Wild

I returned with the cake to our camp. The Three Young Bucks were all zipped into their tents. “I have cake!” I called, and they came and stood around me and ate it with their fingers out of my hands, splitting it among themselves in the easy, unspoken way they’d honed over months of endless deprivation and unity.

In the nine days since I’d said goodbye to them, it seemed as if we’d grown closer, more familiar, as if we’d been together in that time instead of apart. They were still the Three Young Bucks to me, but they’d also begun to differentiate in my mind. Richie was hilarious and a little bit strange, with a dark edge of mystery I found compelling. Josh was sweet and smart, more reserved than the others. Rick was funny and incisive, kind and a great conversationalist. As I stood there with the three of them eating cake out of my hands, I realized that though I had a little crush on all of them, I had a bigger crush on Rick. It was an absurd crush, I knew. He was nearly four years younger than me and we were at an age when those nearly four years mattered, when the gap between what he had done and what I had done was large enough that I was more like a big sister than I was someone who should be thinking about being alone with him in his tent—so I didn’t think about it, but I couldn’t deny that to an increasing degree I got a little fluttery feeling inside me every time Rick’s eyes met mine, and I also couldn’t deny that I could see in his eyes that he got a little fluttery feeling too.

“I’m sorry about dinner,” I said, after explaining what had happened. “Did you guys eat?” I asked, feeling guilty, and they all nodded, licking the frosting from their fingers.

“Was it good?” asked Richie in his New Orleans accent, which only increased his appeal, in spite of my crush on Rick.

“It was just a casserole and salad.”

They all three looked at me like I’d injured them.

“But that’s why I brought you the cake!” I cried from beneath my rain hood. “Plus, I have something else that might be of interest. A different sort of treat. The ranger here invited me to his place for a drink and I told him I’d come only if you guys came too. I should warn you that he’s a little bit odd—he had mouth surgery today or something, so I think he’s on painkillers and a bit drunk already, but he has a fireplace with a fire in it and he has drinks and it’s inside. Do you guys want to go?”

The Three Young Bucks gave me their barbarians-loose-upon-the-land look and about two minutes later we were knocking on the ranger’s door.

“There you are,” he slurred as he let us in. “I was beginning to think you were going to stand me up.”

“These are my friends Rick, Richie, and Josh,” I said, though the ranger only looked at them with open disdain, his dish towel still pressed to his lips. It wasn’t true he’d been entirely agreeable about my bringing them along. He’d only barely consented when I’d said it was all of us or none.

The Three Young Bucks filed in and sat in a row on the couch in front of the blazing fire, propping their wet boots up on the stone hearth.

“You want a drink, good-looking?” the ranger asked me as I followed him into the kitchen. “My name’s Guy, by the way. Don’t know if I told you that before or not.”

“Nice to meet you, Guy,” I said, trying to stand in a way that suggested I wasn’t really with him in the kitchen so much as I was bridging the space between us and the men by the fire and that we were all one big happy party.

“I’m making something special for you.”

“For me? Thanks,” I said. “Do you guys want a drink?” I called to the Three Young Bucks. They answered in the affirmative as I watched Guy fill one gigantic plastic tumbler with ice and then pour various kinds of liquor into it and top it off with fruit punch from a can he took from the fridge.

“It’s like a suicide,” I said when he handed it to me. “That’s what we used to call this kind of drink when I was in college, where you put all different kinds of liquor in it.”

“Try it and see if you think it’s good,” said Guy.

I took a sip. It tasted like hell, but in a nice way. It tasted better than sitting out in the cold rain. “Yum!” I said too cheerfully. “And these guys—Rick and Richie and Josh—they’d like one too, I think. Would you guys like one?” I asked again as I bolted to the couch.

“Sure,” they all said in a chorus, though Guy didn’t acknowledge it. I handed Rick the tumbler of booze and wedged myself in beside him, all four of us in a row in the plush wonderland of the fireside couch without an inch to spare, the side of Rick’s lovely body plastered against mine; the fire like our own personal sun before us, baking us dry.