Growing Pains

by Cass Lennox

  Gigi returned to his phone. After calling and texting Brock multiple times, he’d given up and started scrolling through several months’ worth of unread spam and junk to find an email titled ALAN’S FINAL HOORAH! FINAL DEETS HOORAH! Turned out Julian, Alan’s best friend, had organized the bachelor party with every guy in mind, including Alan’s grandfather and uncles and nephews. Hence the orienteering this afternoon, dinner at some buffet place, then ditching the kids and older folks for “manly entertainment” at Warner’s for the rest of the night.

  Manly entertainment.

  Gigi was pretty sure these guys didn’t mean the things Gigi thought of when he heard the words manly entertainment.

  He called Mark again.

  “Hey, bro.”

  “Mark, honey, you missed a small detail about straight bachelor parties earlier.”

  “I did?”

  “‘Manly entertainment.’ Kindly explain to me exactly what that means.”

  Mark chuckled. Someone’s voice mumbled in the background. “It’s only Gigi, Frannie. He’s freaking out about a bachelor party. Yeah, I know, I don’t get it either.”

  Gigi was going to rip Mark’s face off the next goddamn time he saw him. “On a time limit, Mark!”

  “Bro, chill out. What kind of place are you going to for manly entertainment?”

  Warner’s was one of the nicer bars in town. Pool tables, good whiskey selection, lots of hunting trophies on the walls, dartboards, and all sorts of other shit Gigi had only heard about because he’d never been in there. “It’s a bar. A hick one, but nice.”

  Mark laughed. “Then, dude, that means drinking, card games, pool, and more drinking.”

  “You sure?”

  “One hundred percent, my man. Total no-brainer.”

  “If tonight is anything other than drinking and card games, Mark, I’m one hundred percent blaming you,” he hissed.

  “Got it, bro. Have a stellar time.”

  He hung up just as one of Alan’s friends raised a sign saying STAGS ASSEMBLE. Oh, God, really? Really? Stags? Gigi wasn’t a stag. He was a motherfucking gazelle. Seriously, why the fuck was he even here?

  He’d pushed himself off Ed’s car and had started walking toward the assembling stags when a familiar car pulled into the park. A very familiar car, considering he and Brock had driven silently in it for like six hours the previous day.

  Fucking finally.

  Gigi changed route to meet the car. He saw Brock get out and lock it, and he drew up short for a moment. At first glance Brock looked exactly the same: no change into hiking clothes, his hair still a bit bedheady, his usual calm expression on his face—then the huge-ass fresh bruises on his face jumped out and went Hiii, look at us.

  What happened to him?

  Brock spotted Gigi and made towards him, his face breaking into a smile. Gigi stood stock-still, eyes roving over the clear imprint of knuckles on one side of his jaw. How could he smile with that damage to his face? And who’d done it? Who in this smoky smear-stain on the great Canadian landscape had done this to his boyfriend?

  “Oh my God,” he said.

  “You’re wearing my shirt.” Brock stopped in front of Gigi.

  “I needed something to sweat in,” Gigi replied. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “It looks good on you.”

  “Everything looks good on me. Answer my question.”

  Brock hugged him. What the . . . This whole morning had been them glaring at each other, so having this snuggly guy instead was awesome, but Gigi didn’t like what this meant at all.

  It felt good to be held again, especially this tightly. Gigi’s hands went to Brock’s waist, and he breathed in and got a hit of Brock-sweat. Normally that was good, but the guy had to have taken a bath in it to smell this bad.

  Gigi pulled himself away, hands lingering a little on Brock’s waist. This close, he could see Brock’s eyes were clear but looked kind of puffy. Had he been crying? Gigi’s hands clenched wads of Brock’s shirt. Brock didn’t cry. Gigi had literally never, ever seen him cry. “Baby? What happened to your face?”

  Brock burrowed in close, arms tight around Gigi’s shoulders. “Someone hit it.”

  Gigi rolled his eyes. “No shit. Who? And why? Because if this is some homophobic bullshit, I’ll scratch their eyes out. You know I will.”

  Brock snuffled a laugh into Gigi’s shoulder. “No. Please don’t do that. I’m fine, okay? Really, I’m good.”

