8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Logan

Day 1

By the time we reached Roanoke, we needed gas. While the Mustang was fun to drive, it ate up fuel. We used that break to go to the restroom and eat one of Mia's sandwiches before we hit the road again.

Driving along the western edge of Virginia was beautiful, with tall trees, woods, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was breathtaking. I wish I'd made plans to stay here, but there would be other mountains to see. Maybe next time I did this trip, I could take the northern route up to the Great Lakes and the Dakotas, down to Wyoming, and head south back to California.

"So…. How are Hunter and his mom?" Nick asked, breaking our blissfully peaceful silence. He'd been fairly quiet so far, and I enjoyed being left with my thoughts.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Fair enough. So, are you going to play football for the Bears?"

"No."

"Okaaaay… What are you going to be majoring in?"

"Why?"

"Dude, it's just a question."

"Whatever. Political science."

"Why are you majoring in that?"

I shrugged, not wanting to get into what my plans were with him. My goal had been to find a way to get through this trip without falling harder for him or killing him. The more I gave of myself, the closer we would get, which was the last thing I wanted. "It doesn't matter."

"What's your major malfunction? I couldn't be asking any more basic fucking questions. I literally know nothing about you, despite living in the same house for years."

"I don't feel like talking."

Nick scoffed and looked out the window, folding his arms over his chest. "Whatever, man. Fucking bite me. I'm like just trying to make conversation and three weeks is a long time to travel in silence."

"Not everything requires constant chatter."

"Constant? We've barely said a damn word for hours. Whatever, Not Brother ."

There was that dig again, reminding me of the walls I'd built to protect myself from him.

This would be a long trip if we just bickered or never said anything, and I did promise Dad to try to get along with Nick, but it would be at the expense of my heart. Being this close to him already, I could just sense that I was going to fuck up somehow, and he'd learn that I was gay. Even worse, he'd find out how I felt about him.

Stay in the closet where it's safe. Don't come out until you reach Berkeley, where you can safely be out in the open at a gay bar among others like you .

I had to keep reminding myself of that because the loneliness was all-consuming, especially being forced to live with Nick.

"Fine. I want to go work for U.S. AID. They do beneficial work across the globe for countries in need, and I'd get to travel the world."

"That's… unexpected and totally cool. It proves how little I know about you, other than you play football and are kind of a loner, which is a really odd combo, man… no offense."

That was a fair assessment. I wasn't as introverted as he thought, though I wasn't nearly as outgoing as he was. It was only another wall I built to protect myself. The fewer people who really knew me, the safer I was from bigotry and hatred. I'd overheard people talking at school, though it wasn't a lot. But mostly, you heard about shit on the news.

I just had it in my head that if I came out, I'd be mocked, ridiculed, or worse, like losing my family.

"So, after you graduate, you'll head back home and live in DC or something?"

I nodded as I read the sign to Kingsport, Tennessee, which told me we had one hundred and sixty miles to go. "That's the plan. How about you?" I asked just to not be a dick.

"For now, I'm going to get a business degree, but who knows? Things change. It's not exactly exciting, but it's a safe major. Playing professional tennis would be pretty cool, too. While I'm good, I don't think I'm that good, so that's never really been in the plans for me. But tennis has been a springboard to get me into Stanford."

In the five years we'd lived together, I'd never once seen him play, but since he got an athletic scholarship, I assumed he was decent.

Nick looked at me from behind sunglasses with a smirk on his face. "See how easy it is to talk?"

I rolled my eyes. "And you just had to fucking ruin it."

"Whatever, man. You're a major dweeb sometimes and can't even tell what a joke is. Anyway, I'm gonna take a nap. Wake me when we get there, then I'll take over driving after lunch."

He slipped on his Walkman headphones, grabbed a pillow from the back, and rested his head on it.

I grabbed my smokes from the dashboard and pushed in the car lighter. As soon as it popped, I pulled it out and lit up my cigarette while rolling down the window further. The car didn't have air conditioning, so it was gusty.

