Chapter 11
I’m not built for mornings, but this one meets me with nothing but peace.
My eyes sting in the pale morning light, and I stand there for a second, shivering, half convinced last night was some kind of group fever dream conjured by bad food and altitude.
I’m almost ready to believe it.
Until I catch sight of the scorched pot by the dead fire. The one Tanner swore he’d clean before bed.
A crusted-over ring of leftover beans clings to the sides, and someone has drawn an epic frowny face in the congealed beans along the rim. The spoon lies abandoned, handle charred.
It’s disgusting, but it’s also a perfect metaphor for the last few years: started with the best intentions, got ignored the second things got weird, left out for everyone to see, and now we’re all stuck dealing with it.
I glance back at the tent I escaped. There’s a vague, tangled shape inside that’s probably Milo considering how loud he’s snoring, mouth open, hair smashed to one side.
On the other side of the sleeping bag is Tanner, stretched out on his back, perfectly still.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was dead.
While I realize that we are absolutely going to get mauled by a bear if we don’t clean up soon, I decide some messes are best handled with an empty bladder, clean body, and a clear head so I head for the bathhouse. My feet are numb against the pine needles and gravel.
Inside the bathhouse, the cinderblock walls sweat with condensation, several stalls already running with early-morning occupants.
Long gone are the highly charged moments from a few nights ago.
God… was it only a few nights ago?
Time does something strange up here. Stretches. Folds in on itself. Makes everything feel both immediate and distant.
I pick an open stall and step inside, pausing for a second to appreciate the privacy. I let my mind drift back over last night, skimming the surface, carefully avoiding the parts that feel a little too sharp to touch directly.
Cleaning up is a wild experience, especially considering the crust I have to scrub away. There are faint, stubborn traces of beans clinging to the tile.
I stand under the spray longer than I’d like to admit, working at it with way more focus than this situation deserves, watching the water swirl everything toward the drain in slow, reluctant spirals.
It’s equal parts satisfying and deeply humiliating. Because this is where we’re at now. Beans. On a public shower floor.
Who even am I? What happened to the guy who kept everything locked down so tight nothing could slip through? Afraid to take. Afraid to want. Afraid to even admit that wanting was happening in the first place.
Where did he go?
I scrub harder than I need to, watching the water carry everything away in cloudy streaks, and I can’t even say I’m upset about it. That careful and controlled version of me who was constantly negotiating with himself about what was acceptable and what wasn’t felt safe and easy to manage.
He also felt… small.
I can’t ignore the fact that it only took a few days around Tanner for all of that to crack open. Not gently, either. I’m split right down the middle. I figure it was probably always one honest confession away from happening.
Which is maybe the more terrifying realization.
Because standing here, over a shower floor that’s seen too much, I realize I’m not only cleaning up the mess from last night. I’m also rinsing away the version of myself that would’ve never let it happen in the first place.
Some things don’t wash away that easily, but other things? They go. They slide right down the drain like they were never there at all.
The man I’m gonna be when I step out of this shower… I don’t think he’s afraid in the same way anymore.
Once I’m done and back outside, the sun has finally committed to rising, the world shifting from that cold, washed-out blue into something warmer. Gold creeping in at the edges. The air smells cleaner.
Back at the tent, Milo’s up. He’s doing that thing where he pretends not to notice me, focused a little too hard on whatever’s in front of him, but I can tell by the way his back straightens that he clocked me the second I came into view,
Tanner’s already there too, moving around the campsite with quiet efficiency. Between the two of them, they’ve made a dent in the mess we left behind.
The fire’s been cleared. Trash bagged. The pot of beans gone.
I don’t ask. I don’t think I want the answer.
I fall into step beside them, grabbing whatever needs grabbing, wiping down surfaces that don’t need wiping, all of us moving in that familiar rhythm.
It’s quiet, but not strained. Moments underscored by the soft sounds of packing up a weekend that’s already starting to feel further away than it should.
For a minute, I almost believe we’re going to get through this without saying anything, then Milo glances between us.
“Should we talk about what happened last night?” he asks rolling up his sleeping bag.
The question hangs in the morning air between us, suspended there without landing. Somehow it doesn’t break anything.
After last night, you’d expect this to feel different. I thought maybe it’d be awkward in that painful, secondhand way where no one knows where to look or what to say.
