Authors: Mimsy Hale
The man quickly averts his gaze and nods abruptly. Jake steps back; he does not need to see for himself to whom Aiden is speaking. He clears his throat and makes a show of wiping his dry eyes, biting his lip against the grin Aiden knows must be threatening to break free. It makes him feel somehow lighter, as if things are back to normal… as if he can do this.
“Come on,” Jake murmurs in a low voice, inclining his head toward the house.
“Gift shop?” Aiden asks knowingly.
“I’m sure it’s all gold and sparkly, and so tacky-fabulous that we’ll spend hours there.”
Aiden chuckles, motions for Jake to lead the way and says, “Let’s go.”
4,661 miles
Day Thirty-nine: Kentucky
“Holy
hell,”
Jake pants, collapsing against the pillows with a breathless laugh. The back of his hand drifts over the expanse of Aiden’s chest and keeps slow time with the mellow song playing in the background. Up until five seconds ago, he didn’t notice there was music playing. “Goddamn your no smoking in the RV rule, seriously.”
Aiden hums under his breath. His eyes slip closed as he says, “Don’t say anything. Just bask.”
Smiling lazily, Jake lets his gaze drift toward the ceiling and concentrates on getting his labored breathing under control. It feels like the only thing he
can
control these days; but the curious thing is, that doesn’t bother him as much as he would have expected.
The moment he decided to give himself over to Aiden back in Memphis, standing at Elvis’s grave of all places, things began to fall into place. He has already noticed how free they have become with one another.
Like we used to be,
he thinks,
only now, we’re more. And if we can’t be everything, at least we’re more.
“I believe, Mr. Valentine, that you promised to show me a good time tonight,” Aiden finally says, his words punctuated by a stretch of his arms over his head, a motion Jake follows with tired eyes.
“Forgive me, Mr. Calloway, but if what just happened isn’t a good time,” Jake says, shifting closer and capturing Aiden’s mouth in a firm kiss, “then I don’t know what is.”
“Come on, Jake. You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Aiden says, eyes shining even in the dim evening light.
“Hmm. Nope, can’t say that I do,” Jake replies, unable to hold back the grin creeping along the curve of his mouth.
“I have ways and means of making you talk, you know,” Aiden says slowly, and before Jake has the chance to put up a fight, Aiden rolls them over so that he straddles Jake’s hips. The thin sheet covering them slips away as Aiden leans forward and takes Jake’s wrists in his hands, stretching Jake’s arms above his head and holding them there. Their faces are mere inches apart and Aiden simply stays there, his warm breath fanning over Jake’s slightly parted lips.
Jake cranes upward to kiss him and Aiden pulls away, eyes still locked on Jake’s, stirring the puddle of fiery want in Jake’s belly again. He lets out something between a whimper and a groan.
“Okay, fine, you win,” he acquiesces, and when Aiden does nothing more than blink down at him, he wriggles a little in his grasp. “What, do you want it in writing?”
“No, I just didn’t think you’d cave so soon. I had a strategy,” Aiden says, and loosens his grip.
“Oh, a
strategy,
” Jake repeats, sitting up as Aiden climbs off him. “And what did this
strategy
involve?”
“Tickling you until you begged for mercy.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?” Aiden levels him with a fervent look.
Jake sighs in defeat. He sits up and swings his legs off the mattress, bends down in search of his underwear and asks, “So what kind of good time are you looking for?”
It is quiet for a moment, and then the mattress dips behind him and he feels Aiden’s bare chest press against his back and strong arms wrap around his shoulders. Aiden presses a kiss just behind his ear and announces, “You’re taking me dancing.”
“I am, huh?” Jake asks, and lets his eyes slip closed as he leans back into the embrace.
“Yep. Bar Complex. It’s downtown,” Aiden says.
