This is the Camp? Cameron
Chapter thirty-eight
We stopped to get checked in, and Eddy waited in the truck with me. After a few minutes, Brock came back. Using the campground map, he circled the main building and drove on a winding road up to another side road. “We’re looking for spot two-seven-nine.”
“Two-seven-four.” Eddy pointed to one of the little signposts. “Should be just up ahead.” He counted out the post numbers until he hit ours. “This is it.”
Brock stopped the truck along the road, and I peered down at the site. I couldn’t believe what I saw or help but laugh at Everett’s attempt. He didn’t have that tent set up right at all. And what was he even doing here? “Eddy? What have you done?”
Eddy waved me off. “Let’s just say I’m not even getting out of the truck. Unload whatever equipment you want, though.”
Brock chuckled. “Come on. I’ll help get you guys set up before we take off.”
I gave him a big hug. “This is going to work out, right?”
“You’ll have to ask him that.” He nodded toward Everett, who was sitting beside an unlit fire pit.
I exhaled loudly. If I stayed, I didn’t need everything we packed, but some of the things would be nice. We sorted through them and quickly found what I wanted to keep. Then Brock waved at Everett and got back in the truck.
Eddy hung his head out and shouted as they pulled away. “Have fun!”
I made it to the messed-up tent and set the rest of the gear down beside it. “Need some help here?”
“Maybe a little. If you’re staying.”
“I’d like to stay.”
“Good.”
I got started fixing the tent and finished setting up, including lighting the fire. “This is actually a great start.” I leaned close and kissed the side of his head, and Everett hummed his pleasure. “How’d you wrangle Brock and Eddy into this?”
“I had help.” He ticked off a finger. “Jackie, who was more than ready to help, plus Conroy Selzby, who works for me. He thinks I broke you so…”
I shook my head. “Not broke. Just…hurt and confused.” I decided to be more vulnerable with him. If we were going to work, we needed honesty. “And scared.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“Of you changing your mind and maybe going back to the city to start over. And breaking my heart.”
“Not going to happen. First, I left the city for good reasons. But even if I hadn’t. I love this place and you.”
“You love me?”
He tilted his head to the side, the sun shining on his hair, turning his light blondish brown into honey-gold. He was beautiful. “Maybe. I mean, I’d like to find out. Wouldn’t you?”
“I would. Yes.”
“Good. Because the truth is that you make me smile more than I ever have in my whole life. You give me a balance I never had before, and I really need that. But I don’t know what the hell you see in me.”
I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer, smelling the spicy, herbal scent lingering around him. “Ever. I see someone with a fiery spirit, who has passion for the things he loves, and I hope that will be me.”
“Me too.” He tilted his head up, and I kissed him.
He squeezed my waist as he kissed me back, licking at my mouth with his tongue and sliding it against mine.
He tasted sweet like soda. “You know, Cam…I didn’t give you that blow job as a cheap goodbye or whatever.
I did it because I wanted it. I wanted you.
And I still do. You.” He huffed. “You stopped my world in the best way.”
“Okay, but I guess I was still hurt over you not trusting me, and it made it seem like a cheap thank you and a brush-off.”
“I’m sorry. I never meant that.”
“Plus, what you said about that guy?”
“It wasn’t a thing with him. It’s a long story, but I don’t want to rehash it. He meant nothing, and honestly, the psychopath means less than nothing now.”
“I guess I was kind of jealous, but I can live with that. I know it was before us and not my business.”
The sun was setting, and the fire was blazing. Everett poured a couple of plastic cups of wine, and we sipped it and snacked on cheese, fruit, and crackers. Not the usual camping food I was used to, but it worked.
“You really went out of your way here, Ever. Why?”
“To be honest, I like you, maybe love you, and want this to work. I always have, even when it didn’t seem like it. I liked you too much, too fast.”
“Do you like anything outside of your brewery though? Come on? Do you like this?” I waved my arm around, indicating our little camp.
“I do, but…like I said, I have trouble with balance.”
“Did you say that? Are you actually admitting you work too much?”
Everett shrugged. “Sort of. I mean, I haven’t had anyone to show me how to make it all work.
