by Peter Styles
I didn’t really understand the thing in my chest that flipped and pulsed when Luke looked at me, but I knew it was there, and I knew it was real. I knew that this something could become the something, or the—I didn’t know.
I just knew that if Luke wasn’t willing to move past glaring at me in the office because of how I made him feel, then we were never going to have it. Not really.
I’d come out so long ago, it was difficult for me to remember that feeling; that pressure all around you, keeping you stifled. Sometimes the pressure was other people, sometimes yourself—it felt the same either way.
But still—Luke wasn’t being himself. Not like this. How could he be happy not being himself? Hiding this huge part of himself from so many people?
Was he ashamed? Embarrassed? I couldn’t work it out. How could Luke truly commit to anything, or anyone, if he was lying to himself and everyone around him?
The anger I felt was partially unjustified, and I knew that. But it grew just as strongly as if it was deserved. I looked away.
“You’re—angry?”
I couldn’t look at him. I hated the feeling inside of my chest, the one that was bubbling up and mad. I didn’t know when, during this trip I had switched into really, actively wanting something from Luke, but I did know that right now was when I felt it being taken away from me.
It stung. I was stinging, and Luke said my name twice before the stinging stopped hurting long enough for me to look at him.
His eyebrows were pinned together and his lips were pursed, turned down at the ends. He had the same look of concentration he’d wear during exams, when we had a meeting with a team leader. I didn’t understand what was going on, but it looked like Luke didn’t either, even though he desperately wanted to do well.
“How did you do it?” Luke asked. “How did you come out to your parents?”
I turned the TV off. Luke bit at his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth.
In a flash, the anger started to seep away. I retook his hand. I hadn’t even realized I’d dropped it. I cleared my throat.
“I was sixteen. I had just met Jeremy. I had known for years, but after meeting him—well, there wasn’t really any hiding it after that. I told my mom as soon as he asked me out.
“I got so excited I forgot to actually come out. I just told her I had a date with the most popular guy in school, and we went to the store and bought new pants.”
“New pants?” Luke looked surprised.
I shrugged. “I had a date. Needed to look nice.”
He let out a surprised laugh, and after a second, I laughed with him. “That’s so—uneventful.”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, yeah. It was uneventful, but it—it doesn’t have to be a big deal, you know? Gay people exist.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “Don’t turn this into an After-School Special.”
“I’m not—no, Luke, seriously, I just. I don’t get it, you know. You not wanting to say anything, and I don’t get it, but I can try. I will try. But for me, it just—I don’t know. I had a date, you know. I wanted to tell my mom.”
Luke looked at me hard, his green eyes burning in their search across my face. He looked away. “I—I’m not like that.”
“Like what?”
“Carefree.”
“Carefree?” I parroted.
Luke sighed. “I—I just mean. I don’t have that kind of—I’m not like that. You’re so put together, you’re so willing to just be.”
Luke huffed in frustration, struggling to get whatever he was trying to say out. “I’m jealous, I guess. I’m not like that.”
I considered what he’d said. And then I laughed. “Luke.” I scooted closer to him and gathered both of his hands.
“I’m not like that either. I don’t have it together. I just—can do what needs to be done. Life’s too short. And, hell. Maybe I need to be more like you.”
Luke surged across the remaining space and kissed me. He framed my face with his hands and kissed me, hard and sure and possessive in a way that had me rolling onto my back and tugging him down with me.
He kissed me until we were both breathless.
“I like this,” Luke said. His words came out a little breathy, too full of air, and he had his eyes closed. He hovered above me and licked his lips nervously. “I like this and I—I like you.”
He looked pained to say it. I grinned. “I like this, too.”
His eyes popped open. He looked nervous. I wondered if the flipping butterflies in my chest were the same as the ones in his; wondered if he felt as breathless as I did, just from the words that we had let out.
“Does this mean I have to be nice to you at work?” Luke asked.
I laughed, burying my face in his neck. I nipped at the skin there and pulled away to fake glare at him. “Hey, Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck off.”
“Okay,” Luke smiled and kissed me on the bridge of my nose before rolling off of me and turning the TV back on.
The sitcom was at the end, everyone smiling and laughing together. The laugh track wasn’t quite as annoying anymore.
He slipped his hand into mine, and I didn’t think about insecurities for the rest of the night.
12
Luke
The shower’s stream of steady water was highlighted by Max’s truly terrible voice as he belted out the worst rendition of Bon Jovi I’d ever heard. I winced, pulling the toothbrush out of my mouth.
“Please stop,” I begged for the hundredth time. Max didn’t even stick his head out from the shower curtain. He just sang louder.
I brushed my teeth quickly and tried to ignore the fact that Max was somehow walking the line of annoying and adorable so easily, I feared he’d stay on it forever.
I spat in the sink and rinsed out my toothbrush. I grabbed my jaw and moved it, squinting in the mirror. The five o’clock shadow I was sporting was getting closer to an actual beard—Max had woken up this morning with a genuine beard on his jaw, and as incredible as that looked on him, I wasn’t quite sure I was pulling it off.
Halfway through my contemplation, Max’s phone rang.
