Kevin hit the trunk of the tree he stood beside with the stick in his hand. He drew his brows close together and pursed his lips in frustration. Hugo didn’t know what had happened to set Kevin off, but he obviously had a strained relationship with his dad. Maybe they’d fought that day. When Kevin looked up at Hugo, his eyes were glassy.
“I just wish what I wanted mattered for once. Do you know what I mean?”
Hugo nodded. For almost three years, Hugo had been living on his father’s treatment schedule, only buffered some by Charisse. He hadn’t really shared any of that with Kevin yet, not wanting to be pitied. Kevin had never met Hugo’s dad, whose workspace was hidden deep in the Hormel laboratory, far away from where he delivered mail. Although by that point, the days Hugo’s dad was even able to be at work were few and far between. He needed the health insurance though, so his dad had to keep working as long as he could.
Hugo also made sure to be waiting outside for Kevin on those mornings when his dad was home sick. By the time evening arrived on the days his dad worked, they were long gone from Hugo’s house, if they’d spent any time there at all after their shifts. When his dad was in town, Hugo avoided having friends at his house. It was something Hugo consciously did with everyone after one of his classmates asked what was wrong with his dad, who was thin and gaunt. He didn’t want pity. He didn’t want people, for one second, even pondering phrases like, “Oh, poor Hugo is going to lose his father,” or “Hugo’s dad looks sick.”
But Hugo understood not wanting to disappoint his father. That’s why he kept working his job, the one his dad’s boss helped create when he saw a need, and why Hugo continued to try to do well in school. The look on his dad’s face when he scanned Hugo’s report cards had never been harsh, not like he suspected Kevin’s father’s face would look. Hugo’s dad didn’t even get upset when Hugo got a C- in Geometry. That was because his dad knew how hard Hugo had tried, how challenging math was for him to grasp. It just wasn’t his strong suit even if it was his father’s, and his dad was okay with that.
Maybe, just maybe, he was also okay with it because as the end of his life approached, Hugo’s dad knew that knowing how to solve for
x
was really unimportant in the grand scheme of things. If Hugo really needed to solve for
x
, he knew the people who could help him figure it out. That was what was important to Hugo’s father near the end: people and knowing Hugo would always have someone helping him when he needed it. Yet Hugo had started to push against the help, the support other people readily offered to him, as he dealt with the changes of his life circumstances as his father wasted—body eaten away to practically nothing by chemotherapy and cancer.
Maybe it was time Hugo stopped trying to deal with things alone and opened up to someone like Kevin in the same way he had with his own sister when he realized he was attracted to boys rather than girls. Charisse had never lost respect for Hugo when he was upset or beaten down when yet another test came back for their father saying the cancer had spread and the end was near.
Even though Kevin and Hugo had very different problems, Hugo saw the similarities. They both wanted to be respected by their fathers. Respected, loved, and accepted for who they were. If Kevin didn’t have that acceptance, then Hugo decided he could give it to him. Everyone needed a soft place to fall.
As Kevin stood there in the woods thinking about his own father, his anger painted his face with spots of pink high on the apples of his cheeks. Hugo smiled at him, ready to be his soft landing spot.
“I like your hair, Kevin. You have years and years before you have to become a corporate drone. We’re young.” Hugo kicked at the tree behind him as he thought about the future. “We have freedom now. Hell. Isn’t this supposed to be the best time of our lives? Isn’t that what adults keep telling us? Why not have long hair and fuck around and experiment to figure out what we want out of our lives now? You have to live your life. Your father has to live
his
. So do what makes
you
happy, at least for now, even if you do have to go to college where he wants and study what he thinks you should. Maybe if you do a few things just for yourself now, you can look him in the eye and eventually tell him you don’t want to be a businessman but something else instead.”
Kevin studied Hugo’s eyes from across the wooded clearing, and the redness on his cheeks started to fade. “Listen to Mr. Philosophical,” he teased.
“I’ve had a lot to be philosophical about over the last few years, I guess,” Hugo admitted with an embarrassed shrug.
“What does that mean?” Kevin asked with no heat despite the challenging words.
Hugo shook his head, looking down at his shoes, suddenly wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. He had no interest in bringing up his own father. He knew he was different than most kids his age. The way he’d seen his father suffer over the last years and the responsibilities gently placed on his shoulders out of necessity had forced him to grow up. His classmates didn’t get him. He seemed far too serious to many.
