Chapter Eight
WHEN LEWIS opens his eyes, there’s the faintest suggestion of light on the other side of the tent. He rubs a hand over his face and looks to the side. No Tad, though his sleeping bag is there, flipped open and rumpled, so he slept in it, right next to Lewis.
God, Lewis was out before Tad even came into the tent. He slept like a rock. What time is it?
He rubs a hand over his face again. It’s November, so it can’t be much before six. The need to know the exact time burns through him, and then—vanishes. There’s nowhere to be. He doesn’t have to log on for an early meeting; he doesn’t have to face the subway to go into the office. There aren’t any deadlines. It’s either day or it’s night.
As he stretches, his hand brushes Tad’s sleeping bag. Warmth lingers in the fabric. Lewis arches his back to crack his spine before he crawls out of his own sleeping bag.
When he unzips the tent flap, he doesn’t see Tad. His heart speeds up. Tad wouldn’t leave him out here, would he?
The thought makes him scramble outside and into his hiking boots, which he doesn’t remember taking off last night. It looks like he kicked them off without caring where they landed.
His eyes find Tad standing a little ways from the tent and looking at the sky. Lewis hesitates, then crunches across their campsite to join him.
“Morning,” Tad says. His hair is tousled and sticking up in different directions, scruff is growing in along his jaw and on his cheeks, and a bright smile makes his face luminous. “I’d ask how you slept, but I think I already know the answer.”
Lewis laughs sheepishly. “I must be getting old.”
“Yeah?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Cradle-robber,” Tad says lightly. “I’m only twenty-nine.”
Yesterday, the joke would have made Lewis’s chest tighten with anxiety about how soon he can fix the marriage situation. Today, it makes him chuckle. There’s a hint of a smile on Tad’s face.
Did Lewis really think that Tad looks luminous? He’ll unpack that later. Or maybe never, which would be for the best. He’s suddenly very glad he was completely unconscious for every moment Tad was next to him in the tent.
The sky is pastel and a few stars are battling the sunrise for the right to be the brightest thing in the sky. Lewis has never been good at knowing what he’s looking at. If he hadn’t passed out last night, he’s sort of confident he could have found the Big Dipper. As for what he’s looking at now? No clue.
Would Tad know? He seems so happy out here.
Pink creeps up from the horizon, then red, tendrils of color whispering across the sky. By the time orange appears, brightening until it fades the other hues to nothing, the last of the stars are gone, and Lewis regrets not asking Tad what he was looking at.
Tad lets out a long, relaxed sigh. “I never get tired of this.”
“It’s beautiful,” Lewis says. When he decided to go camping, this was what he envisioned—nature, quiet, sunrise, sunset. Feeling manageably insignificant in the face of the universe, not like, shit-I’m-going-to-get-lost-in-the-wilderness insignificant.
They watch the sun rise. With another happy sigh, Tad says, “I can make coffee, if you want some?”
“Oh, that sounds amazing, but….” Lewis grimaces. “I didn’t even think about buying anything to make coffee in.”
“I did, though.” Tad looks immensely pleased with himself.
It’s totally warranted. “You’re amazing,” Lewis says. “Yes, coffee, please.”
Pale, early morning light floods the mountain by the time they’re ready to go. Lewis’s backpack doesn’t feel so heavy this morning. He takes the lead on the trail, feeling confident again about the choice to do this. Amazing what a good night’s sleep can do.
The air warms as the sun gets higher. They take regular breaks, which Lewis definitely needs. He’s in pretty good shape, but the thinner air is getting to him.
Around midmorning, they stop for a snack, sitting on a boulder next to a dry stream bed. A little brown bird hops around on the ground, studying them. Lewis wonders how many people it sees. It doesn’t seem afraid. It also doesn’t seem like it wants any food, which is a change from New York wildlife.
“Do you know what kind of bird that is?” Lewis asks.
Tad takes a bite of his protein bar. “Nope. You’re either a plant person or a bird person, but you can’t be both, and I’m a plant person.”
Lewis laughs. “Oh yeah? Is that official?”
“Nerdery’s Fourth Law.”
The bird hops closer, cocks its head, and scratches the ground. “I guess if we were going to stay together, I’d have to become a bird person,” Lewis says. “You know, for balance.”
Tad stills mid-chew. He swallows and smiles, though there’s something kind of forced about it. “I guess.”
Awkwardness alert. In a transparent attempt to distract, Lewis points to a tree nearby. “What’s that?”
Tad arches an eyebrow. “A tree.”
“Ha ha. What kind of tree, plant guy?”