I expected averted eyes and forced casualness. Maybe a joke that doesn’t land and then a long stretch of silence no one wants to claim. It’s not that though.
There’s an ease here I don’t quite trust. Something softer. Looser around the edges. It’s as if we already said the thing without actually saying it, and now we’re living in the aftermath.
I think maybe we crossed some invisible line in the dark and woke up on the other side of it. Instead of scrambling back, none of us seems in a hurry to move.
Tanner glances up, a half-smile playing at the corner of his mouth as he tosses another bag into the back of the Jeep. “What is there to discuss?” he asks, his voice light but his eyes lingering on Milo a beat longer than necessary.
“What is there...” Milo echoes, caught between disbelief and something softer. “Maybe we could start with the... things that occurred between us.”
Milo hesitates.
There’s a flush creeping up his cheeks. It’s faint, but impossible to miss and for once he isn’t filling the space with noise or jokes or that easy confidence he leans on. He’s actually thinking about what he’s about to say.
Choosing his words.
Carefully.
It’s strange hearing it from him. Stranger still seeing it.
Tanner’s smile widens slightly, watching him struggle, and that’s new too.
“Things?” Tanner echoes. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
Milo scoffs, throwing his hands up. “The kissing. The hookup. The… whatever the hell that situation was. The Eiffel Tower. The DP. The beans.”
“Can’t forget the beans,” Tanner fires back without missing a beat.
“How could any of us forget the beans,” I add.
Milo points at me. “Thank you. At least someone here understands the gravity of the situation.”
Tanner snorts. “Oh, I understand it. I think you’re choosing some very specific highlights.”
“Those were the highlights,” Milo shoots back. “I’m not gonna lead with ‘we made tacos.’”
“We did make good tacos,” I mutter.
“No one cares about the tacos, Nate.”
“I care about the tacos.”
Tanner laughs. “Of course you do.”
“I just…” Milo says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Are things gonna be weird now?”
“Things are more weird because of this conversation,” Tanner points out.
Milo turns to me immediately. “Nate. Is this weird? Do you feel weird?”
I stop to think about it.
Do I? No. Not as much as I probably should.
Which feels like its own problem.
Because objectively, this is weird. It should be. It was weird. Last night was a series of decisions that, on paper, should have me pacing in circles right now, trying to figure out how to undo them or at least pretend they didn’t happen.
But I’m not.
I’m standing here, helping pack up a campsite, talking about it like it’s some inevitable thing that happened between us. Like it fits.
Maybe that’s the part that’s throwing me.
Because it does fit.
Not the specifics, of course. Definitely not the details Milo’s so eager to catalogue, but the feeling of it. The three of us in the same space, moving around each other without friction, slipping into something that felt… natural.
I glance between them. Over to Milo, still watching me for an answer, and then to patient Tanner, who is quiet now, but not withdrawn.
“I don’t know,” I admit finally. “I thought I would.”
Milo frowns. “That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s not not reassuring,” Tanner says.
Milo looks between us again. “I’m serious,” he says. “We did all that, and now we’re just standing here?”
“Would you rather we panic?” I ask.
“A little, yeah,” he says. “Feels appropriate.”
Tanner huffs a laugh. “I think we missed our window for that.”
“I guess my question is whether or not we plan to do it again,” I say.
Milo goes still, Tanner’s brows lift slightly. Clearly neither expected me to be the one to say it out loud.
“Do you want to?” Milo asks.
“Yeah,” I say, before I can overthink it. Then, softer, “I think I do.”
I drag a hand through my hair, trying to organize the mess in my head into something that makes sense.
“Because if it’s a one-time thing, then yeah… it’s weird. It becomes this thing we don’t talk about. Something we all pretend didn’t happen.”
I glance between them.
“But it didn’t feel like that,” I continue. “It felt… good. Easy.”
Milo’s watching me closely now. Tanner too, quieter but just as locked in.
“I think that’s why you want to panic,” I say to Milo. “Because it should feel strange. It should feel uncomfortable. But it doesn’t.”
I let out a breath.
“We all liked it.”
I allow my words the space to sink in before I push through.
“I can’t speak for both of you, but it feels like we want more. This isn’t some random thing we stumbled into. It feels like something we should’ve figured out a long time ago.”
I shake my head, a small, disbelieving laugh slipping out.