by Anyta Sunday
He moved to my ear and whispered, lightly running his hands down my arms. “That’s better.”
The small grin on my face widened to a fully fledged smile. “Well then, let’s go!”
“Just got to say goodbye to Mom, Dad and Patricia.” He called out their names, and when there was no answer walked into the adjoining room where they all sat eating brunch. I gave a small wave to Patricia when she looked at me. Trey’d briefly mentioned that Patricia was going to be living at his house for a while. Until she had her alcohol problem more under control. She raised both her brows in a resigned way, looking from me to Trey, and I imagined the inner sigh that went with it. “Watch out!” she mouthed. I moved my gaze over to Trey hugging his mom. I could tell by the way he gripped her back, he held her tight. But her hands remained at her side. She gave him the weakest of smiles before facing Patricia again.
Trey watched her a moment longer, and then turned to his dad. Same build although slightly smaller, he looked a lot like Trey, but where Trey was an extrovert, this guy was held back, quiet. We’d met for the first time last night. I liked him the best of the three. When Trey had introduced me as ~ feehree.his boyfriend, he’d nodded and given me a small smile.
Now, he spoke softly to Trey. From my position at the door, I heard snippets on camping safely. Trey clapped a hand on his shoulder and then came back to me.
“Right. Let’s go then, shall we?” “Let’s.”
It took us less than an hour to pile into the car and reach the beginning of the round trip track. We hooked on our packs —Trey carrying the tent, and me carrying the most of the food and water so we had equal weight. I’d done a lot of hiking before, so despite Trey’s offer to supply the sleeping bag and camping equipment, I brought my own.
We started the track through a grove and over some fields leading to a bigger wood. The trail, well worn by families and mountain bikers, lead us surely through the trees, winding along a small stream to our left. Leaves latticed above us locked out the sky, except for moments when it opened up, allowing a lovely view of a distant lake surrounded by greenery.
At one such view point, a couple of hours into the walk— hours of comparing hike and camping stories—we stopped for a drink. Despite the cool air and low clouds, sweat ran down the sides of my temples and back where the bag had stuck to me. I aired my polypro top, and smiled as Trey did the same. The track was on the simpler side of others I’d— we’d, by the sound of it—had done before, but somehow this one was more intense. Meant more. It felt like a test or something. And it both unnerved and excited me.
“Want anything to eat now?” Trey pulled out a couple of bars.
I grabbed one. “Cheers.” And then we continued walking some more, crunching over the leaves of the deciduous trees. Trey picked up a large red one. “As a kid when we came up here, I used to collect as many leaves as I could.” The path had narrowed so Trey slunk behind me as we continued walking. “I used to take an empty pillow case, and by the time I got to the camping spot, I had a pillow full of leaves.”
I chuckled. “You sure love your pillows.” A small breeze whirled my words to the front, away from him.
“What was that?” I thought about repeating, but held my hand back for him to squeeze instead. “I thought about bringing one and doing it again, but—” Trey stopped as drops of rain splashed around and on us. “—crap.”
On the narrow path, we swung off our packs and got out our raincoats. Trey’s was a dark brown and mine a deep red. We continued through the shower. Trey laughed behind me.
“What?” I said as loudly so that he’d hear me. “Nothing… my little red riding hood.”
I spun around, startling him into a larger, way more mischievous grin. Oh, this was going to be fun. “And what does that makeyou?”
He dropped the smile, stepped closer, our chests almost touching. “Hungry.”
I clasped the back of his neck and smashed a kiss to his lips.SureI’mnot the wolf in disguise?I held myself back from saying it though. I was pretty sure if I said it out loud it would sound lame. In fact, it was embarrassing enough I thought such lines.
We kissed harder for a few moments, and my hands were trailing his body.
“Um,” Trey said, “we’d better keep this pg. Kids use this track.”
“Right.” We created a small space between us, but it seemed the both of us needed a moment before we could comfortably continue.
For another hour we chatted as we walked. Laughing and joking away was perfect. I didn’t think anything would be able to break our good mood.
