'Morning,' I said cheerfully, dropping down next to Jackson the following morning in the hotel's restaurant. He had a bowl of Cheerios in front of him, but was focusing more on the open Pages document on his MacBook.
'Hey,' he said absently.
'I have something for you,' I said, sliding the photo I'd taken with his camera yesterday towards him on the table.
'Oh cool,' he said, dragging his attention away from his computer and picking up the polaroid to examine it closely. 'Whoa,' he said after a second. 'This is awesome.'
'Yeah, I really like how it came out,' I said, looking at it over his shoulder. It had framed up really well; Daniel and Philip at Chloe's head and ankles respectively to the left, Jackson and Conor carrying Sally in the middle, and Josh and Tarquin holding Rachel on the right. The sun had caused a slight light leak to fan in from the top right hand corner, and the water and horizon all looked idyllic. 'I also got some pretty cool digital shots of the aftermath if you want to take a look at them. I can edit them to make them look like polaroids if you want to use them..'
'Yeah, great, let me see.'
I pulled out my phone and accessed the photos, showing him.
'Fucking hell, dude,' Jackson said after a minute, grinning. 'These are amazing. You are so good.'
I beamed happily. 'I'll polaroid-ify them tonight. Maybe you could stick them together in like a photo booth-style strip or something, that would be cool.'
'Yeah, that's a really good idea. I'll mention it to my editor.'
'Have you told her about me taking the pictures from now on yet?'
'Yeah, I emailed her this morning. I sent her some of your portfolio work so she could see what you can do. She's pretty happy. She said, "He's a better photographer",' he added, grinning.
'Sweet. So what are you guys up to for today?'
'I think Sally and Rachel are going shopping with Chloe,' he said warily. 'So that's about nine maxed-out credit cards in the pipeline. Josh and I were talking about maybe getting the boat out to Granville Island. It's like the Fisherman's Wharf of Vancouver, I think. You wanna come with us?'
I shook my head. 'Conor and I are going hiking,' I said.
Jackson laughed. 'You? Are going hiking?'
I nodded. 'If I'm gonna start taking this modelling thing seriously then I'm gonna have to start, you know, exercising. Why not start with Beautiful British Columbia?'
'What if you see a bear?'
'I am confident Conor will protect me from any bears,' I joked, as the boy in question finally made his way down from our room and dropped into the seat next to me.
'Oh, for sure,' he confirmed. 'As a model your face is now more valuable than mine. It makes more sense for me to take a mauling than you.'
'See?' I said to Jackson triumphantly.
'Come on, you,' Conor went on, nudging me. 'Let's get going.' I noticed he had a backpack with him, which presumably contained some snacks, bottled water, and sunscreen.
We said goodbye to Jackson and I followed Conor out of the restaurant back towards the lobby.
'So Sarah offered to get us a driver, but I told her we'd make own way. Is that cool with you? It's kind of a trek to even get there; we have to get the train to a boat, then take the boat to a bus, then take that bus for like forty minutes.'
I shrugged noncommittally. 'If you're happy, I'm happy.'
'I feel relatively safe in public here after nobody bothered us yesterday,' Conor said happily.
'Maybe nobody here knows who you are,' I teased. 'How were ticket sales for this gig? Did anybody buy them?'
'You're hilarious,' he said sarcastically, pulling his snapback and sunglasses out of the backpack and putting them on his head firmly. 'You too,' he insisted, so I did likewise.
It did end up taking about about an hour and a half to make it to Lynn Canyon Park, and there was almost something more conspicuous about the two of us obviously trying to hide our faces, but we made it pretty clear with our body language that we didn't want to be disturbed and people are usually pretty good at picking up on that.
'These are the tallest trees I've ever seen,' I said as we finally made our way into the park, gazing up at the Douglas firs wondrously. Conor threw his arm around my shoulder, causing me to trip sideways into him, and we both laughed, tripping over one another past a picnic area towards the suspension bridge entrance to the park proper.
'Okay,' he said authoritatively, gazing up at a large trail map with his hands on his hips. 'Which one do you want to do?'
We both examined it for a minute; then I pointed to one of the shorter ones. 'Let's do that one. It takes us up around a lake and we'll get back to town in time for dinner.'
