Chapter 43

The morning before our big road trip, the group chat was already popping off before I’d finished brushing my teeth. My phone buzzed across the sink like it was trying to escape.

Jonah: “If no one brings the speaker, I will perform the entire road trip playlist using only my mouth and a comb.”

Christian: “Speaker is packed. Also, sunscreen, backup chargers, a first aid kit, and emergency protein. You’re welcome.”

Me: “Jack and I are bringing our matching sunglasses, the burrito blanket, and two family-sized bags of chips. Priorities. But they’re Sun Chips because I have a feeling we’re going to get fat on this trip. Too much fudge to ignore in Traverse City.”

Jonah: “You mean ‘fudge packing,’ though, right?

Jack: “Jonah, shut up. And correction: I’m bringing those. Nick packed one tank top, three swimsuits, and half a granola bar.”

Jonah: “Vibes > essentials. Socks? Never met her.”

I read that last one out loud and flopped onto the basement couch. Jack was crouched by our duffels, portioning shampoo and toothpaste into Ziplocs, as if we were going through TSA at our own front door.

“Also,” I added, scrolling, “Jonah says red onions are a form of gaslighting.”

Jack still didn’t look up. “More like they give him gas. Like Taco Bell gives me regrets.”

“We are not discussing your Taco Bell history.”

The basement looked like a teenage hurricane tried to organize itself and failed: towels over a chair; a power strip bristling with chargers; four flip-flops with no partners; our duffels — one navy, one army green — by the sliding door next to the cooler, which was already half-full of drinks and freezer packs. Mr. Bojangles snored on the rug like a lawnmower that needed maintenance.

“One day we’re taking him with us,” I said, watching the dog’s paws twitch in a dream.

“He can bully the seagulls and ruin someone’s sandcastle.”

“He’d eat our snacks and then get arrested by a lifeguard,” Jack said, snapping the Ziploc closed. “But yes. Worth it.”

He stood, stretching his back, that quick sideways smile flickering — the one that meant I’m okay, and tonight it actually felt true.

“Do you think Christian is going to be hyper-obsessive about schedules?” I asked.

“He already texted me a color-coded itinerary,” Jack said. “There are columns labeled ‘spontaneous bonding time’ and ‘driving shifts.’”

“That’s alarming. Especially since he’s the only one who can drive.”

“That’s Christian.”

I gathered the chargers and looped them with a twist tie. “I already feel like I’m on vacation.”

“You mean because your mom packed for you?”

“She offered! I still did most of it.”

“Nick, you brought four cans of Pringles and forgot underwear,” he said, gently. “I had to go back upstairs so you wouldn’t have to go commando at a family resort.”

“They sell underwear in Traverse City, Jack. They do not sell sour cream and onion love,” I said. “Or, I could just go commando.”

Jack ruffled my hair. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“Extremely,” I agreed, tugging him down beside me. He fell into the couch with a dramatic exhale.

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Jack said. “No adults. No rules. Just the four of us and a big lake.”

“Kinda wild, right? Two months ago, I didn’t know if you’d be back at school.”

He went quiet — not the brittle kind, just the kind that knows things. “I didn’t either,” he said.

We let it sit. The silence felt like a blanket someone had warmed in a dryer.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said.

“I’m glad you didn’t give up on me.”

“Are we going to be disgustingly lovey-dovey and make everyone nauseous?”

“You know it.”

From upstairs, Mom’s voice boomed down: “Dinner in twenty! If you’re not hungry, fake it! I cooked for six Cossack soldiers and a competitive eating champion!”

“God bless her,” Jack said.

“She says if we come back sunburned and starving, she’s pressing charges.”

“Fair.”

We did a final pass: the meds bag was zipped, chargers were bundled, the burrito blanket was rolled tight and tucked by the duffel. Jack tapped his toe like something was missing, then shrugged it off and took my hand for the walk upstairs.

The dining room looked like an embassy reception. Varenyky steamed under butter and onions; stuffed cabbage sat heroically in tomato sauce. Dill potatoes shone beside thick-sliced garlicky rye. Beet salad, cucumber salad, a mountain of sour cream, a pitcher of kompot ruby-dark with fruit, and a poppy-seed honey cake in the center like a crown.

Mom lifted a modestly immodest glass of wine. “Sit. Eat. Praise me.”

“Dr. Kincaid, your cooking makes me want to be a better person,” Jack said, stealing a dumpling.

“She’ll take it,” I said, and she did, laughing.

We ate the way you do when the food belongs to a place and the people at the table belong to you. Jack ate slowly, cataloging flavors, smiling at Mr. Bojangles — who stationed himself under the table like a vacuum that believed in miracles. Jack teased me about organizing snack bags by “crunch factor,” which was slander but also accurate.

I kept sneaking glances. This wasn’t “okay for now” Jack. This was Jack alive again — present, warm, teasing, letting himself be seen. It felt like exhaling after months of holding my breath.

“Leave room for cake,” Mom warned, already slicing. “If you don’t, I will make room.”

“We don’t negotiate with cake,” I said, and didn’t.

Afterward, I cleared plates while Jack declared himself “morally opposed to dish soap.”

