“Hey!” he exclaims, way too excited, and quickly tries to reel himself back in. “I mean, uh… ’Sup? How was dinner?”
Making his way across the room, Pax takes a seat next to Blake on the bed. He looks really good tonight, wearing a long-sleeved light blue button-down and khaki shorts with sandals. His hair is styled and he looks kinda fancy, but still relaxed. Blake hates himself for how much he likes it, how much he wishes that look were for him.
“Dinner was interesting,” Pax says coyly. “Maura is… a character. I think it’s very clear that she was brought here to sow chaos, but nonetheless, I find her somewhat charming.” Blake’s heart sinks. “But she isn’t you.” Okay, now it’s in his throat. Pax looks up, pins Blake with his steely gaze. “We did speak, and we did make a connection. I had the opportunity to kiss her, and I declined.”
“You — why?” Blake asks dumbly, clutching at the bedsheets in his lap, almost afraid to hear the answer.
Pax laughs —okay, not what Blake was expecting, but— and grabs Blake’s hand, shaking away the sheets it came tangled in. “Because of this,” he says simply. Still in disbelief, Blake can only alternate between staring at their hands and staring at Pax’s face. In his defense, it’s a very nice face. “Unless—” Paxton starts, but Blake cuts him off.
“I haven’t been moping in here all night because I don’t give a shit about you,” Blake says gruffly. He pauses, takes a deep breath, and squeezes Pax’s hand back. “Pax, I’m fuckin’ scared,” he admits. “I have all these new, crazy feelings, most of ’em are about you. I want — Ireallywant to see where this goes. I could give a shit about anyone else here, but at the same time,nopart of me wants to corner you into something you aren’t ready for. Or like, keep you from exploring your own options.”
When Blake looks up, he’s relieved to see Pax still looking back at him so damn softly. “It’s fast,” Paxton admits. “And nothing I came here looking for or expecting to find. But being with you, getting to know you — it feels right. More than anything has for me in a very long time. I have no idea how what’s between us might translate back in the “real world,” but if things continue this way, Blake, I’d like to find out.”
His dorky air quotes make Blake smile even wider than he already is, enough that healmostdoesn’t hear their watches beeping, see the way they both light up green. “Holy shit,” Blake exclaims, as Ava chimes brightly from the other side of the room.
“Congratulations,” she says. “You two have made genuine progress in your relationship. You have thirty seconds where the Retreat rules do not apply. Use them wisely.”
No one has to tell them twice. Ava’s barely stopped talking before Pax is climbing into Blake’s lap, pressing their lips together hungrily. They make the most of their short reprieve, nipping at each other’s lips and sliding their tongues together. It’s arelieffor Blake, after this shit-show of an evening, and he clings to Pax’s hips, feels him up a little —hey, itisa free pass —and friggin’lovesthe way Pax grinds in his lap.
When their thirty seconds are up and their watches fade to black, Blake parts from Pax reluctantly, Pax’s arms still wound tightly around his neck.
Eyes half-closed and dreamy, Paxton smiles and touches Blake’s cheek. “Thank you, Ava,” he says, and it’s Blake’s turn to laugh.
_____________________
Dani and Ariana lose the groupsixteen thousand dollarsin the private suite, or so Ava tells them at what’s quickly becoming a daily afternoon gathering next to the pool. Amber and Colt lost them an additional three grand via their “date”, though whatever happened there seems to have cooled off just as quickly.
Today, they’re sitting as far apart as humanly possible and Amber is glaring at Colt like she wishes her eyes were daggers. Blake scoots a little closer to Pax, and ignores the way Maura is shootinghimthe same look.
The day’s workshops are split along gender-lines, which Blake thinks is pretty stupid, since all of them are pretty into bucking those kind of norms and expectations.That’s TV,Rachel tells him with a shrug, before ushering Blake down into the courtyard for “Warrior’s Heart,” whatever the hell that is supposed to be.
Regardless of Blake’s feelings about it, the men-only activity goes on. It involves all of the boys first getting shirtless and then covering each other head-to-waist in mud. This part,Blake doesn’t so much get, but he can admit that it’s intimate, rubbing mud all over another person in that way. He’s just glad he’s paired with Pax.
That grateful feeling fades quickly, though, when the second part of the activity involves coloring a canvas with words and pictures that describe their “heart’s deepest fears, your biggest barriers to success and fulfillment,” and then sharing them.
In short, laying himself emotionally bare. Yeah, great, that’s fine — average Tuesday for Blake, not paralyzing him with cold waves of fear and anxiety at all.
Hemustbe growing as a person though, because despite that, Blake doesn’t shy away from the task. His poster-sized canvas includes words like, “fear of failure,” “disappointing Hayden,” and “being rejected.” He colors a few symbols (like the car) that represent his father’s expectations for him, how heknowshis Dad wouldn’t approve of the way Blake lives now. Money worries. How his mother would be sad that Blake struggles tolethimself be happy.
When he shares the picture with Pax, none of the judgement or disdain Blake dreads seeing appears on his face. Instead, there’s just Pax, reading carefully and with a furrowed brow, before swiftly pulling Blake in tight and holding him gently, understanding hands soothing up and down his mud-covered back.
It’s unsurprising to Blake when he sees on Pax’s own poster little cartoon depictions of drugs, of money, of threeidentical stick-figure men, one on his knees. “Fear of letting my family down,” it reads. “Being no one.” “Being unhelpful, or a burden.” “Unworthy.” “Unloved.” “Broken.”
That last one breaks Blake’s heart.
“You’re not broken, and you’re not a burden, Pax,” Blake is quick to say in Pax’s ear while he wraps him up as tight as he can, trying to use sheer will to drive those feelings from Pax’s head. “Pax, you’re worthy,” he insists. “Your past, your mistakes — none of that is who you are, sweetheart. They don’t define you.”
“You either,” Paxton murmurs back, sniffling roughly, and that hits Blake hard.
The guru leading their workshop helps hang each poster from some makeshift rafters and gives each participant a pike pole. After some loud, super-cliché screaming about how the posters are their “untruths to leave in the past,” they’re encouraged to charge Braveheart-style at their works and destroy them with the pointy ends of their sticks.
Blakereallylikes that part, not that he’s admitting it to anyone. He also likes having Pax’s arms to walk into when they’re done. Pax is solace, he’s freedom. HeseesBlake and for some reason, he doesn’t turn away.
When the workshop is over, Blake, Pax, and all the other participants go charging full-speed into the ocean to wash off the clinging mud. From their lined-up lounge chairs on the beach, the girls watch and scream with delight and amusement,but they leave them to it. There’s lots of hugging and high-fives all around, and even Blake has to admit, he feels just alittlebit lighter as they walk back out onto the sand.
Chapter 5
After the warrior workshop, Blake and Paxton learn from Ava that they’ve finally earned an “official” date. They’re told to wear swimsuits and to meet at the Jacuzzi at nine that evening. Blake gives a confessional interview that mostly consists of him wiggling his eyebrows at the camera suggestively, and then accepts Vincent’s invite to lift some free weights down on the beach.