Summer Love

by Annie Harper

  Justin is in Logan’s junior boys’ swim class. He isn’t a bad swimmer; he’s completely capable, just uninterested. He’s here for the musical theater program—he’s clear about his priorities—but he also seems to enjoy cooking and craft shack if you press him. He is not here for outdoor sports, and that includes swim­ming. He is basically a mini version of Logan, complete with impeccable style for an eleven-year-old.

  Logan, however, learned early on that being a good swimmer, the best swimmer, was a way to even the playing field. For one hour, three times a week, Logan Hart was the best at a sport. Only Justin doesn’t seem to want to be. He almost revels in his dif­ference. And given his non-swim-class high school exper­ience. Logan gets that too.

  Logan walks over to Justin and hands him a strawberry dai­quiri mocktail. “Dances aren’t really my thing either. The secret is to enjoy the fruity drinks anyway” He smiles.

  Justin shrugs. “Thanks. It’s also an opportunity to showcase the latest summer fashions, not that anyone cares.”

  “Oh, I care. I can spot good Comme Des Garcons knockoff jeans when I see them.”

  Justin smiles. “I’m impressed, for swim staff.” God this kid is sassy.

  “Justin, come dance with us!” Logan recognizes one of the junior girls beckoning him. Leanne.

  “Go on,” Logan says. He gestures toward the group of girls. “They look like fun.”

  “I’m just not into it.” Justin looks sad and Logan’s heart clenches.

  “I wasn’t either.” Suddenly Dave is beside him, looking warmly at Justin, who looks up at him with a start.

  “You?” Justin looks skeptical and Logan can’t say he blames him. Dave is pretty much the boy next door. He moves easily from football to canoe to musical theater; it’s hard to imagine him othered. And yet…

  “Yeah. I was a gay kid in small town Pennsylvania.” Dave just says it, as if he’s talking about the weather. “School dances, not my favorite thing.”

  “Same for me, Justin,” Logan says, because he knows the kind of impact it would have made on him to know someone else like him was out there, someone who had at least survived most of high school. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dave raise his eyebrow at him before nodding nonchalantly at Justin.

  “So don’t worry about it, okay? You’re not alone,” Dave says, punching Justin gently on the shoulder. Justin gives him the best judgmental side-eye he can, but Logan sees a tiny smile.

  “Justin!” Leanne demands.

  “I gotta go,” Justin says, slightly relieved. “But uh, thanks.” He says it quickly, before he’s engulfed by a group of enthusiastic girls. Logan doesn’t get a chance to tell him that friends like Leanne can actually be a saving grace. But he imagines Justin will figure that out for himself.

  Dave looks at Logan as he sips his Shirley Temple. “So what prompted that?”

  “I’m gay too, Dave.” Honestly.

  “I know, Logan.” Dave looks at him to continue.

  “Something about a mini version of myself,” he replies.

  “Ahh.” Dave nods. “Nothing like a Justin to rise up against the ‘Summer of Un-gay.’”

  Dave’s trying to be cute, but it annoys Logan anyway. “Enough, okay?” His tone is slightly more biting than he means it to be.

  “Enough what?” Dave is still staring directly at him, and now is smirking.

  “I’ve told the swim guys, I just told Justin, you know—like, whatever. Un-gay doesn’t work for me apparently. So you can stop pretending—”

  “Pretending what?” Dave looks as if he’s daring him.

  Logan rolls his eyes. “It’s fine. I’m out, okay?”

  Dave shrugs. “Okay. So now if I’m asking you to pass the waffles at breakfast, I can say, ‘Hey, gay Logan, waffles please? Would you like some boys with that?’”

  Logan folds his arms across his chest. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “No, seriously, Logan. It’s not like anything’s really different on my end.”

  “I guess not.” But Logan feels uncertain, because somehow he’s sort of hoping it will be.

  “Unless of course it means I’m allowed to sing duets with you again.” Dave smiles, still challenging him. And yeah, this is what he means. Not the duet, the dialogue.

  “Uh uh, no, I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, I think so. You know me. It’s kind of my thing. And sing­ing with a talented, cute guy. Swoon.” Dave lifts his voice and bats his eyelashes. He’s kidding around. But also not. Logan bites his lip but lets the blush run through him. He savors it this time. Dave looks at him as if assessing something. “I think you just gave me permission to flirt, Logan Hart.”