I rounded a narrow bend and our path began to decline. The contrast on the legs from going uphill to downhill felt refreshing. Although, I preferred going up, down was harder on the knees.
A set of stone stairs had been planted into a particularly steep drop. Trey had begun to hum Scarborough Fair behind me and the sound mad ~ed ht of e me itch inside and want to, want to—I jumped onto the first step and with a noticeable bounce in my step continued.
“Shane, careful babe.” And he cared! I practically skipped the next few steps and —whoosh, fuck!I slipped on some wet leaves, landing hard backward and sliding down the last few steps. Thank God for my pack!
Trey swore and was at my side in no time. Embarrassed at falling, I avoided his eye as I picked myself up. He wouldn’t let me do it alone though, and gripped my arms adding his support. When he was sure I wasn’t injured he threw my arms down. “What the fuck was that about, Shane? I told you to be careful.”
His fists were balls at his side, pumping. I dared a glance at his face. Ah, not pretty—red and furious. “God, do you know how stupid—”
Why the hell was he getting so worked up about this? “Shit. You could have… you might have…” Livid wasn’t strong enough to describe him right now. And his overreaction was…too much.
I met his eye. “It was a fucking slip, Trey. Don’t get so worked up about it.”
He held my gaze only a few moments longer before turning away. With energy and violence he kicked the nearest tree and stalked off, jumping over the small stream, opposite the path.
Fuck it. I stormed ahead, keeping to the trail. This whole thing was ridiculous in my mind, and I kept replaying the scene in my head trying to get his anger.
Yeah, so I hadn’t listened to him when he asked me to be careful. But that didn’t feel like where his reaction stemmed from. I looked at Trey slightly ahead across the river, weaving through trees. We pretended to ignore each other. When he glanced my way, I made sure to focus on the path ahead of me. But I’d see him look away and hit a tree or something. I wished I could understand—like a foul wind it hit me. Stupid. Shit, I was stupid! My falling, perhaps it reminded him of his Aunt?
I sucked in a deep breath and studied him. His slumped posture, the hurt in his walk. This time when he looked back at me, I met and held his gaze. We both stopped walking, a silent conversation between us. A begging on my behalf for him to get back over here.
Trey trudged down the small bank and leaped over the yard wide stream. When he reached my side, his eyes looked saddened. “Oh fuck Shane,” his voice was gentle, breaking slightly at my name, “I’m so sorry.”
“Talk to me about it?” I held my breath, letting it go in a sigh as he shook his head. “I can’t. Not right now. But, I will. Trust me, yeah?” His lashes came together as he closed his eyes, waiting for my response. Hoping I trusted him?
“Of course, Trey.” I gripped his chin angling his face to look at me. He did. And in his eyes was that same something I’d seen so many times now, but still couldn’t place. Warm, caring, it was like looking into an embrace.
He linked his fingers through mine and silently—and side by side—we continued the last half an hour to the camping spot. The weather meant we shared the grounds with few other people. I counted two tents at the far end of the bank near the lake shore. We set up our tent at the opposite end on slightly risen ground to avoid being flooded in the night, sh
ould the drizzle turn into something more.
“It’s so good to be far away from everything,” I said, pushing in the last peg of our tent fly, and then looking out to the murky lake waters.
“I agree. I like to come up here to chill. I make the trip maybe twice a year. Sometimes more, depending.” Trey grabbed a folded piece of paper from his bag and opened it. Over his shoulder I glimpsed an inelegant—child-like scrawl. But he closed it before I could inspect properly.
“So what would you like to do?” I looked at the lake giving Trey a suggestive raise of the brow. He didn’t need any more telling. We stripped out of our damp clothes and raced into the water, swimmin ~en Tslightly g and splashing around until we were both exhausted and evening had crawled in. We changed into dry clothing and Trey whipped up a surprisingly good dinner, considering our location. He’d even brought a small package of salt and herb mix to sprinkle on top. Yum.
I licked the fork and placed it in my bowl. We sat in a little cooking area—basically there were picnic benches, a table for cooking and a roof sheltering us. Oh, and a tap for rinsing dishes.
