Authors: Mimsy Hale
Could you capture me in four minutes?
he wonders idly, feeling himself drift toward sleep.
What about ten? Five hundred, twenty-five thousand? Would you have me for that long? Longer?
He comes around some time later, fuzzy-eyed and cotton-mouthed, his cheek pressed against Aiden’s chest. He can hear Aiden’s heartbeat, a steady
thump-thump
in his ear, and when he looks up, he sees a soft smile playing about Aiden’s lips. He has pulled the laptop onto the foot of the bed, and
Walk The Line
is paused at the very beginning of its opening scene: a gray, desolate shot of Folsom Prison in Represa, where one of Johnny Cash’s many legendary performances took place.
“What are you so happy about?” Jake asks, rubbing at his eyes.
“I just love movies like this. I mean, I know the story’s been changed and exaggerated in places, but still… we’re watching
history,”
Aiden says, picking at a loose thread on the comforter. “What if you met your soulmate but you were already with someone, like Johnny and June? Is there anything sadder? Someone’s heart’s going to get broken whatever you do.”
Jake swallows thickly, hearing that line from the movie playing in his head, and somewhere in that dark corner of his mind, he knows what Aiden is
really
asking. It’s what they do in this boundary-pushing pas de deux of theirs. But Jake can’t say it, can’t offer up his bleeding heart and ask Aiden to tell him he doesn’t love him, like the June to Jake’s Johnny.
“It’s sad,” he agrees. “But everything worked out for the best, in the end.”
“Right,” Aiden replies obliquely, and gestures toward the laptop. “Shall we?”
Jake nods, and taps the space bar with his foot. He shakes off Aiden’s words. They’ve decided to be happy with this—they made a deal, and Jake intends to hold up his end. Whether it is enough is a question to which he doesn’t need the answer, because… because being cradled against Aiden’s chest, wrapped up in his magic words and velvet heart with the afternoon light fading into dusk, Jake feels as complete as he can imagine feeling.
This is already enough.
7,028 miles
Chapter Seven
Day Sixty: Louisiana
“Okay,” Aiden says, setting everything down onto the blanket and sitting back. “We have beignets, we have hot cider and we have about fifteen minutes before we should start seeing them.”
“Merci beaucoup,”
Jake replies, his diction barely flawed, and accepts the small cup of cider that Aiden pours for him. Jake’s eyes remain on him as he sips, tipping his head back a little to expose the long column of his neck as he swallows.
Aiden licks his lips and busies himself in transferring their warm beignets to paper plates. A pleasant fizzle of anticipation simmers beneath his skin; all day, Jake has been throwing every single trick he possesses at him, as if he’s still trying to pay him back for Arkansas.
Which was unintentional. Mostly.
“We should come back here one day for Mardi Gras,” Jake muses absently, taking a bite of his beignet and glancing at the sky. Save for a few clouds lingering in the distance, it’s a crystal clear night—perfect for watching the Leonids as they skitter through the stars.
They aren’t the only ones sitting on the roof of an RV—it seems as though almost everyone in the Pontchartrain Landing Park is out tonight. The sites are all in a line overlooking the still waters of the marina, and the other campers are gathered in couples and groups, laughing and eating and listening to music.
They arrived at the park just after sunset, bellies full of creole jambalaya and crawfish étouffée from the French Quarter. People were already on top of their vehicles, singing raucously along to the dark, sultry
True Blood
theme playing from someone’s car, the girls all dropping their chins to hit the low notes. Jake took it all in with a barely concealed sigh and rolled his eyes when Aiden joined in.
Then they both heard mention of a meteor shower, and suddenly everything made sense.
“Wow,” Aiden says after taking a sip of his own cider. The apple and spices burst fruity and sharp over his tongue, and he licks his lips so as not to waste a single drop. “Can you get the recipe for this from Toby?”
“I think it’s his mom’s recipe, but I can ask,” Jake says. “It’s pretty special, right?”
“Let’s just say, I’m glad we got extra,” Aiden murmurs. He reaches out to thumb away a few specks of powdered sugar at the corner of Jake’s mouth. Eyes lingering on Jake’s, he sucks on the tip of his thumb.
“What are you doing?” Jake asks, exhaling. He wraps both hands around his cup and links his fingers.
“Exactly what you’ve been doing all day,” Aiden replies with a grin, just as the group of girls three vehicles away starts playing the
True Blood
theme for the third time this hour.
“Oh my god,” Jake mutters. “Is this a thing people just
do
in Louisiana?”
“Good news,” Aiden says, reaching into the pocket of his hoodie and producing his phone. He offers Jake one of the earbuds. “We also have music.”
“You’re my favorite,” Jake sing-songs, and Aiden smiles as he scrolls through his playlists, hitting play on the one titled “Mellow Magic.”
“Lie down,” he says. With a little maneuvering, they manage to arrange themselves so that they’re lying on their backs, stretched out in opposite directions, heads pillowed on each other’s shoulders as they look up at the sky and wait for the show to begin.