'Okay. I'm in. Also,' he went on, flipping his backpack around to his front for a second and opening it. 'I brought this.' He pulled out my DSLR, grinning. 'I can keep carrying it if you don't want to but I thought you'd want to take some pictures while we're out here. Mountains and trees and shit, photographers like that crap, right?'
I laughed. 'The majesty and wonder of the world we inhabit? Yeah, we like that crap.'
He put the camera back in the backpack and took my hand, leading me towards the beginning of the trail. 'You're still the prettiest thing out here.'
We made our way along to trail, only passing other people occasionally and keeping our heads down when we did. I took responsibility for the camera for a little while and got some incredible shots of the mountains and the trees and yeah, plenty of Conor too. We eventually made the halfway-point of the lake and started to circle round it, stopping every now and then to just sort of stare at how fucking beautiful it was.
'Let's stop here for a while,' Conor suggested, pulling me by the hand closer to the edge of the lake, where the trees parted slightly and there was a large flat rock we could sit on and dangle our feet into the water.
Fat dragonflies buzzed lazily around the water's surface as we sat in silence and breathed and took in the view in front of us. In the distance we could see some people on the opposite edge of the lake fishing, but they were far enough away that we couldn't hear them. The sun was still beating down on us but we were mostly shaded by the trees and the water felt cool around my ankles. I've never felt quite so tranquil, and I'm not exactly what you would call a nature-lover.
We sat there quietly for about twenty minutes, until Conor said contentedly, 'I'm gonna marry you someday.'
I turned to stare at him. 'What?'
'I just decided,' he said, shrugging and still gazing peacefully out over the water.
I stared at him for another couple of seconds before smiling and turning back to follow his gaze. 'Okay.'
————————————
'Oh my god,' Josh said flatly when he saw us making our way back into the hotel lobby, holding hands with our heads close together and giggling. 'You guys fucked in the woods, didn't you.'
'All the other animals were doing it,' Conor said innocently as we joined them in the bar.
'Did you actually?' Jackson asked, wide eyed and alarmed.
'No,' I said emphatically. 'Are you serious?'
'It would not be even nearly the weirdest or most public place you guys have fooled around,' Josh commented evenly.
'We didn't, and even if we had, I don't see how it would be any of your business,' I told him. 'So shut up. How was your day?'
'Pretty good. We did the hipster thing and went to the public market. Ate fresh fruit, drank obnoxious coffee, pretended to like buskers.'
'Are the others back yet?'
I needn't have asked; as soon as the words were out of my mouth there was a flurry of commotion behind us and we turned to see Chloe, Sally, and Rachel ducking through the hotel's large glass doors. A handful of photographers were calling to them from outside as the doormen prevented them from entering.
Each of them had arms heavily laden with shopping bags and they were laughing together as they made their way inside.
'Hey, you,' Jackson said as Sally spotted him and they made their way over to join us. 'Looks like you had fun.'
'Up until we got papped,' she agreed happily. 'They've been following us for like four blocks but we felt stupid getting a cab for such a short distance.'
'You okay?' Josh asked Rachel warily.
She shrugged, grinning. 'Of course. I'm not the one they care about.'
'It's terribly unfair,' Chloe said, frowning slightly. 'You shouldn't have to put up with that sort of thing.'
'You on the other hand deserve every minute of it,' I joked, and she made a face at me.
'Maybe I should quit modelling and go to university,' she mused. 'Maybe I could go to Brown with you and we could share a dorm! That would be so fun. We could walk around campus together drinking Starbucks and wearing glasses.'
'I think you would probably still be "the supermodel that went to Brown",' Rachel told her sympathetically. 'Emma Watson went there and she was basically just "Hermione Granger at Brown", wasn't she?'
'Ah, yes,' Chloe said in defeat. 'The other Watson already did that. Of course.' This elicited a laugh from everyone, and she turned to me. 'Okay, listen mister,' she said. 'About Wednesday. If you have to... How do I put this?' She wiggled her fingers towards my body and continued, 'Maintain any of this, you should do it on Tuesday night.'
I blinked at her. 'What?'
