Chapter 2
We turn into the campground, passing beneath a tall rusted metal arch that reads Welcome to Cold Creek.
The road shifts to gravel, crunching beneath the tires as we pass clusters of campers and RVs, with tiny leaning rental cabins scattered around like afterthoughts.
I watch them roll by one at a time. Families setting up folding chairs. Someone grilling something that smells aggressively of burnt onions. Dogs on leashes weaving between kids with marshmallow-sticky hands.
We keep going deeper into the campground, toward the back half of the grounds where the roads narrow, the bathrooms disappear, and only the truly rugged choose to stay.
No power or plumbing, aside from a lone bathhouse still a decent walk from the campsite, which is little more than a fire pit, a tent, and enough surrounding forest to swallow the noise.
Camping probably seems like an odd choice for a reunion, but this used to be our thing.
Once we got our licenses, the three of us were up here constantly.
These woods were our off-brand sanctuary, the place we believed none of our problems could follow us.
In hindsight, all this feels wildly optimistic considering most of our problems probably started here.
This is where we got drunk for the first time, which sounds wholesome until you factor in that we were drinking warm beer we stole from Milo’s cousin and were all immediately humbled by it.
It’s also where I got bitten by a snake, and Milo, in a truly heroic display of confidence over competence, decided to “suck the venom out,” only to realize halfway through that it was harmless and he’d volunteered himself for a mouthful of dirt and blood.
It’s also where I had my first kiss, which, for the record, was not with Milo or Tanner.
It was with Bethany DuBois, a girl from school I got stuck taking on a double date because Tanner liked her friend and that friend refused to go alone.
Which meant I spent an entire weekend pretending to be straight while Milo hovered nearby as the world’s most disgruntled fifth wheel, visibly having the worst time of his life.
Back then, roughing it felt adventurous, like we were choosing some wilder, cooler version of life for a weekend. Now it mostly feels like paying money to be mildly uncomfortable on purpose.
Despite all of that, or maybe because of it, coming back here feels right.
Maybe there’s something in this place that still holds whatever it was we had back then. Something waiting for us to step back into it if we follow the same roads, pitch the same tents, and pretend we’re still the same people.
Still, I can’t shake the tightness in my stomach that started the second we turned off the main road, and if the way Milo keeps tapping his fingers against the steering wheel is any indication, I’m not the only one feeling it.
Eventually the RVs give way to tents. The crowds thin. The laughter fades. Then we’re there. Our spot. The same one we rented every summer once we turned sixteen and decided that made us grown.
There’s a big tent pitched dead center in the clearing, and parked beside it is Tanner’s Jeep, which somehow looks exactly the same and significantly worse.
It’s an awful shade of olive green, dented all to hell, the soft top long gone so only the exposed skeletal frame is left baking in the sun.
The bumper is layered with faded, peeling stickers he refuses to remove, and the dashboard is completely overrun with sun-bleached rubber ducks because he’s one of those Jeep people now.
I’ve spent more hours than I care to admit gripping the frame, convinced every sharp turn would be the one that sent us tipping onto two wheels, or worse.
It used to rattle if he pushed it past sixty, the whole thing shaking like it might come apart mid-drive, because truthfully I imagine even the Jeep itself doesn’t trust Tanner behind the wheel.
How it’s still running is a fucking mystery, but of course it is, because Tanner is here and so is the Jeep.
Nothing ever dies. Not really.
“I can’t believe he still drives that thing,” I mutter.
Milo scoffs. “Be nice. It got him across the country and back.”
“Twice,” I add before I can stop myself.
He must catch something in my voice, or maybe it’s the way I’m white-knuckling the donut box, because he reaches over without looking and threads his fingers through mine.
“Are you ready for this?”
Milo’s not big on PDA. He loves me, I know that, but it usually shows up in quieter ways or unremarkable little moments that somehow hit harder than some grand gesture.
It’s him doing the dishes before I’ve even admitted they’re there.
Tossing my laundry in with his because apparently I’m a child.
Saying exactly the right thing at exactly the right time to yank me out of whatever spiral I’ve fallen into.
I look down at our hands for a second, mostly because I need the reminder.
This is real. This is where I am. This is who I’m with.
Also because if I look at him too long right now, he’ll know I’m emotional and I’d rather be hit by traffic.
Am I ready for this? It’s a stupid question, because what does ready even look like here?
We’ve all changed.
We don’t even really talk anymore.
Tanner doesn’t have social media, which feels exactly like something he’d do to make this harder. So I have no reference point. No warning. No badly lit selfies to study for clues.
I tighten my grip on Milo’s hand without meaning to. Maybe the answer I’m looking for is somewhere in that pressure.
“Yeah,” I say, even though it sounds a little borrowed. “I’m ready.”
Because I have to be.
Right?
Turns out declaring yourself ready and actually being ready are two wildly different skill sets. Not in some dramatic, life-changing sense, but in the very practical reality that nothing could’ve prepared me for the man who steps out of that tent.
Because this is not the Tanner McCormack I’ve had stored in my head all these years, the version I’ve been carrying around like a photo I could pull out whenever I felt nostalgic and emotionally unwell.
That version is gone.