At least, Jake is looking up. Aiden is regarding the silhouette of Jake’s profile against the marina lights. The scent of his cologne still lingers faintly around his collar and coils into Aiden’s senses, wrapping him in a phantom of home.
They’ve been on the road for two months, with less than seven weeks to go. Aiden can almost hear the clock
tick-tick-ticking
their seconds away, and he wants more than anything for their road trip to go on far longer than another forty days if it means that they get to stay caught in this snow globe that they themselves shake, over and over and over until the slant of the land sends them sliding all too closely to the truth: This isn’t just a road trip thing.
“You’re going to miss it if you keep staring at me like that,” Jake says, shifting onto his side and propping himself on one elbow. “What’s got you so preoccupied?”
“Do you remember that night you drove us out to Coffin Pond?” Aiden asks after a moment.
“I drove us out to Coffin Pond lots of times, Dan. You might have to narrow it down a little.”
“The day you got your license,” Aiden clarifies. “When we saw the SWAN comet and named your car.”
“Odette! I miss that car,” Jake says wistfully. “What about it?”
“We’ve got less than seven weeks left,” Aiden says, and pauses to clear his throat. “Don’t you think it’s time we named the RV?”
Jake hums a little, reaches up to scratch the side of his jaw, and says, “I propose ‘Leona.’”
“Leona?”
“Odette for the SWAN, Leona for the Leonids.”
“Leona,” Aiden repeats, rolling it around in his mouth as he shifts to mirror Jake’s position.
“Do you think your grandfather would like that?” Jake asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” Aiden says. “Leona it is.”
“You’re going to make this a thing, aren’t you,” Jake grumbles with a long-suffering air. “Do I have to go get that bottle of champagne and smash it against the side?”
Aiden lets out a bark of laughter and, surroundings be damned, leans forward to press his lips to Jake’s.
“Aiden,” Jake whispers into his mouth, his hand cupping Aiden’s jaw so firmly that he doesn’t know whether Jake is pulling him closer or pushing him away. Eventually his patience wins out; Jake drops his elbow and pulls him over, giving in with a soft moan. The angle is awkward at first but Aiden makes it work, shifting so that he can part Jake’s lips and dip his tongue inside. He tastes like cider and sugar.
Tick-tick-tock,
he thinks.
Down counts the clock.
Loud cheers startle them apart, and Aiden looks up to see the first of the night’s meteors streak across the sky. What would he wish for, if he let himself wish? More time, of course, but that is a given. Or perhaps… perhaps not for more time. Perhaps instead, he would wish to
stop
time, right here and now, so that he could live suspended in this moment until he was ready to say, “Take me to the next place, and the next, and I’ll go wherever you want me to follow as long as my heart is in your hand and your hand is in mine.”
“Do you ever wish you could stop time?” Jake whispers.
Aiden glances down at him. “Mind reader.”
“One of my many talents.”
“If you could freeze-frame any moment from your life, which would it be?”
Jake considers the question for a long moment. “This one’s up there, but… I think I’d have to go with getting up on that stage in Ann Arbor. I could live in that one ‘til I’m old and gray.”
“You’ll never be old, Jakey,” Aiden assures him, and tries not to feel disappointed that Jake didn’t pick a moment featuring him.
“What, you think I plan on dying young? I have
way
too much visual magic to work in my lifetime, thank you very much,” Jake says primly, and loops an arm around Aiden’s neck. His blunt fingernails scratch just underneath Aiden’s jaw, and he asks, “Will you still be there, Band-Aids and all?”
“What do you mean?”
“You remember in
Benjamin Button,
when he was getting older but his body kept getting younger, until Daisy had to take care of him because he couldn’t take care of himself anymore?”
“Yes…”
“When I’m that old, will you still take care of me?”
“Well, I’m not—”
Aiden stutters and stops. He wants to make a joke, tell Jake that he’s not in love with him as Daisy was with Benjamin, but for the first time, it occurs to him that what he feels for Jake is way more than the adolescent love he thought it was—something that he’d grow out of, like a pair of sneakers. On the contrary, he realizes, this is something he has been growing into.
Nothing about the moment is remarkable, and yet everything is.
Is this—is
he—
it?
Aiden wonders numbly as he tries to trace it all back to something, some logical point that would explain how being a teenage boy infatuated with his flighty, amazing, unpredictable best friend had turned into something irrevocable. But he can’t—Jake has long since stolen his heart, and Aiden thinks that maybe it hasn’t ever really been his own, not since they were riding bikes to the end of Merrymeeting Road before even learning each other’s names.
His daze is broken when Jake taps the side of his head and says, “It’s a simple question,
mon ami.
What’s going on in there?”
At that, Aiden’s throat closes up for an entirely different reason. That word,
‘ami.’
A friend: all Aiden was before, and all he will go back to being after they return to Maine.
