Maybe it was okay not to be alone. If only for a little while.
When Alexei awoke the next morning, he wondered, for a moment, if he had hallucinated the previous day. But when he stuck his head out of his tent, there was Ben, sitting on the hard ground. He looked up, grinning with those sleepy, chocolate eyes, like there was nowhere else he’d rather be. He was wearing a navy hooded sweatshirt that was too big for him, bunching and billowing at his wrists.
Alexei allowed himself, for a tiny moment, the fantasy of crawling over and resting his head in Ben’s lap.
“Morning,” Ben said.
“Morning,” Alexei replied. And then, “Coffee.” He pointed to the steaming mug in Ben’s hands. This didn’t really make sense in the rules of the game, because Alexei actually hated coffee, and in his head, one only nonsensically said five-syllables-or-less to the other person when it was a mutually enjoyable thing. But he said it anyway, because he knew Ben would say—
“Coffee!” Ben agreed, lifting his mug with a smile.
And somehow, a half-asleep Ben smile was even more charming than a fully awake one.
Alexei turned and walked into the manzanita.
When he returned from his morning business, Ben was standing, stretching his arms high above his head, eyes closed to the lightening sky. His sweatshirt had risen with the movement, exposing a small ribbon of smooth stomach and dark hair.
Alexei closed his eyes and asked a small question of God. He knew he had to get used to meeting new people, that a bit of companionship was not bad. Good practice for Alexei 2.0.
But did it have to bethis person? This cheery, handsome specimen of a person?
God, shockingly, did not answer.
“Ready to go?” Ben asked once they had packed up camp, Ben’s instant coffee consumed, Alexei’s breakfast of oatmeal shoved down his throat with minimal nausea.
“Yeah.” Alexei attempted a smile. “Let’s go.”
He could do this.
Really, he rationalized as they began to walk in silence once more, it wasn’t the most soundproof plan in general, walking through the middle of the desert with a person you knew absolutely nothing about, was it? He should ask the questions in his head so they could establish at least a few baseline facts about the other. Whom Alexei should contact if Ben happened to topple off the side of a ridge. Or if Ben was allergic to anything. What was his last name? Why was he hiking the PCT? How much of the trail was he hiking? How long did he expect to hike with Alexei, exactly? Where was he from? Was he gay?
Okay! Perhaps not all of these questions were relevant. And obviously Ben wasn’t gay. He’d fit in naturally with those other very straight seeming guys at Tommy’s Kitchen.Alexeiwas being super gay, but this was fine, too; he would analyze this surprising level of gayness later in his journal, where he had planned to process all of his gay feelings anyway. Everything was still going according to plan.
Except life in the desert, again, foiled his best intentions.
The day started in a steady climb, forcing Alexei’s energy to be refocused on the weight of his pack, his pacing, the air wheezing through his lungs. And he didn’t want to open up a round of friendly, normal, not overly gay questioning when he was out of breath. By the time they stopped beside a boulder to stare down at Tahquitz Rock—a bright pinnacle of granite rising above a canopy of conifers, the whole scene sweeping and humbling—Alexei wondered if it was too late. If the silence had stretched too long and everything was weird again.
But no. He had to ask something. Hehad to. They had been walking together forhours; it didn’t even make sense; how was Ben so relaxed!
“What’s your favorite color?” Alexei blurted out.
Because of course. The one question that finally popped out of his mouth was the one most commonly asked of kindergarteners. Cool. Awesome. This was great.
But Ben only looked at him with a smile and said, “Blue.”
And then Alexei realized that Ben’s sweatshirt was navy. His T-shirt, sky blue. His tent was blue. Even the mug he’d drunk his morning coffee out of had been…blue.
Alexei finally got the nerve to ask Ben a question, and he asked the one question healready knew the answer to.
“What’s yours?” Ben asked as he turned, striding back onto the trail, his shoulder accidentally brushing Alexei’s arm.
Alexei walked behind him after a beat, after his arm had stopped tingling. He stared at the back of Ben’s head, at the dark hair sticking messily out of the hat Ben occasionally wore to keep the sun out of his face, and Alexei wondered what it would feel like if he reached out a hand and plunged his fingers into it, and probably, it took him too long to answer, “Green.”
“Solid choice,” Ben said. Alexei wondered if he should clarify, explain that while he actually found some shades of green hideous, his true favorite color was, specifically, the color of moss in a Northwest forest. Which was a green so bright, sometimes it almost seemed to glow.
But Ben didn’t say anything else, and the words wouldn’t have come out right anyway, because they never did, so after that solid failure of a conversation starter, Alexei clamped his mouth shut.
The questions kept dancing in his head anyway.