She widened her eyes at me pointedly, but I still wasn't getting it, and the others started giggling.
'I think she means that if you have any body hair to take care of, you should do that,' Conor told me gently, but he was laughing too.
I looked back at her dumbly. 'You mean like... All of it?'
She pursed her lips. 'Let's go with waist and up.'
'Like... My arms any everything?'
Chloe looked like she was about to deck me, so Conor stepped in and said, 'I'll make sure he gets it.'
'Wait!' I interjected. 'Why though? What am I doing there, I thought I was just tagging along? How naked do I have to be?' I briefly pondered that this was the second time I'd had to ask that question this week.
Chloe closed one eyelid and put her finger to her lips, and that seemed to be all the answer I was going to get.
Sally changed the subject by turning to Jackson and saying, 'Rach and Chloe and I were going to have a sleepover tonight. Do you mind bunking with Josh?'
Jackson turned to Josh for confirmation. 'It's fine with me,' Josh said, 'but Rachel rubs my shoulders every night and makes gentle whale noises to lull me to sleep, so obviously you'll have to take over that duty.' He turned to me, winked, and stage whispered, 'Don't worry, she'll never be as good at it as you were.'
Rachel and I rolled our eyes, but Chloe was laughing and turned to her to ask, 'Oh my god, where did you get him? He's so funny!'
'No!' we both exclaimed at the same time, but it was too late; Josh had heard and was smirking at us triumphantly.
'I knew it!' he announced. 'I am hilarious. You've both been lying to me for years.'
'Time to go,' Rachel said seriously, grabbing Chloe and Sally by the wrists and dragging them off towards the elevators, leaving me alone to deal with Josh.
'Traitor!' I called after her retreating back.
'Well that trip to Stanford was a total waste of time,' Josh was saying now. 'Time to give up on academia and pursue my dream of stand-up.'
'Oh my god,' I deadpanned, rolling my eyes again.
'Or,' Jackson intervened, clearly amused, 'we could put off making any life-changing decisions for a while, get some dinner, head back to Josh's room, and get really, really drunk?'
This seemed like a much better idea, so we ordered some food straight to the bar, seeing as we couldn't exactly leave the hotel with the photographers still lingering outside.
An hour later we were sitting in Josh's room in a circle on the bed. There were four bottles of alcohol on one of the bedside tables along with several glasses, and he had somehow managed to produce a pack of playing cards from somewhere.
'If you're not going to let me become a stand-up comedian then you have to help me practice for college,' he reasoned, when I asked if we were actually going to play a drinking game. 'This one is on you, not me.'
I felt like there was several flaws in the logic but I decided not to argue.
'Which one are we playing then?' Conor asked, seemingly happy enough to go along with this.
'King's Cup, of course,' Josh informed him handing out the glasses. 'Okay, we have whiskey, vodka, rum, and tequila. Who's having which?'
'Whiskey for me,' Conor decided, reaching for the bottle.
'And the rum is mine,' I added.
'Okay. I'll take the tequila which leaves the vodka for you,' Josh said, handing the latter to Jackson. He reached over to his bedside table again and took out the Bible that was in there, placing it on its side in the middle of the bed and putting a fifth glass on top of it, like a sort of tray.
'Oh my god,' I said flatly.
'Exactly,' he replied.
'Are you serious?'
'What? It's just a book. If it had any real power all three of you would be smoking piles of ash already. I'm the only non-sinner in the room, you dirty group of buggering homosexuals.'
'Excuse me,' Jackson said mildly. 'I am bisexual.'
'Jesus doesn't care,' Josh told him, pouring his own drink.
'Okay, whatever,' I said, closing the topic. 'Let's just get started. If this isn't fun within like ten minutes I'm not playing anymore,' I warned him.
'We could always just empty one of these bottles and spin it,' Josh teased me. 'You liked that one well enough when we played it.'
Conor smirked.
'I'm already not having fun,' I warned him severely.
'Okay, okay. Shut up. You go first.'
I reached out and slipped a card from the top of the deck, turning it over to see it was the five of hearts. A five meant I was allowed to make a rule for the game, so I looked over at Josh triumphantly and said, 'Any time Josh feels the need to make fun of me, he has to drink.'
