28. Galen

Chapter 28

Galen

A t dinner, through the general chatter, exclamations over the amazing fish and chips, Galen kept his eyes on Bede, who sat catty-corner from him on the opposite side of the long table. This wasn't strange. They normally sat together. They were on the same team, after all.

While already feeling the lance of nerves in his gut, he could see that Bede was acting like this was any other day. That he'd not just kissed Galen as he'd come out of his shower. That there wasn't a very good—albeit tenuous—possibility that they were going to strip to the skin in front of each other and lay hands upon one another and?—

"I'd forgotten how good it feels to go swimming," Bede was saying to Kell and Marston, who sat to Galen's left. "One of the things I missed on the inside. Being fully submerged. You know?"

Galen glanced at Kell, who was nodding sagely.

Marston, who'd never been in prison, looked a tad confused. But then he said, "I never thought about it like that before." He wiped his mouth with his napkin thoughtfully for a moment, then asked, "What else did you miss?"

There was no lascivious wink in Galen's direction, no come-hither tone in Bede's voice when he answered, "So many things. Like good food, quality food. In prison, I made myself eat whatever was on my tray just to stay strong."

"And some of it was pretty gross," said Kell with a shudder.

"I'm not talking down to maggot-infested level," said Bede, cutting low through the air with his hand held flat. "But, you know. The bread was old, the spinach was slimy. Like that."

The conversation continued on in a casual way, not like an interrogation, but as if Marston truly wanted to know. Which he might, seeing as how deeply Marston was in love with Kell.

"I missed fresh air that hadn't been filtered by a chain-link fence and razor wire," added Bede.

"I can imagine," said Marston in a friendly way, though it was quite obvious that he really had no idea.

Come to that, neither did Galen.

He'd lived a free man his whole life, and the only time he'd been locked in anything was the one time recently that the door to the men's toilet had jammed at Ranchette's Stop 'n Go. He'd managed to shove his way free, internally laughing at the escapade, and how his dad would laugh when he told him, and then he remembered his dad had passed away and that there was nobody to share the joke with.

"I also missed—" Bede looked down at his empty plate, shaking his head, a small grin lighting his features, as if he wasn't sure he should share what he'd been about to share. But then he looked up and said, "Standing in the grass in my bare feet. Or standing in the dirt, it doesn't matter."

"Bare feet?" asked Marston, and Galen leaned forward to hear the answer. He couldn't help himself.

"You can't go around barefoot in prison," said Bede. "It's not just the mold in the showers, and the floors are kept pretty clean, lots of mopping as punishment, you see." He smiled, shaking his head, as if the memory was good, rather than, actually, quite sad. "Another inmate sees you barefoot, they'll stomp on your toes. And just try stepping out in a prison yard without boots on. You'll step on a goat's head burr, many of them, inside of two minutes."

Sitting back, sympathy rising, Galen's misgivings churned inside of him right next to fraught nerves and a heightened sense of want.

Finishing his dinner, he made his way back to his tent. It wasn't even close to sunset, and the tent was set aglow by the sunlight coming through the pine trees, accompanied by the familiar scent of sun-warmed canvas, the bright smell of pine, and crushed pine needles.

What came next between him and Bede? He had no idea. Should he make his bed before he went to movie night? Should he change into clean boxers? Should he forget the whole thing?

Well, one thing was for certain, he wasn't going to lollygag in his own tent like some damsel who needed rescuing.

What he really needed to do was put the kibosh on this whole thing, nip it before it became unruly. Because, reasonably, in the real world, he would not be hooking up with an ex-con.

But the valley wasn't like the real world. It was a place of green swathes of trees, a cool blue lake, startlingly clear skies. A place apart where dreams might turn into reality.

Leaving the bed untouched, as it was made anyway, and not changing clothes, Galen stepped out of his tent and strode along the path between the trees in the direction of Kell and Bede's tent.

He should have encountered someone, but perhaps they were all at the mess tent in preparation for movie night. But there was nothing and no one at the moment. The woods were eerily silent as the sun streamed through the trees, slicing in yellow angles, creating long, slanted shadows.

He'd gone as far as the spot where the two main paths through the trees intersected and paused, planning to go left to Bede's tent, when he heard a rustle in the woods.

Turning, he saw Bede coming toward him.