Abruptly, the warmth of his body is gone as he clambers off the bed and walks to the closets. Jake tilts his head and watches as Aiden pulls out a fresh pair of underwear, feeling voyeuristic but not troubled by it as he would have been—and, admittedly, frequently was—at the beginning of the trip. Now, he enjoys the view, takes him in with appraising eyes: Aiden is as willowy as ever, but toned, and he holds himself differently, chin parallel to the ground and back straight. In this regard, Jake can’t hate London quite so much; Aiden struggled with body and confidence issues throughout high school and even college, and the fact that he came back to Jake as he is now makes Jake feel simultaneously proud of the man Aiden has grown into and a little bitter that he couldn’t watch him blossom.
Aiden catches him looking and shakes his ass from side to side. Jake laughs and finally pulls himself together enough to join him, bumping Aiden’s bare hip with his own. He separates himself from Aiden by opening one of the mirrored closet doors and beginning to pull outfit options, and behind the safe barrier of wood and glass, he lets his urges take over and mouths the words to the chorus of the song still playing by their messy, rumpled bed.
By the time they get
to Bar Complex, the dance floor is already heaving with people. Jake takes Aiden by the hand and leads him through the crowd; his pace matches the heavy, pulsing beat of the music. The song is winding up as he finds a spot and turns to Aiden, slips his hands to Aiden’s waist and pulls him close.
Just for a moment, Jake lets himself get lost; Aiden is pressed against him from chest to thigh, and his eyes drift closed. Just for a moment, everything slows: the ghostly drag of Aiden’s fingertips along Jake’s arms as he moves them to rest atop Jake’s shoulders; the rise and fall of Aiden’s chest against his, only thin layers of slate blue and blood red cloth separating them; the sensation of something slotting into place as Aiden grips his hips and brushes his lips over Jake’s collarbone. Just for a moment, he lets himself belong to Aiden completely.
Yet he’s grateful when the moment passes, the intensity of it close to overwhelming until he shakes his head and focuses on moving with Aiden to the beat of the next song, which he immediately recognizes from his early teens. Judging by Aiden’s grin as he wraps his arms around Jake’s waist and rocks him from side to side in a parody of a high school prom slow dance, he recognizes it, too.
Feeling bold—at least, bolder than he did within the confines of the RV—Jake points at Aiden and mouths along with the chorus.
“Where have I heard this before?” Aiden asks.
“Shaun’s party, freshman year of high school,” Jake says, close to his ear. “Remember when you were so excited that he invited you because you had that
huge
crush on him?”
“I didn’t—I hadn’t even come out freshman year!”
“That didn’t exactly stop you from spending the entire party mooning at him across his basement.”
“No, there’s no way that actually happened,” Aiden insists. He spins Jake out to face the crush of bodies around them and pulls him back, wrapping one arm around his waist and the other around his chest. Momentarily, Jake flashes on another club like this one, dancing with Aiden in front of a neon equalizer, words falling from his mouth quicker than he can register them.
Both of them are getting appreciative looks from the guys in their vicinity, but they all seem content to do nothing more than watch, and Jake gets the sense that this is the kind of place where, if you’ve got someone practically wrapped around you, you’re left alone.
Leaning back into Aiden and resting his head on his shoulder, he says, “You’re remembering it all wrong, you know. You had that huge crush on Shaun because he had, and I quote, ‘the
best
smile.’”
“Sweetheart, I didn’t have a crush on him. I had a crush on
you.”
Abruptly, Jake turns in Aiden’s arms and stares him down. He doesn’t believe him for a second. “That’s not funny.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
“You didn’t even know if I was gay!”
“What? Of course I did. Don’t you remember what I told you when you came out to me? That I’d known since the night of that party, when you couldn’t take your eyes off Tom from jazz band?”
“But you—you learned guitar so you could take over Tom’s spot after he graduated! I thought… wasn’t it just an excuse to spend more time with Shaun?”
Aiden shakes his head, his expression growing more serious by the second, and Jake can’t hold the gaze. The last line between them is still a fine one, and he has to walk it carefully. He drops his eyes to the front of Aiden’s shirt, where the flashing neon lights tint its crimson fabric every color there is.