“Max,” I said. He didn’t stop singing. “Max, your phone.”
He sighed and his head popped out from the curtains. He had his hair spiked up with soap, some of it dripping near his closed eyes. “Just answer it! Unless it’s my mom. Then you better not answer it.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes, shaking my head when he started in on another verse of Dead or Alive. I left the bathroom and found his phone plugged in on the nightstand.
“Hi, this is Luke.”
“Uh, looking for Max. This is Mark. I’m his mechanic.”
“Oh, hi! I’m Max’s business partner. Is the car okay?” I sat on the bed.
“Oh, yes. The car is ready to go.”
“Awesome!” I covered the phone with my hand and called out, “Car’s done!”
Max whooped. The shower turned off.
“—and I had to admit, it was weird.” The mechanic was saying.
I frowned. “Wait, the car was weird?”
“Oh, no. The car was fine. It’s just that most people wouldn’t wait longer than necessary to fix the car.”
I wrinkled my nose. Max came out of the bathroom, one towel around his waist and the other scrubbing at the water in his hair. “I don’t get what you mean.”
Max mouthed What is it? I shrugged back at him.
“I gave your friend the option to order the part overnight or regular,” Mark clarified. “He chose the slow way.”
My head snapped up and I locked eyes with Max. He tilted his head in confusion.
The mechanic was still talking. “Anyway, I’ll have the car delivered to you now. Should be ten minutes.”
I swallowed. “Okay, thank you.”
I hung the phone up and carefully sat it on the nightstand. Max was watching me warily. “What happened?”
“Car’s ready,” I said.
He nodded, shoulders relaxing. He went over to grab his clothes. I watched him as he dressed.
He tugged on his jeans and slipped a t-shirt over his head. I played the mechanic’s words over in my head.
“Luke, man, what’s wrong?” Max frowned at me as he slid on his watch.
“Did you purposefully keep us here longer than we had to be?” I asked.
Max froze. It was just for a half-second, but after five days together, I could see it; the way his muscles locked before he had to manually relax. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” I stood up. “Did you?”
Max sighed. “I—didn’t pay for the overnight. Harris hadn’t approved it.”
“Bullshit,” I snapped. “You know as well as I do that Harris would have paid it.”
“Oh, do I now?”
“Is this some sort of trick?”
“A trick?” Max quirked his eyebrow, smiling, as if I was being ridiculous.
Anger pulsed through me with a vengeance. “Yes. Is it a trick? Are you trying to get me fired?”
“By waiting an extra two days? Come on; that’s ridiculous.”
“I am not ridiculous.” I closed the space between us in two strides. Max’s eyes widened.
“I didn’t say—” Max shook his head. “Besides, I’d be in just as much trouble as you.”
Sure, except that—I remembered the ease with which Max had convinced me he’d be the one to call Harris, explain the situation, had been handling all the correspondence with the boss. He’d always stepped outside when he’d done it, distracted me with whatever he had at hand when I worried about it. “I don’t believe you.”
“Luke—”
I turned away and started shoving my clothes into my duffle.
“Luke, what are you doing?”
I gritted my teeth. “Car will be here in five minutes. We’ve got work to do.”
Max’s hand closed around my shoulder. I jerked away.
“Listen, I can explain.”
“Fuck off, Max. Let’s just—get on with it.”
Max was silent, and then I heard his own duffle bag unzip and him mutter a quick, angry whatever.
I packed as hastily as I could, dropping the motel key on the bed for Max to deal with, and went outside to wait for the car.
My head was spinning. Max lied to me—even if he wasn’t trying to get me fired, even if he hadn’t been lying to Harris, which was hard enough to believe, he had been lying to me. Lies of omission were still lies, and everyone over the age of ten knew that.
My gut hurt. My stomach was twisting and turning, and my organs were in pain; my chest ached, too. I didn’t know exactly what it was that was hurting so badly, but I knew that I did not want to be feeling it right now.
With a start, I realized that I had trusted Max. I had trusted him, let my guard down, felt things, told him things, things that—whatever. It didn’t matter now.
It didn’t matter now, and I had been ridiculous to think for even a second that it had mattered then.
The car pulled up, followed by a truck. The mechanic wasn’t the guy I remembered seeing, but he let me sign the receipts, handed me the keys, and jumped into the truck.
I was in the passenger seat when Max came out of the motel lobby. He threw his bag in the back seat and closed the door gently. When he sat down, I looked out the window.
“Are you planning on ignoring me for the rest of forever, or just this drive?”
My teeth bit into my bottom lip to keep me from saying anything. Max huffed.
The radio played low tunes that not even Max had the energy to listen to. We drove quietly the rest of the way to LA.
We stopped for gas once; Max threw a bottle of water at me so hard I thought I’d have a bruise on my chest for the next week.
He opened his mouth as if to apologize. I looked away. He got back into the car quietly.
A low thrum of guilt was pushing its way up my throat. I knew I was being too unyielding, almost unnecessarily rude to him—but it hurt, the betrayal that Max hadn’t even discussed with me.