Everything slowed down as his focus narrowed in on the way Bede had rolled up the sleeves of his blue chambray shirt. The fact that he was wearing his cowboy boots, which made his legs look ten miles long. How his shirt was unsnapped in a come-hither way. The tumble of dark hair across his forehead. The way his eyes widened, then narrowed as he saw Galen and began to walk faster.

Everything sped up.

Being caught in Bede's arms, strong bands of iron, Galen was shocked by his body's own response to a sudden and heated kiss, the lances of pleasure up his legs, the banding around his groin. The heat of pure desire that seemed to come out of nowhere and settle over him in pops of invisible glitter.

"Bede," he gasped, his palms pressing against Bede's chest because he needed some air. A moment to steady himself.

Bede circled warm fingers around the back of Galen's neck and drew him close. Not quite close enough for a kiss, but close enough for their noses to brush, and for Galen to imagine he could feel the whisper of air from Bede's eyelashes as he surveyed Galen's face.

"It can't hurt us," said Bede, almost whispering.

"What can't?" asked Galen, both confused by the statement and distracted by the idea of being hurt.

This would hurt. All of it. Getting together with Bede would be good, but any connection he was likely to make—was sure to make—was making—would be trampled at summer's end. Bede would go his way and Galen would be left with the tatters of his heart.

He never got in bed with any man until he had feelings for him, and here he was. His body plastered to Bede's, all up and down, a hot sear. Desire hot, his skin flushing, his reason a runaway herd of horses. Oh, yes, he had feelings for Bede. Confused ones. Good ones.

"Whatever this is." Bede paused, his gaze fully on Galen now, his eyes wide and open. "Whatever we are."

Before Galen could speak—though certainly no part of him, not any , was saying no—Bede's hand, withdrawn from his neck, leaving a cool space behind, was between Galen's thighs. Those fingers, pressing against denim, drew up in a slow, languorous trail.

Heat building in Galen's belly, his groin, his whole body sighed, muscles turning liquid, the parts of his brain that could still think sparking out until he could not think at all.

When was the last time he'd been touched like this, responded like this? Since before his dad had passed away, that was for sure.

The summer before, when he'd come on to Zeke Malloy, it had been in stops and starts, and had ended in a polite but firm rejection. And maybe he'd not been attracted to Zeke, but to the idea of him. Someone to lean on, someone strong, someone to enfold him in firm arms when the night got too dark, and the sense of loss and grief became an overwhelming tar-black puddle.

Bede didn't know about Galen's dad or what had happened, how sudden his passing had been, but he was acting as if he did. He caressed and kissed Galen's face, sweeping away astonished shock with that mouth of his, and with his hand, he cast spells that Galen had no idea, simply no idea, how to ward off.

And when Bede undid the snap and zipper of his jeans, sliding his hand inside, not stopping, his palm warm against the bare skin of Galen's belly, he knew he didn't want to stop any of it.

Pleasure rippled as Bede's fingers curled around his cock, warm inside his boxers, taut against his belly. There was no shyness in Bede's touch, only boldness in each caress, only an earthy, animal insistence on taking this happenstance meeting in the woods to an exact conclusion.

There were no holds barred, nothing hidden as Bede, with his touches, brushed his cheek against Galen's, sighed in his ear.

The gasp of that mouth against Galen's, the warmth of him, the tug of those fingers—all of this swept Galen up into a maelstrom he was unprepared for.

"Don't you—" began Galen, but the words and the question and any thoughts hidden behind them vanished as Bede's arm tightened around his waist.

Bede's hand, hot palm against silken flesh, bore down on him and pulled him up and up until Galen's head jerked back with a force sharp enough to nearly sever his spine.

There was simply not enough air in his lungs and he gasped, eyes wide open, dark sparks and bright ones circling around his vision as he collapsed in Bede's arms.

"What?" he asked. "Was that ?"

"What you needed," said Bede with a sweet kiss to Galen's mouth. "What I wanted to give you. In case this was the only time I could."

What Bede had just given him was an encounter that should have taken place in a honeymoon boudoir, complete with a trail of rose petals leading up to the two-person bathtub in the middle of the room. Not a stand-up undefinable something , his blue jeans open to the air after a raw encounter between a parolee and his boss .

