“Are you okay?” Bonnie asked, leaning in to place her hand on my thigh. “You look a little green.”

  I swallowed down the panic clawing at me. “Just a burp.” I made a face then belched softly into my hand. Bonnie left her hand on my leg. No one could see it, that intimate gesture, since the tablecloths hung to the floor, but it made me feel uncomfortable because of its intimacy. I’d not given her consent to touch me. I slid my leg out from under her hand and pretended that nothing had happened. Bonnie also acted as if I’d not jerked my leg from her fingers as if they were dead eels resting on my thigh.

  The rest of the meal had an awkward, cloying feel to it. She offered to walk with me back to our cabin, and being raised to be polite, I accepted her company even when I really didn’t want it now. Probably I was overreacting to a commonplace touch. Had she meant it in a sexual way or just as a show of concern? I was terrible at this stuff. I overthought everything while never acting on anything.

  “Can I say something to you in confidence, one friend to another?” she asked as we lounged near the front porch of my cabin. I was working up to trying to say goodbye in a nice way but was coming up blank, so here we sat, talking about college and music—yes she loved Purple Cows and “Icarus” as much as everyone else on the planet—while my mind grasped at ways to end this so I could go write.

  “Yeah, sure.” Back resting against a thick elm tree, I watched the leaves rustling overhead. She joined me in resting against the elm, her elbow rubbing mine.

  “I know you like Khalid, and he’s great! I mean he’s cute and outgoing, but he’s different than we are.”

  The fine hairs on my arms stood up. I lowered my gaze from the oval-shaped saw-toothed leaves to gape at Bonnie. Her slim brows were drawn tightly over her brown eyes as if what she was saying was paining her greatly.

  “Yeah, I know. He’s British.”

  Sure, that was an obtuse sounding reply but I had to be shrewd and lure her out if where she was going was where I thought she was going. I hoped it wasn’t. She seemed like an okay girl, a little touchy-feely for my likes but other than that, she was nice and smelled amazing.

  “Well, duh, that’s obvious. It’s not him being British that I wanted to talk to you about.”

  No, Bonnie. Please. Please just don’t go there and say that. Please don’t.

  “You might not know it but he’s a Muslim.”

  Fuck. She went there. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why? Why did she have to do this? Why?

  “So?” I pushed off the tree and swung my body in her direction. She already looked contrite as if she’d placed her tiny white sandals into quicksand and now felt the pull sucking her into something suffocating. “Who cares? I don’t care. Why do you? Why do you feel you have to warn me about his religion?!”

  “I thought you should know, that’s all. I have nothing against him or Muslims in general but…”

  Anger unlike any I had ever felt swept over me. Hands in fists I glowered at her making her push her back into that elm tree like she wished she could glide through it like a ghost does a wall.

  “The fact that you added ‘but’ to that statement tells me that you really kind of do have a problem with Khalid and his religion. Maybe you should go back to work now. I have to go write before my head explodes.”

  I whipped around and thundered into the cabin, happy to find it still empty. There was a note from Mom lying on my bed. She’d gone off to the local town with the pottery group to buy and paint on some ceramics. James was off with his friends. James was cool despite his sinus issues. Dane was not cool. Dane was furious and dorky and walking in tight circles like a caged lion with obscenities falling out of his mouth that his mother would faint if she heard.

  Writing was out of the question as mad as I was. I’d not be able to focus on Odom’s life journey—whatever the fuck that even was—when I was this distressed. My anger led me outside to the patio where I slept and spent the time with Khalid when dawn is just a blush. Sort of. I guess we shared that time. He knew I was here, my gaze on him as he cleansed himself for his time on the prayer mat. I stood beside the creek, my toes just on the edge of the bank, the tickle of fear creeping up the back of my neck, and I glanced across the rapidly moving creek. I’d found his ritual fascinating in its difference from the one that I’d grown up doing. I yearned to learn more about Islam and its teaching. I also ached to learn more about the man because if I were being honest with myself, it wasn’t just the allure of the newness of his morning ritual that appealed, it was the erotic beauty of the man himself that enthralled me so.

