Foothills Pride Stories, Volume 2

by Pat Henshaw

  He settled back in his camp chair. “Funny, Ben. Really funny.”

  We ate dinner and watched the sunset until the last rays sank in the west. I’d made him slather himself in DEET, as I had, so we weren’t the steak of choice for the many gnats and mosquitos roaming the night.

  After cleaning up the dishes and stowing away the food, we sat back and listened to the night chorus. The nearly full moon lit up the sky and forest around us like we were starring in our own romantic movie.

  “Damn,” Mitch whispered, as if we were in church or something. “Nobody ever told me what the night sky really looked like. When I was a little kid, I went to a sleepover in Golden Gate Park one summer, and the sky wasn’t anything close to this.”

  I got up, pulled him off his chair, and repositioned mine to make the two into a large camp lounger. Then I sat us down on it, him between my legs and me with one arm around his waist. We stared up at the stars shining over us.

  “When the moon’s out, everything is brighter and more in your face. And it’s all real. No CGI for this, Mitch.” I was making my move, country style. I pointed at the stars, guiding him through the Big and Little Dippers, finding the North Star and Orion’s Belt. I walked him through the night sounds, the splash of the fish and the chirps of the crickets. I told him about all the night creatures making love and how this season fit into the cycle of the year. “Tomorrow night we’ll take out my telescope and get a little more detailed, but tonight—tonight—I want you to feel your place in the universe. I want you to get your footing in my world.”

  He turned to me, and we kissed.

  This time was even better than the last. When we pulled apart, I held out my hand. He took it in his.

  “We gotta put out the fire first. Then…?” I nodded toward the tent, and his smile almost knocked me over.

  As we worked to make the site safe, I thought about everything Abe had said and how I felt about Mitch. I was still somewhat confused, but not confused enough that I didn’t want more than a few hot-as-fuck kisses. I’d blown our big chance to have sex at his place, so I wasn’t going to let this romantic evening and this hot guy pass me by again.

  I knew enough to pull us inside the tent so we wouldn’t get our nuts chewed off by the winged pests outside. After I zipped the screen and door flaps, I kissed him again, full-on. Like I meant this to be a prelude, because, God help me, I did.

  “I don’t know what sex is all about between two guys,” I told him after I licked his bottom lip. “But I sure as hell want to find out, if you’re willing.”

  The way his eyes lit up and he grinned, all white teeth and huge pupils, told me he was as eager as I was for this to happen.

  We shucked our shoes and bypassed the cots, letting the feel of the cold, hard ground through the tarp support us. A tiny sigh escaped as I registered how much harder the ground had gotten since I’d last been camping. Quickly, I slid the inflatable mattresses off our beds, pushed them side by side, and lay down on them, pulling Mitch on top of me.

  It was time for my education in gay sex to begin.

  WHEN THE deluge started in the early morning hours, we were cuddled together with the sleeping bags covering us. I was freezing where my body touched the air mattress, and I had to take a piss.

  Unzipping the tent flap, I faced a wall of water. At the same time, I felt some drips falling from the tent ceiling.

  Fuck. I cursed the lying meteorologist who’d promised it would be a perfectly dry weekend. I cursed myself for not taking care of my equipment. When was the last time I’d weatherized the tent canvas? I couldn’t remember. When I’d been camping a lot, I’d done it all the time. But since I’d been using Abe’s cabin and had gotten soft, I’d apparently let maintenance go.

  A drop of water landed on Mitch’s face, and he sat up with a startled grunt.

  “What the hell?”

  “Uh, it’s pouring out. And the tent’s not waterproof anymore. We need to abandon camp.”

  I quickly turned our boots over before they started collecting water and sat on one of the cots we’d pushed aside last night. I pulled on my pants and T-shirt, then slid on my boots, eyeing the ceiling. The deep sag from the accumulation of water meant we were about to be drenched.

  “Uh, you might want to hurry up. You need both your pants and shoes.” I stood, stomping to get my foot seated in my boot. “We’ve got to pack up quick and get to Abe’s cabin.”

