by Greg Herren
We hadn’t driven back up for dinner—Mom insisted we walk up the road. The path behind my room actually was a shortcut to the lodge but, “No taking the shortcut after dark,” she’d warned me as we climbed up the steeply inclined road. “No telling what’s out there in the woods.”
I thought about pointing out that the road also went through the woods but bit my tongue. It was amazing how dark it was—I could barely see more than a few feet in front of me. Dad had brought a flashlight he’d found in the kitchen, and he kept it aimed on the road ahead of us. But soon enough we went around the curve and could see the yellow light on the side door, and Dad switched off his flashlight.
The Wolfes and Starks were already there, talking and laughing. Mr. Stark and Logan pushed two tables together, while a girl who introduced herself as Annie Bartlett offered us menus. She was a pretty girl about our age but seemed a little shy. She had light brown hair that reached her shoulders, freckles across her pert nose, and pale skin. She was slender and was wearing a pair of low-rise jeans underneath a red T-shirt with Mohawk Lodge and Resort written across the front in black letters. I saw Logan smirk on the other side of the table as she gave him a menu, and Teresa rolled her eyes at me. I knew that smirk—I’d seen it on Logan’s face plenty of times before on previous trips.
Poor Annie was going to get the full blast of Logan’s lady-killer charm.
After she took our orders and went back to the kitchen, he whispered to me, “Ten bucks I can get in her pants before we go home.”
“Pig,” Teresa said, punching him in the arm. “You leave that poor girl alone.”
Logan winked at me when Teresa turned back to Rachel.
And after dinner, the adults went to the bar and we all came into the game room.
I picked up a worn deck of playing cards from the table and shuffled them, spreading them out into a game of Solitaire.
I wished someone would say something, anything, to break the horrible silence in the room. We’re all bored, I thought as I placed a red nine on a black ten, and that always winds up getting us all into trouble.
Just the previous summer, on Sanibel Island, boredom was why we’d gone out in the boat moored to the house’s dock without permission and wound up marooned on a deserted barrier island, requiring rescue from the Coast Guard.
Our parents hadn’t exactly been thrilled about that one, to say the least.
I looked over at the brown couch, where Teresa was frowning in concentration at one end as she played Angry Birds on her iPad with the sound off, her tanned legs curled up underneath her. She looked up from the screen and caught me looking at her, responding with a big smile that lit up her face. She’d changed into a navy blue T-shirt and a pair of matching shorts.
Her right eye closed in a wink and her grin got wider.
“It’s so damned boring here,” Logan said, closing the cover on his own iPad and setting it down on the coffee table. He ran a hand through his already messy light brown hair. He blew out a breath and made a face at me, crossing his eyes, sticking out his tongue, then rolling his eyes. “Why the hell did they decide to come here in the summer? It’s a winter place. And there’s nothing for us to do.” He started bouncing his legs rapidly. He’d never been able to just sit around—he’d always been a bundle of barely contained energy looking for an outlet. Even when he was a kid he’d never been able to sit still. The Starks had banned him from caffeine and sugar, but that hadn’t helped much. That was why they’d put him into sports to begin with—to try to burn off some of that excess energy. It was the smartest thing they could have done. Logan loved playing sports, and he’d turned out to be a natural athlete—he had an uncanny command of his body and more than enough coordination to pretty much master any sport he tried.
If I was going to be completely honest, Logan was the one I’d worried about the most—he was such a straight-boy jock stereotype, always talking about all his girlfriends back home and flirting with every girl who got in range. If any of our little group was going to have a problem with me being gay, I’d figured it was most likely going to be him.
