Page 30 of Mountain Pine
“How’d you find me?”
Nick and Bennet carry two camping chairs through the woods, heading straight to me.
“Your location, idiot.”
I close my eyes and relax into my hammock again. I’ve been here for a week, and this is the first day I’ve finally felt a lick of peace. The first day was all busy work setting up camp. Second day was me pacing like an animal. Days three to six I wandered through the woods, swam in the stream, and fought the urge to pack up, head home, break my lease and move.
Today, I’m better. Marginally.
Nick sits down a good distance away from me while Bennet pulls three sodas out of the cooler. “Are we going to talk about this or play pretend?”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“Okay then.”
We stare at the fire I’ve kept going because I like the smell and it gives my inner cave man something to be proud of. One thing I love about these guys is they really don’t push for answers. Mainly because if it’s their turn to be in the hot seat, they don’t want to be pushed or pressured either. It’s hard to open up.
“Any luck with the fish?” Bennet finally asks after a couple of silent hours.
“Yeah. Enough to not starve.”
“Sweet.” He gets up and grabs my rod and heads to the stream.
Shirtless, Nick closes his eyes and tips his head up to the sun. I think the only one who really understands my dilemma would be him.
“What would you do?”
He doesn’t open his eyes, but calmy lifts his hands in the air as if to say, “don’t know.”
“I’m a train wreck.”
“Who isn’t, bro?” Nick sighs. “Hearts are weird.”
That’s unhelpful. “Mine’s been in a bear trap for a long time.”
“Sounds painful.”
“Mmph.” We fall into silence again and I dose off. When I wake up, Bennet’s carrying two decent sized fish over to us with a big smile on his face. “Who’s hungry?”
Nick and I both get up and start fileting the fish and making a spit to roast them on. It’s always been this smooth when camping with them. We’ve been doing it since as far back as I can remember.
It’s this easy, familiar vibe that has my heart finally beating right again. I don’t feel like a live wire anymore. My head isn’t screaming either. We eat lunch and laugh and joke and give each other shit. Bennet suggests we make a bunch of thirst traps for our accounts and that sounds like a solid plan to me because even though I tried to quit and was told by my boss that I couldn’t, I still plan to leave the company. I’m just giving the old man what he wantsby following his orders so he knows he did all he could to make me stay and I’m still an asshole who will leave. I have to or I’ll go insane.
Thirst traps will have to supplement my income big time until I figure out a new plan.
We make so many, it’s overkill.
“Are we done yet?” Bennet grabs his shirt.
“No way. This is the best lighting,” Nick argues. “We gotta make a few more while there’s still time.”
Bennet growls with frustration. “Doing what?”
“Rugged man out in the woods stuff. You know, like stretching. Tossing huge logs around. Stripping down to our boxers and wading out into the stream and dunking under, just to come up all wet and dripping.” Nick smacks Bennet’s gut. “Flex the abs. Show off the pecs. Showcase everything below the belt draped in wet fabric.”
“This is exhausting,” Bennet grumbles, tossing his shirt back on the ground.
“You’ll thank me later when we’re all making bank!” Nick submerges himself in the stream, that’s always higher this time of year, and lets the water sluice off his body as he saunters towards his cell phone that’s propped up with some rocks.
