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I stare down at my cum-stained jeans and frown. Oh fuck. I can’t even compete, shouldn’t even want to. I am not even comparable.
As if he can feel me staring, he turns to look at me and our eyes lock.
The girl turns her gaze too, and her brow creases in confusion. She probably thinks I’m his dad. Oh Jesus, if she only knew.
And yet still, I can’t look away. To them, I probably look like a lost and pathetic old man. And to be fair, they’re not wrong.
My hand clenches into a fist as I take in Quinn’s neutral face. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Usually he wears his expressions so damn loud, but right now they’re muted and quiet, and I hate it.
His eye twitches and then he turns his gaze back to the girl, leaning in a little closer to her.
My breath stutters out of me, my chest impossibly tight.
It would be just about right for me to have a heart attack right now. I’d keel over dead and be eaten by bears.
Ridiculous. This whole thing is damn silly. I need to get a fucking life.
I need to change my clothes and maybe I’ll take a look around the campground, get the fuck out of here. Let Quinn have his time with her. I’m not going to stand in the way of two teenagers who want to get it on.
I know when I’m not wanted.
I move inside the trailer and change into something clean, reminding myself that I need to go to the laundromat and wash my shit soon. If I keep coming in my pants like that then I’m going to need to buy some new stuff. This is getting ridiculous.
I brush my teeth and run a hand over my head, staring at myself in the mirror. I have lines near my eyes and mouth, and in this moment, I feel a hundred years old.
I can’t look any longer or else I’ll get down about things I can’t change, so I move outside instead, striding down the path that Quinn escaped to earlier. I don’t look over my shoulder at him. I tell myself I don’t want to disrupt them.
But in reality, I just don’t want to glance over and see him not looking back at me.
So I just push forward, losing myself in my thoughts. I know that I’m quiet, uttering very few words, but my mind is the complete opposite. It’s a cacophony of noise and chatter that I can’t escape. Sometimes I wish my mind would shut the hell up and leave me in peace and quiet.
I can’t wish for things that won’t ever happen.
My legs carry me toward a small wooden bridge and I stride across it, my eyes on the scenery in front of me, but not really seeing it. It’s getting a little late and I know that I should head back, but I’m not ready.
I just need to walk a little farther to clear my head.
My mind flashes to Quinn, to the taste of him, the feel of him. The way the loneliness that’s infiltrated my very being for so many years seems to lessen when he’s around. But I can’t ever have what I want, right?
And do I even want him?
I think back to him in high school—showing up at my place, sitting with me, chatting with me, just genuinely enjoying my company—and I feel my chest constrict.
Not many people can handle me. But Quinn doesn’t seem to mind how I am. He seems to like it.
Or he did.
I may have ruined that by being weird.
My feet carry me to a river and I clutch the back of my neck as I stand there, listening to the water rush over the rocks in the creek bed.
My anxious thoughts are so loud and consuming that I stand there for far too long, just ruminating. Turning things over and over again in my mind and getting nowhere.
By the time I start my hike back to the campground, the sun is setting and the katydids are chirping loudly. When I finally arrive back at the trailer and pull the door open, Quinn is standing there, his hair half out of its ponytail, his eyes a little wild. He looks utterly and completely undone.
“Where the fuck were you?” he asks lowly, his hands in fists at his sides as I step past him. “You left hours ago.”
I meet his stare, and his eyes flash.