“I learned guitar because you wouldn’t stop talking about how awesome guitarists were. I thought you liked Tom and I wanted to make you like me instead,” Aiden says. “And look how well
that
worked out. I
still
lost out to Brandon Flowers and Adam Levine, those assholes.”
Like air rushing in to fill a vacuum, the tension breaks and Jake bursts into laughter, burying his face in Aiden’s shoulder to keep from doubling over.
“So what did this crush of yours involve?” he asks when he finally catches his breath.
“We were fourteen, Jake,” Aiden says. “And besides, you never would have looked at me. You were always gorgeous, even back then. Totally out of
my
league.”
“One day, I’m gonna buy you a decent mirror,” Jake says, rolling his eyes. “Anyway. Tell me.”
It’s moments like this one, when Aiden looks at Jake through his thick eyelashes and smiles almost shyly—like he’s so pleased, like Jake just made his entire day—that remind Jake how very, very fine that last line is.
“Mainly, um…” Aiden trails off, and Jake looks at him expectantly. “Mainly taking you out for ice cream, holding hands with you… all that cutesy teenage stuff.”
“Back when you were still wearing your Ninja Turtles shirts?”
“Careful. I could totally break those out again.”
“Please, those shirts wouldn’t fit you now. Unless you were
trying
to look like a rent boy,” Jake muses, running his hands over the breadth of Aiden’s shoulders and trying to find the skinny, awkward little teenage boy he remembers beneath the flesh and musculature. He’s still there somewhere, buried far below the bravado and cracked façade, and while Jake doesn’t particularly miss the persistent confusion that comes with early youth, he misses how simple some things used to be.
Yet he wants to have this new thing and keep it, every look and touch and kiss, and
not
think about the indelible expiration date stamped on it. It seems too much like something he’s been waiting to discover his entire life.
“What, you don’t like that look?” Aiden teases, eliciting a fresh round of giggles.
“Well, I guess I could be persuaded,” Jake replies, and trails his hands down to Aiden’s waist to tug on his belt loops. “God, look at us. Look at
you.
We grew up.”
“We did.”
“And now we have this.”
“And this,” Aiden says, punctuating his words with a firm, fleeting kiss, “is much better than ice cream.”
Wrapping his arms tightly around Aiden’s neck, Jake returns the kiss, all open mouth and dipping tongue, his teeth nipping at Aiden’s bottom lip, leaving impressions of himself behind. The club is almost stiflingly hot, and sweat beads at his temples, but he pulls them deeper into the crowd. Later, when they’re danced out and he has let Aiden get him hard and drive him crazy with want, he’ll take Aiden by the hand, lead him out of the club and back to the RV. They’ll shed the layers of their history; and from the first touch to the last second before Jake succumbs to sleep, he will once again, for a brief time, let himself belong to Aiden completely.
And as one song fades into the next, beats seamlessly flowing together, lights pulsing in time and bodies packed tight and sweaty around them, Jake reminds himself of what he thought earlier, lying spent in bed next to Aiden:
If we can’t be everything, at least we’re more.
5,086 miles
Chapter Five
Day Forty: West Virginia
Aiden’s feet rest on the dashboard, the passenger seat tipped back as far as it will go, and he sings along under his breath to the chilled-out, happy song playing on the radio. The RV is parked at the Clark Pump-N-Shop in Huntington, and through the open driver’s side window, Aiden watches Jake paying for something—hopefully the Fruit Roll-Ups he says he’s been inexplicably craving since waking up.
Jake climbs in, swinging himself into the seat with a plastic bag dangling from his fingers. He tosses a brightly colored package into Aiden’s lap, and Aiden picks it up, regarding it curiously.
“Beef jerky?” he says.
“So much beef jerky,” Jake mutters, pushing his sunglasses up on top of his head. “There was almost an entire wall of it.”
“Did you get your Fruit Roll-Ups?”
“No, but I did get Swedish Fish, so that kind of makes up for it.”
“Swedish Fish make up for
everything.”
“And that’s why I got extra for you.”
“My hero,” Aiden says, feigning a swoon and earning himself a smile.