  “You do need practice.”

  “I do,” Dave agrees in a tone that’s somewhere between sincer­ity and flirtatiousness. How does he do that? “And I always per­fect my art.”

  * * *

  Again, Dave is true to his word. Although he’s sometimes a bit over the top—like the time he walked along the swim beach as he was toweling off and called out, “By the way, you could totally pull off briefs”—he’s usually pretty sweet and subtle. It’s this thing that is just between them. Logan has never had anything like it before. And he loves it. It’s like a game—sometimes, literally.

  The first time, Logan definitely wins. The Monday night even­ing program is Capture the Flag, Campers and staff take turns running around with a T-shirt hanging out of their shorts, waiting for a lust- or revenge-crazed camper from a different team to pull it out and send them to jail. Logan, on the Blue Team, doesn’t at all mind going there when Dave is the Green Team’s jail guard.

  Dave watches in amusement as the senior camper who caught him escorts Logan into the jail circle. Logan is now in the company of three younger campers who are waiting for some­one to incite a jailbreak; alas, he is but a prisoner.

  “Got a good one for you.” Green Team senior boy looks proud to deliver a prize swim staff prisoner.

  “He is a good one,” Dave replies, his amused eyes on Logan. Logan looks straight back. The senior says, “Later, Captain,” and runs off, but Logan is too occupied by the staring contest to be certain that he heard him right.

  “Hi, Logan.” Dave circles him outside the jail, smiling.

  “Hi, Dave.” Logan follows Dave with his eyes.

  “Bummer you got caught.”

  “Oh, like you don’t love having me as your prisoner.” Logan continues to stare, and runs his fingers along his neck.

  “Oh, I do,” Dave says, holding Logan’s gaze. “My lucky day.” Logan is sure this is an attempt to be suggestive without scaring the campers. Dave is as close to the prisoners’ circle as he can get without stepping inside, and Logan is as close to Dave as he can get without stepping out.

  “You shouldn’t get used to it.”

  “Oh no?” Dave waggles his eyebrows. It’s silly but adorable, and Logan just wants to laugh but keeps the glare going.

  “No,” Logan insists, “I magically distract the guards until someone is able to—”

  “Jailbreak!” A Blue Team senior girl flies in from behind the bushes, screaming the command, and Logan and the others are off before Dave wakes from his Logan-induced daze.

  Logan had seen her coming and kept Dave’s eye contact. He totally wins.

  Then there are the quieter moments. Logan dismisses the junior boys’ swim class just as Dave comes strolling along the dock one afternoon.

  “Hey,” Dave says, smiling.

  “Hey.”

  “That’s Justin’s class, right?” Dave motions at the boys now on the beach with their towels.

  Logan sighs. “Yeah. I wouldn’t say he’s suddenly embracing his athletic side, but he is jumping in with the rest of them and more than keeping up,” Logan says with pride.

  “It’s sweet the way you’re looking out for him,” Dave says with a smile.

  “Yes, well, gotta look out for one of our own, right?” Logan smiles back. “Not tha
t Justin is for sure—I mean—I shouldn’t assume or—”

  Dave giggles and places his warm hand on Logan’s arm, some­how giving him goose bumps. “Don’t worry about it. And I make assumptions too. Remember our mistimed duet? Your gaydar is safe with me.” He’s ridiculous.

  “I feel like it’s time for a secret tribal handshake or something,” Logan says under his breath, shaking his head. Dave pauses. He looks as if he’s plotting. “That was a joke, Dave.”

  “Oh come on, it’d be fun,” Dave says, grinning from ear to ear. “A secret homosexual code.” Even when he’s being sarcastic, Dave’s exuberance shines through. Logan gives Dave the best judgmental glare he can muster while still grinning.

  * * *

  They’re finishing dessert the following Friday evening when Dave asks Logan to skip the staff weekly evening softball game again in favor of a canoe ride.

  “It’s an excuse to not play softball,” Dave tries.

