Page 75 of Grumpy Bear

“Luke!” Austin was striding across the parking lot, arms out. “Where the hell are you going? You leaving?” I wouldn’t have guessed Austin’s face was capable of looking that disappointed. Under other circumstances, his frown would have been almost comical.

In a rush, I filled him in about the audition and his happy, boyish grin returned.

He punched my shoulder. “I told you, bro. You never know who you might meet here.” He lowered his voice. “What about Sawyer?”

I gave him what I hoped was a sheepish grin, nothing too telling. “You warned me. Here we are. Sunday afternoon.”

“Ah.” He nodded knowingly. “Camp romance. It can suck.”

“It does.” The words came out raspy, so I cleared my throat.

“Only for a little bit though. You’ll be okay in a couple of days. We’ve all been there. Except, most of the time we’re going back to some shitty grind. You’re gonna be on a fucking TV show!”

I rolled my eyes. With that game show voice of his, he should be the one on TV. “I’m auditioning.”

“For a fucking TV show!” Austin grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me until I couldn’t help but smile. “Oh! Hey.” He released me to dig his phone out of his pocket. “I don’t even have your digits. I need to be able to prove we’re friends when you get famous. I gotta establish that text history ASAP.” He opened a new contact screen, and I filled in my details, promising him I would have my phone turned back on soon. “Seriously, though. Let me know how it goes.”

“I will.” I glanced over at Brad, already behind the wheel of a silver Lexus sedan, sunglasses on. “I gotta jet.”

“Any chance you’ll be back?”

“Maybe.” Even though Coleman hadn’t explicitly left the possibility as open as I’d hoped. “Never say never, right?”

Austin grabbed me, hugging me so tight I was afraid he might crack a rib.

Why was I so fucking emotional? I’d only been with these guys for a few days, but it felt like years. Most everyone I’d called a friend in LA had taken Jeremy’s side when I’d left. Austin was the first friend I’d made in Georgia, and he was the magical synchronicity that every part of my new life hinged on so far. Saying goodbye to him was extra bittersweet. He probably knew that. “Thanks for bringing me here,” I managed to squeak during the hug.

He kissed the side of my neck. “You bet. Now, I’m gonna walk away really fast because I’m actually an extremely sensitive person, and I will start blubbering.” He shoved me away from him. “Now git.”

Brad sure was chatty for as hungover as he claimed to be. He had a bubbly, hyper spirit, which I normally appreciated, but today it took some effort to match his enthusiasm. Was this what it had been like for Coleman, driving me around in the UTV the first day we’d met?

Brad’s ADHD was next level. When he wasn’t namedropping or constantly starting songs on Spotify—“You have to hear this”—and then three-quarters in, jumping to another song, he was taking work calls over Bluetooth, shouting loud conversations at the car dashboard, and then telling me unnecessary amounts of minutiae about the person he’d been talking to once they hung up. A lot of his calls seemed to be about calling other people to set up more calls. I think he said he was in some kind of public relations, maybe? He had that frenetic busyness I’d encountered in a lot of PR types in LA and Nashville. Maybe he was angling to sign me as a client.

In addition to our shared excuse of being exhausted from the weekend, Brad didn’t know me, so my uncharacteristic quiet and moodiness probably went unnoticed. Passing the signs to Edgewood made me impossibly nostalgic for something that hadn’t even happened, like seeing flashes of my life on an alternative timeline. A path diverged in a wood, and I took the road to Atlanta.

Highway 515 took us away from the mountains so fast it left me with this panicky feeling of being unable to get back. I was irrationally afraid of forgetting it all too soon like lost time in a fairy land. I concentrated on the fresh memories of the campground as though I was trying to stay tuned to a radio station that was starting to go out of range. The rain on the windshield made every muscle in my body clench. It meant more than a shitty drive. Was the creek threatening the pool? Was Coleman already laboring at the swimming hole, placing another layer of stones on the top of the dam? Would he think of me now every time he had to go up there?

My clothes reeked of wood smoke, and my skin smelled like the cheap locker room body wash from the bathhouse. I kept pulling the ends of my hair under my nose to catch a trace of the shampoo I’d snagged from Coleman. It was something practical and functional like Head & Shoulders. I realized too late I didn’t know what his hair smelled like. He was taller than me, and I hadn’t paid much attention at the time. Was it ridiculous to cry over a regret like that? Because I definitely could have.

I wished I could have driven alone, so I could listen to my own playlists and bawled my eyes out. I mourned having the space and time alone to process, but I was obligated to participate in the ritual of getting to know Brad. He was giving me a ride, letting me stay in his home, and introducing me to the people who might be giving me the biggest opportunity of my life.

Brad half joked about being able to say he discovered me. “Well, Trey gets some credit. He literally dragged me out of a nice little hot tub situation that was definitely headed toward an orgy, but don’t feel bad. I don’t regret it. He insisted I had to hear you play, and he was right.”

Trey. Wonder what motivated that? When would he have heard me play? He wasn’t in the lodge when I’d interviewed. “Well, that was cool of him.” I smiled to cover my skepticism.

Brad was back on the subject of orgies and his preferences for group play. He talked about sex a lot, in a gossipy, general way I hoped meant he had put me in some kind of sister gurlfriend zone. Considering where we’d met, it wasn’t that unusual. Most gay men talked like this. I’d used dating apps to find rides over the past few weeks. I always explicitly stated my situation on my profile—that I wasn’t looking for sex, I just preferred not to take any chances on hitchhiking with some random homophobe. Here I was, in another car, relying on the kindness of another stranger, and this time in particular, I really, really needed him to have no expectation of hooking up.

“So, what was the sitch with you and the owner?” Brad shot me a side smirk, eyebrow raised. “Was it like a thing?”

God, was it ever a thing. And it would require a thousand other words to do it justice, so, yeah, I was content to go with that one. “It was.”

Brad gave me a congratulatory head bob and the universal hiss of “Nice.” Thankfully, instead of pressing me for details, he took it as a cue to catalogue more of his own weekend conquests. As he pleaded his case about not being a size queen—while pretty much talking exclusively about the specific shape, dimension, and curvature of all the huge dicks he’d encountered—I stared out the window at passing farmland and pretended to pay attention, chuckling at appropriate moments in the music of his story.

I thought of Coleman’s past, hitching rides to Atlanta, looking to get away, trying to get back to the city. As much as I kept reminding myself I should be excited about where I was headed, I couldn’t shake the memory of how happy I’d been the night of the bonfire. Before Brad had approached me. Only minutes after I’d released that scrap of paper into the flames and what I’d thought was an old version of my dreams had gone up in smoke.

I’d been ready to give it all up. I’d recalibrated what I wanted to fit what I had.

Maybe this was the universe saying not so fast.