Mom raised an eyebrow and threatened to revoke dessert privileges; Jack folded napkins into lopsided swans and called it a truce. Mr. Bojangles did a slow patrol of the kitchen and approved our work by sneezing on my ankle.

Back downstairs, the house settled into evening. The air smelled like soap, dill, and a faint chemical hint of sunscreen. I sprawled on the recliner while Mr. Bojangles anchored my feet. Jack sat on the edge of the pullout and triple-checked his pill case like he was prepping for a small expedition. It made me glad to see he was being so conscientious about his medications. Jonah’s “Road Trip Bops” playlist played softly on the TV — half chaos, half surprisingly good.

“You taking the whole pharmacy?” I asked, teasing, then softened my voice. “You good?”

He shot me a look that said a little funny, a little not. “Just the usual.”

I nodded. “Got it.”

He disappeared to the bathroom for water. When he came back, I heard the familiar clink of pills and the quiet gulp. He caught my eye and gave the smallest shrug: I’m doing what keeps me okay. I squeezed his hand. No speech. Just yes.

We scrolled the group chat while we waited for tired to find us. Christian had added, “Depart 6:30 a.m. sharp (real sharp, not Jonah sharp).” Jonah replied with a photo of his duffel packed like a clown car: swim trunks, a novelty pool noodle, a single sock, a hive of cords, something that might have been a wig covered in glitter, and a tiara. I was afraid to ask.

“He’s going to show up with everything except a toothbrush and deodorant,” Jack said.

“He’ll use yours,” I said. “Your teeth will just feel chaotic for a day. Not sure what the deodorant might do to you, though. I’d be scared.”

Jack kicked my shin lightly, then went quiet. “You sure we’re ready?”

“We’re not,” I said. “That’s the fun part.”

He laughed, softer than before, and slid closer. The movie menu looped on the TV. The basement lamp made a halo on the wall. The house felt like it was holding its breath with us.

“Remember those words we threw around before everything got… loud?” I asked.

“Always. Forever.”

He turned, open-faced. “Yeah.”

“People say that stuff doesn’t mean anything at our age.”

“People are wrong,” he said, like flipping a switch.

We leaned in — no flourish, just steady. No rush. We kissed the way you kiss after a long winter: familiar and new at the same time. Fingers laced. Foreheads pressed. We brought our lips gently together, and what started as light and tender pecks slowly turned into a full make-out session, our tongues wrestling for control in our mouths. And then suddenly, we found ourselves completely naked, holding each other closely. Mr. Bojangles whined in the background, but we ignored him, as I slide down his body, kissing his soft, perfect skin as I made my way down his body. His nipples, his chest, his tummy, his belly button, until I reached my target — his stiff boyhood. Of course, he wasn’t like Christian in that department, but I didn’t care — he was perfect for me. I slowly licked around his slightly hairy balls, then worked my way up his soft shaft, marveling in how soft the skin was. I circled his crown slowly as he softly moaned my name and ran his fingers through my hair. And then, finally, I took his entire boyhood in my mouth, until my nose was in his pubes. Then I turned up the suction, speed, and made clever use of my tongue as I bobbed up and down, his moans growing louder and louder until he had to put a pillow over his face so my mom wouldn’t hear.

Then, with a strength that surprised me, he grabbed me and tossed us on our sides, and we awkwardly rearranged ourselves into a sixty-nine position, and I resumed my practice for sucking the chrome off a trailer hitch. When I felt his mouth close around my rock-hard dick, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. He had also learned to deep-throat, although being of only very average length, it couldn’t have been that difficult, but it still felt incredible. And within a few more minutes, we were both moaning uncontrollably, and my body was the first to go stiff, as I shoved my dick as far as it could go in his mouth and unloaded myself in his mouth. It was clearly way more than I expected, and I could see it dribbling out of his mouth, unable to swallow it all. Within seconds, I felt his body start to tighten as well, so to help him along, I used my index finger to play with his little pucker, his Holy of Holies, until he stiffened completely, screaming out my name, and emptied himself into my mouth. Fortunately, I was able to swallow every last drop. Then I turned around and kissed him passionately, tasting my own cum that was still covering his mouth and chin. And when we were sure that there was none left to be lapped up, we both collapsed.

“God, I missed this,” I said, still trying to catch my breath.

“Me too,” he whispered.

And finally, everything seemed to feel like it was back to “normal” again. Whatever that meant.

We turned the TV down until it was just a glow. We traded a couple of dumb jokes because that’s who we are, even after having the most incredible sex. We talked about nothing: what kind of seagull we’d be (he picked the french-fry thief; I liked the bench judge), whether cherry jam counts as Michigan blood (it does), and whether my mom’s kompot recipe is “classified.”

Mr. Bojangles flopped onto his side like a seal and snored, which wasn’t the mood music I’d ordered, but it made everything feel real — our weird little life still running in the background.

I set my alarm, flipped my phone face down, and tugged the burrito blanket over us. Jack tucked under my chin the way he had a hundred times. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was us breathing in sync, and the weight behind my ribs loosening its grip.

