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Brett’s alarm went off far too early in the morning. He reached out to turn it off and found himself trapped by Michel’s arm, his body pressed close, his morning erection very much present against Brett’s thigh. With some difficulty, he shut off the alarm, then lay there, wondering what happened next. Was this the part where he suggested they stay in bed all day, getting to know each other’s bodies and having lots of sex?
Brett’s throat started closing up. He’d had sex before, not a lot in comparison to other people certainly, and never with a man, in fact, but he had experience. So why did he feel like running when presented with the opportunity to get down and dirty with Michel? Was it because Michel was a guy? No, he didn’t think that was the reason for his hesitancy. It was...something else.
Michel stirred and Brett turned his head to find Michel squinting at him, an adorable frown on his face. “Morning,” he said, his voice scratchy and delicious.
“Hi,” Brett said, smiling. He reached his hand out and curled it in Michel’s hair, digging his fingers gently against Michel’s scalp. Michel made a happy little sigh and leaned into Brett’s massage.
After a few moments of silence, Michel, whose face was pressed against Brett’s shoulder, said in a muffled grumble, “You’re not serious about this hike, are you?”
Brett wanted to say no. He wanted to say hiking was a terrible idea and he was kidding about the whole thing. They could spend their whole day wrapped up in each other just like this.
The night before rushed back at him. Almost getting it on with Michel, being called away by his sisters, the white-blonde-haired person who he definitely knew, and the huge, colossal blunder that would come back to bite him in the ass at any moment. And not the fun kind of ass bite, the very nasty, painful kind. The kind where his sisters found out he’d lied about being on a work trip and hidden his relationship, his friendship, his entire history with Michel from them. He choked down the rising bile. He needed to get Michel out of this hotel and soon.
“It’s the best option to avoid my sisters.”
“Fuck your sisters,” Michel groaned and burrowed in closer to Brett.
“Please don’t,” he said, his heart pounding from the contact.
Thirty minutes later, he’d dragged Michel out of bed, avoided Michel’s attempts to lure him into co-showering, and dressed in the closest thing he’d brought to a hiking outfit, that was also the only thing he’d brought—jeans and a t-shirt. As he pulled the shirt over his head, Michel walked out of the closet wearing long khaki shorts and a tight green shirt, so tight it showed the outline of his muscles. He wore sunglasses on his head and designer hiking boots, looking like he’d stepped out of the pages of Mountaineering Magazine.
“I thought you didn’t hike?” Brett asked, captivated by the presentation.
“Always be prepared, Brett,” said Michel with a wink.
“You’re like a fashion boy scout.”
The look Michel gave him was filled with wicked promises. Brett swallowed and turned away.
The trip out of the hotel was uneventful. Brett stayed on high alert for any sign of his sisters, but they met no one. The only unusual activity was his own as he peered around corners and declared them clear before allowing Michel to proceed. Michel indulged him.
They left the resort by a side door and found the path the hotel staff had directed Brett to the day before. Brett led the way, alternating between watching the ground beneath his feet and looking back to see if Michel was still with him. Which was ridiculous since, of the two of them, Michel was by far the more in shape and prepared for an impromptu wilderness trek.
“What is it, Brett?” Michel asked when Brett stared at him for the fifth time in a few minutes.
“I don’t know,” Brett said, “I guess I’ve never seen you do anything outdoorsy before.”
“That is because I don’t. Except for when I was in Wilderness and played the man who set out to hike the globe. On the day we wrapped, I vowed never to hike again.”
“Yet here you are.”
Michel raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes, here I am. I must be into you.”
Brett’s heart gave a flutter. He was surprised it could do that when it was trying so desperately to keep his body oxygenated during this unanticipated and unprecedented exertion. His thought again about sex. It wasn’t ever far from his mind, but now it was especially at the forefront. They hadn’t gone far. He could still suggest they hole up in bed all day. But no, he wasn’t ready for that. And it wasn’t because of his lack of experience with men, he’d established that. It was because...
