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The campfire seemed to nearly die out by the two hour mark— maybe more, maybe less; Nick wasn’t keeping track. He stares into the amber glow of the flames, warmth spreading across his face, just bordering on uncomfortably hot. The other counselors are talking, deep in conversation with sprinkled laughter that’s muddled to Nick’s ears; he forgets what they had been talking about anyways. Dylan’s phone— which hasn’t miraculously died yet— is still playing music from his carefully procured playlist made just for the occasion.
Nick finds himself focusing on the faint melody of songs rather than the actual topic of discussion at hand. (He tunes in just in time for Kaitlyn to ask Would you rather cut your hand off… Or cut your foot off? He stops listening.) He likes Dylan’s taste in music. They had discussed it one day, when Dylan had asked Mr. Hackett if he could have his phone for just the mornings, just so he could play real music over the PA system as a makeshift radio. When he had said no due to their no phones rule, Nick poked fun at him, asking him if he was going to play repetitive pop songs like they do on the actual radio and received an offended look.
The two of them spent the rest of their free-time before lunch both listing off their favorite artists and songs, seeing who knew what and what needed to be listened to as soon as they got their phones back. The conversation had bled into Nick’s lunch prep duty, causing Dylan to trail after him in the kitchen with a piece of scrap paper titled MUSIC underlined three times, while still talking his head off. They went back and forth, arguing whether or not Ed Sheeran was overrated (he is, apparently) and making new discoveries like: Carly Rae Jepsen is still making music? — Uh, yeah? You lived in Australia, Nick, not under a rock.
Dylan helps him bring out the food to the serving tables, announcing the day’s meal and grabbing the attention of every camper with his chirping voice. Everyone say “Thank you, Chef Nick!” He grins, throwing Nick a wide, playful grin that he returns right back.
Nick really should’ve predicted the downward spiral from there.
It starts with one smile, a seed planted in the back of his head, nearly forgotten. It sprouts with each joke pointed in his direction, blossoms over the next two months until he’s covered in everyday conversation and bright laughter mingled with his own. He drowns himself with the word Friend, ignoring and pushing away the idea of more.
Nick had opened up to Abi more than he had opened up to himself; he tells himself that she has a certain charm about her that makes everyone she’s near all soft and feel-y. She’s just that type of person. The one who draws you in and makes you feel like you could tell her anything. The moment she had mentioned Dylan, Nick had crumbled, guard down and truth laid out for only the two of them to see. Nick knows that it’s just summer camp. Most of them wouldn’t be seeing each other until next year, maybe never again. He wasn’t expecting a huge romantic love fest in the middle of the woods— he wasn’t even expecting to get caught up in stupid feelings, either, because next thing he knows he’ll end up like Jacob.
In a strange way, he found himself looking up to him sometimes. He was the classic popular, outgoing jock; everything that Nick had pretended to be. The perfect combination of strikingly confident with a handful of endearing stupidity. Despite their differences, they had actually gotten pretty close at camp. Nick would consider Jacob one of his closest friends there. Which then makes him feel like a total asshole for what had happened during Truth or Dare.
Nick glances over where Jacob sat next to Ryan, a lazy, tipsy grin replacing the irritated frown he had been wearing earlier. He’s glad that he’s doing better. Jacob can be childish and immature, something that they all knew at this point, but no one could ever really stay mad at him. The moment’s gone, though, and the past is in the past. He tells himself to remember to say he’s sorry for kissing Emma.
It’s not like he intended on kissing Emma to make anyone mad or jealous— that was the last thing he wanted— but Emma’s Emma so of course she’d want to put on a show any chance she got. Something to stir up the crowd, he hears in her voice. Emma was the one who had kissed him in the first place, sauntering over towards him, with crystal clear knowledge that Jacob was watching. Nick doesn’t know if there’s ever a time where she’s not playing the starring role. Although maybe there was a side of her that Nick didn’t know about, something that Abi clearly liked about her.
