No Strings - 2. If a Tree Falls in the Forest

Part 2: If a Tree Falls in the Forest

 

“This is too cool,” Kristina bubbled, reaching across the center console to lay her hand on Brennan’s thigh. I felt a little queasy and shrank back into my seat, where Genji’s smile caught me.

“Super fun!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah, super fun.” May patted his back from her spot behind him. “That’s what America’s all about.”

Kristina whipped out her cell phone, and mine buzzed a second later.

What did I tell u?

I didn’t respond—except to roll my eyes when she darted hers back with a grin. Yeah, it was kind of neat Brennan was driving us to the campground, like we were just some of his regular pals. Maybe we’d be able to capitalize on some popularity gains, after all.

Brennan pulled his minivan into the campground lot, and we all clambered back to the trunk to unload the tents.

“Okay, who’s gonna room with who?” May asked, struggling to lift a folded piece of canvas.

Sam took it from her. “Well you and me get the big tent.”

Kristina’s elbow jabbed into my ribs. I didn’t know what the point of that was—it wasn’t like Brennan was in the dark about her plan.

But I guess we were keeping up pretenses. “Genji and me can share a tent.”

“Cool,” Brennan said. “Guess that leaves you and me, Kris.”

“Perfect.” She nearly purred.

I still had this uneasy feeling, though. Like I’d thought this whole thing was just a charade, and now I’d let it go too far. If Kristina really was like a sister to me, shouldn’t I be trying to stop her . . . deflowering?

“We make tent?” Genji asked.

“Sure.” I lugged one out and began dragging it down the path toward our lot.

I didn’t actually know how to make a tent, but Sam and Brennan did. They had theirs set up in a few minutes, and then Brennan took over for me.

“Never gone camping?” he asked.

“Yeah, well, my Dad always set up the tent.” I shrugged, face growing warm.

He grinned. “It’s cool. I got it.”

“I’ll…I’ll give you hand.” I jumped into action, bending over to grab a support beam and to distract myself from doing a mental dot-to-dot with his freckles. “I should probably learn, anyhow.”

“Actually,” Kristina’s hand plopped down on my shoulder, “I was hoping you could go back with me to the car to get the cooler?”

I turned around, and her eyes had another message. Gotta talk to you.

“No problem, I got this,” Brennan said.

Kristina and I took off down the path, and within a few seconds she was grabbing my hand and skipping. “I can’t believe it’s finally going to happen! I can’t believe it!”

“Easy, there.” I forced a chuckle “You sure you don’t wanna . . . take it a little slower? I mean, we could . . . we could always go camping again another time.”

She stopped skipping. Stopped moving entirely. “What?”

“I just mean, uh . . . maybe you and he really hit it off tonight. Maybe you might . . . you might want some strings, after all.”

“Josh.” She shook her head. “You know that’s not what this is about. I don’t want Brennan to be my boyfriend. I just want the experience.”

My uneasiness was bubbling closer to the surface. Which was weird, because Brennan actually seemed a lot nicer than I was expecting. So I really should’ve been more at ease with this whole thing.

But I wasn’t.

“You say that now, Kris. But . . . you might not feel that way afterward, and then it’ll be too late. Like, it’s not something you can ever get back. Don’t you want your first time to be…something special?”

She crossed her arms, and her eyes narrowed. I winced.

“Something special,” she repeated. “Something magical. Like, with rainbows and unicorns, maybe? Maybe they’ll spring right out of me when I open my legs for . . . Prince Charming, right? When he rides up on his white stallion?”

“Kristina . . .”

“No, Josh.” Her scowl deepened. “You’re trying to make me feel guilty about this now?”

I crossed my arms, too, so we were at a standoff. “I’m saying this as a friend. I just don’t want you to do something you’re gonna regret.”

“I’d only regret it if I was forced to buy into the whole notion that I’m losing anything at all. Which I don’t. I just don’t believe in that one-man-can-only-have-one-woman, for the rest of all time thing.”

Neither did I, but that was beside the point.

I blew out a long sigh. “But . . . but would it be bad if you guys ended up dating or something? I mean, talk about popular. You’d get bumped up like five notches, instantly.”