Tomorrow would be playlists and diner coffee and a road that ended in blue. Tonight was just home: same basement, same dog, same us.

***

The alarm went off while the sky was still pretending it wasn’t morning. My phone did a terrified little shuffle across the nightstand; I slapped at it like a fly and missed twice. Jack rolled toward me, voice hoarse and smug. “It’s 6:05. Also, your hair looks like you licked an outlet.” I patted my head and felt static crackle like a tiny storm cloud. “Rude,” I croaked. He smirked. “Brave.” Mr. Bojangles groaned from the floor like a disappointed landlord. I peeled one eye open at the grayscale window and sighed. “Fine. I’m up.” Jack poked my cheek. “Debatable.” Supportive.

Ten minutes later, the doorbell detonated. Mr. Bojangles went from corpse to missile in a heartbeat, claws scrabbling on the floor as he launched toward the door like the nation depended on him. He wasn’t used to the doorbell ringing this early in the morning, either, and he looked prepared to personally stop the mailman from invading Poland. I opened it in boxers and eye crust, and physics immediately quit: Jonah and Christian tried to wedge in at the exact second Bojangles tried to wedge out. We pinballed into the dewy lawn, a pile of limbs and poor choices, with Bojangles planted triumphantly on my ribs like a fuzzy conquistador.

“Time’s a-wastin’!” Jonah yelled from under three shins. “Up and at your — ”

“If you put ‘saggy’ and ‘my ass’ together again,” I croaked, “you’re walking to Traverse City. And at least I have an ass. Many people have told me — big, strong people, with tears in their eyes — that I have a very nice ass, practically perfect. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Unfortunately, not many people would’ve gotten my inside joke, although I did see Christian smirking.

“That’s a long walk in Crocs, Jonah,” Christian said, breathless and amused.

We herded Bojangles back inside — he pulled the classic limp-dog protest like a toddler at Target — and I pointed the guys to the couch. “Sit. We’re moving as fast as we can. So, just chill and we’ll be ready when we’re ready.”

Jack and I speed-ran the morning: synchronized tooth-brushing, emergency deodorant, T-shirts and shorts from the staging pile. I grabbed sunglasses; Jack grabbed the meds bag; we both triple-checked the chargers. I scribbled a note for Mom and stuck it to the fridge with the screaming tomato magnet:

Mr. Bojangles out/back in. We love you. If we die, blame Christian. If I die, Tommy will take care of the dog for me. Everything else goes to Jack, and if he dies, then to you. This is my last will & testament. ~~ Love, Nicholas

I wasn’t sure my mom would be appreciative of my dark humor, but she would survive. Before we left, I let Bojangles out for a final yard sprint. He returned with his tongue deployed like laundry. I smooshed his face. “Guard the homeland. Repel all mail carriers, or suspicious Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormon pamphlet people. Tell them we’re Buddhists or something.”

He sneezed directly into my eye. Blessing received.

We were on the road by 6:45, brains on dial-up. First stop: Stan’s Diner — neon buzzing, windows fogged with hash-brown steam. Inside, the vinyl booths featured duct-tape constellations, and the servers called everyone “hon” as if it were union policy. A framed photo of a guy holding a comically large walleye judged us from above the pie case.

“Coffee?” our server asked, already pouring. Her name tag said Wanda, and she had the energy of a woman who’d seen every possible breakfast emergency and triaged all of them with a side of rye.

“Yes,” I said. “Until I confess my sins.”

“Still not enough,” Wanda said, poker-faced, and topped me off.

We ordered like people who weren’t sure breakfast would ever be legal again: omelets, home fries with peppers and onions, sausage links, bacon, corned beef hash, biscuits & gravy, and pancakes “for the table.” Butter slid theatrically; syrup turned the tabletop into stained glass. A local guy at the counter swiveled on his stool to assess us, then declared, “You boys eat like you got a lake to argue with.”

“We came to negotiate,” Jonah said solemnly.

“Lake never negotiates,” the guy said, pleased to have delivered lore.

“Hon, you carbo-loading for a marathon?” Wanda asked, returning with a pitcher like a weapon.

“A spiritual one,” Jonah said. “We’re outrunning our feelings.”

Christian ate with spreadsheet precision, cutting perfect geometric bites. Jack split the last pancake — a triangle for him, a weird trapezoid for me — and drizzled cherry syrup (Michigan-made, baby!) on my slice, as if he were writing, ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ without saying it. I pretended not to notice, but I failed. Wanda slipped a to-go box onto the table like a magician and said, “Pie doesn’t like to travel, but I’ll make it try,” and somehow a wedge of cherry pie appeared inside. “For the road,” she added, as if we were the ones who needed convincing.

Traverse City, known as the Cherry Capital of the world, doesn’t just like cherries — it treats them like a religion. Billboards, roadside stands, U-pick orchards rolling for miles (we’d already missed peak-sweet season, tragic). And the merch? Everywhere. The normal stuff — cherry soda, hand pies — sat next to the “who asked for this?” aisle: “all-natural” cherry lube, cherry mustard, cherry horseradish. One downtown shop boasted about 250+ cherry products, as if it were a world record, and honestly, it probably was.

