We Fools of Nature

A welcome and a short story

Hello and welcome! I’m excited to share A Fault against the Dead, book four of The First Quarto, with you—starting tomorrow! Today, I wanted to offer you a short story that will act as a transition between The Fairest Show and A Fault against the Dead.

If you’d like to chat about each day’s installment, please join me in my Facebook group or on Discord.

Now, on to the short story! Hope you enjoy this little adventure, which follow shortly after the events of The Fairest Show.

1

“Auggie! Grab it!”

Auggie looked up from his phone in time to see the aluminum canoe drift away from the shore. The rope, which he was pretty sure had been under his foot, slithered out into the water. Auggie stumbled after it, the cold water of the river splashing under his steps. By the time the water hit his ankles, though, a current caught the side of the canoe, spinning it—and the rope—even farther out into the river. Auggie stared. Then he looked over his shoulder.

Theo came sprinting down the launch, gravel crunching underfoot. If his bad knee slowed him down at all, he didn’t show it—maybe all that PT was paying off. He cut diagonally toward the riverbank with an explosive, “Fuck!” and then he was trampling the weeds and rushes as he raced downriver.

It had all happened fast, but Auggie thought Theo had only been wearing one shoe.

The truck was starting to make a dinging noise, so Auggie walked up the launch. He climbed into the driver’s seat. He shut the door. The dinging stopped. He looked around.

They were alone, and the day was hot and blue, the gravel so bright that it left an afterimage when Auggie turned his head. Early June in Missouri wasn’t supposed to be this hot, but, of course, a heat wave had struck on the exact same weekend as the float trip that Theo had been—what was the polite, boyfriendly word for pestering? Nagging?—that Theo had been nagging Auggie to go on for, oh, a little over two years. Auggie would have suggested waiting, but they couldn’t push the float back. Fer had booked Auggie’s return ticket with several murderous-sounding threats, peppered throughout by what Auggie took to be a quasi-legalese phrase “failure to appear,” and so the float had to be this weekend, heat wave or not.

Auggie angled the A/C toward his face. He considered how deeply and truly and devotedly he loved his boyfriend. Enough, apparently, to endure two whole days of swamp ass. And, by extension, swamp crotch. And, although Auggie wasn’t sure if the technical name differed, swamp pits. Swamp forehead didn’t really seem like a thing, but he was definitely past the stage that his mother would have called glistening.

In the rearview mirror, the rushes stirred. A moment later, Theo appeared, hunched over on the bank as he crabbed sideways. It took a moment for Auggie to realize why: Theo had to bend over, one hand on the side of the canoe, to drag it upstream. Then Theo broke free from the rushes, coming around the cut in the bank where the gravel launch angled down into the water, and Auggie had a clear view, thanks to the mirror, of the fact that Theo was sopping wet. Auggie let out a noise that was, he realized with a degree of removed embarrassment, shockingly close to what a cartoon dog might have made—ruh roh came pretty close.

Theo, in only one shoe, limped across the gravel. He tied the canoe’s rope to a stump on the shore. He came up the launch toward the side of the truck, and he was walking with very deliberate, very Theo-ish steps.

Auggie popped open the door and slid out. Sunlight skittered along the aluminum skin of the canoe, and the gravel was still dazzlingly bright, all of which gave Auggie a wonderful excuse to shade his eyes and appreciate the sight of his much hotter, substantially older boyfriend, the muscles in his shoulders and arms and chest defined by the clinging white cotton. White had been a good choice. Wet, white cotton left just the right amount to the imagination. It would be a good way to die, looking at all the wet, leanly defined muscle.

“I’m sorry,” Auggie said.

“It’s ok,” Theo said. He leaned on the truck—borrowed from his brother Jacob for the weekend, although Jacob being a colossal prick, by reputation, Auggie wasn’t sure what that had cost Theo. Raising his bare foot, Theo picked out a couple of burrs that had punctured his sole. Blood welled up, and he wiped it away. Then he picked up the remaining sneaker, where it had fallen when he had started running, and pulled it on. It was a redneck thing, the whole sneakers-without-socks-for-a-float-trip. But, Auggie had to admit, that didn’t mean it wasn’t working for Theo. “Next time, though, please hold on to the rope.”

