Page 46 of Sugar

Or they’d gone without him and forgot to mention it. The friendship eventually fizzled, and he hadn’t thought about it again until he was perusing must-see things around the US. There were too many to put on his list. There were state parks and caverns. There were natural springs and manatees and island beaches entirely made out of shells. There were glaciers in Montana, and hot springs, and geysers. There was the strip in Vegas and the most twisted road in all of San Francisco. There were rainforests in the Pacific Northwest and redwood trees so huge someone could drive a car through them.

He’d seen photos of Arizona sunsets—all purples and pinks and oranges. And lightning storms in the middle of an empty desert. There were animals he couldn’t name and tidepools with swimming creatures he’d never even heard of.

And he had to choose a handful of those things and possibly kiss the rest goodbye. Forever.

He wasn’t even sure why the Eternal Flame hike made it on his list. Maybe because it was close. Maybe because he wanted it to mean something. He’d read an article that said it had been burning for hundreds of years, but then he read one that said the flame sometimes went out, and people had to light it again.

He started on the trail after Piper began to lead the way, and he stared down at his feet as they ate up space on the path. “If the light is burning, this is as bad as it gets,” he murmured, then regretted it deeply.

He wasn’t a superstitious guy. He didn’t believe in intelligent design, or God, or a conscious universe. He didn’t believe in spirits watching over him. The only thing he had faith in was that when life ended, that was it. He understood that energy never went away, and that’s what all humans were: energy. But he trusted that there would be no consciousness.

He counted on that.

He needed it. He wanted to know he’d be part of the collective of the universe, and he wouldn’t have to be aware anymore. No pain, no suffering, no sorrow. No happiness, no joy, no ecstasy.

But he was playing with fire now. Literally. His lack of spirituality was working against him because he had nothing to pray to for this thing he desperately wanted. And he wasn’t expecting a happily ever after. Men like him didn’t get those.

“Sugar?”

Except…maybe they did. In some form. The sound of Piper’s voice made him smile. He looked up through his shades and had to turn his head, but he found Piper after a beat and caught up with him.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am.”

Piper reached out his hand, and Juno took it. Piper’s lips were impossibly soft as they laid a warm kiss over his knuckles. “Tell me if you need to quit.”

Juno squeezed his fingers and shook his head. “I promise I’m good.” And he meant that.

The hike was longer than he expected, though he was invigorated by Piper’s enthusiasm. It was cooler than where they’d come from and less humid. It was overcast with the promise of rain, which Juno wasn’t going to mind at all. He knew his lovely Boy Scout would have ponchos or something in his little bag of wonders.

Juno was presently eating all the M&Ms out of the trail mix bag and throwing raisins into the forest, wondering if there was a chance for them to become grapevines next spring.

That led to a sudden, buried memory of one of the older kids in a group home telling him that seeds would grow in his belly if he ate one and then drank water after.

He’d been eating watermelon at the time and not bothering to spit out the little black bits. He was six and terrified that the boy had been telling the truth. He refused water for the next week and was nearly hospitalized with dehydration. He’d been put in a different home after that because his caregivers had known someone had said something, but Juno refused to talk.

“What are you thinking?”

Juno looked over at Piper as they started to climb over the small creek. It was low, so they had several rocks to balance on. Juno used Piper’s hand to guide himself over and breathed a little easier once he was on steady land.

“I was six when I met Oliver for the first time,” he said. “I’d just been moved out of a group home after some kid bullied me and I was hospitalized.”

Piper sucked in a breath. “What the fuck?”

“He didn’t hurt me. He just messed with my head, and I stopped drinking water. It was bad enough I needed an IV,” Juno told him.

Piper pulled him to a stop. “I won’t pretend to understand your experience, sugar, but you can’t say he didn’t hurt you if you ended up in the hospital.”

Juno supposed he was right, but he’d suffered in so many other more insidious ways that this felt like nothing. But Piper was sweet, and Juno couldn’t help but get addicted to how protective he was. He wanted to drop to his knees right there and promise to be his forever so long as Piper promised to keep him.

The idea of labels was getting harder and harder to resist.

“I could be mad about it, but I met Oliver in the next home, and that was the best day of my life.”

For a moment, Juno thought Piper might get angry that he attributed that to someone who wasn’t him, but Piper just smiled wider. “I hope I get to meet him someday. He sounds wonderful.”

Juno breathed a little easier. “He is. I was thinking about inviting him and Miles over. Uh…once I figure out my whole housing situation.”

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