Page 128 of Catcher's Lock

“Good. Because we have a lot of history in this state, and not all of it is bad. I don’t want to write over all of our firsts.”

“Our firsts, huh? Like what?” I gift him a grin to let him know I’m on board with this game.

“The first time we kissed—whichIinitiated.”

“The first time I told anyone I was gay.”

“The first time I punched a guy for hitting on you.”

“The first time I saw your dick.”

“The first time I heard you come.”

“The first time I made you hard.”

He pauses, squinting at me. “When do you think that was?”

“In Sonoma? The disastrous almost blow job?”

Smirking, he shakes his head. “Not even close.”

“The Radisson? I didn’t think I could give myself credit for that one.”

“Nope.”

“Okay, you gotta tell me.”

“Remember the grad party in tenth grade?”

I grunt. “The one where Shelby Cox gave you a blow job in the kitchen?”

“Not where I was going with this, but fair enough. The one where Kailin was coked to the gills and kept trying to convince you to let her peg you in front of her boyfriend so he’d stop being scared of it.”

“I remember,” I tell him, rolling my eyes.

“And you finally shut her up by telling her you were a strict top and had no interest in taking her silicone cock up the ass.”

“You asked me in the car on the way home if it was true.” When I cut my gaze sideways, I catch him sucking on his lower lip, and a rush of blood thickens my cock against my thigh. “I told you I’d never done it either way, so how was I supposed to know?”

“Yep. Boner city. Rachael was in the back seat with us, and I thought for sure she was gonna bust me.”

For a long minute, I keep my eyes glued to the road. When I finally speak, my voice is husky with years of repressed longing and lust.

“We weresixteenat that party, Quill.”

“Don’t.” Pulling his leg up onto the seat, he shifts to fullyface me. “Don’t think about it as lost time. I wasn’t ready for you back then. I wasn’t ready forthis, no matter what my dick was trying to tell me. And it wasn’t about my sexuality—it was all the rest of me. If we’d tried to be a couple back then, I would have fucked everything up even worse than I did, and we wouldn’t be here now.Iwouldn’t be here, ready to be good for you. No regrets, Rocket. Only firsts and forevers.”

A narrow dirt road splits off from the two-lane highway to meander through an overgrown field, and I slow down to make the turn.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Finding a place to pull over.”

He slouches back against the door and runs his tongue over his lower lip, flashing the barbell with hooded eyes. “Right now?”

“Yes, Quill. Right fucking now.”

Outside the windows, acres of dry hills devoid of human habitation fill the landscape. I maneuver the truck around potholes until the highway disappears behind us, and I pull off the road into the shade of a small copse of trees. Far off to the left, a cluster of low, metal-sided buildings marks what I think is a recycling center, but when I climb out of the driver’s seat, the only sound is the whirring of crickets in the tall grass.