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  Mom snorted derisively. “Come fall you’ll be making real money. No instant noodles for you.”

  The sodium-laced cheesy sauce turned to paste in my mouth. Fuck her. I happened to like instant noodles. And Landry. She didn’t like either.

  “Well.” There was the sound of nails on a keyboard. “I’ve sent you some e-mails that I need you to start taking a look at. There are fact sheets of my voting history and charity work. The campaigns I’ve helped to implement. I need you to be an expert on my history. That will be your main job as a member of the campaign team—the go-to man for facts on my career.”

  If Landry wasn’t in the RV, I might have driven it straight into a tree.

  “I know you know a lot of this already,” she continued, “which is why you’re best for the job and an invaluable part of the team, yes?”

  Was I supposed to answer? Maybe I could act like my battery died. And my e-mail was hacked. And I had decided to live off the grid for the rest of my life.

  “Justin?”

  “Yes, Mom,” I said automatically.

  She made a sound, something like a growl. “Please acknowledge you heard what I said and will check your e-mail.”

  I was a robot now. “I acknowledge what you said and I will check my e-mail.” Probably the day I arrived back home in Pennsylvania, but I wasn’t admitting that.

  “Right,” she said, her voice full of irritation, and I wondered if she could read my thoughts. “I also wanted to check in. Make sure you were all right. Please drive safe. And call if you need anything.”

  I glanced at the Saint Christopher medallion hanging from the rearview mirror with a leather cord. Dad said he was the patron saint of travelers, and his job was to watch over them, keep them safe, and help them find their way on their journey. He’d given me the necklace when I graduated high school. He’ll be with you when I can’t. Which was a lot.

  “Right, thanks,” I said into the phone to my mom.

  “Love you.”

  “You too, Mom.”

  When I hung up, I threw my phone over my shoulder behind me, listening for the thunk as it landed on the sofa cushions.

  I was surprised she hadn’t tried to talk me out of it. She was pissed when her ex-husband left me Sally, furious when he awarded me the possession of his cremated remains, and livid when I told her my cross-country plan to scatter his ashes. Each location was picked based on the latest calendar published by Charlie Akron—my dad.

  All she cared about was that I showed up in the fall, clean-cut in a suit, and straight, not that she knew there was any other option. Because that’s the kind of son who would help run his mother’s election campaign. That’s the kind of son I’d been, never wanting to disappoint her, yielding to her pressure to major in political science.

  So I’d kept quiet and closeted, unwilling to add “rogue gay son” to the top of her list of personal failures, next to divorce. And now I’d stayed silent too long. I was in too deep. If I gave in, told her who I was, who I wanted to be with, I’d not only lose her and a job, I’d hurt her conservative political campaign. So many times I wondered what would have happened if I took a different path. But I’d started this career decision in high school, and with every step, it had been harder to change course. And now, I couldn’t get off the damn train.

  I looked over at Landry, licking the tines of his fork.

  “So, how was the she-beast?”

  “Landry.” I sighed, but my voice lacked heat.

  “Come on, you usually laugh.”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t know. Same. Didn’t try to talk me out of it again, so that’s an improvement, I guess.”

  Landry picked at the frayed hem of his shorts. “She doesn’t get it. This is important.”

  It was. But only Landry understood that. Understood me.

  “Oh, and hey!” Landry clapped his hands together, cheeks flushed. Then he reached down and pulled his slim netbook out of a wooden basket nailed to the wall by his seat.

  “You still doing that?” I asked, feeling a mixture of embarrassment and elation that he cared enough to use his talents to blog our journey. We planned to take pictures of Dad’s urn at each location. Corny, but who the fuck cared?

  “Yes, Jus. I am. I know your teammates said it was ‘gay,’ and it probably totally is, but you know they’ll be checking it. Or getting their girlfriends to read it for them.”

