Page 27 of Road Trip

We packed up our shit and once the RAV4 was loaded, we drove until we found a roadside diner that claimed to make “the best pancakes in Texas”—which seemed like a hell of a flex, but we stopped there for breakfast anyway. I’d already thrown a granola bar and a package of jerky at Matt to stop him gnawing his own arm off, but I knew I’d have to feed him properly if I didn’t want to spend the rest of the morning dealing with him being cranky as fuck.

We ordered pancakes and coffee, and our server seemed unable to look away from Matt, giving him her widest smile and calling him “hun” in a way that had my hackles rising and something dark and possessive twisting inside me like a knife—which, what the fuck?

Matt was oblivious until she left and I said, “See? You’ve got game.”

His brow creased in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s into you.”

Matt scrunched up his nose. “You’re full of shit. Nobody’s into me.”

“That gas station guy was,” I said, more sharply than I’d intended—and there it was again, a stab of something I didn't want to look at too closely.

Matt raised an eyebrow. “Danny’s a nice guy. Funny. And what was I meant to do the first time a cute guy offered me his number? Say no?”

Yes, I wanted to say.

But I didn’t. Because Matt hadn’t said a word when I’d started dating Layla. Although really, dating Layla hadn’t made much of a difference where me and Matt were concerned, had it? We were ride or die, like best friends were supposed to be.

Except we were riding to California together, but I’d be coming back alone.

The server came back with our pancakes and I had to admit they were impressive. Matt attacked his breakfast like he hadn’t eaten in an age, and when he let out a particularly filthy moan around his pancake, my dick twitched unexpectedly. My breath caught, and a mouthful of coffee went down the wrong way. I choked and sputtered and before I could blink Matt was beside me, slapping my back and telling me to breathe, like I’d simply forgotten and wasn’t gasping for air like a landed fish. I managed to drag in one breath and then another, and Matt stopped slapping me and rested his hand on the center of my back, his brow furrowed and his mouth a tight line, the way it got when he was really worried. “Bruh, you okay?”

I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand. “Fine,” I said, my voice rasping. “Went down wrong, that’s all.”

Matt’s hand rested on my back for a few more seconds before he stood and moved back to his side of the table. “Don’t die, okay?” he said. “I don’t wanna have to call your mom. She’s terrifying.”

I gave him a watery smile. “I’ll try not to. And my mom likes you.”

The look he gave me told me he wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t push the point. It didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t like Matt would be seeing my mom anytime soon. He’d be living his new life with his dad, and he wouldn’t need me, or my family.

I picked at my pancakes, my appetite disappearing as I thought about a life without Matt in it. Sure, we would have been apart anyway, what with me going to college, but this felt different. Permanent. This was a whole country between us, not just Chesapeake Bay, and I wasn’t a fan. At least almost choking had settled my dick down—although why the hell was my dick suddenly interested in Matt anyway?

Something wet and cold hit me in the middle of my forehead, making me jerk and pulling me out of my thoughts. I lifted mygaze and a blueberry slid down my face and landed on my plate. Matt grinned at me, another blueberry poised on his fork, ready to launch.

I narrowed my eyes at him and picked up my own fork and loaded it, but then I thought better of it. We were in public, and Mom had raised me better than that. I put my fork down and said, “What was that for?”

Matt shrugged. “You looked all sad and shit. Thought it would cheer you up.”

He was such an asshole. “How the fuck is that meant to cheer me up?”

He shrugged again and then, in typical Matt fashion, pulled out his phone and changed the subject, thumb flying over the screen. “So, you wanna stop in Albuquerque tonight?” He flipped the screen around to face me so I could see the list of budget motels he’d pulled up.

“Sure. Just pick somewhere that doesn’t mention bedbugs in the reviews.”

Matt snorted and took the phone back, spending the rest of breakfast scrolling through reviews and reading out bad ones for the cheaper places. Some of them were funny as hell, but there was no way we were staying at those places. Eventually, we settled on a place where the reviews didn’t suck and the price didn’t make me break out in a cold sweat. I was just glad we’d found somewhere half-decent, what with it being summer break. Matt wasn’t the only one looking forward to a decent night’s sleep.

We ducked into the diner restroom to freshen up, picked up a Coke and a Mountain Dew, and then we were ready to hit the road. When we reached the RAV4, I offered Matt the keys and his eyes lit up with excitement.

“Sweet. Driver picks the music,” he said with a wide grin. When Matt smiled, he lost that narrow-eyed, suspicious look he showed the rest of the world, and I loved the way it made hiswhole face transform. Matt smiling would always be one of my favorite sights.

I lifted my phone and snapped a pic of him grinning so I’d be able to look at it and think of him after he was gone.

“What are you doing?”

“Chronicling,” I said, deadpan. “In case you’re ever famous. ‘Place where Matt Landers smiled once, aged eighteen.’ They’ll probably put up a plaque or some shit.” I spun around so I was next to him, threw an arm over one shoulder, and took a selfie.

When I looked at the picture, my heart squeezed. Matt’s hair was a mess, there were dark rings under his eyes, and his shirt had a maple syrup stain from breakfast. I wasn’t much better—the main difference was that my stain was from a blueberry. Objectively, we looked like shit. But we were both beaming, and it was obvious we were having the time of our lives. A lump formed in my throat at the way Matt was leaning into my touch, like he wanted to be there. I had other photos with similar poses to this, but they were all with Layla. They werecouplesphotos.

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