15. EDDIE

Chapter fifteen

EDDIE

O ver the next day or two, despite our plans for the fishing trip, my interactions with Max were limited. A simple confirmation that we were going that weekend was pretty much the limit of any meaningful communication. I sent him a few texts, but his responses were curt, just factual.

Hey Max, just confirming we're still on for the fishing trip this weekend?

Yeah, looking forward to it

Cool, me too. By the way, want to grab a beer sometime this week?

Quite busy

OK – do I need to get anything ready for the trip?

Nope all good

I didn't precisely think I had said or done something wrong. The evening he came over and we drank a few beers, I was in a bit of a giddy mood, but that was all. Yet, as I reflected on that encounter, I couldn't shake some feeling of embarrassment. I couldn't quite spot what it was, but something had changed between us, and then he slipped quickly away.

Meanwhile, as time passed, Jared and I were finding a rhythm of living side by side. We spent some time together and got on okay.

I couldn't help but notice how often he retreated to his room. I remembered when I was his age, a little older, up till the time Max lived with me and my mom, and how much time I – we – had spent holed up, too.

From upstairs, I listened to him playing games online, just his voice talking or even yelping with excitement, his competitor in Ohio or Hungary or wherever muted by headphones.

Now and then, he talked on the phone to friends, but more usually, he texted and messaged, and I could hear him laugh at their responses. He played that '90s rock playlist he had picked for Max quite a few times, too.

I started working at my job more regularly and more productively, and processes with the landlord and the lawyer got underway. Things weren't exactly looking up, but they were at least proceeding, and most importantly, Jared seemed okay. No big decisions were made, but neither were any big mistakes.

The Saturday morning we were due to go on the trip, I heard a knock on the front door. From the kitchen, where I was looking through some work documents on my laptop, I went to answer it, finding Uncle Frank standing on the doorstep with his usual taciturn smile. I swung the inner and the screen door open.

"Hey, Uncle Frank!" I said. "Come on in."

"Just thought I'd pop by."

Frank entered the house, and I led him to the kitchen, where I poured a cup of coffee for us both, having just been brewing it.

"You go on your fishing trip today?" he asked. I had forgotten I had told him about it. I said yes. "I thought I would come over and say hi. How long are you going for?"

"Just overnight. Back tomorrow evening. Need to be back here Sunday evening, for Monday morning. Jared is returning to school, maybe." He nodded, and there was a moment of silence. It was kind of Frank's way. "How's it going with you?" I asked.

"Can't complain, Eddie. How are things here between you and Jared?"

I sighed as he sipped his coffee.

"Still trying to figure everything out."

Frank stood next to the kitchen table and gave me a knowing look.

"It's not easy stepping into a parental role all of a sudden."

"No, you're telling me." I looked at my uncle's face. I knew I had to start to talk about my plans for Jared and me. I told him about Jack, the landlord, whom he knew, telling us we had to leave.

"Oh, dear!" my uncle exclaimed.

"So I've been mulling over whether the two of us should head back to New York or stay here."

Frank gave me a stern look.

"Have you thought about Jared's education? His friends? His stability?"

I nodded.

"Of course. It's just… I've never been here before. This is all new for me and very unexpected. Suddenly, I'm responsible for Jared."

Frank nodded, but I felt his tension.

"Parenting is never easy, Eddie. Even when your kids are grown, they are nothing but stress."

But then again, his daughter was Julianne…

"I guess."

Frank drank down half his coffee in one big, last gulp.

"Trust your instincts, Eddie, but remember it's not about just you anymore. It's about what is best for Jared."

"Yeah," I said, "but maybe what I want for Jared now is what takes precedence."

Frank didn't look happy.

"Jared has a life here. I know you've been living in New York, and you were… free –" He said the word with such emphasis "– but now you have to live a regular life with a child."

"He's fifteen."

"A very difficult age. Your lifestyle shouldn't take precedence, as you put it."

Frank could be a tough old bird, I knew that, but I felt a little affronted. Was that what he had come here to say? He didn't even know what my "lifestyle" was; I barely knew!

