by Lissa Kasey
“No bears,” Jamie reaffirmed, “but yes, you can share my rock.” He scooted over a little and Nate climbed up, making himself comfortable, half leaning on Jamie. He took his cue from Jamie’s relaxed form. There might be danger, but nothing so bad as to worry the experienced ranger. Nate shut his book and tucked it off to the side, then used his bag for a pillow. He closed his eyes for a bit, just to rest. He could write later.
He woke to cooling breezes and the sun fading on the horizon. His head lay on Jamie’s chest. For a moment he was so calm, so at peace, he felt a flutter of something almost foreign. Desire? Hope? An incredible dream of being important to someone, to the man he valued most? Of reaching out for a kiss and being received with welcome arms. Then it was gone when he realized he was with his straight best friend who could drop him into the middle of nowhere in a hot minute if he so chose.
Nate bolted up and fell off the rock.
“Crap, you okay?” Jamie asked, leaning over to reach for him.
Nate’s face felt like it was on fire. He got up, waving off Jamie’s help and pretended to be intent on getting everything back in his pack. “I’m fine, sorry. Just startled.”
“Bad dream?” Jamie wondered.
No, the glimpse of a good one shattering. “Nah, just new environment, I think.”
“Okay. It’s time to head back. We can still catch the sunset. Maybe some dinner.” Jamie handed him another bottle of water. “Drink. People always forget to hydrate on camping trips.”
“Or drink too much beer,” Nate pointed out, remembering the mess.
“Sadly yes.”
Nate wasn’t all that hungry. But he thought maybe he’d try the s’mores. So he hauled his bag up on his back and followed Jamie back down the trail, recognizing sections of it as they walked. He still had Jamie’s phone and occasionally snapped pictures of birds, or a spread of color-changing leaves. Jamie didn’t really talk on their way down, which made Nate worry. Was he mad? Maybe uncomfortable that Nate had fallen asleep on him? Sleeping in the same bed was one thing. Just sharing space really. Waking up with his head on Jamie’s chest felt more intimate, even though Nate hadn’t done it intentionally.
The sunset stopped his negative self-talk. He stopped completely. Just stood there in a wide expanse on the edge of a hill, a clearing through the trees, staring out at the water. A kaleidoscope of pink, teal, purple, and blue painted the sky in a wash of fading fire. The mountains outlined in a dark maroon haze in the distance looked almost close enough to touch, but still like the ink smear on a perfectly constructed canvas.
Nate took pictures. Lots of pictures. A dozen angles and versions until the sun completely vanished leaving them with the darkening growth of midnight-blue creeping across the sky. Stars popped through the wave of color, arising in tiny pin-pricks of light so numerous and bright, Nate wondered if he’d ever seen so many in his life.
“Beautiful, right?” Jamie said. He came up behind Nate and hugged him from behind, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “It’s something you don’t see in the city. Not like this.”
“Wow,” was all Nate could think to say. Some writer he was. “I don’t know… It’s just so much… I never thought I’d…” Speechless again.
“The words will come back to you,” Jamie assured. He dropped his arm from Nate’s shoulder and reached out to grab his hand. “Let’s get back to camp. The temp will start dropping fast and we’ll both freeze if we’re not in the tent and bundled up soon.”
Nate was already frozen. He shoved Jamie’s phone into his pocket and followed his friend back to camp. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed. But getting out of the wind and into some blankets sounded really good right then. He hoped the tent helped keep out the cold, though he couldn’t imagine how such a flimsy fabric structure could keep them warm.
“You hungry?” Jamie asked.
“Not much. You mentioned trail mix earlier? I could probably eat some of that.”
“Sure. Get in the tent. Change into your jammies, and jump into the blue sleeping bag. It’ll help you warm up. I’m going to button down the camp for the night.”
What did that mean, Nate wondered? He stepped into the tent, surprised by the size of it. He could stand up straight in the middle, but he wasn’t sure Jamie could. He set his bag down. Jamie entered the tent behind him and bent to turn on some sort of lantern. It looked like a lantern, but seemed to work more like a flashlight. Neat.
