Authors: Mimsy Hale
“Ethan who?” Aiden asks, and then, “Oh my
god,
Ethan from the band?!”
Shamefaced, Jake nods, and Aiden bursts out laughing. “Shut up,” he grumbles, reaching up and punching Aiden’s shoulder.
Aiden’s laughter is already dying; he grabs Jake’s arm and brushes his lips across the inside of his wrist. “How did that even happen?”
“I went over to April’s and they were all jamming together,” Jake says. “All of us went to The Cannery, one drink turned into seven… the next thing I know, we’re in his parents’ basement and I’ve got him over his desk.”
“Wow. Okay. Okay, so that’s five.”
“Oh my god, I need a drink,” Jake moans, hiding his face in his hands. He takes a deep breath and continues. “All right. Next was Stefan—you know, the Serbian guy from Baxter House? Gave one
hell
of a blowjob. He just, um… didn’t have much of his own to work with.
“You know, come to think of it…” he trails off, retracing his missteps through that lost year without Aiden. “There were… four? Four guys after him that kind of all blur together, not that memorable. Then there was James Thompson—”
“Dairy Frost James Thompson?” Aiden interrupts.
“The very same.”
“He only came out last year.”
“Oh, I know,” Jake says, pursing his lips against a laugh and holding his hands up. “We ran into each other on campus, one thing led to another… he made the announcement the next day. I’m not saying I had anything to do with it, but…”
“I wonder how many other guys your dick has forced out of the closet,” Aiden muses, earning himself another punch on the shoulder. “That makes eleven, so… Pickup Line Guy was twelve?”
“Interrupted, remember?”
“Then who did I succeed?”
Jake swallows and mentally berates himself for admitting his number to Aiden on that balmy night back in Missouri. “Roberto Mancini.”
Aiden blanches, and his mouth drops open. “You fucked
Roberto Mancini?
As in, Roberto Mancini, the guy who almost sabotaged my entire internship proposal?”
Jake averts his eyes. “If it makes you feel any better, he was awful. He dragged me into the shower afterward and practically scrubbed us both raw because, and I quote, ‘We must wash off the sin.’ And then he tried to wash my fucking hair for me, so that was just… a wonderful experience all around.”
After a moment, he feels Aiden relax beneath him. A moment more, and he’s shaking with laughter. “Oh my god.
Oh my g
od.
”
In spite of himself, Jake soon joins in—Aiden’s infectious, booming belly laughs are too much to resist. When Jake finally catches his breath, he lets his longstanding curiosity get the better of him and says, “You never really told me, you know.”
“About what?”
“About Tyler. How was it?”
At that, Aiden sobers entirely. His eyebrows draw together and his expression darkens. “Nothing. It was just… nothing.”
Carefully, Jake asks, “And me?”
Meeting his gaze squarely, Aiden whispers, “Everything.”
“Oh,” Jake says. He lets his eyes slide toward the flames, lets the music wrap around him anew, lets everything fade except the pleasant buzz in his bloodstream. It’s too much—everything is too much these days. The weight of it all is terrifying, but then… but then there is something burning inside of him, too, something stirring, yearning to break free, and Jake only ever feels right when he lets some of it out. Some, but not too much; inches that still feel like miles. “You too, by the way. Out of everyone, it’s you.”
Aiden slides the tips of his fingers beneath the collar of Jake’s Henley and leans down over him. “See?”
“See what?” Jake breathes.
Aiden closes the last of the gap between them, and Jake closes his eyes—warmth and home and
yes—
and in the second before Aiden kisses him, he whispers, “I love your surprises.”
10,476 miles
Day Seventy-six: Idaho
Tentatively, Aiden ducks under the metal flap beneath which Jake is hunkered and crouches low. He surveys the ground around them. Jake’s tools are piled in a cluster next to him, and what looks uncomfortably like the guts of the RV are strewn haphazardly by his knees.
“Jakey?” he ventures, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans.
“Hand me that wrench,” comes the bitten-off reply.
Aiden watches the hem of his loose white T-shirt ripple in the breeze and ride up to expose a strip of freckled skin above the waistband of his jeans. If there weren’t more pressing matters at hand, he might be content to sit back and enjoy Jake doing his grease monkey routine. Unfortunately, however, there
are
more pressing matters at hand—namely the fact that the RV chugged and sputtered to a stop twenty minutes ago, and now they’re stranded next to an abandoned park just outside Roberts.
