Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I try to push those thoughts from my head, eager to get to the cabin and go take photos.
We arrive a few minutes later, everyone climbing out of the SUV. The cabin is big, made of dark wood, with a huge wraparound porch and miles and miles of trees and nature around us. Everyone heads inside, and we immediately scatter to pick our rooms. Once I’m in mine, I start going through my camera bag, getting everything ready to go out and take photos.
When I get back into the living room, the front door is open, Dad standing there with Hunter and Ellis, packs on their backs.
“We’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Dad says, as I stand there watching them, wondering why it never even occurred to him that I might want to go.
Mom is the one who sees me first. She hates hiking, so it doesn’t surprise me that she’s staying behind.
“Grab your things, Lucas. You can go with them,” she says.
“Yeah, come on,” Hunter adds.
But they hadn’t thought about me. Hunter is only saying that because Mom did, and he tries to always be nice, perfect. He’s so fucking good at everything.
“No, it’s fine,” I say.
“Come with us,” Hunter insists, again trying to be nice. He’s like that sometimes, and it only upsets me more. When he’s nice to me, it makes that stupid fluttering worse, and I don’t want to feel that for him.
And I want him to have wanted me to go from the start, and that’s scary.
I want Ellis and my father to have wanted me to go for different reasons.
“Hurry, Lucas,” Ellis says.
“Make up your mind,” Dad says, his tone telling me he thinks I’ll ruin their good time. I’ll want to stop and take photos and do all the things he considers a waste of time. I’ll get lost in my head and nature the way boys shouldn’t do—at least not his idea of a boy.
“I’m good.”
Mom squeezes my shoulder. “You should go, honey.”
“I don’t want to.”
Dad, Ellis, and Hunter leave, Hunter throwing a look over his shoulder, and Mom offers, “How about you and I go out and take photos?”
“I’m good. I’ll just chill for a while.”
I’d rather go alone anyway.
*
What kind of person does it make me that I hope Hunter texts me again?
I shouldn’t want to talk to him, shouldn’t enjoy it as much as I do, but I hadn’t been lying when I told him I’m an asshole, something I’m proving with my desire to talk to him. It’s been two days since the game, since I sent him the photo of the sunset. I’d hoped he would respond to that, and since he didn’t, I’m taking that as a sign to leave him alone.
Unless Hunter messages me, I’ll keep my distance. I’d planned on it after our night on the roof, but after that shitty game in Dallas, I thought maybe he’d need a distraction, something or someone that had nothing to do with football. Who knows if it helped or if I was way off base. That’s not something I would have felt about young Hunter. I never would have thought he’d need to forget football, but this Hunter is different.
“I’ve never seen you look at your phone as much as you have been the last couple of days.” Isla sits beside me on the couch, dropping her head to my shoulder.
Isla had just started transitioning when we met, and it’s been beautiful to watch her come into her own, to finally be able to live as herself. I feel lucky I’ve gotten to be by her side through some of her journey.
“A trick?” she asks.
I hold up my phone. “No. My dead brother’s boyfriend.”
“How scandalous!” she teases, making me laugh.
“It’s nothing like that.” It can’t be. Even if Hunter wanted to fuck—which he absolutely wouldn’t—how in the hell could I do that? It’s wrong on every level. “I just…want to be his friend, I think. He’s hurting.”
“You’re hurting, babe.” She squeezes my thigh.
“I’m fine.”
“You always think you’re fine, and you’re always worried about everyone else.”
Not if she asked my family. I go for a change of subject. “Wanna have sex?” Sex always helps.
Isla laughs. “No, because I know what you’re trying to do right now.”
“Have an orgasm?” Isla and I hook up sometimes, but it’s just sex for both of us. According to her, it’s one of the only ways I let people in, blah, blah, blah. If that were the case, I’d have let a whole lot of people in.
“No. Distracting me. You forget you told me you used to crush on this guy.”
“Ugh. Why do I talk to you?”
“Because you love me.”
“I was a kid. I don’t feel that way about him anymore. He was just a cute boy who used to be at my house all the time, so he was my queer awakening.” I’ve tossed around different labels for most of my adult life—bisexual, pansexual, the latter probably being more spot on—but mostly I just call myself queer. I’m not big on labels.