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“Not too bad yourself,” Colin replied, sitting next to her on the bench as the fire grew bigger and the larger logs began to smoke and catch fire.
“So how are you planning on cooking these?” June said, desperate for any shift in the topic of conversation. Colin rustled around in his pack and pulled out what looked like two small silver pencils that happened to be telescoping roasting sticks.
“Okay, then. Tell me about this place,” June said, sliding her hot dog onto the stick and beginning to roast it over the tallest flames. “Like, I know what it looks like and everything, but do you know the history of the camp?”
“The general outline,” Colin said, beginning to roast his own hot dog. “Founded in 1914 as a boys camp, right around the time the university in town was founded. The standard story for a lot of the camps at the time - people were afraid that boys were becoming too weak, so they wanted to have them go ‘back to the land’ and re-establish their relationship with their masculine selves or some bullshit.” June snorted, rotating her hot dog to begin to toast the second side. “Anyway, the only two times we’ve ever shut down before the last two years were World War II and then a polio outbreak in the 1950s. Started to let girls come to camp in the 1960s, and that’s when everything went to shit.” June gasped and looked at Colin, who was grinning sarcastically at the last statement.
“I’m just fucking with you,” Colin said, roasting his hot dog. June worked really hard to read a double entendre into his sentence - was it still a double entendre if you just straight up used the work fucking? June hadn’t actually dated anyone to get to know them since before lockdown - any of her app dates were, if she was being honest with herself, just a pit stop on the way to fucking. Colin must have noticed June’s sudden silence, because he deftly switched topics. “So your thoughts on hot dogs?”
“Not my go-to food,” June said thoughtfully, ensuring that the entirety of the outside of her hot dog was burned to a crisp. “But I enjoy them. Honestly, not something I would think about eating on a normal day.”
“Condoms?” June heard Colin ask, and a glacial chill shot through her body.
“What?” June was confused by the abrupt change in topic, but she was impressed that Colin was just…going for it. “I mean, yeah, that makes sense if we’re being safe. I don’t have any on me, but I can definitely pop out to the store and grab some.”
“I have an entire bag right here.”
“Here?” June shrieked. “That’s interesting planning. Is that why you brought the blankets?” June looked around for a softer patch of dirt. “Do the sticks poke you in the butt?”
“What in the Sam Hill are you even saying?” Colin said, perplexed. June opened her mouth to ask Colin why he would even bring up condoms if he didn’t plan on having sex with her, when she looked up at him. He was holding the gallon size ziploc bag that was full of to-go packets of what looked like ketchup, relish, and mustard.
“Oh my fucking god,” June said to herself as realization dawned on her. “You said ‘condiments’, didn’t you?” June’s face flamed, she began to sweat underneath her fleece jacket. She wished that there was a fault line somewhere close that could open up and swallow her whole, which would solve all of her job problems and remove her from this current situation. “Okay, bye forever, I’m leaving.”
“June, what did you think I-” Colin looked at the bag in his hand and studied June’s mortified reaction, then burst out laughing. “No.”
“It’s cool, I can just escape somewhere else and join the French Foreign Legion. Create a new identity and we can never see each other or talk about this again.”
“June,” Colin started to wheeze, he was laughing so hard. “June, did you think I said ‘condoms’?” She refused to dignify that with a response. June turned around, crossed her arms over her chest, and stared at the aspens, torn between running away and losing it or somehow doing both. Colin’s laughter got closer until it was right behind her, his arms folding around her and capturing limbs. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, his chuckles moving her curls around as he tried to get himself under control.
“Uggggh,” June said, though Colin’s laughs were physically contagious and she began to laugh herself. This entire situation was ridiculous.
“That was so cute,” Colin said against her head. “I love that you’re open to discussing safe sex this early in our relationship.”
June panicked and then immediately warmed at the idea of a relationship. “I’m just trying to be open and candid,” she said. “But now you know where I stand, so I hope that’s cool with you.”
Colin stilled behind her, his voice dropping a few octaves. “June,” he said and she felt the vibrations of his chest behind her. Maybe she imagined it, but she could have sworn he pressed his hips into her ass, tightened his arms around her to pull her even closer. “You tell me what you need to feel safe and sexy, and I’m there no matter what.”
“Right now, a hot dog,” June said, turning around in his arms to face him, her hands resting on his chest. “And con-di-ments.” She emphasized the last word.
“My pleasure,” he said, letting her go. They pulled their hot dogs from the fire and busied themselves preparing buns - June preferred just mustard, while Colin mixed relish and ketchup, leading to a small debate between them about the relative merits of each.
“But there are so many types of mustard,” June argued, taking a bite of her hot dog.
“Which is why it’s a bullshit condiment,” Colin retorted. “You know what you’re getting with ketchup - it is what it is. Mustard is a sneaky bastard - it could be honey, it could be spicy, it could be stone ground, or - the worst of all - it could be that horrifying yellow substance you’re currently eating.”
“It’s delicious,” June said, popping the last bit of the hot dog into her mouth.
“You’ve got a bit of that nasty crap on the corner of your mouth,” Colin said, pointing with his hot dog. June slid her tongue out of her mouth and licked it up and suddenly became aware of Colin's eyes watching her movements. She let her tongue linger in the corner of her mouth, looked at him with eyes that were meant to communicate that she returned his interest.
“Jesus, woman,” Colin groaned. “I don’t think I can watch you eat another hot dog without needing to take a cold shower.” June grinned, and reached for another bun, slathering her hot dog with three packets of yellow mustard, much to Colin's chagrin.
June and Colin ate and chatted, bouncing from topics as light as favorite movies (June loved That Thing You Do!, which Colin had never seen, while Colin's was a passionate defender of The Sandlot as the perfect film) to experiences with religion in childhood (Colin had grown up without religion, while June's parents had been on-again, off-again Lutherans). Occasionally, Colin would add a log to the fire, while June busied herself with poking at the embers, organizing the coals to be in the most efficient locations to maximize their heating potential.
"You're an organizer, huh?" Colin observed. "I bet your closet is color coded."
"You're…not wrong," she replied, grinning. "Things have places, and I like to know where they are. It's a sense of control, yeah, but just having order in where my things are helps me have order everywhere else."
"Well, that is one place where we differ," Colin said, hesitantly.
