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Chapter Eleven

The rest of the trip was uneventful. The group left first thing in the morning and were back at camp before most finished breakfast.

In the cabin, his friends were there, and they were interested in hearing how it went for him.

“I can’t believe he said he liked me,” Jovian gushed to Alan, Kathy, and Mike. “I mean, of course he did, but to admit it?”

Alan laughed, but Mike rolled his eyes. “Of course? You realize that Dix isn’t one of those people that picks a guy every summer and has a thing with them, right?”

“I realize that! He’s never met me before, and, come on, can you blame him?”

Alan fell back on the bunk where he was sitting with the others, and it was Kathy’s turn to roll her eyes. “Jovian! Stop!”

“What?” he asked in genuine confusion.

Mike was the one to explain, “He may have always liked your looks, and maybe even your tenacity, but it’s the rest…the…” He turned to Alan, who was sitting again. “What am I trying to say?”

“The conceited asshole?”

“That’s it. He won’t like the conceited asshole part of your personality.”

Jovian’s jaw dropped as he waited for them to say they were kidding. When they didn’t, he became indignant. “What the hell? Because, what? I’m honest?”

“Your honesty borders on cruelty,” Kathy said. “I mean, no offense, Jovian, but some things you say, and the way you act sometimes, it puts many people off.”

Alan was nodding through that, and Mike reached over and tried to take Jovian’s hand, but Jovian pulled away. “Well, I can’t help the way I am!”

“Yeah, you can,” Alan said. “I saw it on the survival camp. You tried. You put your own shit away for a little while and became real, not some stereotype of a snobbish gay twink with rich girls as friends.”

He started to protest, but the thing was, he was right. “That’s…how people see me?”

“It’s what you show them, Jovian,” Kathy said.

“What? Being fabulous is too much for people?”

“Sometimes, believe it or not,” Alan said, laughing. “You can be fabulous and still have compassion and empathy.”

Jovian thought of the stories he’d heard around that campfire, and he suddenly knew what they were saying. “Okay, so…tell me if this is part of…that. When I found out that Dixon is…well, he doesn’t have…”

“Money?” Alan asked.

“Yeah. When I found that out, I…felt like…”

“Jovian,” Mike whispered, “please tell us you didn’t stop liking him.”

“No!” Jovian had a hard time explaining things truthfully. He’d spent his lifetime making things up to those in his orbit. “I didn’t, and that is weird. That is…I mean, how would we go out? What’s he going to buy me for Christmas and my birthday? But even with that, I…”

Kathy moved to Jovian’s bunk and sat close, holding him around the shoulders. “Jovian, you really like him, not what he can do for you. Surprise, you don’t need the bank account to be happy.”

Smiling involuntarily, Jovian giggled a little. “What do you know?”

Alan slapped Jovian’s knee gently. “Well, looks like our friend, here, needs a crash course in being a real human being, and also, learn how to live in the woods. You know, Jovian, a place with no concrete or tall buildings?”

“Shut up!”

They all laughed before Mike said, “Okay, we’re planning. You are our project for the camp.”

“Project? Do I look like a Tai?”

He was referencing a movie, Clueless . He was sure none of them had seen it. How could they possibly relate to Cher and her good friends, Dion and the gang?

To his surprise, they did. Alan asked, “Remember when Cher was trying to teach Tai how to not only be cute, but be a good person?”

Knowing the movie word-for-word, he huffed, “Of course, and she didn’t. She was a nightmare.”

“She eventually did,” Kathy said.

“Not that I don’t love Queen Brittany, rest in peace, but being compared to Tai…”

Mike held up his hands to his friends. “Then be Cher. You know, when she was trying so hard to show Josh that she was more than shopping and primping?”

When Mike said that it became so clear, it was like the dark skies parted and let in a beam of white light. “O-M-G, Dixon is my Josh?”

“Dixon is your Josh,” Mike sighed exhaustedly, and he was the one to fall back onto the bunk. Alan just silently laughed, and Kathy clapped. “Very good, Mike. That got him.”

Alan explained, “Listen, Jovian, the best way to get to Coach is learning his world. He loves the mountains, loves teaching others how to survive in them. He’s an amazing tracker, hunter, knows what every single plant in the area is, and what it’s used for.”

“Used for? What are you talking about?”

Mike groaned, “Alan, he wasn’t listening to ninety percent of the lessons, remember?”

