Chapter 5 Travis
FIVE
TRAVIS
I’d barely had time to put down my luggage, switch on the bathroom light, and strip my shirt over my head when I heard Joey’s bellow.
Fuck.
A million scenarios went through my head, but I couldn’t land on one I thought would have him screaming my name thirty seconds after we parted ways.
I raced from the houseboat, covered the short distance to the RV, and yanked open the door. “What?” I panted, my chest heaving as my eyes adjusted to the dim light in the RV.
“I can’t,” Joey said, his voice quivering with fear.
There was only one thing I knew would shake him up that bad.
In the shadowy light, I reached for his hand. Doing my best to ignore the zing of heat between us when my hand touched his, I took his phone.
Joey stood frozen in place, but he grasped my arm like a life-preserver.
While I knew the one thing Joey was the most freaked out by, I couldn’t help but say a silent prayer the creature I was completely creeped out by wasn’t hanging from the RV ceiling. “Please don’t let it be bats,” I murmured. “Please don’t let it be bats.”
“It’s not bats,” Joey whispered into my shoulder, his warm lips pressed to my skin as he spoke.
“Then it’s…” I panned the light around the RV, but I didn’t see anything.
“Look on the table and under my feet,” Joey said, his face still buried in my shoulder.
The light washed over the table and then down to his feet.
Aha.
Snakes.
Well, snake skins.
“Shit.” I twisted my arm slightly so Joey let go, and I took his hand in mine again. “Did you see any—”
“You think I looked any further than the skins?” Joey snapped.
I chuckled. “Okay, okay, good point.”
“I can’t stay here, Trav.”
I gave his hand a squeeze. “Damn straight. We can share the houseboat. No worries.”
Joey’s shiver of relief was visible even in the dim light, or maybe I just felt it because he was plastered to my side. “Thank you,” he muttered.
“I want to look around, see if there are actual snakes or just the skins,” I said. “You want to—”
“Fuck no.” Joey had dropped my hand and headed out the RV door before I was even finished speaking. “Just don’t fuckin’ piss ’em off and make ’em come out here,” he hollered from outside.
“Will you come save me if it gets bad?” I asked as I slowly scanned the light over nooks and crannies.
“No!” Joey yelled. “We had a pact. You’re not saving me from bats, and I’m not saving you from snakes. That was a life-long binding deal. You’re on your own.”
I laughed, but my laughter died quickly when my light caught on a thin, blackish-grey tail about an inch long hanging out of a bottom cabinet in the kitchen. “Oh, hell no.”
“What? What did you say? Did you find something?” Joey spoke loudly from right outside the door.
“I think I found one of them. Guess the question is, is it one snake that’s been here long enough to shed two skins? Or more than—” I stopped in my tracks when something crinkled softly under my boots. With my heart in my throat, I shone the light down.
Another skin.
Directing the beam of light down the hallway, I saw what appeared to be two more skins. I wasn’t a snake expert, but I didn’t think one snake would have been hanging out in the RV long enough to have shed at least five times.
“Trav?”
“I think there are multiple snakes in here,” I said in a whisper shout as if I thought talking too loudly would bring the snakes out into the open.
“Oh, fuck no,” Joey whimpered. “Just come out, we’ll burn it.”
I chuckled. “We can’t burn it. That’s illegal.”
“We can shove it into the lake.”
“Pretty sure the snakes would just swim out,” I said. “You wanna piss them off?”
Joey was silent, and I grinned as I imagined him snapping his mouth shut.
He really hated snakes.
Which was a tough fear when you lived in the Midwest at a campground with a lake, surrounded by wooded areas.
“I’m gonna open up this cabinet to see what we’re dealing with.”
“No!” Joey yelped. “Just come out. It’s probably like a million. Just leave ’em alone.”
Ignoring his protests, I moved slowly toward the cabinet. With my heart beating in my chest, completely unsure of what I might find, I inched the cabinet door open.
Fuck.
