by AJ Lange
"Penetration."
"Matt!" Gavin's cheeks burned hot.
"Gavin. "
Frigid asshole, Gavin thought. "No, all right? No." He thought he saw Matt's shoulders relax ever so slightly and he smiled to himself. "Now you, nosy ass. Truth or dare."
"Truth." The word hung between them, a slight tremor behind it. It was the whole reason they never played this game; Gavin instinctively understood that there were things Matt would never tell him, maybe could never tell him.
Gavin considered his question options for a moment. "Why haven't I ever stayed overnight at your house?" He held his breath; this was skirting those dangerous issues they never spoke of, and he didn't want to breach the point of no return.
Matt's face was unreadable. He opened his mouth to speak, then licked his lips nervously.
Gavin waited, tension building between his shoulder blades.
"Dare," Matt finally whispered, eyes falling to the hands he held clenched in his lap.
Gavin exhaled through his nose. Damn it. He had seen it, the truth, teetering on the edge of Matt's tongue. Matt wanted to tell Gavin the secrets he was forced to keep, and maybe that was enough. He guessed it would have to be. "Come down here."
Gavin made the decision in a split second. Now or never, he figured. What the hell? He had just risked alienating his best friend for life; might as well go ahead and throw all his cards on the table.
Matt hesitated before scooting off the cot and sitting across from Gavin on the sleeping bag. "Okay, now what." His heart was thrumming so hard against his chest, he wondered if Gavin could hear it.
"I dare you to kiss me."
Matt sucked in a breath. "What?" Gavin, beautiful, gorgeous Gavin, lost his bravado in one fell swoop, face falling. Matt grabbed his forearm tight. "Okay," he said hurriedly, soothing. "Okay."
Gavin snuck a glance and was surprised to see a flicker of want in Matt's blue eyes. It probably matched his own. Matt leaned forward and Gavin stopped him, hands on his shoulders. "Wait."
Matt's brow furrowed. "What," he breathed. Gavin shivered at the warm, moist air ghosting across his face.
"I want to do it."
"It's my dare," Matt protested petulantly, sitting up straight again.
"And I issued it, so I get to amend it," Gavin said teasingly. Now that it was here, right now, he wanted to do it. He had imagined doing this for days, maybe weeks. Maybe it was selfish, but he wanted to give this to Matt. He waited until Matt gave a small nod.
"Don't move," Gavin whispered and he scooted closer, leaned his head in until he was buzzing with Matt's nearness, an electrical impulse that danced across his nerve endings.
Matt waited, frozen, and he could feel the tension in the other boy rolling off of him in waves. "Gav," he whispered.
"Shh," Gavin shushed him, raising a finger to brush across his eyelids. "Close your eyes. I can't do this if you're watching me."
Matt closed his eyes reluctantly, his last image of green, green iris and sunburned nose. His lips parted when he felt a soft fingertip rub across the seam of his mouth. His sucked in a shallow breath and held it.
"You're so pretty," Gavin murmured against his skin, his mouth skirting the edge of his smooth jaw. Then he huffed a laugh, dropping his forehead to Matt's shoulder. "God that sounded gay."
Matt snorted, eyes popping open.
"No peeking," Gavin admonished, smoothing a palm across Matt's eyes again.
Matt squirmed on the floor. "Okay, okay, just get on with it, you're killing me here."
"Killing you, huh," Gavin whispered again, his voice low and dipping into that recent masculinity that belied his age. When he touched the tip of his tongue along the shell of Matt's ear, he felt him shiver. "You been wanting this, Matt?" he asked.
Matt clenched his fists. Now that was a loaded question; if he said yes (which was the truth), would it push Gavin away? On the other hand, there was no way in hell he could say no, because if he did and Gavin stopped what he was doing, Matt thought he might actually die, right here on the dirty wooden floor of this ratty old cabin. He settled for a half-truth.
"Maybe," he exhaled. "Maybe I thought about it a time or two." Or a million.
