Page 15

There was a pregnant silence in the car, punctuated only by the sound of the rain, which was pouring down, clattering against the windshield like pebbles. Laurel studied Casey as he steered them along pitch-black country roads, the only light the gleam of the dashboard and the occasional strip of reflective tape on a mailbox or a shot-up deer crossing sign. The odd shyness that had come over him at the swap hadn’t dissipated, and Laurel felt jittery and desperate, literally wringing his hands, trying to think of something to say.

The buzz of his phone saved him.

Melody: any luck?

Laurel wrote back, yeah, with him now.

Melody sent back a string of hearts and sparkles and eyeball emojis and lipstick kisses.

Laurel leaned back in the seat, sighing. Casey glanced at him.

“Denise?” he asked.

“No, it’s Melody. She—“ Laurel groaned as a vaguely suggestive gif about cowboys and riding popped up on his phone, and then another one, and a third, and a git ‘er done reference. “Man, she must be bored.”

“Is she doing okay?” Casey’s voice was tight. “It must be hard being away from her. I—I assume I’m taking you home?”

“She’s good,” Laurel said. “I think I would never have heard the end of it if I hadn’t come. Our friend Chip is hanging out with her right now, so she’s not alone.”

“Chip.” Casey chuckled slightly.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, just these douchey southern names always crack me up.” Casey shrugged. “Sorry to your friend. I’m sure he’s perfectly nice.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t love it. If you ask him, he’ll say his parents wanted him to have the most American-sounding name they could think of. They’re from Colombia. Actually,” Laurel’s frantic brain seized on the idea of names, jumped down the rabbit hole after it. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Your real one? I heard Jamie calling you CJ.”

Casey made a face.

“Come on. It can’t be worse than mine. My middle name is Gustaaf.”

“No it’s not.”

“Deadass.” Laurel crossed his heart.

Casey sighed. “It’s Charles Jefferson Walker. And I hate it, so don’t—“

“Oh, come on. That’s not bad at all. Very presidential.” But it didn’t fit him, not really. Laurel couldn’t imagine whispering it in bed, or writing it on a birthday present, or giving Charles Jefferson Walker a goodnight kiss.

Casey shot him a withering look, but it didn’t do anything to silence him. Laurel was invested now, and the intimate little capsule of the car seemed like the perfect place to unpeel all of Casey’s layers. It was cozy in here, inches away from each other, the rain pounding on the roof overhead, the noise of the storm and the inky darkness of the night making it seem like they were the only two people in existence.

“Tell me something else about you,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the rain, which was only getting stronger. A tornado siren was going off somewhere nearby, eerie and insistent. “All I know is that you like flowers. And that your grandma had birds.”

“And I know that you’re good at singing. And have basically no gag reflex,” Casey said, with a hint of a smile.

Laurel felt heat flooding his face, but he persisted. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Hm.” Casey tapped his fingers against the wheel. “There are too many. I like teal. And mint green. And burnt orange. What about you?”

“Out of the ones I can see? Blue, I guess.”

“Bo-ring,” Casey intoned, but he was smiling.

Laurel smiled back. “I wish I knew what burnt orange looked like.”

“Huh.” Casey frowned. “I don’t know how to describe it. I guess it’s a warm color. It makes me think of campfires and Fall.”

“What about the other two?”

“Teal makes me think of the beach. And mint green makes me think of, like, retro furniture and rotary phones.”

Laurel leaned back in the seat. “I still have no idea what any of them look like. But I love hearing you talk about them.”

Casey snorted. “Well, I did my best. Actually, I feel kind of bad. It must suck not to be able to see all the colors.”

“It’s okay. You can’t miss what you’ve never had, right?”

Casey was silent for a moment, staring out at the path the wipers made across the windshield. A sign flashed by in their periphery, almost too overgrown with vines to be seen. They were approaching the limits of some city, or town, a cluster of lights dotting the night up ahead. Casey slowed as a collection of shabby buildings came into view, battered by the rain. Streetlights washed across the asphalt, showing that it was already slick with about an inch of standing water.

“I always hated these crappy little towns,” Casey said, as the countryside bled into suburbia, more lights appearing, housing developments and churches and the familiar signs of Walmart and Chick-fil-A floating overhead in the darkness like UFOs. “I feel like I’ve been in a thousand of them.” He flicked on his blinker, following signs for the highway. “Last chance, by the way. Let me know if you don’t want to head north.” Was Laurel mistaken, or was there something a little wistful in his voice? “We could go anywhere. Wherever you want.”

“I do need to get back to Melody.”

“Yeah.” Casey sighed.

“She wants to meet you, you know. Or, re-meet you under better circumstances. Chip does too.”

