Page 9 of Road Trip

CHAPTER

NINE

JACOB

1056 miles to go

Amarillo, TX, to Albuquerque, NM

W hen I woke up, I was humping Matt’s ass.

I didn’t even realize what was happening at first. I just knew there was a body in front of me and what I was doing felt really good. It was only when I shuddered as my hips rocked forward, chasing contact, that I woke up enough for it to hit me that my dick was super hard—and I was humping Matt’s ass .

I froze, my heart pounding, and let out a long, shaky breath.

Fuck.

I was a confused mess of horny and terrified. I didn’t know what was happening, but I didn’t want it to stop. And sure, maybe I could blame that on instinct—sleep-humping was a thing, right?—but if that was the case, why wasn’t my dick going soft now that I was awake? And why did it feel so good holding Matt in my arms, so right? Why did I like being pressed up against him, burying my nose into the curve of his neck and inhaling his scent? Layla had been all soft curves and sweet perfumes, florals that were pleasant and inoffensive but unremarkable. Matt, though? Matt smelled like woodsmoke and sweat and day-old deodorant and underneath all that a hint of ocean salt, like Cape Charles was soaked into his very skin—and I was here for it.

What the fuck was that about?

As I lay there having a minor existential crisis, Matt made a sleepy, snuffly sound and exhaled loudly. I tensed but then he went lax and still, blissfully unaware of my dick pressing against his ass.

If Matt didn’t know what I’d done, maybe I could just pretend this had never happened. No harm, no foul, right? I inched backward as much as I could—which wasn’t very far, given how tight space was in the back seat—but at least I wasn’t actively attacking my best friend with my dick.

Wait. Was it an attack if neither of us was aware of what I’d been doing and I’d stopped almost right away? Did it even count?

If a dick got hard in a forest and there was nobody to see it, was it still morning wood?

Wow, I was full of deep questions today.

I was still mulling over what it meant that I’d gotten hard for my best friend—and why I wasn’t more weirded out by that—when Matt ground his ass back onto me, pressing against my still-hard dick. My hips flexed forward before I could stop myself, and Matt let out a low groan.

We both froze, but I could feel Matt’s heart pounding where I still had my arm draped over him, and from the way his breathing picked up, he was definitely awake. Shit. There was no way not to address this, right?

Wrong.

I’d forgotten that Matt was a champion at ignoring shit. He yawned, sat up, squinted at the sunlight that was streaming through the windshield, and said, “I’m gonna take a leak.” And then he opened the car door and got out, leaving me quietly grateful he hadn’t chosen to be an asshole about it. And sure, that might have been because I was his ride to California, but I preferred to think it was just Matt doing me a solid.

I waited a minute or two for my boner to go down, then followed Matt out of the car and went and peed in the bushes. By the time I was done, Matt was emerging from our tent in a pair of shorts and an old tee that was stretched around the neckline and showed off his collarbones.

Not that I was looking at Matt’s collarbones.

“I don’t see that fucking skunk anywhere,” he said by way of greeting. It wasn’t the outraged hey, what the fuck was that, man? that I’d half been expecting—this was Matt we were talking about—and the tightness in my chest eased a little.

I took a couple of slow breaths before I answered him. “Yeah, they’re nocturnal.” Then I ducked into the tent and got dressed.

When I came out, Matt was sitting on the log next to the firepit, still yawning. “Hey,” he said, “so, here’s the thing.”

My mouth went dry. Shame and guilt washed over me. This was it. Matt was going to call me out on my shit. My stomach dropped at the specter of the awkward conversation we were about to have and the thought of more awkward silence as we drove all the way to San Diego, but I managed to croak out, “Yeah?”

He dragged the toe of his sneaker through the dirt. “I know we’re meant to be saving money, but fuck that. I need a break from camping. Can we stay somewhere with a bed and a shower tonight? Please?”

Relief flooded through me. “Yeah,” I said, almost too eagerly.

Matt raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you saying I stink?”

“No,” I said, face heating at the memory of Matt’s woodsmoke and ocean scent. He smelled fucking amazing. I wasn’t going to tell him that, though. Instead I said, “I’m the one who stinks.” I raised an arm to sniff my pits in demonstration and immediately regretted it. I was ripe with the acrid stench of fear sweat from our skunk encounter, underpinned with regular old sweat.

Matt snorted. “I wasn’t gonna say anything, but yeah. You’re not exactly a walking Yankee Candle.”

“Fuck you,” I said. As soon as the words were out, I wanted to swallow them back down. Could I still say that now? Or would Matt think I was hitting on him—or worse, making fun of him? I really didn’t care if Matt was gay, and I didn’t want him to think it made a difference or to regret telling me. But he didn’t take offense. He just shot me that crooked grin of his, and I breathed a little easier. We were gonna be fine.

