Without a Compass

by Helen Juliet

  But that wasn’t it at all!

  He meant that he’d never been with a guy before, and he didn’t know if was something he’d like. He hadn’t known that he possibly wasn’t entirely straight. But now he did, and that had been a happy realisation for all of two seconds. He’d briefly thought he’d be able to call Riley back over for a good morning kiss, even dare to ask how he felt. He’d wanted to know what more there could be between them God damn it. Riley had flown off the handle before he could even voice any of those feelings.

  Yesterday he’d felt pain for Riley after seeing how badly he had injured his feet. Now, he felt pain for him because somehow he had inadvertently hurt him, and that was a hundred times worse.

  He had to fix this.

  He stomped down a wave of anger that Bia had chosen to go off and get lost. She was a dog, she didn’t know any better. Poor little love might very well be scared or stressed out herself. But it was just sod’s law that she should disappear just when Kai and Riley needed to talk the most. This was obviously just a misunderstanding. If they could just communicate for five minutes, he was sure they could sort it out.

  Kai took a deep breath and nodded to himself. If he’d put his foot in it, he’d apologise. And then he was going to bloody well make Riley apologise for losing his shit and not giving Kai a chance to explain himself. There had been no need to treat him so coldly. And then maybe they could have a cuddle. Cuddles always made things better after a fight.

  His chest ached. He was fretting where Riley had gotten to by now. He was probably so worried about Bia. On top of that he was obviously upset with Kai. Although what his crime was Kai honestly couldn’t say.

  Riley hadn’t even taken anything with him. Not his bag or any water or food. His tablet was still plugged into the portable charger. Kai couldn't see his phone lying around anywhere. So if Riley had it with him Kai wasn’t sure how much battery it had left in it.

  He was a novice hiker who wasn’t thinking clearly, his feet were cut to ribbons and he had no supplies. Kai’s plaster pack was still intact. That meant Riley hadn’t put any of the Compeeds on either. He was probably wrecking all the healing his body had accomplished overnight.

  “Shit,” said Kai out loud. “Bollocks, arse, wank, fuck.”

  He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Then he scooped up their used condom with a tissue to drop into one of his bag’s side pockets. How could he go from feeling so good to so bad? From such a revelation to utter confusion?

  He thought he and Riley really had something between them. It had to be something special for Kai to cross that line and experiment like that with his sexuality. He’d never been tempted before. Sure, there were guys he admired, or thought were funny. Even some he’d openly admitted were good-looking before. But he’d never been drawn to anyone like he had Riley in the past forty-eight hours. He would be crushed to think it was all going to fall apart before they even had a chance to explore what it meant.

  For example; did it mean Kai was bisexual? The word didn’t really feel right to him, but that had to be it, right? Or could he be mostly straight, but just a little bit gay? Was there a word for that? He had no idea. After fucking up that ‘queer’ business the day before, and whatever he’d done between last night and this morning, he absolutely didn’t want to put his foot in it again.

  He huffed and slung his pack over his shoulders. Riley’s bag was too big to squeeze inside his own, so he just clutched it in his hand and gave one last look around at the patch where they’d spent the night.

  Time was precious, but he still made himself inhale deeply and commit the view to memory. If he and Riley did patch things up, he wanted to be able to think back on their first time together and remember it for how good it had been. It wasn’t every day you realised something profoundly new about yourself, or got to share that realisation with someone you cared about.

  That was all the time he could waste, so he spun on his heel and marched up the hill the same direction as Riley had gone. Nothing was lost yet, he told himself. He cared about Riley a lot, enough to try everything he could to mend whatever this rift was between them. And honestly, it couldn’t be that bad, because Kai didn’t even have a clue what it was. He could just explain whatever Riley had got himself upset over. Then they could take their time fixing things.

  That cheered Kai up significantly. As unpleasant as falling out was, he was confident everything would be alright soon enough. And then they could have wild make-up sex. He tingled, just imagining all the exciting things Riley probably had in his experience that he could teach him.

