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Chapter Twenty-One

The morning had shaken him. Cherokee said things, and made Jovian say things that had rocked him completely.

It did something else. Jovian knew he was in love with the man. There was not one doubt in his mind.

Pure, sweet, total love. Jovian felt like he was flying and yet grounded for the first time. It was a crazy feeling, but he embraced it.

After leaving Cherokee’s and making it back to the camp, he told his friends what was happening. “I couldn’t even sleep. I really need to help.”

“We’d like to help too, Jovian,” Kathy said. “How, though?”

“Well, it’s got to be in a city. It’s got to be. If you guys can make it and bring a few friends…”

“Well, I can, for sure,” Alan offered. But most of the folks here are from smaller towns. They come here for friends like them.”

“Doesn’t matter. I think with my contacts, with Ciana’s, and a few of our snob friends who have fifty million followers on Insta and Snap, I think we can get in the crowds. What you all need to do is help me organize and keep the others from knowing.”

“Others? Like whom?” Kathy asked.

“True, Bernie, and especially Cherokee. I mean…it’s in the city, it’s hinging on all my wealthy friends, and I’m going to get the money from my mother to do the marketing and decorating. He’s going to hate that, and right now…I would die if he got angry with me.”

“How could he possibly?” Mike asked him. “You’re trying to save that camp. That’s huge!”

“One, it might not work, and I don’t want to look like a failure to him. Two…I’m getting the money from my mom. That’s not exactly a plus for him, I’m sure.”

“You’re not giving him much credit,” Alan accused. “He’s crazy about you, and I don’t think he’d hold that against you.”

“I don’t want to find out, okay? Are you deaf? Are you…stupid?”

Mike rolled his eyes while telling Jovian, “Not cool.”

“I’m sorry, Alan. I’m sorry. I’m just…tired. I didn’t sleep.”

“I’m not mad. Just…think over telling him, but it’s up to you. Now, what can we do for right now?”

“Nothing until I can get a hold of the owner of Chaps. That place, there’s at least five hundred people there on any given weekend. We charge a hundred a person, a buck fifty for a couple. We would be sure to pay off the mortgage.”

“What is the mortgage?” Kathy asked.

“Good question. No one will say.”

“I’ll find out,” Mike offered. “I’m pretty tight with True and Bernie, and if I can’t find out that way, I know the guy that takes over in the office for them when they’re teaching classes. I’ll bet I can get him to let me snoop around.”

“Great! Oh, Mike, that would be great. It would help a lot to know how much we need.”

“Okay, fine, then that is Mike’s job. I’ll call my husband.

He always has ideas about doing these big things.

Kathy, you and your boyfriend can keep True and Bernie busy after their classes, in case Mike needs more snoop time.

Mike, when you’re done, go over to the classes and let them know that you’re done. ”

“Done!”

For the first time, Jovian thought he could really pull it off.

Right before lunch, he got a text from Gary.

Jovian, the manager is sick, and he’s contagious, so he won’t be in for at least a week, and the owner is impossible for most of us to speak to, but there might be another way.

The old owners are VIPs here, free memberships for life.

They gave the new owners a good deal on the club back when they sold it.

They live about eighty miles from the camp.

If you could talk to them, I’m sure the owner will take their call. ”

Jovian texted him back for the address and numbers, but all Gary could send back was the address.

Jovian knew he’d have to go there, to the town. Apishipa Creek. “What the hell kind of name is that?” He barely had enough reception to take the texts. The map app wouldn’t even come up. “What the hell am I going to do?”

Alan was headed to the Mess Hall, and he stopped him with the problem. “How the hell am I supposed to find this, Ape Shit Creek or whatever it’s called?” he asked after showing Alan the text.

“I know where this is. I passed through there once when we were in Southern Colorado skiing. But I can’t draw you a map. There are maps in the office.”

“Maps? Like on a tablet? How would they get reception if I can’t?”

Alan blinked at him like he’d spoken another language.

“Hello? Did you have a stroke?”

“Jovian…please tell me you know there are maps on paper, right? Even made into books called atlases?”

“Maybe in antique stores,” he snorted.

“I’ll…I’ll go get a map and write you down directions.”

“Helpful, but don’t you dare get me lost out in these woods where some hick might try to take me home to his lair.”

“Oh, like Cherokee?”

Jovian lost his smirk and said, “Not funny!”

While Jovian sat eating with his friends, making more plans that he listed on his phone, Alan came back with a piece of paper that had a list of instructions on how to get to the former owners.