So, if we were going to try to be as authentic as possible when we were in Traverse City, we would basically live on a diet of only fudge, cherries, smoked whitefish, and pasties. Yummy!

Back on US-131, the sunrise did the Bob Ross thing — dark tree cutouts rimmed in gold. Jonah sipped coffee and offered Yelp-style commentary on other drivers. “If this Subaru doesn’t pick a lane, I’m opening the emergency exit and rolling out.”

“You’re not near a door,” Christian said.

“I’ll find one,” Jonah replied, serene.

We made a quick stop at a gas station for some windshield squeegee time and emergency gum. Jonah came back with a hat that said LITERALLY CHILL, and a pack of beef sticks he swore were “medicinal.” The beef sticks were also cherry-flavored. Christian and I had the same Lions argument we always had — schedule optimism vs. trauma realism (while I also secretly wondered if Christian manscaped or went completely ‘au natural’) — while Jack leaned his forehead against the cool window and smiled at nothing. Seeing him that loose rearranged something good in my chest.

We passed a billboard that screamed EAT MORE CHERRIES! Jonah saluted. “General.”

A few miles later, the sky widened in that way that meant water was close, even if you couldn’t see it yet. The air in the car shifted with it, like we’d driven into a bigger breath.

“Next stop, paradise,” I said.

“Next stop, bathroom,” Jonah corrected. “Then paradise.”

Christian flicked the blinker like a benediction.

The Mariner’s Lodge looked like a postcard got a budget: neat log cabins with flower boxes vomiting petunias and geraniums, porches lined with rocking chairs that said, “Sit here and rethink your life,” and a meadow so springy you could nap on it. Beyond a frayed border of dune grass and wind-bent pines, Lake Michigan stretched out like a sheet of hammered blue glass. The horizon was a clean, ruthless line. It always looked like the edge of the world, but safer.

“Whoa,” Jack said, not loud, and squeezed my hand like he needed ballast. Watching him see Lake Michigan for the first time made me weirdly giddy. It looks like an ocean — no other shore in sight, real waves — except it’s all freshwater. No salt, no sharks (but there were some pretty damn big fish), just miles of blue flexing under the sky.

Lake Michigan was the fifth-largest lake in the world, and for me, one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen. I’d never get tired of lake trips. Michigan strings vacation towns along what feels like a thousand miles of shoreline — sleepy harbors, dune climbs, cherry stands — and that’s just Lake Michigan. Head north and Lake Superior shows off — cold, huge, gorgeous — and then there’s Mackinac Island, where everything smells like fudge and bikes have right of way. The state’s ridiculous in the best way, one postcard after another, and I wanted to take Jack to all of it.

Inside our cabin, someone had curated Coziness™: a king-size bed under a forest-green and navy quilt; a stone fireplace with a carved wooden trout above it (because of course); leather chairs pointed at a picture window framing the lake; the smell of cedar with a polite vanilla candle trying not to be obvious. The bathroom flexed, with a Jacuzzi tub under a skylight edged with smooth river stones. On the dresser: two chilled bottles of champagne and a card — “Welcome, Mariners!” — which was a bold assumption about our boat ownership.

“This is sweet,” I said. Suspicion woke up. “But also… expensive? I thought we were going rustic.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Christian said, sliding his bag beside the chair.

“What do you mean by ‘don’t worry about it’? Am I supposed to sell a kidney to a local fisherman?”

Christian clapped my shoulder. “We are. It’s covered. We wanted to do this for you guys.”

Sound escaped me — somewhere between a hiccup and a foghorn — and my face went sprinkler mode. Christian pulled me in, steady and warm. “You’re one of my best friends now,” he said into my hair. “Get used to it. It’s the least we could do after the summer you guys have had. You deserve this. And we wanted to be able to experience with you.”

Jack wrapped around both of us from behind until I was the filling in an emotional friendship burrito. Jonah, for the record, was across the porch trying on a lodge bucket hat and telling a gull, “This is our property now.” The gull disagreed.

We unpacked like we meant it — socks in drawers, jackets on pegs, burrito blanket folded on the chair like a mascot. A little card on the desk said, HOUSEKEEPING HINTS in fancy font and then “Please shake sand outside of beds,” which felt like a deeply personal attack.

The breeze off the lake tasted like cold water and sunlight. We took the boardwalk to the shore, and the first wave that touched our shoes felt like a handshake from a polite glacier. I dipped a toe and yelped like I’d stuck it into a bucket of diamonds. “Illegal,” I declared. “Call the governor.”

Jonah went feral immediately, chasing gulls and drawing war diagrams in the sand. The gulls outvoted him, three to one. Then the shriek: we turned in time to see a small crab dangling from Jonah’s finger like a piece of jewelry that hated its job.

“GET IT OFF! I HAVE RIGHTS!” he yelled, windmilling his arm.

Christian jogged over and removed the crab with the bored efficiency of an ER doc.

“Deep breath. You’re fine.” He plopped the crab back into the shallows, where it scuttled away offended.

“I need a tetanus shot, a rabies booster, and possibly a new identity,” Jonah said, flopping face-down in the sand.

“It’s a crab,” Christian said. “It had… opinions.”

