By mid-afternoon, we've done a few miles of the hike (which apparently goes on endlessly) and are resting in the grass near a thriving creak, that's clearly only been benefiting from the series of rain we've been having this fall. Dres has removed his pack and has it between his legs as he takes out his canteen. I'm trying not to look at him, realizing that my staring thing is probably actually really creepy.

     "Here," Dres says so I turn to look at him just in time to see he's tossing something my way and catch it.

     "I was nowhere near ready," I cry as I look down at what he's tossed at me, food presumably wrapped in tinfoil.

     Dres is laughing when he responds, "You caught it, didn't you?" I grumble discontentedly as I open the tin foil and take out one half of a whole-wheat wrap. "It's a buffalo chicken wrap. I've got ranch and blue cheese. Which one?" Dres holds up two small plastic containers.

     "Blue cheese," I say. "Also, this completely beats the PB&J I would've brought us." Dres, and I had negotiated meals a few nights ago. After telling him I could make a mean PB&J, he insisted he would pack lunch.

     I'm starving, so I waste no time diving into my wrap.

     It turns out Dres's cooking abilities exceed just cupcakes. I can't stop the garbled sound that fishes its way out of me, past the mouthful of chewed food. Dres looks at me with one eyebrow raised. "What the hell man?" I say once I've cleared my mouth's contents. "You're like a magician. This food is sorcery. Black magic. I feel like I'm participating in a satanic ritual right now."

     "I can assure you, you're not, so eat."

     I don't argue with Dres because there's no chance that I'm not eating this wrap. It's like a thousand little deaths of my taste buds. I gush about the pure mastery of Dres's cooking abilities until it seems like he's going to rip my head off to shut me up and then I stop. By then I've devoured the wrap anyway, and upset myself for eating it so fast.

     "You know," I say as we sit beside each other, and I take small sips from my water trying to preserve what I've got left. "It looks like it's going to rain."

     Dres glares at me like I just said, "I wish it would rain." It's not like I'm favoring this option, its just an observation. I don't want it to rain.

     "It does not," Dres responds brusquely.

     "No, it def does. Look at those clouds over there." I point. Dres looks. The scowl on his face deepens. He pulls out his phone and opens the weather app. "The forecast was clear all week."

     "What does it say now?" I ask.

     "Ninety percent at six."

     "Damn. Well. Pretty sure the storm is going to start a lot earlier than six. Those storm clouds are getting thick fast."

     Dres sighs. "Well. We better start heading back. We've got a long walk to the car." He seems pretty despondent about the whole thing and I don't know what to say to cheer him up other than that the rain won't bother me and we can keep hiking but that's far from true. The last thing I want to do is get caught in the rain. Wet clothes are uncomfortable. (I understand that this is probably a weird feeling to possess from someone who spends most of their time in a pool.)

     Within an hour, the storm clouds that had started to form during our lunch break have darkened dramatically. I keep glancing up at the sky as we walk back to the truck, thinking we're moving entirely too slowly to beat the storm but I've said that we're going to get caught in it twice now and Dres disagrees. He has assured me that the storm isn't forecasted until later this evening so we're fine.

     I don't believe in forecasts. I believe what I can see. The sun has disappeared from the sky, and the temperature's dropped dramatically. By the looks of it, we're about to get that tsunami. I snapchat a photo of the sky to make everyone aware of the impending apocalypse.

     "I just felt a drop," I say swiping at my cheek as I glance up again. The sky is a dangerous and foreboding arrangement of thick, gray clouds.

     "No you didn't," Dres responds picking up his pace only slightly.

     A few minutes later, a heavier drops lands on my head. "I definitely felt one right now."

     Dres glances at me and then up at the sky, his face twisted like he just drank some of my grandmother's lemonade that's always too tart to politely consume. He doesn't say anything, not until one drop has turned to two and two has become a sheet of rain pouring down on us.

     "You were saying?" I cry over the roaring of the rainstorm. I'm drenched to the bone in seconds.

     "Come on." He takes my hand and starts running. I'm not even sure if its worth running and risking the chance of falling, twisting an ankle or something, when the rain is coming down so thick and quickly that everything on me is soaked.

