Timber Stone

Chapter 12

Copyright / Disclaimer
Copyright 2002, Duke Price

This story contains descriptions of sexual acts between boys of similar ages. If this is not to your tastes or is not legal in your locality, please leave now! The story and its associated characters are entirely fictional and any resemblance to people, living or otherwise, is purely coincidental.

If you are going to engage in sex, remember to please be safe!

Like every other author out in cyberland, I would love to hear what you think of my story. My email address is priceduke@netscape.net

As Chris stood up to go take a shower, I rolled over in the bed and pulled the covers up to my neck. Chris became very quiet and could feel him staring at me from behind. Trying not to laugh, I sighed and said, "I think I’ll sleep in."

Chris pounced on me and began tickling me unmercifully. "Oh no you don’t…you little bugger!"

Giggling and kicking my arms and legs to evade his marauding hands and yelled, "Stop…stop!"

"Get up Sammy!"

I tried tickling him back but to my disappointment found that he wasn’t ticklish, so I began pushing him away. Chris was relentless and in my attempt to escape, pushed him a little harder than I would have liked and watched him tumble to the floor. At the last moment Chris reached out and pulled me down on top of him. The whole house shook as we hit the floor. We were laughing hysterically. Trying to muffle his laughter Chris put his finger up to his lips and whispered, "Shh! We’re going to wake up your Dad."

Breathing hard I straddled Chris and held his hands to the floor. Looking very cute and breathing hard and his face flushed, he stared up at me. I stopped smiling as I gazed into his eyes and went in for a kiss.

"What the heck was that loud bang?"

Chris rolled me off of him and sat up next to the bed. "Sorry Mr. Johnson. I fell off of the bed."

Looking like he’d been woken from a sound sleep Dad stood there in the buff and rubbing his eyes. "Sorry Dad, we were wrestling."

Yawning he said, "What time is it?"

"Umm, 5:00am."

Scratching his belly he said, "I’m going back to bed."

Looking concerned Chris looked at me and said, "Is he mad?"

"Mad? No. Irritated? Yeah a little."

"Oh good. I don’t want to wear out my welcome."

"Don’t worry about it Chris. He doesn’t stay mad or irritated very long. So what do you think?"

"Think about what?"

Winking, "You know?"

Chris smiled, "You mean your old man?"

Giggling, "You just gotten a preview of what I’ll look like in about 24 years."

With a devilish grin Chris said, "I like…I like it a lot!"

I jumped to my feet and shut my bedroom door. "Let’s skip showering. We can workout first and then get cleaned up."

"I don’t know how you can sleep in clothes. I prefer to sleep in the buff."

I rummaged through my dresser and pulled out a jock strap and gym trunks. "I was too tired to care last night and died the minute my head hit the pillow."

"Come here Sammy."

I smiled at him and walked over to him. Chris unzipped my Levi’s and pulled them down to my ankles. I stood nude in front of him and could tell that he liked what he saw. Chris took the jockstrap from my hand and helped me put it on. I couldn’t help but smile as he carefully adjusted my package so that it fit me comfortably. Then he helped me put on my gym shorts. Grabbing my hips he got up on his knees and placed little kisses around my belly button. The attention that he was giving me was making loins ache. Chris looked up and me and gave me a devilish grin as he stuck his tongue out and drove it into my belly button. It tickled and I pushed his face away from me. "You’re tickling me."

Chris turned his head and hugged me. I stood there and wrapped my arms around his head while he wrapped his arms around my waist. I figured he’d let go, but he just kept hugging me as I ran my fingers through his auburn hair. He sighed and rubbed his smooth face against my bare skin. The closeness strangely calmed me. I continued massaging his head and as I peered down at his angelic face and could see that his eyes were closed. I sighed and began running my fingers over his cheeks, his nose, chin and red lips. I got tired of standing in one spot so I gently nudged him and said, "Wake up sleeping beauty. We need to go on our daily workout before it gets too warm."

Chris tightened his grip around my waist without opening his eyes and made an "Mmm."

"Come on Chris, let’s go."

Sleepily he said, "Okay Sammy."

"Come on lover boy. Lets go!"

I pulled on my T-shirt walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen where I filled two canteens of water. Chris was right behind me as I got in the car and drove to Timber Stone. When we got there I said, "Time warm up."

We did some sit-ups, push-ups and some stretching exercises before we set out for our ten-mile jog. "Let’s go Chris."

I set the pace. I’m positive that if Chris was alone the pace would have been faster but I’ve run around the course to get in shape for cross country skiing and I know that it’s imperative that you pace yourself…some of these hills can be killers. On the third lap of the course I felt like I was catching my second wind and picked up the pace. At the end of the third lap we did some more stretching I took look at the coach’s training schedule.