  And while Logan always does exactly what he wants—which would never be softball—he’s in. And he absolutely does not spend an extra thirty minutes making sure he looks like an eleven on a scale of one to ten, with an appropriately casual outfit: khaki capris and a tight red T-shirt with three buttons open at the top. Canoe–appropriate. He can wade without soaking the bottoms of his pants. So what if the T-shirt hugs his chest just enough to emphasize his pecs? Side effect.

  Dave is waiting by the canoe, bouncing on his toes in navy blue shorts and a tight, white, collared button-down shirt with a navy-and-white polka dot handkerchief in its pocket. He accessorized. But Dave likes fashion—so what if he dressed up? It’s probably not meaningful, though Logan admits to himself that he appreciates a guy who dresses to impress. He dresses to impress. And he’s sure they’d both do it even if they happened to be canoeing with Stuart or Sarah.

  “Hey.” Dave’s eyes sparkle in the moonlight as he watches Logan approach, and Logan’s stomach does a pleasant swoop.

  “Hey.” They lead the canoe into the water and hop in with Dave at the stern, Logan in the front. They chitchat as they paddle away into the nighttime nothingness and the camp becomes more remote, the sky more starry. Logan wills that his hands not sweat and that the conversation be as easy and as real as last time, but they do and it isn’t. He’s nervous, which is not impressive at all. He rambles too long about the trials and tribulations of teaching swimming with confidence to pubescent girls. At a pause in the conversation, Dave slows down the canoe and ships his paddle.

  “Dave?” Logan looks over his shoulder at Dave. Dave breathes out heavily as he looks at Logan. He bites his lower lip.

  “So, I am really not good at this,” Dave starts out of nowhere. “For one, I want to have a conversation with you, but I bring you out in a canoe where I’m staring at your back.”

  Dave has a point. Logan takes his own paddle out of the water and carefully turns around.

  “Easy fix.”

  “Okay,” Dave starts again, “I feel like maybe I’ve taken this permission to flirt thing too far.”

  “Oh.” Logan’s heart falls while he tries to keep his face neutral. He doesn’t know what he expected—probably just a canoe ride and nice conversation—but this feels like rejection. Like what a breakup conversation would feel like, even though he’s never had a breakup and there isn’t anything to break. He says, “Okay,” because what else is he going to say? If Dave doesn’t want to flirt, he shouldn’t flirt.

  “Aren’t you going to ask why?”

  “No. I’m actually more curious about why you’d bring me all the way out here to tell me that instead of just, you know, not flirting. It isn’t a requirement. It’s really quite simple. Like if you don’t think I’m cute, you know, don’t tell me I’m cute.” Logan’s voice cracks despite his desire to stay cool.

  “No. No—” Dave bites his lip.

  “I’m glad you find this funny.”

  “Logan, I think you’re cute.” Dave looks straight at him, his brown eyes shine in contrast to the black night. “I think you’re gorgeous, actually.”

  “Oh.” Logan feels as if he’s on that ride at Six Flags that loops you around twice in one direction and then suddenly jerks and flips you backward in the other.

  “I really am bad at this—”

  “At what?”

  “So, like, since you abandoned the ‘Summer of Un-gay,’ since we’ve had this flirty thing going on,” Dave says, his eyelashes fluttering as he smiles, “I feel like it’s just this habit, this thing we do. And it isn’t what I really want.”

  Rejection again? “Honestly, Dave, just spit it out, ‘cause you’re giving me whiplash here.”

  “Logan, I like you.”

  “I like you too, Dave. I think we’ve established that already.” Logan knows he’s being difficult, but his heart is beating rapidly and he can’t really let himself believe what Dave appears to be saying. This stuff isn’t supposed to happen to him. And not with a smart, kind, confident and very out guy, before his senior year of high school.

  “No. I mean, I like you.” Dave looks at him directly before shaking his head and looking down shyly. Fidgety, he takes his paddle and dips it into the still lake. The surface tension breaks. He looks at Logan again, his eyes vulnerable, and Logan stares, his mouth slightly open, a nervous grin twitching at its edges. He’s shaking. “You’re not saying anything.”

  “Oh.” Logan’s heart is louder than his voice. “I like you too. Like you.” Logan finds his voice somehow, and the con­fession falls from him, natural and obvious. “I just haven’t known what to do with it. But flirting is fun, so that’s what I went with.”