Jackson and Conor laughed. 'You're gonna fall off this bed in a stupor before the first round is over,' Jackson told him.
Josh narrowed his eyes at me, lifted his glass to his mouth, and sipped in what can only be described as a threatening manner.
I put the card aside and Jackson reached for the deck, turning over his card. It was a four, which meant the last person to touch the floor had to drink. We all leant over the side of the bed to do so, Josh wobbling a bit and nearly falling.
'Called it,' Jackson said happily, as Josh righted himself.
'Now I'm not having fun,' Josh announced, but he rolled his eyes and reach from the deck to take his turn. He got an eight, and glared at me furiously. 'Mate,' he said, and I groaned as my win from before backfired on me. Now every time Josh drank, I'd have to drink too. Conor and Jackson were shaking their heads and laughing. 'I'm having fun again,' he decided.
The game continued in this way for a while, with Josh and I trying to one-up one another at every opportunity, until eventually the cup in the centre of the bed was starting to look pretty full and it had been silently agreed that whoever got the final King card would be the ultimate loser.
Conor and Jackson gracefully retreated when there were only a handful of cards left and Josh and I squared up to finish out the game like gentlemen.
'Okay, you artless dizzy-eyed maggot,' Josh said drunkenly. 'Let's do this.'
'What?!' I demanded, laughing. 'What did you just say?!'
'Stop stalling, you dribbling clay-brained wagtail.'
'Are those from Shakespeare?!'
'Pick a card!'
'Okay, okay,' I laughed, holding up my hands defensively and then reaching for a card. 'It's a Jack,' I said, which was pointless, because it just meant that all the boys had to drink. We both drank.
'Ace,' Josh said, having turned over his own card. An ace meant a waterfall, which meant I couldn't stop drinking until he did. Naturally, he gulped heavily from his glass and I tried to stop my eyes from watering and the nausea from taking me over as I followed suit.
It wasn't until he finally stopped and I surfaced, gasping for air, that we noticed there was only one card left, and it was my turn. I eyed the King's Cup warily, with its mixture of whiskey, tequila, rum, and vodka, while Josh smirked in celebration at me.
Sighing, I reached out and turned over the card... To see that it was a perfectly innocent Queen.
'What?!' Josh demanded. 'No. Did we miss one of the Kings? Did we count wrong?'
Conor and Jackson shook their heads, looking bewildered.
'Oh this is just typical,' Josh said, annoyed. He jumped off the bed - not unimpressive in his inebriated state - and strode over to the mini bar. When he stood up he was holding two straws, and raised his eyebrows at me questioningly.
Everything in me was insisting I decline, so naturally I shrugged and said, 'Fuck it.'
Josh came back over and sat closer to me on the bed, lifting the cup and putting the two straws in it. Bracing ourselves, we put our heads close together, took a straw each, and started drinking.
By the time we had emptied the glass we were both groaning, wearing identical expressions of intense pain, and fighting back waves of nausea.
'I've never witnessed this kind of competitiveness in you before,' Conor observed with amusement as I lay on the bed in the foetal position while he stroked my hair. Jackson grabbed two bottles of water from the minibar and forced them at us, and we both drank tenderly from them.
'I'm going to kill you,' I whined at Josh as he shimmied across the bed on his side and into my field of vision.
Conor and Jackson scrambled over us to grab the coveted pillows-against-the-headboards spots on the bed while Josh and I continued to lay there in a sorry situation of our own making. They put on some music, presumably to drown out our death throes, and chatted amongst themselves, ignoring our anguish.
'I'm so drunk,' Josh said. 'I regret everything,'
'This is only going to get worse over the next twenty-four hours,' I said, squinting at the screen of my phone to try and read the time. 'It's only ten.'
'If we die I'm sorry,' Josh said, putting his hand over mine and wincing.
'I bet you'll die first,' I challenged, and he laughed weakly.
We looked at one another in silence for a little while, letting the music wash over us as the nausea finally started to pass.
'I can't believe we're not gonna be living together next year,' Josh finally said quietly. 'I get so upset every time I think about it.'
'I know,' I said sadly. 'Me too. I've been trying not to.'
'It feels like a break up.'
