“Let me get a flashlight,” said Kell. “Then we can take a shower.”
This said as if nothing remarkable had just happened. And maybe to him, it hadn’t been remarkable. Just his very tall and imposing lover kissing him goodnight, as if he was the brightest jewel in a sea of darkness. Which he was.
Taking Bede’s jacket, Kell bounded up the stairs and into the tent, and came out with a flashlight and Bede’s boots.
“Yeah, going barefoot’s cool, but not in the dark,” said Kell, sensibly. “You might slice your foot open.”
Bede stifled the impulse to ruffle Kell’s hair. He might be young, but he wasn’t a kid.
“Lead the way,” said Bede. He gathered stuff for a shower and, stepping into his boots, sockless, he pulled up the laces and tucked them inside the boots without tying them.
He followed Kell through the woods to the facilities, keeping an eye on the darkness beyond the bright beam of Kell’s flashlight. Then he showered in the stall next to Kell’s, then got dried off and dressed. While he waited for Kell to finish, he watched as the evening breeze took the mist over the transom and into the dark.
Back in their tent, the overhead light was still blazing and now about five moths were doing a nighttime dance.
“Oops,” said Kell, as he put his flashlight away and started scooping up the moths in the palms of his hands, tossing them outside. “They’ll drive us crazy, else,” he said to Bede by way of explanation. “More will always come in, but it’s good to keep it to a dull roar.”
Bede stripped to his new white briefs, and Kell did the same, and as Kell reached for the overhead light, he smiled.
“Just like old times,” Kell said.
“Yeah, except for no books,” said Bede, thinking back to prison, when Kell had stood in front of him, offering up blow jobs like he did them every day, even though he was a virgin.
“There are books in the mess tent,” said Kell, clicking off the light.
Fighting a lingering sense of strangeness, Bede crawled into his cot, laying his head back on the comfortable pillow with a sigh.
“I looked. I’ve read all those.” He’d seen the small shelf of books in the mess tent, scanned the titles. Found nothing new.
“All of them?” Kell asked, his voice clear in the darkness that settled all around.
“Most of ‘em,” said Bede. “I’m really not interested in how to learn chess or reading about wild birds of America.”
“Ask Galen, your team lead,” said Kell. “That’s always a first step if there’s something you need.”
Bede nodded, though Kell couldn’t see, and laid his hands on his chest on top of the soft sheet and blanket.
He supposed in Kell’s mind that going to Marston for something he needed made sense. Bede would have to go to Galen.
He couldn’t imagine asking Galen for anything, let alone for a book to read.I think John Grisham has a new one out. Can I get a copy?Or how about something by Pat Conroy?
Galen might say no. Or maybe he’d say yes, and would inquire about Bede’s reading tastes. Or maybe he’d just order the books Bede wanted, only he’d tell Bede to put them on the bookshelf in the mess tent to share with others.
So which would be worse? Having Galen say no and turn his back? Or having Galen say yes, and then Bede would be in Galen’s debt?
If prison had taught him anything, it was never to be in anyone’s debt.
And then came the question: What expression would that pretty face make when Bede asked for books?
“G’night, Bede,” said Kell, his voice sleepy as he turned on his side, it sounded like.
“G’night, kid,” said Bede.
He lay flat on his back, the sheet kicked off, the light blanket a bundle at his feet. He breathed slowly in and out. None of this was a dream, but it felt rather dreamlike at that moment with the night settling in around him. The scree-scree of the branches. Thin wails that Bede couldn’t identify.
“Coyotes,” said Kell over a yawn.
Coyotes? A shiver went over Bede’s skin. He was a city boy and had no experience with any of this. But Kell, who had been fearful in prison before Bede had become his bodyguard, was falling asleep. A small snore rose up from the other side of the tent.