"Well, I have," Gavin said after a pause, tentatively opening his mouth over the hinge of Matt's jaw, sucking gently. He smiled when he felt the fine tremble under his skin. "I can't stop thinking about you, Matt. What have you been doing to me, huh?" Bolder now, he kissed his cheek, then again, inching closer to Matt's mouth.
"I've been putting up with your shit, DeLuca," Matt said on a breathless groan, his hands finally tired of waiting and reaching for Gavin's t-shirt. He fisted his fingers in the soft folds of fabric, tugging him closer. "Now get over here and seal the deal, asshole."
Gavin chuckled, kissing the corner of Matt's mouth. He hesitated, lips tingling, mouth watering, nerves jumping so hard in his stomach he was glad they hadn't eaten that pile of junk food just yet. This was it. Not that he wanted to stop, or was afraid of the consequences, but this was the moment they could never walk away from. His eyes roamed over Matt's face, his features finely sculpted and angular and, yes, pretty. His heart clenched tight in his chest. He took a deep breath and leaned forward, closing the distance, until he brushed against Matt's lips.
Matt made a soft little sigh then, which made other parts of Gavin's anatomy tighten and Gavin grinned. He brought one hand up behind Matt's head, holding him in place so he could slant their mouths together more firmly.
Then Matt shocked him by opening up beneath him, his tongue brushing against his lips until Gavin's eyes fluttered closed and he yielded, letting Matt into his mouth.
Matt kissed back like he had been born to do so, and Gavin's head began to spin. Gavin was the one who had been practicing his technique the past few years, on girls in their class, girls at the bowling alley, girls behind the bleachers at a football game or three. Not Matt. He broke away on a deliciously wet sound and licked his lips, breathing heavily.
"Where the fuck did you learn that?" His gut burned with an ugly emotion he thought might be jealousy.
Matt blinked lazily, mouth turned up in a downright sexy grin. "I watch movies, Gavin. "
"That better be all the experience you've been getting," Gavin growled, pulling him in again. He moaned when he felt Matt's fingers inch under his t-shirt, stroking his stomach with light touches. "Do you want to lay down," he asked between hot presses of their mouths. And God, Gavin wanted him to, wanted to lay down with Matt and feel him tight against him, shoulder to toe.
Matt nibbled on his lower lip. "On this dirty old floor?" He asked incredulously, voice barely above a whisper. "You're crazy."
And Gavin was crazy, crazy with the way Matt's hand was now fully splayed across his abdomen, the way his head had dipped so his mouth could suck against Gavin's neck. He pushed Matt back. "Lay down."
Matt rolled his eyes, cheeks flushed red, still with that half-smile on his face, one Gavin had never seen before. He kicked his feet to the side, dropping to his elbows, wincing at the dirty grit against his skin where he missed the edge of the sleeping bag. "At least throw me my sweatshirt so I can put it under my head."
Fuckfuckfuck, Gavin thought desperately. Matt was the closest thing to sex personified he had ever seen and Gavin was painfully hard in his shorts. He had no idea what they were doing, how far this was going and he wasn't sure if he cared. This was Matt, and he was surrounded by the warm, peaceful knowledge that it didn't matter what happened or didn't happen tonight, there was tomorrow and the tomorrow after that; he and Matt had already spent a lifetime practicing the way they worked. Tonight wasn't going to change that.
Gavin lowered himself over Matt's smaller body, smiling when they fit together. Matt reached up to cup his jaw.
"Gavin," he whispered.
Gavin ducked his head to kiss him, green eyes locked on blue, no longer afraid for Matt to see him.
A terrified scream tore through the cabin, followed
by a loud crash against the door.
Gavin jumped back, scrambling to his feet. He looked down, knew his own face mirrored the look of horror on Matt's. They held their breath. Gavin opened his mouth to speak, wincing when someone pounded on the door again.
"Please, please," a girl's voice cried. "Let me in!"
Matt rolled to his feet and moved to go to the door but Gavin stopped him, a hand on his arm. Matt's face was ghostly pale in the lamplight. "Matt, wait."
"Please, please please, oh God, he's coming!"
"Gavin," Matt said, shoving his hand aside. "Let go."
