by Sloan Parker
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“I know.” He turned his head and kissed my stomach. “I know.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
We stayed in that position for at least a half hour, Richard’s head on my stomach, my fingers buried in his hair. I heard his uneven breaths, felt his restlessness, even though he hadn’t moved an inch.
Eventually I drifted off to sleep. I awoke sometime later to find Richard on his side facing away from me. I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or not. I wanted to lean into him and snuggle up against his back, but I held still and let my eyes fall shut again.
When I got up just after dawn, he was climbing out of the tent. Luke was gone too, up and outside before Richard. After I slipped out of the tent, I expected that Richard—or even Luke—would encourage us to talk about the night before. Neither said a word.
As soon as we had the tent and other supplies packed up and were ready to go, Richard simply asked me, “You got the map?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. Let’s see what we can find today.”
As we hiked through the park, Luke chatted about the picturesque views and the uneven terrain, but ultimately he grew quiet too.
During our lunch break, we sat on a fallen red oak and ate energy bars, nuts, and dried fruit. Luke occasionally commented on some interestingly shaped vegetation he’d never seen before or the strange squawk of a bird.
Richard still said nothing.
I kept turning on my phone throughout the day but had no signal so I had no way to update Tomas. Which probably wasn’t a bad thing. I had nothing new to tell him. The rest of the time, we kept our phones off to save the last of our batteries.
As before, we stopped searching for the day when the sun began to slip behind the horizon. We skipped building a fire. The night air was warm enough, and the park had a regulation against starting campfires anywhere other than at designated camping sites. I gathered together another simple meal of energy bars and dried veggie snacks while they worked on setting up the tent. After we finished eating, they went to check out the nearby stream, and I tugged out my phone to try texting Tomas once more. I actually had a signal this time, but it was weak. I sent a text anyway, and a minute later, a message popped up stating the text couldn’t be sent.
I started to retry but stopped when I heard hushed tones coming from the water’s edge. With the flow of the stream, they must’ve thought I wouldn’t be able to hear them.
“What do you mean?” Richard asked.
“Why aren’t you making him talk about what happened last night?”
“He’ll talk about it when he’s ready.”
“Since when the hell do you wait until we’re ready?”
“Luke.” Exasperation and heavy sorrow tainted Richard’s voice. He breathed deep. When he continued, his tone was soft, sad. “This isn’t exactly easy for me. What he said…”
He trailed off, and then there was nothing more from him.
“Yeah,” Luke said. “I get it. But you know he didn’t mean it, right?”
At first, Richard said nothing more. Then in an even lower voice came, “It was just so hard to hear him talk to me like that. He was so angry and… hurtful. It wasn’t like him.”
I shot to my feet and strode away from the campsite in the opposite direction of the stream, moving farther into the forest. Nightfall was approaching, and I had no idea where I was going. I just needed to move, needed to get away from the dark thoughts rolling through my head. Just for a few seconds.
I couldn’t stand that I’d hurt Richard. Again. I couldn’t stand that I’d been so filled with anger and frustration that I’d said something that terrible to him.
As I marched faster, my boots slammed against the dirt ground, the impact reverberating throughout my body, a perfect match for the racing beat of my heart. I couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t stop hearing myself shout those awful words at Richard.
I tripped over a branch lying on the ground. My ankle twisted as I fell forward onto my stomach, my palms scraping across the harsh dirt and prickly brush. “Goddammit.”
Pushing myself off the ground, I got up and cradled my lower leg in both hands until the ache lessened. I tried walking again. A blister had been forming on my right heel for the past few hours of our hike that day, and now my ankle on the opposite side stung with each footfall. The combined pain added to my aggravation.
“Matthew!”
That was Richard. He sounded far off.
I stopped. Where the hell was I? I thought I’d only taken a few steps away from our campsite, but I could no longer see any illumination from the battery-powered lantern we’d left sitting near the tent. The woods around me was now pitch black.
Shit.
I called out, “I’m here.”
“Matthew!”
I tried again. “I’m here. I’m okay.”
“Where? Say something else.” Richard’s voice grew louder.
“Over here.”
I spotted them to my right. They were coming toward me, Luke carrying the lantern, and Richard storming forward, a look of complete panic on his face.
He stepped up to me, and without so much as a hesitation, he pulled me into a fierce embrace. “What happened to our deal to stick together, no matter what?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I went so far. I just needed a minute to myself.”
“Fair enough. But next time, you take your minute within view of the campsite. All right?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Just twisted my ankle a bit. I’m fine.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yeah.”
He kept his arm around me as we started back, Luke beside us, holding up the lantern to light our way.
We’d only made it ten steps before Richard frantically jerked me to a stop.
There, some thirty yards ahead and outside the radius of our lamp, were several four-legged figures, moving across our path, barely visible in the dim light of the moon seeping through the tree limbs.
“Coyotes?” Luke asked in a hushed whisper as he cranked the light off.
