10. Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Logan
Day 3
As soon as we got to Nashville the other day, things were a bit rocky. Well, the awkwardness was mostly one-sided after seeing Nick skinny-dip, as if he didn’t have an ounce of modesty. But it became everything. Seeing him naked really fucked with my head. I couldn’t unsee that, and I didn’t want to. It took all of my self-control, which was dwindling rapidly, to keep from getting hard.
Even worse, the following morning, I woke up snuggled into him with my arm wrapped around his body and his hand resting on my back. The humiliation that coursed through me fueled this sudden rage at myself for being so careless.
Instead of taking everything out on Nick as I always did, I sucked it up and pretended like nothing happened until he started poking fun at me for being a snuggler. How the fuck would I know? I’d never slept beside someone before. If Hunter and I stayed at each other’s houses, he or I would sleep on the floor in his room or the den, watching TV all night in our sleeping bags. Nick just pulled me into his gravitational orbit, and I had no power or defense against him.
Things finally settled as we fell into a pattern of relative calmness. We had a great day yesterday, touring Nashville and going to Opryland. Riding that roller coaster had been epic, and I actually had a lot of fun with Nick, which surprised me. I forgot, even for a little while, how I felt about him. He became my brother for all of five minutes before reality set back in again.
Today, we hiked a trail winding around the lake and through the woods. Nick pulled his camera out, taking pictures of flowers in the meadow, chipmunks, and birds. Sometimes, he’d take a picture of me, which I hated. Posing was the fucking worst, but I suffered for our parents. I also took some of Nick, who always loved the attention.
We took a break from walking, and I removed my shirt, wiped my sweaty face with it, and tucked it into the back of my athletic shorts. Then I took a big swig of water from my canteen.
Nick rested a hand on my forearm, sending an electrical current through me. My body froze, and I looked down at his long fingers before he spoke.
“Shhh, don’t move and look over there.”
I glanced at where he was pointing, and a large buck stood in a meadow just at the tree line.
“He’s watching us,” Nick whispered with a massive smile, slowly lifting his camera to peer through the lens. “Look at him. Isn’t he stunning?”
I nodded, but I was more interested in Nick’s excitement than in the deer. “He is.”
Nick twisted his lens, bringing the creature into focus as I stared at the line of sweat slowly dripping down his temple and into his scruff, which he hadn’t shaved off in a couple of days. God, why did I want to lick it off? That was weird, right? People didn’t lick off sweat, right?
He sucked in his full bottom lip and bit down on it as his camera clicked quietly, a lip that I’d imagined kissing countless times.
I had no familiarity with men, having sex, being sexual, or even kissing. We’d learned about sex in school but with girls. Dad and Mia never talked about it with us either, except to hand me a box of condoms I’d never used and told me to be safe.
There were no magazines with men in them I could look at. Well, they were sold in certain stores, but I’d never dared to buy them. And there were no gay movies at all that I was aware of. Maybe there were in DC.
All that I understood about sex was how my body reacted, and it always reacted to Nick. I also jacked off a lot to his beautiful face. But now that I’d seen him naked, that would be forever in my memory banks as I rubbed one out.
Guys went down on girls, and girls blew them. I’d heard my teammates talking about that shit all the time, so I assumed it would be the same if I found a guy to be with. Other than that, I was fucking clueless.
Once I reached California, my goal had been to find that popular gay bar and learn about sex through the guys I found there. I just hoped they didn’t laugh me right out of the place.
“Damn, he ran off,” Nick said.
My heart suddenly hammered as I forced my eyes away toward the meadow, watching the buck run away.
I coughed and took another sip of water. “Did you get some good pictures?”
He shrugged, and a smile played on his soft red lips. “I won’t know until the film’s developed. Say, when we get to Memphis, can we drop my film off at one of the print stores? Usually, they have those one-hour wait places.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Sweet.” He thrust his camera at me. “Hold this for a second. I’m dying . God, why does it have to be so damn humid?”