A moment settles between them in which they do nothing more than look at one another comfortably and without expectation. Just when Aiden has finally sunken into it, Jake gestures toward the radio and asks, “Can
you
drive,
darling?”
Aiden nods and pulls his seat upright, easily switching their places without either of them needing to step outside. It’s true that space is limited, but the RV still beats spending three and a half months in a car or an SUV.
It isn’t long before Aiden is merging back onto 64 and absently tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Jake briefly disappears into the back, and when he drops into his seat again, he holds a thick journal. It’s worn and weathered; the spine is cracked and the pastel green fabric is wearing thin at the corners, and Jake handles it with reverence.
“So I’ve been meaning to show this to you for a while,” he says. “And now probably isn’t the most opportune time, I know, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since this morning.”
“What is it?”
“It’s Mom’s art journal,” Jake says, turning it over in his hands. “Dad found it when he was cleaning out the attic a few weeks before the accident, and I guess he thought I should have it. He told me that whenever she was sad or stressed out, she would take out this book, sit in his chair and just draw for a while.”
Aiden smiles, imagining Daisy’s small frame, an island of warmth and color against the brown leather of William’s chair, her pencil moving in swift strokes and scratching, scratching, scratching. It doesn’t seem like a borrowed memory. “What kind of stuff did she draw?”
“There’s flowers, our house, some abstract stuff… everything, really. I got it out because ever since we went to see Nan, I’ve been thinking more about getting a tattoo. I figured maybe I could find some ideas in here, get one of her drawings tattooed on me or something. Anyway, I came across this one picture…” Jake trails off and flips the book open to a page he’s marked with a small, torn strip of paper. He leans across the space between them, holds the book just next to the steering wheel and gestures for Aiden to take it.
Eyes flicking between the time-yellowed pages of the book and the mostly clear road ahead, Aiden looks at the pencil drawing. It’s a startling likeness of two little boys, sitting next to one another on a couch and sharing a plate of what looks like carrot sticks and apple slices. One has light, neatly combed hair and sits with his legs crossed, clutching a stuffed animal. The other has a mess of long, dark, tousled hair and his legs dangle off the edge of the couch, one slightly raised as if he’s kicking his feet up and down. The boy with dark hair is gazing at the other with such a look of happiness and adulation that it makes Aiden’s breath catch in his chest. It’s them. It’s
him,
looking at his best friend—a real best friend, just like he’d always wanted—the one he adored from the moment they met.
“Oh my god, this is—”
“Aiden!”
His gaze shoots upward just in time to see a deer running out onto the highway; instinctively, he wrenches the steering wheel to the right and slams the brakes.
It isn’t anything like in the movies or the books. Nothing goes into slow motion; he only has time to react. They come to a screeching dead stop on the shoulder. Aiden’s heart races double time in his chest; his knuckles are white.
“Shit.
Shit!”
Jake says beside him.
Aiden scrubs a shaking hand over his face, flexes the other on the steering wheel as the engine idles. He swallows against the acrid burn at the back of his throat and blinks up at the ceiling of the cab, willing his eyes to stop stinging.
“Oh my god. Oh my
god,
Aiden, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, it was my fault, I’m—”
“It’s fine. Just… give me a minute.”
Slowly, Jake reaches across and unfurls Aiden’s fingers from the steering wheel, entwining them with his own instead. Aiden glances over and sees Jake’s other hand clutching tightly onto his Saint Christopher. They trade shaky smiles, and wordlessly switch places.
By the time they get
to the Fox Fire Campground in Milton, ominous rainclouds have swept away every last vestige of the sunlight that poured into the RV all afternoon, and Aiden’s hands are still shaking. Jake hasn’t said a word since they traded places, and at first, Aiden was grateful for a little silence in which to collect himself. But the longer it has stretched on, the more vivid his imagination has become, conjuring up multi-angle shots of wreckage and explosions and blood on the windshield.
The rain begins to fall just as Jake cuts the engine, and as the edge of his tension finally wears away, Aiden lets out a trembling sigh.
