Page 26 of Road Trip

JACOB

1056 miles to go

Amarillo, TX, to Albuquerque, NM

When I woke up, I was humping Matt’s ass.

I didn’t even realize what was happening at first. I just knew there was a body in front of me and what I was doing felt really good. It was only when I shuddered as my hips rocked forward, chasing contact, that I woke up enough for it to hit me that my dick was super hard—and I washumping Matt’s ass.

I froze, my heart pounding, and let out a long, shaky breath.

Fuck.

I was a confused mess of horny and terrified. I didn’t know what was happening, but I didn’t want it to stop. And sure, maybe I could blame that on instinct—sleep-humping was a thing, right?—but if that was the case, why wasn’t my dick going soft now that I was awake? And why did it feel so good holding Matt in my arms, so right? Why did I like being pressed up against him, burying my nose into the curve of his neck and inhaling his scent? Layla had been all soft curves and sweet perfumes, florals that were pleasant and inoffensive but unremarkable. Matt, though? Matt smelled like woodsmoke and sweat and day-old deodorant and underneath all that a hint of oceansalt, like Cape Charles was soaked into his very skin—and I washerefor it.

What the fuck wasthatabout?

As I lay there having a minor existential crisis, Matt made a sleepy, snuffly sound and exhaled loudly. I tensed but then he went lax and still, blissfully unaware of my dick pressing against his ass.

If Matt didn’t know what I’d done, maybe I could just pretend this had never happened. No harm, no foul, right? I inched backward as much as I could—which wasn’t very far, given how tight space was in the back seat—but at least I wasn’t actively attacking my best friend with my dick.

Wait. Was it an attack if neither of us was aware of what I’d been doing and I’d stopped almost right away? Did it even count?

If a dick got hard in a forest and there was nobody to see it, was it still morning wood?

Wow, I was full of deep questions today.

I was still mulling over what it meant that I’d gotten hard for my best friend—and why I wasn’t more weirded out by that—when Matt ground his ass back onto me, pressing against my still-hard dick. My hips flexed forward before I could stop myself, and Matt let out a low groan.

We both froze, but I could feel Matt’s heart pounding where I still had my arm draped over him, and from the way his breathing picked up, he was definitely awake. Shit. There was no way not to address this, right?

Wrong.

I’d forgotten that Matt was a champion at ignoring shit. He yawned, sat up, squinted at the sunlight that was streaming through the windshield, and said, “I’m gonna take a leak.” And then he opened the car door and got out, leaving me quietly grateful he hadn’t chosen to be an asshole about it. And sure, that might have been because I was his ride to California, but I preferred to think it was just Matt doing me a solid.

I waited a minute or two for my boner to go down, thenfollowed Matt out of the car and went and peed in the bushes. By the time I was done, Matt was emerging from our tent in a pair of shorts and an old tee that was stretched around the neckline and showed off his collarbones.

Not that I was looking at Matt’s collarbones.

“I don’t see that fucking skunk anywhere,” he said by way of greeting. It wasn’t the outragedhey, what the fuck was that, man?that I’d half been expecting—thiswasMatt we were talking about—and the tightness in my chest eased a little.

I took a couple of slow breaths before I answered him. “Yeah, they’re nocturnal.” Then I ducked into the tent and got dressed.

When I came out, Matt was sitting on the log next to the firepit, still yawning. “Hey,” he said, “so, here’s the thing.”

My mouth went dry. Shame and guilt washed over me. This was it. Matt was going to call me out on my shit. My stomach dropped at the specter of the awkward conversation we were about to have and the thought of more awkward silence as we drove all the way to San Diego, but I managed to croak out, “Yeah?”

He dragged the toe of his sneaker through the dirt. “I know we’re meant to be saving money, but fuck that. I need a break from camping. Can we stay somewhere with a bed and a shower tonight? Please?”

Relief flooded through me. “Yeah,” I said, almost too eagerly.

Matt raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you saying I stink?”

“No,” I said, face heating at the memory of Matt’s woodsmoke and ocean scent. He smelled fucking amazing. I wasn’t going to tell him that, though. Instead I said, “I’m the one who stinks.” I raised an arm to sniff my pits in demonstration and immediately regretted it. I was ripe with the acrid stench of fear sweat from our skunk encounter, underpinned with regular old sweat.

Matt snorted. “I wasn’t gonna say anything, but yeah. You’re not exactly a walking Yankee Candle.”

“Fuck you,” I said. As soon as the words were out, I wanted to swallow them back down. Could I still say that now? Or wouldMatt think I was hitting on him—or worse, making fun of him? I really didn’t care if Matt was gay, and I didn’t want him to think it made a difference or to regret telling me. But he didn’t take offense. He just shot me that crooked grin of his, and I breathed a little easier. We were gonna be fine.

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