Like his twin, Logan had fair skin and light brown hair. Unlike Teresa, his hair was always out of control because he couldn’t be bothered to concern himself with it. He combed it whenever he got out of the shower and never gave it another thought the rest of the time. He just didn’t care. Logan was gorgeous and athletic—and girls worshipped him, if the comments and posts on his Facebook wall were any indication. All the years of playing sports and the weight training that went with it had given him the kind of body I would have gladly sold my soul to the devil to have. He was a couple of inches over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, a ridiculously narrow waist, and a defined stomach so flat and firm you could bounce quarters on it. His arms were thickly muscled, with veins bulging in his thick forearms and well-developed biceps. Years of running up and down a soccer field had given him strong, powerful legs and a round, hard butt. Like his twin, he didn’t care too much about his clothes—he seemed to always be in soccer shorts and tank tops or sweats, and about half the time his clothes clashed. Unlike Teresa, he was rarely, if ever, serious about anything. He was a bit of a clown and could always make me laugh. His handsome face was strangely elastic, and he could twist it in the most ridiculous ways. He was always making jokes, and he couldn’t stand just sitting around. He was up for anything, anytime—as long as it didn’t involve just sitting.
He was also a really good guy with a big heart. Just before we sat down for dinner, he’d given me a big hug and whispered in my ear, “You can be as gay as you want, bro, but I hate to disappoint you, man—I’m just not interested.” Then he laughed so loud everyone had turned to look, and I couldn’t help but grin back at him.
He really was a great guy—but I still felt bad for Annie Bartlett. He was a heartbreaker.
“You guys want to go ghost hunting?’ Carson Wolfe looked up from the book he was reading—Ghosts of Louisiana: Stories of True Haunting—dog-earing the page and closing it. He pushed his wire-framed glasses back up his stubby nose and grinned. “We could go see if that cemetery is haunted. I bet it is—the town dates back to colonial times. There’s bound to be a ghost or two there, don’t you think?”
“Shut up already,” his younger sister Rachel said, almost absentmindedly. She didn’t even look up from her own iPad, still launching birds across the screen without missing a beat as she spoke. “Besides, you don’t know if there’s a cemetery here. And even if there is one, I doubt the locals would like us messing around in there at night. In fact, I can guarantee they wouldn’t—it’s disrespectful.” She waved a hand, still not looking up. Rachel was a pretty girl, with flawless white skin, bright blue eyes, and thick, dark curly hair. Like her brother, she’d been chubby when she was younger, and she’d had a rough time with acne for a few years. But she’d blossomed the year before the Sanibel trip. Now she had an amazing figure, with nice legs and curves that wouldn’t quit. Last summer, Logan had made a couple of passes at her, but she’d shot him down cold. “Let’s not forget the great boat-trip disaster of last summer.” She looked up and made a face at her brother. “Besides, cemeteries are kind of creepy. Not to mention, you know, snakes and things.” She gave a delicate, ladylike shudder. “No, thank you.”
“Don’t be like that, Rachel. If there’s a Cemetery Road, there has to be a cemetery—they wouldn’t call it that if there wasn’t one,” Carson insisted, his blue eyes wide open in excitement behind his thick glasses. “And I bet it’s an old one! Come on, it’ll be fun.” He looked around at the rest of us. “What do you say, guys?”
“I’m in,” Logan replied, standing up and stretching so that his T-shirt road up over his flat, defined stomach and the trail of light brown hairs leading down from his navel to the waistband of his shorts.
No surprise there, I thought, trying not to stare at his ripped abs. Logan’s hands brushed against the low wood ceiling when he stretched. In his burnt-orange tank top
and black nylon shorts, his legs bouncing in place, he seemed like an electrical wire wrapped up in a muscular teenager’s body. “I’ll see if Mom and Dad will let me take the SUV.” He got up and bounded out of the room before anyone could stop him or say anything.
The Starks lived in Dallas, in a gated community in a rich suburb. Uncle Jerry was a heart surgeon, and Aunt Nancy was a perfect doctor’s wife, a stay-at-home mom whose family was her number-one priority. She also did a lot of charity work for kids with cancer. The Wolfes, of course, lived in Beverly Hills (“9-0-2-1-0,” as Rachel liked to say with a big bored eye roll), and Uncle David owned a production company with several television shows currently on the air. The Wolfes weren’t filthy rich, but they were pretty well-off. Aunt Lynda didn’t work either—“She shops,” I’d heard my mom once say dismissively when she didn’t think I could hear her.
