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Chapter Ten

Dix watched the laughter between the two young men while he smiled from behind a tree. The way Jovian had turned things around, well, he knew it wouldn’t last long, but it was a start.

Dix had followed Jovian from a distance, assuring he didn’t get himself lost. The tenacity surprised him, as Dix had made a bet with himself that the guy would give up before he’d gotten a half mile from his camp.

And he’d been wrong.

So, a reward was in order. And, well, he was pulling for Jovian, anyway.

Of all the guys that had come to the camp in recent years, Jovian Masseretti had caught his attention and held it.

The beauty of the man was riveting, and since he’d been a twink himself in his teens and early twenties, he’d had a thing for them, even after he’d hulked out, as his brother had said, and turned into the otter/almost bear he was.

Yeah, that little man had something that drew Dix, except for his attitude. Oh, Dix would like to beat that out of the young man, but the beating would only turn them both on.

Finding Bernie once he walked back to their little camp, he told him what had happened, and Bernie looked like he was ready to faint with shock. “Jovian? That little…”

“Yeah, that little fucker.”

“Wow. We’d hoped the camp would help him, but wait until I tell True, and more, wait until he tells his brother. Gary will call us liars and not believe it a bit.”

“I wouldn’t throw a parade for him yet, but if he’s turned a corner, I’ll be the grand marshal.”

“Dix, it was your dick. He wants it so badly, he’s giving up being a little prick.”

“I know. It’s a magical dick. He’s never even seen it, and it’s changed his life.”

They had a good laugh, and then one camper found them and told them her buddy had twisted an ankle. “Shit, Dix, get the first aid. We might be carrying a camper down the mountain.”

“Right. Got it, you see how bad it is.”

The ankle wasn’t bad, but bad enough that they wanted to wait another day before they walked down the hill.

They passed out the rest of the white bags for the other campers and gave them a choice.

Stay and head down the following day, possibly helping with the litter that would carry their fellow camper or go with Bernie that afternoon.

Almost all chose to stay. Everyone except Alan, who was expecting a call from his partner that evening.

Dixon sent him and Bernie on their way, but he could tell that Jovian was scared. “I should probably go with them.”

“We’re all hanging together tonight, Jovian. You won’t need a buddy.”

“It’s not that,” Jovian started, keeping his eyes from Dix. “He’s…he’s the only one…”

“That likes you?”

Jovian turned to face him but still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Yeah.”

The sight of that was heartbreaking. The man thought no one liked him, and he had every reason to think that.

But Dix couldn’t take that sadness from a usually confident young man.

Dixon set two fingers under Jovian’s chin and lifted his head tenderly until Jovian’s eyes met his and Dixon watched a little shiver run through him.

“I like you. I just don’t like your shitty attitude sometimes. ”

Jovian pulled away from him, turning to face the other way. “Yeah, well, I’m trying!”

“I know.”

As Jovian spun back around, his dark, sculpted brows drawn hard. “You know?”

“Yeah. You’ve been trying since you got here, telling yourself you were doing it to get my attention. You have it, so now what?”

“How the hell do you know all this? You’ve barely spoken to me!”

“Jovian, as mysterious as you think you are, you’re really not,” he said, chuckling and with that, he walked away from the young man, still laughing as he made the announcement to all the rest of them gathered.

“Bernie is heading down now, and we have plenty of food after we’ve passed out all the bags.

Remember, no tossing the bags. You’re carrying down the trash with you, and we’re stowing whatever isn’t eaten up in a tree tonight, so we attract nothing bigger than a few mosquitoes. ”

Tears gathered in Jovian’s eyes, and his bottom lip quivered. There was nothing more in the world Dix wanted to do than to take the man into his arms and hold him through those tears, but he had the entire group to think about.

Once the campers disbanded and talked in little groups, Dix went to Jovian and mentioned, “You’re without a buddy, and that’s fine while you’re with the entire group, but not so great when need to go off in the bushes.”

Brows raising high, Jovian used his seduction voice to ask, “Into the bushes?”

“To piss.”

Deflated, Jovian grunted, “Oh.”