But while it had been raw, there'd also been sweetness. Gentleness. All of which was now stamped on Galen's very soul, and now what the hell was he supposed to do with that ?

"You don't have to do anything," said Bede, and it took Galen a moment to realize he'd asked his question aloud and that Bede had answered it aloud, rather than the two of them communicating on a soul-deep level. "It's just to enjoy. Like life, I suppose."

He drew back, his arm still around Galen's waist and, one-handed, tucked Galen away in his boxers, and then zipped up the zipper and closed the brass button.

"What about you?" Galen asked as it seemed like, felt like, Bede was prepared to walk away into the woods without his fair share.

"Oh," said Bede with a laugh, shaking his head, his smile bright, his eyes sparkling. "I don't like doing it standing up."

"What the hell?" asked Galen, unable to stifle his own laugh even as it mixed with a sudden flare of irritation. "You don't get to just do that and walk away."

"Sure I do." Bede moved close for a second to tuck Galen's shirt tails into his blue jeans. Then he stepped away and waved for Galen to follow. "C'mon. We'll be late for the movie, which, according to Kell, is Cool Hand Luke ."

A classic prison movie. Of course. What else would they show in the mess tent with a bunch of ex-cons crowding around? Laughing at the funny parts, critiquing anything they didn't agree with, and of course they would know because they'd been there.

Maybe all of them hoped one day to be as cool as Paul Newman, but that idea didn't matter as much as the fact that Bede was, quite simply, walking away. As if nothing that had happened between them mattered. Did it?

Galen found himself bereft at the idea, and hurried to follow after Bede, close on his heels. Trotting. Panting. Awash with feelings, his whole body swirling with desire for more.

By the time they both reached the mess tent, Galen was sweating, damp beneath his arms, between his legs, and still short of air as his body attempted to settle into a semblance of normal. Whatever that meant, anyhow.

There was no going back from knowing what Bede tasted like, how soft that supple mouth was, how strong and decisive those hands were. What remained unknown beneath Bede's clothes was an undiscovered country that Galen knew he shouldn't want to discover. But he did. Oh, he did.

Everybody in the valley was in the mess tent, settled in folding chairs that faced the propped up screen on the rail along the buffet table.

Two standing fans had been set up to keep the mess tent cool and airy, in spite of the heat of the early evening. The smell of popcorn was in the air, the sound of excited jostlings, low comments. Bowls of fresh, salty popcorn were being placed on small tables at the edges of aisles, and the soda machine was going full bore.

As Bede went and grabbed two seats at the end of the second aisle, nobody remarked that the two of them had arrived together and that they weren't altogether tidy.

Nobody remarked that Galen was unusually flushed about the face and neck or that Bede's grin was wide enough to light up the dark. That his hair was sticking to his forehead, and that veins stood out on his forearms as he grabbed a bowl of popcorn and passed it to Galen.

"You want something to drink?" asked Bede, as nicely as a boy on his second or third date. Polite but casual, as if the relationship between them was well on its way to being firmly established. "Iced tea?"

Galen blinked. He favored iced tea over milk or soda, and Bede had noticed.

"Have you been watching me?" Galen just about hissed, but he was laughing, too.

Bede chuckled in response as he got up to go over to the iced tea dispenser. A second later, Galen bowed his head and looked at the overflowing bowl of popcorn in his lap, slathered with butter and sparkling with salt and something that might be white cheddar powder.

He was sure that what he was getting himself into was not feasible, no sir. But a large part of him saw the irony, a deep, dark humor, in his current situation. He'd gone and done what he'd never thought possible: he had feelings for Bede. It was not just that his body was still flush with pleasure. It was the fact that his heart was full, that he felt good for the first time in a long time. There was no way he wanted to let any of that go.

When Bede took his place in the chair next to Galen's, he reached casually across Galen to dig his fingers into the bowl. Shoving a fistful of powdery, salty popcorn into his mouth, he winked one blue eye at Galen, and then turned his attention to the screen.

"Watch the movie," Bede said, as if he knew how scattered Galen's thoughts were, how his body refused to settle. How his brain kept racing on and on to the future, and the future after that. To the edge of the horizon, all awash in confusion. Just what had he done? Had he fallen in love at long last?

He didn't know, but he wanted to find out.