"Okay, let’s do some push-ups. Coach says that you do two sets of twenty."

"I’ll just do forty and get it over with."

I did only 20 and quit. When he was finished Chris said, "You and Val seemed to be carrying on quite the conversation last night. What did she tell you?"

I laughed, "She told me that getting us together was all too easy."

Chris stared at me but didn’t say anything.

"She also told me that if she started hitting on me that you’d make a move."

Chris stared off into the distance. "Hmm, how the hell did she know that I liked you…unless Bill or Jake or…"

"Woe woe! Slow down Chris. She asked me if I’d ever been in you bedroom?"

"Why…Oh, now I get it! That little twerp’s been nosing around in my bedroom. I’m going to give her a piece of my mind…"

"Wait! Before you do that you need to know that she’s happy that we’re together and that I love you too."

"You told her that you love me."

"She seemed genuinely happy for you. Besides she’s overheard your parents talk about us."

"She shouldn’t snooping around in my bedroom."

"Chris it was bound to get out about us. I didn’t feel that she was being malicious and seems quite proud of herself."

Chris grinned as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "That’s typical for Val. She always wants to take credit for things that work out. The fact of the matter is, if you hadn’t of asked me to go for a ride in your Corvette we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. Things just sort of fell into place after that. There was never a grand plan. This whole thing is a total surprise for me! Life can be really sweet sometimes."

"Come on lover boy, lets get cleaned up."

When we got home I got us two big glasses of ice water. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah!"

"Cereal is up there. Here’s the milk. Do you want some toast?"

"Sure."

"We have the whole day off today. What would you like to do?"

"I’d like to see what the guys are doing. Would it be okay if they came out to the lake with us? They love to swim and fish."

"Absolutely, we’d have a blast out there…maybe could have an over nighter? Why don’t we give them a call?"

I could see the wheels spinning in Chris’ head. "What’s the matter?"

"Oh nothing."

"No, I want to know."

"It sounds like a great time but I was hoping that just the two of us could spend the night alone together?"

Grinning and licking my lips, "We have time alone now?"

"Isn’t your Dad’s home?"

"Didn’t you see the note on the table?"

"No."

"He’ll be back later tonight."

Chris immediately stood up and grabbed my hand, "Let’s go."

"But you didn’t finish your breakfast."

"Who cares about breakfast when I can get a nutritious substance from you."

I stopped short of the bedroom. "Oh, no, I’m taking a shower first."

"Okay, I’ll take one with you."

As I bent over to turn the water on, Chris wrapped his arms around me from behind and gave me a hug. "Oh, Sammy, why do we need to shower. I like the way you smell."

I turned around and said, "You are a nasty little man."

"Only when I’m with you."

I felt him pulling down my shorts down to my ankles. Satisfied that I had the right water temperature, I stood up and turned my head to see what he was doing. Chris had his eyes closed resting his face up against my ass. "Let’s get in."

Chris kissed my butt and pulled my jock strap down and over my feet. He held it out in front of his face and looking up at me pleadingly said, "Can I have this Sammy?"

With him still on his knees, I turned around to face him. Chris glanced down at my groin and then looked back into my eyes. "You’re serious aren’t you?"

Looking up at me without smiling he said, "Yes…yes I am."

I thought about it and hesitantly said, "Okay. You know if you keep taking my underwear, I'm going to have to go out and buy more?"

Smiling, "Can I help pick them out for you?"

"If it will make you happy."

"Oh, it will!"

Chris kissed my half-erect penis and stood up. We both entered the shower and took turns scrubbing each other down. Chris explored every region of my body. After washing my front he suds up my back and ran his fingers between my cheeks. "Oh, Sammy you are unbelievably beautiful. My body aches for you. Bend over my love."

My legs went limp when he began toying with my rosebud. I arched my head back when I felt his tongue invade my backside. I stood up and said, "Chris you’re going to make me cum. It’s my turn to wash you now."

I picked up the bar and began kissing him his red lips. Hearing Chris whimper was like music to my ears. I pulled away and ran my fingers gently over his face and chin. "You have some red stubble on your chin. Mm, I like that stud!"

Chris smiled at me as I grabbed his muscular arms and washed them one by one. "Lift your arms up."

