Map Fold Etiquette

Deke looked over from the firewood pile. “Not mine. I own a phone and a healthy distrust of ornamental objects.”

Parnell held both hands up. “I only plant evidence when it supports a thesis.”

Blaine checked the gear bins, then his own pack. “I didn’t put it there.”

Merritt turned the compass over. No initials. No maker’s mark. Nothing except worn brass and a tiny dent near the hinge.

“It must have come from somewhere,” Merritt said.

“Probably,” Blaine agreed.

Merritt slipped it into the zippered pocket of his pack. “Fine. But if it starts giving directions, you’re in charge.”

Blaine grinned. “Coach’s orders.”

After supper, Merritt found Blaine at the fire ring with the trail map spread across his knees and the empty map case open beside him.

The others had gone to wash cookware at the outdoor tap. Their voices carried faintly from the farmhouse porch, punctuated by Deke’s laugh and Parnell’s patient corrections about biodegradable soap. Firelight moved over Blaine’s hands as he lined up the map’s creases with absurd care.

Merritt stopped just outside the circle of stones.

Blaine looked up. “Everything all right?”

“No,” Merritt said. “Well. Yes. Probably. I’m having a hard time with the usual parts.”

Blaine set the map down immediately. “Come sit.”

There was room on the log beside him, though not much, and Merritt took it anyway. His knee pressed against Blaine’s. Neither of them shifted away.

“I keep expecting this to turn into a bill,” Merritt said after a moment. “Not a literal bill. You know. You remember my coffee. You bring dry socks. You ask before you kiss me. Then eventually I’m supposed to earn it by being convenient forever.”

Blaine’s face changed, not into pity, which Merritt appreciated more than he could say. Just attention. Solid, patient attention.

“I know people taught you that,” Blaine said. “They were wrong to.”

“Probably, but they were persuasive.”

Blaine’s hand settled palm-up on the log between them. “You can stop auditioning with me.”

Merritt looked at that offered hand. Such a small thing. No demand attached to it. No timetable, no hidden test, no expectation that he become easier to love before he could be loved at all.

He placed his hand in Blaine’s.

Blaine closed his fingers around it. “I like you exactly as you are, Merritt. Including the part that argues with drainage ditches.”

“They had it coming.”

“I’m sure they did.” Blaine smiled. “Would you go on a real date with me after this weekend? Dinner, maybe. Or coffee, if that feels less alarming. No group campsite. No Deke narrating our body language.”

“Yes,” Merritt said so quickly that his elbow clipped the map case.

The case fell sideways, spilling its pencil onto the dirt.

Blaine laughed, bright and delighted. “That sounded enthusiastic.”

“It was meant to be.” Merritt bent for the pencil, then abandoned the effort halfway through because Blaine was still looking at him like he had been handed a gift. “Yes. Dinner. Coffee. Both, if you want. I am very available for scheduled courtship.”

“Scheduled courtship,” Blaine repeated fondly. “I can work with that.”

Merritt’s mouth went dry in a manner that felt unfairly theatrical. He had repaired trail markers in thunderstorms. He had negotiated grant budgets with men who treated commas as moral failings. Surely he could ask one good man one clear question.

“May I kiss you?” he said.

Blaine’s answer came easy. “Please.”

Merritt leaned in. Blaine met him halfway, one hand rising to cup the side of Merritt’s neck. The kiss was warm and certain, neither rushed nor cautious enough to turn into an apology. Merritt kissed him again because he could, because Blaine wanted him to, because the world had apparently become a place where wanting something did not make him foolish.

Somewhere near the porch, Deke began applauding.

Parnell joined in, slower but no less pleased.

Merritt pulled back, laughing against Blaine’s cheek. “They are impossible.”

“They mean well,” Blaine said.

Deke called, “We are going inside now, heroes!”

Parnell added, “With our eyesight fully restored.”

Their footsteps retreated toward the farmhouse.

Blaine turned back to Merritt, still holding his hand. “Where were we?”

“Somewhere excellent,” Merritt said.

