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Dust is swirling around his feet and Raleigh gazed at his tour guide ("Herc Hansen, call me Herc, and this here’s my son Chuck’’) with undisguised glee. The man has what Raleigh would consider as one of the top ten poker faces he’s ever seen. His blue eyes are serious and his mouth is in a stern line as he finishes giving his instructions. The sun isn’t quite overhead but if Raleigh was feeling poetic (spoiler alert, he is) he would point out the way the morning light makes Herc’s hair shine red gold and the freckles down his face, neck and arms makes Raleigh want to lick him all over.
Around him the people in his tour group are starting to look wary and the best part for Raleigh is that he has now learned just how incredibly gullible his older brother actually is. Yancy is actually looking up at the trees in concern.
“Nah yeah, drop bears, you gotta keep your eye out!” Chuck says. He’s a lanky teenager, about 16 and similar in looks to his father. Both Hansen’s wearing cargo pants and olive green tank top with the tour group logo of a cartoonish bulldog on it.
“Well, you keep watch and we’ll get this tour started!” Herc calls out. They go through the group with practiced efficiency checking that everyone has a full canteen along with all the things a night camping in the outback requires. When Herc gets to Raleigh’s pack Raleigh hears Yancy let out a snort of laughter. He shoots his brother a quick glare but Yancy is already wandering away with Tendo.
“What’s that about?” Herc asks and Raleigh, well aware he has no brain to mouth filter at the best of times blurts it out.
“He’s been teasing me since we got here because I find you attractive.” A wide, and extra attractive, grin spreads across the other man’s face.
“You’re not so bad yourself, mate, too bad you’re not old enough.” he says and Raleigh knows he’s blushing red like a fire truck. He’s always looked much younger than his actual age.
“Right, okay look, I know you guys are winding up the tourists and I’ll play along all you want if you just help me get him good,deal?” he asks. Herc claps him on the shoulder as he stands back up.
“Welcome to the team, kid,”
“Raleigh,” he corrects. “And I’m twenty three, completely legal.” The interest in the once over that Herc gives him makes a shiver run down his back.
“Alright, Raleigh, lets make your brother faint like a bloody sheila.”
***
Chuck appears to be delighted to have another drop-bear co-conspirator. Of course Chuck also noticed the glances going back and forth between his father and Raleigh and tells Raleigh outright “He’s a good man, and a bit lonely these days, but if you hurt him I’ll make sure they never find the body.” He gestures at the picturesque landscape around them. “There’s probably a thousand things in view right now that could make killing you so very easy.” And then he outlines the plan to Raleigh as they make their way to the first of two trails that their group will cover before they make it to the camp.
It goes beautifully. Raleigh spends most of the morning slowly working up the mid-forties married couple, the Shermann’s, with their fanny-packs to the point that they are staring in trepidation at shaky pictures of the tree canopy on their digital camera. Chuck has been working on Tendo and Yancy. Yancy is twitchy in a way that makes Raleigh have to look behind him with a fake concerned look to keep from collapsing on the ground laughing.
They break for lunch at a small picnic area where there are complaints about man eating bugs from a couple of sorority sisters, Breana and Lucy, that Yancy has been salivating over since they got on the tour bus two days ago at the airport and how tired Lucas, the whiny ten year old son of Mr. and Mrs. Shermann, is while he stares down at the screen of his PS Vita.
Herc and Chuck sit with Raleigh, Yancy and Tendo, the picnic table creaking under the weight of four grown men and a teenager built like a bar bouncer. Herc grins at him and nods over to where the Shermann’s are sharing their camera with Lucy and Breana. Breana doesn’t believe in the slightest but Lucy is almost shaking with the anticipation and sure enough as they get on with the second leg of the hike Lucy is glued to Yancy’s side.
“Don’t think we hooked either of the girls,” Chuck says mournfully. His eyes follow the curve of Breana’s hips with interest and Raleigh laughs because he remembers being sixteen. He remembers being a lot skinnier and lot geekier than Chuck and he tells him so.
It’s almost an hour more of walking and Raleigh purposely jumping at every sound when Chuck gives the signal, whistling a little in reply to a bird call in the trees above.
Raleigh does fall on his ass laughing when Chuck’s uncle Scott falls out of the trees with a shout throwing a bunch of stuffed koala’s wearing chintzy bush hats and olive green t-shirts with the Striker Eureka Tours logo. Yancy screams like a little girl. His shriek is even louder than the sorority sisters. Lucas Shermann doesn’t even look up from his game until a koala hits him in the face but his mother has to be rescued from where she ran off the path in panic and got tangled up in some bushes.
“Well now,” Scott says with a bright grin after he’s been introduced to the group. “You are one sorry lot of Shrieking Sheila’s. Follow me on up the path and I promise there are no more surprises except what’s for supper and I think I left the stove on.” He slings a companionable arm around Chuck’s shoulder and leads the group on to the camp. Herc helps Raleigh up from the group where he’s still wiping away tears of gleeful schadenfreude.
“That went better than I expected,” Raleigh admits and Herc chuckles.
“I got you a picture of his face, keep the drongo's mouth shut.” Herc assures him. Raleigh smiles happily, and then even wider when Herc doesn’t let go of his hand.