  The thing was, Gigi knew what it was like to have someone come at you, and no one was ever fine afterwards. He pulled his hands away and brought them up to frame Brock’s face, forcing him to meet Gigi’s gaze. “Babe. Tell me.”

  Brock’s mouth twisted, and he looked away. “My dad.”

  His . . . dad? The fuck? The fuck? “I’ll make his eyes into earrings.”

  Brock snorted.

  “Seriously. I’ll storm into his house and fucking take him apart. He did this to you?” Gigi wanted to pull Brock close and make it all better, but he didn’t know how. His brain kept stuttering over the fact that his dad had laid into him like this. “Why the hell didn’t you call me?”

  Brock shrugged. “You had your lunch thing.”

  “But baby, I’d’ve helped you. I could’ve, I don’t know, kicked him or something.”

  Brock was shaking his head. “No. Gi. No. You’re brave, but you wouldn’t’ve been able to do much about him. You’re safer at home.”

  What the hell? He wasn’t some delicate flower. Gigi had seen shit go down—on and off the stage. He’d been on the receiving end of it enough. Had Brock forgotten that?

  “Aaayyy, lovebirds! Group’s over here!”

  See? Bellowing. This was too much for Gigi to handle, honestly.

  Brock pulled away. “It’s over, okay? Let’s go hike.”

  “Orienteer. And how about we go press charges instead? That sounds like more fun to me.” Gigi totally meant that.

  “No. That won’t help anything, I promise.” Brock let him go. “Come on. I want to do something fun now.”

  “And you think this is gonna be fun?” Gigi could think of all sorts of better alternatives, like sitting on his bed and taking care of his man and never letting him within a four-block radius of his dad again, but apparently that wasn’t going to be an option. Not when Brock was walking towards the group of bachelors—sorry, stags, ugh, what even was this—and decidedly not listening to him.

  Gigi fell into step with him. “Can’t we at least look after your face?”

  “Does it look bad?”

  “Uh, yeah? I think you have a black eye coming in.”

  Brock shrugged. “Nothing’s broken. Honestly, I don’t want to think about it anymore. It’s done. I used to love walking through these woods.”

  Normally, the strong outdoorsy thing really did it for Gigi, but he couldn’t enjoy it now. What the hell was even happening right now? Why was Brock shrugging this off like it wasn’t a big deal? It was a big deal. The fuck?

  They reached the edge of the bachelor party group, and Brock glanced at him. “We’ll talk more later.”

  “Sugarplum, that is a promise.”

  Ed’s eyes widened at the sight of them. “Holy shit, Brock. What happened to the other guy?”

  “Got him with a chair.”

  Ed laughed and fist-bumped him. Gigi felt sick to his stomach; he was pretty sure that wasn’t a joke.

  “Welcome!” one of Alan’s friends bellowed from below that stupid fucking sign. “I’m Julian, Alan’s best man, and I—” he whipped out a sheet of paper “—have group assignments!”

  Group assignments? Was this school again? No fucking way. Gigi wasn’t going into the goddamn woods, through all that goddamn nature, with a bunch of strangers.

  Brock leaned in close. “Hey. Alan has some hot friends.”

  Okay, so Gigi might’ve noticed that too, but it was totally irrelevant because Brock was very taken. He poked Brock in the side—gently—and raised
one eyebrow when Brock glanced at him. Brock grinned and winked.

  Julian distributed lists and navigation instructions to group leaders and began to direct people to their assigned groups. Brock was sent to a group with Gigi’s dad, which had Gigi craning his neck to see how his dad was reacting to Brock’s face. People were asking him about it with big grins on their faces, like it was a good thing. Ugh, dudes and fighting. And Brock was totally going to lie about it and say it wasn’t anything important.

  They really shouldn’t be here right now.

  Then Gigi found himself directed to his nature comrades, made up of Ed, one of Alan’s university friends, and Alan’s cousin Luc. He remembered because he was easily the hottest of Alan’s cousins who’d attended the lunch. The guys in this group were all in their twenties, which Gigi was kind of relieved about, because then they’d have things like school and jobs and stuff to talk about, right? Right. He wouldn’t need to bellow.