I then ran the soap around his hairy armpits. After rinsing the soap off I kissed under each arm. Then I suds up his hairless chiseled chest and six pack. The only hair he had on the front of him was the little red treasure trail that led to his love muscle. It’s a good thing that he’s not ticklish because I was getting off on running my soapy hand over his chest and belly. Before I continued my exploration I grabbed his ass and pulled him in for another kiss. It felt so good to have our hard penises rub against each other. After a brief kiss, I fell to my knees and began washing his groin. This is really the first time that I’ve had the chance to really study my boyfriend’s body without him distracting me. His scrotum was low hanging and nearly hairless. The skin was loose, white and nearly transparent making his large testicles nearly visible. In comparison to my light brown penis, his penis matched the color of his scrotum. He’s uncut and his foreskin partially covered the head of his penis. I pulled back his foreskin, which exposed a very pink head. I noticed some white stuff under his foreskin and washed it off with soap. After rinsing the soap off I put his love muscle in my mouth and ran my tongue around the head of his penis. After a while I allowed his foreskin to go back up and enjoyed the feeling of my tongue being blanketed by it as well. Chris’ hips began to move back and forth as I sucked on him. Just as I was getting into it I heard knocking and doorbell ringing. I let go of his penis. "Someone’s at the door."

I quickly jumped out of the shower and began toweling myself off. I ran into the bedroom and threw on my robe. I answered the door and motioned for Chris’ three friends to come on in. "Come on in. We were going to give you guys a call."

"Hi Sam! How’s it hangin?"

"Good! Chris is in the shower."

Bill stopped in his tracks and said, "Oh! We can come back later."

"No! He…should be finished in a few minutes. Do you guys want something to drink?"

"Are you sure, we can come back later."

I walked into the kitchen and yelled, "No don’t be silly! I have Coke, Pepsi, beer…"

Scott said, "I’ll have a beer."

"Oops, sorry, did I say beer? I meant to say root beer."

I came back with Pepsi. "I’m going to get some clothes on. Make yourselves comfortable."

I put my head into the bathroom and said, "Bill, Scott and Jake are here."

I could hear him grumble something but couldn’t make out what he said, "Here’s a towel babe."

I quickly put on some clothes and went out into the Den. "Whatcha doin out here?"

Scott said, "We were wondering if you guys would like to hang out with us today?"

"Yeah, we would. In fact we were talking about having you all hike with us to Johnson Lake and spend the day with us fishing or swimming."

Bill said, "Johnson Lake? Never heard of that one."

"It’s a small lake that we own. It also has a cabin on it, so if we wanted, we could spend the night out there. So would you like to join us at the lake?"

Jake said, "That sounds great! Can we bring our girls?"

"Absolutely! Chris and I might be spending the night out there and you are all invited to join us."

"We’d love to see this lake of yours and stay over night. We’ll need to call our girls and get our camping gear together."

"Groovy! Make sure that you bring warm clothes and a sleeping bag.""

Bill said, "We better go pack our shit. We’ll be back in about an hour."

"Sounds good. I’ll tell Chris."

I waved to the three guys as they drove away.

As I shut the front door Chris walked into the foyer, clad in only his boxers, he said, "Where did they go?"

"I invited them to come out to the lake and they’re going to get their camping gear. They might be bringing along the girls."

Chris put his arms around me and gave me a passionate kiss. "If I know those guys it will take them two hours to get their shit together. More than enough time to make love."

"Make love? I thought we already had that?"

"You know…take time to love and cherish each other’s body."

I smiled and grabbed his hand and pulled him along behind me. "You always know the right things to say big boy."

I grabbed his hand and pulled him along. We both began attacking each other by kissing each other passionately. Chris untied my robe and ran his hands up and down my nakedness. I allowed my white robe to fall to the floor and enjoyed the warmth of his body against mine.

Chris grabbed my butt and lifted. I instinctively wrapped my legs around his waist. He carried me to the bed and laid on top of me. He began to slowly move down as he began kissing my neck. "Oh no you don’t."

I quickly rolled us over so that I was now on top of him. Chris smiled at me. "Lets see, where did we leave off earlier?" Oh yes, I think I was sucking your love muscle."

I moved down and grabbing the waistband of his boxers pulled them down over his legs and feet. I gazed down upon my lover’s gorgeous body. "Bend you knees up Chris."

He did as I instructed so I could get a good view of his groin and bubble butt. I couldn’t take it anymore and dove down between his legs. Chris moaned when I kissed the head of penis. I stuck the head in my mouth and ran my tongue between his foreskin and head of his hard penis. Chris grabbed his penis and began jacking himself off. With his hand near the base and my hand above his I followed his lead to get into the same rhythm that he was stroking himself. With both hands and began to rhythmically jack him off. I wished I could get more of him in my mouth but I couldn’t. Despite this Chris seemed to be enjoying what I was doing. With his free hand, Chris ran his fingers through my long hair and caressed my face. When my mouth got tire I pulled his hand away from his penis so that I could run my tongue down his shaft and over his scrotum. "Oh Sammy I’m getting close."

