Nobody’s Hero (9 page)

Chapter Twelve

He hated to do it, but Brad released Danny’s hand as they reached the looping path of campsites. The touch, the press of hand on hand soothed something inside him. Danny didn’t say anything, but his shoulders slumped.

“Ha!” Connie said when they walked up. “Figures you’d come back in time to eat but too late to do any of the work.” Connie and her boyfriend Bobby were manning a grill and Manny, Connie’s brother, and his girlfriend Paige were building a fire in the metal-ringed fire pit.

“It takes a lot of practice to get my timing so perfect,” Danny declared.

“It just means you get clean-up duty.” Paige brushed her hands together and stood up from where she’d been squatting next to the fire.

“Fair enough,” Danny said.

After a meal of grilled bratwursts, potato salad and roasted corn, they all settled in camp chairs around the fire pit. Night hadn’t fallen yet, but twilight brought with it the smell of charcoal, bug spray and barbecue.

Bobby played the guitar. Pretty well too. The mindless collection of notes turned into a song. After a brief intro, Bobby began to sing. It was an eighties ballad Brad recognized the lyrics to, though he’d forgotten the title. At the chorus, Connie joined in with a pretty harmony.

It helped. The company, the atmosphere, the music, all pushed the memories to the back of his brain. Probably wasn’t going to make the shame go away—
Jesus
,
blubbering on Danny’s shoulder like a baby
—but if Danny could act as if it never happened, so could Brad.

Brad closed his eyes, lulled by the song and the companionable silence of the group. One song turned into two, then three, and before he knew it, darkness enveloped their camp. Connie stood up and went to Bobby’s truck, dragging Brad’s attention back from wherever his mind had wandered. She returned a moment later with a full plastic grocery bag and a handful of thin metal rods, each about two and a half feet long. “S’mores,” she announced, pulling a bag of marshmallows out and tossing it to Danny. He immediately tore open the plastic packaging and popped a marshmallow into his mouth.

“I don’t think I’ve had S’mores before,” Brad said, watching as Connie set a box of graham crackers and a sleeve of chocolate bars on the top of the red cooler behind her camp chair.

“No way!” Danny goggled at him, his words muffled by the mouthful of marshmallow. He swallowed. “Connie, we’ve got to hook this guy up!”

Connie handed Brad a metal rod with a little fork at the end of it.

“Rule number one,” Connie said as she continued to pass out roasting sticks, “do not poke anyone in the butt with this—”

“Hey!” Danny interjected. “You totally deserved it!”

“—no matter how much you think they deserve it.”

“Man, I was ten,” Danny said, his smile flashing bright in the dark of the night around them. “It’s the kind of thing a ten-year-old does. You’d think she’d be over it by now.”

“I had to put a bandage on my ass.” She glared at Danny and pointed her rod at him.

Bobby laughed and pulled her onto his lap. “Poor baby. Want me to kiss it and make it better?”

Manny groaned. “Dude, that’s my sister. I don’t need to know that!”

At the same time, Connie pushed away from Bobby. “Pervert.” She was smiling, though.

“Later,” Bobby mouthed, and winked at her.

What would it be like to have that? Not the sexy, flirty actions of a couple who’d been together for a while, but also the silly back-and-forth between cousins who’d known each other since birth. Was it even possible for him?

“Rule two.” Danny pulled out a white blob and stabbed it onto the forked end of Brad’s rod. “You want to roast your marshmallow carefully.” He repeated the process with his own roasting stick. “You want to hold it right above the red coals, rotating it periodically.” He demonstrated the process.

Brad followed suit. The white surface of the marshmallow started to turn a toasty brown.

“Then, before it gets too dark, you pull it out.”

Brad withdrew his marshmallow from the coals and it started to slide down the metal rod.

“Next,” Danny said, grabbing a graham cracker and breaking it into two pieces along the center perforation and then cracking off a chunk of chocolate from the bars on the cooler, “you quickly put a piece of chocolate on the one cracker—set it on your knee if you have to—and squish the roasted marshmallow on top, using the other half of the cracker.”

With a flourish, Danny presented Brad with the finished product. He leaned the roasting rod against his knee and took a big bite. “Ooey, gooey, goodness.
This
is why I go camping.”

