Page 39 of Muscle Cub

Ben and Eric headed out after Eric secured a promise from me to call and tell him everything when I got back to town. Ben said he’d come by my place on Wednesday to collect his tools.

If I hadn’t stayed to be with Austin, it would have been depressing to be left behind after the party was over. With the majority of the crowd gone, the collective mood of the campground shifted. The vibe at the pool area mellowed. The satellite radio station was switched to soft classic rock. The Bloody Marys were still there, but needing to rehydrate, I turned them down. I vowed to stick to beer and water for the rest of the day.

Business at the cabana bar was thankfully sparse, which made it easier for Austin to steal moments with me. I camped out on a stool in the shade and kept him company all day as he worked. We mostly talked about inconsequential things—food and music and TV shows we loved—and he regaled me with the whispered backstories of dozens of people. His eyes lit up when he gossiped—not because he was mean-spirited but because he delighted in the colorful diversity and outrageousness of these men. He was proud to be part of this community.

In a lot of ways, it felt like I’d known Austin for weeks or possibly even longer. I honestly couldn’t remember what the world had felt like before I knew he was in it. I had to keep reminding myself it hadn’t yet been three days.

I tried to ignore the melancholy sense of a clock ticking.

I’d stayed so I’d have all these extra hours with him, but they were slipping by at a cruel pace. Time wasn’t only distorted here; it was fickle. It could either speed up or slow down, and either way you couldn’t control it. Bear Mountain Lodge wasn’t so much a gay heaven as it was a kind of purgatory.

Sunday evening, as I ate dinner with my tent neighbors Grant and Rob, Austin hovered over me, only slipping away long enough to clear a plate or refill a glass, then come back. Jim gave him an admonishing look, but there was no conviction in it. Sawyer stared at us curiously, but he looked away when I caught him.

We were in a bubble, and it seemed like everyone around us could sense it, and nobody had the heart or even the ability to break our spell.

All the same people who had openly flirted with Austin now slipped silently by us like we didn’t exist. Some spared us soft, knowing smirks, but they made room for us.

They parted around us.

After dinner, Austin and I showered together in Bathhouse Two. We kissed under the spray, and I didn’t care who watched us.

Sunday night, we made out on a blanket in the bonfire field while fireworks went off directly overhead. Austin had been right. I couldn’t have missed it. I couldn’t have imagined this weekend without that moment.

We retired to my tent before eleven, and we stayed awake most of the night, talking, kissing, messing around, and talking some more, trying to squeeze every minute out of our last hours together.

I wondered aloud if we were only making our impending goodbye more torturous, but Austin shushed me and shook his head like I’d broken the gravest taboo.

For all the counting down I’d been doing in the back of my mind, the morning took me by surprise. In the thin, growing light, a sense of panic gripped my heart.

I hid it from Austin, careful not to infect him with it.

He had to leave to work breakfast. He kept stealing another kiss, which led to another, then another, all of them chaste and sweet. He delayed until he was definitely going to be at least fifteen minutes late, but he said it would be worth it, even if he got yelled at.

I watched him jog up the path in my red shoes. He looked back, waved, and almost tripped.

I decided to get a jump on packing up my site. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but a daunting task would give me something to focus on other than how unprepared I was to say goodbye.

Grant and Rob invited me to walk up to the lodge with them. It was nice how quickly familiar rituals had emerged around meals, how comfortable I felt with these guys who’d been strangers only a few days ago. It wasn’t only Austin I’d be leaving today. I would miss the sense of community and the company of other gay men.

Sure, I had Ben and Eric at home for the two or three times a year I could be persuaded to get a beer at a bar. I had no idea what things would be like now that they were together. They’d probably disappear into their own private world as couples did.

As for the university community, the English department was dominated by women—which was fantastic; I loved working with them—but I was only close to a few of them. They were undoubtedly allies, and they would’ve already fixed me up with any number of men if they could’ve convinced me to let them, but I didn’t exactly talk to them about butt stuff.

And I hadn’t seen them since I’d taken my sabbatical.

To finally write my next book, I’d taken personal time off for the spring and summer semesters, almost half of which I’d already squandered, and I’d be returning to my eerily quiet home office and the terror of the blank page on my laptop.

I understood why Austin might have wanted to take a job here and stay forever.

When Grant and Rob were ready to head out, I found Austin bussing dishes and stopped him long enough to tell him I was going to finish packing.

“Okay.” He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “I’ll come find you.”

This time, I knew it was a promise.

Back at my site, I let the air out of the mattress, took down the tarps, and started the painstaking process of folding and rolling lots of large things into the impossibly small packages they’d come in.

Alex, Noah, and Lance stopped by on their way back from having missed breakfast again. They’d managed to snag the last dregs of coffee and planned to check out a nearby diner on their way back to Edgewood.