  I stepped outside and was instantly drenched. Chilled to the bone, I opened Rita’s back end and started chucking gear inside. Behind me, I could hear Mitch squawk. He didn’t stand around complaining about the dirty water Rita was collecting but immediately pitched in to clear the campsite.

  “How do we get the tent down?” he yelled at me.

  The hard, pounding rain and the creak of the tall firs swaying around us just about drowned out all other sound.

  “Leave it. It’s not going anywhere.” I looked around, water dripping from my eyebrows and chin. “I think we got everything. Get in.”

  He looked down at his soaked body and then up at Rita. I could tell it cut into his soul to have to soil Rita by sitting in her wet, but we were beyond that now. I pushed him toward the passenger side and opened the door. He tried to wring out some of the water before he got in, but the rain was coming down so fast, it was a losing battle.

  I drove us to Abe’s cabin with one eye on my phone. When it registered two bars, I called my brother, thinking I’d just leave a message about our change of plans. To my surprise, he was up and answered on the first ring.

  I explained what was going on, and he told me to stay put at the cabin. There was a Cub Scout missing from a campsite nearby, and the authorities searching for him might need our help. Abe said he was in radio contact with them. He gave me the frequency, and I said I’d get out his equipment and call in after we reached the cabin.

  When Mitch didn’t ask what was going on after I hung up, I figured he’d heard both sides of the conversation since I’d jacked up the volume to hear over the storm.

  “Abe’s cabin is bare bones,” I told him. “We’ll be able to towel off and change into dry clothes when we get there.”

  I said it to make him feel better, but he gave me a baleful glare under his wet eyebrows.

  Something was really bothering him. I hoped it wasn’t me or how I treated Rita. Either way, I’d find out after we got to the cabin and warmed up. Since summer wasn’t really here, I’d expected it to be chilly at night, but not this bone-numbing cold.

  WE’D JUST gotten inside, dried off, and put on some of Abe’s cabin clothes when a US Forest Ranger pounded on the door. I invited him in, and as he dripped on the wood floor, Mitch and I agreed to help find the kid and got our assignment.

  “The boys were out at the Scout camp on Lake Alfie. In the middle of the night, Thomas left his tent to pee, and that’s the last they saw of him. He went outside when the thunder was the loudest and the rain started pelting down, so they figured the kid couldn’t hear them yelling for him. If you could look around Rafi, maybe he wandered over here near the cabins and found shelter. All the cabins on this lake are supposedly empty, so be sure to check the outbuildings and overhangs. Radio us if you spot anything.”

  “Anything” meant not only the boy himself, but any sign of him, or worst-case scenario, his body. After I nodded, the ranger left. I grabbed a couple of the ponchos hanging on pegs near the door and two heavy-duty flashlights from inside the bench under the pegs.

  I tossed a poncho to Mitch, who was standing still, his face pale and eyes wide like he’d seen a ghost.

  “Okay, let’s get going,” I told him, even though I wanted to ask what had spooked him.

  He shook himself like he was waking up, and I handed him one of the utility flashlights.

  “If you want to stay here, you can.” I thought it only fair to give him the option.

  “No. I’m coming with you.” He sounded sure, but he still looked pretty pale.

/>   We didn’t have time to argue, so I just nodded. I’d find out what the story was when we got back and hopefully were snuggled in bed together. My first foray into gay sex had gone so well that we’d both slept through the initial thunder everyone had mentioned.

  “We can take Rita,” he said in a small voice.

  “No, we can’t. No telling where the kid is. We need to walk this one. The boy’s name is Thomas. Get ready to yell it a lot. We’ll be walking to the cabins along the rim of the lake.”

  He nodded. We flipped up the hoods of the ponchos and left.

  The first few cabins were shut up like the ranger had said, and there was no sign anyone had been around them lately. None of them had outbuildings, so our search was easy although we were now dripping wet and cold. The wind had gotten stronger, making what was already miserable even more so.