"Wait," Gavin said, forceful, grappling for his arm again. He listened, the girl still banging on the door, her fists weaker now. He could hear her sobbing, muttering, though the words were unintelligible. "It could be a trick."
"A trick? Why?" But Matt hesitated. "You mean like hazing?"
"Yeah," Gavin was whispering now, pulling Matt to the opposite side of the cabin, away from the only windows. He doused the kerosene lamp, plunging them into darkness. His fingers tightened around Matt's bicep. "They probably do this to all the kids who stay out here by themselves. To screw with them."
Matt shook his head. He could still hear the girl sobbing pitifully against the door. It felt real. She was no longer knocking, but her fingers were scraping, scratching against the old wood. The sound sent chills down his spine. It made him think of coffins.
He had a sinking, awful feeling that this was not a prank. He pulled Gavin's fingers from his arm. "I'm going to open the door."
"No!" Gavin wrapped his arms around Matt's waist, pressing his chest against the other boys back and burying his face in his neck. "Matt, don't. Please."
Matt could feel him shaking and understood Gavin's assurance was laced with fear. He slid his hands along Gavin's forearms, comforting him. "Gavin, we have to help her, even if it's just a prank—"
He froze when another scream rent the night air.
"No, no no no..." Her cries were guttural now, desperate and then they heard thrashing at the side of the cabin, footsteps across the forest floor, one pair or more, it was impossible to discern.
A loud thud against the door had them both jumping, parting. Gavin yanked Matt behind him, pulling him into the corner of the cabin, crouching low against the cot's metal frame.
The sounds of footsteps, running through the leaves, off the path and across the dense undergrowth, growing distant until they disappeared.
Matt shoved Gavin aside and went to the door, ignoring Gavin's whispered protests. He opened it cautiously, peering out.
The forest was dark and eerily silent.
Matt shut the door, hands shaking as he slid the flimsy hook and eye into place.
"Help me move the table," Gavin said, and Matt jumped at his nearness. Together, they slid the rickety old table in front of the door. It wasn't much but it was something.
Matt couldn't help think it might serve to trap them as much as protect them. He shivered, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, too familiar.
Gavin pulled him close, rubbing his hands up and down his back. "It was just a trick, Matt, promise." But his voice held a quaver that couldn't mask his fear.
Matt let Gavin hold him, feeling far more ancient than his years. He felt the weight of destiny and fate pressing down upon him, knew his time with Gavin was probably limited. So fuck it, he thought, and held on tight. Gavin's lips brushed against his temple sweetly.
"I'm never going to go to sleep now," Gavin whispered wryly and Matt laughed softly into his neck.
"Me neither."
The pulled apart and stared at each other in the darkness for a long moment.
"Maybe we should just play cards?" Gavin's mouth quirked up, but Matt could still feel him shivering, or maybe that was his own body still shaking from shock and adrenaline.
They relit the kerosene lamp and positioned their sleeping bags in the middle of the floor, away from the window and door. They played gin rummy and five-card stud long into the night, until they dropped off, slumped against each other, leaning into the shared warmth.
Just before he fell asleep, Matt thought to himself that he wished he could kiss Gavin good night, and wondered if he would ever get to again.
A loud knock at the door jolted them awake. They sat up, Gavin's eyes as round as saucers, hair flattened on the side of his head where he had slept pressed into Matt's shoulder.
"DeLuca! Laurel! Open up." It was Ben. They jumped when he banged loudly on the door again. "Guys!"
His voice was desperate and Matt clambered to his feet after disentangling their legs. He pushed the table aside and threw open the door.
Ben all but crashed into the cabin, his face frantic. And Matt knew, knew, as the teen counselor bundled them up, belongings haphazardly thrown in a large, black garbage bag, dragging them behind him through the still-dark woods and up into the camp parking lot, where children were huddled, crying and bedraggled, pulled from their warm sleeping bags and tents. Parents arrived to clutch them and ferry them home, a thick veneer of fear and chaos overlying the proceedings.
Matt knew: the girl was dead.
