Page 12 of Canned & Coated

My stomach drops like I missed a step. The air between us feels charged and deeply dangerous.

“What things?” I ask, my voice barely audible above the crackling of the fire.

Tanner doesn’t answer. He lifts the bottle and takes a slow drink, eyes still on me over the rim, letting the silence do something far crueler than words could.

Milo, for once, says nothing.

The quiet presses in from all sides. Fire popping. Crickets sawing at the dark. My own pulse loud enough to be humiliating.

I can’t sit here another second. Not with the heat climbing my neck. Not with Tanner looking at me like that. Not with whatever he means hanging between us.

My hands are shaking so badly I have to pin them beneath my thighs.

Is it embarrassment?

Adrenaline?

Or the slow, awful realization that I’ve spent years building a life designed to keep me from ever having to face exactly this moment?

“I’m... uh. I’m gonna go to bed,” I blurt, standing so fast my chair nearly topples. I stumble over the cooler, kicking it hard enough that it requires a one-legged hop to work the sharp pain out. “Long drive. Tired. You know. Human stuff. Sleep. Necessary for... living.”

I don’t wait for a response. I make a beeline for the tent and duck inside. The second the zipper seals behind me, I collapse onto my sleeping bag and stare into the dark as if it might have answers.

Spoiler alert: it does not.

What it does have is the unmistakable scent of Tanner’s cologne mixed with pine needles, plus the knowledge that in approximately ten minutes both he and Milo will crawl through that same zippered door.

Tanner’s sleeping bag lies across from me. It’s somehow both too close and too far away. Far enough to feel intentional. Close enough to feel threatening. A sharp contrast to the double sleeping bag Milo and I are sharing.

One tent.

Three people.

Nowhere to go.

The universe has a sick sense of humor.

Tanner’s voice keeps circling back. You act like you’ll break the world if you take what you want.

I have the slightly hysterical thought that maybe he’s right. Maybe something should break. Starting with this ridiculous rule I made for myself about never asking for anything.

I roll onto my back again and stare up at the tent ceiling, dim and shapeless above me. Tomorrow I’ll wake up with raccoon eyes from sleeping in my contacts, hair pointing in six directions, and have to face both of them over instant coffee that tastes faintly of dirt.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and a bear will maul me in my sleep.

Better yet, maybe I’ll sleepwalk into the lake and come back as someone who actually knows what he wants.

4

Idon’t know when I finally fell asleep.

It was long after both Tanner and Milo had crawled into the tent. After Milo had shimmied into our shared sleeping bag and wrapped himself around me, warm and familiar against my back. Long after I lay there stiff and still, staring at the curve of the tent ceiling, hyper-aware of Tanner in his own bag a few feet away.

I couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, but I felt them. Tracking every rise and fall of my chest as I pretended to sleep. Every tiny twitch of my fingers when Milo shifted against me.

Hours seemed to stretch between heartbeats while I lay there pinned between desire and dread, both of them breathing only feet away.

Then something changed.