'Yeah. Except not one of those break ups where one person cheated or was a dick or you fell out of love. It's like one of those break ups where everything is perfect but you can't be together anyway.'
Josh nodded. 'You really do have to visit me all the time.'
'You really do have to send me Snapchats of your face every day.'
'I'm gonna feel so weird and half without you. Like most of the time when I imagine what it's going to be like and the things I'm going to do, you're there. And then I remember that you won't be and the thing doesn't seem as fun or exciting anymore.'
'I'd kinda gotten used to you just being... Attached. I've literally never gone longer than a month without seeing you since we met. This will be the longest we've ever been away from each other.'
Josh looked away and his face was twitching in a weird way and I realised he was trying not to cry.
'Don't fucking start!' I warned him, and we both laughed. 'You're my best friend,' I added once we'd settled down again.
'Ditto. I fucking love you.'
'I fucking love you too,' I joked. 'Also I really need to pee.' I rolled over onto my back and with some effort pushed myself up into a sitting position, pausing to gather my wits before sliding off the bed and staggering towards the bathroom sloppily.
I closed the door behind me and wobbled to the toilet, closing one eye to make sure I hit the mark, then stumbling to the sink to wash up. I glanced at my reflection and winced; the alcohol had given me a strange pallor, my hair was a mess, and my eyes were starting to appear red around the whites.
Curiously, I lifted my shirt to take a look at what was underneath, then glanced down to see better. What exactly had Chloe meant when she insinuated I should "maintain" my body hair? I don't have a whole lot of body hair to begin with; under my arms, on my legs, and I guess a little bit of a happy trail, but even thought my head hair is dark I'm lucky enough that my body hair is pretty light.
I wandered out of the bathroom still holding my shirt up around my neck.
The others looked up and Conor started laughing. 'What are you doing?' he asked.
'This,' I said, gesturing to my torso. 'What does Chloe want me to do with it exactly?'
'Take your shirt off,' Josh suggested, so I complied. 'She wants you to wax it, dude.'
'Oh god,' I replied, horrified.
Conor and Jackson were still laughing. 'There are other ways to remove body hair,' Jackson assured me. 'Much less painful ways.'
'Shut up, Jackson,' Josh told him. 'She definitely wants you to wax it,' he said again to me. 'I can help if you like.'
'Like two minutes ago you were being really nice to me, and now we're back to this,' I said.
Josh shrugged. 'I reached my quota.'
I made my way back to the bed and narrowed my eyes at them. 'Level with me,' I said. 'Do any of you do this?'
'I singe mine off with a candle flame,' Jackson said, and I looked at him like he was crazy until he started laughing again. 'It's too easy when you're this drunk.'
'I use a chainsaw,' Josh said happily. 'For my man hair.'
'It's honestly not a big deal,' Conor said, looking at me and clearly still amused. 'It's not like you have much to begin with.'
'You're smooth like a dolphin,' Josh agreed.
'You shave your face, right?' Conor went on, ignoring Josh. 'It's not like shaving a little lower is that big of a deal.'
I lifted my right arm straight up in the air and regarded my underarm hair pensively.
'I'll shave mine off too if it makes you feel any better,' Conor offered.
'Seriously?'
He shrugged. 'Why not? It's not like it doesn't grow back.'
'I want in on this male bonding experience,' Josh decided. He was still mostly foetal on the bed but he sat up now, determined.
All three of us turned to Jackson expectantly and he laughed, then rolled his eyes. 'Okay, fuck it. I'm in.'
Which was how the four of us ended up squeezed into Josh's hotel room bathroom with our shirts off, vying for space in front of the mirror and examining various razors and cans of shaving foam closely.
'You can use mine,' Josh said magnanimously, handing me his razor. 'I'll use Rachel's.'
'I don't think that's a good idea,' Jackson tried to tell him, glancing between the pink razor and Josh's considerably thick underarm hair dubiously.
'Should we like... Cut it first? Like with scissors?' I asked. 'Like head hair. In the salon. They cut all the length off first and then they come in with the shears.'
'No, it will be fine,' Josh insisted, lathering some shaving foam up in his hands and then applying it liberally to his armpits.