Yes, it’s going to be a long boring week, I thought as Logan came bounding back into the room, brandishing the keys with a huge smile on his face. “Come on, let’s go!”
“You can stay here if you want, Rachel,” Carson said with a sly smile as he stood up. “You don’t have to come with.”
“Why not?” Rachel yawned and closed the cover of her iPad. “I’m sick of killing pigs. But I’m going to kill you if there are snakes.”
I got up and stretched. I wasn’t so sure this was a good idea, but figured how much trouble can we get into at a cemetery? Besides, my only other choice was to stay behind by myself and go listen to the boring college stories of the glory days at Beta Kappa.
Not much of a choice, really.
We trooped through the main room of the lodge. Our parents didn’t even look up at us as we passed by, focused instead on their card game and the story my dad and Uncle David were taking turns telling, big stupid grins on their faces. It was a story I’d heard a million times before—the Great Panty Raid on Delta Zeta sorority, when Uncle David had broken his ankle and had to limp out of the house while the sorority sisters threw things at him. But when we reached the front door, my dad called after us, almost as an afterthought, “You kids be careful, you hear? Don’t be getting into trouble.”
“Sure thing, Dad,” I said just before I went outside, waving back and smiling. The door shut behind me and I suppressed a shiver.
It was ridiculously still and quiet outside.
And it was really dark outside the cone of yellow light from the bare bulb next to the side door.
“They’re okay with us going to the cemetery?” I asked as we trudged across the parking lot. I wrapped my arms around myself and didn’t look over to the tree line. There was still mist, and it was cooler now than before, but there was still some damp to the air.
“I told them we were just going to drive down to the lake,” Logan admitted. “They don’t have to know exactly where we’re going, do they?”
I bit my lower lip and hoped nothing went wrong.
There was no sound other than the occasional call of a bird piercing the stillness inside the woods. It was so dark I couldn’t even see the lights Mom had left on at our cabin, even though I knew it was just through the forest. There was no one else staying at Mohawk—we had the place to ourselves, although the Bartletts, who owned and ran the place, said some townspeople might come up for dinner at the lodge restaurant every night. The moon came out from behind clouds and shone on the surface of the calm lake. A shiver went down my spine. It had been a lot warmer when we’d arrived, but it was still muggy and warm. The SUV chirped and its lights blinked as Logan clicked the doors unlocked.
Teresa hooked her arm through mine as we walked across the gravel parking lot. “You’re awful quiet,” she said, tilting her head so it rested against my upper arm as we walked. “Not like you. You haven’t said much since we got here.”
I shrugged.
“Is it the gay thing?” she lowered her voice. “Were you worried about how we’d react? Because you didn’t have to be.” She rubbed her hand on my back. “I told you, we’re good. Logan will make some stupid jokes but they won’t mean anything. We have some gay kids at our school and Logan’s fine with it. He may not be the brightest but he’s not mean.” She shrugged. “As for Rachel and Carson, who knows? They live in Beverly Hills, so I’d imagine it’s no big deal for them, either.”
“Yeah, Logan said he was cool with it before dinner, and Carson seems to be pretty cool with everything.” I said cautiously as we reached the SUV. “But Rachel hasn’t said two words to me—not even hello.”
Teresa shook her head as we got into the backseat of the SUV and mouthed the word later at me. I slid across the seat, and she climbed in next to me, shutting the door as Logan started the ignition. I was sitting in the middle, with Rachel on my other side. She didn’t look at me—she was fiddling with her phone, trying to get a signal. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes as Logan backed out of the parking spot.
The gay thing.
I swallowed and took a deep breath.
No one back home knew. But I hadn’t wanted to spend another vacation lying to my oldest friends in the world. I’d always hated lying to them, pretending I had girlfriends who didn’t really exist, joking with Carson and Logan about how hot some women were—last summer on Sanibel I’d hated being dragged along with Logan when he went on the prowl for some, as he called it, summer lovin’.