Then Jamie vanished back out the door. There were two rooms. One of them was piled with Jamie’s bags and the cooler. The other had two sleeping bags spread out on top of some sort of mat. Nate toed off his shoes and stepped into the little bedroom area. He dug out his pajamas, thankful he’d brought a warmer pair with flannel bottoms and a long sleeve top. He wondered how cold the night was going to be. His teeth were already chattering. Jamie wouldn’t let him freeze to death, right? Did he have a portable heater somewhere?
Nate made quick work of changing into his pajamas and folding up his clothes. There was even a small hook by the door that appeared to be a place to hang coats. Nate hung his coat and put his shoes beside the opening. Back in the little bedroom area there were two sleeping bags. One in red and one in blue. Jamie said the blue one was Nate’s. Probably to match Nate’s backpack.
The mat stretched out beneath the bags felt like a couple inches of cushion, covered in a dark gray fabric. Nate crawled into the blue bag expecting it to be cold, but there was only a slight chill inside, which began to warm quickly around him. The cushion cradled his body so he barely felt any of the cold, hard ground. The tiny little pillow, however, was not going to work. Nate grabbed his pack, took out the book, pens, pill case, and toiletries, and made a pillow of the rest. Better.
He opened his book and began to fill in another random questionnaire he found, which translated to a scene of observation. In the evenings he always found his head clearer than the rest of the day. He didn’t know why. Google research of depression and anxiety seemed to agree that it was common to feel better later in the day. Nate thought it was simply because his brain was so tired from overworking itself, that it finally began to slow enough to process like most people.
Jamie entered the tent and zipped up the door. There were zippers everywhere. Windows with screens and flaps over them. Their little bedroom had a door that appeared to be either a screen or a fully opaque flap. Privacy probably. Jamie wasn’t shy about digging out his pajamas and changing in the small light of the little lantern. He wore boxers, but pulled on a pair of flannel pants and a T-shirt. Nate pretended to be engrossed in his writing, all while watching Jamie under his lashes.
He didn’t want to make his friend uncomfortable, even if Jamie had never expressed discomfort with another man looking at him. Nate just couldn’t help thinking that Jamie was a fine specimen of a man. Not the sort of things he read about in romance books with washboard abs and chiseled features. He was the guy next door. Stocky, but overall, he was a large man with a baby face, and chest hair. His skin was pale and freckled, more pale peach than tan super model. His face and arms were a bit darker, signs of spending time outside, Nate supposed. A farmer’s tan. And that was okay. Jamie was real. Everything about Jamie was genuine. As much as Nate feared overstaying his welcome, he also thanked the universe every moment for sending this amazing man into his orbit.
Once Jamie was dressed, he grabbed the lantern and entered the bedroom area, then zipped up the door. “This will help keep the heat in. I put the toilet outside the main door to the left. If you need to use it in the middle of the night, pull your coat on too. That wind is cold.” He tugged his sleeping bag closer to Nate’s and used his coat as a pillow.
“Camping pillows suck, eh?” Nate teased.
“They do. And packing a normal one takes up a lot of room. I’m a bit of a pillow diva anyway.” Jamie dug his book reader out of the stack of his stuff.
“Pillow diva…”
“I have like ten on my bed. Didn’t you
notice? I have two for under my head, one for behind my back and one to wrap my arm around. Then there are more on the other side of the bed, just in case I roll over there. You haven’t noticed that you throw a half dozen off the bed each night before coming to bed?” Jamie flashed him a cute grin, giving Nate a glimpse of the little boy he’d probably been. “Pillow diva sounds better than pillow whore.”
“Yet a little bit the same,” Nate pointed out. “How do you survive camping without the pillow nest?”
“The sleeping bag is snug. That helps. Though I usually wind up waking to find myself wrapped around whomever I’m camping with. So consider yourself warned.”
“That I’m about to become a giant living teddy bear?”