Nick knows that he’s not completely innocent either, he had played his part just as much as Emma. Maybe he liked the attention just as much as she did. Maybe he did it to see if a certain pair of eyes were watching him, to see if they shared the same hidden disappointment. Maybe it wasn’t worth it.
They had stopped playing Truth or Dare when they realized that making each other kiss wasn’t as thrilling as they wanted it to be, but probably stirred up more feelings and drama than they were anticipating. Truth or Dare wasn’t as fun once they were down to three people, anyways.
From tonight’s session Nick learns that Kaitlyn and Jacob had kissed their freshman year of high school, that Abi was probably most likely a virgin (which was none of his business, really), Jacob is incapable of safely jumping over a fire pit and that he now knows for a certain fact that any and all chances of anything happening between him and Dylan are a bust.
The feelings shifting from friendly co-worker to head over heels crush was fast and unexpected— going from simply enjoying Dylan’s company now and then, to his heart embarrassingly skipping several beats every time he entered a room. He suspects it has something to do with Dylan’s obnoxiously cute smile and his ridiculously stupid jokes and his seemingly never ending confidence. Nick thinks about how fun and freeing it was to hang out with Dylan, how the constant game of pretend they both played stopped when it was just the two of them.
If Nick thought about it, if he really thought about it, he could pinpoint where exactly the turning point was— on a timeline and every single flimsy map of the camp that ended up folded or crumpled at the bottom of each camper’s backpack. One late night, the 13th of July; the camp cabins.
The two of them sat out on the grass by the pool house, right next to the Shooting Stars Leaderboard. The campers were all asleep, Dylan had told him it was nearly one am, teasing him for not thinking to bring a watch to camp with him. They had both come out for fresh air, and it was the perfect lie to be believable, to avoid the reality of I’ve been sitting awake in bed for hours, twisting and turning and thinking and it won’t stop.
It starts with the out of character, hesitant, nervous question from Dylan: Do you ever feel like… Everything you do is fake? Like it’s all just an act and now you’re in too deep so you can’t take it back? He says it while leaning back on his hands and looking up at the night sky. Nick takes a breath, following Dylan’s gaze. All the time. There’s a breath of relief from both of them.
Nick’s self promised Just five minutes, then I’ll go back is immediately broken once Dylan was brought into the equation. He loses all track of time out surrounded by the stars and the truth. They tell each other about life before camp, about their plans after camp, about the characters they played at camp while picking their fingers through the grass. Nick learns the difference between Camp Counselor Dylan and Dylan-Dylan— he was more reserved, yet kept all the stupid jokes that Nick knew from the Dylan he first met. He was smart, wanted to major in Quantum Physics. Has a cat named Schrodinger. Has this weird fear of rejection that eats at him, so he puts on an act he knows everyone likes. Some overexaggerated version of who he really is.
Dylan admits this all to Nick under the secrecy of the stars; it feels like something sacred, just for the two of them. He tells him that he gets it, that he knows what he means exactly. Dylan looks at him, the moonlight carving out his features, and for the first, and definitely not last, time Nick thinks to himself He’s pretty.
Nick wouldn’t necessarily call what he does a persona; it’s more of molding himself to the people around him. It’s something out of habit, something that he doesn’t mean to do as often as he wants, but he’s a people pleaser. He plays the cocky, confident role the most with Jacob, trying to fit into shoes that are all too big for him. People liked Jacob. Maybe they would like him if he was more like Jacob. He does a complete turn around with Abi. She’s sweet and harmless. Adorable is one word that comes to mind. His voice finds a softer tone and her awkwardness seeps in with his own. It makes sense that she was under the impression he had liked her.
After that night, there was no expectation to hold himself to when he was with Dylan. There was no one to try and impress, no one to mirror or to please. He could comfortably be himself.
Time slips past Nick, and he jumps as Jacob places a hand on his shoulder to shake him from the deep dive he’d gone into through his own thoughts.
“Dude, Nick, you alright?” He asks. Nick looks around and sees that everyone has been starting to clean up the party’s aftermath, the fire put out and leaving behind embering sparks. He clears his throat, moving to stand up, Jacob’s hand still pressed into the fabric of his shirt.