     Dres has my hand in his tight enough that there's no chance I'm going anywhere, not without him anyway. He keeps us upright the whole way back to the truck. And he moves so fluidly it's hard to tell what's Dres and what's rain.

     I don't feel my feet on the ground. My focus is entirely on Dres's hand, and his long fingers and wide palm that dwarf my own hand. I think about, and stress over, how easily and simply he took hold of my hand, wrapped his fingers around my own, didn't question or second-guess the move.

     "I told you," I scream as we run faster and the wind picks up. Dres glances at me as he continues tugging me along and he's – he's fucking laughing. "It is not funny." Except now I'm laughing too and holding Dres's hand is starting to become this familiar thing. The heat from his palm is pushing into my own like a welcomed guest.

     We're back where we started too soon, slowing down to a stop so Dres can root the car keys from his pocket and unlock the door. I throw myself into the car the moment I have the door opened, sliding across the cab so I'm more on Dres's side than my own as I fumble to take my pack off and throw it down on the floor.

     Dres climbs inside like a normal person, seemingly unaffected by the rain. He slicks back his hair but lets the drops of water trickle down his face. He looks good, always, but he looks really good like this – shirt clinging to his chest, and water glistening in the hollows of his cheeks.

     I pinch some fabric of my shirt, lift it away and then let it slap back against my skin. "My shirt is soaked." I take a corner and try to squeeze out some of the excess but this stupid material is retaining water, and trapping in the cold so that goose bumps rise on my chest.

     After a beat, Dres goes, "So take it off."

     I make a soft, nervous noise - unintentional and unstoppable. "You take your shirt off," I retort feebly in an attempt to ground myself. He didn't really mean that...did he?

     Dres glances at me, his expression saying he totally meant it, and then shrugs his shoulders, lifts his shirt over his head next, and tosses it at me. It hits me in the face, where I'm flushed and warm, one of two places on me that is holding heat.

     I stutter, "I was – that wasn't – I didn't mean that literally." I make a point of focusing on Dres's face, not that I can see it all that well since it's dark out and the lights in the car have shut off. But then I can't stop myself any longer and glance at his chest. Dres is all muscle and all tattoos and is also apparently trying to kill me.

     My tongue is heavy and numb. "That is," I clear my throat, "that is your chest." My words don't feel real in the small space between us. "Huh."

     Dres laughs lowly.

     My stare wavers and in a moment of utter weakness (or, debatably, newfound strength) I slide right up beside him so I can get a closer look. I need better lighting to distinguish the tattoos, though, and almost reach up to turn the light on but decide seeing Dres like this will only make matters worse. And really, I have zero control over how my body reacts to him and these shorts aren't hiding anything.

     Dres tugs at the neckline of my shirt, leaning towards me so that his breath hits my face. "Take it off."

     I don't hesitate this time, reaching up and pulling it over my back. I don't have time to think about what Dres is seeing, to be self conscious of the places where I'm soft and doughy. All I know is whatever is about to happen, I'm going to lose myself in it.

     Not a second later Dres is pushing his hot breath into my mouth and shit, I forgot how much I liked this – how much I missed and wanted this. I latch onto him like he is the only thing keeping me grounded, keeping me from floating up into space. Dres is all hands this time, slow hands that expand over my back and pull me to him. I am not going to deny the closeness, moving with him as he sits back. I slide up against him and one of my legs comes up between his so that I'm straddling his thigh.

     It is an inhibiting kind of kiss. One that makes you forget what lead you there, that you weren't always kissing like this, that you are a person outside of this moment. And then I remember my hands, that I have them and that they can feel things. So I take my time running them down Dres, feeling my way along the curves of his stomach. It is almost familiar, the tight muscles and hot skin.

     I slide them up the center of his chest till their resting on his pecs and no fucking way. Dres has – his nipples are pierced. I make a noise, beside myself, and Dres opens his mouth against mine in a smile.

     This revelation is having a direct line effect on my dick. Fuck. I lift myself off his knee because, really, he doesn't need to feel that.

     It seems my hands are working under different orders and courageously run along the metal jewelry, twirling one of the barbells gently. I get the sweetest sound from Dres as a reward, and it hits me right in the groin. I twist the barbell again, pretty certain I could get off on just the sound of Dres's pleasure alone.

