by Lucy Lennox
I let the kids explore the rocky shoreline as I headed for the spot I typically chose as the best camping site. I was glad for the few moments of privacy as I started getting the site set up.
But of course, it didn’t last.
I tried to ignore Bennett as he appeared a few feet away and set his pack against one of the three large logs surrounding the campfire area. I caught him sneaking glances in my direction, but surprisingly, he didn’t say anything. I watched him take a small camera from his pack and when he saw me looking at him, he said, “For the kids’ parents.”
I didn’t acknowledge the comment, nor did I watch him walk away. When I sensed a presence again, I was in the process of laying out the poles for my tent.
But it wasn’t Bennett whose foot suddenly stepped down on the pole I’d been about to reach for.
“You’re a real prick, you know that?” Aiden said when I looked up at him.
I was tempted to tell him to fuck off, but I tempered my anger. He was the client, after all. Didn’t matter that he was also fucking Bennett… or that he’d become that person in Bennett’s life that I should have been. Even if they weren’t sleeping together, I would have known they were best friends just by looking at them. The fact that Aiden was prepared to go to battle with me on Bennett’s behalf was just further proof of that.
“What I know is that you should stay out of it,” I said calmly. “Your dick belongs in his business, not mine,” I added.
“That’s the part that’s really pissing you off, isn’t it, Ranger Rick? That I have a part of him you never did.”
I managed to quell my response to knock him on his ass, but barely. As it was, I had to take a few steps away from him, so I pretended to get something out of my pack just so I had something to do with my hands. Otherwise I was afraid they’d end up wrapped around his throat.
“Yeah, he told me about you guys when you were kids,” Aiden continued. “He told me what he did to you, too.”
I couldn’t hide my reaction to that. Mostly because it felt like just another betrayal in a long line of many. What else had he told this asshole about me? How I was just the caretaker’s son? How Bennett had deigned to let me live in his shadow until he’d no longer had any use for me? Did he tell this man about all the plans we’d made as kids? Did the fucker know he was everything I should have been to Bennett?
“You should walk away now,” I said coolly.
“Or what? You gonna grab me like you did him?” Aiden said snippily. “Yeah, I saw you yesterday, big man.”
I assumed he was talking about the moment I’d slammed Bennett against that tree when he’d mentioned my dad. My hands fisted on their own and then I stepped over the log. Aiden was about my size, though not quite as heavily built. But he’d still be a worthy opponent, especially since he didn’t back down once we were pressed chest to chest.
And just like that, Bennett was there, pressing between us. “Don’t,” he said quietly, though his voice was flustered and tense. He forced Aiden back a few steps. “Leave it alone, Aiden.”
“You were kids, Bennett,” Aiden bit out. “You made mistakes, but you were still just a kid.”
Aiden’s declaration set off something inside of me that I was helpless to control.
“He wasn’t a kid, asshole,” I barked. My eyes fell to Bennett’s wide ones. “He was my entire fucking world!” I yelled, my voice cracking as the wound inside my chest that had scabbed over so long ago ripped open and bled for all the world to see.
Aiden had the grace to look surprised, but I didn’t give a shit. Because my eyes were on Bennett, who was looking at me with so much pain and regret that it had tears stinging the backs of my eyes. Had he never really understood what he’d done to me? God, that made everything so much worse. I ignored Bear who’d begun whining at my side, and I turned and stumbled over the log, knocking my pack aside in my desperation to escape. I barely noticed that all the kids were standing shell-shocked just behind us, their mouths open wide.
I didn’t care.
All I cared about was doing what I’d done that night fifteen years ago when Bennett had taken away the one remaining good thing in my life.
I ran.
Chapter 4
Bennett
I wanted to go after him. In fact, my feet had carried me clear across the campsite before Aiden’s large arms grabbed me around the waist and spun me around.
“Don’t,” he said. “He’s not worth it.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I hissed. “You don’t know shit. You saw him! He’s hurting.”
