Chapter 13

Thirteen

Jacob

Well, now its pretty much guaranteed that Will thinks I'm an idiot , Jacob thought. They were halfway to Chicago, and stopping at a small diner along the way. Jacob had just essentially admitted to Will that he assumed he had been off hooking up with another guy the previous night. What kind of friend gets protective or possessive of another guy's hookups ? he wondered, afraid of what the answer might be.

They walked into the diner. It was quaint and small, but cute. They were sat by the hostess and browsed the menu. A few minutes later the waitress came.

"What can I get for you two?" she said. Jacob thought he could definitely hear a Midwestern accent coming through in her voice.

"Club sandwich for me," Will said, smiling and handing her the menu.

"I'll take the chicken tenders," Jacob said.

After the waitress walked away, Will laughed at Jacob.

"Chicken tenders, that is adorable. Used to be my go-to order as a kid," he said, smiling teasingly.

Jacob shrugged. "What can I say, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like what I like." He smiled.

Their food came in under five minutes, and they both started to devour it. Jacob felt a lot better after getting some real food inside him, but still was feeling a nagging regret over how pissy he had been earlier that morning.

"Will, I just gotta apologize for how I was earlier. I shouldn't have assumed you were out hooking up with that dude… and even if you were, it's none of my business." Jacob said, hoping Will would accept his apology. "I was honestly just kind of surprised you'd hang out with someone who seemed so… pretentious."

"Don't worry about it, Jacob," Will said, looking down at the table in front of them. "Like I said, Mark mentioned that he had gallery representation, and for an artist, that's hard to come by. It would be so amazing if I could figure out how to get my paintings or drawings into a gallery. Selling my work would be a dream come true," Will said, toying with his empty straw wrapper on the table.

"That makes sense. I guess I just assumed… well, I could tell that Mark was… you know… and he was good looking too, I guess, if you're into that look," Jacob said, stumbling over his words.

"Gay? You could tell he was gay?" Will added, laughing. "Yeah, you could see that from a mile away. But no, I'm definitely not interested in every gay guy. Probably not even most of them. Will rolled his straw wrapper into a little ball and put it into his empty straw. He blew air into the other side, shooting the little wrapper at Jacob's chest. Jacob smiled, looking down and shaking his head.

"But really, people have this idea of gay culture being super hookup-oriented. And it definitely can be. But it's not what I'm after, at all. I want a normal life just like everyone else… husband, nice house in a good neighborhood, kids. It's just that I can never be fully ‘the norm,' because I want that with another guy," Will said, shrugging. "And there's the whole how-do-I-make-money-as-an-artist thing, but that's a whole ‘nother topic," Will said with a laugh.

Jacob could tell this was important to Will. He felt guilty for assuming he'd hook up with Mark just because Mark was openly gay and also an artist.

"Well, I'm sorry again, Will. And you're right about Mark. He was an asshole. You're way too good for him anyway," Jacob said.

"Ohh, stop. You're gonna make me blush," Will said, and Jacob felt himself start to blush as he said it.

"You deserve better," Jacob added, despite himself. He looked down at the table and played with the wadded up straw wrapper in front of him.

"You all done over here?" came the waitresses voice, and Jacob and Will nodded. They paid at the front cash register, and went back out to the car, Will taking over for his shift of the drive. Jacob watched Will's hands and wrists on the wheel as he started up the car, thinking that they looked like his own, but just slightly smaller, daintier. Before he could look away, Will looked over at him and gave him that same irresistible smile, a smile that carried all the way up to his eyes.

Jacob was totally overwhelmed. That small smile, and Will's eyes, hit him like a brick; he felt like he had when Will had massaged him back in his apartment, wordless except for an aching desire. But right then, in the car, it wasn't as sexual, it was almost tender, and Jacob didn't care how weird it felt. He was glad to be in this car, on this trip with Will, glad that he had met him at all.

Will drove the rest of the way to Chicago. Jacob had turned on the music, sort of loud, because he was afraid he would say something dumb to Will if he didn't. Now that they were driving into Chicago's city limits, he turned the music down.

"So did you look up anything you wanted to do tonight in the city? My only requirement is that we must get Chicago hot dogs while we are here," Jacob said.

"Yes, absolutely we are getting Chicago dogs. I did find a couple things I wanna do, but it's a surprise. I'm not gonna give you any chance to get out of it or say no, so I'm just gonna drag you there."

Jacob felt nervous hearing Will say that. He wasn't very good with surprises, and always agonizingly tried to figure out what the surprise would be before it happened.

"You better not be planning to go out on the lake," Jacob said, grinning.

"Not quite," Will said, adding, "I'm not gonna tell you what it is, though, so you might as well stop trying!"

"You're devious," Jacob said.

"I know, I know, I'm eeeevil ," Will said, laughing.

Jacob shook his head.

In the Chicago traffic, it took them a good hour to get to their hotel, check in, and get ready to go back out. Around 4:00 pm, they were ready to go see what Will's surprise would be. They stepped out into the streets of Chicago for the first time.

"Okay, it's a little over a mile away. But this should be a really cool walk," Will said. They began to head south, crossing a river on a bridge. There were tall buildings everywhere . Jacob loved how they looked from the street level, but would be terrified to be at the top of any of them. His fear of heights had been an issue for him since he was a kid. He could stand at the top of tall buildings, but if he thought too hard about it, he freaked himself out and had to get away.

They kept walking, and Jacob thought that it really did feel like New York, at least in the area where they were. The glass buildings twinkled in the late afternoon light, and people rushed by on the sidewalks. Jacob and Will walked slowly, taking it all in, not in a rush to be anywhere.

"It feels so nice not to be on a schedule, no responsibilities," Jacob said. "After four years of school, this basically feels like a vacation."

"I know, it's pretty awesome. I'm so glad I came along instead of just flying to Arizona. I mean, we're just in the second city of our trip, and already it's totally worth it," Will said.

"I'm glad you could come, too," Jacob said, softly. He stopped himself, not wanting to admit how glad he was that Will was here. Jacob could have made this trip alone, but he would have been intensely lonely.

"I think we're getting close," Will said, looking down at the map on his cell phone. "Yeah, this should be it, right around the corner."

Jacob couldn't figure out what Will was talking about. They had turned onto another street that just seemed to be more tall business towers.

He followed Will, confused as he started to walk toward the entrance of one of the buildings. It was a huge skyscraper that said Willis Tower on the front entrance.

Will walked ahead of him. "Come on!" he said, calling to Jacob behind him.

"What are we doing in there?" Jacob asked, hesitant.

"You'll see," Will said.

They went in the lobby, and there were tons of other tourists inside. Jacob picked up a pamphlet from the front desk, as Will got in a long line in front of the elevator. Jacob opened the pamphlet and immediately got nervous.

"Oh no. Ohhhhhh no," he said.