Because it was too important. Michel was too important, and he needed it to be perfect because he still couldn’t believe he was even with Michel. Michel, who everyone wanted to be with, who could have anyone he wanted. Who was serious and intense and untouchable. There was no casual with Michel, no falling into bed laughing and making fun of their awkward floundering the first time. There was only the jump, the fall, the deep. He needed to be more than enough—he needed to be perfect.
“You must,” he responded finally and stopped, glancing back at his boyfriend. Boyfriend. What a word. He’d finally started thinking of Michel as his boyfriend, but it still felt strange in a way it shouldn’t. After all, they’d agreed to be boyfriends in the car after the not-sex party, a month ago. Only, then they’d been apart for most of the month and Brett’s neuroses had the chance to move in and take up residence.
He fought down all of that and focused on the challenges ahead. The path started to climb and wasn’t as beautifully groomed as he’d expect for something adjacent to the elaborate resort. There were rocks and roots and little bends not yet straightened out by human intervention. Around them, the tropical trees hung low, keeping out the harshness of the morning sun. Birds chirped loudly, and an unseen creature made loud, screeching noises. Brett thought it may be a monkey, but he was no zoologist. He’d never seen so much as a nature documentary.
The path climbed up and away from The Reef. Their progress was slow going, Brett stretching it out as much as possible. He wanted to make this last, to make sure their adventure took the whole day. But their slow pace was also because of how horribly out of shape he was. That was the part he would not be sharing with Michel. Michel, who was also breathing a little heavier but in his sexy Michel way, not in the gasping, gulping manner Brett struggled for air.
He had a backpack of food, ordered from the resort staff who were only too happy to cater to their every whim. It had been waiting outside their door that morning and he had yet to so much as look inside to see what they’d packed. The last time he’d worn a backpack had been in undergrad. By grad school, he was a devote follower of the shoulder bag trend. The straps cut into his shoulders and reminded him of a time before any of this. Back when he was a normal guy, trying to pass classes, trying to figure out why he was studying science when it was so damn hard, trying to figure out if he liked boys or girls or both or if it even mattered because none of them were interested in him anyway. When he was living at home but avoiding his family, still in their clutches but with enough insight to see the dysfunction to which they’d all subscribed.
Of course, then he hadn’t chosen a different path. He’d decided to give it a go, written a screenplay, immediately gotten an agent and was, for a time, the envy of the family he wanted so badly to support him. His agent, Lauren Fontile, now Cunningham, had helped him sell The Night Before the Apocalypse to his uncle and it was green lit almost immediately. The production was fast, wild, and wonderfully stressful. Then it was done, the movie premiered, and Brett was sent off to write the sequel. There it all stalled.
In retrospect, it was obvious Michel’s move to the hills had contributed to his downward spiral. At the time, he’d thought he chased Michel away, he’d been unable to save his friend from Sylvia. Because of his failure, Michel was gone and he was alone. The drinking had a lot to do with the spiral. The excessive indulgence sanctioned, even encouraged, by his family. Then the cancelation of his contract with Stanton Enterprises, the uncle who fired him but blamed his agent, who in turn blamed Brett.
The only bright points in the whole fucking mess were Lucille and Michel. JP, too, although he didn’t see the guy often, despite working at his company. He would include Simon except that Simon didn’t like him and the feeling was mutual. Simon did seem to have warmed up to him now Brett wasn’t dating his niece anymore. He wondered what Simon thought of Lucille and Noah’s sexual tension-fueled animosity.
Finally, after what felt like forever but wasn’t, the trees cleared, the path leveled, and ahead of them was the most beautiful piece of nature Brett had ever seen. They stood at the top of a translucent, pale-blue waterfall, surrounded by craggy, moss-covered rocks, rainbows dancing through the cascade as it poured into the clear pool below.
Ever since he’d given up writing, nothing had moved him to be at all creative or poetic. Nothing until this. He glanced at Michel, who’d come to stand beside him on the rocky outcrop, overlooking this vision of beauty and serenity. Sweat rolled down Michel’s face as his gaze swept over the scene and he seemed as entranced by it as Brett.
