Chapter 3
After nearly four hours of setting up camp and waiting for the awkwardness to finally burn off, I’m still on edge. We’ve pitched tents, gathered firewood, arranged our little circle of camp chairs, all while dancing around each other with careful questions.
“How was the drive?” Tanner asked, arranging kindling.
“Long,” I’d answered.
“What’s work like these days?” I’d managed while hammering tent stakes.
“Hell,” he’d said flatly.
“Your parents doing okay?” Milo chimed in.
“Old,” Tanner replied, and we all nodded like that explained everything.
It’s the same script we’ve been using since high school, and it’s doing absolutely nothing to cut through the thickness in the air.
That thickness isn’t helped by the fact that every time I look up, I catch Tanner’s eyes on me cataloging. Clearly taking in the new lines around my mouth, the haircut, the extra fifteen pounds college kindly gifted me.
Based on the way his eyes narrow as he studies Milo and me, I’m not entirely sure he believes either of us are real.
We’re ghosts to each other now. Familiar shapes haunting unfamiliar bodies.
This new Tanner throws me off balance.
The curls are longer now, sun-bleached at the tips.
His skin’s gone permanently bronze, and his shoulders pull at his shirt in ways that make my mouth go dry.
But it’s the way he moves that gets me most. How he takes up space without apology.
How he listens more than he speaks. How his smile comes slow but stays longer.
I truly wasn’t prepared for the sparkle in his eyes. A familiar glint, now charged with something new. A glint I catch fixed on me from across the fire. We’ve settled around it and spent the better part of an hour trying to navigate the silence.
Heat crawls down my neck as my gaze betrays me, tracing him from boots to brow. When our eyes meet again, he’s still watching.
The tip of his tongue drags across his lower lip before his mouth curves into a smile.
“Kiss already,” Milo announces flatly from across the fire.
I whip around to find my boyfriend slouched in his camp chair, beer in hand, eyes bouncing between us with clinical interest.
I duck my head and gulp my diet soda, nearly choking in my rush to look unbothered. Tanner lets out an awkward laugh, hands suddenly occupied rubbing at his thighs.
We both immediately find something fascinating to study in opposite directions.
Milo tips his beer toward Tanner. “So what’s the nomad life actually like?”
“What part?” Tanner asks, leaning back in his chair.
“You know.” Milo grins. “Waking up somewhere new every day. Coffee on your little camp stove. Hot strangers at every campground throwing themselves at you.”
Tanner snorts. “Yeah, that’s exactly it.”
“It’s not?” Milo asks, genuinely disappointed.
“It’s mostly me smelling my own socks for three days and trying to find somewhere to pee at two in the morning.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. “That tracks.”
“Okay, but the freedom. The adventure.” Milo says, spreading his arms so wide beer nearly sloshes over the can. “The raw masculine independence of it all.”
“The complete lack of decent showers,” I add.
Tanner’s eyes flick to me. “That too.”
Milo sighs. “So… was it worth it?”
Tanner stills for a second, then picks up a long twig from the ground and uses it to poke at the fire. Sparks jump up between us.
“Depends on the day,” he says with a shrug. “Some days were perfect.”
Tanner tips his gaze up toward the trees, toward the patch of sky above us.
“Some days…” he says, trailing off like the thought almost escaped him. “Some days I wished someone else was there to see them.”
The fire pops loud enough to make me jump.
Milo glances at me. I stare harder at my soda.
Tanner tosses the twig in and leans back again, expression unreadable.
Milo swallows a mouthful of beer, his eyes never leaving Tanner. “Your sister made me practically beg for your number, you know. Almost didn’t give it up.”
“Good old Cassie,” Tanner says with a laugh that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Loyal to a fault.”
“You could’ve called,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
Both their heads turn toward me at once.
Tanner’s gaze lingers as he leans forward, forearms resting on his thighs.
“We had theories,” Milo says, gesturing with his bottle. “Witness protection. Alien abduction. Joined one of those cults where they make you surrender your phone and wear sneakers that match your track suits.”
Tanner’s mouth quirks at one corner. “No cults.”
“Not denying the alien part,” Milo stage-whispers.
Tanner’s eyes find mine again, something softening in them. “I needed… space.”
“Like… alien space,” Milo interrupts.
“No,” Tanner scoffs. “Space like… from everything.”