“Yeah, yeah. Fine.” He says, nodding with an unconvincing smile. Jacob looks at him wearily, but pulls his hand back with a responding tilt of the head.
“Just making sure.” Jacob reaches down to grab an empty bottle by his foot. “You can… You can talk to me if you need to, you know that, right?”
“Of course, man. I’m fine, swear.” He gives Nick one final look, before disposing of his trash in the wheelbarrow he’d brought down from the store. Nick scans the area around him for any other remaining litter to no luck. He looks back up and catches Dylan’s eye. The one thing he’d been trying to avoid all night since the kiss between him and Ryan. He looks away quickly.
“Alright.” Kaitlyn says, clapping her hands together. “Let’s head back. I am exhausted.” She and Ryan take the lead, knowing these woods better than anyone else. It turns out, a simple follow-the-trail was a lot harder when it was pitch black out. Jacob followed behind them, allowing him to bicker back and forth with Kaitlyn. Strangely enough, hearing the two of them playfully insult and annoy each other was comforting. It was almost a sign that at the end of the night, at the end of everything— they were all friends.
Nick strays more than a few steps away from the rest of them, his mind still hanging onto old memories and the new present, trying to piece together what to do next.
“Hey, Lover-Boy.” Dylan seemingly appears from nowhere, making him flinch with surprise. He must’ve been behind him the entire time. “What’s got you down in the dumps?”
“Not sure if I know what you mean.” Nick plays off with an almost convincing shrug. He wonders why he’s not up by the front with Ryan, but doesn’t let that thought go anywhere else. He doesn’t need to turn into Jacob, overtly jealous over something that didn’t mean anything.
“I mean… You and Abi left for a good amount of time.” He tilts his head back and forth as if he was considering something, “If it weren’t for that adorably sad puppy look you had going on for the past, like, thirty minutes I would’ve assumed that you two had started going at it—”
“No.” Nick reaches out to shove Dylan back, sending him tripping over the dirt and holding his hands out in surrender. He ignores the choice word of adorable before he can pluck it out of the air and overthink and analyze it for the rest of his life.
“So?” Dylan prods again. “What did happen between you and Abi?”
Suddenly Nick is all too aware of eavesdropping ears and their way-too-nosy friends who are walking the path in front of them. His footsteps start to stagger, putting more distance between them and the rest of the group as he flickers a look from them back to Dylan. He points at their friends and then motions his hand to cut at his neck. Nick curtly nods.
“Hey are you two slow-pokes coming or what?” Kaitlyn calls out from ahead of them. There’s a considerable amount of distance between all of them, and realistically none of them should be able to hear anything they’re saying if they’re quiet enough, but Nick would still appreciate the privacy.
“Uh… scenic route!” Dylan looks around, squinting in the dark before vaguely pointing towards an alternate trail leading further into the woods. “You guys keep going,” He waves them off with a proud smile, hands returning to his hips with an awkward sway. “Nick and I are just gonna…Look at the scenes.”
“What scenes? It’s pitch black out.”
“That’s not even the scenic route.” Ryan points out, and he’s right. Nick is ninety-nine percent sure that it’ll end up being a perfect way to get lost. Two months and he still finds it impossible to navigate anywhere with the sheer amount of land there is.
“You’re just a little hater.”
“You’re gonna get lost.”
“No we won’t.”
“We might.” Nick interrupts.
“We’ll be fine, OkayBye! ” Dylan grabs Nick’s wrist, dragging him off into the trees and following the mini-trail that deterred from the main route.
Nick hears both Kaitlyn and Ryan call out for them, something about not getting eaten by a bear and watching out for the Hag of Hackett’s Quarry, but each and every threat regarding wild animals and spooky ghost stories leave his brain once he and Dylan strand themselves out further into the middle of the woods. Dylan is still holding onto his arm, leaning his weight against Nick and slowing down to a stop. He looks around, taking in his surroundings which mostly contain of trees, trees, and more trees.
“Lost already?” Nick teases.