  “The next place is a fancy cabin as big as a house. Why don’t you take the front, and I’ll start around back, okay?”

  Mitch nodded and slogged off to the right. I stayed to the left and found the edge of the patio, almost twisting my ankle in the process. I tripped up onto the flagstones and gripped the low wall extending from the outdoor kitchen and the stacked PVC furniture. I’d yelled “Thomas” so many times, my voice was pretty much a low croak now.

  Didn’t matter. As I straightened, a small body launched itself at me. I’d “found” Thomas.

  “Hey, how you doing?” I asked as I pulled up my poncho enough for him to slip under it. His bare feet and hands were freezing. The kid was crying harder than the rain was falling.

  I hoisted him up around my waist, trying to keep us covered even though his soaked pj’s had wrung themselves out on my pants and shirt. I needed Mitch’s help so I could call this in. Where was he?

  Carrying Thomas, I stumbled around the side of the house and saw Mitch limping toward an ornamental planter near the front door.

  “What the hell?” I croaked at him.

  He turned, his face radiating pain.

  “Twisted my ankle on the edge of the… whatever that is.” He reached the edge of the planter and hoisted himself to sit down on it. “What have you got there?”

  “I found the boy.” I sighed. “How bad are you hurt?”

  He shrugged and winced. “I’ve felt worse. How do you want to do this? We’ve got to call it in.”

  Whether he meant his injury or the boy or both, he was right.

  “Okay, here’s the plan.” I pulled the poncho out and looked down at Thomas’s tear-stained face. “That’s my friend Mitch over there. You’re going to go sit on his lap while I call your Scout leader and tell him where you are. Okay?”

  Thomas, thank God, had stopped bawling and nodded through his sniffles.

  I helped him out of my poncho and passed him to Mitch’s lap. Thomas clung like a little monkey. After I covered him with the rain gear, he stuck his head up next to Mitch’s neck hole.

  “You’re warm, mister.” As thunder boomed around us and the rain pelted down, he nestled into Mitch’s chest.

  Damn if the sight didn’t turn me to mush. Mitch, for all his hot handsomeness, glowed as if he’d found a nugget of peace.

  Now if I could only make them more comfortable while I got help.

  “Look, Mitch, there’s a sort of bench near the front door under the roof overhang. How about you move over there so you can sit where it’s a little drier?”

  He nodded, and passing Thomas to me, Mitch put his arm under my poncho and over my shoulder. We hobbled over to the bench-like thing, and Mitch collapsed onto it with a sigh.

  I left them there while I walked down the driveway where there weren’t any trees and where I hoped to get better reception. When enough bars popped up on my phone, I called the ranger and Abe.

  The rest of the morning and into the afternoon was a symphony of rain, thunder, my brothers, rescue workers, paramedics, an ambulance for Mitch, and general relief for all involved.

  Mitch was moved to the Stone Acres clinic, where his ankle was wrapped after they determined he hadn’t broken it. He was going to my house for the next few days and not back to the Bay Area anytime soon.

  At this point, since I felt like I’d carried the weight of the world around for a few hours, I was ready to crash. Even though I was bringing the hot-as-fuck Mitch back to my place and would have him to myself for a while, this was the unsexiest I’d ever felt in my life.

  If that wasn’t enough drama for one night, Mitch said the deadliest four words in the English language to me.

  “We need to talk.”

  12

  I KNEW only too well what those words meant.

  Having never been in a serious relationship, I was finding that I was in deeper with Mitch than I’d ever been with another person—male or female—other than my brothers. But they were family, so they didn’t count. Since I’d met him, I’d been sometimes walking, occasionally creeping, but always moving closer and closer to the essence of Mitch.

  As I fell harder for him, I realized I hardly knew anything about his childhood or upbringing other than he hadn’t graduated from high school but seemed to have sprung fully formed to open a successful neighborhood bar and had reinvested his money to create three others.