“No more phone,” Auggie said in agreement.

Theo made a noise that sounded something like, This conversation is over.

“I swear to God, Theo. We’re practically out of service anyway, and I’m so excited to spend the weekend with you, and it’s going to be so much fun, and you’re going to get my full and complete attention.” Auggie bit his lip. “And did I mention how sorry I am?”

A tiny smile appeared behind the beard as Theo pulled his laces tight. “It’s ok.”

“You were amazing. Very amazing. You ran so fast. Did you have to dive into the river?”

“It was spinning out in the middle,” Theo said. “It’s pretty deep right there, and the current is fast.”

“I could tell it was fast. I bet you had to swim really hard to get back to shore, and you had to hold on to the canoe the whole time.”

“Well, yeah, it’s more awkward—” Then his head came up, and he frowned. “Oh no. That’s not going to work.”

“You were so strong.”

“Oh Lord.”

“And you acted so decisively.”

“Would you please park the truck up there? Jacob’s going to pick it up and drop it at the pull-out.”

“I feel like it’s important that you know, um, the effect your stalwartness had on me.”

“Next time, Auggie, please hold on to the rope.”

Light caught Auggie in the eye, and he blinked to clear his vision, and then the light changed again as the canoe slowly revolved on the water. “Um, Theo, about that.”

He pointed over Theo’s shoulder.

“Mother of God,” Theo swore and sprinted toward the bank, where the rope had come loose from the stump and the canoe was now serenely floating downriver.

2

Auggie dug the paddle into the water.

“On your right—no, no, no, Auggie, on your right!”

He yanked the blade out of the river, but he was too late. The canoe smashed sideways into the rock. They rebounded, spun, and hit something else—it sounded different, so Auggie thought maybe a log.

“Paddle!” Theo shouted.

Auggie brought the paddle down again. His arms and shoulders were already starting to ache—apparently, none of the muscle groups he exercised in the gym matched up with canoeing, which was apparently the hardest thing in the entire universe. Behind him, Theo was swearing steadily.

When Theo spoke, though, his voice had evened out. “Ok, ok. You can stop. Relax for a minute.”

Relax, Auggie thought, drawing the dripping paddle out of the water and laying it across his knees. He ought to be able to relax. They’d been floating for about an hour, and they hadn’t seen another soul, which was fine by Auggie and, more importantly, what he knew Theo wanted. This seemed like a good place for relaxing—the river transparent green where it riffled, the trees crowding the banks, the thick canopy of leaves overhead providing a break from the intensity of the sun. Shirtless and soaked from incidental splashing and one near spill, Auggie had to admit that the day was actually pretty nice. Humid, sure, but the cool water helped with that. And he liked the sun on his skin. And he liked Theo pretending not to look. What he didn’t like, for the official record, was the itchy synthetic life vest.

Theo, being Theo, had explained—twice—that Auggie was to wear the vest anytime he was in the river. The second explanation had involved Theo checking the buckles and tightening straps and ignoring—if you didn’t count the slight tightness around his eyes—when Auggie yipped and said, “My nipple!”

Apparently, Theo didn’t know chafeage was real.

Auggie turned casually, pretending to take in the riverbank, the big trees with their big roots clutching big rocks, the bright diamonds of light that made their way through the leaves to stud the vegetation. When Theo was busy checking the tie-downs on their camping gear, Auggie undid the top buckle of his vest. Discreetly.

“All of them,” Theo said without looking up.

“Theo!”

“All of them, Auggie.”

“I’m not even going to have nipples when this trip is over. How are you going to feel then? Do you think you’re going to like having a nippleless boyfriend?”

“I don’t know. How much would he still be talking about his nipples?”

“He doesn’t have any nipples! That’s the whole point!”

“Auggie, if it’s bothering you that much, we can stop, and you can put on your shirt. Or we can switch vests.”

“Do you want me to put on my shirt?”

Theo was a decent man, so he pretended to at least consider it. “I mean, if you want to put on a shirt—”

“Oh my God. No. I’ll just let this thing scrub my nipples away.”

They floated another five yards, and Auggie bent to trail his fingers in the cool water.

