Page 26 of Canned & Coated

His wrist twists on the upstroke, thumb circling the glistening head where beads of pre-cum mix with shower spray before his fist slides back down the rigid shaft, veins standing prominent against tanned skin.

“Christ,” he hisses, jaw clenched. “You see what happens when I think about it? About all of us?” His eyes, half-lidded and hazy with lust, drop to his own movements, then pop back up to me. “The three of us together.”

His gaze locks onto mine, pinning me in place. Steam curls between us, carrying the scent of soap and sweat.

“Are you into it, Nate?” Each word lands like a physical touch. “Do you want this?”

I can’t admit, in any universe, that I want it. I want him. I want all of it so badly I can feel it down to the marrow of my bones.

I’d be an idiot to turn down the thing I’ve been pining for since… well, forever. I am also completely out of my mind. A world-class, gold-medal champion of terrible decisions.

“I… uh…” I stammer, eyes darting around the bathhouse. “I have to go.”

I bolt before he can respond, the wet slap of my shoes against tile echoing in my ears. The heavy door swings shut behind me with a hollow thud.

I lean against the wall, lungs burning, heart hammering against my ribs.

That’s when I hear the laughter erupt from inside, bouncing off tile and seeping through the cracks around the door.

I’m practically sprinting back to camp, my shoes squelching with every step. Milo’s hunched over his phone at the picnic table, thumbs tapping away. He looks up, eyebrows lifting as I approach.

“So?” he asks, setting his phone down. “You two work things out?”

“Yeah,” I manage. “All good. Totally normal conversation.”

“That was fast.”

I guess it was. Turns out some experiences do weird things to your sense of time.

“We didn’t need long.” My face burns as I busy myself with the cooler, grabbing a soda I don’t even want.

“If you say so,” Milo says, eyeing me a little too closely.

The memory flashes anyway, uninvited and impossible to ignore. I could tell him. I probably should. God knows he’d be into it. But something stops me. It’s as if I’d be admitting I took something that wasn’t only mine.

I can’t reconcile what I want with what could have been. We spent years orbiting each other, three planets slightly out of sync, because I never had the nerve to say it out loud that I wanted both of them.

I stare down at my hands, wondering what it would’ve taken to change any of it. If I’d said something sooner, would we have avoided all the wasted time? Or would it have broken something before it ever had the chance to become this?

If Tanner hadn’t left, he might never have figured himself out. I might still be the same person I was back then. Too afraid to reach for anything that felt even slightly out of bounds.

Maybe this uncomfortable, impossible moment is exactly what I need.

Maybe this is the final push toward something that used to feel like fantasy but now feels strangely, terrifyingly inevitable.

7

Dinner happened. That’s about the nicest thing I can say about it.

When Tanner strolled back from the bathhouse, he locked eyes with me with a look that said I know what you saw, and I know you liked it.

As for me? I developed a sudden, intense interest in literally anything else. Tree bark. Dirt. Counting the absurd number of rubber ducks lining the dash of Tanner’s Jeep.

Milo’s head kept swiveling between us as if we were a puzzle he was actively solving. Whatever pieces clicked into place made his smile stretch wider and wider until I swear his face was ninety percent teeth.

I eventually waved the white flag and retreated to the tent. By the time the other two climbed in after me, I was fully out. Exhausted from the hike, the… situation, and the stress of both.

I slept like the dead. Out so completely that Milo and Tanner’s morning routine never even registered. One minute I’m passing out, the next I’m blinking awake in an empty tent, their voices drifting through the nylon walls.