I Hate Summer (3 page)

“Just concerned that this isn’t really the type of place a
model
would be used to?” he scorned with a smirk on his face.

I sighed and wondered who had told him. Probably my dad with his bizarre misplaced pride. I think he
likes
that I’m gay—go figure.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve been randomly scouted since I reached my current height. Despite my looks and sexual preference, modeling had never really appealed to me. However, this summer the flexible hours and the fat paycheck had been just too good to pass up.

“Yeah?” I cut back archly. “So if I’d not taken the two-hundred-and-fifty-quid-a-day job, then ye would’ve had no trouble accepting the fact that I enjoy being outdoors? I’ll be sure t’ bear yer feelings in mind next time I’m searching for employment.”

He sniggered. “Two-fifty a day? Reckon they need someone to wear the man’s clothes?”

I sighed, twisted round, and dropped back into a squat. “Ye don’t really have the face for modeling,” I said with my back to him as I released my sleeping bag from its tight confines—I wasn’t quite as attached to the bag as my tent, but it was a close call. “Ye have t’ be good-looking.”

“Ooh, burn,” he replied, and his voice was rich with sarcasm. There was a moment of silence and I thought that he was going to leave me alone. “It’s so weird: you’re exactly the same except for the fact that you’re a foot and a half taller.”

I craned my head over my shoulder and looked up at him with a condescending smile.

“Hardly exactly the same.”

“Exactly the same: you’re still prickly and rude and take offense too easily.” He grinned. “That glare is the same too, I’m getting all nostalgic looking down on it.”

“Ha-
fricking
-ha.” I ran a hand through my hair and plucked the tie off my wrist to keep it from my face.

“So, do you still like boys?” he asked me.

I groaned and looked back round into my tent. I tried to keep my voice level and hoped the familiarity would ground me. “Aye, Trystan, I still like boys. Ye still a fricking homophobe?”

“Nah, my next-door neighbor in freshers was a fag. Listening to him bang his boyfriend every night for a year rid me of that.”

“Wonderful.” I didn’t sound very convincing.

“Indeed, ’cause I need to share your tent.”

“W
HAT
!” I
had spun round and I stood so I could glare at him from an even height. I realized I’d shouted and I waved a concerned-looking Jorja away.

I had never let anyone share my tent. It was a two-man, but it was like a home to me. Even in Canada, I’d preferred to carry the whole kit while we trekked than split it between the others and have to desecrate the haven that was my personal snail home.

“Why the hell would ye want t’ share a tent with me? Why the hell should I let ye? Where’s yers?”

Trystan gave a small shrug as if it was no big deal. “Our three-man finally bit the dust; Vince put his hand right through the outer when we checked them over last night. Our spare was only a two-man. Dad spoke to your dad. He said you had a two-man and I could share.”

“Yer fricking kidding me?” I could have bloody strangled my father right then—how the hell had he neglected to mention this? More to the point: why the hell hadn’t he offered our spare one instead?

“Why’s it such a big deal?” he asked.

Why was it such a big deal? Because this was
my
tent, only mine. Even if I hadn’t been so protective over it, there was no way in hell I was ever going to be happy about sharing a tent with Trystan-fricking-Jackson.

“Jorja, did ye know about this?” I called over to where my sister had just finished putting up her tent. She had clearly heard everything that we’d said because she looked back over with a pained expression and shook her head.

Her face brightened slightly as she had an idea. “Ye can have my one-man if ye like, Trys, I’ll kip wi’ Ide.”

That was not ideal, yet it was significantly better than the other option and still completely implausible.

“No way he’ll fit, Jorja.” I sighed. “Thanks, though.” My sister was tall, but she wasn’t that tall, and there was no way Trystan was fitting in the diddy coffin tent she insisted on using.

“Seriously, why’s it such a big deal?” cut in Trystan. His smirk had disappeared and a thin irritated crease had formed down the middle of his forehead.

“Why’s it such a big deal?” I chipped back. “Because I love this fricking tent, I’ve got a load of great memories in it, and I didn’t intend on adding sharing it wi’ the guy who spent thirteen years bullying me to the list.”