“The buckle,” Theo said quietly.

“Oh my ever-loving God,” Auggie said, and he snapped the buckle shut.

“So,” Theo said with the same kind of—well, hesitation wasn’t exactly the right word—deference that Auggie had learned to read as Theo recognizing that he might be stepping on Auggie’s toes, “this might be a good stretch of the river to practice our paddling.”

Auggie closed his eyes. Sun and shadow moved over his face. A hint of a breeze on his neck. Who needs to practice paddling, he wanted to ask. Why the hell would anybody need to practice paddling? Why are we out here for two days, our last two days together, instead of having a couple of nice dinners, instead of sleeping in an actual bed, instead of real air conditioning?

Theo must have read some of it in his body because he said, “The canoe can get damaged when we hit rocks, like what happened a few minutes ago. The last thing we need is to start taking on water, especially if it means getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

Everywhere in this state is the middle of nowhere, Auggie considered telling him.

“So,” Theo said, and there was that tone again, “remember, you stay on your side unless I tell you to switch. Keep your paddle vertical. Bring the blade along the side of the canoe. And we paddle in sync—one, two, one, two. That’s really important; there’s a huge difference between paddling individually and paddling together.”

“Right,” Auggie said. And he thought, here it is, two days and a million more ways to prove to Theo I have no clue how to do anything.

The river babbled. Something moved on the bank, twigs snapping. When Theo shifted, the sound of water against the canoe’s aluminum skin changed, and then he was rubbing Auggie’s neck and the small part of his back that the vest left uncovered.

“I know this isn’t your thing, and I really appreciate you doing this for me—oh shit!”

Theo’s oh shit happened around the same time as a soft, strangely fleshy thump and then a splash. Theo moved, rocking the canoe as his hand jerked away from Auggie’s back. Without really thinking about it, Auggie turned to see what had happened.

A snake wriggled on top of the cooler, in the middle of the canoe between Theo and Auggie. It was black, and it had to be close to three feet long. Theo’s paddle spun where it had fallen in the water, already beyond Theo’s reach.

Auggie pivoted at the waist, bringing his own paddle around in an arc. He caught the snake with the blade and knocked it into the water. Then he did some frantic back-paddling, slowing them until Theo could recover his paddle.

When Theo sat up, his eyes were still huge. Water ran down the paddle’s shaft, trickled across his knuckles, made them gleam when the water caught the light.

“Holy shit,” Auggie said as his brain started to process what had just happened.

Theo nodded.

“Theo, holy shit, that was a snake!”

Nodding some more, Theo said, “That was fucking amazing.”

Auggie’s heart was still hammering in his chest, but he forced himself to shrug. As soon as he was facing forward again, he replayed Theo’s words, and a tiny smile slipped out. He tried to keep his voice even as he called back over his shoulder, “One, two?”

“One, two.”

3

“There aren’t going to be anymore snakes.” Theo was struggling to keep his voice—well, regulated seemed liked a pretty good word for it. He stood in the river, the water up to his calves, holding the canoe.

Auggie stood on the muddy bank, bashing every bush and snarl of weeds with his paddle. Preemptively. “But what if there are?”

“There aren’t. They don’t like humans; that was a fluke. The dumb thing just fell out of its tree.”

“It was a planned attack.”

“It was not—”

“It was dive-bombing us, Theo. And it almost worked.”

“Auggie, sweetheart, can you look at me for a second?”

When Auggie turned around, his cheeks were flushed, and he had a look in his eyes like he meant to do some more paddle-based deforestation.

“Help me get the canoe out of the river. We’ll eat lunch. You need to drink some water. Then we can rest for a little.”

After a moment, Auggie nodded. He tucked the paddle under one arm and dragged the canoe up the bank while Theo pushed. When it was safely beached, Theo pointed to a clearing above them. “Let’s move the cooler up there.”

He tucked the tarp under one arm, and then, each of them taking a handle, they hauled the cooler up the bank and into the clearing. They spread out the tarp, and Theo weighted down three corners with rocks from the shore and used the cooler on the fourth. Auggie, meanwhile, patrolled the perimeter, paddle cocked over one shoulder like a baseball bat.