With a smirk, Tad finishes his protein bar and puts the wrapper in his pack. He approaches the tree while Lewis remains seated, still nibbling the protein bar. He’s definitely not admiring the way Tad walks, his smooth, sort of loping swagger. And he’s not checking out the way his jeans hug his ass, or how great his legs look, or how the way the morning light hits his white T-shirt makes it a little translucent, so Lewis can see the suggestion of the muscles in his back.
“It’s a pinyon pine, but I’m not sure which kind,” Tad calls. “Want to eat some nuts?”
Lewis chokes on his protein bar. Even from a distance of twenty feet, he can see how red Tad’s face is.
“Um. From the tree. Tree nuts.” Tad covers his eyes. “Why is that not making it better?”
Polishing off the bar and stowing his trash, Lewis joins Tad. “I love nuts,” he says seriously. “How do I get these? Do I have to tug and squeeze gently?”
Tad’s face gets redder. “Not necessary.”
“Oh. Okay, well, I like to suck on them—”
“Oh my god.” Tad covers his face with both hands, then blindly flails and smacks Lewis in the chest. “Thanks! Thanks . I’ll remember this moment until the day I die.”
Grinning, Lewis grabs Tad’s wrists and draws his hands away from his face. “That would be a huge honor. If I’m going to be remembered on anyone’s death bed, you can’t beat some good old-fashioned sexual innuendo.”
His hands are still around Tad’s wrists. He can feel bones and tendons and Tad’s pulse.
He lets go. Tad plucks a pinecone off the tree. Lewis watches as he sticks a finger between the bristles, until Tad makes a triumphant noise and produces a single seed.
When he drops it in Lewis’s open palm, Lewis says, “It looks like a pine nut.”
“They’re related.”
“So I’m not going to die if I eat this?”
Tad gives him a crooked smile. “What would I possibly have to gain by feeding you poison seeds?”
“Well, there’s my massive inheritance….” Lewis shrugs. “It’s only a couple million though, definitely not worth black widowering me over.”
Tad laughs. That sound puts Lewis on very dangerous ground.
YOLO though, right? Ugh, no, he’s going to leave that one firmly in 2012 where it belongs. Lewis pops the nut in his mouth, lets the flavor hit his tongue—
And spits it out, gagging. His tongue feels furry. Tad’s mouth is twitching in a poor attempt not to laugh. “I could’ve just died ,” Lewis gripes. “And you’re laughing .”
Tad presses his lips together and shakes his head, but his eyes are dancing. “What did it taste like?”
“ Sap .”
“How do you know what sap tastes like?”
For one wild second, he thinks about kissing Tad, deeply and with plenty of tongue, and informing him, now you know what it tastes like too .
Maybe he looks spooked, because Tad’s smile fades. “Sorry. It won’t hurt you, really. I should’ve warned you about the taste, though. Sorry.”
Lewis doesn’t miss how Tad brackets his explanation with apologies. “Hey, it’s fine,” he says. Tad looks—scared? There’s this look in his eyes that makes Lewis want to wrap him up in a tight hug. “I didn’t have to put the thing in my mouth.”
There’s a silence. Tad stares at the ground. Then, he says quietly, “That’s what he said.”
Lewis snorts with laughter, and Tad’s eyes flicker up to meet his. His hair falls in them and Lewis isn’t sure he realized until this moment how blue they are. They remind him of Greek islands—bright blue roofs, bright blue ocean, bright blue sky.
Luminous. Like Tad’s smile.
Danger danger danger.
Sucking in a breath, Tad asks, “Should we keep going? If we want to get to the campsite, we have to do six miles today.”
Six miles seemed totally manageable in the comfort of Lewis’s apartment. “How far have we hiked?”
“Um… if I had to guess? A little under a mile.”
Oh. Shit. They need to pick up the pace. Lewis really wants to get to this campsite. The pictures make it look really pretty—tall pines, a trickling stream, gorgeous view of Arc Dome and Toiyabe Dome. They can refill their empty water bottles in the stream.
Lewis plotted his route to stay close to water, and the plan is to end the trip at a small mountain lake. He arranged for a camping outfitter to pick him up and drive him back to his car on the last day. That means they have to be at that lake on the last day, or no ride.
“Guess we better get moving,” Lewis says.
The day is warm. Lewis works up a sweat as the hours pass. So does Tad, which Lewis surreptitiously admires when they take a break or when Tad is in the lead on the trail. Once, Tad twists up the hem of his shirt to wipe his face, and Lewis gets a view of toned abs, a defined V-cut, and dark hair.
It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but he really wants to see it again—and not in quick flashes. He wants to peel off Tad’s sweaty clothes—
He does not want to get an obvious boner, so he pulls out the map and calculates how far they’ve walked.