I had the brewery. That’s all. And it has to be successful at all costs.
No matter the sacrifice. If it meant not seeing friends and family, so be it.
But honestly, I didn’t have any friends to not see, except Lukas, and he’s with me on the brewery. ”
“And your family?”
“I don’t know…” He stood and poured another cup. “They love me, but I don’t think they understand me. This is going to sound stupid, but I’ve always felt like I had a bar I had to reach before they would consider me worthy.” He’d mentioned that before, but maybe not so bluntly.
“Worthy? Of what? Their time, attention, love?”
“Yeah. All of that.”
“Have you talked to them about that? Because that’s not how unconditional love works.”
“No, I haven’t. But not all love is unconditional, even if it should be.” He was entirely more vulnerable than I’d thought. Things that I thought were unreasonable were justified in his mind. I liked that he continued to go after what he wanted despite the risk of losing people.
Well, he wasn’t going to lose me. “Let’s take this thing slow. I think neither of us has great experience with making a relationship work. And we still have a lot of getting to know each other to do.”
“I’ll take it. Slow it is.”
The next morning, I got up early and took Everett to a little hole of water where I’d been lucky catching fish before. It was still so dark out that I almost missed the trail.
“Shit. Cam. Wait.”
Everett had stepped in a deep puddle. He was wet nearly to his knee. “You trying to swim in there?”
Everett snorted. “Not hardly, but fucking hole was probably deep enough.” He kicked his foot.
“At least you have hiking boots on instead of sneakers.”
“Or loafers.”
“You brought loafers camping?”
Everett rolled his eyes. “No. I was trying to use humor to keep from being pissy over this.”
“Eh…be pissy if you want. I don’t mind.”
“Really?”
I put my arm around his shoulder. “I’ve never minded. I just made it my mission to get you more relaxed and a little less pissy.”
“Whatever, Gremlin.” He shoved me with his shoulder. “Let’s go already.”
We walked another forty or fifty yards before I saw the spot. “Oh, there.” I made my way over and pulled stuff out of our little wagon, setting up the chairs side by side. After using a little blood bait on the hooks, I tossed both lines in and handed Everett one of the poles.
“Thanks. I think.”
“No worries. Now we wait.” Sitting side by side quietly felt great, like starting over, like being together. “Hey, I never asked you. Have you ever done any fishing before me?”
“Not really. I’ve used a cane pole off a bridge, but that was only fucking around, you know?”
“Yeah, I’ve done that. And a lot of this.” I shook my pole. “Some fly fishing, but I’m not fond of it.”
“Fishing altogether or just that kind?”
“Oh, just fly fishing for sure. I like to be more chill. Sit here, watch the line, maybe drink a beer.”
“We didn’t bring any beer.”
“I know, but that’s fine. I’m with you, and that’s even better.” I didn’t look at him when I said it, not sure how he’d feel about it.
But he didn’t say anything, and we sat in that companionable space for a while.
“Look. Look.” Everett pointed to the water where his bobber was living up to its name.
“Reel it in. Pull it up.” I gave him directions, and he did each thing immediately without question. “Keep reeling, keep reeling. That’s it. You got it. Did you see that?” Scale flashed in the early morning sun.
“It’s a whopper…” He grunted, reeled, lifted the pole and dragged that beast on shore. It flipped and flopped. “Oh Shit. Look at that.” He squatted and pulled the hook out of its mouth.
Afraid it was going to flip back into the water before we could even get pictures, I jumped on it. There was no way I was letting his first catch get away without getting pictures. “You’re not going anywhere.” I wrangled it up. “Get your camera.”
“Oh. Right. Can’t we take it home?” He was pulling his phone out, flipping to the camera. He took a few quick ones, but I wanted one with him.
“No. It’s a carp, so we’ll throw it back, but let me get a picture of it with you. Sit here.”
He crouched on the ground, and I showed him how to hold it so it wouldn’t get away. He still got flipped in the face at least once, but I managed to snap a picture before he let go and shoved it toward the water. “Bye, carp!” He was so cute waving at the thing as it swam away.
