Chapter 7: The Road Trip
The car ate up the highway, a two-lane thread of cracked asphalt stitching through endless fields of scrub and bleached grass. The wind roared through the open windows, a constant, drowning hum that made conversation something shouted. Matthew didn’t mind. He watched the telephone poles flick by like a metronome, his arm resting on the sill, the warm air whipping his hair into a frenzy.
Jake drove with one wrist draped over the steering wheel, his expression looser than Matthew had ever seen it. The tightness around his eyes had eased. He glanced over, a smirk playing on his lips. “Regretting your escape yet?”
“Not even a little!” Matthew yelled back.
“Good!”
An hour in, a faded sign appeared: Mabel’s Diner – 5 Miles. Jake caught Matthew’s eye and raised a brow. Matthew nodded. They pulled off the highway and onto a gravel lot, clouds of dust billowing behind them. The diner was a long, low-slung railcar of a building, its chrome trim rusting, neon sign dark in the afternoon sun.
The inside was cool and dim, smelling of old coffee and fryer grease. A ceiling fan turned lazily. An older waitress with a name tag that read ‘Florence’ nodded them toward a booth by the window, her eyes not even lingering on them. That anonymity was a potent drug. Here, they weren’t Saul’s son and Eleanor’s troubled boy. They were just two guys in a booth.
They slid in across from each other, their knees accidentally brushing beneath the Formica table. Neither moved away. The contact was a live wire, a secret contained in the dark space under the table.
Florence brought water and menus. Jake ordered a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake. Matthew got chicken-fried steak, because it felt like the kind of food you ate when you were playing hooky from your life.
“So,” Jake said, tracing a pattern in the condensation on his glass. “A whole day of freedom. What’s the fantasy?”
Matthew laughed, nervous. “I don’t know. This is pretty much it. Not being in that house.”
“Tell me about it.” Jake’s voice was low. He looked out the window at the shimmering heat rising from the gravel. “It’s like the walls are slowly closing in. Every question from Saul feels like a rivet being hammered into my coffin.”
“He’s worried,” Matthew offered, though the words felt insufficient.
“I know.” Jake sighed, picking at the edge of his paper placemat. “That’s what makes it worse. The disappointment is one thing. The worry… I can’t fix that.” He shook his head, as if clearing the thought. “Forget it. Today’s an amnesty day. No past, no future.”
Their food arrived. They ate mostly in silence, but it was a comfortable one, punctuated by the clink of cutlery and the distant sizzle from the kitchen. Matthew watched Jake meticulously arrange his french fries into a neat line before eating them one by one. The methodical precision of it was so Jake.
“What did you used to do?” Matthew asked suddenly, pushing his plate aside. “At Harvard, I mean. For fun. When you weren’t… you know.”
Jake leaned back, considering. His gaze turned inward. “There was an observatory. Open to students on clear Wednesday nights. I’d go sometimes.” A faint, genuine smile touched his lips. “I liked the constellations. The old stories were nonsense, of course. But the patterns… they were clean. Constant. A billion variables, and they still form something you can recognize. Something that’s stayed the same for thousands of years.” He took a slow sip of his shake. “It was quiet up there.”
Matthew’s heart ached. He pictured a younger Jake, wrapped in a coat against the Cambridge cold, eyes fixed on the cold light of stars, seeking order in the infinite. He pulled a clean napkin from the dispenser and, pulling a pen from his pocket, began to sketch. He drew the line of Jake’s profile as he looked out the diner window, the sharp angle of his nose, the deep set of his eye, the way his hair fell against his forehead. He added the suggestion of the window, and beyond it, not scrubland, but a scatter of stars.
He slid the napkin across the table.
Jake looked down. His expression didn’t change, but his breath caught, just a little. He stared at the drawing for a long moment, his finger hovering over the inky stars. “You see me like that?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
“I see you,” Matthew said simply.
Jake carefully folded the napkin, once, twice, and tucked it into the chest pocket of his shirt, right over his heart. He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t need to.
Florence brought the check. Jake paid with crumpled cash from his wallet, leaving the coins as a tip. Back in the car, the sun was beginning its slow descent, painting the sky in washes of orange and purple.