“Yep. Well, we will have to work on putting some weight back on you, but I’m sure you’ll be warm enough to snuggle.”
Nate frowned, suddenly feeling bad. He got lots of compliments on his weight loss, though it hadn’t been intentional. People just associated health with appearance. While he looked healthy, he’d dropped sixty pounds and had been so mentally ill he’d barely eaten one meal a day for months on end, but everyone smiled at him and told him how amazing his diet must be going, and what was his secret? No one really wanted to know his secret.
“Hey,” Jamie said, drawing Nate back into the present. “What did I say?”
Nate shook his head. Jamie hadn’t meant anything by it.
“No really. I should know. If something I do is triggering the shutdown, I need to know. Either to avoid it or so we can work around it. You’re my best friend, and we’re going to be together a long time, Nate. I’m not here just because. I’m here because I’m your friend and I want to help you heal.”
Tears burned Nate’s eyes. He fought them back. “It was just the weight thing. I was fat for so long. And how people react to my weight loss…” He let it trail off. It wasn’t news to Jamie. Nate had told him before.
“Ah, okay. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know,” Nate said quickly.
“I’m thinking more in terms of your malnutrition. Troy gave me a list of minerals and vitamins you’re deficient in due to the labs and tests he’s seen. That’s why we’re spending the weekend in the sun. You seriously need some vitamin D.”
“It’s too cold most of the year in Minnesota to spend days outside. I think most Midwesterners are D deficient.” Nate recalled his research about half the USA being deficient. Too many hours spent in an office or behind a computer and under fluorescent lights than outside. He’d taken supplements for a while, but they hadn’t seemed to help much. “No real supplement for the sun, right?”
“Agreed. Which is why it’s good you’re here and not on the mainland. It rains all the time over there. Not as much here. We’ll spend most of the day in the sun tomorrow. I have a path mapped out to a nice little stream and a mini waterfall.”
“I’ll probably have to run down to the office tomorrow morning,” Nate said quietly. “I’m pretty regular…”
Jamie laughed. “Okay. We can do that. Should be fresh coffee down there too. Now scoot over and share your body heat, teddy bear, my toes are freezing.”
“This was your idea,” Nate teased, but moved over until he and Jamie were side by side. He laid his head on Jamie’s shoulder and balanced his book binder on his bended knees. The section he was working on about setting came alive with his memories of the day. Though he did flip through the pictures on Jamie’s phone a few times to recall an exact place or color. Jamie seemed to be deeply engrossed in a book.
“What are you reading?” Nate asked after a while.
“A romance novel.”
“Okay.”
“Set in space.”
“So it’s a romantic Star Trek?”
“Not really. It’s about a race of cat warriors who kidnap human men to make them into baby daddies to save the race of their planet.”
Nate did a slow pan over to his best friend, wondering if he’d heard him right. “Say what?”
“You heard me.”
“You’re reading a gay romance with male pregnancies?”
“It couldn’t have been female cat warriors?”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve read this book you’re reading.”
“You might have. And wow you got a lot from my tiny description? How much of this stuff do you read? I’ve always teased you about your ass baby fetish.”
“And yet you’re reading one.”
“This is just one of many. In case you forgot, you have a list on Goodreads of all your recommends. I’ve just been going down the list. This wasn’t the first or even the third mpreg book in the list. Pretty sure I’d freak if I had to carry a baby. The concept is fascinating. There are some species of animals that change gender to bear a child. Lots of animal species have same-sex relationships, many adopt children successfully. These books are less based on science and more on…weird,” Jamie said.
“Weird?” Nate wanted clarification.
“Not reality? Men aren’t usually…Well I don’t think gay men are all that different. We’re just not quite so expressive? Um. I’m not sure I’m saying this right.”
“Gay romance is written mostly by women for women. There are a handful of gay male writers, but I think they also write more toward their female audience. The ones that don’t seem to me to be more erotic and less romance. Some are so raunchy that even I can’t read them, all focused on the grunge and act of sex. Erotica is a huge market no matter your orientation. I’m not wired that way, though I like sex just as much as the next guy. Some of my favorite scenes were written by women who don’t exactly get the science right. Romance isn’t science though, which is why it works. It’s also why there is an entire club devoted to the mpreg genre. I’ve read a lot of fun ones, but yeah there’s not much of the practical science there,” Nate said. “Several intersex series do things a little more biological.”
