Chapter 6
It’s funny how every time I tell myself don’t be a disaster, the universe treats it like a challenge.
The campground bathhouse is a mossy brick cube, hunched in a tangle of sumac, maybe a quarter mile from my ongoing humiliation spiral.
I’ve been power-walking the root-knotted path for ten minutes, rehearsing some version of hey, man, about before, and the closer I get, the more obvious the flaw in my plan becomes.
Apologies probably land better when the person you’re apologizing to isn’t naked, wet, and completely unprepared for emotional vulnerability.
Unless you’re a sadist.
Or one of those people who take improv classes for fun.
It also doesn’t help that my brain keeps swapping in entirely unhelpful mental images of a very soapy, very naked body under very different circumstances every time I try to focus.
You know what. Fine. I’ve committed.
I’m seeing this through if it kills me. Which, at this point, feels possible.
The door swings shut behind me with a soft click, and I’m immediately swallowed by steam. It clings to my skin carrying the scent of mildew and something sharper. Bleach, maybe?
Whatever it is, it’s fighting a losing battle against everything else.
My sneakers squeak against the wet tile as I edge past mint-green cinderblock walls, the fluorescent lights overhead buzzing.
I know this place by heart. Around the corner a row of clouded mirrors dangle above stained sinks across from empty shower stalls. Toilets sit behind the next partition, but what pulls me forward isn’t sight. It’s sound. Water drumming against tile.
One shower running at the far end.
The rhythm of it syncs with my heartbeat.
It’s obvious we’re the only two people in here. Places like this have a certain kind of emptiness, a hollowness that makes every drip and echo feel amplified.
That should make this easier, right? I can talk to him through the curtain. It shouldn’t feel different. We’ve shared locker rooms since we were kids, seen each other half-dressed without a second thought.
But standing here now, staring down that thin strip of plastic, it feels like a line I’m not entirely sure I can cross without something changing.
This is normal. Totally normal.
I can apologize and leave. Pretend my palms aren’t slick with sweat that has nothing to do with the humidity.
Problem is… the air feels heavier than that. It sits low in my gut, prickling hot across my skin even as every rational part of me says leave.
I draw in a breath and move toward the far end of the room, footsteps echoing against damp tile. I pick a sink across from his stall with more intention than I want to admit.
Far enough that he won’t feel cornered. Close enough that he’ll know I’m here.
His curtain’s cracked open an inch.
I drag my eyes down to the rust-stained basin instead, to the crusted smear of toothpaste someone left behind. My fingers curl around the cold porcelain, knuckles whitening.
My pulse pounds in my throat, and heat crawls up my neck despite the clammy air.
Not sure what to do with myself, standing here like an idiot while he’s there on the other side of that thin barrier. I panic and clear my throat.
The sound cracks through the room, sharp against the tile.
What I get back isn’t a response so much as a soft, breathy whimper.
I freeze, fingertips pressed to the cool edge of the sink, every muscle in my body going still.
The whimper is accompanied by the wet slap of skin on skin, faint at first, then steadier. The kind of rhythm that builds from habit and need, like waves against a shore, growing more insistent. That gets louder when it’s echoed off the tile walls, bouncing back at me from every direction.
Another moan. This one a deeper, guttural sound that vibrates through the stall, not meant for anyone but himself.
The air in the bathhouse shifts and thickens until I’m choking on it, each breath drawing heat and steam and want into my lungs.
I stare down at the rust-stained porcelain, tracing the spiderweb cracks like they might anchor me to something solid.
My lungs feel paper-thin, each breath shallow and scraping.
Dear god, what did I walk into?
I need to leave.
My feet don’t agree. They’ve turned to cinder blocks, rooted to the tile, ignoring every panicked command my brain throws at them.
I clear my throat again. It’s my one defining trait in a crisis. That and the very inconvenient awareness of my own body right now.
Fantastic. Great work, everyone.
When I finally look up, he’s there.
Tanner, watching me through the narrow gap in the curtain.
Our eyes lock.