“Charlie texted me to say that Governor LePage signed an emergency declaration,” Jake says, glancing at his phone. He’s referring to the tropical storm that Aiden’s mom told him about when they were on the way to Graceland. It’s since been upgraded to a hurricane and given the name Sandy, and most people they know back in Brunswick have been in regular contact even though the authorities don’t anticipate nearly as much damage as is anticipated farther down the East Coast.
“They’re saying she’ll hit on Tuesday, right?” Aiden asks.
“Early on Tuesday, yes.”
Jake climbs out of his seat, pulls Aiden up and leads him to the chair just behind the cab. Then Jake kneels next to Aiden and reaches up to cup his face with both hands. For a moment neither of them moves a muscle, and then Jake pulls Aiden down into a bruisingly tight embrace.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers again when he pulls back, his eyes dark green and clouded with anxiety.
Aiden shakes his head. “Will you please kiss me?”
The rain pounds against the windshield, casting dappled shadows across Jake’s freckled skin that blur together as he leans to claim Aiden’s mouth. Aiden clasps his hands behind Jake’s head and pulls him closer, opening his mouth and tasting Jake’s surprised hum.
Aiden never sits in the chair behind the cab; he hates the feeling of the world coming at him sideways when he can barely deal with it head-on. But he can make an exception for Jake, who climbs on top of him to straddle his lap. The heat between them chases away the persistent, cold dread in his veins. Jake gives Aiden even more than he takes, slowly thrusting his hips down and lavishing attention on his neck, his fingertips digging into Aiden’s shoulders. A Ben Howard track from Aiden’s mellow playlist wraps him up in the easy sounds of a soft, steady guitar and an earthy, melodic voice singing of cold and shelter and coming home. Everything is sensual and slow, so slow.
Aiden doesn’t want slow. He wants—
needs—
fast, and lasting.
“Jake,” he begins, voice tailing into a moan as Jake sucks hard over his pulse point; the sharp burst of an ache under his skin spikes into a twist at the base of his spine. “Jake, fuck—
why
don’t we have any condoms?”
Jake all but freezes and pulls away slowly. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? We’ve sucked each other off how many times at this point?”
“What if I want you to fuck me?”
“I’ve been fucking you all week.”
“You know what I mean,” Aiden says, rolling his eyes even as a thought occurs to him. “Don’t you top anymore? Is that it?”
“No, I top. Exclusively, actually,” Jake says, and rubs a hand over his face. “I was just… surprised, is all.”
“Why?”
Jake pauses briefly, then climbs out of the chair and retrieves the plastic bag from the floor of the cab. Sheepishly, he pulls out a box of condoms and a small bottle of lubricant and holds them out for Aiden’s inspection. The golden yellow glow of the RV’s interior lights picks out a faint pink high on his cheekbones, and Aiden can’t help but let out a peal of laughter that settles warmly in his stomach.
He leans over to take Jake by the wrist and pull him back into his lap, and his hands rub over the jeans wrapped around his thighs. “Give it up. You’re inside my head, aren’t you?”
Jake ducks his head, grinning, and drops the items into Aiden’s lap.
“What took you so long?” Aiden asks, rocking his hips up and eliciting a pleasant hiss from Jake.
“Even after this past week, it’s still a big deal and I wanted it to be… I didn’t want it to mean nothing,” Jake says.
“It wouldn’t,” Aiden says, cupping Jake’s face and forcing his gaze upward. “It
doesn’t.”
Jake hums and leans in once more, but Aiden stops him with just the tips of his fingers, pressed to his chest. Voice firm and full of conviction, he says simply, “I want you to fuck me.”
“Okay.
Okay,”
Jake breathes, and surges forward to catch Aiden’s lips in a deep, plunging kiss.
They shed their clothes even more quickly than usual, only losing contact for a couple of seconds at a time, and Jake’s hands are everywhere, as if he’s trying to climb inside Aiden’s body and take up residence. This is Jake as Aiden has never experienced him: silently frantic and communicating only through breath and touch.
