Page 3 of The Cubby Hole

“What made you decide to close your accounts?” If that was truly the reason I hadn’t run across him, I was shocked.

“Um…” Ben took a deep breath and blew out his cheeks. “Valentine’s Day.” Like that was enough for me to deduce a reason.

I guess it was. It could be a particularly depressing time of year to be on a hookup app. Not that that explained why this year had been any different.

“So, I have a favor to ask.” There wasn’t going to be a time any less awkward to bring it up. “You know I’ve been working out pretty hard, and it crossed my mind that being here this weekend, I’ll probably be naked at some point…”

Ben’s eyebrows shot up as he waited for me to finish the thought.

“Do you think you’d be cool with taking some pics of me?”

Ben’s expression was blank. “Like, pic pics?”

“Yeah. For the private album on my profile. It feels less awkward to have you take nude pics of me here at a naked campground than having you come over to my house in town and take them, you know what I mean?”

A deep blush crawled up his neck.

I flapped a hand, waving away the whole idea. “You don’t have to if it’s too weird. I just figured you’re the one man who’s already seen it all and the least likely to be interested. Mirror selfies are kinda douchey, and anybody else I could ask would think I wanted to fool around with them.”

I watched as his expression shifted. A few different emotions passed across his features like sun filtering through the leaves in the treetops—surprise, something I could’ve sworn was the briefest pout, and then, with some effort, he settled on a cheeky grin.

“I thought you said apps were only good for hooking up, not for finding a real relationship.”

After Ben and I had broken up, I’d become the world’s most desperate serial monogamist, but this was the start of a new phase for me. “I am done with husband hunting. We both know how that’s worked out.” I didn’t have to explain it to Ben. He’d known them all. He’d had a front row seat for every failure. I’d wanted him to know the other guys that I came to care about, and I wanted them to be cool with him. And maybe also, on some level, I’d wanted Ben to know that other men wanted me. “If the one was out there, I’m pretty sure I would have met him by now. I have a job I love and great friends. I have you. I was going to take a page out of your playbook. Just be happy with my life as it is and throw some no-strings sex into the mix.”

Ben huffed and muttered into his drink. “You think that’s worked out so great for me?”

“Hasn’t it?”

He crossed his arms and studied me, chewing the inside of his lip. “So you want me to take dick pics? Like, full-blown erection, precum oozing out the tip…”

“God no! Nothing porny. I don’t need close-ups of my hole on the internet either.”

“That would be a really bad idea since you only top.”

“Just forget it. It’s too weird for you to objectify me like that. It’s fine. I’ll get one of those bendy tripod things and see what I can accomplish using the timer.”

Ben pointed his phone at me, and I heard the unmistakable sound of a digital shutter clicking.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Taking your picture.”

“Not now. Not like this.”

“It’s a cute pic.” He faced the screen toward me. “Look.”

It was a decent shot of me. He’d taken several over the years that I hadn’t hated. It was the main reason I’d thought to ask him.

But this conversation had taken an odd turn, and I couldn’t fathom the expression he was giving me now. “Let’s just… go to the bar. They’ll be setting up for the party. Somebody will be there.”

2

8:08 P.M.

The Cubby Hole on a Thursday night at 8:00 p.m. was like any other small-town gay bar in the middle of nowhere when you showed up too early: dead, except for a few staff members, with disco lights whirling away a little prematurely and a Pandora station desperately pounding late-nineties dance tunes. Even though I recognized most of it from having gone out to clubs in high school and college, it wasn’t the kind of music I listened to in my everyday life or anywhere near the kind of alternative rock I produced.

I thought of it as Bear Camp music.