I let go of his cock with my left hand and ran my fingers across his rosebud. Chris let out moan and no sooner did I get my mouth over the head of penis I felt him begin shoot large amounts of semen into my hungry mouth. I continued to pump his cock until he quieted down.

I laid my face on his thigh and watched his cock shrink. I kissed his balls and said, "Chris, you taste so good! I could do that to you for hours."

"I would like that my love but I want to enjoy you too." And with that he pulled me up to his face kissed me with his red lips. After a short period of time he made his way down to my groin.

"Sammy, put your legs over my shoulders."

I did as he said and what he did next nearly blew my mind. He propped my bottom up in front of his face and proceeded to lick my rosebud. It felt like he was attempting to enter me with his tongue and it was driving me wild. I felt his thumbs spread my cheeks wider to gain more access to my behind and as he did this he’d let out deep guttural groans as he attacked my bottom. I still felt that what he was doing was nasty practice but his groans helped to relax me and it got to the point where I no longer cared how nasty it was and began to just enjoy the intense pleasure that he was generating down there. After a while it truly felt as if he had entered my hole with his tongue and was drilling it in and out. Then I felt something harder enter me. I think it was a finger. He began running it slowly in and out as he ran his tongue up and over my tight scrotum. He then ran his tongue a few times up and down my shaft and shoved the whole thing down his throat. All of a sudden Chris touched something inside of me that caused me to immediately shoot my love juice into his mouth. I continued to piston in and out of his mouth until I was spent. All I could do was lay there and recover from the most intense orgasm I’d ever experienced. Chris laid his head on my belly next to my penis and could feel him periodically lick the head of my penis.

I pulled Chris up to face me. "Where did you learn that?"

Chris smiled, "The Internet."

"That was amazing! I want to do that to you."

"Next time okay? We should probably get cleaned up before our friends get back."

"Our friends…I like the sound of that."

"Why don’t we just lay here for a few minutes?"

"Mmm, that sounds good."

In our state of euphoric slumber we drifted off to sleep.

Chris shook me, "Sammy, wake up! Someone’s at the door!"

Chris jumped out of bed, "Shit, shit, shit! Where’s my fucking clothes."

Chris pulled on his boxers and ran to the front door. I could hear him apologizing to his friends."

Laughing Bill said, "It smells like you did more than just take a nap stud. Go get cleaned up. We’ll wait for you two outside."

"Thanks buddy."

Chris came back into the bedroom. "Sammy we need to get cleaned up."

"Chris I’ll go in the master bathroom. It’ll be quicker that way."

We finished our showers and were out the door in record time.

Everyone had this knowing grin on their faces. We ignored it and busied ourselves in getting ready for the hike to the camp. "I’m going back in the house to get some food out of the frig."

Jake said, "We brought some snacks."

"Good, I’ll bring some food to eat with the fish that we catch."

Bill and Jake gave each other a high five, "Yeah! This is going to be sweet!"

I called Gram to let her know that we’d be out at the lake today and maybe spend the night. "Be careful out there Sammy."

"We will Gram."

"Okay lets go! Oh, I almost forgot the envelopes."

I ran back into the house and said, "Now we’re ready."

I led the pack into the woods. "It’s about a 2 mile walk into some fairly difficult terrain, so if you get tired just holler and we’ll stop for a breather."

We reached the summit that overlooked Johnson Lake and sat down for a while. "Down there is Johnson Lake. It’s approximately 150 acres in size and reaches and reaches depths of 50 feet. There’s a natural dam on the West End of the lake where the water spills over down onto a series of waterfalls. As you’ll see up ahead, it’s partly fed by Iron creak but is mostly fed by underwater springs. Come on lets go."

Chris smiled at me as we began to hear the roar of waterfall ahead. "We have to be very careful here. Right up ahead here there is about a 100 foot drop off in which Iron Creek cascades over. This is why we don’t hike this at night. One wrong move and you could die."

"Holy Mother of God! This is scary!"

Jessica said, "I’m not getting any closer than this."

Bill was lying on his stomach and said, "Come on baby. I’ll hold your hand. Come on!"

Jessica seemed to gain confidence with Bill’s encouragement. As she cautiously approached edge she stared down at her feet and despite being on flat ground, she pushed forward as if performing a balancing act. Bill calmly said, "Jessica, get down on your knees and crawl. Then you can safely peer over the side."