Jack crouched next to Jonah and brushed sand from his hair. “If you start craving plankton, we’ll reassess.”

“Actually,” I pointed out. “Crabs are omnivorous, eating both plants such as algae and seaweed, but also other sea creatures, such as mollusks, shrimp, small fish, other crustaceans, and even other crabs.”

Christian just rolled his eyes and patted me on the shoulder. I may have swooned slightly from the physical contact.

We walked the shore until our feet went pleasantly numb and the sun admitted it was still August. Jack and I tried skipping stones; I got three hops once and immediately retired undefeated, while Jack kept trying until he got two in a row and then bowed to the lake like it had knighted him. A pair of kids were building a sandcastle that looked like an argument; their dad watched with a coffee and the patience of a man who knows when not to help. An older couple passed with a dachshund named Pickles who ignored us with professional focus.

By noon, we were starving again because teenage biology is a pyramid scheme. We found a sleek tavern that smelled like wood smoke and lemon and ordered like we were testing variables: deviled eggs dusted like tiny planets; a bean stew that tasted like a hug; whitefish so fresh it almost saluted; trout with skin that shattered under a fork; and a slice of sweet potato pie that made me close my eyes for a second. The server pitched an “elevated slaw,” which we accepted on faith and then ate like it had rescued us from a well. Christian paid in that sneaky Donahue way we never seem to catch.

“Let me at least cover dessert,” I tried.

“It’s handled,” he said, which is Donahue for not a chance.

We wandered downtown like we had nowhere better to be — bookstores with sleepy cats on the counters; a shop that sold soaps shaped like cupcakes (dangerous); a rack of sunglasses we tried on and immediately rejected (“Too FBI,” “Too divorced,” “Too fly-fishing instructor”). We took pictures with a giant cherry statue because destiny. A busker played the Jerry Jeff Walker classic, “Mr. Bojangles,” on an acoustic guitar; Jonah tipped him twenty bucks and did a dance that made strangers reconsider public funding for the arts.

We stepped into a tiny gourmet store because it smelled like jam and clean wood. Jack found a jar labeled “Traverse City Tart Cherry Preserves” and held it up. “For your mom?” he asked.

“She’ll cry,” I said. “In a good way.”

“Perfect,” he said, and got one for himself too, because future toast deserves respect.

Christian ducked into another shop and came out with a small paper bag. “Team morale,” he said, handing each of us socks decorated with cherries doing jazz hands. We put them on immediately, because we’re not cowards. An older lady walking by clapped for us, which is the exact level of validation my ego requires.

By the time we got back to the lodge, the light had turned that slow honey that makes everything softer at the edges. We promised “quick showers” that turned luxurious because someone put eucalyptus in the little bottles, and also because hot water exists. Jack’s hair did a soft curl thing at the ends that I pretended not to notice, but absolutely did, and caused my little soldier to salute. We emerged cleaner and significantly happier, in T-shirts that didn’t crunch and shorts that didn’t smell like our car.

We tested the bed because we are scientists: two small jumps, a collapse, laughter we couldn’t tamp down. We rolled around and then gave each other butterfly kisses — eyes, cheeks, nose — ridiculous and perfect. When I decided to put my tongue in his ear, Jack laughed the soft, surprised laugh that had been missing for too long and had finally decided to come home, along with a couple of squeals for mercy.

“I think you’re part golden retriever,” he whispered.

I kissed the tip of his nose. “Woof.”

Dinner was “lighter,” thank God — an absurdly large order of malt fries in the middle of the table because we have principles, ahi tuna tacos, then split plates: steak frites, fish and chips, shrimp po’ boys, Nashville spicy hot chicken. I ordered a Caesar salad to signal to my arteries that I cared; the croutons immediately betrayed me. Our server asked where we were from and then told us a story about a storm in ‘98 where a canoe famously escaped the marina and was found three counties away with a family of raccoons living in it. “Local legend,” she said. I believed her with my whole heart. So did Jonah.

“I will not eat again until morning,” I said, patting my stomach.

“Narrator voice,” Jonah said, “he would, in fact, eat again before morning.”

On the way back, we stopped at a roadside store. Christian ran in alone, returned five minutes later with a nondescript paper bag, and refused to explain.

“No questions,” he said, grinning.

Back at the cabins, surprise #2: matching Detroit Lions’ pajama sets laid out on each bed, somehow exactly our sizes.

“You’re unhinged,” I told Christian, pulling mine on anyway.

“Team spirit,” he said. “If we all look ridiculous, none of us does.”

We padded out to the fire pit in our matching PJs like a very cozy cult. No one else was around — just us, crickets clocking in, and the lake doing its slow, endless breathing. The fire caught quickly and converted logs into gold; sparks floated up like lazy fireflies. Someone down the beach played a soft guitar line that didn’t try too hard and therefore worked.

Christian turned to Jonah and handed over the mystery bag. “For you,” he said, not even trying to look cool. “Because I love you, my brother.”

Jonah tore it open and gasped. A large brick of homemade fudge. He squealed, planted a dramatic kiss on Christian’s cheek, and wrapped him in a hug that contained very little oxygen. “I KNEW IT,” he announced. “You do love me!”