His pupils are blown wide, the hazel barely visible, and there’s something in his expression that barrels into me. His bottom lip is caught between his teeth, curls damp and clinging to his forehead.
In that moment, every thought I had about leaving evaporates.
His shoulder rocks with the rhythmic pump of his arm, water tracing down the tanned curve of his collarbone.
He looks down at himself and then back up to me, an invitation in his eyes. My gaze wavers, drawn downward by gravity before I wrench it back to his face, hating myself both for looking and for stopping.
When he sees my gaze darting everywhere but where it wants to land, his hand reaches for the edge of the curtain. One smooth motion and it’s gone.
There’s no barrier between us now.
I’ve seen him a hundred times in locker rooms, but never like this. Never with his skin flushed and gleaming under the shower spray, never with water tracing every ridge of muscle that wasn’t there when we were seventeen.
“You can look if you want,” he says.
I want. Sweet merciful heavens above, do I ever want.
My whole body goes still as a deer in headlights while my gaze finally surrenders to the pull.
Each droplet seems to know exactly where to travel, cutting through valleys of muscle down his chest and abdomen.
My mouth goes dry as I follow that path to where his cock stands proud, flushed and heavy, water beading on the swollen head before sliding down the shaft and disappearing into a thick mound of curly dark hair.
My own cock aches at the sight, the outline visible through my thin fabric of my shorts. Tanner’s eyes drop to the bulge, his lips parting slightly as his fist works faster, water flying off the defined muscles of his forearm with each stroke.
“Take it out,” he says, voice rougher than I’ve ever heard it.
I shake my head, a jerky motion that feels disconnected from my body.
“You want to,” he says. A statement of fact laid bare between us like his naked body. “Come on. Let me see you jerk your cock, Nate.”
I swallow hard, my throat tight, the motion exaggerated enough I can feel it. Heat floods through me so fast it’s almost disorienting and I swear to God my knees my fully give out.
My voice comes out rough, barely audible over the water. “I wanted to, uh…”
“Okay,” he says, steady, eyes never leaving mine. “Talk.”
“I…” My gaze flickers, betraying me, then snaps back to his face as if that’s any better.
I shake my head, like I can physically clear whatever’s happening out of it.
No chance. It’s already burned in.
“I’m sorry. For being weird earlier,” I say.
“Mmhmm,” he replies.
“You’ve been gone a long time and I was….” My eyes betray me again.
God help me.
“Are we really having this conversation right now,” I ask. “While you’re… you know.”
“You interrupted me,” he says, still pumping. “I’m giving you a chance to say what you need to say before I finish what I started.”
“You can’t…. I dunno. Pause the programming?”
“Do you want me to?”
Do I? Not even a little bit.
But also… maybe yes?
I’m a mess.
“This is—” I start, then immediately lose the thread because my brain can’t function like this. “You don’t— you can— I mean—”
Incredible. Truly. Pulitzer-worthy communication happening here.
I drag a hand down my face, trying to gather what’s left of my dignity. “I came in here to talk, not… whatever this is.”
“Feels like talking,” he says.
Jesus Christ. This infuriating man.
It’s the restraint that gets me. The way he’s not pushing, not closing the distance. He knows I’ll either run or step forward and he’s fine with either outcome.
“Okay, fine.” My words tumble out faster than I can arrange them.
“You left, okay? You left and I had to figure out how to be a person without you around, and I got pretty good at it, I guess, but now you’re back and doing...
this... and saying you’re staying, and I don’t even know if I believe that because my brain still has this Tanner-shaped hole that’s expecting you to disappear again, and It’s a shock because I’ve spent five years training myself not to want things I can’t have, and now you’re standing there all...
available... and I don’t know what to do with that. ”
His lips quirk up at the ends, a slow smile spreading across his face. When I don’t say anything else, he studies me, his hand still moving but slower now, his arousal undiminished.
“You done?” he asks.
I nod.
“Alright, my turn...” He takes a half-step toward me, water streaming down his chest. “I’m sorry I left. You deserved better.”
Another step closer, steam curling around his shoulders.