Somehow, in the process of climbing out of the chair to rid Aiden of his jeans and underwear, Jake stumbles and pulls them both down onto the floor, Aiden on top of him and breathing heavily.
“So graceful,” Jake mutters with an almost nervous giggle. “Probably a sign we should take this to the bedroom.”
Aiden shakes his head, eyes locked on Jake’s as he rocks down hard, biting his lip against a groan—the drag of his cock along Jake’s is imperfect friction, and so far from enough. “Fuck me right here.”
“Jesus, Aiden.” Jake hooks his leg around Aiden’s waist and flips them over, making fast work of grabbing for a chair cushion and sliding it, still warm, beneath Aiden’s hips.
And then, in a single, seemingly endless moment, Aiden looks up at Jake and takes stock of being spread out beneath him, waiting and wanting. He can feel pasts and futures colliding, annihilating each other until there is only this. It feels like coming home.
There’s no turning back, and Aiden will not falter. Jake kisses him while snaking long, slick, practiced fingers inside him, slowly coaxing Aiden open with whispers of encouragement breathed between slack lips.
It’s so different from what he remembers. With Tyler it was messy, fumbled, and ran the knife-edge between pleasure and pain. There were no reassuring words or careful motions. Tyler hadn’t been expecting a virgin, after all, and Aiden didn’t tell him until afterward—and he is a muddled, half-forgotten shade.
“Okay?” Jake asks as he finally draws his fingers out and away, and Aiden whines low in the back of his throat at the sudden emptiness. He shifts, scoots his hips forward and up, watches as Jake tears open a condom and rolls it on, his cock flushed and ready. Wordlessly, Jake winds his damp fingers behind Aiden’s knee and lifts his leg to rest on his shoulder, presses a softly smiling kiss to the skin of his ankle.
Aiden takes a deep breath and forces away the strain that courses through his veins, the clamoring for more, and nods; Jake begins to push into him and Aiden closes his eyes, focusing on the blunt, full pressure of Jake sinking farther and farther inside him in one long, smooth motion until Jake’s mouth is close enough for Aiden to lick his way into.
“Okay?” Jake asks again, eyes glassy, pupils blown.
“You’re sweet,” Aiden says, “but I really just need you to fuck me now. No holding back.”
Jake pauses, a quirk at the corners of his mouth and a challenge in his darkened eyes, and says, “You asked for it.”
With that, Jake pulls almost all the way out and drives quickly back in, his hips slamming into Aiden with a slap of skin on skin. The fullness is exquisite, and Aiden arches his back and scrabbles for purchase where there is none to be found. When Jake curls his arm around Aiden’s thigh and takes his dick in hand, stroking him hard again, a litany of half-formed words begins to fall from his mouth, eyes screwed shut as Jake fucks him over and over and over.
“
Aiden,
” Jake breathes, and hearing his own name is suddenly too much, the vowels stretched taut around them both, and Jake… Jake is some fire spirit made of heat cells that crack and break Aiden apart until he is reduced to nothing but this, this writhing, dizzy mess on the floor of his RV, every muscle drawn up and waiting on the brink.
“All week, ever since—fuck, I’ve wanted this all week…” he manages, and forces his eyes open because he has to see, to watch, to catalog this beautiful and all-too-fleeting moment.
His heart hammers in his chest and he can barely breathe; every time Jake moans and fills him up again he is as winded as if he’s just finished a sprint. Aiden chases his release, gaining ground with every twist of Jake’s hand on the upstroke. He’s
never
felt this wanted.
“Just… just a little—little more,” he pants, pleading as if Jake will deny him—but he doesn’t. His pace quickens, and strands of damp hair stick to his forehead.
Aiden comes with a broken-off jumble of a sound and Jake follows not two seconds later, shuddering and trembling, his teeth biting almost too hard into the flesh of Aiden’s calf. When he carefully pulls out, Aiden closes his eyes, blindly pulls Jake to his chest and tries not to feel the loss too keenly.