I hadn’t told my friends at Farmington High School and wasn’t sure if I wanted to, honestly. I hated lying to them and would decide to tell everyone—and then would completely lose my nerve when I was around them. Mom and Dad didn’t even try to hide how relieved they were when I agreed to wait until college to come out. I didn’t like the idea of lying to everyone at school for another year, but I could deal with it if it made my parents feel better. What was another year?
Besides, coming out at Farmington High really depended on what Marc wanted to do.
Marc.
Just thinking about Marc made me smile, the way it always did. Marc was the greatest, Marc was awesome, Marc was the sexiest hunk at school…but Marc also didn’t want anyone to know he was gay.
The Kruegers lived a few houses down the street from us. Marc usually came over to my house, but every once in a while I had to go over to Marc’s, and I never felt comfortable there. I never had, in all the years I’d known Marc. His dad was always home, it seemed, with a beer in his hand. Mr. Krueger didn’t work—he’d gotten an enormous settlement from a work accident a few years before they’d moved to Farmington. Mrs. Krueger worked as the school secretary at the high school. Their television was always turned on to Fox News, and Mr. Krueger was always yelling about faggots and blacks and Mexicans and feminists and pretty much anything the television told him he was supposed to be angry about. One night when I was there and we were doing our geometry homework, he’d lurched into Marc’s bedroom, going on a lengthy tirade about how the whole country was going to hell because of communists and socialists and Nazis and the coloreds and…
I’d felt sick to my stomach the rest of the night, only feeling better when Marc walked me to the front door when our homework was done and stole a quick kiss. I’d walked home on air.
I was lucky to have Marc, even if Marc wasn’t ready to be as open as I wanted to be.
Marc is perfect, I reflected as Logan maneuvered the big car out of the parking lot and headed down the winding mountain road.
The Kruegers had moved down the street the summer before I started high school. Eighth grade had been rough for me—I’d started changing physically during the eighth grade, the pimples, my voice deepening, hair sprouting out where hair hadn’t been before—and that was also when I’d started noticing things I hadn’t noticed before. Things like my tennis coach’s strongly muscled hairy legs, for one, or Tommy Gargaro’s biceps and chest for another. The big family trip that summer had been to the Florida Gulf Coast, and I couldn’t stop stealing glances at Logan’s body on the beach, the way his skin turned golden brown from the sun, the golden hairs on
his legs and forearms…I’d had some embarrassing dreams about Logan that trip, dreams where we ended up kissing on the beach and…
Those dreams hadn’t stopped when the trip ended, either.
But as soon as I saw Marc, it was like Logan had never existed.
Marc was gorgeous. Logan was good looking, but Marc was maybe the best looking boy I’d ever seen in my life. If Logan was a nine, Marc was at least a twelve plus. Marc was better looking than most models and actors on television, and his body was just amazing.
The first time I saw Marc was when I walked down the street to get a look at the family moving in. There were some movers in coveralls unloading the truck, but just as I reached their property the front door opened and a boy my age came out of the house. I caught my breath and just stared as the boy came down the front steps and walked toward me.
Marc was taller than me—even now as almost-seniors Marc was a good two inches taller—and had thick blond hair the sun had bleached white on the top, but was darker underneath. He had wide blue eyes, thick red lips, and a strong chin. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and had a strong muscular chest and a flat stomach. His arms were also muscular, and the jean shorts he was wearing fit snugly in the thighs. He was one of those lucky blonds who tan golden brown, and he was very deeply tanned. He held out his right hand. “Hey, I’m Marc.”
“Scotty,” I’d somehow managed to blurt out as we shook hands, wondering if Marc felt the same electric shock I had when our hands touched. “Welcome to the neighborhood…I live up the street a bit. Where’d you come from?” Heaven?
Marc had looked away. “We lived on the south side of the city.” He looked back. “My dad had an accident at work, and he got a settlement.” He seemed ashamed and anxious to change the subject, so we talked about school. Marc, it turned out, also played baseball, like me, but not tennis—he was a football player. It turned out we had a lot in common—comic books, the Hardy Boys, sports—and during our freshmen year we became best friends.
