Thirty
Keith
We made our way down the short path to the water.
It was so clear we could see a few fish swimming along the rocky bottom.
I set the ice chest down and turned in time to see Bart strip down and jump off one of the boulders into the water.
As soon as he hit he burst out of the water screaming.
“Oh my god it’s so fucking cold. Get your fine ass in here with me. ”
His jaw trembled slightly as he watched me and I ignored the fact it probably was still too cold to go swimming and jumped in next to him. I broke the surface and struggled to catch my breath. “Oh my god it’s too fucking cold.” My arms and legs flailed around as I continued to gasp for air.
“Hey, it’s not that bad,” Bart said, and swam over before wrapping himself around me. Now it was my jaw that trembled from the cold.
“So cccccold.”
“I’ll warm you up.”
I moved us closer to the shore where I could touch the bottom, and he squeezed me tighter with his legs before leaning in to kiss me.
Our tongues explored and eventually I relaxed enough the cold didn’t feel so penetrating.
“I’d ask you to fuck me, but I’d probably be clenched too tight. ” He met my eyes and laughed.
“Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of fucking in the wilderness. I’m much happier in a bed, or at least a couch, possibly a truck.”
I gripped his legs and moved us through the water, until Bart was finally able to unlock his legs. “The old man was right, this is beautiful.”
“You’ve been here before.”
“Only once, and it was a long time ago. I didn’t swim.”
“Did you come here with another boy?”
“Yeah, but he had no clue I was gay. We were good friends in school, but he ended up moving away after graduation.” I hadn’t thought about Gabe in years. We were always together from kindergarten to graduation, and then his family moved and I never heard from him again.
“Where did they move?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t remember him mentioning that. It was a different time then. When someone moved out of town you didn’t expect to ever see them again. Social media wasn’t like it is now and even though we had cell phones it was just different.”
“More small town shit?”
“Pretty much,” I admitted.
“I’ll help you look for him online if you want. Maybe he didn’t move that far away.”
“I might take you up on that, but right now I have another guy in my arms that I’m much more interested in,” I whispered before kissing him again.
“Good thing, because this guy has lots of interest in you too,” Bart said and for a while we floated around talking about anything and everything, and I just enjoyed the feel of his skin against mine.
“Look out below,” a voice from above yelled and four guys I knew from Foggy Basin jumped in on the opposite side. “Holy shit that’s cold.”
“Guess that’s our cue to get out.”
“I can tell how sad you are,” he said.
“Not a big fan of the cold water,” I admitted making him laugh.
“Come on, let’s go eat and warm up.” He climbed out of the water without a backward glance before gathering up his clothes and walking over to where he’d left his bag. I’d never been so thankful to see a towel in my life. The last thing I needed was it getting around town that we were—
“Hey, Keith, is that you over there?”
“Pete, did your mom give you permission to come out here?” His face sobered and his group moved closer to the other side and farther away from us.
“Here,” Bart said and handed me a towel similar to the one he was already wrapped in. “Better to not give them a show.”
“You have no idea how true that is,” I said and made quick work of getting out and covering my ass with the towel.
“Townies?” he asked.
“What? Oh yeah, they’re a little wild but nothing too bad.
” They were all young and still figuring out life, but they all worked on their families’ farms and mostly stayed out of trouble.
Except for Pete. That kid was more trouble than all of them combined.
“They all live on farms around here, so I see them when I shoe their horses. None of them have cows or I’d be trimming their hooves. ”
“I guess we gotta be nice to them then,” Bart said and led me halfway up the trail. He laid out a blanket under one of the oak trees and set our clothes on it along with the ice chest. After slipping on my pants, I sat down opposite him.
“I’m not going to worry about them. They’re good kids,” I said just as one of them screamed a warning before landing with a big splash. “This looks great. You thought of everything.”
“Not really, but I wanted us to be able to enjoy it here if we did find it.” He grinned and kissed me again before passing out the sandwiches he’d made and opening a bag of chips. “It’s not gourmet but it’ll do.”
“Well for someone who has never gone on a picnic before I think it’s amazing.”
He took a big bite of his sandwich and for the next couple of hours we sat and enjoyed each other’s company under a big oak tree, surrounded by the sounds of boys having fun without anyone to tell them not to.