I took the camera from him as he pulled his tank top over his head. Since we’d been here, the sun had turned him a nice bronze color, which showed off more definition in his body. His skin had always been a bit darker than mine. I could tan, but I was usually pale in the winter.
Fuck, I needed to stop staring before he caught me.
Nick tucked his shirt into his shorts like I had and took his camera back.
“Let’s go swimming again when we get back to camp,” he said.
“Sounds stellar.”
After eating canned chili heated over the fire, we sipped on some cold beers. The moon was full and shimmering over the water, which brightened the sky. You could see every star out there—the entire Milky Way.
Nick stretched his legs out on the sleeping bag he’d laid out by the fire and tipped back the can of beer, gulping the rest down before he crushed the can and tossed it into the brown paper bag we used for garbage.
We were several beers in, and I had a nice buzz going. I was finally relaxing. I really needed to work on that. I couldn’t always use beer to chill the fuck out.
“What do you dream about, Logan Conrad?” he asked out of the blue, grabbing another beer out of the cooler. His movements were slower, and his words were thicker, so he was feeling the alcohol, too.
I dream about you, Nick. I dream we could share a life together where no one would harm or hate us. But mostly, I want to kiss you. I’d take just a kiss if that’s all I can have.
Those dreams were stupid, and they pissed me off all the time, but I couldn’t help but have them. They were useless and served no purpose other than to make me feel bad and lonely.
“Logan?”
I sighed and bent my knees, resting my arms over them, holding my lit cigarette.
“I told you I want to work at U.S. AID. I want to go to war-torn countries and help them rebuild. Or go to other countries to help them with irrigation or improving their infrastructure. Maybe see the world before I die and explore more than the little tiny town we live in while helping people in the process. This trip is just the start of my lifelong journey, or so I hope.”
But I wanted to do it with someone I loved. It’d never be Nick, but I wanted someone to come with me occasionally, someone who loved me back. We could share our dreams together. That was my biggest wish.
Nick’s smirk was as crooked as his brows.
I took a long drag off my cigarette and blew out the smoke before tossing it into the fire. “What the fuck are you looking at me like that for?”
“That’s fucking cool, man. Seriously. I like that. You dream big. I gotta admit, that surprises me.”
Which was my fault. I intentionally kept Nick at arm’s length. Hell, I kept everyone at arm’s length.
“Next question. What’s your biggest fear?” he asked.
That was easy. “Being alone for the rest of my life.”
I lifted my beer, resting on the ground, and finished it off before grabbing another.
“No shit? Me, too.”
I popped the tab on the can and looked at Nick. “Seriously? I never imagined you being worried about that. What I mean is that you had a girlfriend for over two years, but you seem to have a lot of friends, and you’re outgoing.”
He nodded and looked out at the water, allowing me to stare at him. The fire cast a golden hue over his already golden skin. With his strong nose and dark hair, he looked like a shimmering god.
“Yeah, honestly, I always assumed Lauren was it for me. We’d go to college together, graduate, find jobs, and get married. Maybe have a couple of kids and a dog. But…” He took a long sip of beer, not saying anything more.
“But what?”
He sighed and glanced at me before staring off into the fire. “I realize it’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through with losing your mom and all, but when Dad left… It took me forever to move on from that. I’d blamed myself for the longest time. Yeah, I was only a little kid, but still… And now that Lauren’s gone, I realized I’d never gotten over it at all. I feel… I don’t know.”
“Abandoned?”
He looked at me with those fathomless eyes that turned to flame from the campfire and furrowed his brows. “Exactly. You get it. There’s always been this kind of hole inside me, like I’m incomplete or something. Does that make sense?” He didn’t wait for me to respond before he continued, but I understood that feeling all too well. “I mean, my father’s out there somewhere. Does he have a new family? Does he ever wonder about me? Probably not. Anyway, now I’m feeling a little abandoned by Lauren. She kept this secret from me so we could keep dating until she left for another school in another state. Now I worry about finding someone new. Will they leave me, too? I realize I come across as confident and shit, but I’m not always. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being stupid and whiny. Fuck, people break up all the time, so this shouldn’t be a big deal, right?”
