothe?” he muses, grinning as he takes in the forest on either side of the path. “Still looking for the best cliff to push me off so you’re finally rid of me?”
“No need; I already know which one I’d pick,” I bat right back before aiming a smirk over my shoulder.
His question is damn near perfectly timed too, because it’s only a few more minutes of trekking up the path before we reach the spot in question. It’s a flat section of rock leading out of the denser patch of trees, creating a small clearing near the edge of a cliff face.
I drop my pack to the ground in what looks to be a good spot for the tent, only to look up and find Avery taking in the view, precariously close to the edge.
Sidling up beside him, I muse, “You know, I was joking about shoving you off a cliff, but you’re tempting fate by standing this close.”
“Funny,” he says dryly, gaze flicking to me for the briefest moment before traveling the length of the valley on the horizon. “What is this place?”
“We call it Lovers Leap.”
He lets out some combination of a scoff and chuckle. “The perfect mixture of romantic and suicidal.”
My lips quiver as I fight a smirk.
The more comfortable we’ve become with each other these past five weeks, the more I’m reminded why I used to enjoy knowing him. By taking him out of the context of school and baseball and all the bullshit, he’s an entirely different person.
A person I actually…really like being around.
“Well, this is where we’re camping for the night.”
Avery’s brow lifts as his eyes shift from me to the ledge and back. “Since you just admitted you have no intentions of murder, does that mean you’re trying to seduce me?”
Considering the way my body craves him like a drug these days, there’s a pretty good chance of it. But I’m not about to give him the satisfaction of admitting it, so I shoot him a teasing wink instead.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Obviously, or I wouldn’t have asked,” he deadpans.
I roll my eyes. Sometimes his sarcasm makes it really hard to flirt with him. Not that I’m flirting flirting, per se; it’s more like a playful teasing between friends. Friends who also happen to get each other off sometimes.
We make quick work of setting up camp, erecting the tent and building a fire with what’s left of the dwindling daylight. And to Avery’s credit, he has the fire lit without much of a struggle, leaving me with the chance to string up a hammock between two trees near the cliff’s edge.
“Why’d you bring that?” he asks while I’m clipping the second carabiner to the straps, officially securing it in place.
“To have something for us to sit in?”
What else do you do with a hammock?
“You think we’re both fitting in this thing?” he asks dubiously.
My brows furrow as I point to the label on the side. “It’s built for two.”
“Without breaking?”
“Seeing as we don’t exceed the weight limit, I think we’re pretty safe,” I say with a laugh.
And with that, I slide into the opening and go into zero-gravity mode with my feet dangling out over the edge. I scoot a little to one side, making space for him to join me, but he still doesn’t look convinced. In fact, he looks even more apprehensive as his teeth sink into his lower lip.
“What about—”
“Avery,” I cut in, arching a brow. “Would you just trust me and get in the fucking hammock?”
Despite his apparent reservation, Avery turns and slowly sinks back into the fabric beside me. It dips under his weight and expands to make room for him.
“See. Told you it’d be fine.”
He opens his mouth to argue—it’s clear from the gleam in his eyes—but I’m quick to clamp my hand over his mouth, effectively smothering the thought before it dares to leave his lips.
“The only thing I wanna hear out of that mouth of yours is that I’m right,” I tease.
The playfulness quickly dies, though, replaced with a building tension from the heat of his breath coasting over my skin. One glance at him tells me he’s feeling it too, his eyes flaring with desire.
Slowly, I pull my hand away from his lips and drop it to my lap.
“My bad,” I murmur, feeling a little sheepish and a whole lot embarrassed.
“All good,” he whispers back, his voice a little hoarse before he clears his throat. “But you don’t get to say I told you so until we’re both out of this thing without it splitting at the seams.”
“I’ll have it ready and waiting, then.”
A comfortable silence falls over while the sun sinks lower in the sky, hitting the horizon and casting shades of orange and pink against the clouds lingering overhead. The colors almost seem to dance against them, swaying and shifting with every passing minute.
I’m not sure how long we stay like that, simply existing while nature puts on a show for us. I just know it’s a peace I haven’t felt in a long time. Maybe ever.
I’m glad it’s one I get to share with him.
“Thanks for bringing me up here,” he says, almost as if he were reading my mind.
Glancing over, I find him looking at me with a crooked little grin. One I can’t help matching.
“Thanks for joining me.”
“As if I was going to pass up a two-day weekend,” he mutters with an eye roll.
I laugh lightly. “Don’t act like those kids aren’t growing on you.”
“Yeah, like this beard is growing on you?”
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. “It’s not that long. I’ve definitely had it grown out more than this.”
“I like it,” he murmurs. Lifting his hand, his fingers trace the line of my jaw where the stubble has grown into more of a scruff. “It’s a different look than I’m used to seeing on you. It’s…sexy.”