I decided to swallow my irritation. I didn't want to argue with him.

"Thanks, Frank," I said blankly. "I appreciate the advice. I'll give it some more thought."

He set his coffee cup down.

"Anytime, Eddie. You're doing your best, and that's all anyone can ask for. But it's the outcome that matters."

"Yeah," I said. "I get it, Frank."

He nodded.

"Okay, then."

Jared came down and said hi to his great-uncle, but Frank didn't stay long after that. He had come to make his point, I guessed, and that was it; no small talk, not even with the kid whose interests he was claiming to be looking after.

Once Frank was gone, Jared's excitement for the fishing trip was very clear. He couldn't stop talking about it, his anticipation palpable as we waited for Max to come in his car.

"I bet Max knows how to fish, stuff like that."

I laughed.

"Yeah, he does, or at least he used to. We used to fish a lot when we were young. We'd go up there now and then."

Jared's eyes widened in amazement that I, the city guy, had any outdoor skills.

"Really? You used to fish?"

I laughed.

"Yep, believe it or not, I was not born in Manhattan at the Lincoln Center."

The joke passed over his young head a little.

"What was the coolest thing you've ever caught?"

"One time, Max and I caught this massive trout. Must've been at least two feet long!"

Jared leaned in eagerly.

"But who caught it, you or Max?"

I tried to think. I couldn't really remember who had landed the trout. We seemed to have done it together as some pair of old-time whalers hauled on a rope to land the sea monster.

The sound of a horn beep echoed through the house. Jared's eyes widened with excitement. He jumped up and dashed toward the window.

"He's here!" he exclaimed, pressing his face against the glass to get a better look. "Max is here to get us, Eddie!" The horn tooted again. Jared's grin widened even further. "Come on, let's go!" he cried.

We had our things packed for the couple of days we would be away: sleeping bags, clothes, some food. Max said he was going to bring most of everything else we needed. Jared raced and slung his bag over his shoulder before he even thought about putting on his shoes.

"Shoes!" I cried.

He found one of his endless pairs of sneakers, the bag on his back the whole time. "You need some boots as well."

He shrugged.

"I don't have any boots, only sneakers."

I shook my head.

"Then the blisters are on you," I joked, and he grinned. He didn't care at all.

As we stepped outside, the prospect of our camping trip hung around us. Max was hanging out of his driver's window, his beefy forearm thick against the frame. He grinned at us.

"Hey, boys! You ready?"

Jared and I exchanged eager glances.

"Whoo-hoo!" Jared hooted, and so I did the same:

"Whoo-hoo!"

"We've got snacks for days," Jared exclaimed as he ran toward the car.

"Can't forget the essentials," I remarked. Max smiled at me as I came near to him. He started to get out and, as he did so, released the trunk for us to put our bags inside.

He was speaking as he arranged the trunk and the bags. "Got the tent, sleeping bags, and some fishing gear," he said. "We should be all set."

Max had told me he had a big four-man tent, way bigger than we needed.

"Ah, it's gonna be so awesome," Jared said, beaming, as he let himself into the back seat.

"You good?" Max asked me as we stood there. He was looking at me quite fondly with a soft smile. Maybe I had misjudged the mood.

"Yeah, all good," I said. His eyes remained on mine for a moment. I felt a strange atmosphere but not a bad one. "Shall we… shall we go?"

He nodded.

"Cool."

We moved, the car doors slammed, the engine started, and we were off.

***

As we pulled away from the familiarity of that neighborhood's streets, the afternoon sun cast a golden glow over the houses and their lawns. Here and there, sprinklers pulsed and hissed, and dogs behind fences barked as we drove by.

Jared, nestled in the back seat, soon reached for his phone and said he was gonna find some "tunes." "Oh, dude," he exclaimed to himself more than this. He said he was going to play Nirvana's album Nevermind , and a few seconds later, the iconic opening chords of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" started playing.

"This album has become my favorite," Jared declared.

I exchanged a quick, knowing glance with Max.

"Not into playlists anymore?" I asked.

"Nah, man, albums are where it's at. They're the art form."