“One more stop,” Jake said, his voice charged with a new energy.
He drove for another twenty minutes, then turned onto an unmarked gravel road that climbed a gentle hill. They bounced along until the road ended at a wide, flat overlook. Below them, the land stretched out in a patchwork of fading greens and dusty browns, all the way to a hazy line that was the distant highway they’d left behind.
Jake killed the engine. The silence was immense, broken only by the chirp of crickets and the sigh of the wind through the dry grass.
He got out. Matthew followed.
They stood side-by-side at the edge, looking out. The world felt enormous, and they were the only two people in it. The secret between them expanded to fill the entire vista.
Jake turned to him. In the dying light, his eyes were black pools, unreadable. He reached out, his hand finding Matthew’s, their fingers intertwining. The contact was bold, exposed out here under the vast sky. It felt like a declaration.
“Matthew,” Jake said, just his name, and it was a question and an answer.
Then he pulled him in, and they were kissing. It wasn’t like the tentative kisses in the dark of a bedroom. This was hungry, charged with the electricity of the open air and the stolen day. Jake’s hands came up to frame Matthew’s face, his thumbs stroking his cheekbones. Matthew melted into it, his own hands fisting in the soft cotton of Jake’s t-shirt, pulling him closer until there was no space between them.
They kissed as the sun bled out over the edge of the world, painting them in liquid gold. They kissed until Matthew was dizzy with it, his lungs burning, every nerve ending singing. Jake’s mouth traveled from his lips to his jaw, down the sensitive column of his throat, and Matthew gasped, his head falling back, offering more.
Jake made a low, rough sound against his skin. He pulled back suddenly, his chest heaving, resting his forehead against Matthew’s. His eyes were squeezed shut. “We have to stop,” he breathed, but his hands were still gripping Matthew’s hips.
“Why?” Matthew whispered, drunk on the feeling.
“Because if we don’t stop now,” Jake said, opening his eyes, the struggle plain in them, “I’m not going to be able to. And you said slow. You said slow, and I promised.” He said it like a mantra, a wall he was building against a tide.
The rationality of it was a splash of cold water. Matthew nodded, his own breathing ragged. He leaned into Jake, burying his face in the hollow of his neck, just holding on as the colors deepened to violet and the first defiant stars pricked through the canopy above.
“This is going to be impossible,” Matthew murmured into his skin.
Jake’s arms wrapped tightly around him. “I know.”
They stood like that in the gathering dark, the engine ticks of the cooling car the only other sound. The headlights of a single car, miles away, traced a lonely line across the landscape. A reminder that the world, and all its complications, was still out there.
“We should go back,” Jake finally said, his voice thick.
The drive home was silent, the radio off. The magic of the overlook still clung to them, but now it was mixed with the dread of re-entry. The darkened highway was a tunnel leading back to reality.
As they turned onto their street, the familiar houses lining up like sentinels, Jake reached over and took Matthew’s hand once more. He squeezed it, hard. “Amnesty day is over,” he said, his tone attempting lightness and failing.
Matthew squeezed back. “It was a good day.”
Jake pulled into the driveway. The house was dark except for the porch light, left on for them. It looked different now. It looked like a container for a secret that was suddenly too big, too bright, to possibly be contained by its walls.
They sat in the idle car for a minute, listening to it ping.
“We just walk in,” Jake said, more to himself than to Matthew. “We say we went for a drive. We say we got burgers. We go to our separate rooms.”
Matthew’s heart hammered against his ribs. The distance from the passenger seat to the front door felt like a chasm. “Okay,” he said.
They got out. The sound of their car doors closing was like two gunshots in the quiet suburban night.
The sound of their car doors closing was like two gunshots in the quiet suburban night. Then the porch light seemed to brighten, a luminous trap snapping shut. The front door swung open before they reached it, framing Eleanor in a rectangle of yellow kitchen light. She held a wooden spoon, a smudge of something red on her apron.
“There you are!” she said, her voice a forced brightness that didn’t mask the relief. “I was starting to wonder. Come in, come in. I made lasagna.”