“You’re not being whiny.” It only endeared him to me more, and for the first time, I started relating to and understanding him. I didn’t believe there was anything worse than losing a parent like my mom, but I could see how much it would hurt for a parent, someone you loved and trusted, to leave without so much as a goodbye. “You feel unloved or like you did something wrong.”
Nick frowned and nodded. “Yeah, exactly.”
I love you.
I hate you.
How did I have both of those feelings for Nick at the same time? It wasn’t normal. I wasn’t normal. I hated these conflicting emotions.
I lit up another smoke, still lost in Nick’s story and fears, desperately fighting my words of promises and love. To tell him I would never leave him. But that would be a lie because I would never get the chance to have him.
Fuck it. I was just getting drunk.
“Logan?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you lonely… like right now?”
My brows bunched and my stomach clenched as I looked over at him. “Why?” I asked carefully.
“Please don’t take this, like, the wrong way…”
“Jesus, Nick. Don’t say it like that. I’ll definitely take it the wrong way, now.”
“Sorry! I just mean, don’t get mad. Please. We’ve been getting along really well, but…”
My breathing turned to pants, my heart hammered, and a sweat broke out across my forehead and neck as my body got ready for fight or flight. Did he figure it out? Did he know I was gay? What gave me away? My hands trembled so much I didn’t dare take a drag from my smoke.
“Just out with it,” I snapped, despite wanting him to shut the hell up.
“You’re always alone, man, except that you hang out with Hunter. But you played on the football team and rarely hung out with them. It’s not very jock-like.” His chuckle was self-deprecating, and he was fucking deflecting.
“So?”
“As long as I’ve known you, you’ve never had a real girlfriend. Sure, you dated a couple of girls, but you never seemed that interested. Why? I mean, you’re a good-looking guy, objectively speaking. The girls totally went on and on about you back in high school, but you just… ignored them.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Here it comes.
I tried so hard to hide myself. Dating girls had been so hard. I assumed the little I’d dated would’ve been enough. No one had ever asked me these questions before.
What do I do? What do I say?
If I told him the truth, he’d hate me. I was sure of it. He’d be disgusted.
But how did I know? I didn’t really know him, not really. What if he didn’t hate me? Hunter had been completely accepting.
Then again, maybe it was for the best if Nick hated me. We were already getting too close. If he were disgusted by me, any bubbling hope of having him would finally blink out into nothingness. We could ride through the rest of the trip in silence. Perhaps he’d even fly back, and I could go on without him.
“Logan?”
I stood abruptly and walked quickly toward the water, unable to come up with an answer, an excuse, or a lie that made any sense. My mind blanked out. I needed to get away, desperate to breathe. Fucking too much beer.
Oh, god.
Why did I have to be fucking gay? Why was I made to like men? Why was I wired differently from everyone else? I tried so hard to fit in, but I was the wrong shape—a square peg trying to hammer itself into a round hole. If Nick saw it, did everyone else? Did they all figure it out? How could they? Wouldn’t they have bullied me about it? Maybe not.
I didn’t have any references for fucking anything! Maybe my fear was completely irrational.
“Logan?” Nick asked again, right behind me, making me jump. He stood way too close.
“Go the fuck away!”
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to upset you. Talk to me.”
I turned around and glared down at him. “No. Go back to the tent and leave me the fuck alone!”
I was going to break if he didn’t leave right now. I had no answers for him, and my only response was to be a dick. It was easier than the truth, yet I suddenly hated myself for it. For the first time in all the years I’d known Nick, I cared about what he thought of me.