“No, really?” Kevin wondered. “What?”
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Hugo debated what he wanted to say to Kevin because he had meant more by his statement than the struggles he’d had with his dying father.
“I’m just not…. I’ve never really fit in here. I know I’ll leave Austin and probably never look back.”
“How do you not fit?”
“I just don’t, and I know I have to leave to find a place where I do. I know there are places where I
will
fit in; it just won’t ever be here.”
“What does that even mean?” Kevin asked, taking a few steps closer and resting his palm against the tree trunk where Hugo leaned. It could’ve felt intimidating, but the gentle look and genuine curiosity on Kevin’s face showed that he simply wanted to better understand his friend.
“Let’s just say I’m not your typical red-blooded Midwestern boy and leave it at that, okay?”
Kevin studied Hugo’s face, focusing primarily on Hugo’s eyes.
“So blue.” Hugo thought he heard Kevin say it under his breath, just barely a whisper.
Then his gaze trailed down Hugo’s nose and landed on his mouth. Hugo couldn’t help his response, tongue darting out to wet his lips and blood rushing south where he felt his pants tighten.
Kevin’s eyes drifted shut as he leaned forward, and Hugo started to panic. What was going to happen?
But rather than fight it, Hugo let things go, let them happen how they were meant to be.
Kevin’s full lips met Hugo’s, covering them for only a few seconds before pulling away. He looked at Hugo as if looking for permission, and Hugo swallowed loudly in the quiet of the woods. Kevin leaned in again, this time pressing a bit firmer, opening and closing his soft mouth in gentle caresses against Hugo’s lips. Hugo could hardly draw breath but pulled Kevin’s body closer so he wouldn’t back away or stop.
A wet tongue licked across the seam of Hugo’s mouth, and he willingly opened, tentatively exploring another boy’s tongue with his own for the very first time.
Hugo’s mind went blank, and the world around him seemed to fuzz out, sounds drifting away as the sensations along his skin increased. The only other thing he was even aware of—he wasn’t even sure if he was still breathing—was the flicker of dappled sunlight through his closed lids. And then he was kissing back, opening his mouth and chasing the taste of Kevin around, trying to get more, loving the velvety slide of their tongues.
A
ND
now, nineteen years later, Hugo’s breath was taken from him again. The world blurred except for a halo of clarity surrounding Kevin as he stood across the fire pit with a lemon bar pressed against that mouth.
That beautifully full mouth.
Gray eyes pierced through the haze, and Hugo watched as recognition spread across Kevin’s face in slow motion.
Hugo knew he looked different. Older. His hair was much longer, no more the short and neat cut like it had been in high school, but more like Kevin’s had been back then. But his eyes still looked the same, he knew, even if they were wiser or slightly jaded.
Hugo pulled the glass of water to his lips and took a slow, steady drink to wash away the remainder of the powdered sugar still clinging to his throat. When he met Kevin’s eyes again, Kevin was smiling and walking toward him, brushing his powdered-sugar-covered fingers on his well-fitted plaid shorts.
“Hugh? Is that you?”
Summer caught Hugo’s eye and mouthed the name
Hugh
as if waiting for Hugo to punch this guy. He never allowed anyone to call him Hugh. It was always Hugo.
Always
. There were never any exceptions made as far as Summer knew.
Kevin had been the only person Hugo ever allowed to call him Hugh. It sounded natural coming off that beautiful mouth, not disturbing or clipped like it did whenever anyone else used it.
Summer smacked Hugo on the thigh when he didn’t answer fast enough.
“Uh, yeah. Yes. Kevin, is that you?” Hugo feigned naivety.
Kevin grabbed Hugo’s hand in his own warm palm and shook it, pulling them into a way-too-easy hug against his chest.
“It’s been forever! Good to see you, man. How are you?” Kevin asked as he stepped back, obviously having a much better grasp of the English language than Hugo had at the moment.
“I’m good. How are you?”
“Good. Good,” Kevin said with a bobbing nod of his head as he slipped his hands in the pockets of his shorts.
They just stared at each other for a few beats with no idea where to take the conversation next. Summer’s pinch to Hugo’s ankle was the only thing to get him to come out of his smoky haze.
