When You Know

14 - Welcome to camping with the boys.

I woke up before the other two did and continued to lay in the tent for a while, needing to pee so bad I thought my bladder was going to explode. With the three of us in the one tent, it was kind of cramped and I was worried that if I moved, I would wake them up.

I reached my breaking point after what felt like ten minutes and decided I had to get up and risk waking them, unzipping the tent and practically bolting to the first tree I saw to pee. I didn't even bother trying to make it to the actual toilet block.

I heard quiet laughter behind me, paused mid-stream and whipped my head around to see Tanner sitting in his camping chair with a cup of coffee in his hand. "Really needed to go, huh?"

Being caught in this uncomfortable position, I could now feel the cold air hitting my now very red and embarrassed cheeks, and imagined that he might even see the steam radiating off them. I finished peeing and walked over to a chair next to his, not saying a word I was so incredibly embarrassed.

"Relax, Madden. We've all been there," he said, pointing to a different tree nearby that had a similar wet patch on its trunk. "Welcome to camping with the boys."

We both laughed quietly, not wanting to wake anyone up. Tanner made me a hot chocolate and we sat together drinking and waiting for everyone else to wake up. I asked him whether he was excited about his wedding, and he said he would be if Morgan wasn't so pregnant, because he was always worried that she was going to have the baby in the middle of the ceremony.

He said they had planned and put a deposit on a lot of things for the wedding things before they found out Morgan was pregnant, and didn't want to have to reorganise everything until after she had the baby. So, they settled on reducing the size of the wedding and making it a much smaller party with their close friends and family, and he's holding his breath and crossing his fingers that she doesn't have the baby at least until Monday. I told him I would cross my fingers and my toes for him as well.

Tanner talked to me about how glad he was that Mum and Ruben were together again, and I had to try my best to hide my knowing smile when he talked about them getting married one day. "You know, it wouldn't surprise me if he got caught up in all the emotion and just asked her tomorrow. He loves her so much, Madden."

"Yeah, he really does." I said, trying to keep a straight face, but feeling like I was failing miserably. You swore you wouldn't say anything, Madden. Control yourself!

"No fucking way. He already has, hasn't he?" He didn't even care that he swore in front of me. He was staring at me hard, like he was testing me to see how long it would take until I cracked. I was determined not to say anything, though; so I just stared at the last mouthful of brown liquid in the bottom of my cup and tried to avoid his eye contact. "Holy shit. He has! Why the hell didn't they tell us?"

I had already screwed up, giving their news away unintentionally, but I didn't want Tanner to tell them that I had and have them both mad at me. Actually, it would probably just be Mum who was mad. Ruben wanted to tell everyone the very second she said yes, but Mum thought it would be insensitive given Tanner and Morgan were just about to get married themselves. I decided to tell him all this as I was already busted, but made him swear to not say anything, and boy, did it take some convincing.

His first response was, "To hell with that. My best friends are finally getting married! It's too exciting to keep quiet about. I'm going to go wake him now to congratulate him." My pleas for him not to say anything seemed to go unnoticed for a while, but when I turned on the waterworks and started begging him, tugging at his arm as strong as I could to not leave, he seemed to grasp how desperate I was for his silence.

"If I promise to keep it to myself and not tell Morgan or Sadie, can I at least say something to Rubes?" he asked me.

"Only if it's 'Congrats. It's about time'," said Ruben, emerging shirtless from our tent nearby, yawning and stretching his arms wide. He didn't look mad, but that could just have been because he had just woken up and was too tired to make his face look angry. I was too scared to look too closely in case he was disappointed in me. That was one of the very last things I would ever want.