27. Davis

“This is fucking stupid,” Davis said out loud to his reflection in the half-rusted mirror in the bathroom of his cabin. Which, somehow, made him feel even stupider. He was thirty-eight years old, had been living independently since he was eighteen years old, had moved across the country and established a career in a notoriously difficult federal agency, and here he was, unable to decide how he was going to slick back his hair to impress a boy.

Good god, if his friends from back home could see him now.

“Knock, knock,” came a voice. He had always been frustrated by the way seasonal work functioned as a kind of extended college dorm experience, which meant a lot of loud parties and people barging into your room at all hours of the day. Not that he had a college dorm experience, but he knew what it was like from movies. It had gotten a bit easier when he’d finally gotten full-time jobs, which meant that he didn’t share an entire home with other people. But it still meant that he shared a campus of tiny cabins with other rangers. Most of them were weird loners who liked trees more than people, but people would still randomly walk into his house.

Thank god he never brought anyone home here. His few attempts in Denver left him feeling like he didn’t belong in the bars that showed up on particular Yelp lists. Not like Davis had been on any dates since he moved to Colorado, but he had opened a few apps during his first week and realized that there was no one he wanted to fuck within a thirty-mile radius of his tiny mountain town.

And, if he was being honest, that was even a lie. There was no one he could trust within a thirty-mile radius of Klarluft. But that had changed. He trusted Jeremy, had plans to see how far that trust would extend this evening.

“I know you’re in there!” Alex yelled from somewhere near the front door. Then he heard Alex talk to Mary Anne, who had left Davis’s side to investigate and was, apparently, the world’s worst guard dog.

Davis also, surprisingly, trusted Alex, who had started to show up when Davis felt bored and demonstrated decent skills during co-op play on the Xbox. And Yesenia, too, who had shared a hilarious story about her two grandmothers that had gotten Davis confused until she clarified that her Abuela Olivia and her Grandma Doris were married.

“Hello?” Davis asked, hastily tucking his shirt into his dress pants and walking out into the living room. Alex stood there, Caveman at his side, with two sets of baseball mitts. He let out a low whistle, and Davis wished he didn’t blush so easily.

“Damn, you’re looking fancy tonight. I guess you’re not down for a game of catch, huh?” He tossed the gloves onto the coffee table and flopped down into the recliner. Davis had finally agreed to play disc golf with Alex and had hated every second of it, but during their chatter on the course, Davis had mentioned that he played baseball in high school and could go for a game of catch. Alex, it seemed, had come to take him up on that.

“I’d rather toss a ball around, I think,” Davis said, trying not to cringe at the phrase tossing a ball, which, at previous jobs, would have resulted in a cascade of homophobic jokes that Davis would have had to endure until he decided to fake a stomachache or just secretly leave the group.

Alex, to his credit, just shrugged. “Next time, then. Date tonight?”

Davis hesitated. “Something like that.” It was a bit closer to the truth than he was usually willing to admit, even to himself.

“How’d you meet them?” Alex’s use of a non-gendered pronoun wasn’t lost on Davis. Was this an opening?

“Uh, well, the exhibit designer that I’ve been working with around here invited me down to a party in Vanberg tonight,” Davis began, and a grin split Alex’s face.

“That tall guy? With the hair?” Alex asked, and mimed Jeremy’s curls.

“Yeah. Um. Him. Jeremy. Jeremy Rinci is his name.” An admission, even if he didn’t say the details in the words that clattered around his brain almost constantly.

“Nice,” Alex said in the same tone that Davis imagined he would compliment a man on a girlfriend.

Davis fiddled with his tie. “You’re…you’re okay with that?”

“I mean, he’s hot, and if he’s into tree nerd shit, then that works for you.” He made it sound so simple. Alex was a hydrologist by training. He spent his time wondering about acre-feet of water, as if an acre-foot was a measurement that made any kind of logical sense. He let out another laugh. “Plus, Yesenia owes me twenty bucks now. I bet her that you had a crush on him.”

“So.” He swallowed again. “You’re fine working with a—” Another pause. Fuck, this was harder than telling people he was sober. “A queer ranger?”

“Does it affect your ability to do a job any differently than if you were getting railed by a woman?” Alex asked bluntly.

“Well, no.” Davis swallowed. “And, just for the record, I, uh, like women, too. I’m bisexual.” This was only the third or fourth time Davis had said the words out loud to someone, and it still felt new, a bit clunky on his tongue, like he was trying to sound out a new word he had never seen before.

“Then who cares? I mean, statistically, you’re not the only one.” Alex gave a sly smile. “Plus, like, I’ve kissed men before. Probably dated one, if you want to consider what my college roommate and I did ‘dating.’”

