The night was beautiful, and though the firelight flickered upwards in a graceful arc of white and orange and blue, he couldn’t sit still. There was a fingernail moon slicing across the darkness of the lake, and beyond that, some mystery in the trees beckoned. Across from him, Gabe shifted restlessly, and Bede, sitting on the hay bale next to Galen, shifted likewise.
“I’m going for a swim,” Galen announced, standing up. He couldn’t quite bring himself to invite just Bede, but maybe it would be all right if he made a general invitation because maybe only Bede would say yes. “I’m going to get my swim trunks. Who’s with me?”
“But it’s dark,” said Gabe, even as he went to grab the bucket of sand and dirt to throw over the fire.
“Don’t be so pedantic,” scolded Royce as he snapped his book shut, flicking his flashlight on and off, like some unknown morse code.
“Do we have swim trunks?” asked Bede. “Was that the red thing in the plastic bag at the bottom of my box?”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Gabe. “After the first couple of nude swims, Maddy thought it more civilized to order everyone a pair of swim trunks.”
As everyone stood up, Galen realized that his swim would not be a solitary one. Certainly not one that he could share with only Bede.
What he should have done was pull Bede aside and offer a private invitation. Or maybe it was better this way. He was an idiot if he thought being alone with Bede in the dark, both of them half naked, was a very good idea.
He went to his tent to change into his swim trunks, grabbed a towel, his flashlight, pulled on a t-shirt, and slipped barefoot into his cowboy boots. He knew he looked ridiculous, but all of this would make it easy to dry off after his swim.
He took so much time that by the time he was going along the path through the thickest part of the trees along the lakeside, he heard the voices and the splashes up ahead, which meant everybody was already at the dock.
Hearing a footstep on the path behind him, he turned, the beam of his flashlight swinging around with him.
Bede was coming up to him along the path with quick strides. The starlight caught the sharpness of his eyes, the shoulders of his white t-shirt, and gleamed off his dark hair.
Bede came up close, not pausing. Then he took Galen by surprise, his hands clasping Galen’s head, that breath warm against his mouth. A swift kiss, then a whispered curse, as if Bede had been drawn to this moment against his will.
Bede’s fingers caressed him as he pulled back, sweeping Galen’s hair behind one ear, and then the other. Then Bede paused and in the low light of the flashlight in Galen’s hands, his eyes searched Galen’s. Looking for an answer. Yes or no.
Galen took too long to respond, then Bede kissed him again, sweeping an arm around his waist, like he was some captured damsel who needed to be tamed. Another arm around his neck brought him into an embrace that absorbed him.
Though Galen raised his hands, dropping his flashlight, his towel, it wasn’t to push back. No, not when this felt like his first kiss,thefirst kiss, in ever so long. The feel of Bede’s mouth, the sweep of tongue, taking away everything else but that connection.
Then with a gasp, Bede pulled back, roughly, as though he pulled back from the heart of temptation itself.
Galen tongued the inside of his lower lip, tasting Bede.
He felt Bede’s heartbeat through the thin cloth of his t-shirt. The swirl of Bede’s scent all around in the clear, still air. Then he rose on his toes, his bare feet slipping inside his cowboy boots, and brushed his lips gently to Bede’s.
He had no idea where or how this might continue, the energy between them wrapping around him like ribbons, but he wanted it to.
“They’ll miss us if we don’t show up,” said Bede, whisper-soft. He ducked his head to search Galen’s eyes, his face.
“True?” asked Galen, ready then and there to throw everything out. All he knew. Who he was. What he hoped for. All for another moment, for this moment, to go on and on. Forever.
“We don’t care,” said Bede, though there was a hopeful question in his voice that Galen knew was his to answer.
There was no one on the path behind them, so they might have slipped off together, but in this moment of quiet, the jagged beating of his heart slowed. It might be nice to let the moment grow again on its own, to build between them as they swam in the dark waters of the lake.
“A swim is nice,” said Galen, in response.
“And we really shouldn’t,” said Bede. He paused to swallow, then said, “Do what we’re doing.”
He kissed Galen again, and in that second, with all of Bede’s mastery of the situation, it was easy for Galen to see how Bede used to be. Polished. Sophisticated. Demanding. At nightclubs in Denver, with cocaine being bought and sold in the back, while hopeful attendees waited out front for the velvet rope to be lifted so they could join the throng of gaiety.
Bede had never had to wait in line. Probably never even stood in one. And here he was in the deep, dark woods with Galen, his hopeful eyes brightening as he stepped back and let Galen go, based on the promise of more, later.
Bending, Bede gathered his and Galen’s things, then, with his hand on the small of Galen’s back, escorted him to the dock, making Galen feel, once again, like the damsel, and Bede his handsome rescuer.
As they neared the dock, the cacophony of pleasure and activity and laughter filtered through the trees beneath the silver moonlight. Someone had brought out four or five kerosene lanterns and these were turned to their highest, creating a circle of light at the land’s end of the dock.
