Page 71 of The Key Holder

Minutes crawled by, punctuated only by the occasional gust of wind. I could hear Dylan’s soft breathing, and the frantic beat of my own heart.

I wasn’t patient. I was about to suggest we give up, then I heard it. Dylan did too. A faint crinkle, like plastic being bent. Then another, followed by a flurry of scratching.

“Got ‘em!” Dylan yelled, a triumphant grin.

“Pull it!” I yelled, way more excited than I had any right to be.

He began to pull the snake back, slowly at first, then with increasing speed as the noises grew more frantic. The bottle came into view and sure as shit, there was a squirrel inside.

“I did it!” Dylan screamed.

“Get it out of the fucking house!”

He pushed past me, running down the stairs. “I didn’t think of this part!”

“Don’t let it climb out of the bottle!” I chased after him. The last thing we needed was an angry squirrel rampage.

“How?!”

“Just run faster and move the bottle around a little.”

“I’m not going to shake the poor thing,” he yelled over his shoulder.

But it didn’t matter. In another few seconds, he was out of the house and the device was on the ground. Since the frenetic movement had stopped, the squirrel figured his way out pretty quickly, though it was covered in peanut butter. More importantly, however, it was no longer in the cabin.

“One down, one to go,” Dylan said.

“The other one isn’t going to be that easy.”

We climbed the steps to the porch and before we could even get inside, another squirrel ran out the door, in between us, and down the stairs. We both turned to watch the reunion.

“Aww, he missed his little friend,” Dylan said, clasping his hands in front of his chest.

“I think he was probably more like ‘I need to get the fuck out of here!’”

“Regardless,” Dylan turned towards the house, an extra swish in his step, “that is how you deal with that.”

“Thank you, O wise squirrel whisperer.” I wrapped my arms around him from behind and squeezed. We made a good team, even if it was just a minor annoyance—that annoyed me for an entire week.

“I can’t blame them though,” Dylan said.

“Why is that?”

“Those little thieves had excellent taste in nuts,” Dylan answered, sliding his hand in between us to grab my junk. “I might need a taste right now.”

I groaned as he started to fondle me. “They’re all yours.”

"When did you know I was gay?" Dylan asked, his voice cutting through the gentle lapping of water against the shore.

Without thinking, I answered, "I think a part of me has always known.”

"You can't say things like that," Dylan said.

I could hear it in his voice. I knew I’d messed up.

One innocent question, one casual answer, and suddenly it felt like the easy rapport we’d spent all summer building was gone, replaced by a tension so thick I could almost taste it. I watched Dylan, the way his jaw was tight, the way his eyes avoided mine, and an all-too-familiar dread settled in my stomach. We were supposed to be relaxing, enjoying the last bit of daylight by the lake after our swim, not dredging up old wounds.

"Like what?" I asked.