Chapter Ten
I’m not sure why I have this overprotective streak when it comes to Brooks, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting him hike out here alone, at night, with a wild animal in a flimsy cat carrier slung over his back.
I mean, I obviously have been told enough times that I am overprotective of those I care about, and I barely know Brooks—yet I feel some intrinsic need to stand sentry when it comes to him.
Okay, and yeah, there’s a tiny bit of hesitation on my part to just swallow my pride and admit that perhaps I was wrong about Colton.
God fuckin’ damnit, why does Brooks have to be right about me not giving Colt the benefit of the doubt?
Maybe I am too conditioned to see the glass half-empty, just like he told me earlier.
We hike along the neglected path, which Brooks touts is all within camp property, for what feels like a while—all in comfortable relative silence. Hell, I’ve done more opening up today than I have—ever, I think. It’s been an enlightening and exhausting day, all in the same token.
There is the occasional chittering from the backpack, when we have to climb over fallen trees in the path.
After what has probably been a half hour or so, I hear the sounds of bubbling water cascading down over rocks.
The trail gives way to a clearing along the banks of the stream Brooks mentioned.
A cloudless sky and bright moonlight bathe the area with a soft glow, enough so that I don’t need my headlamp anymore.
Brooks slips the backpack off his shoulders and carefully sets it down.
That’s the first time I’ve heard this damned raccoon growl the entire time he’s been in captivity.
“Oh hush, Noodles,” Brooks chides the animal.
“I’m just going to take my boots off, so I can carry your rotund butt across.
Did you know these things could get so heavy? ” he asks me.
“I offered to carry it,” I remind him.
His eyes give an appreciative sweep of my shoulders. “And I’m sure it’d have been no problem for you, either.”
“Next time, learn when to accept help then.” I shrug. Before he can balk, I toe off my own boots and strip out of my pants, down to just my boxer briefs.
Now, I catch his eyes giving me an appreciative sweep elsewhere. Not sure what compels me to do so, the water isn’t that deep, but I strip off my t-shirt as well. That appreciative sweep, once again, migrates elsewhere, and it’s then that I realize what compelled me to remove the shirt—
I like the way it feels with his eyes on me.
Before I can put too much thought into that, since my boxers won’t leave anything to the imagination if I do put too much thought into it, I hoist the bag up and onto my shoulders and carefully work my way down the rocky bank, towards the water.
When I get to the bottom, I dip my toes in first, scanning for the most shallow path across.
Since there is a small waterfall above us, there is a ridge of river rock that has built up along the edge of the deep pool.
Tenuously, I tread out over the smooth rocks, worn by decades of water sluicing over them, on its way down to the lake. A lake that hasn’t warmed up to my liking yet, and if I thought that was cold, the constantly running water provided by this outlet is even colder. Ball shrinking cold.
You ever attempt to ford a stream, with a lardass raccoon on your back, when suddenly it violently sneezes?
Yeah, me neither. Which is why I find myself so caught off guard that the bag goes flying one way, while I tip the other.
Luckily for Noodles, he crash lands on dry ground with a grunt.
Unluckily for me, I do not land on dry land.
I’m ass-over-teakettle in a plunge pool of nut shrivelling ice bath water.
I shoot up with a gasp, gulping for air as my body tries to overcome the shock of the frigidity.
“Evan!” With a splash, Brooks is in right after me, after tearing off his clothes in a flurry. “Oh gosh, are you okay?!” he gasps, doing a quick assessment of me.
“M’fine,” I reply with a grunt and a chuckle, for all his worry.
His cheeks flush with embarrassment again, an adorable look he can’t ever seem to hide. After he sees I’m not drowning, he swims deftly through the plunge pool to the other bank, yanking himself out of the water wearing nothing but a tight pair of black, lace—yes, that’s correct, lace—booty shorts.
My eyes are not deceiving me. This isn’t a cold-induced hallucination. He’s wearing lace men’s lingerie that only half covers the pert, round globes of his cheeks. Perhaps that, rather than his overreaction to my stumble, is what his flushed face was about.
What in the fresh hell is going on today?
I walked in on Brooks and Kai earlier, after what I thought had been a really meaningful night with Brooks, only to find them about ready to go upstairs together and with Kai already naked.
Now, I see he’s wearing sexy panties. He says one thing, but his actions cry out another.
Brooks obviously isn’t over his ex.