“Wow, we’re meeting each other’s friends.” Casey steered them onto an entrance ramp, hands tight on the wheel. The tires skidded briefly, water spraying up on either side of them. “So what does that make us?”

“I don’t know,” Laurel admitted. He peered out into the darkness. Only a few other cars were out. Visibility was awful, the lines on the road shimmering in and out of existence. Rain swept across the windshield in sheets, the wipers doing barely anything to displace it. “It was nice to meet Jamie, though. He’s not really who I would picture you being friends with. Or I guess, he is and he isn’t.”

“He’s eccentric,” Casey said. “But we understand each other.”

“I’d say you’re pretty eccentric, too.” Laurel put a hand on Casey’s thigh. Wind buffeted the car, and for a brief, vertiginous instant, it seemed like they would be airborne. He gasped, digging his nails into Casey’s leg. The little Volvo shuddered on the wet pavement, tires squealing and windowpanes rattling. “God. It’s shitty out here.”

“Yeah, I—” Casey swerved suddenly to avoid a branch that had blown into the road, and Laurel was thrown against the window, teeth rattling. “Fuck. I—it’s not that I’m not enjoying talking to you, Laurel. But I think I need to focus on driving.”

“Why don’t we stop somewhere?” Laurel pulled out his phone, looking at the map. “We can wait it out.”

“Are you sure?” Casey looked at him, jaw tense. “I’m fine, I just need to concentrate. And you have to get back to Melody.”

He knew Casey probably could manage. He was from Florida, after all; they had both grown up with weather like this. People here didn’t always take hurricanes seriously, and scoffed at a tropical storm. The general rule stated that if the Waffle House was still open, it was safe to drive. But everything that had happened since he had gotten on the airplane this morning seemed unbearably fragile, and Laurel found himself not wanting to take any chances. Not with Casey precious and alive and actually smiling and laughing with him. “She wouldn’t want us to get into an accident. There’s a hotel two exits away. What do you say?”

*

Under the fluorescent lights of a 7-11 next to the hotel, they threw together a pathetic attempt at dinner: instant noodles, Takis, Bugles, corn nuts, American cheese, and a brightly-colored kool aid pickle. Laurel’s stomach was churning, but Casey looked like a kid given an unlimited candy budget as he loaded more artificially-flavored delights into their basket.

“I don’t usually eat like this,” he said sheepishly, grabbing a crinkly cellophane package of moon pies. “A tropical storm is a special occasion, right?”

“No shame if you do. I love a good kool aid pickle. But do we really need all of it? There’s got to be half the store in—” Laurel rummaged around in the basket, pausing as his hand settled on a sleek, familiar box. Condoms. He felt his face turning red as he said, “Why, Mr. Walker, I do declare.”

Casey shrugged, raising his eyebrows. “Too presumptuous?”

“No,” Laurel said, heart pounding, palms beginning to tingle. “Not at all.”

*

They were soaked through in the short walk from the car to the door of the hotel room, buckets of warm rain dumping onto them, the wind threatening to pull them apart as they clung to each other, to steal away their bags of groceries. They tumbled into the unlit room, the door nearly coming off its hinges after them, yanked by the wind, and they had to wrestle it back into place, panting, fumbling for the lock with slick fingers. Laurel was vaguely aware of the silence, the smell of mildewy carpet and the popping of his ears, and then Casey’s hands were on him, and the bags were on the floor, all the junk food from the corner store scattering across the carpet in a cascade. He thought they might have stepped on some Doritos on the way to the bathroom, but it didn’t matter. The light was on, Laurel blinking against the brightness of it, and he heard the drone of the fan coming on and the sound of the faucet, and Casey was peeling the wet clothes off of him and his whole world was just skin and slickness and the steam from the shower and the hot, sucking kisses Casey was pressing to his neck, his shoulders, his chest.

They stumbled into the tub, and he barked his shin on something and Casey nearly collided with the showerhead, almost too tall for the entire stall, and there was a really worrying crack across the ceiling and a weird little rubber grippy mat sticking to the soles of his feet, but Casey’s lips were on his, his tongue spearing deep into Laurel’s mouth, hot and forceful and consuming, and Laurel let himself be consumed, moaning into the kiss, his hands anchoring in Casey’s hair as his shoulder blades came into contact with the cold wall of the shower. For once, he couldn’t think of anything to say; in fact, it was Casey talking, murmuring against his lips between kisses, curses and compliments and nonsense things. A floral, powdery smell rose from the hotel soap as Casey began to wash him off, his fingers taking every liberty they could, teasing his nipples, shaping the curve of his ass and sliding between his cheeks to play with him there. Laurel startled involuntarily at the touch, throwing his head back and accidentally banging it against the wall, and white spots danced behind his eyes and he almost laughed, feeling stupid and desperate and desperately stupid.

