The night was airless, thin and sharp, as if the world itself were holding its breath. Moonlight filtered through the black needles in pale stripes, landing silver on every patch of grass, every upturned root. Cole sucked in the cold and started walking, one foot in front of the other, up the barely-there game trail that paralleled the creek.
It should have been calming. Usually the rhythm of steps, the simple machinery of movement, was enough to dull the mind. But not tonight. His head felt raw, abraded by everything he’d tried not to feel for the past forty years.
He almost missed the voices at first, they were faint, almost lost in the whisper of the creek. But as Cole got closer and they grew louder, a chill raced down Cole’s spine, halting him mid-step. The hairs on his forearm prickled, a visceral response to the unsettling sound that cut through the night’s stillness.
For a moment he considered turning back. Leave whatever it was to the shadows, let the forest bury the secret. But he couldn’t.
Cole slowed his steps, careful as a hunter, the needles swallowing every sound. He followed the voices, each one growing clearer as he rounded the creek's curve. The rocky outcrop blocked his view until the last possible moment when he stepped past it—and froze.
Three men stood right in front of him—caught in the act of hastily fumbling jeans up their thighs. The wedge of moonlight revealed everything Cole never wanted to see: Riley, t-shirt on but cock still visible in his thin mesh thong, Jack was still shirtless chest heaving, cheeks flushed as he fumbled with his pants button; and Ethan—God, Ethan—pants halfway up, no shirt, hair wild, skin painted with spit and sweat.
Time stopped. No one breathed. The shame in all three faces hit Cole like a punch as they registered his presence. Riley's blue eyes widened first, then Jack's, then Ethan's last of all. Ethan looked at Cole the way a wolf looks at the barrel of a rifle.
The world contracted. The only thing that mattered was the look in Ethan’s eyes—fear, guilt, something raw and desperate. Cole’s throat went thick. He wanted to spit, to shout, to demand some kind of accounting for what he was seeing, but all he managed was a sick, choked sound.
Nobody spoke. The creek roared louder, drowning the moment in white noise. The only other sound was Cole’s heart, stuttering against his ribs like a caged thing.
There was a moment—no longer than a breath—when Ethan started forward, eyes pleading, mouth about to form a word. Cole cut it off with a look.
He didn’t care what Jack and Riley did. They could’ve blown each other all night and it would’ve barely made a dent in him. But Ethan? It tore something open in his chest. He thought he and Ethan had something real, something born out of silence and hunger and mutual need. Now he saw how laughable that had been. He’d been nothing but a pit stop on the highway of Ethan’s curiosity.
He felt the old voice—his father’s, cold as stone—whisper: “This is why you don’t want, Cole. Wanting is for fools.”
Jack tried to laugh it off. “Hey man, look—it was just a goof. Boys being boys.”
Riley’s face, for once, held no smirk, only a tight, cautious waiting. He said nothing.
Ethan started to speak, his voice a shiver. “Cole, I—”
Cole cut him off, not with a word but with a shake of his head. He felt the heat in his cheeks, the anger and humiliation boiling up so fast he thought he might puke. His mouth refused to work.
He took a step back, boots crunching the ground. Then another.
Ethan reached for him. “Wait, please—just—”
Cole turned and ran.
He didn’t think, didn’t care where his feet took him. The world was streaks of black and silver, needles clawing at his face, the air burning in his throat. He heard a crash behind him—Ethan, stumbling to follow—but Cole wouldn’t be caught.
He kept running until his lungs threatened to rip in half, until the forest blurred and his legs buckled. He tripped, hit theground hard, and rolled up against the trunk of an ancient pine. The bark scraped his palm and left a hot, angry welt. He pressed his back to the tree and tried to slow his breathing and his mind.
It didn’t work. The scene by the creek ran again, over and over. Ethan’s knees on the moss, the way his lips glistened, the sound of Riley’s voice, the twist in Jack’s mouth. The old voice—the one he thought he’d left behind—cackled and hissed: “You thought you were special. You thought he wanted you.”
He looked up, eyes swimming with tears that caught the moonlight and turned the world to glass. His hand balled into a fist. He slammed it once, hard, into the trunk, and let the pain sharpen him.
He realized, with a dizzying, nauseous clarity, that his anger wasn’t directed at Ethan. It was aimed squarely at himself for believing he could ever be significant to someone like him. He had envisioned a world where he and Ethan would share their firsts together—the first time kissing another man, the first time feeling another man’s hands on his skin, the first time experiencing the raw thrill of intimacy with another man. But now, as the reality of Ethan’s actions crashed over him, Cole understood that those moments had been stolen away. The thought that Ethan had shared those intimate experiences with Jack and Riley shattered him—he would no longer be the first man Ethan experienced intimacy with, a role he had imagined for himself in what he thought was their shared journey of discovery.
He wiped his nose on his sleeve. The air tasted of pine and iron and old, old grief.
There was movement on the path above—a branch snapping, a soft voice calling his name. Cole went still, tried to disappear into the ground.
He heard Ethan’s voice, ragged, broken. “Cole? Please—I need to talk—please.”
Cole pressed his lips together until they were bloodless. He waited, every muscle shaking, as the voice drifted closer, then farther, then died.
He let his head fall against the tree and closed his eyes. He listened to the wind in the pines, the ache in his chest, the nothingness stretching out in all directions.
Cole opened his eyes, wiped the last of the wet from his face, and sat up straight.