“Let him hurt, Bennett. If he can’t forgive you for something you did when you were a child, he doesn’t deserve your comfort or your friendship. It wasn’t your fucking fault.”
I felt a stinging in my throat and my entire body ached to follow Xander into the forest. After a moment of internal struggle, I sagged in Aiden’s arms.
“He hates me. I mean, I knew he hated me, but I had no idea how affected he was by this.” I extricated myself from my friend’s arms and straightened my clothes. “I didn’t know it was… fuck. I didn’t know it was this bad.”
“Why don’t you go sit by the lake for a little while and calm down? I was going to do one of the ice breaker games with the kids before dinner anyway.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, stepping away from him and retrieving my water bottle from my pack. “Thanks.”
As I made my way past the edge of the trees toward the lake, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of our surroundings. The late afternoon sun glinted off the surface of the water and cast shadows on the eastern side of the Woodland peaks in the distance beyond.
I thought about what Xander had said about hiking these woods since he’d moved to Colorado with his aunt. I’d never known where he was, where he’d ended up. There had been no way to even picture him in his new life. One minute he’d lived within a three-minute walk from my bedroom window and the next he’d been gone without a trace. I’d never even gotten to say goodbye.
After hearing a splash, I noticed a bird take off from the surface of the water. It pumped its wings to take it high into the fir trees to my left. I made my way to the edge of the lake and settled on a large boulder, reaching out to unlace my boots so I could test the temperature of the water.
When Xander and I had been eight years old, his dad had taken us camping in the Poconos. I remembered Mr. Reed teaching us how to fish and the look on Xander’s face the first time he’d gotten a bite on his line. I was pretty sure the fish had been less than two inches in length, but Xander had been proud as a fucking peacock about that thing. He’d danced around so long bragging about his big catch, that by the time he’d been ready to release it back into the water, the fish had been on its last legs. The poor little thing hadn’t made it, and Xander had been gutted.
He’d cried his fucking ass off, and later that night after Mr. Reed had gone to sleep, I’d snuck into Xander’s sleeping bag, wrapped my arms around him, and told him the little guy was in a better place. By the time I’d finished describing my idea of fishie heaven, Xander had been laughing so hard I’d had to cover his mouth with my hand so he wouldn’t wake up his father. We’d woken up the next morning in a tangle of limbs and it had just felt so normal and right. He’d been my best friend. Touching him hadn’t been weird, it had just been… natural.
At least I’d thought so. Until several years later when my dad had caught us curled up together on the sofa in the movie room watching Lord of the Rings. And then everything had changed. I’d thought I’d been protecting Xander, but now…
I still remembered Dad’s warning about me needing to keep my distance from Xander. To remember we were “just friends.” I’d laughed at first. Surely he’d been joking. Xander and I hadn’t just been friends, we’d been joined at the hip— we’d done everything together.
But that had been the beginning of things going bad for Xander and me. When I thought back on it now, I figured maybe my dad must have seen somethi
ng even I hadn’t been able to at the time. I’d always thought my father’s issue with how close Xander and I had been had had to do with our difference in station. I’d only realized later on in life that it likely hadn’t had anything to do with Xander’s dad being a gardener and everything to do with the fact that I would eventually commit the ultimate transgression against my powerful, high-profile family by proving to be solely attracted only to members of my own sex.
Heat and pain warred inside my belly as I remembered the stricken way Xander had looked right before he’d said those terrible words.
He was my entire fucking world!
Regret seared my insides like acid as I considered the damage I’d done. It didn’t matter that I’d thought I’d been doing the right thing at the time… that I’d done what I’d done with a child’s naive understanding of the world. I’d hurt him beyond words. My big, strong, quiet Xander who’d always felt more deeply than he let on…
I dashed at the tears that began to pool in my eyes and leaned down to find the right kind of smooth rock from the ones scattered at the edge of the lake. When I found the perfect one, I flung it as hard as I could and watched it skip once, twice, four times across the glassy surface of the water.
