are you afraid of the dark?

2. bikes

We only had two more days left in the weekend and I intended on exploiting them to their fullest potential.

Yesterday, we went apple picking a few miles from my dad's cabin here in upstate New York, but today is a new day with fresh opportunities.

Up here, it was like time tended to stop for hours at once. Like it didn't matter at all because we were always far too busy to check how many minutes were left before dusk. Perhaps that's why I had told Rebecca she couldn't come on our daily outings; because she would always wonder when we were leaving or what time it was or what we were gonna do next and I couldn't have her intruding on my only available relaxation time. Or, perhaps, I had ulterior motives that are only now materializing in my head after what happened yesterday at the orchard; things about Steve and myself of which one, strangely enough, should never speak.

At daybreak, the bright, orange sun woke me up in the room Steve and I had been sharing. Normally, if it had been but two months ago, Rebecca would have been in the bed Steve was in and he'd have to take the couch in the living room. Perhaps I just wanted him closer to me and that's why I asked my dad to lay with her in the living room, and kind of just watch her for the weekend...

I rolled over and faced the other twin bed across the room to see his eyes were still closed. I smiled at how peaceful he looked and hoped, maybe, I fell asleep first last night and he looked at me then as I'm looking at him now and smiled just the same.

I looked over him to see how perfect he was anew, in case I had subconsciously forgotten overnight. I noticed something... a lump in the covers and- by God.

I forced myself to look away. What more could I do, stare at it? He stirred and I closed my eyes as a last resort. I couldn't have him catching me looking at his morning wood; Christ, that sounds worse than anything.

"Buck?" he grumbled.

I flickered my eyes open as if he had woken me up. "Mhmm?"

"What's the plan today?" he wondered, stretching.

"Wanna bike into the woods?"

He chuckled. "You know me so well."

I smiled to myself. "I sure do," I stood, throwing the covers from my body and making my way to the duffel bag I'd packed a few days ago to pull out some clothes for the day.

After a few moments, he, too, stood and did the same thing I had.

We both dressed and had breakfast with dad and packed a sack for the lunch we planned on having in the woods midday. It all seemed so simple out here.

He mounted his bike first and I followed his lead, the basket of food strapped to the back of my bike.

It felt like yesterday was flooding into today somehow, as I watched him biking instead of watching the trail before me. I noticed, anew, the golden streaks of amber hidden in his wind-blown hair, even from the distance I was away. The way the sun peeked up among the mountains and scattered light through the brown leaves of the surrounding trees left him looking like he was glowing in his own right; as if that was something I'd never imagined before...

After what felt like half an hour, he strayed from the trail that had been forged by myself or someone else that wanders through this region of the woods and wandered into an area I'd never seen. We approached a clearing, so he went on and, eventually, stopped in the middle of this wonderful open area. The sun peeked out more than usual here and seemed to create the perfect spot for us to simply relax.

He balanced his bike upon a tree along the forest-line, where I then followed and did the same, taking only the basket with me.

He looked around and seemed to bask in what warmth the autumnal sun could provide on a windy day such as today. He took in a deep breath to smell the fresh wood around us, somewhat crunchy grass beneath us, cool air above us. I watched him in all this, though he never met my eye as I'd hoped he might.

"What now?" he wondered, approaching me again, as he'd wandered rather far into the clearing before us.

I shrugged. "Good question, I've got nothing."

He smiled at me, looking down. "That's unfortunate, but I suppose it's nice enough out to just sit around and watch the day pass us by, huh?"

"I mean, that actually sounds like it could be fun," I agreed. "We can think of more stuff to actually do throughout the morning, you know, if they come to us."

He nodded. "You packed the-"

"Blanket, yea," I smiled, reaching into the basket to retrieve it.

He helped me lay it out on the grass and, immediately after it had been done perfectly, he plopped down on it diagonally and laid there.

In my head, there was no other option but to lay there, my head next to his and my body pointing in the other direction, next to him.

The first moments passed slowly, both of us just looking up at the blank slate of a sky and thinking about as close to nothing as we could get. That, though, was when it started to get hard... almost literally, in fact.

I could hear his breath, and not in a strange or gross way, but it was so gentle, as I would imagine it would be. Almost weathered and compromised, but perfectly suiting nonetheless.

Then, as the wind started to change direction in all of its gentleness, I smelled his everything. It wasn't a cologne, not like either of us had enough money to actually purchase that sort of thing; it was him. It was all him. It smelled almost young and courageous, if those are even words that one uses to describe scents. Not that it mattered in the slightest, though, because I love it either way. It pulled me in, made my body beg for more even when I begged it to calm down.

I cleared my throat with the hope that it might clear my mind, but it didn't. It only made him turn his head to look at me sideways. I kept looking up, trying not to smile and trying not to turn, as I near-avoided him in that moment.

But, as I always find with all things Steve, it doesn't matter how much I avoid him, because I'll always end up right where I said I wouldn't let myself get to anyway.

I turned my head, met his eyes and couldn't look away.

This is exactly why I was avoiding this. The big, child-like eyes, his golden hair, those damn lips I just looked at for way too long.

His tongue poked out slightly between his lips as he wet them; I closed my eyes and looked back up at the sky.

"Are you hungry at all?" I asked nervously.

"I could eat, I suppose."

"Okay," I sat up quickly and started to prepare everything.

In doing so, I looked over at him and realized that this doesn't have to be so terrifying for me. That I'm not the only variable in the equation at this point because, well, there's two of us. If he's acting the way he just did a moment ago, there's gotta be something racing through his head too.

All I'm trying to say is, I'm done being the one who's scared of this. I'm taking control, and it's about to get... hot.

For him, at least.