Page 46 of Muscle Cub

Memories of the weekend flowed out of me.

And that was okay.

The rules allowed for anything that wanted to come through.

My experience with Austin had been significant. It deserved to be documented.

Some part of me still judged it, but maybe if I got it all down, it would free up the mental bandwidth for something real to emerge.

Because this couldn’t be real writing—the first time I’d laid eyes on Austin; us rolling around in my tent; the recurring fairy tale shoes that had the misfortune of being true and yet too on the nose for serious fiction.

But.

This was more than I’d written in one sitting in years. It felt good just to type this much.

The alarm went off.

I scanned the document.

I cringed thinking what my editor—former editor—would think of it. I almost deleted it, but it felt too much like I’d be erasing Austin. He’d probably love it. I pictured his crooked smile and him calling us hot.

Writing had been so hard for so long, but writing about Austin was easy. And if it was only valuable as a form of therapy, so be it.

I swiped open my phone, thumbed to the picture of us, and zoomed in on Austin’s face.

I needed more images of him. I had a few dummy accounts for lurking on social media. If he were to look for me online, he’d find my dormant author profiles with my headshot from ten years ago when I hadn’t been much older than he was now. I hoped he wouldn’t compare it to our selfie and wish he had met me sooner.

I searched “Austin Fox Best Cub,” and found him within seconds—@musclecubfox—one of those accounts with less than fifty original pictures posted and one hundred fifty thousand followers. He’d been tagged #musclecub in tons of photos by other people. I recognized the backgrounds. They’d invariably been taken in front of the lodge or in the parking lot between the pool complex and the front gate. There were dozens dated yesterday and the day before. While I’d been packing and waiting on him, guests had been stopping him to take selfies with him before they departed.

I went back to the solo selfies Austin had personally uploaded and saved screenshots of about twenty of them. That was all I’d come for. I hadn’t been expecting the rest, but now that I saw glimpses of his life when I wasn’t in it, I couldn’t stop looking.

And overthinking.

All those men with their muscled, tattooed arms casually draped around his shoulders… The more I scrolled, the more their selfies started to look like trophies.

How many of them might have also fucked him?

In a few days, another batch of men would arrive at Bear Mountain Lodge. Hundreds of naked men who didn’t have performance issues.

I couldn’t compete with them.

I opened the pictures of Austin I’d saved. I should go ahead and delete them now. Start the process of reversing my infatuation.

When the phone rang, I startled and almost dropped it.

He was calling me.

17

I fumbled to hit Accept, and considering the circumstances, managed a preposterously cool, “Hello?”

“Prof! Didya miss me?”

“I didn’t miss that nickname,” I lied, sure the smile in my voice betrayed me.

“You love it,” Austin teased. “What’re you doing?”

“Uh… writing.” I jumped up from my desk and started to pace. “Trying to anyway. You?”