“And now?” My own nerves push the question right out of me.
The firelight throws shadows across his face, making his eyes seem almost bottomless.
“Now I’m here,” he says plainly.
Milo groans dramatically, throwing his head back like he’s in physical pain. “This is getting a little too serious, I fear. This weekend is supposed to be fun. S’mores and near-death experiences and light emotional repression… not actual feelings.”
He gestures between us with his beer, sloshing a little over the rim. “Can we maybe dial it back before one of you starts monologuing about fate or whatever?”
Tanner smiles and the tension thins. It doesn’t disappear. It settles some place lower, quieter.
“Okay,” Milo says, clapping his hands together. “The juicy stuff seems more fun. Tell us Tanner, who all have you stuck your dick in between here and the West Coast?”
I make a sound in the back of my throat and tip my head toward the sky.
“Oh, please,” Milo says, waving a dismissive hand. “Some of us have to make do with one person for life. The least he can do is share the highlights reel.”
My gaze drifts to Tanner, expecting discomfort, but there’s something in the way one corner of his mouth lifts that makes my stomach tighten. He’s watching me watch him, and he’s enjoying it.
I shift in my seat, suddenly aware of how the camp chair’s metal frame digs into my thighs.
The last thing I need is a mental highlight reel of Tanner with nameless strangers. Not because it bothers me. It shouldn’t. But those images would blur too easily with older ones I’ve spent years trying to bury. Ones where his hands are on me instead, where his mouth is—
I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I’m surprised I don’t taste blood.
And it’s in that moment I realize the tiny, unexpected sting from Milo’s declaration hurts more.
We’re monogamous.
Said so simply. Like it’s obvious. Like it’s enough.
And it is enough.
I tell myself that. Over and over.
The universe really should come with an instruction manual for this. So You’re Attracted to Someone Who Isn’t Your Boyfriend.
Chapter one: Don’t stare at his forearms or that tiny dimple that shows up when he smiles that specific smile you’re convinced is only for you.
Chapter two: Remember that fantasies are free, but therapy is expensive.
Chapter three: When all else fails, remember… he abandoned you!
Wanting, as it turns out, is the relationship equivalent of having cookies in the house while on a diet. You can look all you want. You just keep your hands in your pockets.
“It’s a surprisingly low number,” Tanner says, snapping me out of my spiral.
“Seventy-five?” Milo presses, eyebrows up. “A hundred?”
Tanner’s eyes widen. I shift in my seat, equal parts dreading and desperately wanting to hear whatever number might fall out of his mouth.
“I mean, you were gone for five years,” Milo continues, undeterred. “Back and forth between here and the Pacific, no roots, no long-term relationships. You were never exactly the settling-down type, so… how many?”
Something in Milo’s wording must hit a nerve. A sharp tic jumps in Tanner’s jaw. His hands flex, knuckles whitening for half a second before he exhales.
Desperate to smooth it over, I cut in. “I don’t think we should…”
“Four.”
The crackle of the fire seems to pause. Milo and I sit there motionless. Tanner doesn’t rush to explain himself or soften the number. He lets it land between us.
Not seventy-five. Not a hundred.
Four.
“I don’t think I owe anyone an explanation,” Tanner says, voice even. “Not really. But you asked.”
He shifts slightly, eyes on the fire.
“I was in a relationship for most of that time. After that, I had a rebound that made me feel like shit. The other two were…” He pauses, mouth twitching. “Let’s call them poor decisions.”
I hear myself ask before I can stop it. “A relationship?”
Tanner’s eyes lift and lock with mine across the fire. He gives one small nod.
“So what was her name?” Milo asks, leaning back in his chair, beer bottle dangling from his fingers.
“Brian,” Tanner says, never breaking our gaze.
The sound that leaves me isn’t quite a gasp. More like the air gets pressed gently from my lungs.
“Brian,” Milo repeats, drawing the name out.
Tanner finally looks away, his profile sharp against the dark. “Yeah. Then came Lauren. After that, AJ and Riley.” He takes another drink. “Those last two were mistakes.”
Looking back, Tanner lived in a strange middle space. He wasn’t hiding, exactly, but he never revealed much of that side of himself either. At least not to us. Definitely not to me.
A girl would appear every few months. She’d stick around long enough to satisfy nosy classmates or parents, but never long enough to mean much.