"Cool," I said.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Max glance at me again.

As we navigated away from the city and into the sprawling hills beyond, the music played, and we talked off and on about who wanted to do what once we were up in the hills.

With each mile Max drove, the landscape changed, the urban sprawl giving way to spare, arid semi-greenery, broken by streams lined with trees covered in creepers, and then far beyond, rolling hills that stretched as far as the eye could see.

At first, we kept to the freeway, but then we turned off to the smaller roads. The hills grew steeper, their slopes cloaked in denser, darker greens than far below, a forest that seemed to stretch endlessly into the horizon over the undulations of mountains.

"Can you believe we used to do this on our bikes?" Max said, his tone tinged with both nostalgia and amazement.

Jared, who had been gazing out the window, put his head through the gap between our seats.

"Really? You guys biked all the way up here?"

I chuckled at his incredulity, and Max grinned. "Yeah, we had it tough back in the old days, just a bike, a little bit of faith, and the Xbox 360."

"Sounds rough," Jared joked.

"You bet," I said. "Uphill both ways, floods, snowstorms, and heat waves."

Jared's eyes widened in amusement.

"You guys are pulling my leg, aren't you?"

Max and I exchanged another mischievous before bursting into laughter.

"Maybe just a little," Max admitted. "But we did cycle up here."

"Man…" Jared said in amazement. "You must've had great quads back then."

Max pretended to be offended.

"I still have great quads!"

I stole a look at his legs in a pair of loose shorts. The muscles bulged, his thighs were thick, covered in curly dark hair. I looked away.

"You kids have it sweet," Max continued. "In our day, moms and dads didn't chauffeur us around like your generation's does. We had to pedal and walk our way to whatever we wanted to do."

This was all playful banter between Jared and Max, ironic defenses of the merits of their respective generations, just a lighthearted exchange: teasing talk of being old, being woke.

But then, a sudden shift of tone entered what Jared was saying.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, "being woke isn't all bad. Millennials might be more like boomers than Gen Z."

"Oh, how's that?" Max asked.

Jared paused.

"Well, for example, if I had a gay dad – or mom, for that matter – I wouldn't bat an eyelid. It wouldn't be cool or uncool; I wouldn't care. It would be normal. Completely normal."

A palpable silence settled over the car. I felt a whirl of emotions within me – pride or relief that he could say such a thing, but uncertainty, too, vulnerability.

Was I supposed to be the "gay dad" Jared spoke of so casually, about whose identity he didn't care? It was a question left hanging in the air.

***

As the car wound its way along a route that I had half forgotten but now flooded back to me, the landscape unfolded before us its intense natural beauty. Towering pine trees stood sentinel along the roadside, like an army lined up, awaiting instructions, emerald green in the rich sunlight of afternoon.

If we got close enough to them, we could see shafts of golden light piercing the canopy and painting the forest floor in light and shadow. It was beautiful, in a way you don't appreciate when you are a teen, but when you're older and you see it again, it is quite breathtaking. The strong, earthy scent of the pine needles began to penetrate the car as the air-con blew.

Eventually, I realized we were almost there. Max seemed to have it all memorized, but of course, he had had years of living in the area. Maybe he had come many times since we were kids.

He turned down a rough track, and we cut through the trees, so close to them you could have stuck your hand out the window and your fingertips brushed the fringes of their branches. The car bounced over the stones and clods of earth.

Then we emerged onto the wide, flat area of ground before the riverbank. At once, we saw it: the river stretched out before us, a ribbon of dark silver curling through the landscape. Two dragonflies danced over the windshield, then flew away.

Tall grasses swayed in the breeze, their golden heads nodding. Wildflowers dotted the golden plain in shades of pink, purple, and gold. They looked like scattered jewels patterning the meadow.

"Wow," Jared breathed from the back of the car.

"Amazing, huh?" Max returned.

It was a moment of pure magic.

Max parked us in a patch of ground that had been used for camping before. You could tell how often it had been used from how bare and hard the soil seemed there, patches of black where fires had once burned. But there was no one else around that day. We were completely alone.

