Page 18 of Winging It with You

The burn of his scruff against my lips is still there.

Same goes for the way I felt so pulled to him.

And honestly, it would be so easy to straddle him where he sits now, grab his face in both my hands, and pick up right where we left off.

But judging by his quiet demeanor and the deep flush climbing its way to his cheeks, I’m fairly positive whatever almost moment we had is officially over.

“Arthur’s gonna be pretty pissed about that camera,” he says after a moment, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, I’m glad it wasn’t me who knocked it in,” I say, nudging him with my shoulder, in response to which he chokes out a laugh.

“Oh, so you’re just going to rat me out like that? I see how it is,” he says, poking me back. “Where’d you learn how to do all this? The sailing.”

I shrug. “It’s something my dad taught me.”

“Did you spend a lot of time on the water or something?”

“My family’s house is on a lake,” I say, and as soon as I do, every detail of the lake house flits through my memory. The faded shingles. The dock I helped my dad build. All of it. “Being on the water kinda comes with the territory.”

Asher seems to mull over my response. “That must have been amazing.”

“Yeah, my sister, Elise, and I would have to get dragged back home from the lake by our parents. But when I first started sailing, the bobbing motion, even the slightest shift in the water, would make me so sick.”

“Can’t relate,” he says dryly, rolling his eyes. “Thanks for the coastline trick, by the way.”

“Of course. What about you? I take it you didn’t spend much time on the water?”

He shakes his head. “Absolutely not. I’m sure this won’t surprise you, but my family is not the outdoorsy type.”

“You don’t say?” I mock, feigning surprise.

“Don’t be mean,” he says, elbowing me in the side, and I don’t think there’s a reality where I could ever be mean to him. “I did go to camp every summer, but again…it wasn’t outdoorsy by any means.”

“Tell me more about this non-outdoorsy summer camp.”

“I’ll pass,” he says, but before he can double down, I interrupt him.

“Mozzarella sticks.”

Asher throws back his head, letting out a loud laugh that ricochets all around us. “Seriously?” he snaps, but even he is unable to contain his smile. “This is what you want to use that on?”

“Mm-hmm,” I say, nodding my head. “If I don’t know everything there is to know about a young Asher Bennett attending summer camp, I’ll die.

Did you all wear uniforms? What about bunkmates or counselors?

” Asher rolls his eyes as I sling an arm around his shoulder.

“Oh, did you have a camp crush? Tell me everythi—”

“Okay, okay,” he says, shoving me off him. “I’ll tell you everything ,” he says, drawing out the word. “Although I can assure you you’re going to be sadly disappointed by the lack of salacious stories about science camp.”

“Science camp, huh?” I repeat, trying not to laugh but failing. “You know what? That makes sense.”

Asher smiles wide. “If you think I’m embarrassed about that, you’re wrong. In fact, my summers at camp were some of my happiest memories growing up.”

“I hope you know I was only teasing,” I say, bumping him with my thigh.

“Oh, I know,” he says softly, but even in the dimming light, I can see Asher’s thin face fall as he looks out across the water.

“It was the first, and honestly the only, place I ever felt I belonged. I didn’t have to worry about fitting in or being made fun of just for being myself.

That does something to a kid. Something others grow out of or can shrug off more easily.

But for me, if I wasn’t the nerd…” He takes a deep breath, turning now to face me.

“…I was the faggot. It was always one or the other. Without fail. So, showing up to that camp in the middle of the woods each summer meant that I could just be Asher.”

He straightens from his spot on the bench. “And that’s enough.”

The weight of that word lingers between us.

One that I can guarantee has been hurled at every gay man our age on more than one occasion out of spite or ignorance or just plain hatred.

I remember when it had been directed at me for the first time.

It was during an away basketball game in sixth grade, and I’ll never forget how Jordan Farrell looked at me when I started changing into my uniform next to him before the game.

I wasn’t out—hadn’t even begun thinking about boys that way or the fact that I might be different.

But he grabbed his clothes and labeled me with that word anyway before I truly even understood what it meant.

It stuck like all nicknames and labels do.

Especially the hurtful ones.

And when I think about how much of my childhood was wasted trying to be the opposite of what Jordan and everyone else called me, it both breaks my heart and fills me with a rage I can’t put into words.

But before I can tell all this to Asher, to stand with him in painful solidarity of this shared life experience during some of our most formative years, we’re both blinded by a tidal wave of light.

“Mantengan tranquilo,” a robotic voice blares, and a sleek boat comes into view. I’d argue we’ve done a pretty good job of remaining calm given our current predicament. “La ayuda va en camino.”

How mortifying.

Both Asher and I leap to our feet. Gratitude for our lost-at-sea adventure being over has quickly replaced any momentary embarrassment from having to be rescued in such a dramatic manner.

Standing front and center of our mid-ocean extraction is Jo, a worried crease growing between her brows even though she appears to be doing everything in her power to hold back a smile.

“Seriously?” she yells, as we are thrown a rope by a rather annoyed-looking guardsman. “The Argentinian coast guard?”

Asher is pulled up over the side of the boat while several other members of our ragtag rescue crew secure our sailboat to the side of theirs. A rough hand then reaches for mine, pulling me up as well and delivering me next to a waiting Jo.

“We were worried about you two idiots,” she says, pulling us both in for a hug the moment we are safely standing on the deck. “What the hell happened?”

Asher and I exchange glances.

“Weren’t you the one who wanted chemistry?” I say as she grabs both sides of my face, shaking her head. “Well, chemistry happened.”

“Mm-hmm,” she mutters, a sly little grin returning to her face.

She lets go of her mama-bear grip on me and pulls out her tablet.

Clearly, she’s already begun teasing the whole ordeal online, because when she pulls up our social media feed and points out that #Thasher is trending, clip after clip of Asher and me sitting side by side on the boat appear on the screen.

In more than one instance, expertly altered memes of the infamous Titanic shot of Rose and Jack floating on the door with our faces Photoshopped onto their chilled bodies fill the frame, leaving me both in awe and utterly terrified of the power of the internet.

“Wait…how?” I ask, wondering where this salvaged footage came from.

“The camera set up on your boat was streaming video back to our computer. So, we were able to get a nice little chunk of today’s challenge up until you two threw it overboard—Arthur’s livid, as I’m sure you expected,” she adds, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Nice work, you two.” Jo nudges Asher with her hip, but he doesn’t pay her any attention—his eyes haven’t left mine, and for the first time, I feel like he’s made the intentional decision to be okay with someone else seeing him.

Truly seeing the quirks and the scars and whatever it is that goes on behind those questioning eyes of his.

In the middle of the ocean, where there was not a soul around but us, walls that had been so firmly rooted by their foundations were lowered, even if momentarily.

Our boat speeds off back toward the shoreline where today’s challenge began.

Asher’s eyes are on a constant scan of the horizon like I’d instructed earlier, and he’s bathed in the soft, pale glow of the moon’s light, every nook and crevice of this man now illuminated so clearly.

The salty air fills our lungs, and for the briefest of moments, there’s no more hiding.

I can’t pinpoint the what or the why but whatever curiosity or intrigue or even just baseline attraction I’ve felt toward the man I’m supposed to be dating is now inching its way toward an unignorable part of my brain.

The part that is starting to blur what is just for the show and what will break all our rules.