“You don’t get it.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to date Brennan Halprin. I never did. If I were dating him, then it’d be . . . just him. And I’m not ready to settle for one guy. I want a taste of what’s out there, first.”

I closed my eyes. Was there something wrong with her? Kristina wasn’t a slut. She was smart, funny, clever, energetic, outgoing . . . wasn’t it unnatural for her to be saying these things? Weren’t all nice girls like her supposed to wait in an ivory tower for their true loves?

“Joshy.” She touched my hand. “I’m sorry if I went a little rant-y on you. Look, I get that you think differently. I really do. You’re gonna be all about finding the perfect girl, proposing, getting married . . . moving into a house with a white-picket fence. I don’t think badly of you for wanting that. It’s just who you are. I don’t judge. So try not to judge me for what I believe, okay?”

Oh. So that was what I wanted. Minus the girl part.

I gave her half a smile. “Okay. Just . . . I . . . I care about you . . . so be careful, all right?”

“Always.” She wove her fingers together with mine.

“And you’ll still be my best friend, right? You’re not gonna run off and replace me with one of these guys you get to uh . . . be intimate with?”

She laughed. “No way! You’re stuck with me. I’m gonna need someone I can confide all my sexual secrets with, anyway . . . and what better person than a guy?”

Maybe we could compare notes, one day. And maybe after all her honesty, especially with these not-so-conventionally-female attitudes, I owed her a little more honesty in return.

At least I knew she wouldn’t judge.

 

*

 

“I eat too many marshmallows,” Genji moaned, leaning back on his log-seat and rubbing his flat stomach.

“Mm, me too.” May yawned. “I’m getting sleepy.”

Panic flared before I had a chance to use rational thinking to snuff it out. “It’s too early for bed. Where’s that camera, Genj? Let’s take some pictures.”

Genji recovered quickly, hopping up to retrieve it from our tent.

“What’s that?” Brennan asked.

“It’s a Polaroid. But it only takes tiny pictures, like the kind you get at a photo booth.”

“Hey, cool.” He watched May and Kristina put their heads together as Genji took the shot.

“You have one now?” Genji asked. He motioned for Brennan and me to get closer.

I stayed where I was, and Brennan scooted over until I could feel his breath wafting by my skin.

“You make funny face,” Genji instructed.

I stuck out my tongue. Brennan changed his expression in some way I couldn’t catch peripherally, but whatever he did, it forced his cheek to press against mine.

Stubble grazed my skin, and I shivered. In a good way.

Damn. I suddenly wanted to take a lot more pictures.

“We see how many we fit now.” Genji directed the crowd once again. Kristina came over and jammed her head between Brennan and me, replacing the scratchy feeling with her silky make-up-covered skin. Sam rested his chin on my head, May tucked in under us, and Genji squished on top of Brennan. Then he held out his arm and snapped the photo.

When it finished developing, only Kris, Brennan, and I could be seen completely. May’s eyes were in the picture, Sam’s lips, and Genji’s face from the dimples down.

Well, we’d captured Genji’s best part, anyway.

“Ready to hit the sack, guys? Ghost stories are the responsibility of your tent-mate,” Kristina announced.

I could hear the death knell of her virginity tolling. “Hey, uh, isn’t there a lake nearby? Who wants to go for a moonlight dip?”

“Are you crazy?” Sam asked. “It’s way too cold to go in the water.”

“Besides, we don’t have swimsuits,” May added. Kristina just shot me a look full of daggers.

“We’ve got changes of clothes. And it’s not that cold. I’m not saying we swim laps . . . y’know, just that it could be fun.”

“Well, you’re on your own.” May stood and doused the fire. “Sam and I are going to bed. We wanna go hike the trail tomorrow morning.”

The two of them disappeared into their tent, and Kristina got up to take Brennan by the hand. “Bedtime,” she said under her breath.

Brennan’s nostrils flared. “Uh, yeah. Cool. I’ll be right there, Kris.”

She released his hand and sauntered away, shaking her ass a little more than necessary as she went.

I couldn’t look at Brennan anymore. “Let’s go, Genji. We should get some sleep, too, so we can do the hike tomorrow.”