Trey kept glancing over my shoulder out towards the woods. “Something on your mind?” I asked, starting to clean up.
“There’s something I want to show you. After we’re done here.” “Okay,” I said taking his bowl and fork, “but this will go faster if you sit down and let me do it.”
He grinned. “I’m not that bad you know. I have cleaned dishes before.”
“I’ve seen it.” He’d filled up a sink of soapy water and dunked the pots in first, and then proceeded to use the dirty water to wash the cups and cutlery. Ah, justno.
He grinned. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to make up for it some other way.” As soon as I’d finished and we’d returned everything to the tent, Trey slunk an arm around my waist and pulled me out into the rapidly darkening evening. With a torch in one hand, Trey led me to the wood. At the fringe, he started counting the trees as we passed them. At twenty, we made a right and walked another ten trees into the darkness. I shivered just a bit, and Trey flicked the switch, illuminating an oval of wood floor.
“We’re close. Two trees up this way,” he whispered, “on the northern side of the trunk.” I smiled—there was just something about the dark and the need to whisper. I did the same thing, and it amused me.
Once we got there, I scanned the wood, confused. As far as I could tell, it looked exactly the same here as it did twenty trees back. But I had to be missing something. I stole the torch and searched the trees. Maybe he had a tree house or something he wanted to show me?
Trey chuckled and took back the torch. “What I want to show you is under my feet.” He pointed the light downward. A pile of leaves? I frowned, but crouched down with him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a spoon. Setting the torch up like a lantern, he looked at me. “I…” He dug the tip of the spoon into the dirt. “Ten years ago, I buried something here. I wanted you—us both to see it.”
I held my breath, as he shoveled away the earth. The shadows the light cast over his face distorted his proportions; his nose looked longer, his cheeks shallower. But the deepness of his eyes remained the same. Beautiful.
“It was a school project,” he continued, his voice still in a husky whisper. The hole, cookie tin wide was now as deep as the spoon. “We had to put things in a box. Things that were important to us.” He laughed. “I’ve forgotten what I had in there.” There was a clunk against something metallic. Trey ditched the spoon and reached into the hole with his hands. A bit of tugging and flying dirt later, out came a square tin with faded pictures of robots on it.
Clutched to him, he studied it, a small smile curling one side of his lips. “Babe? Let’s go back to the tent to look at this.”
I nodded and we both stood up, me grabbing the torch while he roughly refilled the hole. Ten minutes later we were back inside the tent and once we’d each hopped into our sleeping bags, Trey took the tin and placed it between us.
“Are you sure you want me to look in there with you?” I said, searching his gaze. “It’s just…maybe you’d prefer to look over them by yourself first?”
He shook his head, holding my gaze. In here we had two touches, one set up like a lantern, and the other I’d tied up using a ribbon dangling from the roof of the tent. We could see each other clearly. And I liked it.
“No, I want to show you, share this with you.” ~ped ing With a pocket knife, he cut through the waxed seal around the lid and yanked it off. His breath came out in shuddering puffs. The emotions that crossed his face conflicting with each other. Happy and sad. He glanced at me and gently laid the tin on the floor.
In it were some cards, photos, paper, coins, and some little toy figure. He picked up the cards first, handing me half. “My basketball trading cards 2002.” Trey lightly shook his head as if in memory. “I was such a Gilbert Arenas fan.” I shuffled through the cards, still in okay condition after so long buried underground.
“And this,” Trey said, placing the cards back and picking up the coins, “huh, this was my pocket money. Funny, I remember now, thinking that it might be really valuable one day.” He laughed, and I felt privileged and also in awe that he was letting me be a part of this. He exchanged the coins for the stack of photos. That was when he held his breath and closed his eyes briefly.
“Are you alright?” I crawled over to him so we sat side-byside. He lowered the pictures for me to see, though his hands shook.
“This was taken on my eighth birthday.” The entire family stood huddled together, all with smiles on their faces. Including Aunt Patricia standing just as tall as Trey’s mom. I wanted to know how long before her accident this was taken, but swallowed the question.