“Right. I forgot. Some plants are good for food, others for medicine. Still, some others are poisonous. Mushrooms too, some great to eat, others will kill you.”

“Then why would we eat any of them?”

Kathy whispered patiently, “If you’re lost in the woods, Jovian, you might not have food. Mushrooms and tubers could get you through long enough to get rescued.”

“Also, some plants, like cactus, hold water in them, so if you can’t find water, you know.”

Jovian deflated from being upset with himself. “I really should have listened, but it was all so boring!”

“But it could save your life.”

“If I don’t get him, I promise, I’ll never need to know these things, because I will go back to the city, where there is a coffee shop on every block and plenty of natural food stores all over the place. Believe me, I’d never use the knowledge.”

“Fine. That is a deal. If that happens, you can forget it all, but for now, you will learn it all.”

“All? All of that boring stuff? Do I really have to?” he whined.

“Yes, Jovian. All.”

The third to fall back on a bunk, Jovian kept whining as he landed on the hard bunk. “I’ll never survive learning how to survive. I’ll die of utter boredom!”

“We’ll make sure we carve that on your gravestone,” Mike said, which made Jovian sit right back up again.

“Don’t you dare bury me! Worms crawling in this body? I don’t think so!”

After lunch, his friends took him to the woods and showed him all the things he’d missed while not paying attention to Dixon’s lessons. Alan also suggested he take Dixon’s advanced lessons, which were starting the next day.

“How advanced? I mean…will I have to go without showering, like that last trip?”

“Yeah…Jovian,” Alan said in amazement.

“My skin is going to be hell. I hope you know that.”

“I’ll risk it.”

Jovian hated them at that moment, but they were only trying to help him. For that, he’d give them a pass. “So, these plants that I can eat, what if they taste bad?”

Kathy was the most patient of them when he asked questions. While Mike and Alan were rolling eyes and groaning like a couple of hot men in a nursing home, Kathy explained, “Hold your nose and swallow.”

“Oh, like when a guy has nasty tasting cum.”

Kathy barked a laugh, then said, “Yeah. Like that.”

“Got it. Okay, and? Do I eat them raw? I know a girl who does the raw food diet, but I never saw the attraction.”

Alan fielded that one. “If you can cook things to easier eat them, good. A fire is good unless you aren’t in a place where you can contain it. A fire is good to alert authorities where you are located, and to keep you warm, keep predators away, but starting a whole damn wildfire isn’t worth it.”

“Well, duh,” he said, offended that they thought he was that careless.

Mike stepped in, “Did you watch how to make a fire without matches?”

He almost said no, but then he remembered watching Dixon’s body as he was squatted on the ground, rubbing sticks together. “Well, I watched Dixon, but what he was doing…not so much.”

“Not so much,” Alan repeated. “Okay, then, crash course in fire making. Take off your shoelace.”

“My shoelace?”

“Yes, Jovian. We’re going to use a bow to make a small fire.”

Perplexed as he’d ever been, Jovian took off his shoe and took out the lace, handing it over to Alan. “Here.”

Mike handed Alan a crooked stick and Jovian watching in wonder as Alan made a bow, like a bow and arrow, from the stick and shoelace.

“You’ve only been here this year, I thought.”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know this?”

“I watched Dixon. He showed us all, and walked us through it step by step, so it was clear. Not all of us were watching his muscles and ass.”

Jovian giggled again, admitting, “Then you missed out.”

“Yeah, so did you. And if you take his advanced courses, try to do both. You’re smart enough.”

Jovian’s preened over the praise. “You think so?”

Alan smiled and repeated, “You’re smart, Jovian. Use it and you’ll endear yourself to Coach Dix. If he’s into you, and I’m pretty sure he is.”

“Really?”

Mike commented, “Really, Jovian. We’ve all seen it.”

“Nice of you all to tell me! Fine, show me how to make a fire,” he mocked and sat on the ground before he thought about it. “More clothes ruined! This place is costing me a fortune.”

“Okay, you need really dry wood, something that’s been on the ground, hopefully not rained on or snowed on recently,” Mike told him as Alan found a nice straight piece of wood to attach the bow to. “First of all, make your tinder.”

“Tinder? I’m not on Tinder, I’m on Grindr, and I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

He watched as Mike and Alan exchanged looks that were pure frustration, but Kathy, the gloriously patient one, said, “Tinder is something that is thin and catches fire easily.”

“Oh, like my friend Ci,” Jovian said with a giggle.

“Jovian, pay attention. I swear, you have ADHD.”