“I didn’t know you were afraid of snakes,” Theo said. As soon as Auggie looked at him, Theo realized it had been the wrong thing to say. “I mean—”

“I’m not afraid of snakes, Theo.”

“No, I know. You were amazing back there. You kept your cool, you didn’t freeze—”

“When I am in the wilderness—”

“There’s a Walmart, like, five miles that way.”

Another look told Theo that this kind of input was not appreciated. Auggie continued, “—I am appropriately cautious about anything that is venomous and pointy-toothed and that might want to sneak-attack me—” The last few words were delivered in a shout as Auggie brought down the paddle on an unsuspecting clump of honeysuckle. A fox burst free and sprinted off into the brush. Wiping his face, Auggie said, “—and I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

“It’s not unreasonable,” Theo said. Auggie subsided, still breathing a little too fast, and Theo opened the cooler and waved him over. “Come drink some water.” As Auggie moved toward him, Theo said, “And maybe take it easy on the paddle? Use a branch or something? Because Jacob will chew my ass if we break one, not to mention it would be a pain to finish the float with only one.”

Auggie made a face, but he accepted a bottle of water, and he let out a small, appreciative noise as Theo unbuckled his vest. Theo slipped it off him, and then he took off his own vest, and he peeled off his wet shirt. Auggie was still drinking, but he managed to do a lot of leering at Theo while doing so—it had to do with turning his head and roving his eyes up and down.

“Pervert,” Theo said with a laugh as he knelt. He got out the sandwiches, more water, and a couple of beers. He used the cooler’s built-in opener, and he passed the first one to Auggie, who immediately switched from the water.

“You have to drink the water too, Auggie. You don’t want to get dehydrated on the river.”

Auggie rolled his eyes, but after that, he switched back and forth between the beer and the water. They ate, and Theo applied more sunscreen to Auggie, Auggie sitting in the vee of his legs. He could feel the tension in Auggie’s shoulders and neck, and putting on the sunscreen turned into an impromptu massage. By degrees, Auggie melted against him.

“Are you ok?” Theo asked.

Auggie nodded bonelessly. “It just kind of caught up with me. The snake, I mean. And being out here. And not knowing what to do, not knowing anything, and then I felt like I was on high alert, and—I don’t know, there are bugs, and my ass hurts, and my back hurts—no, keep doing that.”

“Spoiled,” Theo murmured, but he went back to kneading Auggie’s shoulders and kissed his ear. “There are places to pull out early.”

“You know how that sounds, right?”

Theo smacked his flank. “We shouldn’t have started with an overnight trip. We’ll get to the next pull-out—stop laughing, please—and I’ll call Jacob.”

“No—”

“Yeah.”

“No, Theo, don’t do that. I’m having a good time. Well, mostly, I mean. I love being with you. I love being outside, um, ok, full disclosure, usually not quite this much outside. But it’s been fun. And the food helped, and the water helped, and the beer definitely helped, and I promise that I am one-hundred percent cured of snake fever or snake madness or snake-river madness or whatever the locals call it.”

“Uh huh.”

“I am. I’m fine. I’m having a great time.”

Theo was quiet for a minute, letting the sound of the breeze, the branches, the ripple and murmur of the river fill the clearing. Then he said, “You had a raging case of snake fever when I checked how badly your nipples were chafing.” Auggie elbowed him, and Theo whoofed as the breath was driven out of his lungs. He still managed to croak, “And you had a pretty bad relapse when I was applying that sunscreen.”

Auggie got up and stalked toward the river.

“Come back,” Theo said. “I think I know how to cure it.”

Without looking back, Auggie flipped him the bird. Then, after another stride, he added his other hand.

“I need you to help me with the cooler,” Theo shouted after him.

“It’s got wheels,” Auggie shouted. “Use the damn wheels!”

4

Dusk mantled everything like over-washed linen—a textured, loose-weave gloom that gave the world a blue cast.

“Up here on the right,” Theo said.

Auggie nodded, but he didn’t respond; his shoulders were slumped, and although he kept paddling, the strokes were slower, and the paddle didn’t go as deep into the water. They bumped up against the muddy bank, and they climbed out. Together, they dragged the canoe up onto the shore. Auggie helped Theo unload their minimalist camping gear, but for every two trips Theo made, Auggie made one.

