Chapter 4 #2
It was a loaded question, one with no simple answer. What did I want? Closure? Forgiveness? A second chance? The latter seemed impossible given our circumstances. I was based in Boston; he was in Atlanta. We had separate lives, separate careers, two decades of divergent paths between us.
And yet, sitting here beside him, with the falls providing their constant soundtrack and the memory of what we’d shared in this very spot so vivid in my mind, I couldn’t deny the pull I still felt toward him. Time and distance had done nothing to diminish it.
“I want..." I began, but whatever I might have said was interrupted by the sound of voices on the trail.
Moses tensed beside me, his posture suddenly alert. “Someone’s coming.”
We both stood, instinctively creating more space between us, old habits die hard. Around the bend in the trail came a woman I recognized from town, Lisa something, who worked at the local diner, hand in hand with a man I didn’t know. They seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see them.
“Oh! Moses, Rhett,” Lisa greeted us with a curious smile. “Early morning hike?”
“Something like that,” I replied smoothly. “Just revisiting old haunts. The falls were always a favorite spot back in high school.”
“I bet,” she said with a knowing look that made me wonder just how many of our old classmates had suspected the true nature of our relationship. “We won’t interrupt your... reminiscing. Just passing through on our way to the upper trail.”
She tugged her companion along, and they disappeared up another path that branched off from the clearing. When they were gone, Moses let out a long breath.
“Some things really don’t change,” he muttered, a hint of his old sardonic humor returning. “Can’t get a moment’s privacy in this town.”
I chuckled, the tension of our previous conversation broken. “To be fair, we are in a public park at what is now a very reasonable hour for hiking.”
“I suppose,” he conceded with a small smile. “Though I remember a time when we would have had this place to ourselves until at least noon.”
The reference to our past rendezvous sent a flood of heat through me. “Those were different times.”
“Were they?” Moses asked softly, his gaze dropping to my mouth for the briefest moment before returning to my eyes.
The air between us charged with possibility, with twenty years of wanting and wondering. I took a step toward him, drawn by a force I couldn’t, didn’t want to, resist.
“Moses..." I began, but he stepped back, breaking the moment
“I should go,” he said quickly. “I promised Bronwyn I’d help with inventory before we open.”
Disappointment coursed through me, but I nodded, not wanting to push. “Right. Of course.”
He turned to leave, then paused, looking back at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “Thank you for listening. For not hating me.”
“I could never hate you, Moses,” I said quietly. “Even when I thought you’d betrayed me, I still couldn’t bring myself to hate you.”
Something flashed in his eyes; hope, perhaps, or regret, before he nodded once and started back down the trail. I watched him go, a familiar ache settling in my chest.
As I turned back to the falls, memory overtook me once more, so vivid I could almost feel the ghost of his touch on my skin.
His fingertips traced patterns across my chest, feather-light in the moonlight.
We were submerged waist-deep in the cool water of the pool; our clothes discarded in haphazard piles on the shore.
The roar of the falls provided the perfect cover for the sounds that escaped me as his touch grew bolder, more certain.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered against my neck, his breath warm against my water-chilled skin. “So, fucking beautiful, Rhett.”
I couldn’t respond with words, my capacity for speech long since abandoned to the sensations he was creating. Instead, I pulled him closer, our bodies pressed together in the gentle current, every point of contact electric with desire.
When his hand slipped beneath the water to wrap around me, I gasped, the sound echoed back by the rocks surrounding us. He smiled against my skin, pleased with my reaction, and began to move his hand in slow, deliberate strokes that had my hips bucking involuntarily.
“Moses,” I moaned, my voice barely audible over the falls. “Please.”
He increased his pace, his other hand tangling in my hair to pull me into a deep, consuming kiss that swallowed my increasingly desperate sounds. When release finally came, it was with an intensity that left me clinging to him, trembling in the aftermath.
As I recovered, I turned the tables, backing him against a smooth rock at the edge of the pool. His eyes widened, then darkened as my intentions became clear. I sank lower in the water, my hands on his hips, looking up at him with a question that needed no voice.
“Yes,” he breathed, his hands finding purchase in my hair.
What followed was a symphony of sensations, the cool water around us, the warm salt-sweet taste of him on my tongue, the desperate sounds he made as he tried to keep quiet, the gentle tugging of his hands guiding my rhythm.
When he finally came apart, it was with a broken whisper of my name that sounded like a prayer.
After, we’d clung together in the shallow water, our heartbeats gradually slowing, neither willing to break the spell of the moment. As dawn approached, painting the sky with the first hints of gold, Moses had pressed his lips to my temple.
“Stay,” he’d whispered. “Just a little longer.”
And I had, unwilling to leave the sanctuary we’d created, unaware that it would be one of our last moments of perfect communion before everything fell apart.
I blinked, pulling myself back to the present with effort.
The memory was so vivid, so visceral, it left me aching with a desire that twenty years had done nothing to diminish.
Whatever had been between us, whatever might still be, it wasn’t just physical attraction or teenage infatuation.
It was deeper, more enduring than I’d allowed myself to acknowledge.
As I made my way back to the trailhead, I tried to make sense of what Moses had revealed.
His confession explained so much that had baffled me for years, his sudden change in behavior, his willingness to accept blame for something he hadn’t done, and his abrupt departure from Gomillion.
But it also raised new questions, new possibilities.
If he had cared enough to protect me then, what did that mean for us now? Were we simply two middle-aged men trying to make peace with our shared past, or was there still a chance for something more?
I didn’t have answers yet, but for the first time in twenty years, I had hope. And for now, that would have to be enough.
When I reached my car, I was surprised to find a folded note tucked under the windshield wiper. I opened it to find Moses’s familiar handwriting:
Reunion trivia game tomorrow afternoon at the school gym. 3 p.m. They’ve assigned teams. Guess who my partner is?
If you still want to talk, I’ll be there.
-M
I smiled, tucking the note into my pocket. It seemed like the universe, or more likely, some meddling reunion committee member, was determined to throw us together. I wasn’t about to complain.
As I drove back toward town, I couldn’t help but wonder what the afternoon would bring. Would Moses be more open now that he’d shared his secret, or would he retreat behind his walls once more? Would we be able to move forward, or would we remain trapped in the patterns of the past?
One thing was certain: I wasn’t leaving Gomillion this time without resolving what lay between us, one way or another. I’d let him go once without a fight. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.