He’d mention a date the way someone mentions a dentist appointment. Something to check off a list. Then months later he’d drop another name, and if anyone asked, he’d shrug. “Didn’t work out.”
We never questioned it. We added it to the pile of signs Tanner wasn’t quite like the other guys: too thoughtful, too intense, too content spending Friday nights arguing sci-fi plots with the only openly queer kids in our grade.
Milo and I sit in stunned silence. I expect a joke, a follow-up, literally anything. Nothing comes.
I glance over. Milo’s expression is unreadable, lips pressed together, beer bottle gripped a little too tight.
Across the fire, Tanner’s laugh comes soft and private. His shoulders rise, then fall, already folding the moment away.
“Need a refill?” He stands. “Either of you?”
Milo nods without looking up from the flames. Then Tanner’s eyes find mine, waiting.
God, I could use a drink, especially after that bombshell, but wanting one and taking one are two different things. One drink becomes another. Another loosens my tongue.
History suggests I should fear both alcohol and myself.
“All set,” I say, lifting my half-full can.
Milo shifts beside me, the camp chair creaking. “Have a drink if you want it.”
“I don’t,” I snap. “Want one, that is.”
“You do,” he says flatly.
Tanner returns before I can respond. He hands Milo a fresh bottle and folds back into his chair with that same easy grace he’s always had.
“Some things never change,” he says, eyes sliding to Milo with a familiar half-smile.
Milo shrugs. “Guess not.”
I tense. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Tanner’s bottle hisses as he twists the cap free. He tips his head back, throat working as he drinks, then lowers it and meets my eyes.
“You act like you’ll break the world if you take what you want.”
Ha. Hate that.
You act like you’ll break the world if you take what you want.
Tanner watches me, his eyes catching the firelight so dark they look almost black. One corner of his mouth lifts. A challenge.
He leans forward, curls falling across his forehead, elbows on his knees, closing the space between us by inches.
“It’s kind of a shame, honestly. You could’ve had a lot of things, Nate.”
My stomach drops like I missed a step. The air between us feels charged and deeply dangerous.
“What things?” I ask, my voice barely audible above the crackling of the fire.
Tanner doesn’t answer. He lifts the bottle and takes a slow drink, eyes still on me over the rim, letting the silence do something far crueler than words could.
Milo, for once, says nothing.
The quiet presses in from all sides. Fire popping. Crickets sawing at the dark. My own pulse loud enough to be humiliating.
I can’t sit here another second. Not with the heat climbing my neck. Not with Tanner looking at me like that. Not with whatever he means hanging between us.
My hands are shaking so badly I have to pin them beneath my thighs.
Is it embarrassment?
Adrenaline?
Or the slow, awful realization that I’ve spent years building a life designed to keep me from ever having to face exactly this moment?
“I’m... uh. I’m gonna go to bed,” I blurt, standing so fast my chair nearly topples. I stumble over the cooler, kicking it hard enough that it requires a one-legged hop to work the sharp pain out. “Long drive. Tired. You know. Human stuff. Sleep. Necessary for... living.”
I don’t wait for a response. I make a beeline for the tent and duck inside. The second the zipper seals behind me, I collapse onto my sleeping bag and stare into the dark as if it might have answers.
Spoiler alert: it does not.
What it does have is the unmistakable scent of Tanner’s cologne mixed with pine needles, plus the knowledge that in approximately ten minutes both he and Milo will crawl through that same zippered door.
Tanner’s sleeping bag lies across from me. It’s somehow both too close and too far away. Far enough to feel intentional. Close enough to feel threatening. A sharp contrast to the double sleeping bag Milo and I are sharing.
One tent.
Three people.
Nowhere to go.
The universe has a sick sense of humor.
Tanner’s voice keeps circling back. You act like you’ll break the world if you take what you want.
I have the slightly hysterical thought that maybe he’s right. Maybe something should break. Starting with this ridiculous rule I made for myself about never asking for anything.
I roll onto my back again and stare up at the tent ceiling, dim and shapeless above me. Tomorrow I’ll wake up with raccoon eyes from sleeping in my contacts, hair pointing in six directions, and have to face both of them over instant coffee that tastes faintly of dirt.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and a bear will maul me in my sleep.
Better yet, maybe I’ll sleepwalk into the lake and come back as someone who actually knows what he wants.