“I do,” Christian said, mock-offended and extremely fond.

And Jonah, in a much more serious tone than usual, added, “I love you, too, big bro.”

We applauded because that’s what you do when love enters, holding chocolate. Jonah broke the fudge into tidy squares and dealt them like contraband. It tasted obscene — dense, rich, velvety, aggressively chocolate. We ate slowly, like people who understood reverence. Between bites, Jonah read aloud from the lodge’s “Fire Pit Guidance” sign in his most official voice (“Extinguish all embers. Leave no trace. No crab domestication.”) and then bowed to the sign when he finished.

Conversation drifted easily: best fries we’d had this year; worst gym excuses we’d ever used; which incoming kids might “get” us, and who might orbit for a while before drifting off. Christian pulled up tomorrow’s color-coded loose plan and pretended it had only one color. Jonah added his “unscheduled chaos window” and set it to recur daily. Christian pretended to delete it, then… didn’t.

I realized at some point I wasn’t inventorying Jack’s expressions or bracing for cracks. The silence between us wasn’t thin. It held.

“Obnoxiously happy,” I said, planting the flag.

“Seconded,” Christian said.

“Thirded,” Jonah said. “Unanimous.”

The fire burned down to a red bowl. We cleaned up our trash like decent people and followed the dim path back through the meadow, the grass cool under our feet, the moon laying a silver road across the water. My chest felt like someone had opened a window in it.

We flopped crosswise on the bed, ankles touching, cherry socks grinning at each other. We named three small things we were grateful for: Wanda’s diner coffee, the exact snap a new log makes when a fire catches, the moment the lake first came into view, Mom’s kompot, and Jonah somehow not adopting a crab. Jack’s voice went drowsy halfway through his list; mine followed.

And that was just the day we arrived.

***

We didn’t go to bed right away. The fire had settled into a red bowl, and the lake kept up its quiet shush, coaching the whole shoreline to breathe in unison. Christian kicked sand over the last little flickers until they stopped arguing with the dark.

“Temperature check?” he asked, big-brother mode flipped on, even though no one had asked for a report.

“We’re good,” I said.

“Good-adjacent,” Jonah said, tugging at the waistband of his Lions pajama pants like they were trying to abandon him for the sea.

Jack bumped my shoulder. “Good,” he said, and meant it in a way that didn’t need italics.

We drifted toward the beach without a plan. Our footprints stitched the damp line where the waves kept reaching and then reconsidering. Far out, a red light blinked —buoy or small patient heartbeat for the lake. The sky felt closer than it ever looks in cities; the air tasted like cold water and a little pine resin.

“Tell me something small and good from today,” Jonah said suddenly. “Not big-good. Pocket-good.”

Christian went first. “The water at the diner tasted like actual water.”

“Daring choice,” Jonah said, nodding his head appreciatively.

“The socks,” Jack said, glancing at our jazz-hand cherries. “They’re stupid, but they made everything funnier.”

I tried to think of something that wasn’t obvious. “That moment when the lake first came into view and my stomach did the rollercoaster drop thing,” I said. “Like… oh. Yes. That.”

We were quiet after that — long enough to hear the tiny hiss each wave made breaking into foam. The wind threaded Jack’s hair into little peaks; he didn’t bother to flatten them down. At that moment, I fell in love with him a little bit more.

We walked to the end of the pier because it felt illegal not to. The boards were cool. The metal rail had donated its heat hours ago and was now firmly on the side of night. Christian leaned his elbows and looked out as if there was a complicated math problem visible only to him.

Jonah began narrating fake constellations (“That’s clearly a turtle wearing sunglasses,” “This cluster is a tired librarian,” “That’s a crab with a vendetta”), and Christian let it run until even Jonah admitted he could be wrong about the librarian.

Jack’s fingers found mine and stayed. No squeeze, no signal. Just placed there like a bookmark.

“How’s your brain?” I asked him softly so that the question wouldn’t echo.

He thought about his answer instead of rushing it. “Okay,” he said, and it sounded a little like surprise. “Yours?”

“Okay,” I said. “Weird-okay. Like I keep waiting for a shoe to drop, and it hasn’t, and now I don’t trust shoes.”

“We’ll watch for shoes together,” he said. “Emergency Shoe Patrol.”

“E.S.P.,” I said.

“Exactly.”

A colder gust shoved us back toward the path. We took the hint. The dune grass clicked against itself like a low metronome; the cabins threw soft, warm rectangles onto the sand. In the lodge lobby, a lamp was still on, near a shelf of battered paperbacks and board games with half their pieces missing. Jonah spotted them through the window and gasped like a Victorian child at a candy store.

“We’re doing this,” he announced, already trotting toward the door.

Inside, the lobby smelled like cedar and a hint of cinnamon, as if someone had tricked the space into thinking it was December. There was a mini arcade in the corner — two old machines, their screens faintly buzzing. Jonah made a beeline and smacked the start button on Ms. Pac-Man as if he were defibrillating it.

Christian went to the tiny café counter and returned with four steaming paper cups. “They had hot cocoa,” he said, unnecessarily heroic.