In a flustered state, Brooks crouches and releases the animal from the confines of the bag.
Well, he tries, but the raccoon looks reluctant to get out.
Brooks has to nudge the carrier a couple times to get Noodles to unfold himself, before waddling lazily away—as if he wasn’t just taken on a hike, tossed across a river, and come face-to-balls with a man wearing lacy underwear.
And why, pray tell, am I thinking to myself, he’s a lucky raccoon for having had such a view?
You know damn well why, Waters.
I shake my head, ignoring that vile voice. I do know why. I also know I’m too chickenshit to admit it.
Thankfully, my body is growing acclimated to the water, because—despite the temp—I’m starting to grow stiff in my own plain, cotton-jersey boxers.
If I get out of the water now, he’ll definitely be seeing me sporting a tent in them.
I can’t just blame it on the cold water either.
This isn’t a dicksicle I’ve got going on here; it’s arousal, plain and simple.
It should be insanely weird. Instinct tells me I should rip on him for wearing such feminine-looking underwear, but I don’t know—it works on him.
Works really well on him, actually. Just took me a hot minute to realize what I was seeing, because it was so unexpected.
Now that I have, I can’t unsee it—despite the way he’s now flushing embarrassed, yet again, and trying to cover himself up with the cat carrier.
His chin dips to his chest and he looks mortified. “I—uhm—sorry…” he stammers out an apology. “I stripped because I didn’t want to hike back in wet clothes. Too uncomfortable.”
I nudge my chin in the direction of his hidden hips. “And those are? I can’t imagine wet lace feels that great.”
He winces slightly. “Not particularly. Are you alright? Why aren’t you getting out?”
Because I can’t, not without him seeing what’s currently hidden below the dark water.
“It’s not bad, once you get used to it,” I flat out lie.
“Sooo… you’re just going to stay in there and swim?”
I shrug, treading water with my feet. “Sure.”
His eyes narrow at me. “Liar.”
“I’m not!” I lie again. “It’s perfectly fine. In fact, I tossed the raccoon on purpose, just so I could jump in.”
“And all that gasping and flailing?”
“All a part of the act to get you to jump in with me. You could stand to let loose a little. You’re all business, no pleasure.”
He chuckles, relaxing a smidge—letting down his guard a little. “You’re a sack of bologna, Evan Waters.”
“Been called worse.”
He opts to wobble back across the water on the rocks, still covering himself as much as he possibly can with the carrier.
“You embarrassed about the undergarments?” I ask him, noting the way he tried to change the subject before.
He goes as white as a ghost, pausing mid-stream. “Well, yeah… It’s all I had left for clean underwear. Desperate times. I didn’t plan on showing them off by diving into the water after you.”
Wait, so he wasn’t wearing them for Kai?
He was just wearing them out of necessity?
Okay, well, now that humbles me. Come to think of it, Brooks was even trying to get Kai to go upstairs and get dressed earlier.
Maybe he isn’t as reciprocal about his feelings towards his ex as I had initially thought…
Moot point, Waters. This does not matter. You’ve got to ignore this effect he’s having on you.
I grumble and try to shake away those dastardly inner thoughts. The effect Brooks has on me is clearly that I am fucking attracted to him, when I know I shouldn’t be. Shouldn’t be, but have been essentially powerless to fight it, when it comes to him, it seems.
“Listen, I grew up on the ocean. I used to live in water colder than this. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t still wind a guy when he falls in trying to save an ungrateful raccoon. I appreciate your level of concern, though. The underwear, they look good on you.”
He rolls his eyes like he’s sick of my shit, and probably thinks I’m joking about the lace, but then he bites back a playful smile. Those damn dimples are back. “If you’re serious, thank you.”
“I’m serious,” I admit, feeling slightly more emboldened.
Why did you go and tell him that, Waters? You’re such a dumbass! Quit flirting with the man!
“You don’t want to hop in?” I ask him, trying like hell to ignore the voice in my head.
“What? Heck no!” he scoffs. “I haven’t got time for swimming, I’ve got to get back.”
“We’ll see about that…” Swiping my arms across the water, I send a spray of it in his direction. Hell, I haven’t been swimming in ages. Haven’t lightened up like this in ages. Haven’t ever tried to be playful with anyone in—fuck, I don’t know how long.
Miranda always threw that in my face too, that I’d lost my ‘zest for life,’ as she put it.
Suddenly, here I am. Zesting.