Brad tried to emulate Danny’s example. He succeeded, for the most part, but not before he coated his fingers in sticky sugar and chocolate.

“Well, aren’t you going to try it?” Paige watched him expectantly.

“Here goes nothing.” Brad eyed the treat before taking a big bite. Even as flavor exploded on his tongue, the crackers broke and crumbled. “Umph.” He managed to catch the gooey pieces before they landed on his lap. A string of melted marshmallow dripped down his chin.

The others around the fire laughed at him.

“Rule number three,” Bobby said as he skewered his own marshmallow, “be careful. They can make a mess.”

Brad shoved the rest of it into his mouth. “Thanks,” he mumbled. Using his thumb, he wiped away the dangling string of marshmallow from his chin.

“You missed a spot.” Danny pointed at his own bottom lip.

His fingers were covered in goo, so Brad licked at the spot, tasting chocolate. “Did I get it?”

When Danny didn’t answer, Brad looked up from his messy hands.

“Danny? Did I get it?” The way Danny was staring at his mouth made something in his gut pull tight. Brad licked his lip.

“Stop mooning at Brad and pass the marshmallows,” Bobby demanded, gesturing for the bag.

Danny shook his head as if to clear it. A sneaky tendril of satisfaction slid through Brad. It was a little hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like Danny might have been blushing when he tossed the marshmallows to Bobby.

Brad looked down at his hand, rubbing at a smudge of chocolate. He tuned out the random conversation going on around him. Had anything he’d ever done caused
that
kind of reaction? Forget that he wasn’t in a position to get into any kind of relationship. Forget that he was determined to keep his distance. Danny’s gaze had been pure heat. Hot as hell and all because of him.

“There’s a pack of baby wipes in the tub in the back of the truck.”

The mention of baby wipes put an end to that satisfying thought. “What?” He looked up at Connie.

“Wipes,” she said, nodding at his hands. “Unless you want to walk to the restroom at the other end of the camping area, the wipes will clean up the marshmallow mess.”

“Right.” Brad stood and glanced over at Danny, who stared into the fire pit. A cold sweat broke out across Brad’s face at the way the blue and orange flames licked up the charred remains of a log. He shook it off and watched his steps as best he could in the growing darkness. The last thing he needed was to step in a hole and break an ankle.

“Shit! Damn it. Manny, watch your stick!”

Brad turned to see Paige glaring at her boyfriend.

“Watch your own stick.” Manny scooted his chair back a few inches and whipped his roasting rod out of the fire. “I hate it when they’re burnt like this.” The marshmallow, no longer white, blazed like a torch.

The fiery marshmallow became the center of Brad’s world. The outside of the marshmallow, black and cracking, got darker and crispier by the second. In his mind the image of the marshmallow morphed into an arm with the fabric of a T-shirt smoldering, blackening, burning away until the skin below followed suit.

Across the fire, Manny waved his roasting stick, dousing the flame. With a quick jerk of his wrist, the burnt chunk flew off the forked end of the rod and landed on a log in the fire pit where it immediately lit up in flames again. “Burn, baby, burn!” Manny whooped.

That was it. Something broke inside Brad. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Adrenaline rushed through him, making his stomach quiver and lurch. Light-headed, he dropped to the ground, landing in a heap. Blood rushed in his ears, echoing like the ocean tide. With every pulse, the weight of the looming pine trees pressed down upon him and nausea licked at his belly like the tongues of flame in the fire pit.

Voices echoed dimly around him, indistinct against the barrage of sounds in his head. Brad pressed his fisted hands over his ears in an attempt to stop the terrified screams, cold laughter, and the crackle of burning wood that was the background noise for a flashing slide show of horrific images. He might not have been there when Nolan assaulted Carson, but he’d seen the pictures. His imagination supplied the rest.

Flesh, raw and blistered. A body wrapped in gauze. Machines hissing and beeping. The astringent scent of hospital disinfectant. Blue eyes hidden beneath a mass of swollen cheeks and eyelids.

Fag.

Deviant.

Bile rose in his throat and his chest hurt.

“Brad?”

He didn’t know how long he lay there before he fought through the panic attack and recognized Danny’s voice.

“C’mon, Brad, breathe.”