  The way his cock perked up told him all he needed to know about his sexual orientation. He may not know exactly how to describe himself – maybe there wasn’t even a proper word. Perhaps ‘not quite straight’ was as good as he was going to get. But he’d take it.

  All that really mattered was he had feelings for Riley. Feelings that extended beyond the elation of orgasms. If he could tell him this, make him understand, then that was the only thing that was important. Everything would be fine.

  As long as they found Bia first.

  Kai reached the next open expanse and scanned the horizon. The sun was rising by the minute and the chill was lifting from the air. It was bright enough to search witht he naked eye. Unfortunately there were lots of little peaks and valleys lying before him, and Riley could have disappeared behind any of them.

  “RILEY!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “BIA!”

  Nothing. Determined not to let his anxiety get the better of him, Kai set off walking again. He was only about seven or eight minutes behind Riley at most, and he had a hell of a pair of lungs on him. The only thing he cared about was getting them all back together, so he’d take as long as was necessary to find them both.

  He’d stay out all day and night if he had to.

  29

  Riley

  Riley’s thoughts were too tumultuous to put in any kind of order.

  Bia! Kai. So useless, can’t do anything right. Kai…Bia? My fucking feet hurt. Where am I? Should have brought some water with me. BIA. When will it get really hot? Ow. Oh, Kai. I stink. This would be a really pretty view if I didn’t feel so sick. BIA! Would it be better to walk barefoot entirely? How am I ever going to find my way back?

  He decided to use his last few percentage of battery to try and activate Google Maps on his phone. Obviously there weren’t enough towers around to get anything close to a decent signal. So he quickly abandoned that and loaded the compass app he’d specifically downloaded last week.

  He knew from his drive up that Scafell Pike was north and the campsite was back south – roughly. And that meant he and Bia were rambling off east. Not that that would massively help unless he could find his way back to that path he and Kai had been on. But even then, he wasn’t confident he’d get back to the campsite. A couple of minutes walking in the wrong direction could mean his limited sense of direction was thrown off kilter by miles.

  He trampled down those worries and focused only on screaming for Bia. His voice wasn’t even close to getting tired, so he would hobble along and just keep yelling. She was bound to hear him at some point.

  After ten minutes he gave up on his boots. He threw his arse bitterly down on the grass by several gnarly rocks and a curious sheep. He gingerly eased the laces loose enough to pull the footwear free. He hissed as he peeled the socks off, but they weren’t nearly as bad as they’d been the day before, so he took that as a win.

  He stuffed his socks into his boots. Then he held them with hooked fingers by their collars in one hand. His phone displayed the compass in the other. He wasn’t going to let this slow him down.

  Walking barefoot wasn’t so terrible, until his delicate soles found a stone or twig that bit into the flesh. He quickly became accustomed to the ouch-hop-fuck-it dance. This was where he learned to suck a breath through his teeth at the pain, shake it off, and carry on walking all in the space of two seconds. The odd sharp pain
was way better than the continuous searing burn his boots were causing him against his raw, weeping flesh.

  The various aches and pains served their purpose though. They stopped Riley agonizing over where Bia was, and what Kai was thinking. Well, a bit. He was still worrying quite a lot, but the pain at least distracted him every now and again. Sort of.

  “BEE!”

  Everywhere he looked was pale green and silvery grey in the golden sunlight. The sheep were white like Bia’s fur, but they were too large to really distract him for much more than a glance. The lambs were smaller. But at least they were darker as they frolicked over the hills, so he knew not to mistake them for her either.

  Would she go investigate the flock? Or would she take herself off in another direction? Riley pocketed his phone for a second so he could use that hand to ruffle his hair back from his eyes. It wasn’t really in his way, but he didn’t want anything at all impeding his vision.