     He groans into my mouth and I take that as a good sign, turning the barbell again before I pinch his nipples. I kind of really want to put my mouth on it. I can add nipple piercings to the growing list of things that turn me on.

     Dres's hands come down my back, and then he grip my hips like this is the thousandth time he's touched me and he's familiarized himself with every square inch of skin. There is no hesitation in touching me. Without ceremony he pulls me back down till I'm sitting on his thigh. I make a pained sound from the back of my throat. The friction is so good it hurts.

     I imagine all the receptors in my body under the surface of my skin as these little bots and they are going nuts, screaming and running around in circles, because each of them is being flooded with dopamine. They've got lifeboats and are trying to paddle against the waves of chemicals coming at them. Which means I'm high. Dres has me high right now.

     I pull away to catch my breath, and the sound returns like kissing Dres silences the rest of the world. It does, actually. I'm so immersed in it, I forget that anything exists outside of us two exchanging DNA. The rain is loud as it pounds against the car and its so dark out I can't see anything aside from Dres's bright eyes.

     I get an infinitesimal reprieve before Dres is pulling me back in and shifting his legs in a way that is so ungodly good my stamina is called into question. And I will not finish without even touching my dick. It's just not going to happen. I am not thirteen. I have long since passed puberty. I can keep my shit together. This is ridiculous.

     Dres's mouth is open against mine, inviting me in, drawing out my breath. He smells like earth, wet trees and leaves and evergreen. I am immersed in a forest made of Dres, running my tongue along the roof of his mouth without much finesse, meeting his tongue too urgently that I decide I'm not any good at this and pull back. He follows me like there isn't a place where I stop and he starts, sucking my tongue back into his mouth because he's not quite finished with me.

     And we're just kissing, and kissing, and kissing with no end in sight.

     Until, some time later, when the rain is nothing more than a drizzle, and we've fogged up every window. Dres's phone starts ringing. I'm laying under him now, planted there by Dres in one quick, sweeping motion. He's hovering over me, has been for a while, though I'm not sure where the endurance to hold his own weight up is coming from. I'm not sure why he thinks I can't take his weight either, and am slightly offended by the notion.

     His phone is in his bag, under the steering wheel, and I make a noise of protest when he parts the kiss, my swollen lips not having had their fill yet. "Ignore it," I say my voice thick and gravelly. I hold him to me by the back of his neck.

     He comes back, kissing me closed mouth and I think he plans to do just that, but then he leaves a kiss on the corner of my mouth before sitting back, between my ankles. My neck is cricked between the seat and door, but has gone numb so keeping it there is less painful than moving it.

     He pulls his phone out, silences the noise, and then sets it in the cup holder. "Who was it?" I ask. "Dolores?"

     "My alarm," Dres responds and his voice is something else completely, heavy yet subdued like he's been asleep for a hundred years. The moon's shining through the windshield, back lighting him. His lips are spit-slick and a rubbed-raw pink. It is so hot knowing I did that.

     "Your alarm?" I ask confused. And then, "You set an alarm?" Then finally, "You set an alarm?" My tone has increasingly become more offended.

     "If we leave too late, we're going to hit traffic. And you want to stop for food don't you? I can't keep you out that late."

     "So you set an alarm," I exclaim going to kick him. He catches my foot though, and holds onto my ankle, just above where my boot stops. How is he still that warm? It is freezing in this car.

     "As a precaution, yes. The last thing I want to do is get you in trouble for coming in late," Dres says simply like this a valid excuse, and a responsible thing he's done. Maybe it is. But I wasn't finished kissing him, and that alarm ruined things.

     "We have until ten thirty. That's plenty of time."

     Dres is still holding onto my ankle, and is rubbing circles into my skin with his thumb making it really hard to concentrate. "Let's stop at a diner then. You owe me dinner, anyway." He's smiling when he says this and I recall the argument we had nights ago about how he couldn't keep wining and dining me. I was a man with his own income. I could pay for dinner.

     He raises an eyebrow, waiting for my response. I sigh, sitting up as I say, "Yeah, alright, okay. I've worked up an appetite anyway."

     He's grinning down at the wheel as he starts the car, and says in a low, rumbling voice, "I bet you did."