What’s walking toward us now is… a man.
No qualifiers. No gentle wording. No mental buffering system.
His arms hit me first. Bigger now. So defined that the black tank top he’s wearing look like it’s doing everything it can to hang on for dear life. His shoulders are broader, his posture looser but somehow more certain, like he finally grew into the space he always took up.
His hair isn’t buzzed anymore either. It’s grown out into dark curls that fall across his forehead in a messy, careless way that suggests he stopped trying to control it and was richly rewarded for that decision.
His face is sharper now. Cleaner lines. Cheekbones that catch so much light it feels aggressive.His skin’s darker, sun-worn from a life spent outside doing something physical, something real, something that built all of this without asking for permission.
Holy shit.
When did he get hot?
Which is a ridiculous thought, because I always thought he was hot. That was kind of the whole problem. But that was a me thing. A highly specific, deeply personal affliction I carried around while everyone else looked right past him.
Milo did not share that opinion.
I glance over at him, and the look on his face is immediate and undeniable, his whole expression slightly short-circuited. It’s obvious his brain is still trying to catch up to what his eyes are seeing.
Okay.
So that’s new.
“Oh my God,” Milo breathes. “You’re gonna leave me for him.”
I let out a nervous laugh. “No I’m not.”
“I wouldn’t blame you,” Milo says. He pauses, giving it genuine consideration, then nods once. “No. Actually, I support it.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Jesus Christ, I do. Please let me watch.”
“You have never thought he was hot.”
“Well,” he says, eyes still fixed ahead and making no attempt at discretion, “circumstances have evolved.”
Things have changed, and my body is filing that update straight to my brain with no review process whatsoever. Heart hammering, pulse thudding in my ears, jeans suddenly far less forgiving because the idea of Milo actually being into this is doing deeply inconvenient things to my cock.
Oh my God. What is happening.
We were supposed to show up, pitch the tent, and swallow every grudge we’d carefully preserved over Tanner’s disappearing act so we could maybe rebuild a lifelong friendship.
That was the plan, and it’s a normal, respectable plan.
I was not supposed to be trapped in a car, struggling for steady breaths while my brain starts generating scenarios I am wildly unprepared to examine.
My pulse beats in my throat while my body fully betrays me, responding with embarrassing enthusiasm to this new reality where Milo isn’t just fine with the idea, he seems actively intrigued by it.
The thought of that alone sends another sharp jolt through me.
I am not equipped for this version of the weekend.
Whatever Milo and I are both trying not to say has settled into this awful silence between us. Outside the car, Tanner glances at us, then away, then down at the ground, like he doesn’t quite know where to put himself while we sit here openly staring at him.
“We have to get out of the car,” Milo says.
“Yeah,” I nod. “We do.”
“So?”
“You first.”
“I can’t stand up right now.”
“Okay, well… neither can I.”
Tanner starts toward us, hands disappearing into those sweats as if he’s searching for courage at the bottom of his pockets.
“Oh god, incoming,” Milo whispers.
Neither of us moves. We’re frozen in place, caught somewhere between fight, flight, and whatever third option involves your ex-best-friend-turned-unfortunate fantasy walking toward your car.
I shift the donut box a little higher on my lap.
Small mercies.
Tanner stops beside the passenger window. He doesn’t knock or speak right away. He leans down and looks in, mouth set in that neutral line I remember all too well as the face he made when he was trying not to show his hand.
We stare back in total silence, as if staying perfectly still might somehow make us invisible.
The car’s off, so I can’t roll the window down. Which turns the whole thing into a long, deeply weird standoff. Him crouched outside. Us trapped inside.
Three grown men somehow recreating the energy of animals at a zoo exhibit.
Finally, he says, “You two gonna sit in there all day?”
The sound of his voice is the same deep timbre I didn’t realize until this exact moment I’d missed so badly. It catches somewhere low in my throat.
“Weren’t planning on it,” Milo says, leaning across me to answer through the glass.
Another beat of silence.
Then, as if we’re psychically linked by shared humiliation, Milo and I both open our doors at the same time and step out.
I’m hit with a crisp autumn chill. It seeps through my clothes and settles in my bones.
It mixes unpleasantly with the prickling awareness crawling up my spine from having to face something I’ve been avoiding for years.
My sneakers crunch against the gravel as I plant my feet, knees still embarrassingly unreliable.
Tanner straightens up. Taller than I remember. He gives us both a hesitant smile.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I echo.
Too much time has passed to act normal, and not enough to know what to say. Then he opens his arms, more invitation than request.
Milo steps in first. A quick hug, a thump on the back, a laugh that sounds mostly like relief.
Then Tanner turns to me.
For a second, I forget how to move. But I do eventually. I step into his arms, and he folds around me with an ease that feels dangerously familiar.
There, pressed against his chest, breathing in the faint smell of coconut and vanilla from his sunscreen, I try very hard not to notice how perfectly I still fit.
Suddenly I’m eighteen again. Caught between what I want and what I can have, between who I was and who I’ve become.
Five years gone between us, and somehow we’re right back where we started: me, wanting something I shouldn’t, and Tanner completely unaware of the chaos he creates by existing.
Fuck. This is gonna be a long weekend.