Page 15 of Road Trip

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

JACOB

172 miles to go

Yuma, AZ, to San Diego, CA

W hoever said parting was such sweet sorrow was full of shit. Parting sucked .

Like, we hadn’t even left the hotel, but already imagining the drive back with an empty passenger seat had me all tied up in knots. How was I meant to live without Matt’s constant presence for the next four years?

I mean, don’t get me wrong. Matt would get to spend time with his dad and reconnect, which was awesome. For him. But it sucked for me , the guy he was leaving behind—especially since I’d only just figured out that I was in love with him.

Maybe Matt was right about me being slow on the uptake.

I stuffed my bathroom bag into my backpack, giving it a hard shove when I couldn’t get it to fit. I got it in there, although the zipper creaked ominously when I closed it. I took a last look around the rest of the hotel room, checking for phone chargers and airpods and shit like that, but the room was clear and I didn’t have any more excuses to stay.

“Can we go now, or do you need to check that you didn’t leave any ass hair in the shower drain?” Matt said, shifting his duffel from hand to hand.

“I don’t have a hairy ass,” I said, “and you’ll be the one who will remember you left your sweet kicks behind twenty miles from here.”

Matt huffed. “Please. Like I even own sweet kicks.”

“Right? Shoes are probably illegal in California anyway,” I said.

“I’m dating an idiot,” Matt said. He tried to glare, but the corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile instead. Turned out that getting his dick sucked this morning had made him almost agreeable.

What? Like we weren’t gonna try that again while we had the chance?

It meant that we were scrambling to leave by checkout time, but it had been worth it. And it wasn’t like we were in a rush since Matt had said his dad would be cool whenever we arrived.

I took one last look around the room and we left.

It took about three hours to get from Yuma to San Diego and about half that time before we started to see anything green again. But somewhere around Boulder Oaks, the scrubby bushes at the side of the road grew denser, and the long grass that waved in the breeze wasn’t bleached yellow by the sun. The hills in the distance were verdant. By the time we hit El Cajon, there were palm trees, and for the first time it really felt like California.

“Hey,” I said, ignoring the directions to Del Mar that were showing on the map. “It’s California. We should go to the beach.”

Matt gave me such serious side-eye that I figured he was going to refuse, and then he said, “It’s California. We should get In-N-Out and then go to the beach.”

I felt a rush of gratitude. I knew he was probably desperate to see his dad, but here he was agreeing to push it back by an hour or so just because I wanted to. His dad might have said we could turn up at any time, but I would have bet anything Matt wanted it to be sooner rather than later .

I wanted to tell him how much I’d miss him, but it was such a pointless thing to say when we both knew it. Also, I didn’t want to fuck with his happy day, you know? I had been his best friend for most of our lives, way before we were anything else, and I knew how much his dad leaving had hurt him. Even when he didn’t show it, I knew. He didn’t talk about it much, but it was such a big thing that it didn’t matter how many years ago it had been—Matt was still living in its shadow. I wished I could have been happier for him today, but all I could think about was how bad it felt for me.

We went and found an In-N-Out that was pretty close to Mission Beach. I snapped a few photos of my Double-Double and sent them to Luke, knowing he’d be jealous as hell at this definitive proof I was in California while he was stuck in Cape Charles. Now that I knew I was driving home alone, I kind of wished I’d invited him and Charlie. Though to be fair, there probably would have been a lot less making out with Matt and sucking his dick if my little brother had been along for the trip. So, on balance, I was glad it was just me and Matt. And I was glad that I’d discovered something new about myself, and about us, on this trip. It would just break my heart when I had to leave him here and go home to Virginia.

I didn’t tell him that, and he didn’t say it either. What was the point of saying it? It was like weather—interesting the first time you felt a change coming, but then it set in and you didn’t need to point out the gray skies and rain because everyone else had eyes as well, and it wasn’t as though talking about it would clear those clouds.

There weren’t any clouds in San Diego today. It was a gorgeous, hot day with a brilliant blue sky. Perfect California weather. Matt and I finished our In-N-Out and then we drove to Belmont Park to see the beach.