We packed up our shit and once the RAV4 was loaded, we drove until we found a roadside diner that claimed to make “the best pancakes in Texas”—which seemed like a hell of a flex, but we stopped there for breakfast anyway. I’d already thrown a granola bar and a package of jerky at Matt to stop him gnawing his own arm off, but I knew I’d have to feed him properly if I didn’t want to spend the rest of the morning dealing with him being cranky as fuck.

We ordered pancakes and coffee, and our server seemed unable to look away from Matt, giving him her widest smile and calling him “hun” in a way that had my hackles rising and something dark and possessive twisting inside me like a knife—which, what the fuck?

Matt was oblivious until she left and I said, “See? You’ve got game.”

His brow creased in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s into you.”

Matt scrunched up his nose. “You’re full of shit. Nobody’s into me.”

“That gas station guy was,” I said, more sharply than I’d intended—and there it was again, a stab of something I didn't want to look at too closely.

Matt raised an eyebrow. “Danny’s a nice guy. Funny. And what was I meant to do the first time a cute guy offered me his number? Say no?”

Yes , I wanted to say.

But I didn’t. Because Matt hadn’t said a word when I’d started dating Layla. Although really, dating Layla hadn’t made much of a difference where me and Matt were concerned, had it? We were ride or die, like best friends were supposed to be .

Except we were riding to California together, but I’d be coming back alone.

The server came back with our pancakes and I had to admit they were impressive. Matt attacked his breakfast like he hadn’t eaten in an age, and when he let out a particularly filthy moan around his pancake, my dick twitched unexpectedly. My breath caught, and a mouthful of coffee went down the wrong way. I choked and sputtered and before I could blink Matt was beside me, slapping my back and telling me to breathe, like I’d simply forgotten and wasn’t gasping for air like a landed fish. I managed to drag in one breath and then another, and Matt stopped slapping me and rested his hand on the center of my back, his brow furrowed and his mouth a tight line, the way it got when he was really worried. “Bruh, you okay?”

I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand. “Fine,” I said, my voice rasping. “Went down wrong, that’s all.”

Matt’s hand rested on my back for a few more seconds before he stood and moved back to his side of the table. “Don’t die, okay?” he said. “I don’t wanna have to call your mom. She’s terrifying.”

I gave him a watery smile. “I’ll try not to. And my mom likes you.”

The look he gave me told me he wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t push the point. It didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t like Matt would be seeing my mom anytime soon. He’d be living his new life with his dad, and he wouldn’t need me, or my family.

I picked at my pancakes, my appetite disappearing as I thought about a life without Matt in it. Sure, we would have been apart anyway, what with me going to college, but this felt different. Permanent. This was a whole country between us, not just Chesapeake Bay, and I wasn’t a fan. At least almost choking had settled my dick down—although why the hell was my dick suddenly interested in Matt anyway?

Something wet and cold hit me in the middle of my forehead, making me jerk and pulling me out of my thoughts. I lifted my gaze and a blueberry slid down my face and landed on my plate. Matt grinned at me, another blueberry poised on his fork, ready to launch.

I narrowed my eyes at him and picked up my own fork and loaded it, but then I thought better of it. We were in public, and Mom had raised me better than that. I put my fork down and said, “What was that for?”

Matt shrugged. “You looked all sad and shit. Thought it would cheer you up.”

He was such an asshole. “How the fuck is that meant to cheer me up?”

He shrugged again and then, in typical Matt fashion, pulled out his phone and changed the subject, thumb flying over the screen. “So, you wanna stop in Albuquerque tonight?” He flipped the screen around to face me so I could see the list of budget motels he’d pulled up.

“Sure. Just pick somewhere that doesn’t mention bedbugs in the reviews.”

Matt snorted and took the phone back, spending the rest of breakfast scrolling through reviews and reading out bad ones for the cheaper places. Some of them were funny as hell, but there was no way we were staying at those places. Eventually, we settled on a place where the reviews didn’t suck and the price didn’t make me break out in a cold sweat. I was just glad we’d found somewhere half-decent, what with it being summer break. Matt wasn’t the only one looking forward to a decent night’s sleep.

We ducked into the diner restroom to freshen up, picked up a Coke and a Mountain Dew, and then we were ready to hit the road. When we reached the RAV4, I offered Matt the keys and his eyes lit up with excitement.

“Sweet. Driver picks the music,” he said with a wide grin. When Matt smiled, he lost that narrow-eyed, suspicious look he showed the rest of the world, and I loved the way it made his whole face transform. Matt smiling would always be one of my favorite sights.