He followed me inside the red canvas, where I crawled into my sleeping bag and tried to stop thinking about what was happening in the tent right next door. But there was little hope of that. Within a few minutes, I found myself holding perfectly still, straining my ears to catch some hint of how things were going.

I could only hear the frogs and the crickets.

A chorus of wood creatures played on for about forty-five minutes before my insomnia got to be too much. Genji was a sleeping lump beside me, so I moved quietly, cringing at each click of the tent zipper. He didn’t stir, though, and once there was a large enough space for me to get through, I sprung out to freedom.

I went to the lake. I figured a midnight dip—in what honestly had to be freezing water—would be sufficient to wipe my mind clean. Shuffling around in the darkness, I stripped down to my boxers and left my clothes on a nearby tree trunk.

It took me a few seconds to notice the frogs and crickets had been joined by a new sound.

Plunk. Splash plunk. Splash splash plunk.

My foot came down on some dry leaves, and Brennan froze, his arm poised above his head, ready to skip another rock across the lake.

“Hey, man, it’s Josh,” I announced, since if it’d been me out there alone, my firsts thoughts probably would have been serial killer.

“Josh?” He turned around, and it was at that moment I remembered I was basically naked.

Crap.

“What’re you doing, dude?” He grinned, freckles lit by the reflection of moonlight on water. “You really crazy enough to go for a swim?”

I shrugged, but for some reason, I was too stunned to reach for my clothes. “Yeah. I mean, maybe. What’re you doing out here, though? Don’t you have . . . like . . . business to attend to?”

I tried to sound like I thought Brennan’s guy friends would—like he was about to enter a glorious hall of sexual fame.

“Or did you already . . . do it?”

Brennan’s nose twitched. “Oh. No. Not yet. I was just . . . uh, just taking a little breather first.” He released another rock, but this one sank right away. “Shit,” he mumbled. His head dropped and his shoulders sagged.

I stepped forward, still in nothing but my boxers, as curiosity forced me to get a better look. “Hey, dude, everything okay?”

He ground his teeth and avoided my gaze. “Um, yeah. Well, actually . . . I, um . . . actually . . . I’m not sure I wanna go through with this anymore.”

No rainbows were going to spring from Kristina, evidently, but I felt something close well up in my heart. Brennan had just risen to a new level in my eyes. “Oh, yeah? Well . . . I think that’s all right, man. I mean, the whole thing is a little weird.”

He exhaled and looked over at me, green eyes warm and appreciative. “Yeah. I mean, right? Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for sex, but people should have some kind of . . . connection first. Like it should be because the moment is right, not because of a business transaction.”

My relief caused me to take a few steps forward and squeeze his shoulder in camaraderie. “Yeah, dude. I completely agree.”

Guess I’d worked it out for myself, after all.

Brennan drew in a sharp breath at the physical contact. And damn it, I was still in my boxers. Touching another guy. Another guy who was staring at me.

Really staring.

I couldn’t move. Green eyes pinned me as they covered the area of my shoulders and chest, then traveled down my torso, lingering at my waist before dropping to my feet.

My hand fell back to my side, and he shook his head, like he was clearing his mind from a fog.

“Um, so . . . how’d Kristina take it?” I stammered. I had to say something, because the silence was getting downright weird. “She’s kinda been going on about this for a while now.”

He blushed, picking up another stone to toss. It was a sinker again. “I didn’t tell her yet, actually. Feel kinda . . . awkward about the whole thing.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry, man. I guess she just figured . . . you’d be more into this no-strings-sex thing than you are.”

“Yeah.” He managed to get a rock to make a couple of skips this time. “Do you know how come she picked me?”

I stifled a laugh. Well, I half-stifled it. “Come on, dude. You’re always talking about women’s tits and asses . . . about watching all that porn . . . I mean, she wasn’t taking a giant leap, was she?”

“Oh.” He swallowed. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

Except it didn’t. It didn’t make sense with the Brennan I saw now, lost and confused in the middle of the woods.

“Hey . . . why do you do all that, anyway? Is it like, for attention?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Well, what is it, then?” I chuckled out loud this time, crossing my arms against my bare chest. “‘Cause you know, I think you’re actually a lot deeper than you pretend to be.”

