They made it about halfway up the trail in silence. And then Bailey was suddenly at his elbow instead of following in his footsteps. He brushed aside a leggy shrub poking into the path and leaned up toward Nate to whisper conspiratorially. "Looks like the twink can keep up just fine."

Nate glanced at him, then back over his shoulder. Sarah and Jared were far enough behind that they weren't visible around the curve of the trail. The asshats probably thought they were giving them some space to work things out.

"Don't worry, they're way behind us by now," Bailey assured Nate.

"I'm not worried," Nate grumped.

"Sure," Bailey rolled his eyes, then yelped with another branch caught him in the face by surprise. Nate stepped to the side to give him a little more room. Bailey was keeping up well. His words were a bit breathy, his face flushed, and his collarbone pooling with sweat, but his footing was still energized. Sweat dripped over the tattoos on his side, visible through the cut-out sleeves of his shirt.

Nate licked his lips and thought maybe he needed to stop for a water break.

"I'm not worried," he repeated, halting his steps to bring his pack to his front and dig out his water bottle. "I'm...overwhelmed."

Bailey walked a few steps, then spun around with his hands on his hips to observe Nate's throat bob as he gulped down water. His brow was lifted as though he found the idea of Nate being overwhelmed dubious. Many people did, given that Nate was usually the largest person in the room and often deemed the most capable of handling situations as a byproduct.

"I'm not going to out you or anything, don't worry," Bailey said absently, dragging his eyes away from Nate's throat and reaching for his water. A curl of satisfaction licked up Nate's spine as he watched Bailey cast one more glance down his figure before tipping his head back to drink.

"I'm not worried," he groused.

"Right, yeah, terrible wording, sorry," Bailey scrunched his nose up and wiped the water that had dribbled over his chin.

"I'm just..." Nate waved his hands around, unable to gather the right words to explain that he hated when things felt out of his control like this. He'd worn a shirt he thought nobody except Jared would see, and now Bailey and his sister were here. He kind of wanted to reverse time to return to this morning and not get out of bed.

"Overwhelmed," Bailey finished for him, nodding. Nate shrugged.

"Jared already knows I'm into guys," Nate said. He gestured to his shirt by way of explanation, which got him another smirk.

"We'll get to that in a second," Bailey ogled at Nate's chest, eyes shining with amusement. He glanced back up at Nate's face, though. "So, is it them knowing about us," he motioned between them, "that's bugging you out?"

"Well, no...not exactly. I mean, I was going to tell him anyway. It's just..." Nate blew out a heavy sigh and scrubbed a hand over his hair, grimacing at the sweat along the base of his neck.

Bailey opened his mouth, but a twig snapped, and footsteps approached. Jared and Sarah rounded the bend behind them.

"Oh!" Sarah smiled, sweat beading beneath her eyes and down her throat. "We caught up with you guys."

"Looks like you are getting along okay," Jared said tentatively, eyes on Nate.

Only the birds chirping and wind shifting through the limbs above them filled the following stretch of silence.

"Yup," Bailey stepped forward and casually wrapped a hand around Nate's waist as if that was a perfectly natural thing to do.

Jared's eyes bugged out of his skull. Nate screwed the cap onto his water bottle and put it back into his pack, not bothering to push Bailey away. His chest was tight, squeezing around his lungs so much he could hardly get in a breath. Bailey took his inaction as permission to just get the whole thing over with.

"Best buddies now."

The silence stretched on even longer this time, and not even the wind or the birds made it feel less awkward.

"What..." Jared began, only for Nate to cut him off.

"We've been..." he tried. "For the past, well, week, I guess, we've been..."

Bailey squeezed his side, "hooking up."

Jared and Sarah stared at them with twin jaw-dropped expressions.

Nate rubbed a hand over his eyes. "I'm sorry for not saying anything. It's just..."

"Not really any of your business anyway," Bailey finished for him.

"No, that's not it," Nate dropped his hand and stepped away from Bailey. "There just wasn't a good time to bring it up."

Jared and Sarah's eyes bounced between them as if they were following in a pickleball match.

"And it's only been a week, so when would there have been a good time to bring it up anyway," Bailey pointed out, palms up like he was on a debate stand. "Plus, it's not like they are doing it for our sake. They want us to get along because they started hooking up, and we are their best friends, so it would be weird if we kept hating each other."

"Jokes on them because we already started hooking up," Nate said.

"Right, so now they get to have their double date and be happy," Bailey clapped his hands and beamed. "There, everybody happy?"

"Holy shit," Sarah murmured. "They are finishing each other's sentences."

Nate spun on his heel and started going back up the path again. His chest bubbled with the same elation he always used to feel right before getting into a fight with Bailey when they were still heckling each other to rile the other up. Even now, when they were on good terms, instead of dropping their claws at the mere sight of the other, their interactions were steeped in theatrics. It made the easy, vulnerable times they'd been alone lately seem all the more precious to him, like a hidden secret.

Jared and Sarah spent the rest of the hike stupefied, tentatively interrogating them about how in the hell they went from making everyone in town, from the clerk at the grocery store to their own mother's, anxious to fucking in secret. Bailey just grinned with all his teeth and asked them why it was such a big deal for them to get along. It wasn't like her and Jared's wedding was planned out after only a couple of weeks. Even then, Nate and Bailey would only have to control themselves long enough to get through the ceremony and not demolish the reception. Why did they care if they got along.

Nate understood why. It was hard to have best friends who hated each other when you were dating. He also understood that Bailey was teasing, because their method of trying to get them along was ridiculous and if he and Bailey did not already have a truce, it would have likely come to blows.

