Page 17 of Road Trip

This sucked.

It sucked because my dick hated me, and I hated my dick right back. It was going to ruin everything, and it didn’t even care. No, all that little fucker was interested in was the way Jacob was nestled up next to me. He radiated warmth and smelled of soap and skin, and being this close just made me want him more than I already did. So of course my dick decided that now was the ideal time to get hard.

Fuck that guy, seriously.

Jacob hadn’t been wrong—two yoga mats were more comfy than one—but I still couldn’t sleep, not with my dick throbbing in my shorts and my heart pounding in my chest as I prayed Jacob wouldn’t discover the raging boner that was currently a hair’s breadth from touching his ass.

I couldn’t exactly shuffle away. I was balanced on the edge of the mat as it was. And there definitely wasn't room to roll onto my back. So I was stuck lying there in boner limbo, hoping my hard-on would get the hint that nothing was happening, nothing was going to happen, and it might as well give up.

Sadly, my dick was as stubborn as me and showed no signs of flagging. I contemplated getting up and going to rub one out in the bathhouse, but I had no idea where my shoes were and I wasn’t going to walk across the campground barefoot in the dark with a stiff dick. That just seemed like asking for trouble. Like, it would be just my luck that a dick-loving bear would appear—and I didn’t mean the type from Grindr.

Jacob sighed in his sleep and moved his head, and the curls at the back of his head brushed my cheek. I stared at the blond strands for a long minute, wondering if he’d notice if I ran my fingers through them while he slept, and my dick chubbed up more at the thought.

Okay, no. Fuck this.

I huffed and rolled over so I was facing away from Jacob and lying halfway on the dirt, curled in on myself like a pill bug.

Jacob startled awake at the movement and a moment later a hand patted at my hip and down my thigh, searching. “What are you doing over there?”

“Can’t sleep with your fucking hair in my face,” I lied.

“Sorry.” There was movement behind me, and Jacob draped an arm around me and dragged me back onto the mats, then left his hand resting near my stomach. “Better?”

No, it was not better. It wassomuch worse.

Now I had the entire length of Jacob pressed against my back, and it was just as awesome as I’d always dreamed—except for the part where we weren’t dating and this wasn’t cuddling. It didn’t mean a thing.

Try telling that to my dick, though. It was under the impression progress had been made and was standing at attention like a good little soldier reporting for duty. I closed my eyes and took several slow, deep breaths. I really was tired, what with walking and swimming and setting up camp. Maybe if I lay here long enough, my dick would take the hint, and then I could get some sleep.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Jacob said the next morning when I stumbled into the bathhouse, and seriously, fuck him. How was he so bright and cheerful when I’d spent most of the night trying to ignore a boner? Which had been a huge fail, by the way. He dropped his toothbrush back in the fancy toiletry bag his parents had gotten him for college and said, “Let’s hit the road and get some breakfast! I’ll pack up the tent. See you back at the car in five?”

What, so now I wasn’t even allowed a nice long shower to tug one out?

Fuck him.

I grunted, clutching my towel in front of my dick, and shuffled toward one of the cubicles. Hell, maybe I’d jerk off after all and?—

An old man in shower shoes walked into the bathhouse, farted, and killed all thoughts of that.

I locked my cubicle door, undressed and turned the water on, and thought about drowning myself under the shower, but honestly, who had the energy for that on the zero amount of sleep I’d had? Not me. I spent a few minutes standing with my head tipped back under the water in an effort to feel more alive. It didn’t help much, but I managed to get myself clean before the hot water ran out. As I toweled myself dry, I tried to figure out how I was going to make it to California without humping Jacob’s leg in my sleep. If the worst happened, maybe I could pass it off as an automatic response to having someone near me. Sleep humping—like sleepwalking, only hornier.

Hell, at one point last night I’d thought I’d felt Jacob’s dick pressing against my ass—although that could have been wishful thinking. My point was it was a plausible cover story. I was going to come out to Jacob, but I wanted to do it on my own terms and not be incriminated by my misbehaving dick. The last thing Iwanted was for him to be weirded out or think I’d been staring at him while he slept or something.

Not that I needed to stare. I knew every inch of that face. The curve of his smile, the freckles scattered over his nose after a lifetime of summers spent outside, that tiny scar above his left eyebrow that was a souvenir from when Luke threw a rock at him that time. I knew his face as well as I knew my own.

I ignored the unhappy ache in my stomach as I got dressed and told myself I was just hungry and it had nothing to do with the fact I was thinking about how much I was going to miss Jacob once I was living in California with Dad. My new life was going to be perfect. It was going to be everything I’d ever wished for. Nobody in California would know I was trailer trash. I’d soak up the sun and connect with my dad in a way we’d never had a chance to before, and I’d get to be a part of a family. The only person I’d miss from my old life was Jacob, and he was going to college anyway, so there was nothing keeping me in Cape Charles.

Still, that unhappy ache intensified when I got back to our site and Jacob flashed me a bright smile as he shoved the tent into the back of the RAV4. Who else would ever look at me like that? Like they were glad to see me and not just resigned to it?

Yeah, okay, I definitely had the hungry sads. I shoved my stuff into the back of the RAV4 and got in the car. “How far until breakfast?”

Jacob shrugged. “I guess as soon as we see somewhere that’s decent?” He rummaged in his bag and pulled out my favorite type of granola bar and tossed it to me. “Here. I know you get cranky when you’re hungry.”

And just that small action, and him knowing that about me, immediately had me feeling better. Although that could also have been the granola.

After we found a gas station that sold breakfast burritos, we hit the road. I settled into the passenger seat and I was so tired I didn’t even give Jacob shit about his playlist. He gave me a sideways glance like he wanted to ask what was wrong—Jacob always knew when something was wrong—but in the end he didn’t say anything.

I spent the first part of the drive staring out the window, the miles of endless flat plains sending me into a daze, and at some point the daze must have turned into actual sleep because the next thing I knew Sleep Token was blasting, I had a crick in my neck, and the sun was high in the sky. I blinked myself awake and Jacob grinned at me. “Aw, is someone a sleepy panda?”

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