“Alright, I promise,” he agreed, giving his boyfriend a slap on the ass. “Princess Bradley gets to select the next itinerary.” As the guys entered the beautiful old-growth forest, the sun burst through the canopy of trees, casting an ever-shifting design of shadows across their faces and the path in front of them. “Just the two of us in all this wilderness, how lucky are we?”

FLICKERING FIRELIGHT pulled on the strings of the boys’ shadows like marionettes dancing against the walls of the two-man tent. The shadows rippled on the canvas wall as a gentle wind blew, and for a moment a third silhouette appeared before sliding off the tent wall and slipping into the dark paths between the forest trees. The hum of cicadas filled the woods around them as Dany loaded a third marshmallow onto his stick and held it over the glowing red embers of the campfire.

“The first time a couple buddies and me were driving down Light Road.…”

“Out by the Henderson farm?” Brad interjected in between licking his fingers clean of their marshmallow gooiness.

“Exactly,” Dany answered, his face taking on the tempered excitement of disclosing a secret. “There’re all these stories about people seeing a light there that appears to jump from ditch to ditch as you drive toward it and then it disappears.”

Brad pulled another flaming marshmallow from the fire and blew it out. “Did you see it?”

“Not that time,” Dany teased trying hard to suppress a smile. He enjoyed seeing Brad squirm on the log opposite him. “We saw this old farmhouse in the middle of a field and went to check it out. It looked like whoever lived there had just up and left. All the furniture was still there, pictures on the walls, everything, except it was all from the 1930s or something.”

“Is this going to get scary?” Brad asked, well aware of his boyfriend’s affinity for sending chills down his spine.

Dany rolled the roasting stick over in his hand and slid his eyes up to meet Brad’s. He was well-practiced in the art of seducing his guy. “Would you come sit closer to me if it did?”

Brad put on a show of sighing but was actually eager to snuggle into Dany’s protective embrace. He felt vulnerable suddenly, sitting alone with his back to the dark woods on the opposite side of the fire. Dany pulled Brad down beside him on the log and hugged him in close, scaring off the chill of the night. Brad turned and gave Dany a quick kiss before resting his head back on his shoulder. As Dany took up where his story had left off, the bristle of his beard and the rustle of his words tickled and trickled across Brad’s neck.

“The strangest part about this old farmhouse was that on the wall, right beside the front door, was this poem written on a heart.…”