“I’ll be your buddy for the rest of the trip.”

The smile that bloomed was real, and not part of his act. He knew this because it was wide and a little goofy, and he was a thousand percent sure Jovian was the type to practice smiling in front of the mirror for hours. “Okay, well, when I have to go into the bushes, I’ll be sure to holler.”

And the moment was over as Jovian contorted into what he surely thought was a sexy pose.

“When you need to piss, Jovian. That’s all.”

“Sure. Okay,” he said with a wink.

As the afternoon turned into evening, the stars were bright in the sky, and everyone sat around the fire, talking, telling stories of their lives. All of them except Jovian, who deflated more and more as the stories wore on.

What had been a casual talk around the fire had become a support group. Dix had seen it happen a hundred times. The comfort people felt when they got back to instinct instead of learned behaviors of a modern world made them more at ease to be their real selves.

It was that thinking that had prompted True, Bernie and True’s brother to send Jovian to the camp. Getting him in touch with a person who hadn’t been surrounded by expensive things and that took him from his comfort zone.

Well, they knew what they were talking about, and they’d done it, at least at the beginning of it, although Dixon suspected they had an ulterior motive for bringing Jovian to the camp.

Him.

Dix couldn’t count on both hands how many times they pushed him to meet someone. He told them he met lots of guys, but none he had wanted to keep for longer than a night. Still, they pushed. They felt he had to be lonely at the camp during the off season, which was ten and a half months long.

Jovian was just his type. Even that sass that came with him.

Carrie, a trans girl that had just recently gotten top surgery, told her story. Dix watched Jovian’s reaction. It was illuminating.

“I mean, dead-naming me is bad enough, but they had a funeral service for me. For their son.”

Dix felt sick to his stomach hearing that, but Jovian was openly crying.

“They…had a funeral for you?” Jovian asked her.

“Yeah. They invited the entire church, and of course, they all came. They sat around praying for my soul all day, and that includes at least two women, one of whom had gotten breast cancer and had to have them cut off and another three who’d added a few cup sizes to theirs.

Like…they changed their bodies, but so long as their pronouns were the same, it’s okay? ”

Victor, a gay man with major trust issues, also because his parents, said, “I think, and I’m sorry to anyone who’s maybe had cancer, I’m not downplaying it, I swear, but I think it’s very similar.

My best friend is an FTM, and he says it feels like cancer, being in the wrong body.

Like it eats away at everything, it makes you sick, and then, once you live your truth, your body heals because your mind is at ease. ”

“That’s exactly how it feels. It did for me, although I can’t speak for everyone.”

Dix took a deep breath, then spoke in a soft voice to Carrie and the rest. “We can be brave through the worst things, in my experience, and you have, Carrie. What was meant to break you didn’t.

You’re here, you’re searching for a community to replace one that didn’t fulfill you.

So many of us have done that, so you’re in good company.

The thing is, Carrie, and everyone, just because you make some friends, it doesn’t mean you’re healed.

It means you’re trying to heal. If you go home and are plunged back into a lonely space, do what you need to do for you .

Move, if you can, reach out to those you’ve met here and keep in close touch.

Find safe spaces where you can be yourself.

I’ve seen it, where some go back and realize that this camp didn’t fix all the broken pieces of their lives, and they’re drowned in mourning over what could have been. ”

“I’m moving,” Carrie said. “This camp mended a very broken piece of my life. I no longer have to live in my small town. I’m moving to Cheyenne with Denise Houston, a girl from here. She’s already set up a moving van for me.”

Everyone clapped for her, but Dix watched Jovian’s response, and it wasn’t cheerful in the least. He decided to put the guy on the spot, but not in front of everyone. That made people like Jovian dive inside themselves and never return.

After everyone got to their blankets and there were quieter conversations happening, Dix moved his bedroll over to where Alan’s had been. “These stories…I’ve heard them for years and they still get to me.”

“This is what I’m supposed to…find out or whatever. I’m spoiled and a brat, so they wanted to teach me a lesson.”

“Did it?”

“I don’t know, okay? It’s like you’re obsessed with me.”