I wasn’t as fearful of snakes as Joey, but they weren’t my favorite animal.
Finding at least five big rat snakes, maybe up to ten, gathered together in the base of the cabinet was enough to have me making a strangled noise and jumping back.
I made my way toward the door and slammed it shut behind me.
“What? Did you see them?” Joey demanded. “A million of them?”
“Close enough. We’ll call someone in to take care of them.”
Joey grabbed my arm. I shivered, whether from the cold or the electricity zinging between us. “I don’t want them killed.” He grunted. “I mean, I want them killed, but I don’t think we should kill them.”
“We’ll just have them removed.” I shivered again. “Come on, it’s fuckin’ cold out here.”
We made our way to the houseboat, and I stepped aside for Joey to walk across the tiny ramp first.
He dropped his bag by the door. “I’ll just use the pull-out couch,” he said. Then he put his hands on his hips and looked around. “Where’s the couch?”
For the first time since entering, I really looked at the interior and how it had changed from the last time I’d seen it. “Um, I don’t know.”
The houseboat had a small living area right off the kitchen.
When we were kids, there had been a not-so-comfortable burgundy and brown loveseat sofa in front of a television set.
It had been the type to pull out into a twin bed.
If Joey and I weren’t sleeping in our tent somewhere on the property, the pull-out bed was mine.
But now, the living area was empty.
No TV.
No loveseat.
Just marks on the worn carpet where the furniture had once set.
“Um…” I turned around in the small space like maybe I’d missed something. “Well, shit. I bet they put them in the RV they took to Florida.”
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Joey said in a rush.
“You don’t need to—”
“Trav, I can’t sleep out there knowing snakes can get in.” He gestured toward Wendy’s old RV. “I know, in the scientific realm of the natural world, rodents likely got in there. The snakes preyed on them. Then they found it to be a decent little spot for hibernating—”
“Brumating,” I interrupted.
Joey’s nostrils flared and his eyes took on a wild look. “Brumating,” he bit out. “But even if you had someone come out and remove fifty snakes from that RV, I’ll never be able to step foot in there. Ever.” He crossed his arms. “I’ll find a place in town if you don’t want me here.”
“Fuck off,” I said with a shake of my head.
“I don’t have a problem with you being here.
This place is big enough for both of us.
It just threw me—makes me wonder what else they took with them.
” I scanned the interior. Nothing else big seemed to be missing.
“I’d say you can just share the bed with me, but I don’t remember it being very big…
” I let the words trail off as I made my way down the narrow hall to the bedroom.
Well, shit.
“Huh,” Joey said at my shoulder as he peered into the room next to me. “That’s a really big bed.”
How—and why—the hell had Grandpa Pete and Wendy gotten what looked to be a king-sized mattress into the houseboat, I’d never know.
And to be quite honest, I probably didn’t want to know.
“Today is the one and only day we will discuss this bed. From here on out, this bed’s location, size, use, and any other pertinent information will be off limits,” I said.
Joey snorted. “Because Pete and Wendy went to Never Never Land in that bed?”
“Joseph Carl,” I growled.
“What? If anyone should feel weird about that bed, it’s me.
Your grandpa was puttin’ it to my grandma.
Now we’re gonna sleep where they were boinkin’?
” Joey almost made it through his little rage-bait speech without laughing, but I gripped him around the neck in a headlock position, and he busted out with yelps of laughter.
“Never. Again.” I dug my fingers into what I knew was his most ticklish spot. “Say it. Never again will we speak of the uses for this bed before it became ours.”
Something hot flashed in my belly at the insinuation. Our bed.
Fuck.
Would all the shit from the past be too much? Just because I’d figured my shit out didn’t mean I could assume Joey saw me that way.
But he froze in our rough housing.
A split second where we were both acutely aware of my words and our proximity—and my bare skin pressed against his body—passed before he escaped my hold. With what seemed like a forced chuckle, he smoothed down his shirt. “It’s all good, we’ll never speak of it again.”
