It seemed silly to put his boots back on when he was just going to take them off again, but he’d rather wear the boots than take his cowboy boots and maybe have them get messed up in the mud along the shoreline. Then, more eager than his nerves could hold him back, he tromped through the woods, past the horse pasture, and along the lakeside path, all the way to the dock.
He was just about the last one there, arriving in time to see Gordy strip off his plaid boxers and fling them into the air before cannon balling off the end of the dock with a shout loud enough to echo off Guipago Ridge.
Gabe was in the water and had balled his damp briefs up and was tossing them onto the dock where Duane, still attired in the tightest of tight whities, laughed and kicked the briefs off the dock. At which point, Blaze, naked as the day he was born, dove in after them.
And that’s how it was, a lot of splashing and horsing around without anyone giving Kell more than a moment’s notice, a brief wave, a damp, water-speckled smile.
Even Wayne, with his glistening round belly, his pecker half sticking out, gave Kell a hello wave before diving into the cool blue water with all the agility of a pro who’d been doing it since birth.
The only person missing was Marston.
Holding his breath, feeling warm all over, Kell got undressed, dumping his things in a pile a few feet from the dock with his boots on the bottom. At the very last second, he stripped out of his briefs, added them to the pile, then ran along the dock and dove off the end.
The water slid all over him, cool and bright and freeing, and when he came up for air, he heard shouts and laughter, a bit of applause as he treaded water and blinked water out of his eyes, his hair blocking half his vision. With a hasty hand, he scraped his hair back, tasting the water in his mouth, moving to the edge of the group. He had a sense that the water had gotten quite deep where he was, for it was colder and more still, as though secrets lurked below the surface, darkening as the twilight grew.
Gordy climbed out on the rickety wooden ladder and cannon balled into the water again, causing a spray and shouts to rise, and water to slosh against the dock.
Kell had swum in a lake before, of course, but at summer camp, with an orderliness that indicated an emphasis on safety, on lifesaving drills, timed floats. Nothing like this, a raucous gamboling, tough men slipping back in time to when they were ten or eleven, before crimes had been committed, before tattoos, before knife fights and back alley deals. To a time when each of their moms might soon be calling them in because it was getting late.
There was that sense of this, but these were grown men, strong-limbed, agile, wet all over, from the tops of their heads all the way down to their toes. It only took Kell a little bit before it seemed the most normal thing to swim without a swimsuit, except for Royce, who stood a little anxious on the dock as Jonah plucked at the waist of his red and white jams, as if urging him to take them off. Royce shook his head and dove into the water, slicing like a seal, barely breaking the surface.
Kell was about to head to the dock as well, to take his turn at diving, thinking it might be nice if they had a few inner tubes to float on, or an anchored dock in the middle of the lake to swim to. Ordinary summer camp stuff. Maybe he’d bring it up to Gabe, and he was just about to swim in Gabe’s direction when Marston showed up.
He was dressed simply, blue jeans and his old, faded gray t-shirt. Maybe he had flip-flops on, but he looked barefoot. Under his arm, he carried rolled up towels, as if he’d known to be the smart one, as nobody else, except maybe Royce, had brought one. He also had a few flashlights in his pocket, which he put on top of the towels.
“Thanks, Marston,” said Gabe, his voice rising to carry across the water. “Maybe this wasn’t as well planned as it should have been.”
Twilight was coming down, turning to dusk, framing Marston’s shoulders against the darker darkness of the forest around them. His face was limned as though by moonlight, features bright and bold, painted, crisp and clear in that moment, as if the soft air had brought into focus the hard planes of his face, his unsmiling mouth, the dash of curl behind his ears, the gold and blue of his eyes.
Completely without fuss, Marston got undressed, shimmying out of summer-weight jeans, an old t-shirt, flip-flops, and then lastly, his tight, white briefs.
At the last second, Kell looked away, and then, unable to help it, looked back, eyes traveling up Marston’s strong, dense thighs, solid waist, the farmer’s tan slicing his arms into light and dark. His broad chest, a speckle of hair, bending to place his clothes in a neat pile. Finally, as Kell’s eyes slid back down again, he could see the hard curve of Marston’s hips, the dark thatch of pubic hair, the vulnerable curve of his groin, his cock.
Marston was beautiful, older, more masculine, so different than the boys he had crushes on in high school. Kell looked away, hard, stilling himself in the water, making a brief, white-clear splash, drawing Marston’s gaze to him just before he bent and dove into the dark blue water.
When Marston resurfaced, sleek-shouldered, his gaze came to Kell, eyes bright as he swiped his hand over them to dash away the water. The last of the sunlight went behind the mountains, a blush of shadow casting over everything, rose gold and tender.
Wanting to go over to Marston as much as he might want air to breathe, Kell treaded water a bit and thought he might go to the dock, get out, and dive in, because just as he’d seen Marston, now Marston might want to seehim—
Had he been seventeen again, innocent, still in high school, this kind of hesitation and shyness might make more sense. But he was older now, nineteen, not innocent to the world or its cruelty. He could do this. He could swim over there, not remain frozen like some frail damsel who needed rescuing.
Marston had brought towels for everybody, flashlights too, yet he’d said, quite clearly, that he wished it was only the two of them going swimming.
Be brave.
Kell turned to his side, and side-stroked in Marston’s direction, easing around Duane and Tyson, whose horseplay might end in death or it might not. Only neither of them seemed to care. Marston swam over to him those last few damp feet and, breathless, they smiled at each other as they treaded water.
“We need inner tubes and floats,” said Kell, his heart pounding, because that’s not what he wanted to say at all.
“You read my mind,” said Marston, his mouth curling into a smile in one corner. “How about we add a floating dock, anchored in the middle of the lake, that we can swim to?”
“Yeah.” The air in Kell’s lungs seemed to have left him as he absorbed that little smile meant only for him, treading water, inching a little closer.
“Shark!”
Distracted, Kell turned to see Gordy swimming up to Duane and Tyson, utterly fearless, in full attack mode. Duane, dodging out of the way of Gordy’s mock attack, shoved himself back, and it wasn’t that he would have drowned Kell, but he’d shoved back hard and banged into him.
In that instant, as Kell took a breath and struggled to change his treading water into a hasty retreat, Marston was there, sweeping the back of his arm across Kell’s submerged belly, quickly moving him out of harm’s way, and the heft of Duane’s denseness, the crash of limbs and flailing arms. Now Kell was at the edge of the group, in deep water as he treaded, with Marston’s back to him.