We got out of the car and looked across the parking lot. The tracks of the Giant Dipper rose in gentle waves above the rest of the small amusement park .

“We’re not going on it,” I said.

“Nope,” Matt agreed, narrowing his eyes at it.

“Because you’re allergic to fun?”

“Because it’s made of wood and is a century old.” His mouth quirked. “But also because I’m allergic to fun.”

We walked down to the beach instead, taking off our shoes so we could walk barefoot in the sand.

It was gorgeous. High tide, because the sand was only a thin white strip. A lifeguard tower stood in the sand, beach umbrellas dotted all around it. There were girls in bikinis and guys in board shorts. There were families too—toddlers in swim diapers, parents wrangling too many kids, and hairy old men with beer bellies that overhung their Speedos. One of the old men was eating an ice cream cone.

“We need to find the ice cream place,” I said.

“Ocean first,” Matt said. And then, when the cool water was tickling his toes, he said, “It’s the Pacific . I’m standing in the Pacific.”

Right.

Back home, when we’d sneaked out in the middle of the night and gone to the beach, we’d been swimming in the waters of the Atlantic. We’d crossed an entire continent to get here. And now I was going home and leaving Matt behind to swim in a different ocean, hoping like hell that somehow we could make this work.

I swallowed around a lump in my throat. I wasn’t going to spoil our last day, so I decided to tease him a little instead. “So tell me,” I said, “what, pacifically, do you like about this beach?”

Matt’s mom said “pacifically” and I knew it drove him crazy. He turned to me with narrowed eyes and prodded me in the chest with a fingertip. “No. Don’t you dare.”

“What? I’m just asking a question. What, pacifically, is it that’s upsetting about that?” I managed to keep a straight face for all of five seconds, but when he scowled at me, I cracked up laughing. “Be pacific!”

“You’re such a dick,” Matt said. I liked that I was the only person he said that to where it wasn’t the prelude to a fight, but a compliment.

I grinned at him and gave him a friendly shove and he stumbled sideways, water splashing up around his ankles. He shoved me back, harder, and I ended up far enough into the ocean that the hem of my shorts got wet. I took a rapid step away from him and raised my hands. “Wait! My phone!”

Matt paused just as he’d been about to push me again. “Shit, is it wet?”

“Nah.” I patted at the pocket of my shorts. Cool water lapped at my calves, and suddenly I couldn't think of anything better than submerging my body into the ocean with Matt one last time. “You know what? We should go for a swim.”

Matt looked at me like I'd lost my mind for a second, and then his face split into a wide grin. “Yeah,” he said, splashing through the shallows toward the beach and peeling his shirt off as he went.

We dumped all our stuff in a pile and then ran into the ocean like we were a couple of little kids, splashing and laughing as the spray hit our skin. When we were deep enough, I swam out past where my feet could touch the bottom and let the waves buffet me from side to side, and Matt appeared next to me minutes later, his head popping up suddenly from under the water the same way a seal’s might. He was grinning from ear to ear, his dark hair slicked back and water dripping down his face, and my chest ached at the knowledge that this was the last time I’d see him like this for who knew how long.

I leaned forward impulsively and kissed his cheek, then wrapped my arms around him. We floated there together like a tiny two-person island, the silence between us only broken by the cry of the gulls that were wheeling overhead, the splash of the waves breaking on the shore, and the thump of my heart in my chest as I held on tight and tried not to drown in self-pity.

I'd miss Matt like crazy, but this wasn’t about me.

Matt was finally doing something for himself, something that would make him happy, and I wanted that for him, because I loved him and I always had, even when I was too dumb to realize it. And hey, at least we were together now. It had taken a road trip, a tent, and a skunk to help us figure our shit out, but now that we had, we weren’t going to let a few miles come between us, right?

Right.