  I laughed. Lan blew off my teammates and their comments. They didn’t understand our friendship, but I explained that we’d been friends since middle school. And when they saw Landry attend every game and cheer the loudest, they’d reluctantly accepted him into the fold. Plus, their girlfriends loved Landry. He was like a one-man chick magnet in that way gregarious gay guys were, so my teammates risked female scorn if they weren’t nice to him. Which held more power than my scorn.

  “Thanks, Lan.”

  “Will you quit thanking me?”

  “But all summer away from Jud—”

  He put his hand up to silence me. “Stop. I want to be here. He understands.” Lan didn’t even say his name, but that he was a kick to the balls. “Now shush, because Landry has a blog post to write.”

  He furrowed his brow and his lips parted in classic Landry Concentration Mode. So I shut up. And I focused on the road. And we flew with Sally through Oregon.

  ***

  May 12

  Just a quick note to let everyone know we are on our way. We left California this afternoon and are currently chugging our way through our own Oregon Trail. Thankfully we haven’t died of cholera or typhoid or measles. Thank God for vaccines. I wanted to shoot a bear for dinner but Justin said no. Buzzkill.

  I included a picture in this post of Sally. Isn’t she pretty? The only woman I’ll ever be in. Oh shoot, don’t tell Justin I just wrote that.

  Our first stop is the Charles W. Bingham Forest Learning Center at Mount St. Helens in Washington State. Mr. Akron took a beautiful shot of the volcano and an elk in the foreground. I don’t think we’ll be so lucky to see one of the beasts because of the season. I read that elk are more visible in the fall because that’s when they are getting all macho and fighting each other for females. So maybe I’ll layer one in with Photoshop (kidding).

  Okay, well, it’s starting to get dark and I need my beauty sleep. Good night, and hopefully next time I check in, we’ll have our first picture for you.

  0 Down

  12 To Go

  —L

  Comments

  Mia: Have a great trip, guys! Justin, quit being a buzzkill.

  Trenton: Katy said I had to comment. So, here’s my comment. Akron—you still keeping that arm in shape?

  Chase: Stay safe!

  Chapter Two

  I didn’t know what time it was as we approached the border into Washington State. I knew it was late. Grit coated my eyelids, my ass was sore, and my arms were like jelly from holding headstrong Sally on the road.

  Landry rolled his head to the side, yawning.

  “You could have slept. I wouldn’t have minded,” I told him.

  “No way. That’s Road Trip Buddy Rule Number One. I need to stay awake to keep you company.”

  “Rules were made to be broken, Lan.”

  He guffawed. “Oh really? Okay, Mr. Straight and Narrow.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What rule have you broken in your life?”

  “This is a stupid conversation,” I grumbled.

  Landry cocked his head, then shifted in his seat, a knee on the cushion so he faced me. Oh fuck, he was in hunter mode. I was in for a chase, a bullet between the eyes, and then grilling over an open flame.

  “Come on, seriously, Jus.”

  This conversation was a little déjà vu. Landry spent a
ll senior year of high school convincing me to apply to schools with prestigious photography programs. I hadn’t applied to them, but I’d looked. At the time, my dad was constantly on the road. He’d asked me to take care of my mom, and she was under a lot of stress as she campaigned for her second mayoral term. I was eighteen, still in denial about my attraction to Landry. So I’d committed to the major my mom wanted for me and to a straight and narrow path.

  I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to regret the decision.

  “Okay,” I said. “What kind of rules are we talking here? Like, a ‘Thou shall not steal’ rule? Or like, ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you’?”

  Lan nibbled on his bottom lip. “Something you did that was the opposite of what was expected of you.”

  He was trying to rile me up. This is how he’d been with me lately—antagonistic. “I refused to date her friend’s daughter.”

  Landry dropped his chin to his chest. “You still took her to that fund-raising campaign.”

  “But I didn’t date—”

  “And you let her grab your ass—”

  “Yeah, but—”

  Landry shuddered. “She wanted to unwrap you like a present.”