“Tell you what,” Theo said as they set down the last of the gear. “I’m going to get a fire started, and then you can set up dinner while I do the tent.”

Auggie nodded.

“You ok?”

The younger man offered a weary smile and a thumbs-up.

Once the fire was going, Theo let Auggie start digging through the cooler—there wasn’t much dinner prep, since dinner consisted of hot dogs and a tub of pre-made potato salad, but Auggie looked wiped, and Theo knew if he told him to rest, Auggie would immediately protest and insist that he could do something to help. Besides, the pup tent was a one-man job, and Theo had it up and ready in a few minutes. He left the rain fly off because the sky was clear, but he made sure he had the ground cloth tucked under the tent, and then he unrolled the sleeping bags and laid them out.

By the time he’d finished, Auggie had opened the package of hot dogs, and he was using Theo’s knife to whittle some sticks. Something must have shown on Theo’s face because Auggie said, “We never really went camping, but a few times, Fer and I did s’mores in the fire pit. When I was younger, I mean. He said they tasted better if you used sticks, but I think that’s because that’s when we didn’t have any money and he didn’t want to buy the wire ones.” He held out one of the sticks. “How’d I do?”

“Perfect. As usual.” Taking the stick, Theo crouched next to the cooler and speared one of the hot dogs. “I knew we made a good team, but it’s nice to know that includes float trips. I couldn’t think of anybody I’d rather have here with me.”

The words had their anticipated effect: Auggie brightened, the praise running through him, his shoulders relaxing, his chin coming up, a hint of a smile glowing behind everything else in his expression.

They roasted the dogs over the flames. They’d only brought one folding chair, and no matter how many times Theo insisted, Auggie refused to take it, and Theo refused to let Auggie sit on the cooler (their other seating option), so they ended up sitting next to each other on the ground, their backs against the cooler, turning the dogs slowly over the fire.

“This would be a great time for a wiener joke,” Auggie said.

“Go right ahead.”

“No, I’m just pointing it out. Unlike earlier. When you took advantage of my vulnerability.”

Theo hid his smile and nodded.

“It would also be a great time to talk about spit-roasting,” Auggie said.

Something got caught in Theo’s throat.

When he’d recovered, he caught the last glimmer of Auggie’s smile before smooth innocence extinguished it.

“Very funny, Auggie.”

The smirk didn’t touch Auggie’s mouth, but it was there, in his eyes. He scooted closer, his hip and thigh pressed against Theo’s. The night wasn’t exactly cool, and the campfire and the humidity made it even warmer, but Theo decided he didn’t mind.

After they’d washed up and gotten the camp ready for the night, they crawled into the tent. A mesh vent above let them look up between the trees, where the sky was silver with stars. The night was full of restless, summer sounds: crickets, mosquitos, the river, the trees, even the breeze plucking at the tent’s nylon and making it thrum.

“Ok,” Auggie said. “This is cool.”

Theo smiled up at the dark and shifted around until Auggie’s head rested on his shoulder.

“It’s so weird,” Auggie said. “I mean, it’s cool. But there’s all these things around us. All these living things. And I spend my whole life not seeing them or not—I don’t know, not thinking about them, not even knowing they’re out there. I’m not making any sense. And the stars, Theo. Holy shit.”

“I know,” Theo said. “My dad and my brothers and I used to float every summer. A few times, actually. It’s one of the rare recreational things that Jacob and my dad will agree to do—Luke and I had this theory that it was because it’s still so much damn work.”

Auggie was silent for a moment. “Used to?”

“They still go.”

Something moved off in the woods, the snap of a branch, the rustle of leaves. Auggie startled against Theo’s arm, and then he let out a noise that was half-amusement and half-outrage. A few minutes later, his breathing thick, he said, “I can’t believe how tired I am.”

“Go to sleep,” Theo said. “You worked hard today.”