I lifted my phone and snapped a pic of him grinning so I’d be able to look at it and think of him after he was gone.

“What are you doing?”

“Chronicling,” I said, deadpan. “In case you’re ever famous. ‘Place where Matt Landers smiled once, aged eighteen.’ They’ll probably put up a plaque or some shit.” I spun around so I was next to him, threw an arm over one shoulder, and took a selfie.

When I looked at the picture, my heart squeezed. Matt’s hair was a mess, there were dark rings under his eyes, and his shirt had a maple syrup stain from breakfast. I wasn’t much better—the main difference was that my stain was from a blueberry. Objectively, we looked like shit. But we were both beaming, and it was obvious we were having the time of our lives. A lump formed in my throat at the way Matt was leaning into my touch, like he wanted to be there. I had other photos with similar poses to this, but they were all with Layla. They were couples photos.

I stared at the screen, transfixed.

Matt peered over my shoulder. “I like it. Send it to me?”

I sent the pic through, then gave it one last look and shoved my phone into my pocket. There were plenty of other pictures of us—hell, Matt had been front and center at every birthday party I’d had since I was six—but there was something special about this one. It was unscripted and messy, just like our friendship, and it was kind of perfect.

Except this time next week, that picture would still be on my phone but Matt would be gone. My eyes prickled and I blinked rapidly. Matt glanced over and his worry lines appeared. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice catching. And then, because I never could lie to Matt, I said, “I’m just—I’m really gonna miss you.”

Matt’s throat clicked as he swallowed. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “But I’ll bet my dad will fly me out if I ask him.”

I nodded. “Maybe.” Except we both knew it wouldn’t be the same. But I wasn’t gonna drag Matt down, not when he was so excited to be spending time with his dad. And who knew? Matt’s dad had already agreed to let Matt come and live with him, so maybe he’d become more responsible in the ten years since he’d left. The adulting bar had been set pretty low when he’d disappeared when Matt was eight, but hey, the only way was up, right?

We got back on I-40 and Matt settled in for the drive, a lot more relaxed and confident than he had been the first time he drove, his long fingers tapping on the steering wheel in time to “Party in the USA” as he sang along—badly.

“I thought it was ‘driver picks the music,’ not ‘driver murders the music,’” I muttered.

“Shut up. I’m awesome,” Matt said, laughing. He stopped singing, though, and settled in to drive.

Traffic was light, and before I knew it we were halfway to Albuquerque. I was tense for the first part of the drive, part of me still waiting for Matt to bring up the fact I’d used him as a human humping post. But either he’d still been half-asleep and hadn’t noticed or he was pretending it hadn’t happened because he never said a word about it. Which was fine by me. More than fine. Excellent, even.

We made a pit stop a couple of hours in, and as we took off again, Matt wondered aloud if Tanner and Charlie had gone on a date yet, how Kennedy’s parent had reacted to finding out a tree had got set on fire during her party, and what kind of shit Luke was getting into without us.

We drove for a while longer, talking trash and making dumb jokes. My phone buzzed with a text from Mom asking why I hadn’t checked in the night before.

Shit. I texted her back and told her we were fine and we’d just fallen asleep early. I also sent her some of the zoo photos as proof of life. I didn’t mention that we hadn’t called because we were being held hostage by a skunk. I wasn’t stupid. If I gave my mom that kind of ammunition, I’d be hearing about it for years.

The miles rolled by, and while Matt watched the road, I watched him. He’d pushed his hair back from his face in a dark, messy cloud, and my fingers itched with the inexplicable need to smooth it down and tidy up the stray curls that stood out in stark contrast against his pale skin.

I suddenly understood why that guy in Goose Run had given Matt his number, because Matt was beautiful.

Wait, what?

I jolted in my seat and Matt shot me a narrow glance.

“What? I wasn’t anywhere near that semi!” he said just as a truck roared past us, making the RAV4 rock with how close it was.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Matt scowled, his shoulders creeping up to his ears. “Not with your mouth, but your face is saying plenty. You’re staring at me like you’re waiting for me to fuck up.”

That wasn’t why I was staring, but there was no easy way to say I’d just figured out Matt was hot without it coming off as creepy. Girls could get away with shit like telling their friends they were beautiful, but it didn’t work like that for guys. Matt would laugh his ass off—or possibly shove me out of the moving vehicle. It could go either way with him. So instead of complimenting him like I so desperately wanted to do, I said, “I’m not staring. I’m zoning out because I’m tired as fuck.”

Matt let out a long breath and some of the tension left his frame. “Sorry. Me too. Tired, I mean. I slept like shit.” The corners of his mouth curved up and he said, “That was pretty funny, though. Trapped in our car by a skunk.”

