Page 8 of The Cubby Hole

Getting naked together in this bathhouse wasn’t that unusual. Over the years, I’d walked in to find Ben in any number of compromising positions more times than I cared to count. When we’d still been together but trying to be open, it had upset me more than our arrangement officially allowed. It had led to a few late-night fights in our tent the whole campground had gotten to witness. Then there had been a competition phase when I’d probably been hoping to make him jealous more than anything. And eventually, he’d become just a buddy of mine getting some action.

It was unspoken etiquette that you gave your friends some privacy when you ran into them here. You either discreetly went elsewhere or, if you were already engaged, you focused on your own game and tried to tune out the soft noises coming from the other end of the room.

A gay campground wasn’t the best place for prudishness or petty jealousy. If you weren’t in the kind of stable, open relationship that could withstand it, then you simply shouldn’t bring your boyfriend or husband. If you couldn’t handle the passing sight of your platonic buds naked with a dick in their mouths, then Bear Camp was definitely not the place for you.

I’d willed myself to handle it. It hadn’t been easy, but it had been worth it. It was one of the things that had allowed Ben and me to stay in each other’s lives, and at the end of it all, that had mattered most.

The thing was… the sight of Ben undressing was something I’d never entirely learned to ignore. He had the kind of body you only got from good genes and manual labor. He’d done construction work for as long as I’d known him. At first it had been summer jobs and then part-time, but eventually he’d dropped out of college, gotten his contractor’s license, and turned it into a career.

He liked to build shit, and it showed.

His upper body was compact and muscled. His pecs were defined in a way mine would never be, no matter how many bench presses and flies I did. His chest was nicely furred with a few grays to match the streaks in his beard and the silver at his temples. His legs were the part that killed me. There had never been a single moment when I didn’t—at least at the back of my mind—think holy fuck whenever I saw his bare legs. Hairy, soccer player legs. His calves were obscene. His thighs were too thick for off-the-rack pants.

And that God’s gift of a big dick flopping between them…

I looked away and finished shedding my own clothes. When I turned back around, he was watching me again.

“What?”

“You look good.”

“Shut up.” I rolled my eyes. He’d seen me naked hundreds of times.

“No, seriously. CrossFit is working for you.”

“Thanks.” The compliment felt good. I had been trying. When he and I had met, I’d been a skinny twink and no amount of working out or protein shakes ever gained me one ounce of bulk. I’d felt physically inferior to him the whole time we’d dated, a superficial insecurity that had contributed a lot to my sabotage of our relationship. A couple of years ago, my metabolism finally slowed down and my body started to change. Working out had finally stuck. I’d been secretly hoping he’d notice. As intoxicating as it was for him to acknowledge it, I still couldn’t resist some self-deprecating humor. “I’ve finally achieved the dad bod I always wanted.”

While Ben hadn’t changed much—other than developing laugh lines in the corners of his gorgeous eyes that only made him more attractive—I’d grown into myself. I felt happier in my own skin than I ever had, and I liked to think that had allowed me to mellow in deeper ways.

He turned to the mirror above the sink basins. “Maybe I need to start coming to your classes.”

“Please.” I stood behind him, watching him turn and pose, checking himself out. The sight of us together in the reflection reminded me of the times when I’d studied us, wondering if we looked like a couple, if we looked like we belonged together.

I’d always concluded I looked like a scrawny teenager next to a man who was out of my league. But now… maybe I could’ve finally held my own.

I probably shouldn’t have been thinking that about my best friend.

“Trust me. You don’t need to”—I waved my hand, motioning up and down his phenomenal body—“change anything.”

He smiled. Maybe it was the alcohol, but his pretty blues were starting to feel dangerous.

I hunched my shoulders and squeezed my hands between my legs. “I’m freezing,” I half lied. “Let’s go in.” I lunged for the door to the sauna.

Ben and I weren’t alone.

The back corner of the sauna was in shadow, but there was enough light to make out a couple of men sitting close together. I chose a spot on the wooden risers near the door, and Ben squeezed in next to me. He sat closer than I would’ve predicted, but I assumed he didn’t want to move too near whoever it was back there. It might come across as an offer. Our eyes needed time to adjust so we could check these guys out first.

The two men—I guessed they were probably in their midfifties—murmured a friendly hello and launched into the inevitable script that played out whenever you encountered someone new at the campground: Where are you from? How long are you gonna be here? Where are you staying? With anybody who considered themselves regulars, there’d also be a discussion about which weekends they’d attended last season, which ones were the most crowded and wild…

Weather horror stories were an inevitable topic.

They—Gary and Michael—kept their towels across their laps as they chatted away, finishing each other’s sentences. They said they always stopped for a night or two on the way from their home in DC to their beach house in Florida. They volunteered that they’d been together for twenty-five years.

“How long have you two been together?” Gary asked.

“We’re not a couple,” Ben and I said in unison.

Both men chuckled.