“Holy shit, dude,” I heard from behind me. I turned around and saw a couple of the boys approaching and I quickly forced back the tears that were still threatening to fall. “That’s totally sick. Can you show us how to do that?”
I forced a smile to my lips and nodded. Regardless of how things were going with Xander, I needed to focus on why I was there— to show these kids some love and attention while allowing them to see how amazing their world was. They sure as hell didn’t need to know that all I wanted in this moment was to go find Xander and beg him to forgive me. To wrap my arms around him like I had when we were kids, and let the entire world around us disappear.
I spent the next thirty minutes teaching anyone who wanted to learn how to skip rocks. By the time we’d exhausted all the prime skipping rocks in our small section of the lake’s edge, Aiden had joined us to ask if I wanted to collect wood for the fire.
“Sure. Why don’t you remind the kids to fill up their water bottles and change into warmer clothes before the sun sets?” I suggested.
“No problem. If you run into Ranger Rick out there, tell him to get over himself and come help,” Aiden said.
I bit back a snarky retort, since I knew Aiden was just expressing his anger on my behalf. As I wandered into the woods, the fact that I chose to go in the direction Xander had earlier was a coincidence. Regardless, a few minutes later I heard rustling and cracking sounds and came upon Xander stomping on some fallen branches to break them apart. There was a tidy stack of firewood a few feet away. He’d obviously been busy while he’d been avoiding us… no, not us, me.
“Hey,” I said quietly.
His movements stopped, but he didn’t turn around.
“I didn’t know,” I began.
Silence.
“I didn’t know how badly I’d hurt you,” I tried again. “Xander, I’m so—”
“I don’t care.” His voice was low and rough and he still didn’t turn around. “Keep your meaningless apologies to yourself. It was a long time ago, Bennett. I’m over it.”
Yeah, right.
“You never said goodbye,” I said, hating how needy I sounded. “I came to find you that night and you were gone. The cottage was completely empty. I didn’t even know where you’d gone.”
He finally turned around and narrowed his eyes at me. “Did it matter? It’s not like you gave a shit at that point anyway. You’d made that perfectly clear during your little pool party with your friends.”
Pain shot through my gut at the mention of the night when everything had changed between us forever. The last time I’d seen him for almost fifteen years. I’d literally had seconds to choose between losing Xander for that night or losing him forever. I’d chosen that night, but it had ended up being forever anyway. I still didn’t understand how it had happened.
“I made a mistake,” I whispered.
Xander stepped forward, so close I could see the sunny streaks of blond in his long brown hair. Then he got into my face, and I could see the whiskers on his jaw and the brightness of eyes I’d looked into a thousand times before.
“I. Don’t. Care,” he repeated. His words were said with a coldness I’d never heard before and it chilled me to the bone. He wasn’t the Xander I’d known as a child. He was different. Harsher, more defensive and belligerent. I wanted my Xander back— the one who’d sung “Who Let the Dogs Out” every single time I’d accidentally left the door to his dad’s cottage open and his dog, Sputnik, had gotten out. I’d always worried he’d get mad at me. Since we hadn’t had a dog in the main house, I’d always forgotten to look out for Sput.
But Xander never had gotten mad at me. He’d just sung the song at full volume to punish me until we’d either found the dog or dissolved into fits of laughter and Mr. Reed had been forced to take over the search. And then the song would be on my mind for days after. So, I’d done my best to pay him back with an ear worm of my own. The more annoying, the better.
Frustration and a keen sense of helplessness went through me, and I reverted to the same self-defense mechanism that had served me well when we’d been children. I spun on my heel and grabbed some of the wood from the pile he’d created before walking back toward camp, singing the song from Frozen at the top of my lungs.
“Do you wanna build a snowman?”