“I am not.” He reached out and shoved me. My balance was off because I’d been standing in that cocky cross-armed pose, and I wound up tripping over my feet into a pile of rocks.

“Oh, shit!” Brennan dropped to the ground next to me. “I am so sorry, dude. I didn’t mean to push you that hard.”

“Uh, it’s okay.” His arm wrapped around to my back as he pulled me up. My pulse jumped.

“Are you hurt?”

I craned my neck to examine myself and his hand slipped away, leaving a warm, ticklish trail on my skin. “Nah. It’ll probably just be a little bruise.”

“Shit. I’m so sorry,” Brennan said again. “You wanna go grab an ice pack from the cooler in the car?”

“Sure.” Although what I really wanted was to put my clothes back on. This close contact was a little too much for me to handle in my boxers.

I grabbed my stuff on the way, hopping into my pants as we walked. Brennan kept chewing on his lip and turning away from me, so I wasn’t really sure what was going through his mind. We reached the minivan and he got out the ice pack, wrapping it in an old rag before handing it over.

I still winced when it touched my bare side.

“That was a really dick thing to do.” He grimaced in empathy. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” I assured him again.

“It’s cold out. You wanna . . . sit in the car for a sec?” Before I could answer, he pulled open the passenger door and ran around to the other side. I climbed in, and we settled into the front seats, staring out the windshield into the starry night. Without all the light pollution, I could see a lot more of the constellations than I could back in town.

They reminded me of Brennan’s freckles.

“I guess you were right,” he finally said. “I talk about all that stupid stuff . . . for attention. ‘Cause that’s what I feel like I’m supposed to talk about. How lame is that?”

“Not that lame. I get where you’re coming from.”

“And now look what it’s got me,” he went on like he hadn’t heard my response. “I didn’t think I could say no to Kristina without . . . without looking like a complete . . . fake. Guess I just dug my own grave, huh.”

A strange idea popped into my head then…or maybe I’d had it ever since I’d caught him staring at me. Still, I fought to keep it down. I was pretty sure I was just reading between the lines because I wanted something to be there, not because it existed.

“Nah. Kristina’s cool . . . she won’t say anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I mean, you could probably still tell people you hooked up. I bet if you ask her nicely, she’d go along with it.”

“No offense,” Brennan shook his head, “but that girl is weird.”

I bristled a little. Yes, it was true, but only her friends were allowed to say that. “Why, because she said she’d have sex with you?”

“Because she wants to have sex with someone she barely knows. Girls are supposed to be all about the romance, not the random hookup.”

“Uh huh.” I went on the defensive, even though I’d said pretty much those same words to Kristina earlier. “And guys are supposed to go around perving on girls and dreaming up ways to get them to give it up. And when they get the chance, they’re supposed to jump on it. Literally. That’s how it goes, right?”

He opened his mouth, snapping it shut a second later.

“’Cause in that case, you’re weird, too. Aren’t you, Brennan Halprin?” I was trying to joke around, but once the words were out, I was pretty sure I’d just stepped in it.

He played with the turn signal on his car as his nostrils fluttered in and out. “Yeah. I know.”

“Hey, man, I didn’t mean that as an insult. Actually, I’m pretty weird myself.”

Thank God that seemed to calm him, and he smiled. But not one of the showy, bawdy smiles I saw at school all the time. Just a simple grin. “Yeah? Well, thanks, man. Thanks for being so cool about all this. You’re . . . you’re a pretty cool guy.”

Why did that stupid compliment make me feel all wiggly? I think Brennan caught my blush, because his smile brightened. Did he . . . like it when I blushed?

I stopped dividing my attention between him and the stars, and just focused on him for a moment. Maybe he hadn’t seemed classically attractive at first, but he’d really grown on me. His wide mouth looked nice when he smiled, and his freckles were perfectly scattered.

“What’re you looking at?”

“Huh?” I blinked.

“You’re looking at me funny.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yeah, you were.” His expression was earnest—and not freaked out, like I would have expected.

I wanted to get out a pen and paper so I could write down all my suspicions . . . and then cross them off as I came up with completely logical explanations. But I didn’t have anything to write on, so my stupid mouth jumped the gun. “Well . . . you were looking at me funny earlier. At the lake.”