Minutes ticked past. Theo was tired too—exhausted was probably a better word, because it was always more work handling a canoe with someone who didn’t know what they were doing, even if Auggie was fit and smart and learned quickly. But sleep didn’t come. He hadn’t meant to say that, about his dad and his brothers. It sounded like a reason, like that was why he’d brought Auggie, and now he was wrestling with the need to shake Auggie awake, tell him that wasn’t it at all. He hadn’t meant to say anything.

Auggie rolled onto his side, his face burrowing into Theo’s side, and Theo noticed something. He stopped thinking about anything else.

“Hey Theo,” Auggie said muzzily.

“Uh huh?”

“I’ve got a bit of a snake-fever situation.”

Theo moved his leg, and Auggie made a noise and shivered. “Yeah,” Theo said, moving his thigh again, applying pressure. “I thought I might have noticed that.”

“Great,” Auggie said, and then he found one of Theo’s hands and brought to his chest, and he gasped when Theo rubbed his nipples—they had to be twice as sensitive tonight. He rocked forward, trapping his erection between his body and Theo’s, and made a noise again. Then, in a sex-drunk voice, he said, “And, you know, in case it’s relevant, I did remember to pack some lube.”

5

It was late morning when they heard the first scream. Then a splash, and a chorus of hollers. Theo tried to keep his face blank as Auggie turned around.

“Local color,” Theo said. “What’s the prime directive?”

“Uh, what?”

“Star Trek?”

“Oh, Theo.”

Theo splashed him. With the paddle. Thoroughly. Auggie shrieked and laughed and tried to splash him back, although admittedly it was harder since he had to turn around to do it. In the front of the canoe, though, he made a perfect target.

“Star Trek,” Theo said with one final splash, “is cool now. Everything nerdy is cool now. It’s a thing that happened, Auggie. In the 2000s.”

Auggie nodded.

“Oh my God,” Theo said. “Whatever you’re about to say, stop.”

“We learned about it in history.”

“I said stop.”

“Those were simpler times.”

“Auggie, I swear to God, let it go.”

“Back when Ma and Pa and little Theo—”

“Ok,” Theo said, shifting forward. “Here we go.”

“I don’t care if you splash me anymore!” Auggie grinned over his shoulder. “I’m already soaking wet.”

“Yeah,” Theo said, “but I haven’t dunked you yet.”

Auggie scream-laughed, trying to fend Theo off with the paddle, and after a few pretend attempts—first to knock Auggie out of the canoe, and then to tip them both over—Theo gave up and settled onto his seat. Auggie kept laughing and looking warily back until Theo spritzed him once, just the edge of the paddle skimming the river.

That was when Theo heard another scream and splash. Closer. And a deep-voiced man shouted, “Did you see them titties fly?”

More laughter broke out, men and women enjoying the joke. Prime directive or no prime directive, Theo thought, even Captain Picard might be tempted to go scorched earth on a planet if it meant avoiding yet another series of eye-rolls or sighs or, worse, judgmental silences from his boyfriend who, in this case, might as well be from another planet.

When they came around the next bend in the river, Theo saw them. He should have anticipated this. It was another clear, hot day—a beautiful day, as far as float trips were concerned—and today was Saturday, which meant other people would want to use the river.

This group was waiting in the water, facing a point on the shore high enough that it might almost be called a bluff, where a massive cottonwood grew and spread its branches out over the river. There had to be almost twenty of them, and they looked like the kind of people Theo had grown up with—heavier guys with beards, skinny guys trying to grow facial hair, girls with tattoos on their ankle, on their shoulder, on their forearm—lots of feminine script spelling out phrases like Be kind or maybe just a single word like love, or if they’d spent a lot of time on Instagram, maybe the phases of the moon. They floated in a loose circle, using a mixture of devices—canoes, both fiberglass and aluminum; inner tubes; an inflatable raft; even—

“Is that guy riding a sex doll?” Auggie straightened up in his seat and shaded his eyes. “I mean, not in a sexual way. Although, I guess, maybe. But it would be hard to do that while you were floating. Unless you were strapped on, maybe, but you still had enough range of motion to thrust—”

“No more theorizing.”

Auggie glanced back, grinning. Then he dug out his phone. Theo held his silence until Auggie had snapped his pictures. They were floating past the group when a rail-thin girl swung out over the water. The crowd cheered. At the end of the arc, the crowd cheered, and she screamed as she plummeted down into the water.