  His phone back out, he screamed her name again and scanned the horizon. One of the small valleys a hundred feet away from where he was standing curved away to the right. Making a snap decision he decided to follow that trail around. He stuck to the grass rather than the gravelled paths. However, stones were still strewn all over the ground, determined to prick at his feet.

  He grimaced, but bore it as best he could, focusing instead on the shifting shadows the fluffy clouds were casting all around him. They hinted at slightly cooler weather for the day ahead, and Riley crossed his fingers.

  It was difficult not to wonder what Kai was doing. Riley felt a twang of guilt for just walking off and leaving him. But he couldn’t bear to stay anywhere near him with all the shame and embarrassment swirling through him.

  Why did he always have to go and ruin things? He’d obviously led Kai on. Where it would be nothing to him to fool around and forget, Riley had gone and ripped his heart to shreds. He should have known better than to mess around with anyone from home. Especially from his family’s Scouting community.

  No doubt everyone would want to know why the two of them had come back separately. But Riley was entirely serious now in his plan to grab his possessions and go back south. He’d leave anything non-essential, Jake would probably enjoy a lot of the frivolous tat he’d brought up. Those things just made Riley feel more ashamed now.

  Why did he think he could ever fit in with these people? He wasn’t adventurous, or made for the great outdoors. He liked cocktails and clubbing and crossword puzzles by the pool.

  He wasn’t anything like Kai.

  Grimacing, he stopped for a moment to collect himself and fight back the tears that sprung into his eyes. He pinched his nose and exhaled slowly. The trouble was, he really liked Kai. He liked him so much more than he had done before.

  When he’d been out of reach and unattainable, Riley could just fantasise about hot sex and that was that. But now he knew how much hearing his laugh warmed his chest, how he liked playing games and watching TV together.

  How sweet his kisses were.

  Riley sniffed and swallowed a sob. He wasn’t just crying for Kai, he knew. His worry over Baby Bee was eating away at him, setting his nerves on edge. And his bloody feet hurt. He was a wreck.

  He felt guilty for abandoning his bag with Kai – it would serve him right if he just left it behind. Riley would need to try and retrace his steps so he could check if anything was left behind after Kai left. He couldn’t afford to lose his tablet especially.

  All of that would come after he’d found Bia though. He’d happily give up his tablet, his phone, everything, so long as he found her.

  Speaking of which, the compass display on his screen flickered, then his phone finally died. For a moment, Riley just stared at the blank device with mounting horror, but he knew it was inevitable that this was going to happen. He’d only started with nine percent battery, and having an app running was always going to deplete it faster.

  Still, as he shoved the useless thing into his pocket, he dropped his head back and roared in frustration.

  In London, you were never truly alone. No matter how lost you got, or what possessions you misplaced, you could still find your way home somehow. But here – he could drop dead and no one would find the body for days.

  Riley slapped his thigh with the hand not holding the boots. “Get a grip,” he commanded. He wasn’t going to die and neither was Bia. He was probably in for an unpleasant and uncomfortable day with a healthy dose of stress and humiliation, but he wasn’t shuffling off the mortal coil any time soon.

  Forcing himself to move, he began walking again, calling Bia’s name and whistling. “Come here! Who’s a good girl?”

  What if he was walking in entirely the wrong direction? What if they were both only heading further away from one another? He had no way of knowing. So had to take his chances. He’d chosen this way on instinct, and it made sense to follow this path and keep bellowing. If he felt he’d walked far enough, he could turn around and try the other way.

  The only wrong course of action he could really take would be to stand still and do nothing. By moving, he was increasing his chances, even if he wasn’t going in the right direction. He just had to hope he got a bit of luck on his side.

  He crested a rise and came upon a small lake. Small by the Lake District’s standards, that was. It was probably around a hundred feet across. The rippling waters were sparkling in the early morning sunshine. Its beauty managed to sooth Riley’s nerves a little, and he was drawn towards it.

  “BIA!” he yelled, his voice echoing off the acoustics of the water in the natural formation. “COME HERE, GIRL!”

