Nate grits his teeth. “I hate you, I hate this, I wish I wasn’t here.”
“Ha ha ha ha ha!” I reply, entirely for the camera’s benefit.
“Yeah, I think I got some good ’uns,” the boy says, standing again and handing me back my phone.
I swipe through the photos. “Oh, these are good. Nice light.” I show him.
“Huh, yeah, not bad,” he smiles.
“Thanks,” I say.
The boy nods.
“So, are you two … just friends?” the second boy asks.
“YES!” Nate says.
I roll my eyes. “We are,” I confirm. “In the sense that we barely tolerate one another.”
The second boy nods. “I’m Callum. This is my boyfriend, Parker.”
I do my absolute best not to even skip a beat. “Well, that’s awesome – welcome to Gaysville!”
“Huh?” Callum says.
“I mean, I’m gay too,” I clarify.
Callum shrugs. “Yeah, I kinda thought, maybe.” He glances at the Pride flag pin I forgot I had on my hoodie.
“The old gaydar!” I grin.
Callum makes little antennae on his head with his fingers. “Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep!”
I laugh, I love this. It’s great that two twelve-year-olds can be this open to basically complete strangers.
“We’re not out at school or anything yet,” Parker says. “Just to Callum’s parents and my mum.”
The boys look over to where Nate is still sitting on the ground, but he doesn’t look up, just continues to draw a circle in the dirt with his finger.
“Anyway, cool to meet you,” Callum says.
“Yeah, have a nice stay,” Parker adds.
And off they go, Parker giving Callum a playful push, Callum pushing him back, then they chase each other in a circle, before Callum leaps on Parker’s back and Parker runs off with him on piggyback.
And I never thought I’d feel jealous of a twelve-year-old in a campsite like this, but here we are.
“Huh,” I say, sitting down next to Nate. “Well, there’s a lesson. I’ve come here, I’ve made a whole load of terrible assumptions, I’ve judged this place and all the people in it, and actually, those lads, who I assumed were trouble, are the nicest gay kids.”
“Too soon,” Nate says.
“Too soon for what?”
“For you to have some epiphany about your flawed character on the first day of the road trip.”
I let out a long, deep breath. “Cynic. I’m going to see the good in people from now on.” I pat Nate on the leg. “Come on, let’s go and get some lovely food from the canteen, make some friends and have a nice evening.”
The canteen food doesn’t look amazing – the options are limp fish fingers, grey fatty burgers or a tragic slice of pizza, with sides of chips, fries or mash – but maybe it will taste amazing. After all, you shouldn’t judge on appearances! Nate is sitting miserably by himself on one of the far tables, unenthusiastically picking the tomato off his margherita while I wait for the very nice man in front of me to finish loading his plate with burgers. Buoyed by my experience with the friendly lads, I need an icebreaker with this dude, and what better form of icebreaker than an ironic cliché?
“Come here often?” I quip.
The man freezes, and turns his head towards me.
“Are the burgers good?” I continue.
He stares at me. “Are you having a laugh?”
His tone is … somewhat aggressive. I swallow, and try to smile. “What? No. I just…”
“Do I come here often?” he snarls.
“That was a joke,” I say.
“So you were havin’ a laugh.”
“Well, it was an ironic cliché, not really a joke—”
He stares at me, then glances at the Pride flag pin that’s still on my hoodie. “Say that if you’re chatting someone up.”
“Well, not unless you’re really bad at it. Ha!” He isn’t laughing. “Ha ha ha.” He still isn’t laughing. “Ha.”
He looks like he wants to smash my face in.
“I should smash your face in,” he tells me.
“Yes,” I say.
He’s right up close to me. His breath is acrid with cheap beer.
“If you so much as look at me again, mark my words, I will end you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NATE
It’s very hard to make sense of what Jack is saying because it’s basically just a stream of words.
“I didn’t even say anything bad I was just making funny small talk but he completely took it the wrong way why are people so angry like literally he went from normal to violent in three seconds flat what is wrong with everyone here I can’t stand it it’s awful and now he’s said that if I even just look at him again he’s going to end me he’s going to end me Nate I mean what the actual hell and I think he’s serious!”
I push the limp pizza slice to the edge of my plate. “Well, don’t look at him, then.”
“But now he’s said that, all I want to do is look!”
I shake my head. “Where’s your food?”
“It’s fine, I think I saw your dad has some Werther’s Originals in the glove compartment, I’ll just have a couple of them.”
“Jack, much as I really don’t care, you have to eat.”
“I think we should go.”
I shrug. “Fine.” I think we should go too. Back home, preferably. I’d convinced myself that if I showed Tariq how I was happy and winning at life, he’d start to have second thoughts about being with Dylan. But now all I can think about is maybe those aren’t the only reasons Tariq doesn’t want to be with me any more. Dylan is fantastically good-looking. He’s got actual muscles. I reckon he has to shave too, you know, he’s basically a man. And I’m not. I’m pretty much one hundred per cent boy. So even if I can fake the summer of a lifetime, I can’t fake the actual me, in which case, none of this stuff matters. I’m wasting my time.
“Fuuuuuuuuck,” Jack whimpers.
I glance up, and see he’s locked eyes with a man I assume to be The Man Who