With the car parked, surrounded by the vast expanse of nature stretching out around us, we set about our first task, putting up the tent. As we unloaded the camping gear from the trunk, Jared's excitement got the better of him, and he pretended to take charge.

"Alright, team," he announced, surveying the pile of poles, stakes, and canvas spread out before us. "Let's get this tent up!"

This was not the new kind of tent that you put up with a single tug of a release line but the ones you had to put together patiently again.

As we set about the task, Jared deferred to his new hero. He hovered around Max, watching his every move with wide-eyed fascination as if he were witnessing a master craftsman. Max obviously knew what he was doing, but even so, Jared's adoration of him was not exactly subtle.

"Here, Jared, hold this," Max instructed, handing him a mallet to hit the tent spikes with a playful grin. "Just like that, buddy. Just give it a good whack."

"Like this?"

Whack!

Max was smiling at Jared.

"Just like that."

Now, Jared was smiling back.

Despite the occasional mishap, a tangle of ropes here and a misplaced pole there, the job got done pretty quickly.

"Go, team!" I exclaimed mock triumphantly as the last stake was hammered into the ground, the tent's flaps fluttering softly in a gentle breeze. "Not bad for a bunch of city guys, huh?"

Jared grinned from ear to ear.

"Yeah, city guys," he said.

By then, the sun was still high but beginning to dip. A honeyed warmth was on our bodies. Turning around, I surveyed our surroundings. Jared's gaze lingered on the river.

"Can we go for a swim, Eddie?" he asked.

I remembered that the river was wide but not deep or fast, with plenty of scope for swimming and splashing around. Large rocks dotted its edges, perfect for fishing, resting, sunbathing, or simply soaking up the relaxing surroundings. Its cool, dark waters beckoned us. Lush green trees lined its banks.

"Sure," I said, "of course."

Max pointed at his bag, which he had left on the ground a few feet away.

"I have my swimming trunks in here."

Jared seemed a bit more sheepish.

"I'm going to change in the tent."

"Sure, of course," I said, remembering the shyness of teens in these matters. "Go and change. We'll meet you down by the river."

Jared headed toward the tent to change into his swimming shorts. Max reached for his bag and found his trunks.

Standing before me, he casually shrugged off his clothes. He started with his T-shirt, peeling it off to reveal his hard, muscular chest and shoulders.

Next, he kicked off his shoes, and they bounced on the ground this way and that. He then unbuttoned his shorts and stood before me in nothing but his boxers.

At first, he seemed entirely unfazed by his state of undress, his gaze fixed on the river, but then he turned and looked at me.

There was something in his eyes I couldn't quite place: some kind of knowledge of something between us. But there was nothing, apart from my ancient desires.

Finally, he pulled down his boxers, too. Now, he was completely nude, utterly unapologetic in his nakedness. Only gradually did I realize he was letting me look at him.

I had seen Max naked before, many years ago, when we were two guys in the high school locker room, maybe changing before we headed out on some adventure, swimming up there, when he lived with me and my mom.

I had stolen secretive glances at his body then, too, but this was different to that. Back then, Max had been quite unconscious of my looking at him. Now, he was letting me do it.

I felt myself gulp. Did he smile a little, even a smirk? I felt almost like he was coming on to me, and yet he clearly was not. Was it more that he was inviting me to desire him? It couldn't be...could it?

Still I looked at that powerful, gym-fit body of his, those huge shoulders and fat, hard biceps, his chest that twitched a little as he stood there, his flat stomach, and the line of dark curls that ran down to his crotch.

Finally, I looked at his penis. It was big and meatily thick and hung straight down. As my eyes focused on it, I heard him laugh, and I looked back at his eyes. He was grinning with that same knowingness.

"Are you gonna get changed?" he asked, almost sweetly innocently.

I felt the burn on my cheeks.

"Sure," I said. He pulled on his swimming shorts, and then I started to undress, too. But he didn't stay to look at me.

"Are you done?" he called to Jared, who called back:

" Hang on !"

I went behind the tent and changed there, away from anyone's eyes.