  The path he was walking next to brought him all the way to the edge of the lake where the water lapped invitingly. Rocks and boulders bordered most of the water, separating it from the green grass. Riley found himself on a small shingle beach, the pebbles smooth under his abused feet.

  Knowing he’d have to turn around anyway, he decided to sit for just a few seconds and collect himself. The vista was calming, and the breeze coming off the water bracing. He’d just take a minute, then head back the way he had come. It was unlikely Bia would travel far from the paths. She was too used to being walked in maintained forests and parks.

  Riley took one of the rounded stones and tried skimming in across the water. He’d never mastered that particular trick as a child and he failed again at it now. So the next one he just hurtled as far as he could, making it land in the water with a satisfying plop.

  Alright, that was enough moping. He hauled himself to his feet, picking up his boots, and gave one last look over the lake.

  Only to see a small, white bundle of fluff trotting towards him from behind a cluster of rocks, like there was nothing at all amiss in the world.

  “BEE!” Riley screamed, relief flooding through him as he dropped to his knees and flung out his arms. He didn’t care that the pebbles were hard against his knees. Not when his girl put on a burst of speed and ran straight into his embrace. “Oh good girl, good girl!” he cried. “Where did you go? You had me worried sick! That’s it, I’m here, I’m here.”

  Her tail wagged at a mile a minute, smacking his legs and arms as she climbed into his lap, her claws digging into his skin. He didn’t care. Everything was stupendous. He let her lick his entire face even though it was disgusting.

  He cuddled her close, and eventually both she and his heart rate began to calm down. The relief was making him feel dizzy, and he closed his eyes, breathing in and out. She smelt a bit funky, but he still inhaled deeply. It was okay. As long as she was safe, that’s all he wanted.

  He had other challenges he’d have to face now, he knew. Namely how the hell he was going to walk back to camp on his busted feet. But he’d figure it out.

  A thump from behind made both of them startle badly. Before Riley could look around, a heavy pair of arms fell around his shoulders, hugging both him and Bia. Warm breath tickled his neck.

  “You’re a fucking idiot,” Kai mumbled. “You know th
at?”

  30

  Kai

  Kai had only been walking for a few minutes when he just managed to glimpse Riley disappearing around the corner of a trail to his right. He was too far away to yell at – besides, if Kai did that, he might spook him into running off. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case, but without understanding what had upset him, he didn’t want to risk it.

  Instead, he hurried down the incline into the little valley, following the same path as he’d seen Riley on. He may have been lumbered down with their bags, but he had the advantage of wearing boots on his uninjured feet. He trusted he would soon catch up with Riley.

  Then he wouldn’t have to bellow at him. He could attract his attention up close and hopefully show that he wasn’t there to argue. Nerves fluttered in his belly.

  He thought he’d have longer to prepare what he might want to say. ‘Hey! I think I’m a bit gay, what a surprise! Wanna hang out?’ was his best gambit so far, but he wasn’t convinced it was a winner. ‘You’d make a hella cute boyfriend’ was another, but then he’d tripped himself over the last word.

  Boyfriend. Was that what he really wanted? That seemed like a giant leap from trying sex with a dude.

  But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? It hadn’t just been a quick shag with a drunken randomer. It had been with Riley and it encompassed so much more than just sex.

  He’d had an amazing day hanging out together. He wasn’t looking for a fuck buddy, any old person who could find his prostate and press it until he came like a firework. He wanted someone to snuggle up and watch silly films with, to have dinner together with their dog by their feet.

  But what if Riley didn’t want that? What if the problem wasn’t something Kai had done, but simply who he was? Riley didn’t have tattoos or go on hikes. Maybe he’d just wanted a bit of rough with no strings attached, and Kai was now crossing a line by pushing for more? That hurt, if that was the case. He’d like to think Riley wouldn’t look at him like that, especially after spending the last two days together, but how could Kai be sure, really?