Trystan snorted. “You still got your pants in a twist? We were kids. I’m sorry all right, but I need somewhere to stay and your dad said it wouldn’t be a problem or we would have stopped and bought a new one on the way up.” Suddenly he sounded exhausted, and I wondered what time they’d left home that morning to make it all the way up here from Kent.

I was being a dick and I knew it. But seriously, no amount of mental preparation could have got me ready for this. The old Trystan Jackson had been the biggest homophobe I knew, and I’ve come across a lot of homophobes. When he found out I was gay, he’d had a problem swimming in the same lake as me, never mind sharing a tent. However you look at it, a tent is an intimate space if it’s shared.

“Shit, fine, ye can stay in ma tent.” I ran a hand back over my skull.

“Awesome, don’t rape me, yeah? I know I’m irresistible, but I know self-defense.”

A strained laugh gurgled up from my throat as he turned and jogged away to get his backpack.

“Ye gonna be okay, Ide?” Jorja had arrived silently by my side; she had a pained expression on her face.

I nodded slowly; really, how bad could it be? It wasn’t like I was a middle-aged pervert unable to control myself. Despite my comments about being a masochist, being treated badly was more than enough to counteract whatever physical attraction I had to Trystan. Then again, given that he was sharing my tent, there was a slim chance he might not be a complete arse for the whole ten days.

“Ye really didn’t know?” I asked her again softly as we stood side by side and watched Trystan collect his holdall, roll mat, and sleeping bag before pausing to chat with our dad for a few minutes.

“Honestly. I know how ye feel about the guy; I wouldn’t o’ let Dad do that to ye.” Jorja was talking about the fact that I hated his guts, not that I fancied him something rotten. “On the plus side, he’s hot, right?” My sister smirked up at me and I rolled my eyes at her. So this was what that secret look had been for earlier. I resisted the temptation to tell her I’d already known he looked like something carved by a famous Italian.

“If I were shorter, I would honestly switch tents wi’ ye.” Because it really didn’t matter how closely he resembled an Italian statue, he was still Trystan Jackson. The man who was probably number one on the list of people I would least like to share a confined space with, never mind my precious tent.

“Seriously? That bad?” My sister also knew how I felt about my tent.

I glanced back at the soon-to-be defiled nylon structure; it wasn’t going to be the same after this either way.

 “Aye, that
fricking
bad,” I murmured as Trystan ceased his chat with my dad.

“Cheer up, it’s only ten nights,” Trystan said as he stopped in front of me with his smirk firmly back in place. “You going to let me get in?”

“Give me a sec,” I said as I dropped back onto my knees and into the tent. Everything was organized and had its place, and now everything was going to have to be moved. Two-man tents
sleep
two men. I’m not trying to be funny. It’s just sleeping is all you can do with two full-grown guys in one of those tents; there’s no room for anything else. Which meant it was going to be a mess. I moved my belongings onto my roll mat.

“Pass me yer….” I stuttered to a stop as I twisted round and found my face very close to Trystan’s. He had dropped to a squat in the entrance, and he balanced on one hand as he leaned forward with his stuff clutched under his free arm.

He grinned, as if he knew that having his face so close to mine was the reason I’d stopped talking.

“… roll mat,” I finished in a deadpan.

“You kind of look like a girl when you’re flustered.”

“Wow, I’ve never heard that one before, Trys.” My voice was withering with sarcasm. “Or are ye saying it’s me that should be worried if ye think I look like a girl?”

“Ha, I never said you looked like a pretty girl.”

I sighed at that one.

A low chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Chill, Ide. This is a nice tent. How long have you had it?”

“Mam and Dad bought it for me for my eighteenth.” I took his roll mat from him and laid it out next to mine.

“So you camp lots?”

I nodded.

“So my dad making those comments about cotton?” He passed me his sleeping bag.

“Very unnecessary,” I confirmed.

“He’s a twat, but to be fair, you don’t really look like you know what you’re doing, turning up in skinny jeans and Toms.”

“I’ll remember t’ wear all Gore-Tex tomorrow, see if that impresses him, eh?”

“It would probably help.”

“That all ye got?” I asked as he passed his rucksack through.