“I think I read one of those already,” Jamie said. “It’s just fascinating. I keep thinking back to my college days. Makes me want to do more research. Maybe you could write a scientifically correct mpreg story.”
“I’m not as scientific as you. I don’t mind ass babies.” Nate grimaced at the thought. “So long as I’m not giving birth to them.”
“Ha!” Jamie laughed. “No kidding, right?”
“The guy on guy sex doesn’t bother you?”
“Nah. I think at first it made me a little uncomfortable. Like when you go to church for the first time in a few years and they are spouting stuff about how everyone is going to hell for this, that, or the other. Uncomfortable, but then you either walk away or you keep reading until your brain is like, oh yeah, I get that. Church I don’t get, I didn’t grow up religious, but romance I get, no matter who’s having it. After Dana passed I learned a lot about challenging my own perceptions of things. Something might make me uncomfortable either because it’s not for me, or because I just need to learn more about it. Like jellyfish.”
“Jellyfish?” Nate wanted to know. “How do jellyfish make you uncomfortable?”
“They are terrifying.”
“And neat,” Nate agreed.
“And can sting. Some are deadly. Yet they are little more than jiggly goop.”
“Uh, gross but accurate description.”
Jamie shrugged. “So I studied them. I could identify every classified jellyfish known to man.”
“Yeah? And that helps make you more comfortable with them?”
“Nope. Still can’t stand to be near them. They aren’t for me, but at least I know now it’s cause they are jiggly and not cause I’m denying something emotionally.”
Nate had to think about that for a bit. “So no jellyfish pets for you.”
“Nope.”
“But books with male pregnant gay sex is okay.”
“Yep,” Jamie agreed.
“You’re too good to be real.”
“If it helps, I think straight romance is weird too. Dana lov
ed that stuff. The guy is always some superhero. Men aren’t like that, I always assured her. Oh, she knew. She patted my arm and said, you’re my superhero, or something cheesy like that. But we both knew the truth. I’m about as average as they come. And I’m okay with that. Novels are fiction. Meant to be enjoyed,” Jamie said. “I couldn’t get over the terminology. Man rod. Love handle. Rigid shaft. Always throbbing. That just sounds painful.”
Nate laughed. “The magic dick. Cure-all for everything that ails you. I was always awed by the phrase hard enough to pound nails. Seriously. Ow.”
Jamie shook his head, big smile on his face. “He forgot his hammer, so instead he pulled out his hot man rod to fix the shutters on her window. I’m not sure anyone has a hot man rod.”
“Hey! I think my man rod is pretty hot!” Nate protested.
“Sure, sure. Like that Fabio guy or something. On all the covers of the historical romance novels. Blond hair flying, chest on display, woman at his feet.”
“Me he-man, bow before my tiny dick with a giant attitude.”
They both laughed.
“Maybe that’s why I have never settled down,” Nate wondered out loud. “My expectations are too high. The bar set by romance novel men.”
“Nothing wrong with high expectations. But if you’re waiting for a superhero…that probably won’t happen. Someone to respect you, that should be the norm. Doesn’t matter what flavor they are. So long as the respect goes both ways. Ass babies or not. Couples sometimes fight. They don’t always agree, and it’s not always rainbows and puppies, sometimes it’s bills and taxes, but so long as at night when you hold that person, you think, hey we work, that’s what’s matters.”
“Yeah?” Nate asked.
“Yeah,” Jamie agreed.
Nate thought about it for a while. Would Jamie snap at him if he brought up the subject of his lost wife? Jamie didn’t talk about her much, though sometimes a memory just popped up out of nowhere and made him sad or smile. There was only one way to find out how he’d react. “She’s been gone a long time and you don’t date.”