We sprawled around a low table with a chessboard carved directly into the wood. None of us was good at chess except Christian, and even he preferred to pretend he wasn’t. We set up the pieces anyway and played poorly on purpose, swapping out the rules mid-game. Pawns could leap once per match. Knights had to neigh before moving. If you yawned, your queen got to teleport. We laughed so hard I had to wipe my eyes with my sleeve. Jonah forgot about Ms. Pac-Man for a minute and then sprinted back, shouting, “She needs me!”

An elderly couple came in quietly with a small brown dog that wore a sweater and the expression of a mayor. The dog stared at us until Christian, who is politer than anyone, nodded at it like he’d been introduced. The dog nodded back, or maybe it sneezed. Hard to say.

“You doing okay?” Christian asked me under the noise, like he was checking a gauge I’d left in his care.

“Yeah,” I said. “Today felt… easy. Chill.”

“Good,” he said, and it was a real “good,” not the one people use to end a conversation.

Jack slid his hand over mine under the edge of the table and wrote same in little fingertip letters I felt more than read. I squeezed back. Jonah yelled “SHE CHEATED!” at a pixelated fruit, making the dog-Mayor glance over with civic disapproval.

We stayed until Ms. Pac-Man relented and offered Jonah the high score (barely), which he commemorated by typing “JON,” because “JONAH” was too many letters, and he somehow took that as a hate crime. Then we put things back where we’d found them —the old games stacked straighter, the cocoa cups in the bin, the chess pieces returned to their little drawer — and walked out feeling like we’d tidied a tiny corner of the world.

Back on the path, the moon drew a bright line across the lake, as if someone had dragged a highlighter over the water and forgotten to cap it. The night had turned up the volume on smell: damp wood, cool sand, clean air. My brain noticed and, for once, didn’t try to process it into something responsible. It just let it be nice.

On our porch, we did the ceremonial sock-shake to evict any sand hitchhikers, which turned into a sock-juggling contest that I did not win. Christian sat on the step, rubbing the back of his neck as if it were a sore spot. Jonah flopped onto the railing and almost fell off, catching himself with a wheeze and then pretending it had been on purpose.

“Okay,” Christian said, the way you say it when you’re about to move people gently from fun toward responsible. “Hydrate. Brush. Then sleep.”

“Yes, father,” Jonah said.

“Stop calling me father,” Christian groaned. “I’m only, like, three years older than you.”

“That is at least three presidential terms,” Jonah argued.

“It’s actually the opposite,” Christian said, then gave up and stood. “Two minutes, then meet back here.”

We dispersed. Inside, our cabin had retained its daytime warmth for us; the cedar scent lingered, and the bed seemed to defy gravity. Jack lined his pill case and water on the nightstand out of habit. I set two alarms because I don’t trust Future Me to be punctual.

“FaceTime Mom?” I asked.

“FaceTime Mom,” he said.

She answered from the couch at home, hair in an on-call bun, wearing my ancient university hoodie, with Mr. Bojangles sprawled across her lap like she’d been forced to adopt an ottoman. “There they are,” she said. “Is the lake still there or did Jonah scare it away?”

“It’s still here,” I said. “He tried his best.”

“Show me the room,” she said, and we did: the quilt, the window, the fireplace with the carved trout. She made the right appreciative sounds. “Are you eating?” she demanded next.

“We honored the state of Michigan,” Jack said. “Whitefish. Trout. Also cherry pie. And fudge. Lots of French fries, too.”

“Good,” she said, satisfied. “Sunscreen?”

“Yes,” we chorused, lying a little.

She squinted at the screen. “Are those matching pajama tops?”

“Team spirit,” Jack said. “Christian’s doing.”

“Tell him he’s dangerously competent,” my mom said gravely. “Okay, I need one photo at sunrise and one of Jonah any time he does something incriminating. Kiss the dog.”

We tried. Mr. Bojangles turned away with the slow disdain of an aristocrat and pretended to sleep.

“Rude,” I told him.

He sneezed. Mom laughed. “He sneezed at you. That’s love in this house.”

“When’s your next shift, Mom?” I asked.

“I just have a regular shift tomorrow, then maybe a double the following day. I’m not sure yet,” she sighed. “Hopefully, it won’t be. I’m tired.”

Then Jack piped up. “I’m really grateful that you let us do this. I think it’s just what I needed, and I’ve felt totally great the whole time.”

“Be sure to thank Christian a lot. Perhaps consider buying him something nice if you still have enough pocket money left over. That boy is incredible, and you are fortunate to have him as a friend,” she said. We nodded our heads rapidly in agreement.

We hung up with promises of sunscreen, photos, and immediate sleep. Instead of immediate sleep, we sent Tommy a picture of our socks at the edge of the bed with the caption: “Wish you were here to bully us in person.”

He replied in six seconds: “Bullying u remotely: the socks slay, the lake is doing too much, Christian has to stop being hot AND generous, tell Jonah I’m proud of him for not adopting a crustacean.”

Jack typed back: “He tried to invent defensive sand pits. The gulls said no.”

