Wayne and Wanda’s firepit was the place to be during the weekend, at least for those on the east side of the park. Sometimes someone brought a guitar, but mostly it was just a lot of people getting drunk and silly together. Voices grew loud and fish stories abounded. People had fires at their own sites and came and went throughout Friday and Saturday nights.
So it didn’t seem strange when Robbie spent a few hours with Raj at his firepit Friday night, just the two of them, though now and then, someone wandered by to say hello and share how the fishing had gone. He liked talking to Robbie and could do it for hours without being bored, but over those hours, the sexual tension steadily increased until every glance seemed hot and every second word an innuendo.
They’d locked lips and tangled legs up against Raj’s trailer but broke away in haste when footsteps sounded on the gravel. They’d tried to sneak in another blow job on Raj’s boat Saturday morning and had nearly been caught by Wayne.
Raj, at least, was finding it very frustrating. But he’d opened his big mouth about the rules for sleeping in his trailer, and Robbie didn’t seem eager to advertise that they were…whatever they were. Or didn’t want to become whatever openly fucking would make them.
The fourth weekend in June, after fishing and dinner, and in the long shadows cast by the setting sun, the usual crowd had gathered around Wayne and Wanda’s firepit. Raj deliberately sat beside Robbie. He’d decided that since he’d told Robbie no one in Port Stephen knew he was gay, Robbie was trying to protect him. He hadn’t meant he didn’t want them to know—it just wasn’t anything he’d foreseen needing to tell them.
Robbie brandished a grey plastic bag in triumph. Over the chatter and laughter of the older people, he said, “Guess what I brought for us, Raj?”
“Condoms and lube?” Raj asked playfully. It was clear the bag held a DVD, but he could always hope there was another hidden away for later.
There was a startled silence followed by raucous laughter and Wayne said, “You walked into that one, boy!”
But Robbie’s face was furiously red, visible even in the deepening shadows. “Not fucking likely,” he said, his voice loud and cross. “That’s disgusting.” He glared at Raj.
In the midst of peals of laughter, Raj got to his feet. Robbie did the same, hands clenched at his sides as if mortally offended or as if he might strike Raj. But he already had.
Raj smiled a little stiffly and turned to walk the few metres to his trailer. He put his empty in the case and grabbed a bottle of water, wondering what the fuck had gotten into Robbie. They hadn’t talked about what happened between them in the shadows, but maybe Robbie was a straight boy who’d just…? No, no way. That kind of thing didn’t happen, or if it did, it didn’t happen over three weekends.
Voices in front of Wayne and Wanda’s trailer dropped for a bit, and he walked between the trailers to the road, heading for the launch.
There was always talk about how dark it was in the country, but it didn’t take long for his eyes to adjust as he walked the gravel lane to the ramp. It didn’t hurt that Paula and Bernie had patio lights up and a full complement of guests. He waved at them, and they waved back.
There was a fairly wide dock at the ramp with three narrow docks off the sides, similar to the skinny one in front of his site. He walked out to the end, slipped off his sandals, and sat with his feet dangling over the water.
He went over all the interactions between him and Robbie. Why had one flirtatious remark inspired such a…a hateful response? Robbie had been hot, hot, hot and then suddenly—ice cold. What had he missed?
The dock trembled under his butt as someone else began to walk on it. Raj didn’t turn, not even when he recognized Robbie’s knees beside him.
After an awkward silence, Robbie gusted out a sigh and said, “I’m sorry. That was pretty fucking shitty of me.”
Raj tipped his water bottle up. “Yeah,” he agreed warily.
“It’s not—I’m not psycho. I promise. I just… Look, you know my mom and dad were like a teen pregnancy thing, right? Mom raised me, and Dad, well, he did his best, I guess, but he and I were never really like father and son. He came by for my birthdays and holidays, and he’d come out a couple weekends in the summer and take me fishing, but it wasn’t like we were close. I guess I’m trying to say I never confided in him.”
Raj didn’t say anything. He didn’t really mean to imply his father didn’t know his twenty-two-year-old son was gay, did he? He took another swig of water.
“My mother and grandparents have known I was gay since I was thirteen or fourteen. But it just never came up with Dad. Like, ever. I mean, I’ve been meaning to tell him, but these last few years—since I turned nineteen—it’s like we’ve been catching up on all the years we missed, and I kind of like having a father, y’know? If he—”
“So all that was about you not being out to your father? A very shitty way of telling me to not let on just how friendly we are?”
“God, I feel so stupid. I’m sorry, Raj. I understand if you don’t want to, um… I thought you weren’t out to people here, so I was caught off guard. I should have told you this sooner, and now I feel like such a child.”
Raj raised his bottle for another drink. He swished the water around in his mouth before swallowing it down with a painful lump. “I don’t think I want this.”
“What?” Robbie asked, caution in his voice.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” He got to his feet, grabbed his sandals, and walked back up to the shore.
“Wait!” Robbie scrambled after him. “Raj, please! I said I was sorry!”
“Apology accepted,” he said coolly.
“Forgive me?”
Raj imagined Robbie was giving him the wide-eyed look that had so seduced him. He refused to turn around and confirm. “Sure,” he said, though he hadn’t, and he knew it was in his voice. It didn’t matter. If this was all Robbie wanted, he wasn’t interested.
“Okay,” Robbie said in a small voice and stopped trotting after him.
It hurt, which was ridiculous, because they really hadn’t known each other long. They had just started to really get to know each other and hadn’t even managed to have naked, lying-on-a-proper-bed sex. Except it seemed he’d invested a lot in this ‘not a relationship’. Which figured, given his last boyfriend. Why did he always pick the closeted guys?