Lost and Found (Twist of Fate #1)(9)
But Xander never had gotten mad at me. He’d just sung the song at full volume to punish me until we’d either found the dog or dissolved into fits of laughter and Mr. Reed had been forced to take over the search. And then the song would be on my mind for days after. So, I’d done my best to pay him back with an ear worm of my own. The more annoying, the better.
Frustration and a keen sense of helplessness went through me, and I reverted to the same self-defense mechanism that had served me well when we’d been children. I spun on my heel and grabbed some of the wood from the pile he’d created before walking back toward camp, singing the song from Frozen at the top of my lungs.
“Do you wanna build a snowman?”
“Bastard,” I heard him mutter from behind me, though I could sense the tiniest hint of amusement in his voice too. At least it was better than the dreaded silence or the hate-filled anger.
“Oh, don’t like that one? Hmm… how about this? Let it go, let it goooooo…”
Chapter 5
Xander
If I could have tuned out Bennett’s voice, I would have. As it stood, I’d already spent enough time away from the campsite that the kids had to be wondering what the hell kind of a wilderness guide I was, since I spent more time on the wilderness part and less time on the guide part. After Bennett had left me alone so I could finish collecting the firewood, I’d had to force myself to return to the campsite before darkness fell so I could help get the fire going and make sure everyone had gotten their tents set up. To my surprise, the fire had been started and the kids had been working on some kind of team-building activity that Bennett and Aiden had been directing. I hadn’t stuck around long enough to see what it was, because as soon as my eyes had met Bennett’s across the small space, I’d felt trapped, and all the humiliation from our earlier encounter had come rushing back to me.
I hadn’t meant to admit what Bennett’s defection had done to me, and I most certainly hadn’t wanted Bennett’s boyfriend to have that kind of ammunition to use against me. It was clear as day that the guy hated me, a feeling that was very, very mutual. I’d ended up taking Bear down to the water so he could have a quick swim. I’d sat on one of the logs near the shoreline and waited for that normal peace that being out in the wilderness so often brought me, but the chatter and laughter drifting down from the small rise of the campsite had proven to be too much of a distraction.
Just like it was now.
I’d chosen a spot closer to the fire while we’d eaten dinner and begun sorting through my pack for the umpteenth time, though it hadn’t been necessary. I’d just been going through the motions so I wouldn’t keep checking to see what Bennett was up to. I’d seen Aiden approach him several times out of my peripheral vision, but every time he’d touched Bennett, I’d had to force myself to look the opposite direction so I wouldn’t be tempted to get up and go knock the man on his ass. I mean, for Christ’s sake, we were on a fucking wilderness expedition, not in some nightclub. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the assholes snuck off into the darkness to have a go at each other.
The thought of Aiden bending Bennett over some rock just like he’d talked about doing the day before, along with the words he’d thrown in my face tonight, had my anger building all over again.
I have a part of him you never did.
I’d figured out I was gay the summer just before things had fallen apart with Bennett. I hadn’t understood at first why my heart had suddenly started racing every time I saw my friend, or why my palms would get so sweaty and it would be hard to breathe whenever he touched me. Not to mention the constant boners I’d started to experience around him. It had gotten so bad near the end that I’d been afraid to go swimming with him in the pool in case he could spot my predicament in the clear water. Which meant we’d had to limit our swimming to the small pond on his parents’ property, and since his father would yell at us every time we’d done it, we’d resorted to only swimming in there at night after everyone had gone to bed.
Once I’d realized that what I was feeling for Bennett went beyond the bounds of friendship— and this only after I’d rubbed one out in the darkened woods as I’d walked back to my house after a particularly handsy swimming session— I’d worried about what it would mean for our friendship. I’d never gotten any kind of hint that Bennett was experiencing the same feelings I was, and he’d often talked about girls in his class he’d thought were cute. So, I’d done my best just to pretend that the feelings didn’t exist. By the time I’d been close to finding the courage to tell Bennett the truth, he’d started to pull away from me, and I’d been afraid that telling him I was gay would widen that divide between us even further.
After the chance meeting at the playground when we were five, we’d become inseparable. Despite the fact that Bennett came from Greenwich’s upper crust and my parents had been firmly rooted in the middle class, Bennett had always been a pushy little shit. He’d pestered his parents to keep taking him back to that particular park every day until they’d finally given in. The park had been within walking distance of my house, but for Bennett’s family, it had been a good ten-minute drive. The only reason he’d even been at that playground that first day had been because he’d made his nanny stop there on the way home from a doctor’s appointment.