  “Landry.” I sighed, remembering the immature, handsy socialite.

  “That wasn’t a good example.”

  In that moment, I would have hated him if I didn’t love him. Because he knew what he was asking. He knew expectations were my guide in life, the carrot in front of me I never reached, but, like the definition of insanity, I tried anyway.

  “I know what you’re trying to do.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not trying to hide it.”

  “Can we forget—”

  “Just answer the—”

  “This trip!” I yelled, banging my hand on the steering wheel. To his credit, Lan didn’t even flinch. “This trip,” I repeated in a normal tone. “I stood up to her, told her I wouldn’t start the job until the fall. Told her I was taking this trip with you.”

  It’d taken me twenty-two years to stand up to her, but I’d done it. And this trip, my father’s legacy, meant everything to me.

  Landry wasn’t in the mood to hand out participation trophies, apparently. “But this fall, you’ll follow that rule handbook again, right?”

  “I’m going to do my job—”

  “Are you going to marry the person she picks, too?” His words chipped at my brain, shorting out wires as sparks flashed behind my eyes. “Some pretty, petite brunette from a good family, like Mia—”

  Why was he harping on this marriage thing? It’s like he suspected . . . “Drop. It.” My voice wasn’t me, it was some bitter monster. The boy beside me turned me into Mr. Hyde, but he was also the one who could turn me back into Dr. Jekyll.

  So when his faced softened, the monster receded, and I was just left with a headache from beating back the beast.

  “Okay, I’m sorry,” he said.

  “And Mia’s just a friend. I’ve told you that.” She was a year behind us in school, and we met during photography classes. She came on to me one time, at a party. And I rejected her advances as nicely as I could. She took it graciously, and then cocked her head, green eyes shining, and asked if we could be friends. I said yes, and never regretted it. She didn’t bug me about dating, and she never judged my relationship with Landry. I think she knew, in a way, what I didn’t have the balls to admit out loud.

  I sighed. “It’s okay, but . . . I’d like to spend this summer like the fall isn’t coming.” Like we used to be. “Is that okay? Can we do that?”

  Something shifted in Landry’s eyes, but then it was gone. He nodded haltingly. “Of course. We can do that, Justin.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered, drained.

  ***

  We passed into Washington and took one of the first exits off of I-5, to a rest stop in Sara. I parked the RV in the designated overnight parking lot, turned off Sally, and leaned back, rubbing my sandpaper eyes with the heels of my palms.

  I stumbled to the back of the RV to pee and brush my teeth. When I returned to the main cabin of the RV, Landry had pulled out the sofa to make the bed and had thrown on a sheet and two pillows. He flopped down on one side, wearing only a pair of boxers. He was so thin, having lost weight in the last year. I could see the definition of his back muscles and a few ribs. But my eyes were drawn to the two dimples in his lower back, just visible above his waistline, and I wanted to go right back into the bathroom and hide. Maybe I could sleep in the shower stall.

  “Um . . .”

  “Come on, Justin. Lay down. We have a big day tomorrow.”

  There were no other places to sleep in Sally. I knew that going into this trip, but now, facing the reality of sleeping with Landry, I didn’t know if I could do it. I couldn’t tell him I would sleep on the driver’s seat. That would just be weird. But this bed was barely bigger than a twin. And I didn’t know how I was going to sleep on it with him for three months. I’d slept next to him before, but we’d either been encased in our own sleeping bags or we’d been drunk off our asses and passed out.

  I stripped quickly, glad Landry’s face was turned away from me. And thankful I was so nervous that my dick hadn’t gotten the memo it’d be right next to another dick.

  Then I crawled under the covers next to him and lay on my stomach. He turned his head and in the dark, I could barely make out the slope of his nose, the jut of his chin. Fingers brushed my bicep and I squeezed my eyes shut. My dick got the memo now.