I grinned back at him. “Thank fuck it wasn’t a bear or they would have peeled the doors open like we were a can of tuna.”

“We’re just lucky it didn’t turn into a slasher movie.”

“What?” I blinked. That was a hell of a U-turn, even for Matt.

“Think about it,” he said as he switched lanes and we passed a sign telling us we were eighty miles from Albuquerque. “Alone in the woods, two city slickers without a clue?—”

“I don’t think we count as city?— ”

“—hearing a weird noise,” Matt continued, raising his voice and ignoring me. “But instead of staying in the tent, what do they do? They grab a flashlight and go to investigate like the idiots they are. Only it’s not a skunk. It’s hook-hand-car man!” He waved a hand wildly. “Boom! Dead! Classic slasher fic.”

I stared at him, then burst out laughing. “You’re so fucking weird!”

“That’s why you like me,” he said with a grin, and just like that the pieces fell into place and I had one hell of a personal revelation.

I did like Matt. A lot.

Enough that even when I’d had a girlfriend, Matt had still come first. Enough that if he threw stones at my window, I’d always answer. Enough that I’d agreed to drive across the country with him. Enough that when I found out Matt was gay because a guy had given Matt his number, my first reaction had been jealousy.

I liked him enough that I’d humped his ass in my sleep.

Maybe…maybe I didn’t just like Matt as a friend.

Maybe I liked him. As in, I was attracted to him.

And I had no idea what the hell to do with new knowledge like that.

O ur motel in Albuquerque was two stars, but they must have paid someone off to hold onto that second one. Okay, so I didn’t actually know the difference between one star and two stars, but you’d think the stray turd floating in the toilet should have brought the ranking down. I asked Matt if he was going to chronicle the floater and he told me to fuck off. Still, it flushed right down, and our room wasn’t a tent in the woods, so I guessed I couldn’t get too picky. And it sure had a lot more space than the back seat of a RAV4. Sleeping with our legs straight? That was probably what got a place a two-star rating.

Matt sat on the side of the bed and gave an experimental bounce, and nothing squeaked or rattled, which I took as a win. We were sharing a queen, which was what happened when you didn’t book in advance during the height of summer. It was fine. It was still more space than we’d had since the first night in a motel.

“I’m having a shower,” Matt said, ducking into the bathroom before I had time to say anything. I didn’t mind. It meant I had time to think about what I'd just discovered without Matt being right there next to me.

Or, you know, to intentionally not think about it.

I sent Mom a check-in text, then looked at Maps to see where the closest store was in case we needed middle-of-the-night snacks. Then I looked up laundromats because my bag was starting to smell like the one I’d used for gym class senior year. I pulled everything out and sniffed it, which proved to be a seriously bad idea. I didn’t know what I thought jamming my dirty clothes up to my face would achieve, but I was sure as hell never doing it again. I dumped all the laundry in one pile and kept a single slightly less offensive tee and pair of cargo shorts aside to change into. Underwear was overrated.

I heard the shower turn off and grabbed my toiletries bag, more ready than I'd ever been to stand under a stream of hot water and get clean. An image of Matt naked flashed through my mind and it was so dumb. Not the image, but the way these thoughts were crippling me. Like, I’d seen Matt naked before. Probably a bunch more times than I could remember since we’d known each other forever. But now that suddenly meant something. And not because he was gay but because I—well, I didn’t fucking know what I was, but there was something going on in my brain, and in my pants, that hadn’t been happening before.

This one time in class, our history teacher gave us a pop quiz and Layla just about hyperventilated because we’d spent the night before making out instead of studying. “Aren’t you freaking out?” she’d asked me when we’d handed our papers back.

“What’s the point? We don’t know our results yet.”

This felt a little bit like that. I didn’t know yet if I’d passed or failed whatever test the universe had given me, but there was no point freaking out about it yet, right? Or maybe at all. Maybe I could just keep this to myself until we got to San Diego. Matt didn’t need to know.

Which was why I couldn’t explain what the fuck happened next.

“Oh shit,” Matt said as he stepped outside the bathroom, his towel slipping down to reveal the curve of his ass. “Sorry, dude. I’m not like—this isn’t.” He grabbed at the fabric and made the same disgusted noise he did when he accidentally tasted mushrooms—Matt hated mushrooms—and then rolled his eyes. “I’m not making a move, or coming onto you, or flashing my ass on purpose. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to be weird and forget you’re straight.”

All I had to do was keep my mouth shut. But I couldn’t. Instead, my gaze fixed on his, I opened my mouth and said, “But what if I wasn’t?”

Matt’s jaw dropped, and so did his towel.