Present
Gina tidied the top of her desk. She could never leave for home until everything was in its place: the owl-themed planner turned to the correct date, her lesson planning book open to the next day's lessons, all paperwork and pens and office supplies neatly stowed away. She shut down her computer and turned off the monitor. There were a few pieces of trash littering her floor, the paper from a purple crayon under Timothy's desk making her smile. Timothy liked to color with a sharp point; his mother had already had to purchase a new box of crayons after he sharpened his first box down to nubs. She would have to remind him tomorrow to make sure his trash was thrown away properly.
She straightened the tiny desks and neatened the book boxes in her classroom reading nook, then stood in the middle of the room, surveying her handiwork. Perfect. Ready for a new day of learning in kindergarten.
She never sensed the hand that reached around her face, covering her mouth, until it was too late.
Chapter 8
Gavin almost missed his turn off the highway. The wooden sign had faded in the Tennessee sun over the years, until the rustic lettering announcing the entrance had become nearly illegible. There was a rusty iron gate across the entrance of Camp Chitaqua, the kind typically used to keep cattle in the field, swinging open and shut on a hinge, heavy and creaking. It was tied to an ancient fence post with a fraying length of rope.
“Secure,” Gavin muttered sarcastically. He left the Jeep running while he untied the bulky knot and swung the gate open. He propped it in place with a broken cement block that seemed to be lying in wait strictly for that purpose.
The road had grown over, unused, but he could see where a recent set of tires had pushed down the weeds and grass that had grown over the trail, so he followed those. He was rewarded when a rental car came into view as he topped the drive and pulled into the gravel parking lot. He shut off the engine and climbed slowly from of the car, leather seat squeaking with his movements. He surveyed the landscape; it was quiet and still, the only motion the lazy circle of a bird overhead.
The old staff headquarters showed signs of having been abandoned long ago, dust obliterating the glass panes of the windows, thick cobwebs visible under the rafters of the porch overhang. The dirt-covered floor of the steps was undisturbed, so Gavin ignored that building for the time being; he was looking for something more recently traversed.
He laid a hand on the hood of the rental, but it was cool to the touch; it had been parked for a while. His eyes scanned the woods behind the building. Somewhere back there were trails leading to the various campsites, with circles of raised tent platforms, canvas sides and roofs probably long rotted away, central fire pits serving as the hub for each site. Deeper into the woods, in the opposite direction of the lake, was the settler’s cabin. Gavin planned to avoid that location for the time being.
He walked around the corner of the building, kicking his own path through the dense weeds and grass, the original trail long overgrown. Through the trees ahead, he could see the water of the lake sparkling in the late afternoon sun. The dock, when he reached it, looked sturdy and familiar. He had spent many an afternoon splayed across a thin beach towel here, letting the sun dry the lake water from his sunburned skin, swatting at gnats and sucking popsicles or sharing a glass bottle of grape soda with Matt.
The picture Matt had removed from Gavin’s living room had been snapped on this very dock, taken with his mother’s old Kodak point and shoot by Ben. Ben, who had seemed so old and wise and confident, but in one terrifying hour had become a contemporary, nothing separating them but a couple of years that meant zip in the face of abject fear. Gavin watched the carrion bird circle lower, signaling death, and he shivered. He thought of that photo, how badly he had wanted to put his hand around Matt’s waist that day, squeeze his lithe body against his own; he hadn’t, of course. Ben was there, and the other counselors, and Gavin still hadn’t known at that point that Matt had been fighting the same feelings. Maybe if he’d known, he would have held him a little tighter, a little closer.
But probably not. He and Matt, in spite of their mutual attraction and the raging teenage desire they had discovered that night in the cabin, wouldn’t work out the logistics and details of what it meant to be together for another few years. And even then, it was basically a one-night stand borne of frustration and jealousy, both too afraid to commit, too afraid of what it would mean socially and outwardly to the world.
Or at least Gavin had been too afraid. Most of their lives he had felt Matt was unafraid of anything at all. Except losing Gavin; he had always been afraid of that.
Gavin rubbed a hand across his face, melancholy sinking into his bones. His mother had been the one who had inadvertently kept them apart in the beginning. Antonia, who loved them each as her sons, who would have given her life for either of them without a second thought.