“Oh, this tells me step by step, like my map app! How to get to Ape Shit Creek. A Pee Shush Creek. Ape Shawl Creek. Whatever!”

Mike took the paper from him and said, “A- pish -i-pa Creek. Sounds like a Native American name. Stop being a shit, Jovian.”

“How the hell would I know that?”

Mike shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Now, when the heck can I go? I have classes every day, and every night, I’m with Cherokee.”

“Try to go after lunch. That gives you four hours there and back before the survival class. If you’re late, I’ll make an excuse for you,” Alan offered.

“This is not lunch. It’s a joke, so I’ll just go now. Will one of you take my tray?”

Kathy pulled it to her. “I will, if I can have your brownie.”

“Do you really need it, Kathy?”

“Jovian!” Alan yelled at him.

“Oh, sorry. Was that rude?”

With the brownie stuffed in her mouth, Kathy said, “Yesh, bu’ ith o’ay.”

“No, it’s not, but just go,” Mike told Jovian.

“Right! Back soon. I hope I can read Alan’s chicken scrawl.”

He got into his car, ducking down as Bernie walked by with a couple of campers. As soon as the coast was clear, he left the camp parking lot and headed east, then south.

He was excited, but wary. Meeting new people had never been great for him. They always disliked him from the jump, but he was getting a little better, so hopefully, he could keep that up for this meeting.

Jovian had never driven much into the mountains. Twice to ski resorts up north, but never south of Colorado Springs, before he’d gone to the camp.

The eighty miles felt like a hundred and eighty, with all the twists and turns of the road. Up, down, another roller coaster, but this one more real than figurative. Steep mountain passes and tight curves in the road, making him slow his usually high speed.

But even he had to admit, it was beautiful. At times, both sides of the road were boxed in with the thick, tall trees on either side, but sometimes the trees fell away, and a valley and more mountains showed below the highway.

The peaks to the east of him were still covered with snow at the very tips, and the rest was so green, it felt alive and real. Much realer than all the tall buildings and pavement he was used to.

He passed by places where the mountain had been carved out for the road, and rising high on the side was a stone wall, and loose boulders held with seemingly thin netting. Watch for Falling Rock signs plentiful along these areas.

More deer were seen idly walking along the road, barely noticing him as he passed. Homes built on the sides of hills were beautiful, and he imagined the views they had to have.

He was staring around him so much that he almost passed right by the quaint little town named after some Native American, or whatever it was. “Apple Shed Creek, or whatever, there you are.”

The directions had him taking a right on a road that could barely be called that, as it was thinly paved and the pavement was cracking. “Doesn’t anyone have any money to fix these roads? My poor car.”

Then, when he finally followed the directions through to the end, he saw he wasn’t visiting some old shed in the hills.

The house was big, beautiful and shining with red wood and huge windows.

A deck came out on one side along the second story and wrapped around to the back, and there were three cars in the wide driveway, and one was a Mercedes.

“Damn, they have money. Please, don’t be a hot daddy.

I don’t even want my thoughts to be unfaithful to Cherokee. He’d know just by looking at me.”

He went to the door, and rang the bell, and then heard running on the flooring on the other side.

The door flew open to a small red-haired child. “Hi!”

“Hello,” he said, unsure.

“Dennis Walton, I will ground you for a year if you don’t stop that,” a man said, and when he came to the door, he was so hot, Jovian thought he’d lost his lungs. His breath stopped right in his throat. “Hello. May I help you?”

“I said hello too, Dad,” the boy said before running off into the house.

“Excuse him, my sons have the manners of two feral wolf children.”

Jovian almost swallowed his tongue. The man was tall, muscled, ginger-haired, with bright green eyes, and so hot, Jovian wanted to moan.

“That’s…that’s okay. Um…are you the one that used to own…” How did he say it? What with a little kid running around?

“One of the clubs? It’s okay to say the name. They don’t know what it is. And, yes, I was the owner of two clubs.”

Jovian sighed, “Thank goodness. You never know what you might find out here.”

As the man’s brows drew and his head cocked to the side, he asked, “Excuse me?”

“Oh, not you! You can tell by the house that you’re…I mean…”

Another man came to the door, asking the tall red-haired man, “Who’s here, Travis?” He was, well, just as hot as the ginger, only he had long black hair and his face was perfectly shaped with high, sharp cheekbones and a beautiful wide mouth.

“Some guy looking for a former club owner.”