  Envious of the people who were now with Khalid, frustrated with the people like Bonnie who always had to add that miserable “but” to everything, and fed up with not knowing how to proceed in my life from this juncture, I stormed around the side of our cabin and walked blindly in a soupy mental stew until I came to the spot where I had sat on that log after the bonfire. I straddled the log, laid down on it, pulled out my phone, and brought up “Icarus” on my downloaded songs. Eyes watering from staring at the sun, I wondered if the tumble from the heavens a man would make when he revealed his innermost self to another man would break him or if his trust in his wings would deliver him from harm. Perhaps it was time to test those waxy creations…

  Chapter Four

  The words unspoken.

  They battered the inside of my skull and soul for two days. A powerful cold front had swept over the state, kicking off thunderstorms that rolled in one after another. Dad had driven up Friday in a deluge that he said had made him pull off the road and wait for the storm to lessen, the rain coming down in sheets so thick his wipers couldn’t clear the windshield fast enough.

  Two days of being cooped up with my family and sleeping under James as he groaned about some Avon girl and snuffled in that way of his that made me half mad. Mom and Dad were in their glory with the boys stuck inside. We played card games and board games and drawing games and pantomime games. We had picnics indoors where we all sat on the floor on a blanket as thunder rattled the old cabin and wind snapped boughs. We told ghost stories at night. It was torture. All I could think of was a clear dawn, so I could somehow—in some idiotic manner I was sure—summon Khalid to this side of the river and speak the words that had laid on my tongue and in my journal for so many years.

  I am gay. I love you. I want to date you, touch you, kiss you, be inside you and have you inside me. I want to fall madly in love with you and trace your chin with dandelions plucked from the verdant green grasses. Do you want these things from me as well? I pray to my God and your God and any gods that may be toying with we mere mortals in this most glorious way. Leading us to love and joy and the soft feel of cotton sheets falling over our naked skin, our cocks tenting the material as a fan stirs the cloying air, and we turn to each other yet again and touch noses as the old folks do.

  Dad left Sunday evening. The patio was covered with debris and puddles, so I was stuck sleeping under James again. Sleep was elusive. I tried lying on my back and chest, left side and then right, but nervous energy snapped and surged through my veins and along every synapse. If he came to the creek tomorrow to pray I would call him to this side. And we’d talk. I’d tell him all the unspoken words. Then what would happen was in the hands of destiny.

  I dozed for a bit, falling off around two and then coming awake sharply at five thirty. I sat up, choking on my breath, terrified that I’d missed sunrise. My eyes flew to the glass in the patio door. It was still dark, but a fine glimmer of a distant sunrise was caressing the sky. I slid out of bed, pulled on some shorts and a tank top, and then glided outside, closing the door, hand on the knob and heart trying to slam free of my ribcage.

  When I turned he was there, barely visible, standing on the opposing bank, the white of his gauzy pants drawing the meager light. Was he searching the decreasing darkness looking for me as I was for him? Legs feeling weak but heart beating stronger than it ever had before, I walked out past the tree that I had previously hidden behind, exposing myself fully.

  A lone warbler sang out and then went silent, the first song of the day slipping into the moment. Would he see me if I waved? I took a step, paused, and then another and raised my hand. He mirrored my movement. A thrill shot through me. Lifting my hand again, the warbler sang once more as I waved him over.

  “I’ll be right over,” he called to me, his voice loud and brash in the quiet of dawn. My head spun like an owl, ears picking through the sounds of day and night intermingling, listening for the sound of my mother or brother. Hearing nothing but the soft chirrup of crickets and the babble of the brook, I looked back at Khalid.