“I used to be on Ritalin,” he said, remembering the teachers that had recommended it to his mom.

“Explains a lot. Okay, well, strip off dried bark, slivers of wood, which you can get by breaking it up with a rock, then strip pieces, like…like string cheese, but harder.”

“Ew. That’s not cheese.”

Kathy whispered, “Shh, Jovian, just listen.”

“Right. Go ahead.”

Get a hard piece of wood. With a pointed rock, make a grove in it, and set your tinder there. Then, get your bow and spindle, and—”

“Spindle?”

Kathy told Alan, “Forget the technical words.”

“Okay, get your long straight piece of wood and wrap the shoelace around it, like this,” he said, showing Jovian to wrap it once around the round branch.

“Then, hold it upright with another piece of wood or rock,” he said as he stood and held the straight wood onto the flat piece, using yet another flat piece.

Jovian knew he’d never remember. “This is just…too much.”

“I’m making notes, Jovian, and sending them to your phone,” Kathy said. “So watch, really close, and then when you read over the notes, you’ll remember what it looks like.”

“Fine,” he said, getting angry he had to act like he was back in school. He’d hated school.

He watched Alan leaning on the tall stick while moving the bow back and forth in a sawing motion, pressing it down onto the wood. Jovian didn’t understand how that could ever possibly make a fire.

“How does this even work?”

“Friction,” Mike told him.

Friction…thinking of Dixon and friction in the same moment only made him squirm. “That’s not the friction I like,” Jovian said with an exaggerated wink.

“Actually, sex can save your life too. If you’re going to freeze to death, it raises the body temperature,” Mike informed him.

“Yeah, uh, way to make even sex sound boring, Mike.”

Mike chuckled, but Alan called Jovian over. “Real quick, lick your finger and touch the bottom where the spindle…I mean the stick, where it touches the wood.”

Jovian rolled his eyes but sucked his finger for a second and then touched where Alan told him to, and he pulled his hand back quickly as he felt the heat almost burn him. “That’s hot! Why would you make me touch that?”

“You asked how it could possibly make fire, Jovian, remember?”

“Oh! Oh, right,” he said, then laughed. “I forgot.”

As Alan moved the bow back and forth again, Jovian watched as smoke appeared. “Look!”

“Yeah, now move some of that tinder over to it.”

“I don’t want to get burned!”

“Not onto it, just nearer.”

“’kay but be careful with me. I may not look like it, but I’m delicate.”

“No! You’re joking,” Alan teased sarcastically.

“Cheeky bloke,” Jovian said, then realized the three may not be as cultured as him, especially pop-cultured. “That means—”

“I know what it means, Jovian. You’re not the only one that watches Downton Abby.”

“Oh! Okay, great.”

Mike got down near the fire and started to gently blow on the tinder, but Jovian pulled him away from it. “Why are you blowing it out?”

Alan’s head turned and cocked to one side as Mike answered, “Giving it oxygen helps it start. Don’t blow too hard, sure, but a little to move the oxygen.”

“Oh, right, right,” he said as if he’d known that all along. No matter his subterfuge, however, he knew they knew he was stupid about all things outdoors.

That never used to bother him. Since he’d come to the camp, however, it bothered him a lot. “Don’t get down, Jovian,” Mike said to him. “Your face kind of fell.”

“My face?”

“No wrinkles, honey, just looked a little sad.”

“Oh, whew!”

Kathy grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Even when you’re old, you’re going to be gorgeous.”

“If I give you a list of creams, I’ll bet we can reverse some of that skin damage on you, too.”

While Kathy laughed, Mike barked, “Jovian!”

Jovian looked to see that Alan has stopped trying to make the fire and the two men were staring at him. “What?”

“You don’t…say things like that,” Mike strained. “It’s not cool!”

“I thought I was being nice!”

Kathy told them, “He really thought that. He doesn’t realize, you guys. This is how he’s been for years. You can’t expect him to change overnight.”

“Well, he can stop saying shitty things to you,” Mike grumbled.

“How is what I said shitty? She’s got some rough skin, and I know how to fix it!”

“Say that nicer,” Alan said as he started on the fire again.

Jovian was lost in the conversation. Kathy gently asked, “Do you know how to do that?”

“I don’t know, maybe don’t point out the spots on your face?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Fine. I’ll tell you about creams that won’t fix anything, but are just good for you?”

“Better,” she said with a laugh.

“I’ll never get the hang of this.”