He snapped his head to the side so I couldn’t see his eyes anymore. “No I wasn’t.”

“Yes you were.”

“No I wasn’t.”

Wow, this conversation was going nowhere fast.

And maybe it had nowhere to go. Maybe I was high off marshmallow sugar. Or maybe it was sleep deprivation.

“Fine.” I dropped the icepack to the ground. “You weren’t, and I wasn’t.”

His nostrils flared. I’d only been paying attention to him for about a week now, but I’d already picked up on what that meant. He was upset.

Upset I wouldn’t admit I’d been ogling him?

That didn’t make sense. And neither did opening my mouth again. “So since we weren’t . . . you won’t follow me back to the lake right now.”

What the hell was I doing? I’d been possessed. Possessed by the spirit of an insane guy who’d been murdered out by the lake . . . by a serial killer. Probably because he’d said stupid stuff like this.

Brennan gaped. Blinked. Smashed his lips together and then just stared.

I don’t know what kind of reaction I was expecting, but that wasn’t it.

I opened the door and swung my legs out, hopping to the ground. And before my departed sanity could return, I mumbled, “No strings attached.” Then I slammed the door and ran.

I sprinted all the way to the lake. With the wind rushing past me, I quickly realized I’d left my freaking shirt in the van. So now I was out in the middle of the woods, half-naked, running away from what was probably the stupidest thing I’d ever done in my life.

A few feet from the water, I sank down to a patch of relatively clean earth, folding myself into a little ball for warmth.

Once the panicky adrenaline cleared, I was left feeling like a complete moron. I could only hope Brennan didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. And then there was that last thing I’d said . . . which was almost worse than all the rest of it. Because hadn’t he and I just talked about how we didn’t want that? And here I was using it as a means to . . . try and get him to admit something about himself without having it mean anything?

I felt dirty. Kristina might not have felt that way about having no-strings sex, but maybe that was because she actually wanted it. She wasn’t just using it as a ploy, like I’d been.

Maybe the good news was that nobody was coming. I sat there surrounded by croaking frogs, swatting away the occasional bug and waiting till my pulse returned to normal so I could go back to sleep in my tent and forget this whole night had ever happened.

Then I heard the footsteps.

“Dude, are you nuts? It’s freakin’ cold out here.”

Brennan approached with his letter jacket and my t-shirt slung across his arm. He squatted beside me and draped the jacket over my shoulders.

“You’re here,” I said stupidly. Here to give me my shirt, I reminded myself after the fact. That was all.

He didn’t say anything. Just tucked his legs under his butt so he could sit—and stare.

“Brennan?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he whispered.

“Oh. Okay.”

We kept staring. The pitch of the crickets rose and fell, and I noticed him zoning in on my lips. I licked them, and he twitched.

I wanted to talk some more. To figure out if I’d gone totally off my rocker, misread all the signs, and was now on the verge of scrapping my carefully laid plans of keeping my sexuality under wraps until I was well away from the confines of high school.

But Brennan didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to stare at my mouth.

Slowly, very slowly, I leaned forward. When he didn’t move away, I closed the distance and laid my lips on his for just a second.

I pulled back and found Brennan’s eyes locked on mine. They were wide and maybe a little scared, but some of the fear was fading around the edges.

“Do it again?” he asked.

I did.

His hands crept around my waist. “That’s nice.”

Nice. Now I really needed to get him a thesaurus. Nice didn’t describe the heat traveling through my body, the fiery temperature in complete defiance of the cool night air. Nice didn’t explain the way the hair on my arm perked up, like my body was preparing itself to soak in every inch of possible contact with his. Nice didn’t make my breath get lost in the wind, or make my hands shake or my feet wiggle. So, no–kissing Brennan Halprin was not nice. Not nice at all.

I lay back, using his jacket as a barrier between my naked skin and the cold ground. He moved with me so that he ended up hovering on top, and I opened my mouth to receive his tongue. A whole new batch of sensations overwhelmed me—slippery, smooth warmth, mixed with the roughness of a few patches of stubble scraping along my skin.

All of it incredible . . . except for the fact that I suddenly remembered something. Something I couldn’t ignore.