Blaine’s laugh followed them up the path to the farmhouse, low and delighted. At the porch, Deke intercepted them only long enough to collect the cooking bin.

“Parnell and I have claimed the rooms at the far end,” he announced. “The one near the stairs has a door that sticks unless you lift it first. Consider that useful local knowledge.”

Parnell took the bin from him. “Good night, gentlemen. We will be deeply occupied with not hearing anything.”

Merritt covered his face for half a second. Blaine laughed again.

“You are both dreadful,” Merritt said.

“And yet beloved,” Deke replied, already walking down the hall.

The farmhouse settled into its old nighttime sounds as Blaine led Merritt upstairs: boards giving small complaints beneath their feet, rain ticking at the windows, the soft clatter of Parnell finding something he had misplaced. Blaine’s loft bedroom sat beneath the angled roof, neat except for a chair holding a sweatshirt and a stack of coaching folders on the desk.

At the door, Merritt stopped.

Blaine stopped too. “We can go in. Or we can sit on the stairs and talk until Deke comes back to make sure nobody has fallen through the floor.”

“That is an alarmingly plausible possibility.”

“It’s an old farmhouse. It has character.”

“It has structural concerns.”

Blaine’s face softened. “Before we do anything, I want to be clear. I want to kiss you. I want to touch you. I would like tonight to be as good as it has been in my head, which is an embarrassing amount of good.” He rested one hand against the doorframe, leaving Merritt room. “But I do not want you saying yes because you think you owe me for coffee or socks or patience.”

Merritt studied him, then looked down at his own hands. “I want to come in. I want you. I do not want to be treated like I might shatter if somebody makes the wrong move.”

“I won’t do that.”

“And if I need to slow down, I’ll tell you.”

“Then we slow down. If you want to stop, we stop. If you change your mind three times, we change course three times.”

Merritt let out a small laugh. “You really did coach adults for a living.”

“Still do. Consent is better than a defensive drill, though the fundamentals overlap.”

“That is possibly the least seductive thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Blaine grinned. “I can recover.”

Merritt reached for him first, caught the front of Blaine’s shirt, and kissed him.

The room became simple after that. There was the steady pressure of Blaine’s hand at his side, the familiar clean smell of rain and soap, the way Blaine paused whenever Merritt shifted so he could be sure. Merritt kissed him again, slower this time, letting himself enjoy the fact that Blaine was right there and plainly thrilled to be there.

When Blaine drew back, he did not go far.

“Still good?” he asked.

“Very good.”

“Tell me if you want something different.”

Merritt looked at him with a sort of incredulous fondness. “You are making it difficult to maintain my reputation.”

“What reputation?”

“That I am difficult.”

“I like difficult. Difficult has excellent opinions about drainage.”

Merritt laughed, then reached for the zipper of his rain shell. “Help me out of this?”

Blaine did, easing the shell from Merritt’s shoulders as though it mattered. He set it over the chair instead of dropping it on the floor. Merritt watched him do it and felt something inside him loosen.

“Don’t make that face,” Blaine said.

“What face?”

“The one where you think being cared for has become a problem you need to solve.”

“I do not have a face for that.”

“You do. It’s very handsome, unfortunately.”

Merritt put both hands on Blaine’s shirt. “Take this off.”

Blaine did, and Merritt had the brief, dizzying thought that this was absurdly unfair. Blaine had always been broad shouldered, even under clinic polos and rain jackets, but there was a difference between knowing that and seeing him in the lamplight with nothing guarded or hidden.

“You are staring,” Blaine said.

“I am evaluating a situation.”

“And?”

“Strong preliminary findings.”

Blaine laughed, pleased enough that Merritt kissed him again just to feel it. This time Merritt set the pace. He touched Blaine’s chest, then his side, then the back of his neck. Blaine met every new touch with patient attention, never pulling him forward, never acting as if a pause meant disappointment.

“You’re beautiful,” Blaine said.

Merritt nearly made a joke. The old impulse arrived on schedule, neat as a bill slid across a restaurant table. He could deflect. He could offer praise back immediately. He could make the moment easier for Blaine to carry.

Instead, he said, “Thank you.”