As soon as the word 'wedding' came out of Bailey's mouth, Jared paled, and Sarah scoffed. They would not look at each other for a minute, finding the space between the trees wildly fascinating all of a sudden. Then, when Jared was not looking, Sarah sneaked a glance at his reaction. And as soon as she looked away, he did the same.

Nate shook his head and pressed his lips together to stop himself from grinning. Jared tended to fall hard and fast, staking his entire heart on whatever girl he was with at any given time, even when they were back in high school. It seemed like Sarah had similarly latched on, and he hoped to God that it would work out for them. Otherwise, he and Bailey were going to be stuck with awkward exes in their bridal parties for the wedding their mothers were going to eventually plan once they finally got wind of this.

He chuckled, sobered, and threw an arm out when Bailey rolled his ankle and looked like he was about to pinwheel to the ground. Bailey caught himself in time, then noticed Nate's arm and pretended to swoon into it just to be a little shit. Behind them Sarah snorted in bewilderment. Nate squeezed Bailey's waist to show his appreciation for the little shows of ridiculousness that managed to loosen some of the anxiety in his chest.

Back down at the cars, they rearranged their rides. Bailey hopped into the passenger seat of Nate's truck, and Jared sheepishly clambered into Sarah's car. They tentatively made plans to do another double date at some point, which gave Nate a strange feeling like he was having an out-of-body experience because the situation was so unbelievable. But then they waved goodbye, and he had to drive the truck.

"Well," Bailey said after a while, watching Sarah's car behind them in the side mirror. "That was pretty strange."

"Yeah, I guess they mean well," Nate said. He still could not quite believe that Jared chose his chick over Nate's peace of mind. Not that he knew how much that situation was going to make Nate freak, but still. They were getting older, he supposed, and playing wingman was getting to be more about nuances like getting along with Bailey Alexander or not getting upset with each other when they hadn't hung out in a couple of weeks because they'd been off with whatever tail they had been chasing lately.

They drove in silence, listening to the classic rock station Nate's ancient radio crooned out. He mulled over growing older, even though he was only twenty-one, and relationships, even though he hadn't had that many. And his thoughts eventually turned to Bailey and whatever the hell it was they had going on.

He reached over to turn down the music until it was just background noise, melding with the rumble of the engine and whoosh of the road passing by. "So, everything that I read about sex involving dominance and submission said it needed to be negotiated beforehand."

Hopefully, Bailey could not hear the slight tremble in his voice, although, from the way his gaze slid over out of the corner of his eyes, it was probably obvious how nervous he was. Maybe this was not the best place or time to bring it up, but having the conversation behind the dash, while they both faced forward and had an excuse not to look at one another made it easier. The steering wheel creaked beneath Nate's fingers as he squeezed to stop himself from rambling so that Bailey had time to respond.

"Generally, you want to make sure everyone is on the same page," Bailey agreed. "So, what kind of stuff do you want to experiment with?"

Nate thought about his little foray into fantasyland. About a glassy-eyed Bailey, trussed up and obedient beneath him. He thought about Bailey with fiery eyes trying to push him off while Nate dragged him back. He thought about Bailey blushing as he called himself a slut – Nate's slut. Despite all his research, the words to express these things suddenly failed him.

"What kind of stuff are you into?"

Bailey hummed at that. He shifted in his seat to face Nate so he could stare at the side of his face. Maybe it was a terrible idea to do this in the truck. Nate was filled with the sudden sensation that he was facing a pop quiz – a bolt of terror shooting through him despite knowing he had studied the material just fine.

"I like just about anything that makes my mind go quiet," Bailey told him. "Having someone else make decisions for me, being tied down, and pain. That's the gist of it. And—I guess you've already probably figured this out—but I also get off on being humiliated. That, for whatever reason, makes my mind go quiet."

Hearing it put so bluntly made Nate feel cold and then suddenly hot. Maybe to someone more well-versed in this, the hints he had been laying down would have been easier to pick up, but Nate had not been certain. But Bailey did say he liked to be called a slut, though only in certain contexts, obviously. He thought about Tanner and ground his teeth.

Before he could ask for specifics, Bailey fielded his own question. "What were you most curious about when you did your research?"

He was still operating without the knowledge of Nate's perverted, dirty fantasies. He wondered if the kinds of things his subconscious dreamed of him doing to Bailey would fall in line with the kind of humiliation he enjoyed. Hearing the word pain sent a trickle of discomfort down Nate's spine, which spilled from the great well of conflicting feelings he had about his dream where he punched Bailey in the nose.

"I like...the idea of control," he said slowly, then cringed, because wasn't that the obvious answer. Floundering, he tried to expand upon that with, "I like knowing exactly what is going to come next and I like," he took a deep breath, "the idea of you not knowing what is going to come next and just trusting that I do know. Does that makes sense?"

He shot Bailey a quick glance and saw that he was smiling faintly out the windshield. "Yeah, that makes sense."

"Oh, good." Nate let out a sigh of relief. "I don't really know about humiliation and pain. I mean, I think I'm comfortable with, like, spanking you or whatever and calling you a slut or something."

"Okay, but is that something that you are curious about, not just comfortable with because it's something I like." Bailey prodded. "I don't want to make you do anything."

"Oh, no, I..." Nate thought about making Bailey call himself a slut blood dripped over his lips, "No, I think I'm very curious about it."

His face felt hot, and sweat was beading at the back of his neck. He rolled his shoulders a few times and glanced at the rearview mirror far more often than was necessary. Thankfully Sarah's car had turned off somewhere behind them.