Page 66 of The Falcon and the Foe

“Oh, you know. We built a campfire, made s’mores, went on a hike, Russ and I made out and gave each other handjobs, we went canoeing.”

His head swiveled to face me. “Come again?”

“Almost. But then the kids found us.”

It had been a week since the camping trip, but the memory burned bright in my mind. Russ and I acted normally at the scout meeting on Tuesday. It seemed to be water under the bridge for him, whereas our time together continued to take up my precious mental real estate.

“Why am I hearing about this now?” Mitch asked.

“I didn’t want it to turn it into a thing.”

“Is it a thing?”

“It’s definitely not a thing. Not a thing at all. Like if Hollywood wanted to remake John Carpenter’sThe Thing, they couldn’t base it on what happened in the woods last weekend because that was definitely not a thing.”

Mitch said more with one raised eyebrow than I could with my nonstop chattering.

“We had fun in the woods. That’s what we called it.” But the truth was I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted to talk about it because the more I talked about it, the more I thought about it, and the more I thought about it, the more amazing the whole experience felt.

“Good for you, man,” he said with his trademarked, laid-cool back. “Was it a good time?”

I nodded my head enthusiastically. “Oh, yeah. It’d been a while.”

“You sure it’s not a thing? Because you’re obviously still thinking about it.”

Mitch and his damn logic. It could be a real buzzkill sometimes.

“I just needed to get it off my chest and share some news with my friend. It was a one-time thing, just two dads who had a lot of pent-up energy that needed to be expounded. It’s too risky otherwise. We don’t need things getting out.”

“Yeah,” Mitch said, downbeat. Now I was being the buzzkill.

“I like that it was a one-time thing,” I said, grafting on a positive spin. “Like Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood inThe Bridges of Madison County.”

“You will use any excuse to bring up Meryl Streep.” Mitch shook his head.

I was guilty. And shameless.

“Okay.” Mitch went back to searching for lightbulbs as if the topic had come to a natural end.

But had it? Because I was dying to continue talking about my non-thing.

“Okay? That’s all you have to say?”

“Yeah.” Mitch wasn’t a man of many words, which could be a real pain in the ass in times like these.

“That’s crap. Come on, tell me what you think. You think I should do something because I can’t stop thinking about him and because I hadn’t been with a man in so long that I can’t just have a drop of water then turn off the faucet.” I sucked in a breath, remembering this was a small store. “Well, you’re wrong, Mitch. We’re not going to risk things. It ended in a good place. We have a troop to lead and kids to think about.”

I folded my arms tightly across my chest and stared him down.

And to that, Mitch gave me a shrug. “Okay.”

* * *

Things barely stayedokay for the next week. My job at the grocery store didn’t demand much brainpower, which had its pluses and minuses.

Plus: I could spend my shifts thinking about Russ while still doing my job.

Minus: I could spend my shifts thinking about Russ while still doing my job.

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