He puts the wrench into Jake’s waiting hand and asks, “Shouldn’t we just call Triple-A?”
Jake pauses, arms-deep in the inner workings of the RV, and levels Aiden with a raised eyebrow. “I wouldn’t call Triple-A before trying to diagnose the issue unless this thing caught on fire, Dan. At which point, we’d have much bigger problems anyway.”
“Just a suggestion,” Aiden says, hands raised. He sits to watch Jake work and runs his index finger back and forth under his bracelet.
“If I can’t fix whatever it is, then we’ll definitely need a professional,” Jake continues at length, his words punctuated by small grunts of exertion as he works to loosen something with the wrench. “I made sure that I knew every inch of this lady.”
“Son of an engineer, I guess.”
“What?”
“Your dad,” Aiden says. “Isn’t he the reason Charlie wanted to be an engineer?”
“Dad was a fisherman. You know that,” Jake says. His voice is tight. He reaches up to scratch his jaw and leaves a thin streak of grease painted onto his skin, like a scar risen to the surface, a protest and a reminder.
“Right, but he used to be an engineer,” Aiden says.
“He gave it up after Mom died, remember?” Jake says in a tone that doesn’t give an inch.
Deciding to play it safe, Aiden says, “So we know it isn’t a blown fuse. What else could it be?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure we ran out of gas, so…” Jake trails off, pausing again and breathing deeply as if to clear his head. He lets out a humorless laugh and says, “Maybe this
is
pointless.”
“How so?”
“I was thinking that it was a fractured float, but even if I’m right, I can’t fix it.” At Aiden’s obviously perplexed expression, Jake goes on, “The float is what sits in the gas tank and feeds back to the gauge. Floats expand and contract depending on the temperature, and we’ve been going from one extreme to the other.”
“Sounds like something that’d need replacing.”
“Yep. And it’s not like we just have one lying around.”
Aiden pushes up on his knees and pulls his phone from his pocket, but just as he finds the entry in his contacts, he hears an almighty, metallic clanging sound and suddenly Jake’s oil-slick fingers are wrapped around Aiden’s wrists, his grip as tight as a vise. Aiden looks up to see Jake’s eyes wide and desperate, and the plea in them makes him freeze.
“I can fix it,” Jake says, though even he doesn’t sound as if he believes it. He licks his lips and scoots closer. “I can fix it, Dan, I swear. I can… I can patch it or something, I—”
“Sweetheart,” Aiden interrupts, taken over by his need to soothe Jake even though he’s unsure exactly why Jake is this worked up.
As soon as his hand comes up to cup Jake’s cheek, the urgency seems to leach from him like a tide washing out before he gets his toes wet. Jake takes his hands away and drops them in his lap, looking down at them as if he doesn’t understand how they could have failed him. Dumbfounded, Aiden just looks at him, taking in the bow of his head, the rise of his shoulders and the flatness of his hair. Without its usual messy, upswept style, it makes Jake look all of fourteen again, when he wore it neatly combed to the side, parted an inch or so off-center.
Aiden worries his lip, watches the breeze lift strands of Jake’s hair and asks, “What’s going on? Ever since we crossed the state line you’ve been acting like you’re just trying to get us out of here as fast as you can.”
Jake sniffs harshly, and Aiden’s stomach drops like a stone.
You don’t cry,
he thinks, and then Jake looks up. His eyes are dry, and Aiden can breathe.
“Make the call,” Jake says, and now he’s back to avoiding Aiden’s eyes, bent double until he steps out from under the metal flap and brushes off the seat of his pants.
Aiden follows and walks around to the other side of the RV. As he speaks to the operator in stilted sentences and half-muddled words, giving their location and an idea of what the problem is, he feels as if he left his mind with Jake.
When Aiden comes back, Jake is looking out at the empty park, arms crossed over his chest, defeat clear in his hunched posture.
“They’re sending somebody out. Should be here in an hour, maybe less,” Aiden says, breaking the tense silence as gently as he can. “Do you wanna wait inside?”
Jake scuffs at the ground with the toe of his boot and shakes his head, but offers nothing further. It’s discomfiting. Aiden isn’t used to this Jake anymore; he thought they’d left him behind along with their teenage years. He hasn’t seen Jake like this since the months following his dad’s death, when there were times Aiden thought that beating his head against a wall would yield better results than trying to get more than two words out of Jake.