  He stripped off his gauzy-looking pants and dove into the water in just his underwear. I threw aside my timidity and dashed to the creek, panic gripping my insides when he didn’t come back up for what seemed a lifetime. I stood on the edge of the muddy bank and danced from foot to foot riddled with anxiety. When he did break the surface, it was near where I stood. My lungs emptied in a rush. I crouched down by the creek bank. It was perhaps a foot of clay mud and rocks until the water met the land. Khalid pushed his hair back from his face and grabbed the land, pulling his upper body up out of the water until he could rest his arms on the ground. My mind was foggy with lust. He was so masculine, so beautiful, that I felt enraptured as if I were an ancient Celt witnessing a selkie coming to shore.

  “You look terrified,” he said as water sluiced down over his cheeks.

  “I kind of have this aversion to water,” I shyly confessed. His eyes flared for a second then he flashed me a smile that nearly knocked me to my ass. I sat down about a foot from where his forearms were crossed and resting on the grass.

  “We can probably work on that. I can teach you how to swim. I am a lifeguard.”

  “Okay, sure.” I had no idea what to say. His beauty had stunned me like a board to the back of the head.

  “Here, scoot up.” He reached for me with one hand. A tingle of unease ran up my spine, but I let him take my ankle in hand. His fingers were wet but warm on my skin. The man could pull me in and hold me under right now and that death would have been worth it just for the feel of his skin on mine. He tugged, and I moved along on my ass, the seat of my shorts growing wet from the dew. “Now, just dangle a foot in the water while we talk.”

  “No. No, I can’t.” Reflexes kicking in I jerked my foot away from his hand. Khalid simply reached out and tried again. It took five attempts before I could allow him to guide my toes into the creek. The water was cold as it swirled over his hand and around my foot.

  “See, it’s good. We’ll just sit like this. So, why do you spy on me praying every morning?” His hold on my ankle was light. Breaking away from his grip would have been easy but I didn’t want to, it was that simple. Khalid was here, talking to me, holding my ankle. And waiting for a reply to a difficult question.

  “I’ve never seen anyone pray like you do.” That was partially true. “I have so many questions. Tell me about being Muslim. I read that you pray five times a day.”

  His nose wrinkled a bit, dispelling a droplet of water that then fell from the tip of his nose to the grass. The sky was growing light quickly, and I rejoiced in that because I could now make out the fine details of his ear and how his hair clung tightly to his head. I liked the shape of it, his head, and the way his nose sat upon his face.

  “I try my best. It’s hard to just leave the pool unattended to pray so I have to say the prayers in my head. I think Allah understands that if I turn my attention from the water, someone might die. I hope he understands anyway.” He began rubbing a thumb over my ankle bone. My eyes slid from his lips to the crescent moon and star lying on his wet chest. Despite the chill of the water and the tiny lingering upset of my foot being in water that was not in a shower stall, warmth began to slither up my leg. “Now my grandparents, who are Serbian, they’d tell me to get a part-time job but that’s not reasonable, right?” I bobbed my head. “Who can live on part-time wages? I need this money for books. Maybe I’m part of the decline of Islam my grandparents are always on about.”

  “My mother says that we’re fair weather Catholics.” I studied the moon closely, eagerly wanting to touch it but sitting on my hands instead. I was afraid that if I reached for his necklace my hand would fall elsewhere.

  “So, you’re Catholic. You in line with your church and its doctrines?” I shook my head. He nodded, his thumb moving in a small seductive circle. “Why?”

  “Lots of reasons,” I quipped, trying to sound aloof and uncaring.

  “Would you freak out if I told you a gay man was holding your foot right now?”

  My gaze flew from the crescent moon to his face. His thumb stopped moving on my ankle bone. His dark eyes were ripe with trepidation.

  “No, not so much. Not at all.” I hugged my left leg to my chest. “I might like that a little.”

  His sleek eyebrows tangled a little. “I thought I felt a vibe from you. Are you gay?” I nodded shyly. “What about Bonnie? You two seem close.” He reached for my left leg, fingers going around my ankle. I tensed immediately, fearful of him pulling me into the creek.

  “Please don’t,” I gasped and wrenched my foot free. “Don’t pull me in.”