“But watching you and Milo circle each other… knowing what he felt for you. I couldn’t stand between that. I convinced myself you belonged with him, not me.” His voice drops lower as he edges nearer. “So I ran, thinking distance would kill what I felt.”
The space between us shrinks with each word.
“It didn’t.
“So you came back?”
“I came back. I can’t pretend anymore. I won’t live without you again.” His eyes flick down, then back up to mine. “Without either of you, if I’m being honest.”
My breath hitches in my throat.
“If you hadn’t been so weird back at the tent, I might’ve actually managed to have this conversation with both of you.”
I inhale sharply as he continues.
“Instead I ended up here trying to take the edge off. Do you have any idea what it was like watching Milo touch you this morning while I stood there? Then getting my hands on you on the trail? Then overhearing him suggest exactly what I’ve been fantasizing about for years, knowing you might actually say yes. ”
He’s so close at this point I can feel the heat radiating from his skin.
“So if you still don’t know what to do with all this,” he says, voice dropping to a whisper, “I suggest you take your cock out and let’s get a jump on this thing.”
I shake my head, the words barely making it past my lips. “This is a bad idea.”
His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “You’ve always done this.”
“Done what?”
“Act like wanting something is a problem you need to solve.”
I look down, jaw tightening. “It usually is.”
“Then go get Milo,” he says, each syllable rough as sandpaper. “Let him see what we’re doing. You know he’s been waiting for an invitation.”
His breath catches on the last word, and I watch, transfixed, as his cock visibly pulses, flushing a deeper shade of pink.
His wrist twists on the upstroke, thumb circling the glistening head where beads of pre-cum mix with shower spray before his fist slides back down the rigid shaft, veins standing prominent against tanned skin.
“Christ,” he hisses, jaw clenched. “You see what happens when I think about it? About all of us?” His eyes, half-lidded and hazy with lust, drop to his own movements, then pop back up to me. “The three of us together.”
His gaze locks onto mine, pinning me in place. Steam curls between us, carrying the scent of soap and sweat.
“Are you into it, Nate?” Each word lands like a physical touch. “Do you want this?”
I can’t admit, in any universe, that I want it. I want him. I want all of it so badly I can feel it down to the marrow of my bones.
I’d be an idiot to turn down the thing I’ve been pining for since… well, forever. I am also completely out of my mind. A world-class, gold-medal champion of terrible decisions.
“I… uh…” I stammer, eyes darting around the bathhouse. “I have to go.”
I bolt before he can respond, the wet slap of my shoes against tile echoing in my ears. The heavy door swings shut behind me with a hollow thud.
I lean against the wall, lungs burning, heart hammering against my ribs.
That’s when I hear the laughter erupt from inside, bouncing off tile and seeping through the cracks around the door.
I’m practically sprinting back to camp, my shoes squelching with every step. Milo’s hunched over his phone at the picnic table, thumbs tapping away. He looks up, eyebrows lifting as I approach.
“So?” he asks, setting his phone down. “You two work things out?”
“Yeah,” I manage. “All good. Totally normal conversation.”
“That was fast.”
I guess it was. Turns out some experiences do weird things to your sense of time.
“We didn’t need long.” My face burns as I busy myself with the cooler, grabbing a soda I don’t even want.
“If you say so,” Milo says, eyeing me a little too closely.
The memory flashes anyway, uninvited and impossible to ignore. I could tell him. I probably should. God knows he’d be into it. But something stops me. It’s as if I’d be admitting I took something that wasn’t only mine.
I can’t reconcile what I want with what could have been. We spent years orbiting each other, three planets slightly out of sync, because I never had the nerve to say it out loud that I wanted both of them.
I stare down at my hands, wondering what it would’ve taken to change any of it. If I’d said something sooner, would we have avoided all the wasted time? Or would it have broken something before it ever had the chance to become this?
If Tanner hadn’t left, he might never have figured himself out. I might still be the same person I was back then. Too afraid to reach for anything that felt even slightly out of bounds.
Maybe this uncomfortable, impossible moment is exactly what I need.
Maybe this is the final push toward something that used to feel like fantasy but now feels strangely, terrifyingly inevitable.