“No,” I said. “Too big. I think they’re…” We were too far away, and it was too dark for me to get a good look, so maybe I was wrong.
“What?” Luke whispered. “What are they?”
“Wolves.”
Luke lowered his voice more. “Thought there are no wolves in this part of the country.”
The last of the pack stopped directly in front of us. Its head scanned our way. Spotting us, it remained motionless, a living statue with its glowing eyes fixated on us.
“Whatever happens,” I said, “don’t run. And don’t turn your back to it. Do exactly what I do and be ready to back away slowly if this doesn’t work.”
“Why?” Richard reached out for me. “What are you going to do?”
“Scare them off. Just follow my lead and make yourselves look as big as possible.” I raised my arms overhead and waved them in the air, trying to appear as intimidating and menacing as I could. When that alone didn’t work, I screamed unintelligible sounds at the creature. Luke and Richard did the same.
The wolf, if that was what it was, startled and then trotted off in a rush. In seconds the entire pack was out of sight.
When I turned back to them, Luke nodded. “Nice.”
Richard scanned the trees in the direction the animals had gone. “Will they be back?”
“Probably not.” That didn’t seem to appease him. “Wolf attacks are incredibly rare. When they happen, it’s usually because a human was trying to save their pet dog, or something along those lines. Humans are actually more a danger to wolves then they are to us.”
“Still. Let’s get back to the campsite.” He helped me walk again.
Once at our tent, we slipped inside. I lay back on the makeshift bed as Richard removed my shoes and socks and carefully examined my ankle with his fingertips. He rotated
my foot. “Does this hurt?”
“No. There’s just a twinge when I walk on it. It’s no big deal.”
“Well, you stay off it until the morning, and we’ll see how it is before we start out.”
“All right.”
He moved in to lie beside me. Luke was already on my other side. I stared through the mesh ventilation in the tent’s roof to the tree tops and stars of the night sky above, grateful we hadn’t put the rainfly cover over the tent this time so I had something else to focus on as I tried to calm the anxiety racing through me.
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know you are.” Richard reached for me and pulled me to him.
I folded my arms around him and buried my face in his chest. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I just wanted you to stop talking about leaving. I had to say something to get you to stop.”
“I know.” He ran a hand down my back. “And it’s okay. I’m not mad at you.”
I tilted my head backward so I could see his face. “But I never should’ve talked to you like that. I lashed out at you, and I—” I sucked in an uncontrollable gasp. I was instantly back to that moment when my dad first struck me. I sat up and scooted away from them until I was between their feet, my back to the tent door. “Oh my God! Oh my God!”
“What?” Luke asked as they both bolted upright. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just like him.” I gaped at them, but it wasn’t Luke or Richard I saw. It was the anger etched on my dad’s face. “I’m just like my father.”
“God, no.” Richard slid forward. “You are nothing like him, you hear me?” He held my cheeks in his large hands. “You never could be.”
I shook my head, not even sure what I meant by that.
He tenderly ran his hands up and down my arms as he said more. “You were upset. Everyone gets upset at times. It’s normal. We all sometimes say things that hurt the people we love. Coming to the park for your interview and Alex’s disappearance has brought up a lot of painful stuff for you. It’s okay for you to feel angry and frustrated. It’s okay for you to make mistakes, Matthew.”
“Yeah,” Luke agreed. “Mistakes aren’t bad. They help you become a better person if you allow yourself to really see what you’ve done wrong. Trust me, I know.”
I nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I just… I don’t want to ever be like him. I don’t want anything to change between the three of us because of my mistakes.”
Richard leaned forward until our foreheads were pressed together. “It won’t. Ever.”
I took in the feel of him, the scent of him, his warmth, his love for me. I pulled back and searched his face. “That thing I said to you, about you making me do something I didn’t want…”
Richard dropped his arms and eyed me for a long breath. “Yeah?”
“You’re going to be afraid of touching me again, aren’t you?”
“No. I’m done with that. I’m not holding anything back from you. Ever again.” He had his hands on my face again, tilting my head up so all I could do was stare into those loving green eyes. “I’m so completely in love with you. I love everything about you, and I want you to feel that in every moment between us.” He kissed me, a soft, sweet affirmation of his words.
I looked to Luke. He shook his head, and the reaction worried me until he said, “You’re nothing like him. How can you not see that? You’re such a beautiful person, inside and out. You’re smarter and stronger than you ever give yourself credit for. And you’re the sweetest guy I’ve ever known.”
“And addictive,” Richard said. “Don’t forget addictive.”
Luke laughed. “That’s right. Sweet and addictive.”
I laughed with them, remembering our third night at the Haven when they’d first said those words to me.
Luke kissed me, a replica of that loving kiss from Richard, and I fell into it.