I pulled my mouth away from his. “Hey, um, Brennan?”

He froze. “Yeah?”

“Um, about what I said earlier . . .” I squirmed under him. “Maybe . . . maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, I just said it ‘cause . . . it was something to say, you know? But when I thought about it I realized I didn’t actually mean it. I mean, that’s not how I think.”

“Huh?” He sat up, and I edged back a few inches.

“The, uh, no-strings thing.”

“Oh. Oh!” He scrambled away, too, so there was now about a foot between us. “No, no. I mean, I didn’t think . . . I didn’t think we were going to, um . . .”

Even under the starlight, I could tell he was beet red. I’m sure I was a similar color. When exactly had I decided my foot was best when placed directly in my mouth?

“Right. Yeah. Of course not. Neither did I. I just thought, since the thing with Kristina, that I should, um, make it clear . . .”

Brennan nodded very slowly, as if in a daze. “Yeah. Uh, it’s clear.”

Clear that I was a freaking moron.

Now we were back to the silence. I waited until some of the redness in his skin had faded before I took another stab at human conversation. “So, um . . . is it okay to talk now?”

He shrugged.

“Well . . . are you gay?”

I got another shrug.

I noticed he didn’t ask me the same question. I guess I’d just made myself pretty obvious.

“I won’t tell anyone.” I took his hand to reassure him.

He looked down at our fingers, and I felt him tense before he tugged away. “Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, but I kinda want to be alone for a little bit, okay?”

My heart hammered into my throat. And, yeah, I took it the wrong way. “Oh. Um, okay.”

“It’s just . . . a lot to think about. I mean, I know what it is. I just . . . I’ve been, trying not to think about it for so long now . . .” He trailed off with yet another shrug, and I nodded.

“Yeah. I get it.”

Then he got up and left me there, sitting on his letter jacket, staring up into the stars.

 

*

 

It took a while before I could move again. The all-too-brief kiss we’d shared had given me jello-legs . . . and the way he’d taken off at the end had left my mind in a similar state. But the cold eventually forced me up, and I set about trudging back to the campground. I pulled on my t-shirt as I walked and left Brennan’s jacket folded up by the now-dead campfire.

“There you are!” Kristina popped up from behind a tree. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

One of my hands shot out and grabbed a branch as the other clutched my chest in a feeble attempt to keep my heart from escaping my ribcage. “Jesus.”

“I didn’t scare ya, did I? Come with me to the bathroom. I really have to pee.”

She was walking funny—maybe a grown-up version of the pee dance. Her legs seemed stiff, and she was holding her hand against her lower abdomen. I almost suggested she just squat behind a bush, but I had a feeling Kristina wouldn’t go for that.

We reached the wood shack of a building, and she disappeared into the women’s room. Before I even had a chance to find a tree to lean on, she was waving me in.

“Come on, no one’s in here.”

“So?” I grimaced. “Doesn’t mean I want to join you.”

“Come here!” She demanded. “It’s creepy being in here alone. And anyway, I need to talk to you.”

I sighed and followed her in.

She insisted on talking while she peed, about the number of spiders living on the web in the corner behind the toilet. I tried my best not to listen until she’d flushed and was standing over the sink, washing her hands and staring into a warped mirror.

“Well, I look the same,” she said with a laugh.

“Huh?”

“I look the same. The same way I did before I had sex.”

Air left my lungs like I’d been sucker-punched in the gut. “What?”

She rolled her eyes. “Sex. I had sex. It was a little anticlimactic, you know? Like I dunno what I was expecting . . . well, actually, I thought it would hurt, and that I’d bleed, but I didn’t. It just sorta felt uncomfortable. And then afterwards, I really had to pee. I didn’t have an orgasm or anything, but I think that’s normal.”

She fixed her lashes in the mirror while my heart crumbled and blew away in a urine-scented breeze. And how dumb was it that I’d actually let my heart get involved in this thing at all after a few lousy kisses?

“What?” Kristina caught sight of my pale reflection and turned around. “Are you gonna get all weird on me again?”

“You . . . had sex,” I said slowly.

“That’s what I just said. Were you even listening?”

“You had sex . . . with Brennan.”

