Page 7 of The Cubby Hole

“Who else would I be looking at?” He held my gaze.

For the millionth time, I noted how Ben’s lashes were so long they looked fake…

One of the pool players crowed over a winning shot, giving me an excuse to turn away.

“Run Away” by Real McCoy came on. Another song they used to play at dance clubs when we were together.

Run away, run away, run away and save your life.

Suddenly nervous to return to the spell of Ben’s eyes, I flailed, grasping for something to talk about. “What do you think this song even means?” I asked rhetorically. “Is it jaded, or is it actually supposed to be a message of hope?”

Ben didn’t respond. He knew the signs of one of my incoming lectures. I had a habit of dissecting pop music with entirely too much high-brow excitement for the average person. Ben always humored me.

3

9:19 P.M.

I continued to pontificate about Gen Z pop culture through two more rounds of beer until Ben finally suggested we go for a walk.

The sawing of the cicadas muffled the scuffling of our shoes on the gravel road. We made our way downhill through the Village, past the little stone chapel, the barber shop, and Bathhouse Three with the small gym beside it. Lights from the RVs along Trailer Park Avenue glowed like a fairy city across the open field where the bonfires were held.

“Moon’s pretty tonight.” Ben’s South Georgia drawl became more pronounced when he was buzzed.

I gazed up at the thin crescent. “Waxing or waning?”

“Waning.” Ben always knew the answer to that kind of Farmer’s Almanac trivia. He could name the constellations and the five different kinds of Tennessee winter.

“It’s chillier than I thought it would be.”

Ben snorted. “You want to go back to the cabin and grab a sweater, Papaw?”

“Fuck off.” On impulse, I nudged his shoulder, throwing him off-balance. He danced away and then sidestepped back into me. I didn’t know why I’d done that. It had honestly felt a little weird. Even though we were close, there usually wasn’t much physical contact between us. No roughhousing or horsing around and definitely nothing affectionate.

There’d been a time when Ben’s body had been as familiar to me as my own, but since we’d gone back to being just friends, there was an unspoken line we didn’t cross.

Heads down and hands shoved into pockets, our downhill strides fell back into sync. Ben often appeared in my dreams like this, just within my peripheral vision, a presence I could feel without needing to see.

We came to the small bridge over the creek at the center of the campground where the road forked north to the main lodge and south to the RV park. At the sound of an approaching golf cart, we stepped out of the way to wait in the grass. I couldn’t identify the driver behind the headlights, but he called out a hello as he cruised by.

The lights were on in Bathhouse Two, the large one beside the pool with the steam room and sauna. I announced I wanted to stop in and pee.

Ben stretched out his arms to encompass the entire shadowy outdoors. “You can pee anywhere.”

“I want to warm up,” I said, then I stage whispered, “We can see if anybody’s in there cruising.”

Ben had had a lot more experiences in there than I ever would, but I could be a bit of a voyeur. It was also fun to be silly about it.

Once we’d answered nature’s call, I asked if he wanted to go stand in the dry sauna for a minute.

Ben gave a nonchalant shrug, went over to a row of lockers, and started toeing off his shoes.

“I was just going to go in with my clothes on.”

“Take your damn clothes off, Mamaw.”

I put my hands on my hips in mock outrage. “So, I’m a mamaw now? Am I losing testosterone and sex appeal right before your eyes?”

“Not all of it.” Ben smirked, his pretty blues wolfish under the fluorescent lights. “You still have plenty left.”