Tommy: “King behavior. Go to bed. Also, Nick brush ur teeth again, u missed a spot.”

Me: “Lies and slander!”

Tommy: “My truth is the only truth. Gnight idiots. Love u dudes srsly.”

I set my phone face down next to Jack’s. We did the world’s fastest foot-rinse in the tub (slippery chaos), then climbed onto the bed and bounced once out of principle before collapsing. The quilt smelled like clean cotton and someone else’s idea of a movie cabin.

There was a soft knock at the doorframe. Christian didn’t come in; he hovered in that polite big-brother way like a human doorstop, holding two extra water bottles. “Peace offerings.”

“You’re enabling midnight pee,” I said, taking one.

“Hydration over everything,” he said, then hesitated. “You two good?”

“We’re good,” I said, and Jack nodded.

Christian smiled the kind of smile that felt like an unspoken thank you for being okay.

“Ten minutes,” he said. “Then meet on the porch for a sec.”

“Orders, orders,” I muttered, but lightly.

We brushed our teeth for real. Jack tapped the rim of the jacuzzi with a conspiratorial grin. “Tomorrow night,” he said. “Bubble-beard competition.”

“You assume you can win,” I said. “Hubris.”

“Your face is built for foam,” he said sweetly.

We pulled on hoodies and met the others on the porch. Christian had his phone out and said, “Look up,” so we did. He’d pulled up a star app and was doing a decent impression of someone who knew what he was pointing at.

“That’s Vega. That’s Altair. That’s Deneb,” he said, tapping lines no one else could see.

“Summer triangle.”

Jonah squinted. “You made that up.”

“Okay,” Christian said, laughing. “Maybe. But those are their names.”

“Turtle with sunglasses,” Jonah murmured, unconvinced but content.

We stood there for a few more minutes, not talking much, because the stars were doing the speaking and it would have been rude to interrupt. Then Christian cleared his throat in the gentle-tyrant way and said, “Okay. Sleep.”

We split again at the porch. Christian and Jonah to their door, Jack and I to ours. I had my hand on our knob when Christian cleared his throat a second time.

“Hey,” he said, like it was an afterthought, even though his grin knew precisely what it was doing. “Heads up. There’s a wake-up call at five.”

I turned slowly. “As in, five a.m.?”

“As in, five a.m.,” he confirmed.

“On vacation?” I asked, horrified on behalf of sleep.

“On vacation,” he said, unrepentant.

“For what?” Jonah demanded, instantly suspicious. “If this is sunrise yoga, I will achieve child’s pose and ascend out of spite.”

“No spoilers,” Christian said. “Just be dressed and ready. Layers. Shoes you can move in. That’s all.”

“Layers?” I repeated. “What does that — ”

“Goodnight,” he said, already backing toward his door.

“I hate you,” Jonah called, but it sounded like fondness carrying a plastic knife. “Also, I’m not wearing socks or underwear.”

“You are wearing socks,” Christian said, pointing at the cherries. “These ones. And I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if you wear underwear or not. Just don’t blame me if you freeze your microscopic balls off.”

Jack groaned. “Five?”

“Five,” I said, like saying it would make it less monstrous. “We can do five.”

“Can we?” he asked. “Seriously?”

“Barely,” I said. “But we’ll look cute doing it.”

“Meet here at 4:58,” Christian added, tapping his watch. “I’ll knock.”

“If you knock at five, I’m not answering,” Jonah muttered.

“Then I’ll sing,” Christian warned.

Jonah paled. “Dear God. I’ll be ready.”

Christian winked and disappeared. The door shut on his glee.

Inside our room, the cedar felt warmer, like the whole cabin had decided to root for us. We lined our shoes by the door like we were the kind of people who did that on purpose. Jack set his watch and phone in a neat little line on the nightstand. I set three alarms because I know my own treachery.

“Layers?” I said, flopping onto the bed. “What does he even mean?”

“Could be anything,” Jack said, sliding under the quilt. “We could be going ice dancing. We could be climbing Everest.”

“In Michigan?” I said. “Bold.”

He rolled toward me with a face that landed between I am not a morning person and fine, I’m a little excited against my will. “Wake me if I sleep through your entire drumline of alarms.”

“I’ll deploy the cold washcloth,” I said.

“If you do, I’ll bite you,” he said primly.

“Promises,” I said, and he snorted.

We killed the lamp. The dark settled like a clean sheet. Outside, the breeze slipped through the cracked window and reminded the curtain how to move. Somewhere, a door shut softly, and the sound hopped the grass like a pebble.

“Hey,” Jack said into the comfortable dark. “Thanks for today.”

“Thanks for today,” I said back.

We didn’t promise anything impossible. We didn’t try to throw a net over the good. We just slid closer in an automatic way and decided to trust the morning to do what mornings do: arrive, at a ridiculous hour and all.

“Five,” I mumbled into the pillow, resigned.

“Five,” he agreed, equally doomed.

I fell asleep to the sound of him breathing in a steady rhythm and the lake tapping time on the shore, and somewhere behind that, Christian’s voice saying no spoilers, which made me hate him a little, which is to say I loved him a lot.

We slept.

NEXT CHAPTER

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