Page 106 of The Good Boys Club

I spun him around a little farther. “And in the winter, willow, but specifically Stalix Bricks . . . something.”

“Salix alba Britzensis,” he corrected. “Because of the red stems . . . How . . . ?”

The red stems were almost completely covered by narrow feather-like leaves, but they were there. We were rewarded with sporadic peeks as the gentle wind rustled through.

“And in summer, you said nothing beats an oak because it grows like a motherfucker and gets massive really quickly and is great for climbing.” I turned him one last time to stand directly in front of probably the biggest oak tree I’d ever seen.

It was the type of tree that would feature on the cover of fairy-tale books, or the kind that a child would draw. The most idealistic, most simplistic, stripped-back image of a tree imaginable. At a soul-deep level, I understood its appeal for Mash.

“I did say all those things, didn’t I?” he asked, the words quiet, in awe.

“You did. Have any of your favourites changed?”

“No. They’re all still the same.”

“Thought so. Fancy a climb?”

Mash laughed, pushed the hair off his forehead, ran his teeth over his bottom lip. “Okay, fine, but what about this?” He pointed to something over my shoulder, but I knew him too well.

We both darted towards the oak at the same time.

Of course Mash reached it first—his legs were longer, and he knew this terrain as though it were a part of him. He’d probably climbed this tree several times as a boy. He already knew where the footholds were, and the knots, and random branches.

Mash was thirty feet from the ground in seconds, and I could do nothing except follow in his wake, trying to remember where he placed his feet and fingers, and half wishing I’d worn trainers instead of boots.

About midway up, the trunk split into two. The main part continued to rise into the clouds, but a fat branch shot out laterally. It was here that Mash settled himself, shuffling onto the middle and draping his legs either side like he was riding a horse. I mirrored his movements, but faced him and kept my back against the vertical trunk for stability.

“Fuck, you were right,” Mash said after a few moments of staring at nothing in the distance. “This is my perfect place. I love it here, Bangers. So much.” Though he didn’t sound convinced. He breathed out a heavy sigh. “I’d . . . forgotten.”

“Oaks are my favourite trees too,” I said. I didn’t tell him I’d never had a favourite tree until I met him. This had all been his doing. “Have you climbed this tree before?”

Mash smiled and pointed to a spot just over my shoulder. Gingerly, and gripping my thighs around the branch as tightly as I could, I craned my neck to see Z+K carved into the trunk. The cuts had healed, fresh bark scabbed over the jagged lines of the letters. Mash’s brother had obviously been kissing boys in trees years ago, possibly decades.

“You should never do that, by the way.” He pointed to the initials again. For a second I thought he’d meant I shouldn’t kiss boys in trees. “You can open up a—”

“Gateway into the tree for pathogens and fungal infections and parasites or something.”

“Aw, you listened to me.” He let his eyes linger on me for a while then took in the expansive canopy.

Mash sighed. I couldn’t tell if it was a happy, nostalgic sigh, or if he was still in bereavement. Or perhaps it was a little of both.

“This was Zach’s favourite climbing tree. When we were kids, we’d play shipwrecked pirates and our mission was to make it to the ocean, which was not the lake as you’d imagine but Mam’s workshop. The girls were the dastardly human navy, and if they caught us, they would drag us back to the stocks. The stocks were the stone plinth where the successor accepts the alpha’s call. I’m only this second realising the irony there. Clem knew where to find us every single time. She was so good at sniffing us out.”

“Did you have a favourite climbing tree?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I had to chop it down a few years ago. It got damaged in a storm. Lightning. It probably could have stayed, but it was safer to take it down, especially because it was so close to Mam’s workshop.”

He didn’t say it out loud, but I knew that tree was the one we kissed on the other day. When we went from friends pretending to be lovers, to friends who maybe are lovers but are also still sorta pretending but also kind of not, and holy fucking shit, when did this become so complicated? And was any of it real?

We’d talked about sex, and casual kissing, but where were the lines drawn for what was pretend and what was Mash sating his curiosities? And was there anything that fell outside of those lines? Was there anything more real than that? Because it certainly felt that way. Or was Mash simply getting everything out of his system now because in two months’ time we’d be several hours apart?

“Thank you . . . for bringing me here,” he said. “It’s . . . helped. I can’t guarantee I won’t freak out again. My mind is . . . fucking noisy right now.”

I nudged his fingertips with mine. “Always.”

“When . . . I’m alpha, can I call you? Like whenever I’m having a moment. Do you promise you’ll be there for me then?”

“Of course,” I said, but the words barely came out.

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