  “It is fun. I just don’t want that to be all this is. I want… this,” Dave says, gesturing between them, “to be… more.”

  “Me too.” Logan takes a deep breath and finds his courage. “So….what happens next?” He can hardly believe he is being such a fishing minx, but apparently this is not his “Summer of Un-gay.”

  Dave looks down at the canoe. “Here’s where you see that I am really bad at this, because I was trying to be all romantic on a lake and under the stars but I’m sitting way too far away to hold your hand, let alone be all caught up in the moment and kiss you.”

  “Kiss me?” Logan feels his blood rush through him. “Now?”

  Dave blinks back at him, a little incredulous. “Yeah, I mean, if you want to. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?”

  “I guess it is.” Logan breathes out.

  “May I?” Dave walks carefully across the canoe to sit on the little bar directly behind Logan’s front seat.

  Logan giggles as the boat rocks. “Just don’t tip us, okay?”

  “Guess that would ruin the moment,” Dave says as he perches on the bar. His knees touch Logan’s. They look at each other, but Dave doesn’t kiss him. Instead, he reaches down and picks up Logan’s hand and slowly interlaces their fingers, one by one. Logan watches. It’s ridiculously romantic. They smile at each other. Logan giggles again; he’s nervous, shaking. It’s perfect.

  “So when did this dawn on you, Dave Westin?”

  “Taking you out on a canoe ride to talk about this?” Dave looks sheepish. “After our last canoe ride?”

  “You’ve been planning this all week?”

  “Well, once I had permission to think of you as ‘gay Logan’—so I guess that would be after the social.” Dave squeezes his hand and shifts closer to him. “Though you asking me about Colin gave me some hope that you weren’t really sexuality-free.” They smile at each other.

  Logan wants this moment. So he takes it. He closes the distance between them and kisses Dave softly. Dave grins into the kiss before pulling away with a wet pop. Their eyes are inches apart and Dave has the warmest, crinkliest smile. Logan is pretty sure he is crinkling right back.

  “That was nice.” Dave beams, inches from Logan’s face.

  “Nice? Is that all?”

  “Mmmm? Yeah. We can do better.” Dave’s gaze flicks t
o Logan’s lips, sending a jolt of electricity down his spine.

  Dave places his hands on Logan’s shoulders and does his best to hold him firmly while balanced on a canoe seat. And this time Dave kisses him. Really kisses him. His lips are firm and searching, and Logan figures this is a very good use for Dave’s show-offy ways. But as Dave leans forward to pull him closer, the boat tilts sharply to the side, and they pull apart to grab tightly to its edges. “Smooth,” Dave mutters.

  “Yeah.” Logan chuckles, attempting to get his racing heart back under control. “Maybe we should paddle back to shore and continue?” Logan tries to sound sultry but is certain it comes out more like Miss Piggy than Jessica Rabbit.

  “Yeah,” Dave agrees. He maneuvers very carefully to the back of the canoe and they paddle toward shore.

  They’re comfortably quiet as they wade back onto the beach and hoist the canoe to its rafters. They reach the shed and put away the paddles, and it isn’t until Dave shuts the door and clicks the lock that the silence begins to feel heavy.

  Dave looks at Logan and blushes. Then he looks down and reaches for Logan’s hand.

  Logan breaks the too-full silence. “Where to?”

  “I don’t know.” Dave shrugs but pulls Logan forward. “Thought we could stop by the shore, just a bit away from the storage sheds. Ambience, you know?”

  “Yeah, okay.” And then they are by the water’s edge, holding hands and facing each other, and Logan is fairly certain that they are going to kiss again.

  “You have goose bumps,” Dave muses as he runs his free index finger along Logan’s arm. Which only makes them worse.

  “Well, I’m nervous,” Logan challenges.

  “Yeah, me too,” Dave confesses, blushing again.

  “You don’t have to indulge me, Dave.”

  “You don’t think I’m nervous? Aren’t I the one who just bared my heart to you?”

  “Aren’t I the one who’s never done this before?”

  “Well, now you’re going to assess my skills without the threat of capsizing distracting you from scathing judgment,” Dave teases as he takes a step closer.