As Nick slept, my gaze kept drifting over to him. I generally tried not to look at him at all, afraid he'd see right through me, that my walls weren't as thick as I'd made them to be. Sometimes I couldn't help myself. But as he dozed, he wouldn't notice me staring at him.

He had a nice jawline with just a shadow of hair since he hadn't shaved this morning. I had more facial hair than he did. His nose was cute, too, and perfectly straight. As he slept with his lips parted, his bottom one was full and pouted.

He wore a white polo shirt, and my eyes wandered along his chest, traveling further down to his snug khaki shorts that hid nothing of his package, making my mouth literally water. I'd never dared to look at Nick between his legs before, imagining my mouth on him. Shit, that was a mistake. I yanked my eyes away, my growing boner making me shift in the seat, and focused on the road.

Playing football not only saved me from being outed as gay, but it had also been brutal, trying to keep my eyes away from the naked asses and dicks hanging out as we showered or changed in and out of our gear. But still, my eyes periodically strayed.

I looked over at Nick again. He'd been sleeping for nearly an hour. My hand had a mind of its own as I reached over and gently pressed the back of my hand across the warm skin of his bare arm before quickly removing it. It was the first time I'd willingly touched him without punching or shoving him.

Nick stirred, and I sat up straighter and took a drag off my cigarette, which was nearly burned down to the filter, before putting it out in the ashtray.

"Mmm, where are we?" he asked.

I coughed away my embarrassment. "About an hour away from Kingsport, Tennessee, and our next pit stop."

He stretched his long arms and yawned. God, I couldn't stop staring at him.

"Cool beans. I'm getting hungry."

My eyes glanced over at him again with this unfamiliar and strong urge to just blurt out my feelings for him. To tell him why I'd fought so hard against him and to forgive me. Instead, I squashed the temptation down and reeled my anger back in. It wasn't hard when I remembered what he'd done to Mom's record.

As my anger festered, so did the depression, which always came with the fear that I'd be alone for the rest of my life. The loneliness was perpetually suffocating.

"What's wrong?" Nick asked, yanking me out of my spiraling.

"What?"

"Dude, you look like you're about to strangle the steering wheel."

I looked down at my hands in their white-knuckled grip and relaxed, stretching my fingers. "It's nothing."

Even though I couldn't see Nick's chocolate-brown eyes with their thick lashes behind his sunglasses, I knew his look was dubious. I wouldn't have believed me either, but he could get over it.

"Jesus, whatever. As soon as we stop, we need to call home and let them know we're alive."

There hadn't been much to see in Kingsport, which was just as small as Vienna, with one theater, a couple of restaurants, and a gas station. While I filled up the car before we headed out after lunch, Nick hunted down a payphone to call our parents.

When he came back, I handed him the keys so he could drive. "I'm going to take a nap because I'm tired as hell."

Sitting in the passenger's seat, I opened up the Tennessee map. "Just head south on 26 until you reach 81 West. Keep taking that until it turns into 40 West. That will take us all the way to Nashville. Before we reach the city, we need to take 171 here and head south." I pointed at the road and surrounding area of the state park. "Just wake me if I'm still asleep once we get closer to Nashville."

Nick nodded. "Sounds easy enough."

I folded the map but kept it within Nick's reach, grabbed my pillow from the back, tucked it under my head, and leaned the seat back as far as it would go with all the shit we had in the backseat.

"Man, it's fucking hot today. This car is badass, but I miss the air-conditioning in my Escort. "

"Once we get on the road, it will be better with the wind coming in."

I shifted until I was comfortable and closed my eyes as Nick drove off toward our final destination for the day. We were making great time and would be there probably by four o'clock. I yawned once more before drifting off.