“I brought wet wipes. Here.” I got them out of the wagon and we both cleaned up. I rinsed my shirt in the water and hung it over a low tree branch to dry. I caught Everett looking a few times, which boosted my ego. We settled back in the chairs after I re-baited his hook.
The next catch was mine, a big old catfish that fought like a demon. “Mother fucker…” I cursed it out left and right. Everett grabbed the net, scooping him out as soon as he was close enough to the shore. “Whew. That was a beast.”
“For real. We need pics of that too.”
“Yeah, but we’re going to need beer to batter this kitty up. Let’s do a fish fry at my place and invite Brock and Eddy, since they helped set this up.”
“Sounds great, but is one fish enough for that?”
“Nope. Let’s see if we can catch one or two more.”
We sat back and repeated that process, catching a couple more as promised.
Everett caught two that were too little to keep, and he waved at them as they went back in the water.
He caught a couple of bigger cats after that, and so did I.
In the end, we had enough to fry, and I called Brock to tell him to meet us at the house.
When we hauled our catch back to our site, we started packing up. “Ever?” I interrupted his packing, pulling him close to me.
“Yeah?”
“I wanted you to know that I had a good time. Camping.” I held him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, and he wound his around my waist.
“I did too. Is it too short? We could stay longer.”
“I don’t mind cutting it short since we have all this fish. Brock’s bringing the beer.”
“I do owe them.”
I kissed his forehead. “We owe them.”
The outside of my house looked like a log cabin, but it was fake. It was a normal, framed house with weird faux-log-cabin siding that was actually concrete. I planned to replace it eventually, but fixing up the inside had been more important.
I helped Everett get the cooler of fish and some other gear out of his car and haul it up my wide porch steps. “Leave that stuff here. We’ll bring the fish to the kitchen.” He dropped what he was carrying, leaving it off to the side, out of the way, then followed me in.
The living room and kitchen were open to each other with a bench seat in the back corner.
Nothing special, except maybe the old cast iron stove on the far wall separating the two spaces.
I put the cooler on the floor next to the big farmhouse sink and unloaded the fish.
“Want to grab some ice?” I gestured to my fridge, and Everett pulled out the ice bucket and dumped it in the sink on top of the fish.
We worked together to clean and prepare the fish, and we were about finished when Brock and Eddy showed up with the beer.
“I’ve got two kinds. IPA from Foggy Basin to drink. And this other off-the-shelf stuff for the batter.” He held up a six-pack, one in each hand.
“Put the good stuff in the fridge. I’ll take the other.” I put the beer on the counter and pulled out other ingredients I’d need from the pantry.
“We also brought coleslaw.” Eddy put that in the fridge next to the beer.
“Perfect. I’m going to make hushpuppies too. Y’all go sit down. Inside or out doesn’t matter.” I gestured to the sliders that led to the back porch. “Might be more room out back.”
They went out, leaving me to make the batter and fry everything up, which didn’t take long since I knew what I was doing. I’d fried up fish like this a million times.
After I got the first batch into my cast-iron skillet, I opened the passthrough window to the back. “Hey, someone call Jay and tell him to get his butt out here.” I’d forgotten my brother, but there was enough fish to feed all of us and still have leftovers.
“On it.” Brock pulled out his phone to make the call, while I finished up.
By the time the fish, hushpuppies, and coleslaw were spread out on the big dining table in my backyard, Jay showed up, bringing more of Everett’s IPA.
We cracked open the beer, ate the great food, and talked and laughed together.
It felt like family, and even better, Everett’s smile shined like a star.
He fit in with my people, and I loved him for it.
Sure hoped he’d stick around like he said he would. I wanted a million more days like this.
Everett held up a bottle of beer. “Here’s a toast to Cameron. Great fisherman, great fishing teacher, and well, great all-around guy.”
“Here, here…” Eddy said, while the others said, “Cheers!” at the same time.
I kissed the side of Everett’s head. “Thanks.”
“I meant it. Every word.” He leaned in and kissed me, and everyone else at the table cat-called, whistling and cheering. Everett’s face turned bright red.