“Bastard,” I heard him mutter from behind me, though I could sense the tiniest hint of amusement in his voice too. At least it was better than the dreaded silence or the hate-filled anger.
“Oh, don’t like that one? Hmm… how about this? Let it go, let it goooooo…”
Chapter 5
Xander
If I could have tuned out Bennett’s voice, I would have. As it stood, I’d already spent enough time away from the campsite that the kids had to be wondering what the hell kind of a wilderness guide I was, since I spent more time on the wilderness part and less time on the guide part. After Bennett had left me alone so I could finish collecting the firewood, I’d had to force myself to return to the campsite before darkness fell so I could help get the fire going and make sure everyone had gotten their tents set up. To my surprise, the fire had been started and the kids had been working on some kind of team-building activity that Bennett and Aiden had been directing. I hadn’t stuck around long enough to see what it was, because as soon as my eyes had met Bennett’s across the small space, I’d felt trapped, and all the humiliation from our earlier encounter had come rushing back to me.
I hadn’t meant to admit what Bennett’s defection had done to me, and I most certainly hadn’t wanted Bennett’s boyfriend to have that kind of ammunition to use against me. It was clear as day that the guy hated me, a feeling that was very, very mutual. I’d ended up taking Bear down to the water so he could have a quick swim. I’d sat on one of the logs near the shoreline and waited for that normal peace that being out in the wilderness so often brought me, but the chatter and laughter drifting down from the small rise of the campsite had proven to be too much of a distraction.
Just like it was now.
I’d chosen a spot closer to the fire while we’d eaten dinner and begun sorting through my pack for the umpteenth time, though it hadn’t been necessary. I’d just been going through the motions so I wouldn’t keep checking to see what Bennett was up to. I’d seen Aiden approach him several times out of my peripheral vision, but every time he’d touched Bennett, I’d had to force myself to look the opposite direction so I wouldn’t be tempted to get up and go knock the man on his ass. I mean, for Christ’s sake, we were on a fucking wilderness expedition, not in some nightclub. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the assholes snuck off into the darkness to have a go at each other.
The thought of Aiden bending Bennett over some rock just like he’d talked about doing the d
ay before, along with the words he’d thrown in my face tonight, had my anger building all over again.
I have a part of him you never did.
I’d figured out I was gay the summer just before things had fallen apart with Bennett. I hadn’t understood at first why my heart had suddenly started racing every time I saw my friend, or why my palms would get so sweaty and it would be hard to breathe whenever he touched me. Not to mention the constant boners I’d started to experience around him. It had gotten so bad near the end that I’d been afraid to go swimming with him in the pool in case he could spot my predicament in the clear water. Which meant we’d had to limit our swimming to the small pond on his parents’ property, and since his father would yell at us every time we’d done it, we’d resorted to only swimming in there at night after everyone had gone to bed.
Once I’d realized that what I was feeling for Bennett went beyond the bounds of friendship— and this only after I’d rubbed one out in the darkened woods as I’d walked back to my house after a particularly handsy swimming session— I’d worried about what it would mean for our friendship. I’d never gotten any kind of hint that Bennett was experiencing the same feelings I was, and he’d often talked about girls in his class he’d thought were cute. So, I’d done my best just to pretend that the feelings didn’t exist. By the time I’d been close to finding the courage to tell Bennett the truth, he’d started to pull away from me, and I’d been afraid that telling him I was gay would widen that divide between us even further.
After the chance meeting at the playground when we were five, we’d become inseparable. Despite the fact that Bennett came from Greenwich’s upper crust and my parents had been firmly rooted in the middle class, Bennett had always been a pushy little shit. He’d pestered his parents to keep taking him back to that particular park every day until they’d finally given in. The park had been within walking distance of my house, but for Bennett’s family, it had been a good ten-minute drive. The only reason he’d even been at that playground that first day had been because he’d made his nanny stop there on the way home from a doctor’s appointment.