“No. No, no. As long as we know that the lodge is that way,” He points back at the direction of the rest of the group, “we’ll be fine.” Nick raises a brow, giving him a skeptical look. “We’ll be fine.” He exaggerates.
“If you say so. Just know that if a crazy rabid creature comes running at us you’re on your own.”
“What, like a bear? ”
“They’re vicious creatures.” Nick starts walking again, a slow trudging pace and Dylan lets go of his arm to walk alongside him. The distance between them is sparse and they keep bumping arms. Nick tries not to think anything of it— they’re friends. His throat is dry and he thinks about what he had told Abi, he was never good at admitting his feelings, though. He was closed and reserved when it came to himself, reveling more in the way Jacob would talk big game about Emma or how Dylan’s smile turned shy and he tried extra hard to tell jokes when Ryan came around.
“Okay, so… I didn’t drag you out in the woods for nothing.” Dylan says after they’d been walking in painfully slow silence for what only could’ve been a few minutes. “You and Abi. What happened?”
“We talked… It was…Nice.”
“So she rejected you.” Dylan assumes, flat out and blunt.
“Wha— No! I didn’t get rejected.” Nick scoffs. He kicks a rock down the path, watching it dance across the dirt before tumbling to a stop. It was now or never. Perfect timing, really. This was the last thing he was looking for: a big gross emotional walk in the woods that ends in a declaration of love. “I didn’t even ask her out.”
That makes Dylan grab his arm again, stopping him in place. “You what?! ” Nick can’t help but chuckle at his outburst, staring at Dylan’s face; eyes wide and full of confusion. “Why not, we gave you the perfect chance!”
“You know, I never really liked her in the first place.” Nick admits. To Dylan, it’s groundbreaking news and he’s started and stopped at least ten different sentences before grabbing Nick’s other arm and promptly shaking him.
“What?”
Nick laughs again, the warmth of Dylan’s hands radiating the rest of his body. He’s running on nerves, standing in the perfect opening that he’s been looking for all summer. It would almost be funny, he thinks. To admit one absurdly crazy thing after another in quick succession; maybe it would be easier to pull off through laughter and adrenaline. Maybe Dylan wouldn’t believe him and he could pull it off as a dumb joke.
“Nick, what do you mean you never liked her?” Dylan keeps asking. Answers like She’s not my type. You’re my type and I never liked her, I like you string along in his head but they never leave his mouth.
“I never liked her.” Nick says again. “I mean… She’s nice, and really smart, and really good at art. But I don’t like her. Not like that.” Dylan lets go of him again and Nick doesn’t realize how cool the night air had gotten until his arms pebble with goosebumps. He wonders if Dylan is as cold as he is.
“Then why did we try setting you two up for the entire summer?” Dylan slaps a hand over his face, rubbing it down with an exaggerated groan, like his plans have all frizzled and all gone to waste— which they had. From the moment he made them.
“You tell me.”
“I thought you liked her! We all did”
“I never said I did. Kinda just went along with it.” Nick’s laughter starts to trail off. Dylan is looking at him with wide eyes, still in shocked disbelief. He tears his eyes away. “Everyone thought I liked her, and I guess it was just easier to let them believe what they wanted.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dylan says, his voice calm and softer than it was before. There’s a certain emphasis on the me that makes Nick fidget. It’s a valid question— they’re friends, he should’ve told him. The truth is, Nick kept everything going with Abi to distract himself from Dylan, but he wasn’t about to tell him that. Not here, not now. Maybe not ever.
Nick hadn’t even pretended to like Abi. He was nice to her, like anyone else, but his misread awkwardness had translated into a nervous crush and it had spiraled from there. It was easier to have everyone believe that he had liked Abi than it was to acknowledge his own feelings anyways.
“Not very good with the truth, I guess.” Nick lies sheepishly, evading the question. It’s a horrible lie. He’s been truthful with Dylan about almost everything. Just not this . Dylan notices his lie, too. He can see right through him. But all he does is nod skeptically, accepting it for what it is. Nick is glad he doesn’t push.