Maybe it’s because he’s congratulating himself on not getting a visible hard-on, but as they’re traversing a downhill slope, Lewis puts his foot in a bad spot. His heel slips from under him and the weight of his pack throws off his center of gravity.
He tips forward, arms flailing.
Tad is in front of him, so Lewis yells something garbled. It gets the point across—Tad whirls.
Instead of getting out of the way, which is what Lewis wanted him to do, Tad plants himself, opens his arms, and catches Lewis.
Arms wrap around him and Lewis clutches Tad, feet scrabbling for purchase. “I’ve got you,” Tad says, his voice steady and comforting and close to Lewis’s ear.
His feet are still slipping. He can’t get them back under him. He’s just—falling. He’s falling and the only reason he isn’t rolling down this trail is because Tad’s there to hold him up. He needs to get his feet under himself. He needs to get his body under his own control again, gravity be damned.
“Hey,” Tad says. “Just—relax. Okay? I promise. I’ve got you.”
Relax? Lewis can’t relax. That’s the point of this whole trip, to help him relax! Nature already defeated him after sixteen hours and three miles.
The sound of gravel skittering and bouncing down the slope quiets as everything Lewis dislodged reaches the bottom. Birds call, but otherwise, everything is silent. Lewis is breathing hard. His heart pounds.
His feet aren’t sliding anymore. Without realizing, he did what Tad said and relaxed.
Tad shifts his grip. Their bodies press together and Lewis is able to get first one foot, then the other, solidly beneath him.
Tad’s arms retreat, his hands coming to rest on Lewis’s hips. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Lewis says, hating how breathless he sounds. “Thanks.”
His own arms are still around Tad’s neck. One hand is buried in Tad’s hair, silky auburn strands escaping between his fingers. Tad feels warm and vital, chest rising and falling like he knight-in-shining-armors every day, catching dudes in distress in his lean, well-muscled arms. He smells good—like honest sweat and something clean that must be his laundry detergent.
The urge to bury his face in the crook of Tad’s neck almost overpowers Lewis. Then the urge to throw himself backward nearly does him in. Just in time, he remembers he almost fell down this hill once already.
Carefully, he steps backward. Tad’s hands linger at his hips, a light touch that seems like genuine concern. “Guess my city kid is showing,” Lewis says sheepishly.
Tad drops his hands and offers Lewis a lopsided smile. “Don’t worry—I fall on my ass at least once every camping trip.”
“Well, thanks for the save.”
“Any time,” Tad says, his voice a little softer.
They stand still, not touching, but eyes locked. Lewis is having a hard time remembering why he can’t kiss Tad again. Something something bad at picking boyfriends? Blah blah broken heart? Maybe a broken heart is worth it for another chance to be skin-to-skin with Tad.
He leans forward. Tad’s eyelids flutter and lower to half-mast.
Pebbles skitter as Tad turns and continues along the trail. “Six miles!” he calls over his shoulder.
It’s teasing, but there’s something else, too—something nervy. Something maybe even scared.
Lewis wants to kick himself. He was the one who shut down any more sex or romance between them. He was the one who drew a line in the sand and said they had to be platonic, or maybe even less. And now he’s the one who got caught up in the moment and almost kissed Tad.
Idiot. This is why he keeps getting his heart broken.
Good thing one of them remembers the boundaries Lewis set, even if it’s not Lewis.
THE VIEW at the campsite is even better than in the pictures.
Lewis spends ages admiring the vista. The sky, the mountains, everything wide open and massive. Dusty green pines against the powder blue dome of the sky and the heathered brown of the mountain.
Tad joins him. They don’t speak, partly because Lewis can’t figure out how to apologize for what happened earlier, and partly because the silence feels, despite earlier, comfortable.
There’s a fire pit at the campsite, ash and charred wood from the last campers still in the center of its soot-blackened ring of stones. They collect enough wood—unlike at their impromptu site last night, this one has trees and plenty of brush—and get a fire going.
Sunset light catches Tad’s profile, outlining his high forehead, his slightly-too-long nose, his sharp cheekbones, the elegant line of his throat. Lewis can’t decide what colors the sky and the fire are making of Tad’s hair and skin; all he knows is he can’t look away. They change from one moment to the next, never staying the same, but always, always making Tad more beautiful.
Lewis was wrong earlier when he thought there was only day or night. There’s this other thing, this in-between. There’s dawn and dusk and the liminal, shifting magic of the light changing, the sky and Tad’s eyes refusing to stay one color.
He was wrong earlier when he told Tad there couldn’t be anything between them—and now he doesn’t know how to take it back.