She screamed as she looked over the edge. Everyone started laughing. "This is so awesome Sam!"

The rest of us sat down and I passed around my water canteen. After everyone had a chance to peer over the edge we stood up and led them up stream to an area that was safe to cross.

Melanie said, "We have to wade across?"

"It’s safe. I’ve done this zillion of times. Just follow me."

One of the girls let out a scream and when I turned to see what was wrong I saw Jake holding up Nicole. "The moss on these rocks can be a little slippery."

"I’m scared Jake."

"You trekked the most difficult part of the trail. The rest of the way is a piece of cake."

Chris smiled and winked at me. We finally made our way to the lake. Jessica said, "Sammy, this is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen."

"I’m glad you think so. I’ll show you the cabin. If you want, you can go in there to put on your swim trunks and bikinis."

I unlocked the door and showed them in.

"Sam, is that a real bear rug?"

"Yep, Gramps shot that out here."

"Wow, that’s a big bear."

"You can dress in here or up in the loft."

I climbed up into the loft and put the two envelopes back where we found them and then joined the rest of the gang. After showing them around I said, do you guys want to go swimming or fishing."

There was unanimous response, "Swimming!"

Bill said, "Come on guys let’s let the girls change in here."

We followed Bill out and watched him shed his clothes. He stripped down completely nude and pulled his trunks out of his backpack. Chris, Jake and Scott followed suit. I shrugged my shoulders and did the same. One of the girls whistled out of the front door. "Nice ass guys!"

With a mischievous grin, Bill turned around. The girls let out some screams and slammed the door shut. Scott said, "You’re scaring the girls Bill. Cover it up man."

Bill smiled and said, "If they want to see something scary they should take a look at what’s between Chris’ legs."

Bill’s smile faded when he looked at me and concentrated on putting on his trunks. All of sudden there were some blood curdling screams from within the cabin. All four of us momentarily stood there looking at the cabin to see if they were joking around. There were more screams and that’s when all four of us ran to see what was wrong. We opened the front door only to find three nude girls jumping around hysterically. Bill said, "What’s wrong?"

Nicole yelled, "We have ticks all over us."

Chris and I looked at each and broke out into spiels of laughter. I laughed until my stomach hurt. I finally quit laughing and looked up to see Bill, Jake and Scott trying to calm the girls down. I glanced at Chris who was trying not to laugh but when he looked at me he blew air out of his mouth causing spit to fly into my face. Laughing hysterically, he dropped to the floor holding his belly. When we finally stopped laughing I found the six of them giving us dirty looks. I yelled out, "Tick search!"

Chris followed suit and yelled out, "Tick search!"

Melanie said, "Tick search?"

"Sure, we need to check each other out to remove any ticks that may be crawling on us. You have to search every nook and cranny because they love to set up residence behind ears and in skin folds…if ya know what I mean?"

Jake looked at me and then I could see a little smile form on his face. He grabbed his girlfriend’s hand and led her out the door, "Come on Nicole I have to check to make sure you don’t have any more ticks."

Bill and Scott followed his lead as they set out in separate directions. Chris kissed me. "I suppose I better perform a thorough tick search on you too?"

Chris led me out to the porch and then turned to kiss me. He pulled off my shirt and pulled down my trunks. My cock popped up and slapped my belly. Then he began running his fingers through my hair. When he was finished examining my hair he kissed me again and ran his hands up and down my back. Then he began nuzzling my neck. "Mm, aren’t you supposed to be checking me for ticks? Besides I don’t want you starting something you can’t finished."

Sounding a little disappointed Chris said, "Oh, alright."

When Chris finished looking over my front sided he kissed my penis and said, "Turn around Sammy and bend over for me."

He ran his hands over my back, down my butt and over my thighs. It tickled and I stood up. "Come babe, be a good patient and bend over."

"Yes doctor."

He spread my cheeks apart and ran his fingers across my rosebud. "What’s the diagnosis doctor?"

"Well Mr. Johnson, I don’t see any blood sucking parasites and your body appears to be in perfect condition. Sammy are you a little sore back here?"

I turned around to see if he was being serious. He was serious. "A little. It’s really nothing."

"I’m sorry. I won’t do that again."

"Do what again?"

"You know…play with you rectum. Besides I can tell that you think it’s nasty."

I turned around and pulled up my trunks. "Chris, I grew up with the idea that my back side is a nasty area. Seeing and smelling what comes out of there is not a pleasant thing. I never would have guessed that it could be such a wonderful source of pleasure."

"So despite the discomfort and what you grew up to believe about your back side, you find pleasure in what I did this morning?"

