Page 33 of All Roads Lead to You

As soon as we got to Nashville the other day, things were a bit rocky. Well, the awkwardness was mostly one-sided after seeing Nick skinny-dip, as if he didn’t have an ounce of modesty. But it became everything. Seeing him naked really fucked with my head. I couldn’t unsee that, and I didn’t want to. It took all of my self-control, which was dwindling rapidly, to keep from getting hard.

Even worse, the following morning, I woke up snuggled into him with my arm wrapped around his body and his hand resting on my back. The humiliation that coursed through me fueled this sudden rage at myself for being so careless.

Instead of taking everything out on Nick as I always did, I sucked it up and pretended like nothing happened until he started poking fun at me for being a snuggler. How the fuck would I know? I’d never slept beside someone before. If Hunter and I stayed at each other’s houses, he or I would sleep on the floor in his room or the den, watching TV all night in our sleeping bags. Nick just pulled me into his gravitational orbit, and I had no power or defense against him.

Things finally settled as we fell into a pattern of relative calmness. We had a great day yesterday, touring Nashville and going to Opryland. Riding that roller coaster had been epic, and I actually had a lot of fun with Nick, which surprised me. I forgot, even for a little while, how I felt about him. He became my brother for all of five minutes before reality set back in again.

Today, we hiked a trail winding around the lake and through the woods. Nick pulled his camera out, taking pictures of flowers in the meadow, chipmunks, and birds. Sometimes, he’d take a picture of me, which I hated. Posing was the fucking worst, but I suffered for our parents. I also took some of Nick, who always loved the attention.

We took a break from walking, and I removed my shirt, wiped my sweaty face with it, and tucked it into the back of my athletic shorts. Then I took a big swig of water from my canteen.

Nick rested a hand on my forearm, sending an electrical current through me. My body froze, and I looked down at his long fingers before he spoke.

“Shhh, don’t move and look over there.”

I glanced at where he was pointing, and a large buck stood in a meadow just at the tree line.

“He’s watching us,” Nick whispered with a massive smile, slowly lifting his camera to peer through the lens. “Look at him. Isn’t he stunning?”

I nodded, but I was more interested in Nick’s excitement than in the deer. “He is.”

Nick twisted his lens, bringing the creature into focus as I stared at the line of sweat slowly dripping down his temple and into his scruff, which he hadn’t shaved off in a couple of days. God, why did I want to lick it off? That was weird, right? People didn’t lick off sweat, right?

He sucked in his full bottom lip and bit down on it as his camera clicked quietly, a lip that I’d imagined kissing countless times.

I had no familiarity with men, having sex, being sexual, or even kissing. We’d learned about sex in school but with girls. Dad and Mia never talked about it with us either, except to hand me a box of condoms I’d never used and told me to be safe.

There were no magazines with men in them I could look at. Well, they were sold in certain stores, but I’d never dared to buy them. And there were no gay movies at all that I was aware of. Maybe there were in DC.

All that I understood about sex was how my body reacted, and it always reacted to Nick. I also jacked off a lot to his beautiful face. But now that I’d seen him naked, that would be forever in my memory banks as I rubbed one out.

Guys went down on girls, and girls blew them. I’d heard my teammates talking about that shit all the time, so I assumed it would be the same if I found a guy to be with. Other than that, I was fucking clueless.

Once I reached California, my goal had been to find that popular gay bar and learn about sex through the guys I found there. I just hoped they didn’t laugh me right out of the place.

“Damn, he ran off,” Nick said.

My heart suddenly hammered as I forced my eyes away toward the meadow, watching the buck run away.

I coughed and took another sip of water. “Did you get some good pictures?”

He shrugged, and a smile played on his soft red lips. “I won’t know until the film’s developed. Say, when we get to Memphis, can we drop my film off at one of the print stores? Usually, they have those one-hour wait places.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Sweet.” He thrust his camera at me. “Hold this for a second. I’m dying. God, why does it have to be so damn humid?”

I took the camera from him as he pulled his tank top over his head. Since we’d been here, the sun had turned him a nice bronze color, which showed off more definition in his body. His skin had always been a bit darker than mine. I could tan, but I was usually pale in the winter.

Fuck, I needed to stop staring before he caught me.

Nick tucked his shirt into his shorts like I had and took his camera back.

“Let’s go swimming again when we get back to camp,” he said.

“Sounds stellar.”

After eating canned chili heated over the fire, we sipped on some cold beers. The moon was full and shimmering over the water, which brightened the sky. You could see every star out there—the entire Milky Way.

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