“Damn,” one of the heavy-set guys said, adjusting his Carhartt hat and then scratching one hairy shoulder. “No titties on that.”

“Do not say anything,” Theo said as they continued to float past. A few of the men and women turned and waved, and Theo lifted his paddle in salute.

Auggie, of course, waved back energetically.

“Don’t encourage them,” Theo said.

“I was being friendly.”

Even though the current was carrying them, Theo set his paddle and gave them a few strokes on each side, propelling them forward. He refused to look back when a girl screamed, “Oh my God,” and another girl screamed, “She lost her top,” and the deep-voiced guy bellowed, “Titties!”

“They’re having fun,” Theo said in a low voice.

Auggie glanced back, a furrow between his eyebrows.

“I know it’s not the way your friends have fun.”

“Really? Because you should hear Ethan and Orlando talk. Especially when Orlando remembers he’s bi.”

“I’m only saying, just because it’s different, just because it’s not what you’re used to, doesn’t mean—” He cut off. He adjusted his hat and shook his head. Right then, he felt like he needed more sunscreen.

The furrow between Auggie’s eyebrows looked even deeper. “Did I do something—”

The splash behind them was followed by a different kind of scream—not hurt or panic, but annoyance and dismay. Theo glanced back. Apparently the now-topless girl had somehow overturned one of the canoes. A guy floated in the water next to her now, holding on to the canoe with one hand as he spat water and shook his head. Their gear—paddles, a foam seat pad, a spare life vest, and the cooler—drifted toward Auggie and Theo.

Sighing, Theo turned the canoe, and Auggie helped him paddle into position. Between the two of them, they recovered the paddles and the seat pad and even the vest, but the cooler slipped past them.

“It’s fine,” Theo said. “It’ll end up on a sand bar, and they’ll—Auggie, no!”

With surprising ease for someone who hadn’t been in a canoe until the day before, Auggie slipped over the side and swam after the cooler. He was a good swimmer, because of course he was. When he reached the cooler, he caught it by the handle. Then he turned and tried to swim upstream. It was harder, because of the cooler and, more so, because of the current. In spite of Auggie’s best efforts, all he could manage was to stay in place and keep from being swept farther downstream.

Theo let the canoe float down toward him, and then he back-paddled until he found a place out of the current to rest. He watched Auggie fight the river for another minute. Upstream, the entire group of friends was watching.

“Auggie,” Theo said in a voice he hoped wouldn’t carry, “just stand up and walk.”

Auggie spat water. “Huh?”

“It’s not that deep here, and you’re never going to outswim the current while you’re towing a cooler.”

Auggie stared at him. Then, he brought his legs down. When he stood, the water hit him at the waist.

“You have got to be shitting me.”

Theo was very careful not to smile. He watched as Auggie carried the cooler back to the crowd of friends. He couldn’t hear what they were saying. Theo didn’t exactly hold his breath, but he was aware of the tightness in his chest, and he couldn’t do anything about it. Then he heard laughter—real, genuine laughter, and Auggie—now free of the cooler—swam up to one of the canoes, and the topless girl took a selfie with him, and then all of the girls wanted a selfie with him, and then there were group photos. Auggie even got one of himself riding the sex doll.

Why, Theo thought, had he used the word riding?

When Auggie got back, he was significantly less graceful clambering back into the canoe. He wiped his face, pushed back the spikes of hair that, wet with the river, looked like silk. He grinned. Then he said, “What?”

“Nothing,” Theo said, smiling as he nudged them away from the shore. “That was very nice.”

6

“I’m holding the rope,” Auggie announced on the landing.

For someone who wanted to be a professor, Theo did a lot of eye-rolling—in Auggie’s opinion, anyway. Although, based on some of the classes he’d had, and some of the professors he’d dealt with, maybe that was a requirement.

“With my hand,” Auggie added.

“Dear Lord,” Theo muttered as he headed up the embankment, gravel crunching under his shoes. Without looking back, he said, “Please do not let go, Auggie.”

“Uh, Theo?”