"Hell yeah! It feels wonderful. Chris, if I don’t like something, I’ll tell you."

"Good because I really, really, really like playing with your so called nasty area."

I sat down next to him and said, "Chris I had a dream the other night. We were hiking and I developed this unbearable itch. You took care my problem in a most interesting way."

Chris raised his brow. "What did I do?"

"Well, you came up from behind and lifted me up."

"Yeah?"

"Then you lowered me on to your penis."

"Sammy, you know that I would never do that to you."

"I know but it did take away the itch."

"By replacing it with pain?"

"Initially, yes but just as it was beginning to feel good you woke me up."

Chris eyes got big and said, "That was this morning. When I woke you up, you had a surprised look on your face and you reached down to your bottom."

He looked into my eyes. "We don’t ever have to do that."

"Chris, someday I’d like to try it. I’m not really sure why but the thought of you being inside of me is very appealing."

"And you in me. Someday I’d like you inside of me too."

"Have you ever done it before."

"No. The only thing I’ve done is kissed and jacked off another guy."

I jumped when I heard. "Hey you guys! How many ticks did you find."

Chris said, "Sammy has to check me out now."

"What’s taking you so long?"

"He required a thorough exam."

Bill smiled said, "Aha. I know what you love birds were doing."

Chris said, "The same thing that you and Jessica were doing."

Jessica said, "Really? I’d like to see that."

Chris said, "Not in this lifetime. Come on Sammy let’s go inside so you can look me over too."

Bill giggled, "Lick you all over."

Chris replied, "Yeah, that too."

As Chris closed the door behind us I could here Bill whine, "Jessica, you never do that to me!"

"Sammy, we’ll have to do this quickly. The natives are getting restless."

Despite the urge to slowly take my time in looking Chris over, the fact of the matter was, the hair on his head is short and with the exception of his groin, the rest of his body is virtually hairless which makes finding ticks very easy. "I can’t believe that neither of us had any ticks on us."

"They must have seen the girls and decided that they stood a better chance at finding a place to hide."

Chris pulled on his trunks and I followed him out the door. I could hear whooping and hollering and could see the gang frolicking about in the water. "Come on you guys! The water’s great!"

Chris and I ran down to the shore and dove into the crystal clear water. After chasing Chris around I noticed a sullen looking Jake sitting on the beach. I was cold so I got out of the water and sat down next to him. "What’s up Jake?"

"Hangin low buddy."

"Want to talk about it?"

Jake sat there and didn’t say anything. It was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about it, so I spread my towel out and laid back on the beach to soak up the rays. I closed my eyes and relaxed. After a few minutes Jake said, "Nicole is late."

I opened my eyes and said, "Late?"

"You know, she might be pregnant."

Jake sat there with his arms wrapped around his bent knees. "Sam, I’m scared shitless."

"How’s Nicole doing?"

He laughed, "She’s not very worried about it. She’s been irregular ever since I’ve known her. The doctor has told her that it’s probably because she’s young and thin. This time I’m worried because it’s been a month and a half and no period."

"Maybe you should buy one of those over the counter pregnancy tests?"

Someone from the lake yelled, "Jake get your cute butt down here and swim with me."

Jake stood up; "My girl’s calling me. Thanks for listening."

"Anytime." I laid back down and closed my eyes as I enjoyed the warmth of the sun beating down on my chilled body."

"Hi Sammy."

"Hi Chris."

"You and Jake seemed to be having a serious conversation? Is everything okay?"

"Sorry Chris, I don’t think I’m at liberty to say."

I could see a worried look forming on his face. I wanted to tell him but I felt it best not say what it was. "Is it something serious?"

I reached out to hold his hand and said, "Chris, you need to ask Jake."

"Okay Sammy. He seems to be having a good time now. Scott and Melanie want to go fishing."

"Cool. Let’s go."

Chris and Scott helped me drag the canoes down to the lake. We threw in the fishing gear and began paddling along the weed beds. "Melanie began screaming, "I’ve got a big one!"

Scott said, "Play with it or it’ll break your line."

I couldn’t help but feel Melanie’s excitement as she tried to real in the monster. All of sudden Chris and I had some hard hits on our lines. Chris yelled, "Woo hoo! The fish are biting!"

Chris was the first to land his large mouth bass. Holding it up in the air Chris said, "Hey Sammy. Take a look at this!"

"Nice one Chris!"

"Chris slowly put it back in the water and said, "We’re going to let ya grow some more big fella."

I caught a nice sized Walleye. "Mm, this one will be tasty."

I took a look over at Melanie and Scott. Scott was looking down in the water. "Can you see it?"