The humming in my veins intensifies to an uncomfortable level at his compliment, and I don’t know what to do with it. Just like I don’t know what to do with whatever this is between us.
All I know is it’s begun taking on a life of its own…and I don’t exactly hate it.
A low laugh comes from me, and I turn away. “I’m probably looking like a lumberjack or some shit.”
“Oh, with the flannel and bomber? Absolutely.” He tilts my face back toward him, and I catch a glimmer of amusement in his eyes as he keeps playing with my facial hair. “But you make it work, somehow.”
The tension crackling between us is more palpable than it was before, ebbing and flowing like an electric current I can’t quite snap free from. Part of me doesn’t want to bother trying.
“This is the only time of year I allow myself to go a little more rugged, but I still shave once or twice during camp. The kids don’t care what I look like, so I really don’t either, ya know?”
“Makes sense.” He tilts his head to the side, studying me briefly before murmuring, “I think you look good either way, though.”
My lips curve up in a hint of a smile. “Duly noted. Though, from the way you’re still petting my face, I think this is clearly your preference.”
His ministrations stop almost instantly, and he goes to pull his hand away when I catch his wrist. There’s a question in his gaze when I pull his hand back to my face. “I wasn’t saying that so you’d stop. It was just an observation.”
His features take on a sheepish expression as his fingers resume scraping against my jawline. “Sorry.”
“For what?” I whisper, not sure what he has to apologize for.
He’s quiet for a beat before murmuring, “I don’t know. It’s just… I’m still learning how to do this.” His eyes trace my face, pausing briefly on my lips, until they land on mine. “Shame still fights me when I openly want you, out where anyone could see.”
“Good thing there’s no one around for miles.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s there regardless.”
A knot the size of a baseball lodges in my throat. I’ve seen firsthand how hard he’s been working to push past what’s been ingrained in him. There are times I feel it when I touch him, the way his body tenses before relaxing into me, and I hate it.
More than that, I hate his damn father for putting him in this position to begin with.
For creating the intricate web of lies and loathing inside his mind that he’s been struggling to untangle. For feeding his shame’s ruthless whispers until they’re deafening.
Working to swallow down the sudden onslaught of emotion, I utter a strained, “Does it still feel wrong?”
He shakes his head, blue eyes glowing with the reflection of the sunset. And at this moment, I haven’t seen another human look so fucking…beautiful.
“I guess I’m running into problems asking for it.”
My throat catches again, and words fall off my lips before I can doubt the truth in them. “You don’t have to ask.”
Avery finally pulls his hand away when he leans back, his brows furrowing. “So I could lay one on you whenever I want? In front of anyone, and you’d be okay with that?”
“Would you even want to? If shame were taken out of the equation?”
He pauses for a moment, thinking the question over, which is one helluva surprise to me. Even when I thought he was straight, I never pegged him for the PDA type. But then again, I’ve been wrong about pretty much—
“I think so,” he whispers, cutting off my thoughts. “In theory, I like the idea. But in reality…”
My lips twitch with amusement. “Well, in reality, this is still our workplace. And even though it’s just summer camp, I’d still prefer to keep a bit of professionalism.”
“Ever a stickler for the rules, aren’t you, LaMothe?” he mutters with an eye roll.
“They’re there for a reason, you know.”
“Yeah. To be broken.”
“Ah, yes. Your favorite pastime.” When his brows draw down, I quickly tick off my points with my fingers. “The beers, for one. And sneaking into my cabin for another.”
A light scoff leaves him. “Believe me, I had a fucking existential crisis over that decision.”
“About breaking the rules? You?” I tease lightly.
He smirks, but his expression quickly sobers before he shakes his head. Emotions swirl in his eyes, vulnerability peeking through their depths that I’ve never seen from him until now.
“More about how you’d react to me breaking them.” His attention drops, unable to hold my gaze any longer while he continues. “I was terrified I’d mess everything up when we’d just wiped the slate clean. You know, after the kiss and the photo and everything else that happened before.”
The vibe between us shifts at his admission, becoming thicker with emotion. I can feel it sticking to me like the air on a humid summer night, and it sends my mind into a tailspin over all the events of the past few weeks.
“Why me?” I ask softly, the question coming out before I can reel it in.
It’s one that’s been in my head since we spoke on the dock, where he gave me a secret he’s shared with no one else. It keeps on tapping against the back of my skull, pleading for an answer, while we continue falling into whatever this is between us. I’ve just been able to ignore it until now.
He’s silent for a moment, almost pondering the many meanings the question could have, but he doesn’t ask me to elaborate. From the way his gaze drops to my lips again, he knows exactly what I mean.
“Because you feel safe. That’s not something I’ve really felt before.” His lips twitch at the corner, a wry smirk appearing. “Sure, I felt safe on Toppr, but that was just an illusion my anonymity created. It wasn’t real, and I doubt I could’ve ever followed through with a meetup, had it even come to that.”
“Not even with Keene?”
He shakes his head, now staring out at the sunset in front of us.
