“I feel a little guilty,” said Burns the next morning. He stretched in the dimness, the sun not yet over the horizon. The morning twilight was the best time to fish, and that’s what they came here for, right? The morning was frigid, and he simply didn’t care; he stood naked in the cold, like it was a brisk, eye-opening shower. It still wasn’t as cold as the lake had been yesterday.

Karl stepped behind him, encircled him with his arms. “About last night? It really is okay. I guess it’s natural to feel—”

“I feel guilty that you didn’t get your turn. Like I was being selfish. I was just so tired. Or maybe I passed out.”

Karl’s arms tightened around him. “Don’t worry. You’ll make it up to me. Won’t you?”

Burns turned and kissed him. Their naked cocks touched. He wanted to go again. Last night had been his first blowjob, but wasn’t it time he learned to perform one himself? There was so much to learn, and the idea of learning it while Karl gasped and writhed beneath him, started getting him hard again.

“I see where this is going,” said Karl, “but dude, I’m fucking freezing. You’re going to have to wait until we get back to civilization.”

Burns kissed him on the forehead. “Civilization? So you can sit around and tell me how heaters are a capitalist plot?”

“If the heater is electric, and the community is powered by a coal-burning plant, then you might—”

He silenced Karl with a kiss. “Just had to make sure you were still you.”

“One of these days you’re going to let me finish a sentence, and the truth will blow your mind.”

Burns pulled his pants off the line. They were cold, but at least they were dry. “Blow my…mind, you say?”

“Oh great, I’ve created a monster.”

* * *

The fish weren’t biting. Maybe they’d been scared off by last night. Burns didn’t care. He felt like his whole body was glowing. The world seemed to glimmer with potential.

I could sleep with Karl again. Just like that. It’s easy.

That was an option now. It made no sense. How could his world change that fundamentally, that quickly? Yesterday he was the kind of guy who would always be alone, with no one to touch him but himself. And now he had a…

Wait, now, you have a what?

Boyfriend was probably the wrong word. Definitely. That took it too far. It put things in a neat little package when right now he felt gloriously messy.

Friends with benefits? He’d always hated that phrase, and besides, that never worked out. He’d had other friends try that kind of relationship. They’d last thirty seconds before one started having all those Real Feelings and things would get awkward and then they couldn’t be in the same room.

Yeah, don’t do that. We can figure out a way that I can fuck Karl without…um…destroying the friendship with the fact that friends with benefits never works. I think I just contradicted myself.

“I’d say you’re deep in thought, but that doesn’t seem possible,” said Karl.

Karl’s line was out in the water, the bobber barely moving in the stillness. No signs of any bites coming.

“We’re still friends right?” asked Burns.

“Why, what did you do?”

“Seriously. After last night. We can keep things…friendly?”

“I mean I feel pretty damn friendly right now. Cold, but friendly,” said Karl.

“I just don’t want things to get weird.”

Karl laughed. “You picked the wrong guy for that. Things are going to get weird.”

“You’re my best friend. If I lost you because we’d pushed it too far…”

The look Karl gave him was puzzled. “I’m thinking about that too.”

“I don’t want to deal with a lot of feelings, you know?”

“Feelings suck, yeah. They’re stupid.”

“What happened last night was great, and I want more of it, but…I don’t want it to change things between us.”

Karl reeled his line in and set the rod down. He pushed himself up and walked a little ways off. “What are you asking?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I’ve never been with a guy before. I don’t want to get all mushy-gushy. I don’t want to gay my shit up.”

There was Karl’s skeptical eyebrow again, creeping upward. “Gay my shit up.”

“You know what I mean. I don’t want drama.”

“You’ve got a great way of sending me from Burns is my soul-mate to Burns is not ready for human relationships.”

“Your soul-mate? You thought that?”

Admit it, you felt the same. You thought wouldn’t it be fun to have someone you could argue with and go out with, do some rock-climbing and getting onions rings and then headed home for fucking, you thought wow this would be perfect, but the second you realized it would involve feeling something, you got scared.

Karl was right about one thing, Burns didn’t enjoy thinking. Not about this stuff.

Now Karl looked shy. “Hell, I don’t know what you are to me. Do we have to put a name on it? Get all heteronormative and call ourselves boyfriends because the patriarchy can only handle relationships if they try to mimic straight ones?”

“You make my head hurt when you talk like that.”

“You’re the one who brought it up. I’m all tense now. Thanks.”

Burns reeled in his line. Something had eaten the worm off the hook. “Nothing’s biting. Maybe we should head back to the car.”

“Are we fighting?”

“I don’t know,” said Burns.

“Because if we are, I don’t know what we’re fighting about.”

“I just don’t want things to change between us,” Burns said.

“Except for the sex.”

Burns shrugged. “Except for the sex.”

“Why didn’t you just say it that way?”

He began packing away the tackle. “Sorry.”

Karl knelt beside him, and lifted his chin. Looking into his eyes, Karl said, “Dude. It’s okay. This is new to me too. I don’t know what the rules are.”

“If I lost you—”

“You won’t. Not like that. We’re friends. We’ll figure it out.”