Page 8 of Canned & Coated

Fuck. This is gonna be a long weekend.

3

After nearly four hours of setting up camp and waiting for the awkwardness to finally burn off, I’m still on edge. We’ve pitched tents, gathered firewood, arranged our little circle of camp chairs, all while dancing around each other with careful questions.

“How was the drive?” Tanner asked, arranging kindling.

“Long,” I’d answered.

“What’s work like these days?” I’d managed while hammering tent stakes.

“Hell,” he’d said flatly.

“Your parents doing okay?” Milo chimed in.

“Old,” Tanner replied, and we all nodded like that explained everything.

It’s the same script we’ve been using since high school, and it’s doing absolutely nothing to cut through the thickness in the air.

That thickness isn’t helped by the fact that every time I look up, I catch Tanner’s eyes on me cataloging. Clearly taking in the new lines around my mouth, the haircut, the extra fifteen pounds college kindly gifted me.

Based on the way his eyes narrow as he studies Milo and me, I’m not entirely sure he believes either of us are real.

We’re ghosts to each other now. Familiar shapes haunting unfamiliar bodies.

This new Tanner throws me off balance.

The curls are longer now, sun-bleached at the tips. His skin’s gone permanently bronze, and his shoulders pull at his shirt in ways that make my mouth go dry. But it’s the way he moves that gets me most. How he takes up space without apology. How he listens more than he speaks. How his smile comes slow but stays longer.

I truly wasn’t prepared for the sparkle in his eyes. A familiar glint, now charged with something new. A glint I catch fixed on me from across the fire. We’ve settled around it and spent the better part of an hour trying to navigate the silence.

Heat crawls down my neck as my gaze betrays me, tracing him from boots to brow. When our eyes meet again, he’s still watching.

The tip of his tongue drags across his lower lip before his mouth curves into a smile.

“Kiss already,” Milo announces flatly from across the fire.

I whip around to find my boyfriend slouched in his camp chair, beer in hand, eyes bouncing between us with clinical interest.

I duck my head and gulp my diet soda, nearly choking in my rush to look unbothered. Tanner lets out an awkward laugh, hands suddenly occupied rubbing at his thighs.

We both immediately find something fascinating to study in opposite directions.

Milo tips his beer toward Tanner. “So what’s the nomad life actually like?”

“What part?” Tanner asks, leaning back in his chair.

“You know.” Milo grins. “Waking up somewhere new every day. Coffee on your little camp stove. Hot strangers at every campground throwing themselves at you.”

Tanner snorts. “Yeah, that’s exactly it.”

“It’s not?” Milo asks, genuinely disappointed.

“It’s mostly me smelling my own socks for three days and trying to find somewhere to pee at two in the morning.”

I laugh before I can stop myself. “That tracks.”

“Okay, but the freedom. The adventure.” Milo says, spreading his arms so wide beer nearly sloshes over the can. “The raw masculine independence of it all.”