“Yeah, I’ve got a few extra bits in the car, but I packed light,” Trystan said as he ducked back out of the tent. I watched as he pushed his hands into the small of his back and stretched like a cat. “How long until tea, Mum?” His deep voice cut through the desolate silence of the landscape.

“An hour, darling,” Samantha called back. Now that we were all old enough, we took it in turn for cooking duty each evening, but it was an unspoken rule that it was always the mums’ turn on the first evening.

“Sweet.” He ducked and caught my eye again. “There’s a lake round the corner; want to come for a swim? That hair of yours must need a lot of work.”

I clambered out of my tent and looked up at the sky. It was nearly eight p.m. The sun still had another three hours in it yet, and the wind had died down, but it wasn’t exactly balmy. Trystan didn’t wait for my answer; he jogged off and rounded up his brothers and Jorja, and somehow I found myself heading “round the corner” to the lake.

The lake was a fifteen-minute walk up the valley. It was roundish, and gravel ringed the shore that was dotted with coarse grasses and a few shrubby herbs. We dumped our bags by a pile of boulders and everyone but Trystan eyed the lake with a certain amount of trepidation.

“Ye sure this is a good idea?” asked Jorja.

The wind had died down but it was still cold.

“Don’t be such a pussy. I thought you northerners were supposed to be hard or something?” Trystan said. This had little effect on Jorja and me, but it certainly spurred his brothers on to prove that they were harder than us “northerners.”

Jorja and I watched with matching arched looks as Josh and Vince stripped to their underwear and raced down toward the edge of the water. Trystan laughed but started to toe his shoes off; he stripped quickly and ran to the water’s edge in just his boxers. Jorja whistled lightly through her teeth.

“Phew, I’m really wishing ye were still a short arse right about now,” my sister said under her breath as we watched Trystan join his brothers in the water.

“Aye, I’m feeling pretty similar right now.” My assumption about his six-pack and legs had been right.

“Yer kidding me? Ye get to sleep wi’
that
! Maybe ye can work some o’ that infamous charm I’ve heard rumors of and convert him or something.”

“Yer joking, right?” I looked down at my sister, letting her know I thought her suggestion was ridiculous.

“Why?” She looked genuinely puzzled.

“For starters, I’ve never seen a finer example o’ a straight man. Secondly, yer do remember how he tormented me for thirteen years, right?”

“How could yer hold a little bit of torment against…
that
?” I laughed at her lightly. She had a point, Trystan was a fine example of male beauty, but I had absolutely no intention of making my life or this holiday any worse than it already was.

“Maybe yer’ll understand when yer older, eh, baby sister?” I pulled her into a rough one-armed embrace. “Right, let’s show these soft southern puftas how to enter a lake, eh?”

She giggled and peeled off her jumper as I followed suit and tried not to think about how effing freezing it was.

We sprinted in, splashing and screaming as we launched ourselves headfirst into the bitterly cold lake.

“For God’s sake, why the hell are yer still in this hellhole?” Jorja came up spluttering with her lips already turning blue.

“Eh? Surely ye and yer sister need to wash yer pretty hair?” Trystan mocked in his best northern accent. Jorja and I glared at him: her for implying she cared about her hair that much, and me for implying I was a girl—
again
.

“Yer seem surprisingly fascinated wi’ ma hair, Trys? No copping a feel while we’re sleeping, eh?” I returned his smirk. “This shit is grown out for ma job, nae for a pervy southern boy t’ croon over.”

I flinched as someone touched me. Trystan was two meters away, looking faintly amused as his youngest brother pressed a hand against my side.

“How come you have a waist, Ide?” Josh asked as he ran his hands over my already goose-bumped skin. I didn’t have a waist exactly, but I was narrow.

I looked down and round at the youngest Jackson, an eyebrow cocked. He was staring at my skin beneath his palm, and in the depth of those delicious chocolate brown eyes all the Jacksons shared, there was the kindling of something deeper than simple curiosity. I could see his elder brothers looked horrified and fascinated in equal measure and I really didn’t want to upset the boy—but
seriously
?

“Josh, ye know I’m gay, right? Would ye do that to a girl?” I asked gently. Although the way he was looking at my body and the way his breathing changed slightly as he turned his gaze up to my face made me wonder if he was actually interested in girls.