The Hidden Life Read Free

everyone,” I proposed, as I glanced around the yard, surprised how much of the food and décor my mom had already cleaned up. I was really going to miss having her around to do my laundry and make my bed.
    Colin shook his head, a sly smirk slowly spreading across his face. “Nah, we got the next couple of months to hang out with those knuckleheads. Since this is our day for celebrating, I got something for us that I think will be fun.”
    “You did?” I cocked my head to the side, curious to what he’d done.
    “I did.” The smirk morphed into a full-fledged grin as excitement twinkled in his eyes. “Wanna see?”
    “Hells yes!” I exclaimed, taking off running toward the massive hundred-year-old oak in the far back left corner of my yard.
    Colin caught and passed me quickly, thanks to his superb physical shape and legs that were a couple of inches longer than mine. Ever since I could remember, he’d been the tallest and the most athletic kid in our class, and not just in football. It was like he was born to play professional sports — football, basketball, baseball, hockey. He excelled at it all. Not that I was an uncoordinated klutz or anything. I could hold my own on the court or ice with most guys our age, neither the best nor the worst at any given time. But Colin wasn’t most guys our age. Which was yet another reason that made me want him more.
    The guy was built like a Greek god. One of those models you’d see in a magazine and think they really don’t exist or had been Photoshopped to high heaven. Only I knew he did exist and it was all-natural. And it tempted me every damn day.
    “Come on, molasses! My granny could outrun your slow ass!” Colin taunted over his shoulder as he began ascending the wooden planks nailed into the trunk of the tree that led up to our boyhood retreat.
    “Screw you, showoff!” I shouted back, my jog slowing into a leisurely walk just to irritate him. “And your granny sure did seem to like my ass earlier!”
    I reached the base of the tree and peered up to watch him take the final few steps up to the log-cabin-style tree house we had built with our dads one summer, doing a whole lot more than just liking his ass. My cock twitched with anticipation. I didn’t know what Colin had put together for us for the evening, but whatever it was, it was just going to be the two of us, and I’d finally have a chance to talk to him about things.
    Or better yet, just show him.
    Making quick work of the staircase, I joined Colin inside the one-room house, which suddenly seemed so much smaller than it had when I was a kid. I remembered thinking after we had built it that it was big enough to have a birthday party inside, but my Mom had quickly nixed that idea, claiming it was a disaster waiting to happen. Whatever. It would’ve been wicked cool.
    “It’s been forever since we’ve been up here. Not quite how you remember it, eh?” he asked, watching me intently. Wistfully, even.
    With a chuckle, I shook my head and glanced around the space, empty with the exception of an ice chest, a large cardboard box, and two lit kerosene lanterns that sat at Colin's feet. “Yeah, kinda crazy to think of all the crap we did up here. For a few summers, we may have spent more time in this house than in our actual ones. Hotwheels, long-ass games of Monopoly, drinking our first beer, ghost stories… we did it all.” Except each other.
    His bright smile returned as he crouched down and started opening the box. “I know we’re gonna be spending lots of time out at the creek and hanging out with our friends over the next couple of months, but I thought for our last summer here together, we could bring some of that back. The stuff you and me used to do. Ya know, for old time’s sake, before we go off and conquer the world and all.”
    And that right there was the other reason I had it bad for him. I not only wanted to know what his body felt like against mine; I wanted to feel his soul, wanted to