Brad sucked in a breath and the aching pain in his chest eased. Three gulps of air later and the world stopped spinning around him. Four people stood in a circle above him, looks ranging from confusion to concern on their faces. Danny squatted next to him, brushing Brad’s hair away from his sweat-soaked forehead. “There you go.” The soothing words and comforting gestures helped rein in the chaos of his thoughts.

A loud pop and the shifting of logs had his stomach lurching.

“Crap,” he croaked, and tried to crawl away from the truck. He’d barely passed the left rear tire before he started to hurl. When his stomach was empty, dry heaves continued to rack his body.

He didn’t resist when Danny scooted behind him and pulled him back against his chest. He lay there, letting his friend support him as he tried to catch his breath. He didn’t have the strength to keep his head up, so when it lolled back and rested on Danny’s shoulder, Brad didn’t make any effort to lift it. He didn’t deserve the comfort, but he let Danny’s warmth seep into his clammy body anyway.

“You okay?” Danny asked a few moments later.

Brad tried to sit up straight, to put some distance between them, but for some reason gravity seemed to be working overtime on him, making his limbs heavier than they should be. Danny’s arms wrapped around his chest, pulling him closer. It had been a long time since anyone had held him. He hadn’t known how desperately he’d missed it, how much he needed it.

He sighed and his body went lax. Just for a minute, he told himself. Just a minute.

“Danny?” Connie called from the other side of the truck. “Is everything okay?”

Danny didn’t answer right away. Brad could practically feel him considering the question. “Everything’s fine,” Danny finally said. “Give us a couple of minutes.”

Brad closed his eyes, blocking out the flickering light that barely illuminated the campsite. “I can’t stay here. Not now.” Equal parts embarrassment over his breakdown, fear of trying to explain himself and the knowledge of exactly how close he was to falling apart again warred inside him.

“Okay.” Danny squeezed his arms a little more tightly around Brad. His voice was soft, understanding. If anything, it made Brad feel worse.

“Do you think it would be okay if I took your Jeep? I can come back tomorrow afternoon and pick you up.”

“Don’t be stupid. I’ll drive you back. You’re not in any condition to drive right now.”

“I don’t want to ruin the rest of your weekend. I’ve already made an ass of myself tonight.” Then, as an afterthought he said, “Besides, I’m fine.”

Danny snorted and Brad tried to turn so he could meet his eyes. The angle was wrong and he wasn’t altogether sure that if he turned his head his whole body wouldn’t follow suit until he’d flopped back on the ground.

“Brad, you’re not as fine as you think you are. Your pulse is too fast and you’re still shaking. There’s no way you’re going to be able to make a two-hour drive.”

God, he wanted to get out of there. No, screw that, he
needed
to get away, away from the fire and the people who’d been forced to observe his little freak-out.

“But your family—” he began.

“Will understand,” Danny interjected.

“But...” Brad stopped as a particularly bad tremor coursed through him, as if proving Danny’s point about not being fit to drive. This wasn’t his first panic attack—though it had been a while—and as soon as the adrenaline rush was over the crash would come, and come hard. It would be safer if someone else drove.

“You know—” he swallowed hard, “—I’ll be fine. It’s one night. I’m sure I only need a few minutes to chill and get up the nerve to face Connie, Manny and the others.”

Manny’s voice drifted over. “What do you think that was all about?” He’d whispered the question, but he might as well have shouted it. Sound carried in the wilderness, and the truck wasn’t very far from the fire circle.

Brad slumped. “Are you sure you don’t mind? You’ve been looking forward to this.”

Danny chuckled and ducked his head to rub his forehead along Brad’s shoulder. “I was excited to spend the weekend with you. Camping I can take or leave. Sure, it’s fun to hang out with the cousins and friends, or whoever, but I mostly was glad for the chance to hang out with you outside of work.”

Brad wanted to protest when Danny released his hold on him and stood up. “We’d better get going if we want to get back before dawn.” He reached down and Brad let himself be hauled to his feet.

“Yeah, I guess we’d better.” He nearly fell, his knees trembled so badly, but Danny grabbed his waist and walked with him to the Jeep, then helped him up into the seat.

“Let me grab our packs and then we’ll be off.”

“We need to take down the tent and—”

Danny cut him off. “Don’t worry about it. Connie and the guys will take care of it all. I’ll let them know we’re leaving and I’ll grab our stuff.”