Trey leafed through the rest of the pictures one-by-one. They were all of family, some with just him and his brother, but most with the whole clan. The one that stuck out the most, and the one Trey lingered on the longest, was of his mom smacking a kiss to his cheek. I studied his expression as he drifted off into a reverie. His eyes glazed over, and his lashes lowered. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected he was holding back his tears just for my sake. Which he didn’t have to do.
I climbed out of my sleeping bag and went behind him, linking my legs around his middle and hugging his back. “You can cry if you want to, Trey. I don’t have to watch, if you don’t like. But I want to hold you like this, ’kay?” I squeezed him as tight as I could until I heard him sniff.
He put the photos back into the tin, shut it and pushed it to the side. Then I continued to hold him and rub his back while he rocked slightly and sobbed. “God, I’m sorry,” he said, leaning over to turn off the lights. “I didn’t think I’d get so emotional.”
When we were submerged in darkness, he twisted around and I cupped the side of his face. “Don’t be sorry.” I wanted instead to thank him for allowing me to be there for him. For not getting all macho on me and keeping it in. It showed he trusted me too, and that felt, well,important.And good. Yeah, real good.
I kissed his chin. “Just hold me tonight, babe?” he asked.
I answered with another kiss, soft, on the tip of his nose. I searched the dark for my sleeping bag and once I found it slipped in.
We lay down, and Trey thrashed about getting into a comfortable position.
“Bet you’re wishing you’d stuffed a pillow slip full of leaves about now,” I said, hearing the laughter in my voice.
“Well, I thought cuddling you would be enough.” His arms gripped me stronger mashing our lengths together. “But, ah, I guess no matter how much I love you, my neck just isn’t going to like sleeping on hard ground.”
I froze. My breath was lost somewhere, and my heart pumped overtime ringing, along with his words, in my ears. I didn’t trust myself to speak, in case I’d heard him wrong. Had imagined it. But Trey was quiet too. And still. As if waiting for a response.
Swallowing, I found a thread of voice and clung to it. “What did you just say?”
Chapter Seventeen
“I LOVE YOU, Shane.” His breath t ~en Ts Iangled with mine as I leaned in to kiss him. “Trey, I—” Fingers covered my lips. “I don’t want you to say it back right now. Don’t want there to be any obligation. Wait until you’re ready and you mean it. I just want you to know, I do. I really do, Shane.” He let go of my mouth. I heard the tremble in his voice. It warmed me. “I’ve felt it for a while. There were moments when I wanted to shout it, it was so strong. Just this week with the kids. The way you dealt with Jessie and Karl…”
Vivid in my mind was the look he’d given me when I’d turned around with Paul. Thatsomethingin his gaze I’d not been able to place—love?Love.
My insides flipped and my lips cracked from the biggest freaking smile I’d ever given. Trey could see it too, because he traced it with his thumb.
Injected with, hell, one large dose of happiness, I snatched his thumb lightly between my teeth and sucked the pad. Suggestively.
Trey laughed. “You know how good you are at that.” He wriggled free of my mouth, replacing his finger with a kiss. “But now let’s get some shut eye, so we can leave early tomorrow.”
Early meant crack of dawn. Trey had barely slept, and, thanks to his arms flying about whacking me, neither had I. But it meant we finished the walk and drive back to his place by twelve. Light and dizzy (still from that high), I’d said little the entire morning. Actually, I was sort of afraid I’d do or say something stupid and Trey would realize he made a mistake falling in love me. Silly? Yeah, well, it just felt like so much more was at stake now.
“Hello?” Trey said, coming through the front door. No answer. He did a quick scan of the rooms and shrugged. “Must be out.”
I dropped my pack to the floor. “Can I grab something to drink?”
Trey smiled. “No need to ask, make yourself at home.” Filling up two glasses of water, I glanced at a cookbook lying on the bench. Okay, I assumed it was a cookbook, because of the picture of pasta and vegetables on the cover.Die italienische Küche.Funny how easy it was to forget something like the fact Trey knew another language. I really had to take more advantage of that.