“Oh,” Davis said, allowing himself to smile. “That’s cool. Was he a good a kisser?”

“The beard took a bit to get used to, but yeah. He was good. It was different, but good.” Alex smiled. A faraway glance told Davis that maybe he wasn’t quite done thinking about his college roommate. “I’ve mostly dated women, but I don’t know if anything is truly ever off the table.” Mary Anne, who had finished her standard sniff of Caveman, looked at Alex as if begging for a walk. “So what kind of party is it?”

“It’s a costume party.” Davis groaned, wishing that there was something he could do to take the edge off his nerves that wasn’t exercise or masturbation, which were both out of the question now that he had put on his costume.

“Oh, fun!” Alex looked him over. “Who are you?”

“It’s fucking stupid, but I’m this old actor. Rock Hudson. He was queer, and everyone knew it but didn’t say it.” Davis rubbed two palms over his face, probably fucking up the hair that he had actually done for the first time in years.

“Wait,” Alex said, getting up and walking over to Davis. He put his hands on his shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. It was ridiculous, but Davis was always worried that when one of his male coworkers would find out about his sexuality, they would be afraid of him. Wouldn’t use the same bathroom or give him bro hugs, not to mention the fears that had taken root in Davis’s mind when he had attended a performance of The Laramie Project.

Alex’s grip on his shoulders was the same as it was yesterday when he had asked a question about the predicted output of the Colorado River. “Wait. You’re telling me that Jeremy doesn’t know that you’re queer? So he doesn’t even know it’s a possibility that you could be into him?” A stern look. “You’re into him, right?”

At this point, Davis was too far gone in this conversation with Alex to think about the words that came out of his mouth next. “Fuck yes, I’m into him. Have you seen him?” Davis could have waxed poetic about the one curl in the center of Jeremy’s forehead or the way that there was this one specific vein that crossed the top of his hand. He figured that might have been a bit too much for Alex at this particular moment.

“Okay, good. So he doesn’t know you’re queer. And this costume”— Alex pointedly looked up and down— “is how you’re going to tell him?”

“Yeah.” So dumb.

“Stealthy,” Alex said, slapping his thighs and standing up. “Welp, best of luck. You’re staying down in the city? Want me to watch Mary Anne?”

“Yesenia is going to come over and check on her.” Actually, Yesenia had confronted Davis as to why Alex got to be the favorite dog uncle. “I’m staying the night— I have a hotel room,” Davis replied, though what he wanted to add was I would love it if I didn’t need it.

“Good. Don’t drink and drive.” Alex, he remembered, was from some state where there was a lot of corn. Iowa or Nebraska. Seemed like a good guy who would always take care of his friends. Shit, Davis had already told him one of his secrets. Why not dump everything on him at once?

“I’ll be fine. I, er, actually don’t drink. Like at all. I’m sober.” He needed to practice how he would tell people here, but for a first attempt, Davis figured it wasn’t bad.

“Oh. Cool. Good to know.” Alex shrugged again. Davis was beginning to think that he could tell Alex that he was actually a lizard person sent to control the Forest Service and he would just go a’ight and ask Davis his opinion on what team would probably be joining the SEC next season. “Anyway, good luck. Let me know how things go.”

“I will,” Davis said, and he believed it. He wanted to tell Alex how much it meant that he could be honest with him, that he could let him know a version of his true self, but, well, he had already revealed so much. “Thanks, dude.” The same way he would have always covered as a man pretending to be straight.

“I got you,” Alex replied, picking up the baseball mitts. “And if your man has a friend, well. I wouldn’t say no to some fun down in the city.”

“I have to make sure that I’m welcome,” Davis said. “Uh, Alex? Do I look okay?” An awkward question, one that admitted too much again.

“You’re great. Knock ’em dead.” And with that, Alex and Caveman headed out of the cabin, probably to meander and find another to play catch with or to go back to his own space, Davis didn’t know. And, frankly, Davis didn’t care. Because letting one person out here, in the forest, know details about his true self was giving him the confidence to head down to the city and let Jeremy know.

Jeremy, I’m bi.

Or maybe he would say—

Jeremy, I’m queer.

Or just lead with something direct like—

Jeremy, I like you.

Or—

Jeremy, I want to kiss you.

Davis shoved his duffel bag into the back of his truck cab, then slid into the driver’s seat. He put on a playlist of bluegrass music, one that featured the band he had gone to school with, of Tiff on banjo and Caleb on guitar, with a new vocalist. He maneuvered through the mountain passes, sure that he could show up and wow Jeremy with his costume and maybe, if he was brave, get a kiss out of it.