Long fingers drag my fallen bangs away from my face, waking me up from my nap. I'm groggy and disoriented for a moment before I see Nick smiling at me. He smiles a lot, and it lights up his entire face, making his dark eyes shine like stars in the night sky. He always complains about his ‘ boring' brown eyes, but they're anything but boring. They're beautiful, carrying the weight of his soul in them.

"We're almost there, sleepyhead."

I sit up, and my brow furrows as Nick trails the backs of his fingers across my face. "Did you have a good nap?"

"Uhm, yeah."

His hand travels down my neck, over my shoulder, across my chest until it reaches between my legs, where he cups my dick. I instantly grow hard.

"W-what are you doing?" I ask.

"I'm horny, and this trip is long. Let me play with you. Take it out."

I'm thoroughly confused, if not excited. Still, I'm reluctant. Why does Nick want me now?

"Come on… take him out."

"Are you sure?"

He snorted a laugh. "Duh, I'm always sure when it comes to your dick. If you let me play with yours, I'll let you play with mine." He winks at me and squeezes my nuts.

My heart is beating so fast, and while I'm still confused, I'm not going to waste this sudden shift between Nick and me. Whatever got him suddenly interested, I won't question it. Not yet, anyway.

"Okay," I say as I pop open the button of my jean shorts and pull the zipper down.

He's watching me and the road, back and forth, licking his lips. "Fuck yeah," he breathes and inches his hand through my underwear…

The sound of the horn startled me, and I sat up, wide awake, my heart hitting my chest so hard I struggled to breathe.

"Fucking asshole! Stay in your own lane!"

Once I realized it was a dream, I silently groaned in frustration and willed my boner away, shifting my body so Nick didn't notice.

God, that was so hot, too. It wasn't the first sex dream I'd had of him, but it'd never happened this close to him before.

My face burned as I stared out the window to hide my shame. "Where are we?"

"Sorry I woke you. Some dude swerved into my lane."

"It's fine."

"I saw signs for Nashville not long ago that said we have another sixty miles to go, so we'll be at the park soon."

"Awesome," I muttered, not really listening.

Fuck, this trip was going to be long if that kept happening in my dreams with him so near.

An hour later, we pulled into a convenience store and grabbed extra snacks and two one-gallon jugs of water for camp. Once loaded up, we drove as far as we could into the campgrounds before we had to hike the rest of the way. The car had to stay in the lot.

Nick and I grabbed our backpacks filled with a few clothes, camping gear, sleeping bags, and pillows. I carried the tent since I could carry more, and Nick carried a brown paper bag of food. We each took one end of the cooler and hiked our way to the campsite, which took about fifteen minutes.

The air was still and humid. Even with the shade of the dense woods, it was stifling.

As soon as we reached our secluded reserved spot, we unloaded and dropped the cooler, but before we could set up camp, Nick pulled off his shirt, exposing his lean but muscular frame, his smooth, olive skin glistening from sweat.

"I'm going to die if I don't cool off."

At the sight of his bare chest, my brain went directly to that dream I'd had in the car. God, I really needed to calm my libido down.

Nick suddenly grabbed my wrist and tugged. "Come on! Stop standing there like a dope."

My body thrummed with electricity at his touch, and I fought the itch to curl my fingers around his. Instead, I yanked out of his grasp and growled at him.

"Let go!"

His brows shot to his hairline, and he shook his head. "Dude… whatever, man. I'm going to get wet. It's hot as hell. Come on! Get in the lake with me, then we can set up the tent."

"Don't you want to get on your swim trunks first?"

"No time. It's hot !"

Nick shucked his shorts and ran off in his white briefs toward the water's edge. Then he removed those, too. Before he jumped into the lake, he turned around and waved at me to follow before diving in. I could see everything .

My heart stopped.

I think I died.

Nick was swimming naked.

All my thoughts went to my fingers exploring his smooth and strong body. Or jumping into that water with him, having him wrap his legs around me, his hard dick pressed up against my stomach…

This trip is going to fucking kill me.