“The problem with being anonymous was that it was still hiding, and I’m so sick of hiding. I may have been testing the waters, so to speak, but I was still shoved so far inside the closet with no way out. And though Keene may have empathized with my struggles, he couldn’t guide me out of it. He wasn’t gonna challenge my ways of thinking or force me to stand in the mirror, look at myself, and see past all the shame and doubt and loathing. Not when he was still figuring it all out himself.” His pensive expression has a daydream-like air to it now, and a small smile appears. “I guess he was just a stepping stone toward that, you know? Preparing me to be vulnerable enough to show all of that to the right person, whenever they came along.”
My throat catches, not prepared for the insinuation that…
Shit.
“And that’s me?”
His lips part, like he’s about to say something, only for a soft laugh to come out instead.
“I mean, yeah. I guess so. You definitely challenge me. Whenever my instinct to fight comes out, you make me sit with it instead. Face it head on. And showing you those parts of me… I don’t know, it just felt natural.” His teeth scrape over his lower lip, worrying it while he stares at the fading sky. “Probably because I knew you couldn’t hate me any more than you already did, right?”
My heart squeezes in my chest painfully as I slip my fingers under his chin, turn it toward me, and force him to meet my gaze. Because if there’s ever been a moment where he needs to be certain about what I’m saying, it’s this one.
“I don’t hate you.”
I never have.
I’ve been angry, frustrated, and irritated with him, just to name a few emotions. Never hate, though. Even when I wanted to, even when I saw the depths of his cruelty, it was impossible.
Maybe because, somewhere inside me, I knew what lay beneath the surface. I knew this version of him was waiting to be set free. And I swear, as I watch every bit of his lingering fear leave his eyes and disappear in the wind, I think it finally has.
“Until you, no one has managed to silence Shame’s screams. Even momentarily.”
All the oxygen leaves my lungs, and my ribs feel too fucking tight to breathe right as his gaze sweeps over my face.
This is the part that makes it so tricky between us.
Tossing jabs and banter, I can do all day. It’s an easy rhythm we can fall into, keeping it light and playful between sessions where we strip each other to nothing. But whenever something pure or vulnerable leaves his mouth, it’s like he takes a pocket knife and drives it into my chest.
Avery’s thumb returns to my jaw, the pad scraping over my beard gently when he whispers, “Did you mean what you said before? About not needing to ask for permission?”
Fuck me.
I swallow harshly as my eyes flash down to his lips. Then I nod ever so slightly.
A small, shy smile appears before he slides his hand back to my hair. Reeling me in, his mouth finds mine and my stomach does that stupid flippy thing all over again.
His lips are soft and gentle, sweeping over mine in a sensual caress rather than one filled with unchecked passion, but it still charges every atom in my body. Lately, sharing even the faintest touch charges the air with enough electricity to power New York City for a damn decade, and this is the perfect example of that.
The reality is, I’ve never wanted someone the way I do Avery. Haven’t craved the feeling of lips pressed to mine the way I do his, or the heat from his bare skin beneath my touch. And those things are only the beginning.
More times than I can count, my mind has fixated on the idea of getting him inside one of our cabins, pinning him to the bed, and fucking devouring him in whatever way he’ll let me. In every way, preferably, leaving no inch of his body untouched or overlooked.
Yet, as tempting as it is, I can’t bring myself to act on it.
I’m terrified of what it would do to the mess inside his head.
He’s the first to break away, pulling back just enough to meet my gaze.
“That was…” I trail off, at a loss for words. Not just from the kiss, but the way he’s looking at me. With more affection than I’ve ever seen him display.
Avery’s thumb skates along my jaw again, tracing the line with his fingers still wrapped around the back of my neck. My pulse thrums beneath my skin when he presses his mouth to mine in another far-too-fleeting kiss, only to whisper three words that set my blood on fire.
“Yeah. That was.”
And there’s that fucking knife again.
It’s not lost on me that the more his walls seem to come down, the higher I’ve tried to build my own. Stacking plates of armor and chainmail around my heart like a medieval soldier preparing for battle.
Self-preservation calls for it.
This— us —is fleeting at best. Finite and confined to a place of safety and refuge, where there’s no chance of discovery or interference. But back in the real world—at Foltyn, should he get back in—this wouldn’t be tenable. For more reasons than one.
Even if the two of us are willing to put the drama and the mistakes and the bullshit in the rearview, that doesn’t mean everyone else is. I could sit here and list the people who’d likely rather me hook up with Satan himself instead of Avery.
That’s a lot to overcome, and it’s not even taking his own issues into account. Despite the progress he’s made, Avery still has so much to work through. Shame and demons to overcome. Outside the little bubble we’ve found ourselves in, there’s no telling how he’ll handle it.
But instead of focusing on how it’ll end or what could go wrong, I shove away the unknown.
I’m going to enjoy this for what it is…for as long as I have it.