As he looks out at the park and watches a circular swing sway in the breeze, he remembers all the weekends they spent at the little place they discovered hidden away down at the end of Thomas Point Beach. It wasn’t much more than a clearing behind the tree line, but a tire swing was hung from the branch of a hundred-year-old oak tree, and they never saw anyone else there. To Aiden, it always seemed like an otherworld, so simple that it could have existed anywhere, and they always stayed for hours, messing around on the swing and climbing trees and healing. It was the place where
What Would We Film Here
was born, where they stashed candy—and, later, illicit magazines—in the hollow of that same oak tree; where they went when nowhere else made sense.
This forlorn little park looks nothing like Thomas Point, but nonetheless Aiden thinks,
Maybe.
Aiden burrows his fingers beneath Jake’s arm and takes him by the hand, ignoring Jake’s protests and leading him away from the RV— no one else is around this close to sunset, and the RV is locked up anyway. He guides them through the small, unlatched gate and over to the swing.
“Get in,” he says, motioning Jake forward and paying no heed to the half-sullen, half-puzzled look thrown his way.
The swing rocks back and forth as Jake climbs in. It’s not a tire, but a circular frame wrapped in blue plastic padding with a hammock-style bottom; still, it will do. Jake lies back without being prompted and Aiden moves around to his head, takes a deep breath and gives him a push.
“Did you know that potatoes were first planted in Idaho in 1837?” he asks.
Jake tilts his head back, and Aiden almost laughs; only Jake Valentine could arch one eyebrow while looking at someone upside down and still look formidable.
Because this is the way it has to happen, Aiden continues, “And did you know that potatoes are, like, the
perfect
food? You could eat nothing but spuds for the rest of your life and you’d still get all the nutrition you needed.”
It takes a full ten seconds, but it does happen: Jake looks at him and, in a completely flat voice, says, “Spuds.”
There it is,
Aiden thinks, grinning. “Welcome back.”
“I didn’t go anywhere, dork,” Jake mutters. “Don’t think I don’t know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it.”
“It isn’t going to work.”
“If you say so, sweetheart,” Aiden says, and pushes harder, until Jake’s head is almost level with his own every time he swings back.
The next—and final—stage is slow to begin. Aiden’s arms are starting to ache, but slowly, ever so slowly, Jake unfurls his arms and spreads them, at first gripping the sides of the swing and then, at long last, turning his palms to the sky. On the next push, Aiden sees that his eyes are closed—the signal to stop pushing and just let him swing. They figured all of this out so long ago, and it’s so beautifully familiar that it feels as if it could be any other Saturday back in Brunswick.. He moves away, leans up against one of the wooden beams of the structure and smiles as he watches Jake fly.
The air smells metallic, as if lightning is about to strike, but when the swing stops moving and Jake opens his eyes, Aiden forgets all about the darkening sky.
“Good flight?” he asks.
“Great flight,” Jake says, and then heaves himself over to the left side of the swing. “Get in.”
“I doubt that thing was built for one grown man, let alone two.”
“Please?”
Aiden complies. Somewhat awkwardly, they arrange themselves so that Jake is curled into Aiden’s chest. Aiden keeps one foot on the ground and gently rocks them back and forth.
“So… this part is new,” he says, because it is, and because he doesn’t know what to do next.
Jake chuckles, the sound like music, and twists around to look at him, his chin propped on Aiden’s chest. “Thank you.”
“Wanna tell me what’s going on up here?” Aiden asks, tapping Jake’s forehead.
“I never told you that Dad was from Idaho, did I?” Jake asks. He’s obviously reluctant to speak, but he’s doing it anyway, and Aiden feels a rush of pride.
“I guess you already knew about the potatoes, then,” he jokes, earning a small smile. “Didn’t you say that he and your mom met in South Carolina?”
“After my grandparents got divorced, he and Grandma Betty moved there,” Jake explains. “Anyway, it’s… being here, it’s—”
“It’s hard, I get it.”
“Yeah.”
“Is that why you…” Aiden trails off, gesturing in the direction of the RV.
“No, I—maybe? I don’t know,” Jake says in a rush. He takes a breath, his eyes flutter closed and in a near-whisper he chokes out, “I wanted to make him proud.”