Nobody’s Hero by j. leigh bailey

anymore. I bet you’ve always been a bit of a neat freak.”
    Okay, there was some truth to that. He’d always been tidy and well-ordered, but sure, it may have gotten worse the last few years. He ignored the little voice in his head whispering scary terms like
OCD
and
anxiety
. Brad set the jeans neatly in the bag. “Don’t you make your bed in the morning?”
    “Yeah, sort of. I mean, usually I just tug the covers back into place, nothing like this. The only time I make-make the bed is when my mom washes the sheets each week.”
    Tucking a couple of rolls of socks into the bag, Brad eyed Danny. “Your mom still does your laundry?”
    Danny shrugged. “Sure. It’s not like I ask her or anything. She just does it.”
    “Seriously, though,” Brad said, stopping his packing, “I’m not sure about this.” His reasons for saying no in the first place hadn’t disappeared.
    “You need to relax. It’s a camping trip. We have the gear, we have the food, so you’re not a mooch. It’s not like you’ve got anything else going on this weekend. I mean, what would you do, iron your underwear?”
    “Hey, I’m not that bad,” Brad called over his shoulder as he bent to pull his running shoes out from under the bed.
    “Probably not,” Danny agreed, straightening his legs and hopping to his feet.
    Brad did a quick double-check of the contents of the bag, then zipped it up. “I think I’m set.” He slung the nylon strap of the bag across one shoulder and patted his pockets to make sure he had his keys.
    “Damn, who’s the hottie?”
    Brad turned around to see Danny peering at his laptop monitor.
    “Huh?”
    Danny tilted the computer toward Brad.
    He dropped his bag and snapped the laptop closed. “What are you doing on my computer? You don’t have the right to poke into my business.”
    Damn it. He’d meant to close the browser. The screen held an article from a regional sports website with a full-color image of Carson. After the call from his mother, he hadn’t been able to resist trying to find information on his ex.
    “I wasn’t poking at anything. When you ditched the bag, it knocked into the desk and your screen saver disappeared. This was up on the monitor. Overreacting much?”
    Brad sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “Sorry, man.”
    Danny lowered the top of the laptop and leaned back, linking his fingers behind his neck. “I take it there’s a story there?”
    “You could say that.”
    “Want to talk about it?”
    Brad snorted. “Fuck no.”
    “All righty, then.” Danny slapped him across the back as he stepped to the door and swung it open. “We’ve got an entire weekend to ignore the serious crap and chill. We’ll sit back and commune with nature or some shit.”
    Maybe nature would help him forget about his mother’s demands, forget about Carson. It couldn’t hurt. He’d already tried everything else he could think of.
    * * *
    “Want to take a break?” Danny asked as the cover of trees cleared to reveal a raised bench on a high overlook facing the lake. They’d been wandering the hiking trails for about an hour, chatting about the land and the view. The fresh air and the casual conversation provided a decent distraction.
    “Sure.” Brad shrugged out of his backpack and scooted onto the seat. He snagged the bottle of water from a side pocket, twisted off the cap and took a deep swallow as Danny settled in next to him. Out from the shadow of the trees, he squinted in the glare of the summer sun and adjusted the bill of his cap.
    “This place is amazing,” Brad said, taking another swig of water before recapping the bottle and dropping it into his bag. “Not the kind of place I’d expect you to like, though.”
    “What? I don’t strike you as an outdoorsman?” Danny stretched his legs out in front of him and flexed his feet.
    “You’ve got to admit, the red skinny jeans don’t scream Paul Bunyan.”
    Danny brushed at the colored denim stretched across his thighs. “What? I