Theo whipped back around. Auggie grinned and held up the rope. Hands on his hips, Theo stared at him, probably doing some sort of internal counting. Then he turned and stalked back up the hill. It was so easy that it probably shouldn’t have been so much fun.

Auggie trapped the rope under his heel—only for a second!—and opened one of the dry bags. He found his phone, and he powered it up. He lost the rope. Then he caught it. He kept it in his hand this time, watching as his phone searched for a signal. Then the messages started flooding in, and the notifications, and the alerts, and all the wonderful sounds that told him he was plugged back in to the wider world. He opened up Instagram and started navigating through his notifications, checking who had tagged him, reading comments on the posts that had come in after they’d started the float trip, noting new content from friends and rivals and people who fell into both categories. He watched a video of a dog splashing in a kiddie pool while a woman screamed, “Marigold, no! No!” and then slipped and fell in the pool with the dog, which gave him an idea for a whole skit with Orlando (obviously the puppy in that scenario).

He was watching the video a second time when, from a distance, he registered Theo saying, “I’ll take that,” and then the rope left his hand, and Theo laughed about something—although Auggie had no idea what.

As he scrolled through his Twitter feed, he crunched his way up the pull-out. Theo was still tying down the canoe. “Ok, first order of business,” Auggie said, “is to find a bathroom, a decent one, where I can take a dump without: a) having to dig a hole in the ground, b) having to worry about getting bit in the ass by a snake, and c) having to fill in the hole when I’m done.”

“Are you telling me you didn’t use the bathroom at all the last two days?” Theo asked.

Auggie looked at him.

“Ok,” Theo said. “No questions.”

“Then we’ve got to find somewhere we can get chili cheese fries. Oh, and tacos. Oh! And Theo, you know what would be really good? Have you ever had bulgogi?”

“We were barely on the river two days. Closer to twenty-four hours. It’s not like we did a tour in Afghanistan eating MREs.”

“It’s so good,” Auggie said, flipping over to Facebook. “It’s Korean barbeque. Oh my God, Ethan did not post that blooper clip without talking to me first.”

He sent a message to Ethan, who, of course, didn’t reply. Then he sent a message to Orlando. Orlando did reply, but all it said was: augs you survived I think I got chlamydia but Ethan says it was just too much ball play.

“Why am I even friends with them?” Auggie asked out loud. “Oh, and you know what else? Actually, if possible, maybe this should go between the dump and the food. A shower. Like a really hot shower. With you. And then we can order pizza and bask in the glorious lukewarm air in front of the window unit. Theo, did you hear the part about the hot shower, your presence mandatory?”

The sound of the water, the rasp of the nylon rope, the creak of the trailer’s suspension, the harsh chime of the aluminum canoe striking a strut. Auggie looked up. Theo’s face wasn’t dark, but it was…empty. Or elsewhere. His attention was fixed on the knot he was doing, but even that seemed like it only took part of his attention. And Auggie remembered the night before, in the tent. He silenced his phone and tossed it in the truck. In the back seat of the cab. Because he wasn’t going to need it.

“Can I help?”

Theo blinked, as though he’d forgotten Auggie was there. He smiled, and it had an echo in it, but he nodded. “Pull this tight while I—yep, perfect.”

“Hey Theo?”

Theo crouched to check another of the ties, and he made a noise.

“Thanks.”

Theo looked up.

“Not just for planning this and prepping for it and making sure it was perfect. Just, you know. For everything.”

For a moment, Theo studied him. Then he stood and kissed him.

“Maybe this could be our thing now. Our summer thing.” Auggie held up a finger. “Two days max.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to. We’re starting our own traditions, and this was fun, and you love it, and I love doing it with you. That’s not how I meant it to sound. But also, yes, that.”

After a moment, some of the watchfulness in Theo’s face relaxed, and he smiled. “No sex dolls next time. And no improvised ‘man overboard.’”

Auggie burst out laughing. “Oh my God, when I was trying to swim against the current. I just need you to know, right now, that what happens on a float trip stays on a float trip.”

“Uh huh.”

“Don’t you dare tell Orlando.”

“Every summer, huh?” But Theo was smiling as he tightened another of the ties. “Sounds like fun.”

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