“Well.” He says. “I guess my Match Making skills are a bust.” Nick huffs out a breath of laughter.
“Not everything was a bust.” Nick says. He thinks about everything that happened before everyone ran off. Thinks about the campfire again. “You and Ryan seemed to be getting a little… Friendly. ” He teases, lighthearted. What Nick doesn’t expect is Dylan’s falter in conversation, he sighs first before letting the top half of his body swing forward with a frustrated groan.
“Dylan?”
He stands up straight again, staring at Nick with what looked like annoyance and he’s about to ask him what was wrong, just as Dylan tears his gaze away and makes a strangled sound.
“I like him.” Dylan starts off, although it’s different from the countless times he’s said it before. There’s no stars in his eyes, his usual giddiness and excitement strained and near-gone. Nick’s grown accustomed to Dylan practically skipping his way over to him to tell him about the conversation he and Ryan had, flashing a wide smile as his cheeks recovered from a reddened flush. "I think."
“I just…” Dylan rolls his head to the side, then back, staring up at the stars, and then to the side again to look at Nick. “I don’t know if he likes me as much as I want him to.”
“I thought today was going well, like really well.” He starts explaining, and Nick tunes in like he usually does; full and undivided attention on Dylan. Watching his facial expressions morph into one another, the way he gestured with his hands, fanning out left and right in excited movements, the way his eyes crinkled with every smile. Nick liked hearing Dylan talk.
It was different from his constant jokes and the front he wore. Between the two of them there was nobody to impress, no campers to flash a wide, fake smile at, no counselors to compare themselves to; just Nick And Dylan. An unpredictable and unlikely duo. There were no sugar-coating jokes or a crowd to disappoint. It was them, the woods, and the complete truth.
“We flirted and stuff.” He says. “Which was good. It was nice.”
“Yeah? What was your best line?”
Dylan chuckles to himself before responding. “When we were up in Chris’ office, charging our phones, I was messing around with a bunch of Chris’ stuff— as one does— and there was this… Old rotary phone in there.” He mimics picking up the receiver, holding out his hand in a phone gesture, “And I pick it up, I look at him and go ‘Hey give me your number, I wanna try it out.’”
“And then?” Nick asks, the grin on Dylan’s face spreading to his own.
“Well then he goes, Why? ” He drops his voice an octave, doing a horrible Ryan impression, before returning to his normal voice. “And I say ‘So I can ask you out on a date, duh.’” Nick laughs, immediately covering his mouth and feeling his face start to burn red. It was dumb. It was a dumb line, but ashamedly enough it would’ve totally worked on him.
“What? What, was it a stupid line? I think he loved it, I think he was totally into it. It was great you should’ve been there.”
“Did it work?” Nick asks, but then Dylan’s face falls again.
“He said Smooth.” He throws his hand in the air with a wave, letting it fall flat back to his side. “And I mean, I kept flirting and I swear even he was flirting back but…” Dylan shows his palms out flat. “No number.”
“Maybe he’s waiting; keeping you on your toes, playing hard to get.”
“I’m trying to catch a date, not a bear.”
“Maybe you could date the bear.” Nick suggests, earning a shove from Dylan. He regains his balance, holding his hands out in surrender. “Okay, okay, but: If he didn’t like you, then why would he kiss you at the campfire?”
“It was Truth or Dare.” Dylan’s voice drops into disappointment. “Nothing really… Matters.”
“He chose you. That has to matter for something, doesn’t it?”
“Emma chose to kiss you.”
Nick tenses. “That doesn’t count. You know how Emma is, she does it for the kicks. Ryan wouldn’t do that to you.”
“What, you don’t think Emma has the hots for you?” Dylan jokes, starting to avoid the root of the conversation. “I mean that kiss was pretty—”
“I hated it.” He immediately says, earning a bark of laughter from Dylan. “She practically just shoved her tongue in my mouth full force, it was awful. But besides, this isn’t about her, it's about you.”
There’s a beat.