  “I won’t. I promise. Trust me. We know some confidential things about each other now, right?” I bobbed my head, wishing my heart would stop thumping inside my breast like a moth beating itself to death against a pane of glass. “That a big secret for you? What you just told me, is that something that only you and I know?”

  “Yeah. Please don’t pull me in.” I stretched out my leg, slowly, inch by inch, toward him. He said nothing as I lowered my foot toward the creek he bobbed up and down in.

  “That was brave as hell telling me. No one else knows you’re gay? Your family or some friends?”

  “Just you.” Breathing normally was hard, but I focused on drawing in a slow breath then releasing it through my nose. It helped. A little. “I don’t even know why I told you.”

  “Because I’m so darn cute,” he teased. I gave him a wobbly smile.

  “You are.” My ears burned red with embarrassment, but I was caught up in the moment and the truths flying from my mouth.

  His lips flattened as if he didn’t believe me.

  “So, what’s your deal with Bonnie? Using her as a beard?” He started rolling his thumb over my ankle bone again. I shook my head while I stared down at my feet in the water. I was scared still, a little, and my pulse was jumpy, but I had my feet in a creek. A smile broke free. I spread my toes, sucking in a sharp breath when the cold water ran between them.

  “She’s seeing things that aren’t there.” I felt bad about letting her think there could be something when there couldn’t be. I wasn’t sure she was as nice as we all had previously thought. “I’m not sure that I like her anymore.”

  “Okay, so you and she aren’t dating?” He asked as if it were just idle chit-chat like walking up to someone you barely know and saying, “Do you have the time?” only it was more important. To me anyway. Again, I shook my head.

  “Would it make you happy if I said I was kind of glad to know that?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you watch me every morning because you’re curious about me? You find me attractive? I intrigue you?”

  “Yes, to all of the above.” The words tumbled free before I could stop them. My whole being had been focused on my feet and the rush of amazement seeing them in Cranberry Creek had brought. When what I’d replied sunk in I squeezed my eyes shut in embarrassment. “I’m not good at this social interaction thing, obviously.”

  Khalid chuckled, and I peeked through my lashes to see his smile. It made me feel sickly and sweaty even though it was cool for mid-June and my toes were in a cool mountain stream.

  “You’re doing fine, mate.”

  The morning took over a for moment or two, just settling over us as we gazed at each other. There were so many things I wanted to ask him, but his lower lip made recalling them difficult.

  “Do your parents know about you?” There. I had socialized and asked a pointed and important question. “Know that you’re gay, I mean.”

  He kicked his feet, sending water droplets into the air. They flew through a dozen thin beams of sun peeking through the trees, each droplet refracting the sun for a microsecond. A hundred tiny rainbows burst to life and then died off.

  “Yeah, I told them my first year in uni. They were okay with it, you know, after the realization that there would be no daughter-in-law.” His hand slid around my right foot, under it, his palm on my sole. “Now my grandparents are not as accepting. My grandfather stopped talking to me when I came out. My grandmother still communicates but only when my grandfather isn’t in the house.”

  I sighed because that was one reason out of a thousand that I was still in the closet. What if I told my family and they hated me? My parents had never really spoken badly about gays, but my dad was all kinds of confused about transgender issues and they both kind of wavered a bit about marriage equality but came around just not too enthusiastically. Both were strongly against some things our church endorsed, like not allowing women to be priests or the ban on contraceptives. They wavered a bit on abortion and marriage equality saying they could see both sides but just couldn’t stand behind it fully.

  “Sorry about your grandfather,” I finally said. He lifted a tan shoulder, but I had seen the pain in his eyes.

  “Meh, it is what it is. Things go tits up. You can either wallow in their issues or live your life.”

  “I want to live my life,” I stated with conviction, his bravery seeping into me. I glanced back at the cabin where my mother and brother slept. “I just don’t know how to tell them about me. I don’t think they’ll hate me but there’s going to be disappointment. I’ve worked my whole life to make them proud.”