“Ow. Shit.”

“You’re so accident-prone.” Casey chucked, smoothing a strand of hair off his forehead. “Everything okay?”

“Yes. Don’t stop. Never stop.”

Casey gave him a careful kiss on the cheek, then another on the tip of his nose. His pupils were dilated, a heavy, intoxicated look in his eyes. “God,” he said, stroking a hand down Laurel’s chest. “Look at you.”

Laurel looked down at the soapy planes of their bodies, pressed against each other. Somehow he couldn’t get himself to care that his stomach wasn’t as flat as he wanted it to be, or that he had too many freckles and too much chest hair. All he saw was the melding of their hips and the intimate, obscene way Casey’s cock was trapped against his, and he let out a helpless curse and squeezed his eyes shut, slamming his mouth into Casey’s for another deep, devouring kiss, because he knew that if he kept looking, this would all be over too soon.

Casey maneuvered him back under the spray of the shower, water peppering Laurel’s back, his skin hot and already unbearably sensitive. He was turning him around, pressing soft little kisses to his shoulders and the nape of his neck, and Laurel caught his breath as he heard the bathtub creak, Casey sinking to his knees, and then his cheek and his palms were pressed against the humid, steamy fiberglass of the shower wall, holding himself up, and Casey was kissing his spine, his lower back.

“It’s so cute that you have these dimples here,” Casey muttered, running his thumb over one of them. Laurel sighed and relaxed into his touch. His thighs were trembling, and his hands had begun to slip, unable to find purchase, but Casey grabbed a firm hold of his hips, pushing him solidly against the wall, and Laurel let out a sweet, shuddering gasp as Casey nuzzled between his legs, kissing his way down the cleft of his ass.

Laurel lost himself for a moment. Galaxies were spinning in his brain, the tips of his fingers feeling fuzzy and numb, and he wasn’t sure he even knew how to breathe anymore, but he could count every stroke of Casey’s tongue, every wicked movement it made against his skin. There was nothing in his consciousness but the wet, melting sensation of Casey’s mouth and the shivery heat in his thighs and the way his every nerve sizzled as Casey licked into him. It could have been hours, or only seconds; he wasn’t sure. Time had turned glassy and meaningless, and he was barely aware of who he was or what he was doing, his hips moving on their own, thrusting back against Casey’s mouth. When Casey replaced his tongue with—some number of fingers, Laurel had no idea, but it felt just right—stretching him out, filling him up, he started making strange noises, hands squeaking against the wet fiberglass. He wanted more, though how there could be more when everything already felt so good, he wasn’t sure, and he was begging, saying Casey’s name over and over again. He was a shooting star, about to crash through the atmosphere, and he wanted Casey to crash with him.

“Casey. Baby.” God, was that his voice? So raw and needy and shameless? “I want—I want—”

“I know.” Casey was standing, and he kissed Laurel’s neck, and he was leading him out of the bathroom, droplets of water still clinging to both of their bodies, and Laurel had the brief thought that the shower was still going, but then Casey’s hand was on his lower back again, and Laurel was bent over the bed, open and vulnerable and delighted, and he assumed Casey had found the condoms because he heard the crinkle of foil, and God, it had been months, it had been dreams and sweat and fights and frustration and he had been craving this with every particle of his being, and he almost sobbed as Casey slid into him, a little too fast, a little painful and eager at first, taking the air out of his lungs and making him clutch the bedspread.

He must have made a noise, because Casey paused, thumb making slow circles on Laurel’s hip. He kissed Laurel’s hair, rubbing his nose against his scalp. “You okay?’ he asked.

“Yes!” Laurel almost shouted. No clever comebacks came to mind, just the red-hot need in his head, his body. All those years at Duke had apparently meant fucking nothing, because he couldn’t piece together any love sonnets or anything witty or anything at all except, “Yes—fucking—keep going.”

And Casey did, his nails digging into Laurel’s hip, breath hot against the back of his neck, the filthy slapping noise of their bodies as they moved together filling up the room, almost louder than the sound of the rain. Laurel’s dick was rutting against the bedspread, and his hair was in his eyes, the muscles in his back pulled taut, and when he came, it was almost a surprise, because he had already been immersed in pleasure for so long that it was like a dream without an end.

He turned his head, kissing what he could reach of Casey, his jaw, his neck, as the last paroxysms traveled through him, as Casey sucked in a breath and buried his face in Laurel’s hair and came, too, silently, his mouth open, his fingers laced through Laurel’s on the bed.