"Okay, guys. I think this is far enough. Let's get down to business," Matt said leading the group of guys into a small clearing about ten minutes away from the house.

"Wait, Pete go check to make sure they didn't follow us," Wes said pointing back toward the way they had come. "I'm not going to risk letting Maddie hear about this one."

"This one?" Asher asked.

"Don't ask."

"What's with the clipboard? Surely you're not going to take notes," Nathan asked Matt.

"No, of course not."

"Good. The fewer records of this the better," Wes said quietly.

"Wes is going to take notes. We need to make it official after all."

"What! Why do I have to write it?"

"Well, no one can read either Nathan's or my handwriting," Matt shrugged at this "and it's doubtable if Pete can write at all. So that leaves you or Asher."

"So why not make Ash write it."

"Well, you make the cutest little 'y's, and your-'"

"I don't think we were followed," Pete said returning to the clearing.

"Poor Pete. Doesn't think and doesn't write," Nathan said.

"I can write just fine," said Pete indignantly as he wiggled not a comfortable sitting position on a nearby stump.

"You know that still leaves the thinking thing," said Asher.

"Of course, you can write Pete. Just keep telling yourself that. Anything you put your mind to you-"

"Fine, I'll write it just so that we can get this over with," Wes said cutting off Matt's unsupportive, supportive speech, and taking the clipboard. He took a moment to get situated with his back against a tree.

"So what do you want it to say?" He asked while writing 'Vow of Chastity' along the top line.

"Are you mad! We can't put something like that in writing," Matt said upon seeing the heading.

"But you just said-"

"I said we should make it official. Not to go shouting about it."

"um, shouting?" Pete asked.

"We can still make it official by writing it down, but not directly."

"You want me to put it in code now?" Wes asked skeptically while tearing off the offensive sheet and crumpling it into a ball.

"Now you're talking," said Matt.

"Technically you were," Asher pointed out.

"If we were just going to put it in code anyway why do I have to write it? How about you write and no one would be able to figure out what it says anyway."

"We'll need it for reference. Here write this: By signing this document you are agreeing to the terms and conditions below."

Wes quickly scrawled the words.

"Wait we need a new title."

"Oh, I like 'How not to handle a broom handle!" Pete suggested.

"Gross Pete," Nathan said from the branch he was now sitting in.

"You're the one that thought it. How do you know I wasn't talking about turning a broom into sawdust or something?"

"How about 'How to Ruin Asher's Summer'?" Asher said idly pulling up the grass near where he sat.

"Um, no to the first, maybe to the second," Matt said.

"How about 'The Masculine Code of Masculinity?'" Nathan asked.

"Ooh, I like." Matt seemed excited, which was never a good sign. "Write it down, Wes."

"As you wish, you tart."

"I'm not tart! Take it back."

"Let me out of this Chastity business first."

"I guess I don't mind being tart after all," said Matt, who was now kneeling beside Wes in the dirt so he could watch Wes writing the document.

Wes let out a sigh, resigned to his bad fortune. "Alright, what are the conditions?"

"Wait, wait. We need to establish the terms of the agreement first," Matt said as though this should be obvious.

The guys around the clearing looked dumbstruck.

"Terms?"

"of the agreement?"

"You know, we need to add incentives to stay in the bet."

"Incentives stay in the bet? More like incentives to lie when we lose the bet," Asher clarified.

"I already have incentives remember?" Wes said.

"Well maybe you do, but the other guys don't," Matt said "I vote for public humiliation."

"I'm not performing the chicken dance again if that's what you're hinting at. It wasn't a hit the first time I did it, and even less of one the third and fourth time," Pete said.

"And the second time was?" Nathan asked.

"Oh, I try not to think about that," said Pete.

"Well that's fascinating and all, but how about we try to wrap this up before we freeze," said Wes. He was now doodling in the margins of the 'official document.'

"You can share my blanket if you want Wes," Pete offered.

"Um, I think I'll freeze, thanks though."

"Suit yourself."

"In the interest of speeding this up, how about we just say that when a member of the group breaks the vow they will have to suffer a punishment that will be decided by the people still in it at the time of the misdeed."

"Misdeed?" Pete asked, but no one paid any notice.

"Yeah, ok. Can we move on to the conditions then?" Wes asked.

"No kissing," Nathan offered.

"Well that's original," Asher said.

"No, no, no," Matt said as he stole the pen out of Wes' hand to keep him from writing it.

"Hey, you took my pen."

"Really? I hadn't noticed," Matt said sarcastically.

"We need a code for that part."

"um ok. What do you suggest?" Wes artfully took the pen back so he could finish his doodle.

"I don't know, just put some less than masculine things down and well just pretend to know what you're talking about."

"Alright sounds good"

"Hey, why don't we finish this back at the house? All there's left to do is sign. And I don't like the thought of those gals at the house unsupervised," Asher said.

"Unsupervised? What could they possibly get up to in a few hours?" said Matt.

Always the voice of reason.

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