  A whistle blew for attention. Julian stood on a fence by the park sign and waved. “Listen up! Your group leaders are in charge and I’ll be timing you. Keith went ahead this morning to set the control points up, and he swears it’s a simple course, so all you have to do is get through it as quickly as you can and have fun! Group One, go!”

  And Brock’s group set off into the forest.

  Shiiit, they were seriously doing this. Should Brock be hiking with injuries? Gigi didn’t know.

  He felt useless.

  Gigi looked at his group. Ed was chatting with Luc. Alan’s university friend was tucking sheets of paper and the compass into his pocket, which meant he was their leader. He also had muscly, veiny legs, well-worn hiking boots, a light backpack, and a cap.

  Oh hey, was Gigi supposed to have brought stuff with him? All he had was a water bottle shoved into his back pocket.

  “Hey, everyone,” Alan’s friend said, “I’m Keith.”

  Keith? Like, the guy Julian had just mentioned? “As in, the Keith who set up the course?” Gigi blurted.

  Keith grinned. “Yup. I love orienteering. I came out here early to set it up and now I am down for getting through it with a team. I asked for a group of guys who could win this thing. ’Sup dream team.”

  “Fuck yeah,” Ed whooped, holding his hand up for a high five that Keith immediately clapped.

  Fuck me. Gigi wondered just how long it would be before he fell into a worm-filled pit and had to be embarrassingly rescued by these guys, costing them the . . . race? How did anyone even race in orienteering? What was there to win? Had that been in the email? Because when he’d read it, he’d more, like, skimmed it.

  The guys were staring at him.

  “Woo?” Gigi said.

  “I asked if you can hike fast,” Keith said.

  It would be a miracle if he could hike at all after this much time out of hiking boots. When he was younger, he’d hated it. But Gigi didn’t totally break from his younger self to start gauging current hiking abilities by his former dislike of it. “I guess we’ll find out?”

  It wasn’t long before their group was allowed to start. Keith set a punishing pace, striding down the main path like he was trying to beat land-walking records. Gigi sighed and just tried to keep up, which actually didn’t turn out to be that difficult.

  The forest was quiet and cool, trees creaking in the odd gust of wind. Tall poplar and spruce trees stretched above them, alternating between greens and reds and oranges, and dry leaves crunched underfoot as they walked. It looked nicer than he remembered, but Gigi still kept a sharp eye out for any aggressive nature, such as poisonous plants or big sticks or crawly bugs. Not just for himself, mind, but for his injured boyfriend who was being an idiot by exposing himself to nature.

  “So where’s the first checkpoint?” Ed asked.

  “Halfway to the quarry,” Keith said. “The route does a zigzag from there to the lake to this amazing huge tree in this section of wood near the parking lot.”

  “Having you in the group feels a little like cheating,” Gigi said.

  Keith waved his hand dismissively. “Nah. My knowledge only gives me a small edge. Just follow me and we’ll be good.”

  Twenty minutes later, they’d powerwalked past the fork in the road and two of the other groups and were well on their way to the quarry. They’d gone off the main track and were standing around while Keith consulted his coordinates and instructions in confusion. Apparently they’d gone too far.

  Luc and Ed were red-faced and huffing. Gigi, to his surprise, was only slightly out-of-breath despite the punishing pace. Huh.

  “I think I ate too much at lunch,” Ed panted.

  “Me too,” Luc said.

  Gigi hadn’t, not when he’d seen how much butter and mayonnaise had gone into it. “Maybe stick to salad next time.”

  They groaned.

  “Nooo,” Ed said. “Look, I love Sophie, believe me, but this vegetarian-wedding bullshit isn’t stopping me from loading up on actual food this weekend.”

  “Word, dude,” Luc agreed. “Alan totally shocked us all with that. My aunties went batshit. ‘A Chinese wedding with no meat?’” he mimicked. “Then he told us it wasn’t going to be a Chinese wedding anyway, it was going to be a ‘mix of traditions special and unique’ to them so what was the big deal?” Luc shook his head. “Kombucha cocktails aren’t in anyone’s traditions, just FYI.”