  “Tomorrow,” he whispered.

  “Yep, tomorrow,” I whispered back.

  Silence, then, “You doing okay?”

  “Yeah Lan, I am.” Or, I would be if he would just sleep.

  “Okay. Night, Jus.”

  “Night.”

  I’d slept in beds with girls a couple of times at the beginning of college, when I was still trying to pretend I was attracted to them. I had worried I’d elbow them in the head in my sleep, or kick them. I was aware of their soft breasts and hairless legs.

  But sleeping next to Landry, listening to his deep, masculine breaths as he slipped into sleep, was completely different. I wanted to roll into him, let him take my weight, brush our legs together, and touch foreheads, lips, hips.

  I didn’t know when this had all grown so big. I had thought I liked girls in middle school. Freshman year of high school, I started looking less and less at cleavage and cheerleaders’ asses and more at bulges in dudes’ pants and Landry’s ass in the little cross-country shorts he wore. Back when he laughed freely.

  And then it was only Landry. His smile and his legs and his hands and his laugh.

  He had a boyfriend, though, this Jud Cameron guy he’d met online in a chat room, who went to college in Los Angeles. I had never met him, which made me uneasy, but I saw his picture.

  I was better looking.

  Landry was happy. Jud seemed to treat him well. And in my mind, I pretended the boyfriend didn’t exist. It was easier than constantly feeling rage at someone else getting to be with Landry like I wanted to be. I’d asked him what Jud thought of our trip and Landry had brushed me off with a he’s not worried.

  And why should he be?

  Because I was a rule follower. And Landry was against the rules.

  ***

  I woke up with a hard-on from hell, inches from Landry’s left forearm where it wrapped around my waist, the swirls of blues, reds, and greens vivid against my undecorated skin. He was a stage-five clinger in his sleep. Always had been. But before I’d been able to get up and get away from him—leave the bedroom or house or fucking state depending on my situation below the belt.

  I didn’t have that option now.

  I scooted out from under him and shoved my pillow in his arms, which he promptly snuggled with a huff.

  Fucking adorabl
e.

  It was difficult to piss with a raging boner, but I managed to wrestle it into submission so I could whiz. That helped the rigid situation a little. I hopped in the shower and turned on the cold water, hoping it took care of this hard-on the rest of the way for me. But as I scrubbed the shampoo into my hair, I closed my eyes, imagining Landry’s breath along my face and his voice in my ear.

  See, I hadn’t gone there yet. I’d watched gay porn when I needed to get off, pointedly focusing on the guys in the video and not picturing Landry’s face.

  But now? Here? He was all I could picture as my soapy hand coasted down my chest and over my abs. I braced my right forearm on the wall of the shower in front of me as my left hand reached the trail of hair leading down to my cock.

  Then I took a deep breath and wrapped my fingers around the shaft. A small sound escaped my throat at the first tug and heat rushed through my body, sending spiky tingles down into my toes.

  Shit, I couldn’t let Landry hear this. I took a couple of steps forward and closed my teeth over the fist of my right hand to muffle any sounds.

  And then I stroked. And finally, while he was asleep feet away in another room, I let my mind go there. I pictured him with kiss-swollen lips and hair tangled in my fingers. I heard his moans. I felt his heat and hardness. What would it feel like? To hold him in my hand like I held myself now?

  I stroked hard, twisting when I reached my crown, then gathering more suds off of my body to maintain the slickness. I widened my legs more, thinking of Landry’s smile and glinting blue eyes. And the last thing I pictured as my orgasm roared through my body were his hands in place of mine.

  When my mind cleared, I panted, registering a pain in my hand. I unlocked my jaw and stared at the teeth marks in my fist. That would be fun to hide from Landry. How do you explain bite marks on your own fucking hand?

  Damn it.

  The water pounded on my back, and I reached around and turned it off. Hoping I left him some hot water. He’d kill me if I used everything in the tank.