“Okay,” he said, though he was smiling inside. “Jovian, you don’t mind, right? If you have to get up tonight, please wake me. I don’t want you going off alone.”

“Okay,” is all he said in a very small voice. It was unlike Jovian’s normal voice, so much that Dix grew more worried.

“Listen, Jovian, not everyone who is lonely comes from a small town. I’ve known plenty that were lonely in crowds.”

“I’m not. You’re giving Dr. Phil right now, and I don’t need more therapy.”

Dix chuckled and said, “Fine. I was only trying to help. I forgot, your life is perfect.”

All he got for that was a frustrated grunt.

“I’m going to sleep. If you need to piss, tell me now or wake me up.”

“You’re…you don’t want to…you know…”

“No, Jovian, I really don’t,” he lied convincingly.

“Fine. I don’t want to either. I was just testing you!”

“I passed, so go to sleep.”

He rolled himself up like a burrito and made sure he was facing the other way.

All that did was let Dix’s eyes roam down to that sweet little ass that the blanket barely covered.

Smiling in the dark, Dix lay his head on the crook of his arm, letting himself think on exactly what it might feel like to be inside it.

Jovian, shaking him gently, awakened him. He opened his eyes to see Jovian’s staring down at him. “What’s up?” he growled sleepily.

“I have to go.”

“Oh, okay, he said groggily. The day had worn him more than he thought, and he got up slowly, stretching a little. “Okay, let’s go.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake you, but…there are all kinds of noises.”

That woke him, and he grabbed Jovian’s arm gently, listening to the woods around him. There were rodents scurrying over the forest debris and a deer at least twenty feet away, but he heard nothing that could be a danger. “I think we’re okay. Let’s not travel far, though.”

“How do you know?”

“I have lived in the woods most of my life. I know the sounds of the forest.”

“Creepy,” Jovian said, and Dix let go of his arm.

“Just move.”

They went ten feet from their blankets and Jovian took out his dick to piss. Dix averted his eyes, though he was pretty sure Jovian didn’t mind him looking.

In fact, Dix suspected that was the reason for being woken.

“Don’t you…have to go?”

And he was right. “No, I’m good.”

“Really, you know, so we don’t have to do this again, you should…go.”

Leaning in as Jovian tucked back in, Dix whispered in a growl, “If you want to see my dick, baby, you’re shit out of luck. You have to get much better at being a human being to get anything from me.”

“I never…I didn’t…what are you talking about?”

The feigning of his innocence was cute, but it was so fake, Dix had to laugh. “Stop.”

“Fine. I don’t know what you want from me. I practically offered my ass on a silver platter, and you act like that doesn’t mean a thing.”

“It doesn’t. Offer me more than an ass, and I might feel differently.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Dix started heading back to the camp. “Figure it out.”

“Wait. Up! If I get eaten by some creature, my mother will sue you!”

“Cool,” he grunted.

“Cool? What is cool about being sued?”

“She wouldn’t get much. A little piece of land and a cabin.”

“Wait, what?”

Dix’s entire being clenched as he turned around to face a shocked Jovian. “I’m not rich. If you want a rich guy, you’re barking up the really wrong tree.”

“What? I never said that!” Jovian’s head dropped, and he fidgeted while he tried to be casual, but he couldn’t pull off casual to save his life. “What…is it you do?”

“I’m a guide for hunting, hiking and mountain climbing. I do tours down river as a whitewater rafting guide when they need an extra hand. I make enough to get my essentials, and I grow or hunt for the rest.”

The fidgeting stopped as he thought about all that. He was thinking about what he’d give up to be with Dix, and Dix knew that would be the end of the pursuit.

Then Dix was thrown for a loop. “Do you really like me? Well, except for my attitude, which is weird. I mean, I am no worse than anyone else.”

At first, he was speechless. Then he found his voice long enough to say, “Yeah, Jovian. I like you.”

As Jovian’s head rose, a smile was revealed that was so lovely, Dix felt his heart pounding and his entire body warming. “Well, it’s a start, like you said.”

“Yeah. It’s a start.”