Chapter 27

There was, of course, still the problem of where Josh was going to live. His parents weren’t going to take him back, and even if they did it would be an awkward living (and studying) situation for him, to say the least. There was also an issue with him missing two weeks of classes, combined with him wanting nothing to do with school for at least a month. I couldn’t blame him—he’d been through hell and back, and that was going to require some time to recover.

Fortunately (and somewhat ironically, given the story his brother had initially tried to pass off to me), Josh had an aunt and uncle about an hour south of the city who were far more progressive and accepting than his parents. As we drove away from Camp Freedom, Josh called them and explain what had happened. His uncle thought he was joking, but his aunt showed no hesitation in telling him to come and live with them while he sorted the rest of his life out. I reluctantly had to agree that it was best for him, as difficult as it was for me to have him once again be so far away. At least this time I knew where he was and could contact him as often as I wanted.

Josh stayed with them for the next two weeks, during which we exchanged about ten thousand text messages and twenty hours of video calls. After that, I was finally able to convince him to come back to the city and spend the weekend with me. We fucked like absolute rabbits. I don’t think there was a body part of his that my erect cock didn’t touch, and I learned that the squeaky suffocated gasps he made when I entered him turned me on even more. It was a win-win: I’d get inside him, he’d cry out, I’d get even harder and fuck him even faster.

When we weren’t in my bed—making up for lost time, as I liked to say—Josh met with his parents and managed to have a half-decent conversation with them, from what he told me. They weren’t ready to completely accept his sexuality but were open to talking it through with him and a non-crazy therapist. They also agreed to surrender their legal guardianship of his life (thanks to Josh threatening to sue them for it, on advice he’d received from Cait). It must have helped that they were now having problems with Luke, who had apparently gone on a wild bender a few weeks earlier, got smashed out of his mind and ended up in the hospital with some serious injuries. What a shame. The bar Josh now had to cross to win his parents’ approval had been lowered significantly.

Still, Josh made the difficult decision to stay with his aunt and uncle until the holidays, though he promised to visit as often as possible. I was okay with it—at least I had some time to get back to my studies, which had been neglected during the whole ordeal in getting my boyfriend back. It also gave me time to mend my relationships with Cait, Cam and the UGSM club. They were willing to be more forgiving when I gave them the high-level details of my rescue of Josh. Cait’s face had grown whiter and whiter as I told her of blowing up buildings and shooting other people, and at the end she made me tell her that the whole thing was made up, so that she had plausible deniability or something. Right.

To my disappointment, however, there were no news stories about Camp Freedom getting blown to hell, or of the Major or any of the staff members facing charges. Maybe it was kept from the media, or it was deemed an unworthy story—as much as I wanted to look into it, I knew it would arouse suspicions if I called the FBI and asked if any camps for troubled youth had been the victim of terrorists recently—or maybe the Major was right, that there was something deeper, that there were connections the camp had that continued to keep it and its operators from facing legal consequences.

I tried not to worry about it. I’d saved my boyfriend and prevented the place from being able to run for at least a few years. I’d done my mission. Now I had to get back to being me.

***

I pushed my skates against the ice as hard as I could, chasing the centreman who had broken out of a scrum and was heading to my net with no one in the way. He had a lead, but the puck was bouncing around as he tried to stickhandle it, and I knew I was a faster skater. I strode as hard as I could, focusing all my energy on my legs, telling myself that I could catch him, I just had to give a little more. I could rest when the puck was cleared or I was dead, whatever came first.

I reached him as we crossed my team’s blue line. I dove forward and was able to lift his stick and hit the puck back down the ice before I lost my balance and landed on the ice, spinning several times.

The crowd cheered. As I got back on my feet I looked out to see Josh sitting in the back row, just beyond the rest of the spectators, his hair once again falling over his face, his mouth in a wide grin and his hands clapping. He saw me looking at him and stood up, smiling even wider and giving me a quick wave. I couldn’t help but laugh.

My eyes drifted to a few feet to his right, where two older men in black suits sat, staring at me. They both had buzz-cut hair and stern faces, the kind that were able to find a flaw with everything. I shivered, and not because of the ice.

The whistle blew, and I skated to the bench. As soon as I sat down, I looked back up at the seats. Josh was still there, cheering loudly, but the two men were gone.

I snapped my focus to the ice. I’d be back on it in a few seconds. And I had a game to win.