"No, she hasn’t gotten it near the surface. It’s got to be huge!"

I smiled at Chris, "It’s probably a big honkin Pike or a Musky. She’ll be lucky to get that sucker in without a leader on the end."

"I can’t get it in."

Scott kept giving her pointers. "Keep playing with it."

We paddled away from them and kept casting our lures into the water. Chris finally landed a nice sized Walleye. Chris looked so proud of himself. He held it up for me. "This is fun! Come here Sammy I want to kiss ya."

We leaned towards each other and kissed. When we separated Chris said, "Time to catch more fish."

Off in the distance we heard, "There it is!"

"Where?"

"Right there."

"I still can’t see it."

Melanie said "It’s huge!"

Then we heard Scott say, "Holy shit! It’s a monster! Sam…Chris, you’ve got to see this thing!"

We paddled over to take a look. "I’m not reaching in to get this thing out of the water. It could take my hand off."

"That’s a Musky guys. I can’t believe you were able to reel it in without a leader."

I reached in and pulled it out of the water. "I’d say that you got yourself a 30 pounder."

Melanie said, "It’s huge!"

"This is just a mid sized one. My Dad pulled a 60 pounder out of here a few years ago. So are you going to keep it or let it go to catch another day?"

"I’m going to let it go."

Scott said, "You’re what?"

Melanie looked at Scott, "I’m going to let it go. It’s too beautiful to kill."

I said, "Do you want to kiss it first?"

"Kiss it?"

"Yeah, that’s tradition around here. It gives the fish good luck so that it will survive long enough to be caught another day."

Melanie looked at me to see if was serious. She could see that I was and reached over and touched it first before she giving it a quick peck. "Yuck! I can’t believe I just did that!"

Scott was laughing as he stared at the disgusted look on her face. We caught a half a dozen more Walleye before calling it quits. Chris said, "I’m hungry!"

Scott said, "So am I."

"Chris when we get back, why don’t you and Scott start the camp fire while fillet the fish."

"Okay chief! You two are going to knobs when you taste this fish! Sammy is quite the little cook."

Melanie laughed, "They say that a way to a man’s heart is his through his stomach."

"That may be true but Sammy had my heart well before he ever cooked for me."

Scott laughed, "You’ve got it bad, stud!"

"What do you mean? There’s nothing bad about being in-love with such a wonderful person."

I shook my head at him and jumped out the canoe to cool off and pushed the canoe up onto shore. "Chris you’re embarrassing me."

"Don’t be embarrassed. I’m just stating a fact."

"Alright, let’s get supper going."

I picked up the stringer of fish and started walking up to the cabin. Chris stopped me and picked me up off of the ground. After kissing me he carried me up to the cabin. Laughing, "I can walk! Put me down!"

"I just want to hold you babe."

"You can hold me later. I have to clean these fish."

"Alright, I’ll get the fire going."

When the fire died down to mostly glowing embers, I placed the grate and large cast iron pan over the fire. Then I poured peanut oil in and waited for it to heat up. I whipped up my special egg batter and coated the fish with it. When the oil was boiling I threw in the fish and deep-fried them. The oil popped and sizzled as the fish cooked. "Mm, that looks great Sam. Where did you learn to do that?"

I shrugged my shoulders and said, "I don’t know. I just figured it out on my own."

Jessica said, "You’re pretty self reliant aren’t you Sam?"

Melanie said, "Why don’t you have many friends?"

I looked at Chris. Chris looked mortified. I shrugged and said, "Up until now I really haven’t had time for friends."

"I know that you are busy in the summer but what do you do in the winter. "Well, in the winter I like to cross country ski and on the weekends, I usually fly to where ever Dad is to watch him golf in the tournaments. Dad likes it when I come to visit. He gets lonely when he’s on tour and it’s great when I get to caddy for him. I get to rub shoulders with some of the golf greats. It also gives me a reprieve from the cold weather."

"So that’s how you keep a tan year round."

"Yep!"

"Sound like fun."

I looked at Chris who seemed to be deep in thought. "This year will be different."

Bill said, "How so?"

"I think I’ll be spending more time at home. Chris is going to need me around during the football and basketball seasons. When they’re over maybe Chris and I can spend some time following Dad around the country?"

Chris looked up at me with a little grin on his face and with a relieved look said, "I’d love to do that!"

Chris sat down next to me and held my hand as I watched the fish turn a golden crispy brown.

Confident that the fish was cooked I yelled out, "Time to eat! Hand me your plates. Chris, can you get the bread and carrots out of back pack."

"You’ve got it dude."