  Who were his people? Who was grounding him the way Abe and Con were my bedrocks? On my trip to the city with him, I’d been shown his accomplishments, but nothing more personal than a townhouse that could have been owned by anyone and decorated by a corporate designer. And, yeah, I’d met a dynamite singer who might be his good friend, a former boyfriend, and a lot of business acquaintances. But none of them had really told me much about Mitch.

  As my thoughts circled, I realized I loved him. I loved his enthusiasm and his gung-ho commitment to any project that we started. I loved his outrageousness and his sense of whimsy. Although he liked to be a winner, he didn’t need to come out on top and rub everyone else’s nose in his triumph. And more importantly, he was a gracious loser.

  He was a great lover, perfect kisser, and comfortable companion. When he got a certain glint in his eyes and I knew he was about to jump with excitement, I ached to be at his side as much as I wanted to hug him when he was sad.

  I could live the rest of my life happily with him. I’d miss him bitterly if he vanished from my side. I needed him like I needed fresh air.

  That’s what made me drag the king-size top mattress downstairs from my bedroom, push aside the couch, and make us a bed in the living room. He wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon, at least not until his ankle shrank from watermelon to somewhat normal.

  I wanted him to be as comfortable as I could make him. I wanted to coddle him, even though I’d never wanted to coddle anyone before.

  Once he was on the mattress with a blanket tucked around him to help cut the chill, I folded into Mitch’s side. He’d iced his ankle, taken a pain pill, and been napping off and on.

  He’d wanted to talk, but he needed rest more. His slip on the wet leaves and fir needles after he’d gotten soaked and frozen in the rain had ruined his day. He’d looked forward to camping so much that I felt his disappointment as much as he did.

  But the four dreaded words brought me up short.

  How many times had I said them to girls I’d dated? Too many to count.

  I knew what happened next, and all the possible break-up lines flitted through my head, as familiar as the spiel I gave about what Behr Construction could bring to a prospective job. Which would he use?

  Was the talk going to be “it’s not you, it’s me”? Or maybe the more blunt and a little more chest-crushing “it’s been fun, but”? Maybe he wasn’t invested at all, and it had been only a load of bullshit, so he’d used the old “I just want to be friends.” Was I about to drown while he happily swam on without me?

  “Hey.” Mitch had sat up slightly and was staring at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head. He and I would have “the talk” whenever he felt up to it.

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nbsp; He slumped back down and stretched a little. He grimaced.

  “Here, Mitch, can I get you something? Water? Coffee? What sounds good?”

  My questions yipped like a good dog trying to please its master.

  I shut up.

  “Can you help me to the bathroom? When can I take my next pill, do you know? My ankle’s starting to throb.”

  I stood up and grabbed his hand. He’d be better off on the couch, where he didn’t have to exert so much energy to stand.

  I berated myself for lugging the mattress downstairs when it wasn’t needed except for my own selfish wish to lay next to him and constantly touch him.

  When he was in the bathroom, I quickly moved aside the mattress and slid the couch into the open space.

  There. Now he’d be more comfortable and could get up and down easier.

  I was acting as pathetic as a lovelorn suitor, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  When I got him back to the living room, he eyed the mattress in the corner, then the couch.

  He sat without comment, and I started to lift his hurt leg onto the stack of pillows I’d piled up on the couch.

  “Uh, would it be okay if I sat up? Maybe put my foot on the coffee table?”

  I nodded, moved the pillows to the table, and then helped him pull his leg up on them.

  He looked at me with tired eyes.

  I winced but returned his gaze.

  He was right. It was time we talked. I had to stop being such a wuss.

  Judging from the past when friends went through shithole breakups, I knew I’d live through this. I wouldn’t like it, but I’d live. Better to rip the bandage off, suffer, and then get on with healing than go through the slow poison of not knowing but suspecting the hammer was about to strike.

  “You know, Ben, you’re really too good for me.”

  Ah, he was going with that one, was he? I almost laughed, but I knew it’d come out bitter. I’d probably end up sobbing. Shit.