  “Is your family okay with a nontraditional wedding?” Gigi asked, curious. Everyone had seemed really happy and eager to get along at lunch. He’d never seen so many people shaking hands and hugging and offering food and eating in one place. So much food. So many people. There hadn’t been enough seats at the table, so people had been perched on the stairs and on the kitchen counter and on garden furniture. Complete chaos, but also kind of fun.

  Luc nodded. “Yeah, we’ll deal. I think my uncle ordered some pork or something via special delivery.”

  Ed gasped. “Man, my dad did the same thing! Holy shit!” They fist-bumped. “I also heard Sophie’s refusing to be given away by Uncle John. That true, Toby?”

  Gigi nodded. He’d read that email, at least, because he was supposed to be an usher and a witness, and he needed to know the stupid schedule of events. “They’re going to walk in from different sides of the ceremony space and meet in the middle. It’s supposed to be symbolic.”

  “Oh, gag,” Ed said.

  “Hey, I like that,” Luc said. “It’s a nice idea. Unlike the vegetarian food.”

  Ed whacked Gigi on the arm. “You gonna let John do his fatherly duty when you and Brock tie the knot?”

  Oh God. Gigi wasn’t ready to answer that question. Marriage? To Brock? Like Brock would even be interested. Nope. Gigi hadn’t even thought about it. Much. Definitely not when Brock and him had first started dating and Gigi’s (no, Toby’s) stupid adolescent fantasies had reared back into full technicolour life. And totally not when he mentally catalogued waterfront and bar spaces in Toronto that would be perfect for a reception or a ceremony or wedding pictures. Or eyed up tuxes. Or thought about which club they’d go to afterwards. Nooope. No way.

  And even if he had thought about it, which he hadn’t, he really hadn’t thought about it in recent months, because recent months hadn’t felt anything like the first few months. Somehow it was hard to dream about a future with a guy who disappeared into his head and job all the time.

  Toby would’ve been really upset about that, but Gigi wasn’t Toby anymore. So he just waved those naïve little fantasies bye-bye and went back to work. Which was totally what he was doing right now.

  “You’re gay?” Luc asked, sparing Gigi from answering.

  “Yeah.” Did Luc miss Gigi pawing his guy because Brock was hurt? How had he missed that? Normally straight dudes were super on edge about any display of affection, right?

  “Do gay guys do stuff like that? Be given away?”

  Heaven spare him from ignorant straight boys. See, this was exactly the stuff Gigi had expected from this bachelor party.
“I think it depends on the guys in question.”

  “Was your boyfriend at lunch?” Luc asked.

  “No. He was visiting his parents.” God, Gigi would never be over that. He should’ve made him stay. Better an awkward-fest than an actual fucking fight.

  “Lucky guy,” Ed said. “I bet he had space to breathe and eat.”

  Keith let out a strangled, choking noise, and they all looked over at him.

  After a beat, Ed asked, “Are we lost?”

  “No,” Keith ground out.

  Luc grinned. “You sure? Because, you know, Keith, you mapped the route.”

  “Yeah, I thought you were the orienteering expert, Keith,” Ed said. “Where’s that edge, Keith?”

  Ah. The time-honoured tradition of straight boys giving each other shit. If Gigi joined in, he knew he’d camp it up to eleven, so he didn’t.

  “We’re not lost. We’re close to the path.” Keith glanced between paper and compass. “It’s just, maybe I recorded the checkpoint wrong. I put it by this gigantic fallen tree. Really hard to miss.”

  Gigi blinked. He knew that tree. It was farther up the main path, but close to where they were. “That’s not far from here.”

  They all looked at him as though he’d just stripped off to a glittery thong.

  He straightened and crossed his arms. “Local, remember?”

  “Good enough for me.” Keith pocketed the compass and coordinates. “Lead on.”

  Which was how Gigi ended up taking them to the fallen tree and punching their card. Then he led them to the next checkpoint, a clearing between the tree and the lake, then down a shortcut trail to the lake for the next checkpoint, and so on. It turned out Keith had guestimated the coordinates for all the checkpoints and had misjudged the route anyway because he’d jogged it that morning, not walked it.