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Alvy. DeeDee. We were grown men now but still those little boys.
SPLASH!
“Fuck!” I peered down at the ocean of bubbles pooling around us and the tipped-over bucket.
Darius shook his head, aggressively pulling at his hair. “We’re never making it ten fucking weeks.”
The clock on the wall dinged, and it made both of us jump like a bolt of electricity had been shot up our asses.
I glanced back at Dee. He had dried ketchup smeared across his jaw and a noodle was somehow hanging off his shoulder. He looked exhausted. He also looked ridiculously handsome and… broken. Life was unfair like that. Both of us so fucking broken with no real way of knowing how to fix it.
“You definitely need to be hosed down. Your mind’s a little dirty there, Double Dee.”
He looked at the noodle in my fingers. “I fucking hate this place.”
“You loved it once upon a time,” I reminded him while wringing out my shirt.
“I loved it when I was a stupid, ignorant kid.”
“You still do, DeeDee.”
“I don’t.”
I thought about that and shrugged, kicking the bucket back to an upright position. “Then maybe you can again, someday.”
By the time the dining hall finally looked respectable again, I smelled like every item on the menu.
I sniffed my sleeve. “…I think I’m ninety percent creamed corn sauce.”
“I think you’re fermenting,” Darius replied.
“Rude.”
“But accurate.”
I peeled my camp shirt away from my skin with a grimace and noticed Dee’s instant ogling. I might not have had bimbo tatas but he loved my muscles. “Enjoying the show? Where’s yours? Ahem. Double Dee ʼem, gotta see ʼem!”
He peered down at the defined abs peeking through his clothes and blushed. “Is that seriously why you call me DeeDee?”
I whacked him with my sopping shirt. “Meh. Maybe. Better to keep you guessing, DeeDee.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“Let’s just go before I kill you, Alvin.”
I snorted and resisted his pull. “Nope. Only one place I’m goin’.”
Dee quirked a brow.
“The counselor showers, dumbass. You need to too, before we accidentally invent a new biological hazard.”
He looked at his stained clothes and sighed. “…Fair enough, I guess.”
We headed across camp with towels slung over our shoulders, the evening air finally cooling the sticky mess clinging to my skin.
I bumped his arm as we walked. “You know…”
