Tent Tales By The Firelight | ✓

1

“DON’T TELL ME I forgot it,” New said, staring into the dark abyss of the garbage bag he’d brought as a makeshift suitcase. He dug a hand around inside it, his fingers brushing over clothes, toiletries, and towels. Not what he was looking for.

He squinted. He was kneeling inside his tent — well, it wasn’t his; he’d borrowed it from Tay — and the visibility inside of it wasn’t the best. Besides, it was hot as hell in there, so maybe that was getting to his brain.

He turned the garbage bag upside down, emptying everything onto the floor. He pushed aside his underwear and socks and a book about the history of surgery.

Still no sleeping bag.

“Shit.” New stared at the mess he’d made before shoving everything back in the bag. Then, sick of the suffocating heat, he tossed himself outside.

And slammed into Tay. Tay's naked stomach. He got an eyeful of abs before pulling his face off the man and straightening up. “Sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

Tay took a step back and drew his brows together. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

“Hm?”

“Did you forget your swimmers—”

“No,” New interrupted him. That was why Tay was standing in front of him wearing nothing but a pair of navy shorts and flip-flops. That was why they’d gone into their separate tents in the first place; to change into their swimming trunks before heading to the beach.

An hour ago, the pair of them had arrived at Wilsons Promontory for a three-night camping trip. Wilsons Prom was located in the southeast of Australia, about a three-hour drive from Melbourne. It was surrounded by beaches with pale sand and hiking trails that swooped over the green mountains. Tay suggested that camping there would be a fun, cheap holiday for university students like them.

Originally, all six of them were supposed to come: New, Tay, Chimon, Perth, Pond and Phuwin. They met in their first year of university when they were flatmates and quickly became close friends. Even though they all moved out to different places for their second year, those five guys were still New’s best friends.

They’d all been looking forward to the camping trip, but then Chimon had a family thing and apologized about a thousand times for not being able to go, and Perth bailed to travel to Sydney with one of his girlfriends. Pond and Phuwin both got internships at prestigious firms so they couldn’t make it either.

And sure, Chimon would have kept them up all night with his endless stream of chatter. Perth would have wandered off to flirt with random chicks. Pond and Phuwin would’ve bickered the entire time and glared intensely at each other in a way that always made New feel like he was interrupting something. But they were his friends, and it sucked that they couldn’t come. But at the same time, Tay was there, and Tay had always been New’s favorite. Not that New would tell the others that.

“Newwiee?” Tay said now, tilting his head.

“Just give me a minute,” New said before walking to the car parked on the edge of their campsite. It was Tay's car. He was the one who drove them while New slept the whole way.

He searched the car, and it didn’t take him long to realize the sleeping bag wasn’t there, because they’d already unloaded everything when they were setting up.

“You okay?” Tay asked.

Okay, so forgetting to bring his sleeping bag wasn’t the end of the world. It just meant New had to sleep under a towel or something. It was summer anyway. It wouldn’t be bad.

He still felt shitty about forgetting it though. Tay had done everything for this trip. He’d booked the camping spot and wrote a list of meals they’d eat. He’d brought the tents, the gas stove, gas canisters, the esky, the ice, the foldable chairs and the foldable table, the gazebo, the pots and pans and cutlery, and all the food — bags and bags of food.