Then Michel stripped off his t-shirt and shorts, and before Brett could fully react to the view, dove off the side of the waterfall.
“Michel!” Brett yelled desperately, grasping at the air too late to catch him. The pool could be too shallow, it could be covered in rocks lurking right below the surface, it might be filled with piranhas or alligators. He held his breath, fully expecting to see Michel’s battered body dashed on the rocks below.
He didn’t blink, transfixed by the ripples where Michel had disappeared, already preparing himself for the grief of his death. Then Michel’s head bobbed up out of the water and he grinned up at Brett.
“Come on in, Brett. The water’s great,” Michel called over the thunder of the waterfall.
“I’m good, thanks,” Brett said, pressing his hand to his chest in relief.
“Brett. You can’t honestly expect me to believe you dragged us up this mountain and then aren’t even going to go swimming?” Michel’s voice was light and teasing.
Brett needed light and teasing. But he didn’t need a broken neck from a stupid stunt.
“I’ll catch you.” Michel spread his arms out wide, water sliding from his skin in mesmerizing droplets.
He did want to be down there. He wanted to be near his very wet, very naked boyfriend.
“When have I ever led you astray?”
At that, Brett laughed. Too many times to count. He took a deep breath. Fuck it, he thought. After a morning of worry and crippling anxiety, he was ready to move on and just do something foolish. He stripped and dove, smacking into the pool with much more force and less grace than Michel. He sank through the clear, chilly water with a pained grunt. When he surfaced, his legs and belly stinging where they’d hit before the rest of his body, he found Michel laughing at him. He splashed Michel, who ducked. A moment later, something wrapped around his legs. He stopped himself from lashing out violently, realizing it was Michel, and instead squirmed to get out of his grasp.
Michel lifted Brett and tossed him across the pool. Brett yelled, but it was from surprise rather than terror. He soon retaliated by jumping on Michel’s back and trying to dunk him. They wrestled in the cold water, scrambling for purchase on the rocky bottom, laughing and shouting like rowdy teenage boys. The wrestling inevitably turned to kissing, their hot mouths pulling at each other even as the rest of their bodies grew numb.
After their swim, they lay out on the rocks at the top of the falls, drying and eating the lunch the hotel had packed in the afternoon heat. For the first time in a long time, Brett felt only joy. No worry, no anxiety in these brief moments when he had Michel all to himself and they had this magical place, away from the concerns of the outside world.
Then he remembered they had to hike back and the mood died pretty quickly after that.
It was early evening when they began the trek down the mountain, driven by the need for rest and dinner. They didn’t talk much on the return journey. Hell, they hadn’t talked much the whole day, not about the things that mattered. Brett knew it was because he was hiding too many secrets. He didn’t know what Michel was thinking or why he seemed to accept the silence that was so atypical of their relationship. He wasn’t going to ask because he couldn’t risk Michel asking questions in return. So, they walked back, the only breaks in the silence their occasional remarks about avoiding rocks and requests for water.
Half a lifetime later, the resort came into view. Brett imagined their trip back to the room, sneaking in the side door and heading straight upstairs. He’d call room service and order dinner. Then, while they were eating, he’d bring up leaving the next day so they didn’t have to sneak around, avoiding his sisters. Michel would be disappointed but understand. Maybe they could go on a real romantic getaway soon, he’d say, one without the constant threat of family interruption. Brett would nod, his throat closed off, his afternoon courage gone and his feeling of deep inadequacy growing.
Lost in imagining, it took Brett too long to notice the people lounging outside the side door. When they’d left, there hadn’t been seating in this area of the resort. It was a small, landscaped perimeter that quickly dropped off into rocks and plant life. Now, squished into the tiny space, were two chairs and a small table, on which sat two enormous, fruit garnished pina coladas. And in the chairs, lounging as though they were prepared to wait all night, were the very last people he wanted to see. His sisters.
His phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number, a blocked number. You’re welcome was all it said.