“Brennan?” She scoffed, flipping wisps of red hair over her shoulder. “Yeah, right. He totally chickened out. I think maybe he’s sleeping in his car.”

Oh.

Oh.

“You okay?”

I clutched the white porcelain of the sink and watched a spider crawl down the drain. “Mhm. I’m fine . . . but who exactly did you have sex with if it wasn’t with Brennan?”

She smirked. “Genji.”

“Genji?”

Unbelievable. I knew his adorableness was just an act.

“Well, when Brennan ran off I went looking for you . . . but you were gone, too, and Genji was awake, and we just got to talking, and one thing led to another, and well … you know.”

“Genji. Freaking Genji.”

“That’s right.” She grinned. “I got it done, didn’t I? And boy, he’ll have some good stories to take back to Japan with him.”

I threw my arm around her shoulder, more for support than to give her a hug. “Yup. He sure will. Hey, I’m happy you got what you wanted.”

She gave me a funny look. “Okay, I think someone’s up past his bedtime. I’m gonna stay with Genji tonight—figure I owe him a bit of post-sex cuddling. You okay with swapping tents?”

“Mhm. No problem.”

No problem at all.

 

Back at the campground, I gathered my belongings while Genji looked on, smug dimples pressed into his cheeks. Then I headed to Kristina’s tent, unzipping it slowly because I could already see the shadow of Brennan inside. He was sitting up with a flashlight clutched in his hands, the beam rocking back and forth like he was searching for something.

“Hey, Brennan?”

He jerked his knees to his chest, but relaxed when I pushed in through the tent flap.

“Kristina wanted to switch tents. She and Genji hooked up.”

“Genji?” He repeated, with much the same holy shit look I’d probably had.

“Yeah. So uh, is it . . . okay if I stay here?”

He switched off the flashlight—I think to hide his blush. “Yeah. Of course.”

I lay down, and he lay facing me. Then he sort of squirmed a little closer, and his arm snuck out to fiddle with the corner of my sleeping bag. “Sorry about taking off earlier.”

“Nah, it’s all right.”

“Thanks.” A weak, doubtful grin touched his lips. “I didn’t mean to freak out on you. I guess I just hadn’t planned on . . . on coming out to anyone. At least not any time soon. I thought it’d make things awkward with my friends if they knew right now.”

I nodded. “So that’s why all the . . . showmanship.”

He winced. “I know. I know. I’m an idiot.”

“I don’t think so. I haven’t told anyone anything—not even Kristina. Just been waiting for the right time, I guess.”

“Well . . . while we wait,” his hand inched closer to me, stopping just short of my shoulder. “I was thinking . . . it might be nice to . . . get to know each other a little better.”

Giggles welled up inside me. I tried to cut them off, making my body shake down to my toes. “Um, okay. Where should we start?”

His fingers made it to my shoulder, and he scrunched a handful of t-shirt. “Uh . . . I dunno. I guess that was stupid.”

“No, no, it wasn’t.” I wormed my way towards his sleeping bag so his arm could wrap all the way around my back. “How about . . . what’s your favorite color?”

“Blue. Yours?”

“Green, I think. Red’s not bad, though.”

“Okay. Favorite . . . food? Mine’s pizza.”

I had to think for a moment. “Spaghetti, maybe? Or, nah, it might actually be pizza, too.”

He chuckled and pulled me against his chest. “Favorite . . . thing to do on a rainy day?”

I tilted my head forward and brushed his lips, more to see how he’d react than anything else. He caught my chin in his other hand and made it a real kiss.

“Was that your answer?” he asked, his breath hot on my mouth.

“Um, yes.”

His bag was unzipped, and I found myself transferring into a warm space that had opened up for me under his arm.

I yawned, and he caught it next, his mouth stretching into a wide circle. “Hey, Brennan . . .”

“Mhm?” His eyes drifted closed.

“Maybe we could . . . keep getting to know each other . . . tomorrow?”

“Mm,” he mumbled into my hair. I slipped an arm around his chest, and sometime afterwards we both fell asleep.

 

*

 

“When are you gonna wake up, sleepyhead?”

Kristina’s face hovered a few inches away, her nose almost touching mine.

