Page 29 of Road Trip

“That’s why you like me,” he said with a grin, and just like that the pieces fell into place and I had onehellof a personal revelation.

Ididlike Matt. A lot.

Enough that even when I’d had a girlfriend, Matt had still come first. Enough that if he threw stones at my window, I’d always answer. Enough that I’d agreed to drive across the country with him. Enough that when I found out Matt was gay because a guy had given Matt his number, my first reaction had been jealousy.

I liked him enough that I’d humped his ass in my sleep.

Maybe…maybe I didn’t just like Matt as a friend.

Maybe Ilikedhim. As in, I was attracted to him.

And I had no idea what the hell to do with new knowledge like that.

Our motel in Albuquerque was two stars, but they must have paid someone off to hold onto that second one. Okay, so I didn’t actually know the difference between one star and two stars, but you’d think the stray turd floating in the toilet should have brought the ranking down. I asked Matt if he was going to chronicle the floater and he told me to fuck off. Still, it flushed right down, and our room wasn’t a tent in the woods, so I guessed I couldn’t get too picky. And it sure had a lot more space than the back seat of a RAV4. Sleeping with ourlegs straight? That was probably what got a place a two-star rating.

Matt sat on the side of the bed and gave an experimental bounce, and nothing squeaked or rattled, which I took as a win. We were sharing a queen, which was what happened when you didn’t book in advance during the height of summer. It was fine. It was still more space than we’d had since the first night in a motel.

“I’m having a shower,” Matt said, ducking into the bathroom before I had time to say anything. I didn’t mind. It meant I had time to think about what I'd just discovered without Matt being right there next to me.

Or, you know, to intentionallynotthink about it.

I sent Mom a check-in text, then looked at Maps to see where the closest store was in case we needed middle-of-the-night snacks. Then I looked up laundromats because my bag was starting to smell like the one I’d used for gym class senior year. I pulled everything out and sniffed it, which proved to be a seriously bad idea. I didn’t know what I thought jamming my dirty clothes up to my face would achieve, but I was sure as hell never doing it again. I dumped all the laundry in one pile and kept a single slightly less offensive tee and pair of cargo shorts aside to change into. Underwear was overrated.

I heard the shower turn off and grabbed my toiletries bag, more ready than I'd ever been to stand under a stream of hot water and get clean. An image of Matt naked flashed through my mind and it was so dumb. Not the image, but the way these thoughts were crippling me. Like, I’d seen Matt naked before. Probably a bunch more times than I could remember since we’d known each other forever. But now that suddenly meant something. And not because he was gay but because I—well, I didn’t fucking know what I was, but there was something going on in my brain, and in my pants, that hadn’t been happening before.

This one time in class, our history teacher gave us a pop quiz and Layla just about hyperventilated because we’d spent thenight before making out instead of studying. “Aren’t you freaking out?” she’d asked me when we’d handed our papers back.

“What’s the point? We don’t know our results yet.”

This felt a little bit like that. I didn’t know yet if I’d passed or failed whatever test the universe had given me, but there was no point freaking out about it yet, right? Or maybe at all. Maybe I could just keep this to myself until we got to San Diego. Matt didn’t need to know.

Which was why I couldn’t explain what the fuck happened next.

“Oh shit,” Matt said as he stepped outside the bathroom, his towel slipping down to reveal the curve of his ass. “Sorry, dude. I’m not like—this isn’t.” He grabbed at the fabric and made the same disgusted noise he did when he accidentally tasted mushrooms—Matt hated mushrooms—and then rolled his eyes. “I’m not making a move, or coming onto you, or flashing my ass on purpose. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to be weird and forget you’re straight.”

All I had to do was keep my mouth shut. But I couldn’t. Instead, my gaze fixed on his, I opened my mouth and said, “But what if I wasn’t?”

Matt’s jaw dropped, and so did his towel.

CHAPTER

TEN

MATT

770 miles to go

Albuquerque, NM

What the fuck?

Had Jacob just said what I thought he’d said? As I stood there naked, color bloomed in Jacob’s cheeks but he didn’t look away.

“What?” I asked.

Smooth, Matt.

He drew a shaky breath. “What if I wasn’t? Completely straight, I mean.”

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