“Yeah. I know.”
“Sorry,” Ben whispered again.
They were quiet a moment, and so, noticeably, was the night. The coyote was either being very, very stealthy, or—
“I think it’s gone,” Alexei said.
“Lex,” Ben said after a beat. “I think…I am bad at the PCT.”
A small laugh escaped Alexei’s lungs.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Can I stay here another minute?” Ben asked. “To collect myself from monumental embarrassment?”
“Uh. Sure.”
And even though he could still barely make out Ben’s face, Alexei flipped over to his other side out of pure self-preservation. It was better to stare at the dark wall of his tent than the mass of dark hair and tiny nose and brown eyes and gap-toothed smile he could envision being right there, inches away. It was simply too much, this whole ridiculous chain of events.
It was almost funny, with how fast Alexei’s heart was still pitter-pattering around in his chest, that it was able to then stop itself completely five minutes later, when Ben’s arm flopped over Alexei’s side.
As with the first rattlesnake, all systems came to a halt. Breath stopped pouring from his lungs. He was pretty sure he stopped blinking.
How…what? What was Bendoing?
Was he just messing with Alexei? Because he knew Alexei was gay?
That seemed like a very un-Ben-like thing to do.
Then again, Alexei still didn’t really know Benthatwell. Even though, in his gut, he felt like he did. But…no. He blinked hard into the night, his brain trying to talk sense into his gut. He’d known Ben for, what? Less than a week? A spontaneous, temporary trail friendship. Maybe Alexei didn’t know him at all. Or maybe Ben was just…a straight guy who liked to cuddle with his friends when he was frightened?
That was probably a thing.
Fuck.
Oh. It happened again. Alexei, for the first time in his life, was full of f-bombs.
Whatever this was, Alexei had to put a stop to it, and now. Because this—Ben’s breath on his neck, his chest warm against Alexei’s back, the underside of his arm flush against Alexei’s bicep, his curled fingers whispering ever so gently against Alexei’s wrist—it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t how two men who barely knew each other responded to a close call with a coyote.
Alexei was pretty sure, from every societal clue he’d ever received, that he and Ben were supposed to slug each other in the shoulder and laugh this whole thing off before Ben stumbled back to his tent. This would merely be a funny story they’d relive later.
They were most definitely not supposed to…do this. Hold each other.
And Alexei could not imagine laughing about this later.
He could smell Ben. His sweat. But there was something else, too, something fresh and clean somehow, something close to pine, even in this dusty, hot desert.
Ben’s pinky twitched against Alexei’s wrist. Alexei held back a growl.
He was already half hard.
He was about to throw his body back around, maybe not-so-accidentally shove his shoulder into Ben’s face, and tell him politely but firmly to get the hell out of his tent, when he heard it.
A soft, adorable rumble.
Ben was snoring.
Ben wasasleep.