“So you’re saying you want my tongue in your mouth?” He asks teasingly. Nick’s face flares up in heat, burning all the way down to his fingertips. He jabs at Dylan’s chest, trying to laugh off his embarrassment.
“Shut up, you know what I’m saying.” Dylan pokes at Nick’s sides in retaliation, grinning as he yelps with a jolt. “Dylan.”
It feels like they’ve barely made any progress on the trail with the amount of times they’ve started and stopped. Dylan starts walking again, and Nick is full-time lost, the woods engulfing him in an inescapable maze of trees and bushes.
“I don’t know,” Dylan says, trying to brush everything off. “Maybe I liked the idea of him more than anything, y’know?” Nick nods along. "I thought a summer romance could be fun."
“Like yeah,” he continues, “he’s got that cute loner thing going on, and it was fun to flirt with him, and maybe I’m just being dumb and I do have a chance but… I don’t know. I guess I’d be more sure about it if he actually showed any interest.”
“He flirted with you.” Nick points out. “He kissed you. Maybe he’s just… Bad with words and the whole…” He waves a hand in the air, “Relationship thing.”
Dylan makes a vague sound of acknowledgement, clearly still thinking in his own head.
“Maybe I was too much.” Dylan says.
“What?”
“I mean, maybe I played it up too much. The whole jokester persona thing I’ve built up. I should’ve been more real with him, but everyone likes the whole funny-guy thing. Dylan-Dylan is just so. Blaugh.”
“I like Dylan-Dylan.” Nick says. It’s quick and casual, bordering dangerous territories and he feels his throat go dry. His friend rolls his eyes, though, clearly not believing it.
“Yeah, sure.”
“I mean, what’s not to like?” He holds his voice steady, looking away into the dark expanse of woods.
“He’s smarter than he lets on. Like, really smart. I mean, if I stepped anywhere near the radio shack I’m sure he’d kill me before I even got the chance to touch anything . It’s pretty impressive that he actually got anything to work in there. And wanting to major in quantum physics? That’s so fucking cool. I barely passed any of my normal science classes.”
Nick looks everywhere besides Dylan; the trees, the grass, the torn up, scuffed shoes on his feet.
“He cares about his friends. A lot.” He swallows thickly, his voice scratching against the truth and confrontation. “He just wants everyone to have a good time. Even if they are stuck in the middle of the woods surrounded by dumb kids and bugs who want to eat us alive.”
“He’s someone who won't hesitate to help Abi with her art classes, even if he’s incapable of drawing a decent flower.” He hears Dylan laugh under his breath and his nerves spike. “Someone who absolutely despises sports, but offers to stand in for kickball when there’s an odd amount of players.”
“Someone who, when they find out that it’s their friend’s birthday… They don’t let them go ten minutes without harassing them with their awful singing.” Nick reminisces. “And then continues to sing during every single announcement he makes that day.”
His cheeks are starting to warm underneath the summer night’s chill and his fingers are starting to fidget, the feeling of static trickling up his arms. He still doesn’t look back, and doesn't plan to for the rest of the night. He’s caught himself in his own web of emotional vulnerability, his guard put down and his once stone stoic guise now cracked and broken.
“He’s funny, too.” He smiles. It’s the most obvious part of Dylan. “He’s got this whole made-up persona with stupid, stupid jokes that he makes everyday. But even behind that; even if it’s just us, with no one else to listen, he still manages to say something so dumb and cheesy and— and he still makes me laugh.”
“And he’s got this ridiculous smile and stupidly contagious laugh that’s loud and obnoxious but to be honest, I think it’s been my favorite sound for the last two months.” Nick laughs. It’s more of an exasperated huff of air pointed to the sky as he tilts his head up to stare at the stars.
Dylan doesn’t say anything, not immediately, and Nick waits in antagonizing silence. He’ll take anything at this point, just as long as he knows that he didn’t pour his heart out for nothing.
“Careful who you flatter, Nick.” Dylan jokes quietly, he can feel eyes on him but doesn’t look back. “Wouldn’t want to give off the wrong impression.”
“And what impression would that be?”
A lingering silence.
