Chapter Twelve
“Brooks!” I yell out as I see him in a dead run past the staff cabin, heading down to the lake. “That damn fool is going to go out there in this storm, isn’t he?” I mutter to myself, shucking off my pants and pulling off my shirt in a rush. I dig through my bag until I find my athletic shorts.
I never even thought to pack swim trunks, which I guess is a stupid move on my part, given that I work at a camp dedicated to all things water activities.
But no one ever said I wasn’t chock-full of stupid moves.
In fact, I’m fairly positive agreeing to come to work here was probably the stupidest one.
Not because of the work here, it’s kind of nice to be able to work at a leisurely pace, without worrying about boat after boat piling up in the marina.
And the work is actually appreciated. Nah, what’s stupid is my inability to see how working here, under the man who’s single-handedly made me second guess my ability to remain unseen for who I truly am, would be problematic.
Now, that stupidity is spilling over the bucket, as I chase after Brooks, hoping to hell he isn’t dumb enough to jump in that lake after those kayaks in the middle of a thunderstorm.
“Brooks!” I shout again. “Leave them until after the storm!”
“They’ll sink! The waves will batter them on shore!”
“Is it worth your li—” I don’t even finish, because he’s already jumping headlong off the dock. “Fuh-king damnit!”
I jump in after him, but he must be a damn expert swimmer, because he’s already out past the swim buoys collecting the first two kayaks.
Lightning flickers across the sky again, followed by a mighty boom—one that sends shockwaves rippling across the water.
I swim out for the next closest pair of boats, as the rain starts sweeping across the lake in torrents.
In a mountain valley like this, the rumble’s echoes are amplified.
“This is fucking stupid, Brooks!” I cuss at him as he reaches out to grab one of the kayaks I’m swimming back in with and hauling it on shore. “Utterly fucking stupid.”
“Then go back! I didn’t ask you to come out here and help me!” he hisses in a shout, over another clap of thunder.
I haul the second boat up, and turn to grab him as he tries to head back out for another. “Brooks, just stop!” I yell at him, gripping his upper arm and tugging him back.
He spins on me, yanking his arm out of my grasp.
“No! I’m going out there! I don’t need your help!
I didn’t even ask for your help! You’ve been doing everything you can to avoid me for two weeks now, Evan.
Just… go. I’ve got this all on my own.” His chest rises and falls harshly, as he waits—probably for me to deny that I’ve been avoiding him.
Fuck, he’s not wrong, though.
However, while I have been actively avoiding him physically, I haven’t been able to avoid him mentally.
There have been lots of stolen glances of Brooks everywhere around here as I study him.
There have been lots of cigarettes chain-smoked in the little hidey hole that Sully carved out in the back of the parking lot, where my mind has been circling around our near-kiss.
And finally, there have been a fuck ton of cold showers, all with the vision of him wearing that underwear for me.
He turns in the waist-deep water, ready to launch back in, but I stop and spin him back to face me.
“What?!” he yells at me again.
You need to stop feeling like you need to do everything on your own, I want to say to him.
You need to stop sacrificing yourself for the sake of everything and everyone else, I should tell him.
Instead, I point to a trio of three that have started getting pummeled against boulders on shore a few hundred yards away. “Let’s get those ones,” I say.
If he’s going to be a stubborn idiot, I won’t let him be a stubborn idiot alone.
And just as the lightning threads itself across the sky, sending branches of blinding light outwards in all directions, he dives back in and powers over in the direction of the boats.
The man makes it over there in half the time it takes me to huff and puff my way to him.
He’s juggling the three boats, so I take two off his hands and head for the camp’s boat landing, racking them up quickly.
We repeat this process a few more times, before we’re down to one final boat.
The storm is moving away from us now, the span of time between a flash and a rumble is getting wider.
Rain still comes in torrents, droplets hitting the choppy surface almost like pellets.
I wade out to my hips and slip the boat off his hands.
He stays put while I deposit the craft on shore, sucking in breaths and scanning the lake.
“Pretty fuckin’ reckless,” I scold him as I head back out to meet him. I run a hand through my hair, slicking back what’s being cast in front of my eyes.
Between inhaling in through his nose, out through his mouth, he comes back with a sarcastic, “Mhm. That’s what they call me. Reckless. Totally not ‘doormat’ or anything like that.”
I snort. “You sure about that?” I shout over the pelting rain.
“Of course. I mean, obviously,” he gestures at himself in a ‘look at me’ way.
I do look at him. I recall his lithe body moving through the water with speed and accuracy.
I picture it writhing beside me in a sea of bedsheets and torn off clothing.
I watch as his chest rises and falls before me.
I picture my own body pressed against his.
He’s breathless, but for a totally different reason.
That’s wrong. You’re wrong. Stop thinking like that!
“You some sort of human-dolphin hybrid or something?” I ask him, trying to ignore the fact that my thirty-four-year-old dick currently has the mindset of a horny teenager.
He gives me a weak grin, one that looks full of regret.
“I used to swim competitively. Middle school clear through college. Wore a Speed-o and everything,” he says, then follows it up with a self-deprecating chuckle.
“You didn’t get that show tonight, apparently.
Lucky you.” He wets his lips and flips his hair back out of his face, before looking down at the water’s surface between us.
With the pad of my thumb, I tilt his chin back up. Cupping his cheek, running my thumb along his jaw, I whisper, “Please don’t talk down about yourself like that.”
The gesture, that sentiment, that all came out of me so suddenly, that I didn’t even have time to process it. It felt… almost instinctual.
No. Wrong. Wrong is how it felt. It was intimate. Too intimate.
His eyes dart between mine, like he’s trying to decipher the meaning behind it as well. His hand reaches up and his delicate fingers wrap around my wrist, stilling me from tracing his jaw. His tongue darts between his lips again, and the lump in his throat bobs when he gulps.