“Do you live here?” Hugo gestured toward the lake.
Kevin pointed to a stone-sided house next door that was large but nowhere near the mansion Myles’s house was. “I own that, but most of my time is actually spent in Edina. I’m just up… up for the holiday weekend.” Kevin hesitated, eyes darting around like he didn’t want to be overheard. “Wanna get out of here and catch up a bit?” He gestured with his chin and looked away from the water.
“Uhm.” Hugo started and looked down at Summer. “Do you mind?”
“Hi,” Summer said, standing to shake Kevin’s hand. “I’m Summer.”
Hugo apologized for being rude and forgetting introductions, but both friends ignored him and shared how they each knew Hugo.
“We went to high school together,” Kevin offered to Summer’s “Hugo and I were neighbors, forced into friendship through my need for brandy.” Kevin laughed at that, eyes crinkling up in the corners, giving the look of someone in his mid-thirties rather than the teenager Hugo recalled.
“Somehow, the Hugo I remember doesn’t really force himself on anyone,” Kevin laughed.
“True. Very true, but he most certainly gets under your skin, doesn’t he?” Summer teased.
Kevin looked into Hugo’s eyes with mild amusement that quickly turned serious. “That he does, Summer. That he does.” He smiled at Summer and asked, “Do you mind if I steal him for a bit? It’s been at least seventeen years since I talked to this man.”
“No problem. I’ll see you later,
Hugh
,” Summer snarked. Hugo ignored her.
As Hugo followed Kevin toward the road that snaked behind the houses and around the lake, Summer called out, “Behave!” and Hugo had to smile.
She could read Hugo very well.
Picking Up Right Where We Left Off
K
EVIN
and Hugo walked along the black road as the moon lit their way. The sound of firecrackers and other explosive pyrotechnics was beginning to pop more frequently with the occasional starburst of fire lighting up the sky over the treetops.
“The fireworks show is going to start soon,” Hugo informed Kevin, who kept walking. “I’m not really a huge fireworks fan.”
“Yeah, me either. I mean, the Fourth of July is awesome and all, but I’d rather catch up with you.”
“So you don’t mind if we miss it?”
“Nope. How long has it really been?” Kevin asked, stealing a quick glance at Hugo.
“The last time we saw each other was the day you left for college. After the rainstorm.”
Kevin’s mouth pulled into a smile. “Yeah, in my driveway with my dad standing on the front step.” Kevin recalled with a look of nostalgia on his face. “I was so pissed at him. All I wanted was a few minutes of privacy, and he just wouldn’t leave us alone. He suspected something had been going on between us.”
“Really? Why?”
Kevin shrugged and sighed. “Just something he said. Let’s just say he was
really
glad I wasn’t going to the U with you.”
“So you did end up graduating from Gustavus Adolphus?”
“Yep. Majored in economics and management for my dad but took enough biology classes for a major so I could go to veterinary school. Never did, though.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m just what my dad wanted me to be, a businessman. I work for a medical biotech company. Corner office. Personal assistant who brings me coffee every morning and doesn’t let me forget a birthday of anyone special in my life. Decent car. Big house in Edina. Lake cabin. I’m a success in his eyes.” Kevin’s voice was dull and flat as he listed all the things that made up the American dream. He sounded far from happy.
Hugo instinctually reached over and allowed his palm to skim down Kevin’s back, but when he tried to pull away, Kevin grasped his hand, threading their fingers together in a familiar knot. It was something they always did when walking in the woods together as teens, and their fingers still seemed to know exactly how to join. He didn’t look at Hugo but kept his eyes straightforward as they continued to walk hand in hand. Hugo softly smiled and tried to get his thoughts back on track.
“That’s still not your dream though, is it?”
Kevin shook his head and laughed. “Never was, but I’ve been living it for a long time, and apparently I’m good at what I do. At least I’m in biotechnology, thanks to the double major, rather than wasting away in a pure business model job. I get to use my biology degree and really love talking to doctors and researchers about various products that’ll improve people’s lives. I’ve even brought some ideas to the company and been able to get patents on a few pieces of equipment. I do beginning of life stuff. Fertility. But it’s not veterinary medicine like I wanted to be doing. Anyway, I’m making some changes in my life. That’s one of the reasons I’m up here right now. He died last year.”