Page 38 of Muscle Cub

“I’m twenty-six.” He sat up straight and smiled like a proud four-year-old.

I nodded. “Right. Okay.” I remained standing, pacing back and forth in front of him. “I’m forty-two. I was sixteen when you were born. That’s not a dad. That’s an uncle at best.”

Austin held up a finger in a point of order. “Sixteen’s old enough to knock somebody up.”

“You do realize that the somebody in that scenario would be your own mother, right?”

Austin grimaced. “Yeah. Okay. That sounds kinda gross.”

I stopped pacing and faced him. “I’m afraid to ask, but how old are your parents?”

“My mom was my age when she had me, so she’s fifty-two. My dad’s a little older than her. He’s fifty-nine, about to turn sixty.”

I sighed, more relieved than I wanted him to know. “So he’s old enough to be my dad too. That makes me feel a little bit better.”

“It’s all relative.” Austin spread his hands in a gesture that said everything’s cool, bro. “It doesn’t matter.”

“That’s always the younger guy’s line.” I knew the mindset well. Charles had been eight years older than me when we’d gotten together, which was only half the age difference between Austin and me.

Austin reached for my hands. “What’s my next line, then? Do I beg you to take me back to bed and make me your boy?”

I cursed under my breath. “Do you really want a daddy? Is that actually a thing guys your age are looking for?”

“Oh, I’m sure there’s some who are. Some of the guys around here talk shit about hooking up with guests in the Soggy Bottom—that’s what we call this part of the campground—”

“Wait.” I didn’t know where he was going with this. “Have I unknowingly signaled something about my sexual preferences by camping here, or…”

“Nah, nah. It’s trash talk. Locker-room banter about getting with the men who have money. The ones who rent the good cabins or the ones with nice RVs on Trailer Park Avenue.”

I gestured to my site. “Seems like this would be considered the real man’s camping though, no?”

“You’re way butcher than any English professor I ever had,” he said, swinging my hand. “But for the record, I’m not one of those guys. I’ll figure out my own career, my finances, all that shit. I want to do something cool, and I want to be somebody in the world. I just want someone who wants me for me.”

I looked away and cleared my throat. “You don’t really give me kept boy vibes. And, besides, I heard that a man has to be really hot to warrant a tent fuck around here.”

“It’s true,” he nodded gravely. “He has to be really worth it.”

My back was to the fire so he couldn’t see me blush. “Then I’m flattered.”

“You should take me back to the tent and let me flatter you some more.”

14

I spooned Austin, brushing my facial hair against the back of his neck as he clutched our hands together beneath his chin.

“You can’t go home tomorrow,” he whined. “You have to stay for the fireworks.”

Since so many people would be checking out on Monday, they’d do the fireworks on Sunday night. I’d paid through Saturday night—tonight—even though I hadn’t intended to still be here.

I hadn’t expected to meet him.

“I’ll go pay Jim for an extra night,” I breathed in his ear. “First thing tomorrow.”

We drifted in and out of sleep, making out and humping, frotting, only half-conscious. I questioned how many more erections I could sustain. Austin said we should take it as a challenge and find out how far one pill could take us. We didn’t try to fuck again, though. It wasn’t a priority. Sometime before dawn, he woke me with a blow job and made me come so hard it almost hurt.

Sunday breakfast featured a parade of goodbyes. More than half the guests seemed to be leaving. A lot of people had long drives or wanted a day at home to decompress before going back to work.

I still planned to leave Monday morning. Austin said the staff would go into intense recovery mode around noon that day. I’d have to say goodbye sometime, and I didn’t want to be in his way.