“W-what are you doing, Evan?” he whispers back, breathlessly. His chest rises and falls quicker.
“Not real sure,” I tell him honestly, my voice now hoarse and low.
Get a hold of yourself! Stop this. Now!
His body inches incrementally towards me, and I notice that he’s not resisting me tilting his head up even more. Angling his lips towards mine. Feeling the sharp puffs of breath he’s letting out. My eyes are glued on the way his moistened lips part, his eyelids getting heavier.
I can do it this time… I can kiss him.
What the hell are you even doing right now?! Think of your ring. Your vows. Your values, Waters. Be a man!
“W-we shouldn’t… I’m your b-boss,” he stammers, delivering a whispered reminder, droplets of water dripping off his lower lip.
Despite his own warning, I can tell he’s just as much at war with his mind right now as I am. He’s leaning in rather than pulling away. His breathing is choppy.
And also, despite his warning, I want to taste those lips more than I’ve wanted anything else ever. Just one taste. Just enough to see if—if… if what I’m feeling is just an urge I need to fulfill, just so I can stop wondering all the damn time.
So ring be damned, I took it off and stuffed it in my duffel two weeks ago anyway.
The morning I slipped out of Brooks’ bed—after having watched him sleep, like the damn creeper that I am—I went right down to the communal bathhouse and crammed myself into one of the cramped shower stalls.
I felt racked with guilt having the ring on my finger, while jerking off with Brooks’ name on my lips, so I finally took it off.
It felt freeing yet, in the same token, oppressive at the same time.
I’m still nervous about what Colt will think when he finally notices I’m without it.
On the same note, however, that ring is a symbol of who I was, and not the person I truly am behind the smoke screen.
I’d be foolish to think I could go this entire summer working here without giving into temptation…
“Be reckless with me. Just for a minute, Brooks.”
“I’m not that kind of person,” he murmurs.
Bullshit he isn’t. What are we out here doing, in the middle of a storm, then?
“Don’t make me beg. Just one taste. Please, Reckless.”
I slide my hand around the back of his neck, tugging him even closer.
I tilt his chin up further. Lips are on lips, but still no movement—movement I’d give anything to experience right now.
I literally feel the moment that he surrenders to what he wants just as badly as I do.
It’s palpable when he presses them into mine, tilting his head sideways slightly so that he can deepen the kiss.
Our mouths mash in a hungry assault on one another.
He groans and leans into the kiss more, stepping in so we’re toe-to-toe, chest-to-chest. Warm body against warm body, sloughing off the cool rain together.
My other hand reaches up to mirror the one I have cupping his jaw, not letting him pull away from this kiss.
Not that I think he has any intention of doing so.
His tongue traces the seam of my lips, seeking entry, but mine darts out first, finding its way into his mouth. He whimpers lightly, pressing his hips up to mine. My hands fall, and I grip them and hold me steady. We alternate head tilts, seeking to explore this for all it’s worth.
I don’t think I’ve ever kissed this deeply before. Never let one linger this long. Never felt one with such fucking raw passion.
All I know is that in this moment, this one taste—it isn’t going to be enough. Not one iota. I need more of him, more of this—him grinding his hard cock against my hip the way he is. I need more of these moans as I nip and suck at his lower lip.
My dick practically has a pulse of its own, the way it’s stretched out, seeking out friction against his body grinding against mine. Layers of soaked fabric between us has me rutting back with just as much intensity, sizing up his cock by rubbing mine up against his through our shorts.
We’re mauling each other so much, me thrusting against him so hard now, that I don’t notice that I’ve backed him up to the dock until his back presses against it.
I find my thigh slotting between his legs, holding him steady as he goes weak in the knees, and getting us even closer.
If I could, I’d climb right inside of him. We could weld ourselves into one being.
He pulls his lips away from mine, but only to bury his face in the crook of my neck to catch his breath. I rest my head on the side of his, and we continue rutting into each other—both our gazes glued to the movement between us. The need for more—for anything.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I grit out, suddenly. I’m so fucking close to coming in my pants like my orgasm is on a hair-trigger.
“Evan.” He pants out the two syllables, his pulse racing. ”What are you—”
Suddenly, he’s cut off by a different voice than the one constantly insulting me in my head.
This voice is one I’d also recognize anywhere, and it echoes out over the lake, ushering kids out of the dining hall now that the rain has let up.
Colton. Realization hits me, at this moment, that I am at a summer camp.
We are out in the open. I was just making out with Brooks as if I were a feral animal in heat.
I’m one wrong thigh brush away from coming in my shorts.
And you’re also straight, or do you not remember that at all, Waters?! Have you lost your damn mind?!
I yank myself away from him, and he looks stricken, before he realizes the same thing. I stumble backwards, quickly, before purposely sinking below the water, behind the dock. Hiding like an utter chickenshit.
Fucking fuck!
Waters, you’re a damn idiot if you didn’t think something like this could happen. Your own son is going to see you. You want everyone to fucking know who and what you are?
We can’t be reckless.
We can’t be doing this.
Colton will see this as the ultimate betrayal. I’m dishonoring his mother. I’m not who he thinks I am. I’ve been living a lie his entire life.
I hold myself underwater for longer than is probably sane. When I come up, Brooks’ expression is tormented, his pupils blown out. He’s regarding me as if I truly have gone insane, and maybe I have. “Hey, it’s okay,” he says in a low, soothing tone. “I don’t think anyone saw…”
Doubt drowns him out though. Doubt and self-loathing. It’s suffocating, the feeling that every rational thought is being held underwater. It has me doing the one thing that I know, in the very depths of my soul, is the wrong thing to do right now…
I turn on him, and I bolt.