“Hey, we’d better head in,” Matt said close to my ear, and I saw that the pull of the tides had dragged us farther out than I’d thought. It was a stark reminder that this wasn’t my ocean. I let him go and we both swam toward the beach, and once we were in the shallows we splashed our way back to shore. I expected Matt would want to go to his dad’s right away, but maybe he was as reluctant to say goodbye as I was because he sat down on the beach next to our stuff. “We can dry off here,” he said and flopped backward, spread eagle against the sand.

I lay down next to him, closing my eyes and breathing in the salt air. After a minute, Matt’s hand brushed against me and he hooked his little finger in mine. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. I didn’t know how long we spent like that soaking up the sun’s rays and each other’s presence, but I treasured every golden moment.

The mood was broken when a volleyball hit the ground next to Matt’s head and sprayed us with sand, and Matt jolted upright. He scowled at the guy who’d thrown the ball, then stood up and brushed himself off and shrugged into his shirt.

And just like that, it was time to go.

M att’s dad lived in Del Mar on a street lined with fan palms, cactuses, and purple bougainvillea. The house was a couple blocks back from the beach on a street that sloped upward. It looked very different from Cape Charles, where the houses in my neighborhood were tall with sharply pitched roofs and built close together. Here they were low-set and sprawling and spread out like sunbathers soaking up the rays.

Very different houses for very different oceans.

“This is nice,” I said when we pulled into the driveway of a sun-soaked ranch-style house with a front yard full of red hibiscus bushes.

Matt nodded sharply, his fingers drumming on his thighs.

After almost three thousand miles from Cape Charles, I turned the engine off. We sat for a moment in silence as the heat leached slowly into the car now the air was off. I could hear sounds from the street: a passing car, a distant siren, someone’s sprinkler stuttering as it turned. I wondered what Matt would do if I reversed out of the driveway and headed back the way we’d come, just so we wouldn’t have to say goodbye.

I didn’t, though. I gripped the steering wheel tight and let out a long breath. “So.”

“So,” Matt echoed. His mouth quirked, but it wasn’t a smile. “Are you gonna camp on the way back?”

“Not alone,” I said before wincing at how harsh that sounded. “I’ll need someone to protect me from skunks, is all I mean.”

“Yeah.” Matt’s fingers tapped against his thigh, but he made no move to get out. Knowing Matt, he was probably imagining some scenario where his dad had changed his mind or something.

“Hey,” I said, “want me to come in with you? Help carry your stuff?” Because I knew there was no way Matt would admit to needing emotional support.

He blinked at me and then gave a terse nod. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

He still didn’t move, though, and the silence stretched between us, as fragile and delicate as spun glass. Finally Matt broke it. “Call me every night, okay?”

“Every night.”

“And don’t do dumb shit without me.”

“So I should wait until you’re back visiting to do dumb shit?”

That earned me a raised eyebrow. “Dipshit. ”

“Yeah, but you love me anyway.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I do.” And then he unfastened his seat belt and blew out a long breath. “Let’s do this.”

We got out of the car and he walked to the front door, backpack over one shoulder, while I grabbed his duffel from the back of the RAV4. His shoulders were a solid line of tension as he rang the doorbell. I could still hear the chimes echoing when I approached.

Inside, a dog barked.

When nobody answered, Matt bit his bottom lip, then rang the doorbell again.

The dog barked louder this time, a frenzied yapping, and a male voice called, “Coming!”

Matt hitched up his backpack, the anticipation written all over his face. He’d waited so long for this.

The door swung open and a short, stocky man wearing a polo shirt and cargos, with tan skin and dark hair that mirrored Matt’s, stood in front of us. He looked us up and down, and there wasn’t even a hint of recognition. I got an uneasy, heavy feeling in my gut.

“Can I help you?” he said, glancing past us at the RAV4.

I blinked and the uneasy feeling grew. It wasn’t exactly Welcome home, son , was it?

Matt’s breathing hitched, and his voice cracked when he spoke. “Dad? It’s…it’s me. It’s Matthew.”

“Matthew?” His dad’s voice went high, and all the color drained from his face.

And then he shut the door in our faces.