“I’m up,” I growled, covering my eyes with a corner of sleeping bag. It took my tired mind a little while to piece together everything that had happened the night before. Most of it was pretty ridiculous, after all—Kristina with Genji, me with Brennan. Stuff that didn’t happen every day.

Of course, it might’ve been just a one-time thing. It had been for Kristina, and who knew what daylight would do to Brennan’s opinion of our encounter. And if a boy kissed a boy in the forest, and no one was around to see it, did it even really happen?

“Well put your clothes on and let’s go. We want to make the hike before it gets too warm out.” Kristina started shoving clothing at me—first a t-shirt, then a fresh pair of pants, then a couple of mismatched socks.

She stopped when she got to my shoes, though. “What the hell?” She gave my sneaker a yank, and I could see it was caught on something. “How’d your laces get all tangled like this?”

I rubbed my eyes and sat up to get a better look. “Tangled?”

“Yeah, they’re like . . . tied to Brennan’s.”

My heart hit my chest so hard I’m sure Kristina heard it. “Tied to Brennan’s?”

“Yeah. Actually it looks like someone did it on purpose. What kind of games were you playing in here last night?” Her light chuckle was cut short when she saw my face. “Josh? What is it?”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Why did you and Brennan tie your shoes together? Were you practicing for a three-legged race or something?”

“Kristina…” My skin burned, and there was no way she’d miss the freaked-out look I had going on.

“No, wait.” She put a hand over my mouth to shut me up. “Hold on a sec. Let me figure this out. Brennan was missing last night, and so were you. And then you came back, and he came back… and you were freaked out because you thought I’d had sex with him…but then you weren’t that freaked out when you found out it was Genji…and then you came back to this tent together and …”

Her eyes got wide. Shit, she was no idiot.

“Joshua Dalton!” She smacked my arm. “How could you not tell me something like this?”

“Kristina.” I shook my head weakly. “I . . . I was gonna, I just . . .”

She leapt into my sleeping bag, tackling me with a giant hug. “You idiot! You know I’d never have a problem with that. Why didn’t you trust me?”

I kept my face hidden against hers as we hugged. “It wasn’t about that. I just… was waiting till I was ready, okay?”

“Okay, okay. And are you now?”

“Well, do I have a choice?”

She ignored me. “So did you two… do it?”

I shook my head. “No. We just . . . talked. And cuddled. And kissed a little, I guess.”

Kristina pulled away so I could see her roll her eyes. “Of course you did, you sweet sap. And then you tied your shoelaces together.”

“Um, that was him.” I squirmed lower in the bag, and she giggled, lifting the fabric to see me again. “Not really sure why. Maybe he was just trying to be cute.”

She nodded. “Oh. I get it.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. And I think even if Brennan were into girls, it wouldn’t have worked with me and him.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well . . .” She lifted our sneakers so that his dangled above the floor. “I’d say he likes his strings . . . attached.”

Brennan popped his head into the tent just as Kristina doubled over with laughter. The blood drained from his face, making his freckles stand out even more against his pale skin.

“What?” He asked, though I was pretty sure he had a good idea. “Um, Josh?”

I was too nervous to respond.

“Oh, relax.” Kristina knelt over and tousled my hair, then stood to force Brennan into a hug. “I saw nothing, I know nothing.”

She pushed out of the tent and left Brennan paralyzed in his shock.

“I didn’t say anything . . . and she won’t either,” I blurted out as soon as she was gone. Thank God my power of speech had returned.

Brennan sank down next to me, his knees shaky. “Yeah?”

“I think we’ve already discussed that Kristina’s pretty cool, right?”

“Right.”

“So . . . are we cool?”

He glanced over at me, his nose twitching. “Um . . . could you . . . could we maybe . . .”

I held my breath.

Brennan whirled and zipped the tent closed. “Um . . .”

Confused, I followed the constellation of freckles on his face up to his sea-foam green eyes . . . and saw they were staring at my mouth again.

Oh.

I advanced and laid a kiss on his lips, a silent cheer roaring within me when his mouth softened against mine.

“Yeah,” he said when I was through, face split by a smile. “We’re cool.”

Cool.

For once, I couldn’t have agreed more.

 

****