I tried to tell myself that Max would never actually lie—that he wouldn’t actually rat on me to Harris, especially when I had never done anything wrong. Except—did I know that? Really?
Five days with a guy who I’d previously thought hated me, whom I’d previously thought I hated … was that really enough to say for sure that I knew him? That I knew what he would or wouldn’t do for a promotion?
We pulled up at the offices where the package had to be delivered. Max offered to take it inside.
“Why, so you can make sure it gets back to Harris that I was slacking off with this, too?” I grabbed the package from the backseat. “I’ve got it.”
I delivered the package, shook hands with the clients, and called Harris quickly before I made my way back out to the car. He seemed surprised to be hearing from me, but glad that the package was delivered. I assured him we’d be back in the office on Monday.
Max was standing outside of the car, arms crossed over his chest and his ankles locked. He stood like this a lot, and the low thrum of desire I had become used to curled in my stomach at the sight.
His blue eyes were bright, locked on me as I walked across the parking lot. His hair was a wild mess, having dried right after the shower and then been tugged on for the whole drive up here. He hadn’t bothered shaving his beard.
I hated how badly I still wanted him.
My phone rang in my hand, starting me. “Fuck!”
Max smirked. I glared at him as I answered it quickly. “Hello?”
“Luke?” Grandma’s voice cut through the sexual tension easily.
I stopped in my tracks. “Grandma?” She sniffled. I frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Bill,” she said quietly. Her voice was wrong—too frail, too soft, too something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Grandpa? What happened?”
Max stood straighter. I looked away from him.
“Grandpa had a bit of a spell. He was—you know I always tell him to wait for you, but he wanted to get it done, and he was on one of those ladders, and he just fell.”
My heart slammed to a stop. “Is—is he okay?”
“He’s in the hospital,” she said. “You need to get home as soon as you can, Lukey.”
I waved at Max and started toward the car. He quickly got into the driver’s seat. “Grandma? It’s going to be okay. I’m on my way home right now. I’ll be there soon. You at the hospital?”
Max’s head whipped to me. I ignored him. Grandma let out a very quiet yes. “Call Betty or Carole, okay?” I said. “You need someone with you right now. I’ll be there soon.”
“Yes, yes, it’s okay. No need to worry.” Grandma didn’t sound very convincing.
“I’ll call you in a few hours. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Luke.”
Reluctantly, I hung up the phone. I buckled my seat and looked over; Max was driving fifty. “Surely you can go faster than this.”
Max’s eyebrows rose, but he stepped harder on the pedal and our speedometer sped up.
I didn’t know how long we’d been driving when I startled awake. I jumped, my head slamming on the top of the car. “Shit.” I rubbed my head and blinked awake, looking around. “Wait, are we stopping?”
The car was idling in a hotel parking lot. I looked at Max. He was blinking rapidly, his eyes bloodshot. “I—Luke, look, it’s four a.m., man. I did my best.”
“We can’t stop,” I said, feeling the panic start to rise. “Max! My grandpa is in the hospital. We can’t stop.”
“I’ve been driving for eleven hours.”
“Then I can drive!”
Max froze. After a second, I caught up.
My shoulders slumped. “I—okay. Okay. Okay, but just a few hours, right? I know—I mean, we gotta get back, so just a few hours?”
I chanced a glance at Max. He looked stuck. When he thawed, h
is eyes flickered across my face and he set his mouth in a determined line.
Very slowly, Max swallowed. His hand trembled as he lowered it to the seat buckle. “You can drive.”
My breath caught in my throat. “What?”
“You—it’s—you can drive. My car.” He reached over and clicked my own seat belt. I was too surprised to say anything about it.
“Max, I—” I didn’t know what to say.
Maybe: I know how big this is for you. Or this doesn’t change anything. Or For God’s sake, thank you.
We traded seats. I adjusted the seat, the mirrors, turned down the radio. I buckled my seat belt, and after I did so, Max scrambled to get his own done. He leaned far away from me, pressing to the door, his eyes glued on my hands as they went to the steering wheel.
“I’ll be safe,” I said.
Max swallowed. “It’s my car, so you better be.” His tone just missed breezy.
“Sleep, if you can. We can switch when you’re rested.”
Max nodded, a little too rapidly for me to believe he was okay, but I pushed the car into drive and slowly got back on the highway. It took nearly an hour, but eventually Max relaxed in his seat. By dawn, he had fallen asleep.
I wanted to shake him awake, to demand answers now that I had the time to sit on the anger and guilt and hurt that had been bubbling under my skin all day. But that didn’t matter—not right now, not anymore.
All that actually mattered was getting home.
13
Max
After nearly twenty-one hours in the car, with just a few stops at gas stations and sleeping while Luke drove, there was almost no sight quite as beautiful as the Welcome to Seattle sign.
I nearly cried when I passed it. Luke was asleep in the passenger seat next to me, having passed out as soon as we switched seats.
We’d barely said three words to each other since Luke had gotten the phone call. I had tried a few times, but his anger was intense, especially when coupled with his worry over his grandfather.
I’d tried to respect it. But now we were back in Seattle, and if I let Luke go without saying anything, I might never get the chance again.