“Of course I would,” he finally replies in a bitten-off voice, and manages a tight smile. “Band-Aids and all.”
“Aw,” Jake says, and when he leans up to kiss Aiden again, it feels as if Jake has somehow reached past him and up into the ebony sky, stealing meteors to breathe into Aiden’s veins. When he pulls back, teeth nipping at Aiden’s bottom lip, he asks, “Are you cold?”
“Not really.”
“It’s chilly up here. Let’s go inside.”
Aiden nods silently and floats through packing up their cups and plates and blankets. Barely any of it even registers when all he can think is,
I love you.
Jake’s smile disappearing past the edge of the RV as he climbs down the ladder:
I love you.
Jake undressing them both inside the RV, his eyes a dark green storm, his smile faint as he pulls Aiden under the covers:
I love you so much.
Jake kissing him, just once, then pulling Aiden’s arm around his own shoulders and resting his head on Aiden’s chest:
God, I am
so
in love with you.
And I’m so fucked.
“What?” Jake asks, looking up at him. Aiden wants to punch himself in the face. “Why?”
“I’m just… exhausted. That’s all,” he says, rubbing at his eyes for effect.
Jake sits up suddenly, eyes sweeping Aiden’s bare arms and chest. “Dan, you—you’re
shivering;
are you sure you’re not cold?”
“I’m sure,” he replies, and it’s only as Jake’s gaze catches his own, lingering with a penetrating stare, that Aiden realizes his mistake. He keeps his face as impassive as he possibly can, but Jake’s eyes widen infinitesimally, and Aiden knows the game is lost—Jake has been telling him for years that his face reads like an open book in large print. There’s no way in hell that he hasn’t figured it out.
And yet, instead of bolting or simply turning away, as Aiden expects, Jake’s features rearrange into a small smile that doesn’t look at all forced. He leans over and presses a drawn-out kiss to the skin just over Aiden’s heart.
Why do you have to make it so easy?
“We should get some sleep. Long drive tomorrow,” Jake says, quietly puncturing the tension. He pulls himself into Aiden’s side and lays his head on Aiden’s shoulder, every point of contact a warm revelation.
“Yeah, okay,” Aiden murmurs, winding his arm around Jake’s shoulders. He holds on as tightly as he can, brings the moment closer, as complicated and fleeting as it is. With a sigh, he says, ‘“Night, then.”
“’Night, Dan.”
7,562 miles
Day Sixty-
two: Texas
“Okay, here goes,” Jake says, taking a deep breath and steeling himself. “I know you probably have a lot of questions and this is going against literally everything we said, but Aiden… I’m in love with you, and I think… I think you love me back. I don’t know what this means for us, and it’s probably the last thing—”
“Who are you talking to?”
Aiden opens the bathroom door and pokes his head inside, and Jake almost jumps out of his skin. “No one,” he says quickly, turning back to the mirror and making a show of checking his hair.
“You look fine, come on,” Aiden urges him, and grabs his hand to pull him from the bathroom.
“Just ‘fine?’” Jake asks breathlessly, tugging on Aiden’s hand. “Fine” definitely isn’t glowing enough to describe his outfit: a tightly fitting, seagrass green shirt that brings out his eyes; his white double-breasted leather jacket and mulberry purple jeans that hug his ass and thighs. Aiden stops, and Jake turns in a slow circle on his toes, looking at Aiden over his shoulder. “I think you can do much better than ‘fine,’ mister.”
“Jake,” Aiden begins, cupping his jaw, “you look about a hundred thousand times better than ‘fine,’ but if I spend too much longer staring at your ass in those jeans, we’ll be so late that by the time we get there the gig will be over. And April will be out for blood if that happens, sweetheart.”
And there it is again, that affectionate little nickname Aiden gave him that twists Jake’s stomach in a coil of rushing love. He leans down for a fleeting kiss, taking what no longer feels stolen, simply good and easy and right.
“Anyway, it’s not like you’ve said anything about
my
outfit,” Aiden chides him in mock-seriousness, and performs his own spin. “Well?”
Jake takes him in, in his pale gray swallow-print shirt, black leather jacket and cuffed dark-wash jeans. The shirt accents the breadth of his shoulders and the nip of his waist perfectly, and the jeans show off his toned thighs. It’s a good outfit, something that he might have worn in high school if he hadn’t been so obsessed with his comic book shirts.
“It’s kind of like high school you, but better,” Jake tells him. “You look really good.”
“Having jailbait dreams?” Aiden drawls.
Jake rolls his eyes. “Come on, Mister Punctual. Wouldn’t wanna be late, now would we?” With that reminder, he spins on his heel, grabs his phone and keys and sweeps out of the RV with an undeniable spring in his step.
Nothing is going to bring Jake down today, not even the fact that they’re parked at a Happy-Mart. He barely gives the sign a second glance as Aiden catches up and they stroll past, making their way into downtown Austin.