“That you like this person.” Dylan sounds just as nervous as Nick feels. Nick breathes in harshly, stares at the ground.
“And what if I do?” It’s out in the open now. No taking anything back.
“Nick.” There’s a plea to his voice. He closes his eyes letting the moon wish him luck before turning around and facing Dylan. Open and exposed by his own being.
Dylan’s face is unreadable, staring at Nick with stunned confusion. Almost as if he was expecting him to say that it was all a joke.
“Nick.” He says again and Nick’s heart stutters, words caught in his throat.
They never got serious. Not like this.
“We should probably head back.”
“No—” Dylan reaches out, grabs Nick’s wrist again, holding him in place. It burns, his fingerprints singeing into his skin. “What?” He asks softly.
“I didn’t want to say anything.” Nick hesitates before correcting himself. “I wasn’t going to say anything.” His eyes wander across the trees as they box him in during his confession. “I knew you liked Ryan, and I didn’t— I just wanted you to be happy. So I guess I just… Went along with pretending to like Abi so it would distract me from you.”
It’s humiliating and embarrassing coming out of his own mouth; to get so worked up over some dumb summer crush. Running isn’t an option. Not when Dylan’s hand is holding him in place and when there was nowhere to go besides from further into the labyrinth they called camp. He’s stuck. Feet glued to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Nick isn’t sure why he’s apologizing, but for some reason he feels like he should. That he’s sorry for having a weird crush on his best friend, or sorry for confessing my true feelings for you in the middle of the woods, or— “We should get back to the lodge,” He tries again. “And just, try to forget any of this happened?”
Nick attempts to pull his arm away from Dylan, ready to close his eyes and erase his memory from the last twenty-four hours, but Dylan only tightens his grip, pulling Nick back.
“What if I don’t want to forget?”
“Stop.”
“Nick.” Dylan says again. The air is full of tension, a feeling that Nick can’t quite place but his name cuts clearly through the air, reminding himself that this is all real.
“I…” He shifts his weight from one foot to another, drawing the toe of his shoe through the dirt. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” He feels a twinge of hurt in his chest. It’s like Dylan hadn’t even been listening to him.
“How long?” He asks.
“How long what?”
“How long have you liked me?” The words coming from Dylan feels wrong, and Nick feels violated . Nick has never been a direct person— always dodging the question or making vague suggestions that make his point without him having to say it.
Nick finally brings himself to look at Dylan. Written across his face was a book of emotions that Nick couldn’t read; chapters of confusion and paragraphs of puzzling eyes with dialogue that only contained questions. There’s a softness in Dylan’s eyes, different from the electric gaze after telling a joke that brought their campers to a fit of giggles, different from the charming glance when he convinces Jacob to do one of his chores for him.
The moon filters in through the thick woods, shimmering past leaves and branches all the way down, providing the two of them a pathetic excuse of light. The faint gleam hits Dylan’s face in an all too familiar way, like he’s been here before; Nick starts to believe that the moon is out to get him, forcing him underneath its glow, rendering him vulnerable to the truth.
It reminds him of the night by the cabins, staring at the sky and watching for shooting stars. Nick comes to another conclusion, one that he’s known and kept since that day: Dylan is pretty.
“A while.” Is his vague answer, but Dylan doesn’t take it. His eyes crinkle at the corner, like they always do when he smiles, and the softness is replaced with a playful eye roll. “I dunno. Since we met, I guess.”
There’s clear surprise flashing across Dylan’s face. Just the slightest spark of it. Nick probably wouldn’t have noticed it if they weren’t so close, if they hadn’t been staring at each other, watching and waiting.
“I think,” Nick clarifies, his voice breaking against the lump in his throat, “I think when I first realized… Was that one night, where we sat out by the pool house.” He hopes that Dylan remembers, hopes that it’s not a blip in his memory, because it stands monumental in Nick’s. His mind always wanders back to them, side by side, close enough to share body heat. Maybe if he had been brave enough, maybe if he had realized his feelings before, then it could’ve been different.