'This feels unsafe,' Conor mused, watching a very drunk Josh approach his axillary artery with Rachel's razor.
Josh angled himself in the mirror a couple of times before plunging in and trying to drag the razor across his armpit. Of course, it almost immediately became clogged with hair and he put it under the faucet to clean it before diving in again.
'This is taking forever,' he complained after doing this a couple of times. 'Why do girls even bother with this shit?'
'Societally-imposed beauty standards telling them that their body hair is unnatural and unhygienic despite the fact that it's actually completely normal?' Jackson suggested mildly.
'Or,' Josh countered and he finally finished one armpit and started moving his arm around animatedly, 'it's because this is glorious.'
Conor and Jackson laughed and Josh started on the other side.
'Glorious,' he repeatedly in a hushed whisper when he was done with that one too. 'And a little cold.'
'Okay supermodel, you're up,' Conor said, putting his hands on my shoulders and manoeuvring me in front of the mirror. 'Are you sober enough to do this without bleeding out or do you need one of us to help you?'
I snatched the razor off of him and scowled. 'I am drunk, not a child,' I told him venomously, and started to shake the shaving foam can vigorously. 'Okay, here we go,' I said, squeezing some out onto my hand and sticking my tongue out of the corner of my mouth to help me concentrate.
'I would give literally anything to put this in my next article,' Jackson muttered.
'Where would be the journalistic merit of that?' Josh demanded.
'I could spin it,' Jackson replied confidently. 'Something about beauty standards in the entertainment industry. Look at these poor teenage superstars,' he went on, gesturing to Conor and I. 'Desperately trying to keep up with what their careers demand of them physically. Tragic.'
'Hey,' I said, turning to look at him. 'Maybe you're right. Maybe this is an unreasonable expectation. I shouldn't have to alter my body for anyone!'
Josh started to get a panicked look on his face. 'Wait, no,' he said. 'This is only funny if you all do it too.'
'Shut up all of you,' Conor instructed us, turning me back towards the mirror. 'You're not altering your body, you're shaving your armpits. It's nothing. It will grow back in a week. Relax.'
'Fine,' I grumbled, glaring at my reflection for a second before lathering up.
'There it is,' Josh joked, back to normal now that he knew I was going to comply, and pointing at my scowl in the mirror. 'There's that model pout.'
'I will cut you,' I told him, brandishing the razor before wincing and getting to work on my armpit.
'There,' Conor said patronisingly when I was finished. 'That wasn't so bad, was it?'
'Your turn,' I said aggressively, thrusting the razor at him and grabbing a towel to wipe myself down. I peered under my arms as he got started. 'You're right,' I said to Josh. 'It is slightly colder.' He nodded sagely.
'I don't hate this,' Conor mused once he was finished, holding his arms up and glancing from one armpit to the other curiously.
'I guess I'm next,' Jackson announced, pushing himself up from where he'd been leaning against the towel rack, and a few minutes later we were all hairless from the ribs up.
'Are you supposed to use aftershave?' Josh wondered, as we made our way back into the bedroom and settled ourselves on the bed again.
'I don't think so,' Jackson told him. 'Sally doesn't, anyway.'
'Fine,' Josh said sleepily. 'But if I get razor rash, you have to blow gently on it to soothe it.'
Jackson laughed. 'Deal.'
He and Conor had again managed to nab the enviable spots at the top of the bed; Josh was curled up at the end and I was sitting square in the middle. Feeling Josh's tiredness seeping into me, I turned and lay lengthways across the bed, wanting to rest but not sleep just yet. It turned out I didn't have as much control over that as I'd thought though, because the next thing I knew I was emerging from a stupor in drunken confusion and peering around the still bright room stupidly. Josh was asleep and snoring beside me at the foot of the bed and Conor and Jackson had also fallen asleep where they'd been sitting.
Through the haze of sleepiness and alcohol I pushed myself up and crawled across the bed, wriggling in between them to lay half on top of Conor and rest my head on his chest. He pulled me closer automatically and nuzzled the top of my head as I reached across him to the light switch beside the bed and, with herculean effort, managed to turn the lights off.
'Thank you,' Jackson groaned, rolling over in his sleep to face towards the bathroom.