Spencer’s cheeks pinked and he bit the inside of it, making one side hollow before he let go. “Uh? Yes?”
“His highness is too delicate to sleep on the ground like the rest of the peasants?”
“Max,” Collin sighed out, but neither he nor Spencer looked over.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” Spencer said, “but I wasn’t sure what the ground was going to be like. And what’s it to you, anyway? Why do you care?”
“I don’t,” Max said.
Lie, Collin’s mind supplied. “Let’s just get the camp sorted, shall we? We have a few hours of daylight left, and morning will be here before you know it.” Collin turned away, setting up his own, worn tent with permanently bent poles and divots in the canvas. It was weird to think about it again--how this would be his last. How he’d never have strangers with him in the middle of the wood ever again. Melancholy set deep in his bones, and he let himself get lost in the quiet whir of Spencer’s air pump as he unrolled his sleeping bag and laid it on the floor.
It smelled musty and old—it smelled like his childhood and a life that was meant to be his, but he never quite made it there. It was going to be a long night with those two, and he needed to conserve his strength to manage it.
“We can do a quick check round the area for firewood,” Collin said once he’d turned away from his set-up. Both men were sorted at this point, and apart from the mattress, Spencer’s tent looked just as common as the others. The only thing out of place was the man himself, who looked half-dead on his feet from the short hike.
“Cool. Can we do s’mores after?” Spencer asked.
Max blinked at him. “Are you twelve?”
“Oh, fuck you, dude. What’s camping without s’mores? Do you have to be such a killjoy all the time?” Spencer demanded. “It’s no wonder whoever you were with ditched you. You’re a fucking nightmare.”
Max’s cheeks paled, and Collin knew Spencer had hit a nerve. But before either of them could say anything else, Max threw his sleeping bag to the ground and gave a firm nod. “Cool. Whatever. I’ll go look for firewood.” He turned on his heel and stormed into the brush, and after a minute, Collin couldn’t hear his footsteps.
“Sorry,” Spencer said. “I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s fine,” Collin interrupted.
Spencer shook his head. “I should go find him and apologize.”
Before he could rush off, Collin caught him by the sleeve and hauled him back. “Just let him be.”
He knew now that more than guiding these two through the woods, his real task was going to be to keep them from killing each other before they got to the end.
Chapter 5
Spencer gets his s'mores
Spencer immediately regretted being an asshole to Max. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He stared down at the air mattress and disconnected the pump now that it was fully inflated.
Maybe this trip had been a stupid idea. Spencer sighed and resisted the urge to crawl into his tent and go to sleep. That would only make him look like an even bigger baby, and an even bigger asshole than he already looked.
Collin had the patience of a saint to put up with Spencer. He realized he was a lot, but he couldn’t help it. And after years of twisting himself into knots to fit in with people, but failing and being ridiculed, Spencer refused to be anyone but himself. Although… sometimes he was a bit much.
He knew grown men shouldn’t fear things like snakes, or spiders, or anything. They should be like Collin and Max. Confident. Self-assured. Not afraid of tree roots and random shadows on a harmless hiking trail. But they hadn’t made fun of him for it. They didn’t say stupid and insulting things like man up, or grow a pair the way his friends always did.
Spencer sat in his tent and pulled his boots off. His feet ached, but he didn’t want to complain. Max already thought he was a whiny baby. With that thought, Spencer stuffed his feet back into his boots with a grimace and climbed out of the tent.
He’d never been camping and the closest he came to sleeping outside was sleeping with his bedroom window open. But he wasn’t totally useless and, while he had no desire to go foraging for firewood, he could at least gather some dry tinder to help start the fire. He gathered dry grass and any other dry material that looked flammable and piled it next to the fire.
Out in the open, alone, he felt exposed, like anything could come up behind him and eat him. Collin and Max would return to find his corpse, or maybe just a blood splatter and a bear using his femur as a toothpick.
Spencer shuddered and wrapped his arms around himself. The worst part of being afraid was that he could feel his rapid pulse in each and every blister on his feet. Going barefoot sounded appealing for a minute, until he remembered the snakes.
He continued hugging himself and observed the scenery. It was a beautiful place, all open meadow and blue sky dotted with clouds. The leaves fluttered in a gentle wind and more mosquitos than Spencer knew what to do with swarmed him.
He swatted one away from his arm, and another from his leg, and another from his neck.
“I thought you bathed in bug spray?”
“Shit!” Spencer shrieked at the sound of Max’s voice and spun around. Max looked at him with more disdain than amusement and Spencer bristled. “It doesn’t appear to be working.”
“You probably just made yourself taste good. Better you than me.” Max dropped a stack of sticks next to the fire pit. Spotting the pile of dried grass, he looked at Spencer. “What’s that?”
“Fire starter.”
Max’s lip quirked into a half smile. “Been camping before?”
“No.” Spencer rolled his eyes. “But I’m not completely stupid.” He bit back the part about seeing it in a movie.
Collin, thankfully, returned at that moment and dropped an even larger pile of wood next to Max’s. Of course, his brain chose to jump into the gutter with both feet, and because he sometimes really was a twelve year-old boy at heart. He looked at Max and grinned.
“Looks like Collin’s wood is bigger than yours.”
Collin choked on a laugh and Max glared up at Spencer.
“What are you, four?”
“Four year-olds don’t make dick jokes.”
Max looked him up and down. “Speaking of dick jokes.”
“Max,” Collin admonished like a tired babysitter.
“Sorry.”
Max didn’t look sorry, though. He didn’t sound sorry, either. He sounded tired and bitchy. Spencer tried not to take the jab personally. He did have it coming after the shitty comment he tossed out earlier, but he was also tired and bitchy.
Collin caught Spencer’s gaze and gave him a look that half-warned, half-begged Spencer to stop.
“When’s dinner? The sooner I eat, the sooner I can sleep. I’m so fucking tired.”
Max ignored Spencer and worked on starting the fire. Spencer’s face heated as he remembered that Collin and Max had gone out to find wood and he’d gathered a little bit of grass. He suddenly felt like Baby, I carried a watermelon, Houseman.
“It won’t take too long,” Collin promised.