"Oh man, this is DEe-LiSsh!"

"Thanks Bill."

"Damn! I worked up an appetite!"

"Hey, there’s a lot of fish here! Help yourself Scott."

Everyone was chowing down and licking their fingers as they shoveled the food into their mouths. When we were finished everyone sat around holding their bellies. Scott moaned, "I ate too much!"

I began cleaning up the camp. Chris said, "Relax Sammy! We’ll help you with that."

"Yeah Sammy, you made the grub, we clean up."

Chris said, "We need to make sure that every thing is picked up. We don’t want to attract critters."

Melanie said, "Critters?"

"Yeah, like raccoon or bears."

"Bears?"

"They won’t bother you unless you keep food where they can get at it."

Everyone began picking up after themselves and threw food scraps and paper into the fire into the fire. When we were finished I said, "Are you all staying out here tonight?"

The girls moaned. Jessica said, "Our parents would never let us stay out here with you boys."

Melanie said, "Yeah, ever since they caught us skinny dipping in Bill’s pool…they refuse to let us be alone at night."

I smiled at Chris, "Skinny dipping?"

"Don’t look at me. I wasn’t there when they got caught."

Melanie said, "Mr. Self Conscious over there wouldn’t skinny dip with us."

"That’s interesting. He doesn’t seem very self conscious when he’s around me."

Jessica laughed, "Oh really? Have you skinny dipped out here?"

Chris cleared his throat. "And I’m never skinny dipping out here ever again. A guy could lose his manhood in these waters."

Bill laughed, "And that would take quite a fish to take that on!"

Everyone was snickering. Chris whined, "Hey, you didn’t see the fish that Melanie caught. It was a monster!"

"Yeah and there are bigger ones out there."

Jake said, "Bigger than Chris?"

"No Jake, bigger Muskies."

I changed the subject. "It’s going to get dark in a couple of hours, we should get the girls back. Are you guys staying here over night?"

Bill, Jake and Scott looked at each other and then looked at Chris for permission. I couldn’t quite read Chris’ expression but it must have been a ‘yeah sure…you can stay over night’ kind of look. They’ve known each other for years and were probably better at reading him than me. Chris must have figured out that they were looking for permission from him and said, "The night sky is beautiful out here. We’d have a great time if you guys stayed out here with us."

All three guys said, "Cool!"

Bill said, "Lets get the girls back."

Heading back the girls were so slow. We should have left sooner. We’re going to be lucky if we get back to camp before dark. "Mel!"

I heard popping sound and a scream and turned around to see Melanie lying on her side with her leg wedged between two boulders. "I think I broke my leg."

My heart sank and was now kicking myself for bringing them out here. Bill and Jake lifted her up while Scott stabilized her leg. It was obvious to me that it was broken and I felt sick to my stomach. I spotted two tree limbs and said, "Guys, remove your shorts. We’re going to make a stretcher."

The guys followed suit after watching me remove mine and ran the limbs through the pant legs. Melanie grimaced and said, "This is a hell of a way to get you guys to remove your shorts."

Scott said, "Hang in there Mel. We’re going to get you out of here."

We laid Melanie on the stretcher and made our way back to Timber Stone. As we were walking down the 18^th fairway, I heard some whistling. It was one of the club members that I’ve known for years. I yelled, "Hey George! We need your golf cart!"

"He saw that I was serious and drove it over to us."

"You guys alright?"

"No, Melanie broke her leg. We need to get her back to the clubhouse."

When I ran into the clubhouse, Gram said, "Sammy? What’s going on?"

"Call an ambulance Gram."

Gram picked up the phone and dialed 911. "They want to know why I need an ambulance?"

"Tell them Melanie broke her leg."

"Oh dear! Umm, Melanie broke her leg. Her last name?"

I yelled out the door, "Scott, what’s Mel’s last name?"

"Smith."

Before I could tell her Gram said, "Smith."

She hung up the phone and ran out of the door to take a look at Melanie. "Poor dear! Sam, get me some ice bags."

It seemed to take forever for the ambulance to arrive and when they did, it was almost dark out. They quickly loaded her into the ambulance and sped off to the hospital. Scott said, "I’ll drive the girls and Jake hospital. Bill you go back to the camp with Sam."

Gram said, "Sammy, take the cell phone with you and call me when you get back to the camp…oh and here’s two flash lights."

"You don’t have to go back with me Bill. I know these woods like the back of my hand. I just hope that Chris doesn’t do something stupid like try to walk back here alone."

Bill looked at me, "Let’s go Sam. We’re wasting time."

I smiled, "Okay, well thanks for coming along."

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