“You probably don’t remember.” Nick saves himself from hurt, “But we both left the cabins during lights out and… We just started talking. About life. And just… Stuff.” He cringes at himself for his lack of better words.
“I remember.” Dylan says. “Yeah. That’s when, um, we looked at the stars.”
“Yeah. But neither of us even knew any constellations, so we just made up our own.” The stars are hidden from their seclusion in the wood, just barely poking out through the gaps in the trees, but the memory of The Just Slightly Above Average Dipper and their back and forth argument on whether or not what they were pointing at in the sky was Just a normal star, Dylan or if No, I’m pretty sure that’s a planet. Maybe like Jupiter or something. was better than any star that twinkled above them.
“It’s also when I got to know you better.” Nick continues, his gaze falling to the ground, afraid of owning up to his feelings. “And you told me the truth about the Real Dylan. How this isn’t you back at home. And I guess it made me realize that… I didn’t need to put up a front when I was with you.” He scrapes his foot through the dirt, dragging patterns and shapes into the soil. “I could just… be myself and not worry about anything else.”
“With me?”
Nick swallows the lump in his throat, feeling like his heart was loud enough to ring out through the entire camp. He looks at Dylan with a short nod. “Yeah.”
Dylan smiles almost shyly, he ducks his head down and fiddles with his fingers. It’s the same way he had smiled after he had kissed Ryan. The first word that comes to Nick’s mind is giggly and he wonders what he had done to warrant this. It feels mocking. Like Dylan wanted to let him down in the most taunting way possible, to rub it in his face that he didn’t feel the same.
“You know what’s kinda funny?” Dylan’s voice holds the same softness from earlier, spoken like a secret.
Nick is afraid of the answer. “What?”
“That entire time we were out there, while we were staring at the stars and getting in our feels and shit. The entire time I couldn’t stop searching for a shooting star. Just one. One.” Dylan emphasizes with his hand, holding up his pointer finger. He waits for Nick to ask the age-old question.
“Why?”
“So I could say something along the lines of: Wow, I wish the really cute guy next to me would make a move already and hold my hand.”
Nick’s breath gets caught in his throat, feeling his entire body freeze.
“Huh?” He stares at Dylan with furrowed brows, his mind reeling as if he had heard him wrong. Dylan only smiles, charming and friendly enough that it feels like one of his acts again, but the brown in his eyes aren’t speckled with mischief— they pool with open honesty.
“I wish the really cute guy next to me would make a move already and hold my hand.” Dylan repeats, slow and clear. Nick's heart rattles in his chest.
“There are no shooting stars.” He feels Dylan’s hand brush against his and flinches, pulling his hand away.
“You don’t know that.” He relaxes, nerves creating static in his head, hyper aware of every next move either of them made.
“And you do?” This time, Nick grazes his pinky against Dylan’s, the game they’re playing starting to make him feel like he’s in grade school again.
“I know a lot of things.” Is Dylan’s final claim as he stops beating around the bush and takes Nick’s hand in his, intertwining their fingers.
It’s wordless, they don’t even look down to acknowledge the development. It’s nerve wracking, it makes Nick’s head spin, it’s warm and his hands are already starting to clam up. He’s the first one to look away, looking left and right, down each end of the trail they’d been walking on.
“We should head back.” This time Nick says it without any intention of running away from facing his feelings. This time Dylan doesn’t talk him out of it, only nods, swinging their hands back and forth and waits idly for Nick to start walking.
“So, Mr. I Know A Lot Of Things,” Nick then says, watching as Dylan not-so-subtly tries to look around and remember which way they came from; which way their friends went. "Do you know the way back?"
“Yeah, yeah, obviously." Dylan scoffs. Nick gives him an expectant look, unconvinced. "Yeah, uh… No.”
“You’re an idiot.” Nick shakes his head, luckily remembering the direction of the lodge and walking them towards it, hands still clasped together. His fingers twitch with nerves.
“Am I your idiot?” Dylan bumps his hip into Nick’s, closing the distance between them.
Nick almost loses his balance, his face burning warm as Dylan plasters himself to his side.
“You wish.”