“And we’ll order a new mattress topper and protector,” I added in hopes of sounding like I was more concerned about our grandparents sleeping in the bed than the weird fluttery sensations in my gut at the thought of sleeping so close to Joey night after night.
“Deal.” He checked his phone. “You wanna shower, and then we’ll go into town to eat and start those lists?”
I swallowed thickly and nodded.
No.
What I wanted to do was sit down with him and apologize for being an ass back then. I wanted to beg for his forgiveness. I wanted—no, I needed—to run a vibe check and get an idea if the undercurrent of attraction from over a decade ago had survived our lived experiences.
Back then, I was the dumbass who couldn’t figure out how to deal.
But now, maybe Joey was the one who realized things so long ago were just the trappings of puppy-love.
What if you’re both on the same page? Shouldn’t you at least figure out that part?
Yeah, probably for the best.
I’d give it a bit, see if I got any kind of vibe from Joey.
If he wasn’t coming off as interested, I’d have to accept I screwed up back then just as much as I’d always known I had. We’d fall right back into being best friends—and now business partners—and I’d be happy for him when he found someone to build a life with.
He gave me a chance all those years ago, and I’d thrown it right back in his face. As much as I wished for a different outcome, I couldn’t exactly blame him if he’d given up after that.
“Yeah, I’ll make it quick.” I moved from the bedroom across the little hallway to the bathroom. Once I had the water running, I hollered, “You think the Roadhouse is still the best for food?”
“Huh?” I heard his muffled voice outside the bathroom door.
“Open it,” I said.
A cool whish of air stirred the steam inside the bathroom. “You think the Roadhouse is still the best for food? I don’t think Glazed Buns is open into the afternoon.”
“I drove by the Sweet and Creamy on my way here.”
“The Dairy Palace? They have food?”
“Sign said soups and sandwiches,” Joey said.
My stomach grumbled. “Well, since someone robbed me of my Maple Monster this morning, I’m in the mood for a bigger meal.”
“I do feel bad about that,” Joey said. “I bet you were so pissed.” Laughter danced on his words.
“You bet I was,” I said, rinsing the shampoo from my hair. “Plus, you cut me off in line.”
“What? No, I didn’t. Where?”
“Yep, just slid your pretty new truck right in front of me.”
I popped my head out from behind the curtain to see Joey’s furrowed brow and pinked cheeks. “I thought you were being nice and letting me cut. Small town people are nice like that.”
I grunted and ducked back into the shower for a final rinse. “Well, at the time, I didn’t know it was you, and I wasn’t in any mood to be nice—small town or not.”
Ten minutes later, Joey had changed into a hoodie under an open flannel shirt with the same dark-wash jeans he’d been wearing earlier. I’d opted for a similar look with a pair of joggers and sneakers since I’d been in my boots all day.
“I’ll drive,” I said.
“I can drive,” Joey countered.
“We can’t argue about who gets to drive every time we go to town.”
“Rock, paper, scissors,” Joey suggested.
I didn’t even mind losing the chance to drive because my mind and heart were too busy making googly eyes at how good his hand felt when it covered mine to win with paper.
Twice.
We climbed into his truck.
“You know,” Joey said, shooting me a grin as he pulled his truck out of the campground. “You’re going to have to get back into the habit of small-town nice. We run two of the more popular businesses in Haven Grove now. Gotta make sure we’re upholding the family name.”
Something shot right through my heart, as straight and sure as Cupid’s arrow.
Family.
I thought back to that fortune cookie paper.
Find love, luck, and pleasure in the simple life.
Even if all I had with Joey was the business, our friendship, and carrying on what had been in our families for generations, I was pretty sure my fortune would be solidly set.
Did I want more?
Yeah, I did. I wanted more with Joey in a way I hadn’t truly let myself think about until I saw him standing in front of me.
Wanted him with all the longing of lost years and finally being true to myself.
My heart yearned to discover how good Joey and I could be together as more than friends.
But having him in my life at all would be enough.
It would have to be.