As Richard came forward and joined the kiss, the embrace went beyond affection and adoration. It was breathtaking, loving, then passionate and powerful. They lowered me down onto the sleeping bag, undressed me and each other, and they showed me just what they thought of me, what they felt for me in every caress of my body, every breath they grazed over my skin, every word they whispered over my heart.
It was a sensual, beautiful slide of male body against male body, Richard lying on top of me, gliding our erections together, Luke alongside me, kissing me, my hand wrapped around his length as he thrust against me.
They came one after the other, and when I followed, it was explosive, crashing, a physical affirmation of our words.
In the quiet that followed, we all lay there together, wrapped up in each other.
As if I had drifted to some far-off place during the sex, the nocturnal sounds of the forest and the gentle flow of the stream gradually resurfaced, filling the night air around us.
Without making a move, Richard cleared his throat. “Matthew.”
“Yeah?”
“I need you to believe me that I forgive you for what you said, and I’m not going to let it get into my head. I’m not going to let it come between us.”
“I believe you.” I turned so I lay on my stomach between them, then lifted up onto my elbows so I could see them both. “How we move forward—in our lives and our relationship—is our choice. I will always choose us, over any fear or doubt or anything else.”
Richard grinned at me and said again, “I love you.”
Luke offered me the same pleased smile. “Who the hell wouldn’t?”
Richard snorted out his agreement. Then he added more seriously, “Everyone he met before us.”
“Thank God.”
“Yep, he’s all ours.”
“Yep.” Luke wrapped an arm around my waist. “Ours.”
* * * * *
I had no lingering pain in my ankle the next morning. We headed north from our campsite. The ground leveled off some as we got farther away from the popular trails and trekked deeper into the thick grove of chestnut oak trees, ducking under the overhanging limbs jutting out into the trail and listening to the constant crunch of underbrush beneath our feet.
It wasn’t too long before we stumbled upon an opening in the trees to the right of the footpath. A larger dirt path lay past that, wide enough for a vehicle. I stepped out onto it. “This must be one of the access roads the sheriff mentioned.”
“Can we follow it?” Luke asked. “It’d sure be easier hiking this than that narrow trail.”
I checked the map the sheriff had given me and compared the marked access road to our destination on the other map. “Yeah. This heads north for a while. We should be able to stay on it until it curves in the other direction. We’ll be close to the river again.”
“Sounds good.” Richard gestured ahead. “Lead the way.”
We followed the access road for a couple of hours. When the bend in the road was visible ahead, I stopped. “I can hear the river.” I checked the map. “The trail comes close to the road here. We should be able to get back to it right through those trees.”
We headed that way and came upon the footpath just inside the tree line. We took that for another two hours, until we reached our next search location: the top ridge of a narrow, deep gorge. At the far edge of the gorge sat another waterfall. This one featured a delicate curtain of water that tumbled over a red and orange rock wall. The flow of water gently cascaded into a sparkling pool below. The scent of old hemlock trees sweetened the cool air. It all resulted in a more tranquil, serene experience than any of the previous falls.
“Damn,” Luke said, “this one is really cool.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I can see why Alex loved coming here.”
We took another moment to admire the sight, then got started on our search.
We examined the upper ridge first. As with the other locations, we didn’t find his backpack or anywhere the brush had been disturbed as if so
meone had fallen into the water below. There was also no way a vehicle could’ve traveled from the access road to the gorge’s edge through the dense grove of trees, or into the valley that led to the river.
I pointed down into the gorge. “Let’s take a look along the water.”
Richard indicated to our left. “There’s a path over here.”
We started down, the path quickly turning into a zigzagging staircase. Unlike the previous stairs we’d seen, these had been constructed with thoughtful purpose so they’d feel like part of the surrounding landscape. At the base, we searched more. An hour passed, and we still hadn’t found anything.
I was about to give up and suggest we return to the trail and make our way to the next location on the map when I saw it.
Back over the ridge of the gorge, above the waterfall, a bright object glinted in the light between the branches of the trees, like the sun was bouncing off something metal or glass, maybe a window or a mirror. “Look.” I gestured for them to follow and started the climb back up the stairs to the ridgeline.
“Be careful,” Richard called out as he and Luke hurried up after me.
At the top, I followed the edge of the gorge toward a break in the trees where the forest opened up to a meadow. Striking beams of sunshine lit the green field. The grass under my feet was softer than the dirt trails we’d been hiking all week.
But what really stood out was what sat at the far edge of the meadow.
Near a small cluster of oak trees and covered in loose brush and leaves was a pickup truck. Barely visible on the side of the vehicle were the words Windtree Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“It’s Alex’s truck!”
I sprinted forward.
The brush had obviously been added to obscure the truck from view, but a couple of the tree limbs had slipped off and now lay on the ground. The canopy of tall oak trees along the far side of the truck most likely kept the vehicle from being seen from above by the search helicopter. Hell, it had been difficult to see the truck from the edge of the meadow. If it hadn’t been for the sunlight bouncing off the side mirror, I might’ve missed it completely.