Page 39 of True North
“Yeah.” JT prodded Misha’s shoulder again, more gently. “It’s strange, huh? Realizing you’re different from everyone else.”
Not different fromeveryone, Misha thought. He bumped his knee against JT’s instead of responding. There was more inside his heart than he knew how to express.
They swung in silence for a few minutes. The heat of JT’s body was warmer than the sun. Misha stared at the soft hairs on JT’s thighs, wondering how JT would react if he reached over and placed his hand right there on the golden skin above JT’s knee. JT drank his beer and toyed with the seam of Misha’s shirt where the sleeve attached. They didn’t look at each other, but Misha had never in his life been more aware of another person’s presence.
JT was gay, his heart said, in a steady throb like a drum beating.
“All right,” JT said at last, and tipped back his bottle to drain the last of his beer. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
* * *
JT went for a run when they got home, which was really an excuse to be alone with his thoughts for a while, and then stripped down to his shorts on the dock to swim in the lake. The water felt colder than usual after his sweaty trot along the back roads, and when he surfaced after his first dive beneath the water, his head was clearer than it had been in days.
He went back inside wearing nothing but his wet running shorts, carrying his sweaty shirt in one hand. Misha was sitting at the kitchen table watching TV and eating the puffed corn chips he liked. He looked over when JT came through the sliding doors, and JT watched his gaze drop and roam around. His eyes were all over JT lately, or maybe JT just hadn’t been looking for it before.
“Okay?” Misha asked.
“Great,” JT said. “Fantastic.”
“You swimmed? Let’s swim.”
“I just came back in,” JT said, but Misha was making the big eyes at him. He sighed. “Let me just grab something to eat.”
He had to admit it was a good day for swimming. The late afternoon sun beating down made fresh sweat break out on JT’s skin almost as soon as he stepped outside. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Misha, barefoot, went mincing down the jetty, yelping as the hot planks burned his feet, and JT laughed as he followed. Everything was normal. Just a normal day at home.
Misha stripped naked before he dove into the water, and JT hesitated for a few moments before he followed suit. Skinny-dipping was normal. They were just two guys hanging out. Being friends.
Misha always swam like a fish, graceful and exuberant. He turned a few somersaults in the water and came up grinning, water streaming from his hair. JT, treading water nearby, couldn’t help grinning back.
“Do you swim as a bear?” JT asked. He didn’t see Misha in bear form much anymore, only when he was coming or going to the woods for a ramble.
Misha shrugged. “Yeah. You see?”
“You mean do I want to see? Sure.”
Misha shifted right there in the water: human one moment and bear the next. Soaking wet, he looked smaller than he did on land but still enormous enough to be intimidating. He shook his head and made a grumbling noise, then went paddling off.
JT stroked after him. Even doggy paddling, Misha as a bear swam faster than JT could keep up with, but he kept looking back and stopping to let JT catch up. They swam out into the lake a way until Misha stopped and dove under, then resurfaced with a fish in his mouth, a big trout.
“Oh boy,” JT said, and Misha gave him a look that could only be described as smug before he gripped the fish in both paws and began tearing strips of flesh from the sides.
JT swam back to the dock. He didn’t need to witness that up close.
He was lying out on his towel, facedown, when he heard Misha swimming back to the dock, and then the sounds of him climbing the ladder. Without raising his head, JT said, “Good snack?”
“Yeah, very nice,” Misha said, totally blasé about eating a live, raw fish in front of JT. He shook out his own towel with a snap of fabric and sat down on the dock next to JT, really close. “You sun?”
“Won’t burn this time of day.” JT turned his head to the other side so he could squint up at Misha. Misha was watching him, expression unexpectedly somber. “What is it?”
Misha shook his head. Water clumped his eyelashes together, making his eyes look even bigger than usual. “I don’t know.”
“Okay,” JT said. He wanted to ask if he’d crossed a line when they were sitting on the porch, but he also didn’t want to admit that he’d done anything out of the ordinary. He didn’t want to acknowledge how fully Misha had taken over his thoughts or what direction those thoughts were heading. He was still trying to pretend he was a decent guy who was simply trying to help someone in need.
Lightly, with the tip of one finger, Misha touched a spot on JT’s upper back, then trailed his finger to another spot, then a third. He was tracing JT’s moles, JT realized, and his skin prickled all over, a full-body chill. No one had touched him like that, curious and idle, since Marcus.
“Misha,” he said, but then didn’t know where to go after that.
Misha didn’t stop. His finger found a fourth mole, then a fifth, in the small of JT’s back. He pressed his palm there, in the hollow of JT’s spine, and then stopped.