The house smelled of garlic, baked cheese, and underlying tension. Saul sat at the dining table, reading glasses perched on his nose, a file folder open beside his plate. He looked up as they entered, his gaze sweeping over them with methodical assessment.
“You boys get lost?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral.
“Just drove,” Jake said, hanging his keys on the hook by the door. His voice was smooth, a practiced calm. “Went out to the old quarry overlook. The view’s good at sunset.”
“That’s wonderful,” Eleanor said, bustling back to the stove. She shot a warm, genuine smile at both of them. “It’s so nice you’re spending time together. Really, it is.” Her pleasure seemed to fill the kitchen, a soft, hopeful cloud.
Saul closed the folder and removed his glasses. “Hmm. Good view, sure. Productive use of an afternoon?” He speared a piece of garlic bread.
Matthew felt Jake stiffen beside him. “It was productive for my sanity, Saul,” Jake said, but he said it with a tempered smile, pulling out a chair. “Consider it preventative maintenance.”
Eleanor laughed, a little too quickly, and brought the heavy pan to the table. “Sit, eat. I want to hear about it.”
Dinner was a delicate performance. Matthew talked about the dusty diner, the surprisingly good pie. Jake described the changing colors of the sky, his words deliberately simple. Their knees did not touch under the table. They were careful not to look at each other for too long. Eleanor beamed, passing the salad.
“It just makes me happy,” she said, reaching over to pat Jake’s hand. “After everything, to see you connecting here, with family. It’s what I hoped for.”
Saul chewed slowly, watching the exchange. His skepticism was a quiet, humming frequency in the room. He swallowed, took a sip of water. “Well, while we’re on the topic of moving forward,” he began, setting his glass down with precise finality. “Your mother and I leave for Cancun at six a.m. tomorrow. The client conference is all week.”
Eleanor’s smile tightened at the edges. “Saul…”
“It’s fine, Mom,” Jake said, looking directly at his stepfather. His face was a placid mask. “You enjoy the beach. I’ll hold down the fort.”
“That’s the spirit,” Saul said, though his voice lacked conviction. “And while we’re gone, I expect you to use the time. Make those calls. Line up that interview at the bookstore. Have a concrete plan to discuss when we get back. A real one.”
The words ‘real one’ hung in the air, sharp as ice chips. Eleanor gave Jake a worried glance, her knuckles white around her fork.
Jake just nodded, scooping up another bite of lasagna. “Concrete plan. Got it.” His compliance was so effortless it felt more dangerous than defiance.
Saul studied him for another moment, then seemed to accept it. The conversation limped onward to flight times and house security. The meal ended. Jake stood, taking his plate to the sink.
“Long day,” he said, his voice drained of all its earlier color. “I’m gonna turn in. Night, Mom. Saul.” He didn’t look at Matthew as he walked out. The staircase creaked under his weight.
Eleanor began clearing plates, her movements hurried. “I still have packing to do,” she murmured, escaping to the kitchen.
Saul waited until the water was running. He turned his steady gaze on Matthew. “Come help me check the locks on the sunroom.”
It wasn’t a request. Matthew followed him through the quiet house, the air in the sunroom still and warm from the day’s heat. Saul tested the latch on the French door, then turned, crossing his arms.
“What’s really going on, Matthew?” he asked, his voice low and direct. “You and Jake. This sudden… camaraderie.”
Matthew’s heart thumped against his ribs. “It’s not sudden. We’re just getting to know each other. He’s interesting.” The words sounded pathetic even to him.
“Interesting,” Saul repeated, unblinking. “He’s complicated, Matthew. He’s got a lot of baggage. A lot of problems he doesn’t seem keen on solving.” He leaned in slightly. “I don’t want you getting… derailed. You have a clear path. A brilliant future. I just got you back on track after your mother…” He stopped, unable to finish the old sentence.
A hot spark of anger ignited in Matthew’s chest. “You think Jake’s a bad influence.”
“I think he’s adrift,” Saul corrected, though his meaning was clear. “And adrift people sometimes pull others down with them. Just focus on your future. Let Jake find his own way. Give him some space.”
The image of Jake folding the star-filled napkin into his pocket flashed behind Matthew’s eyes. The feel of his lips on Matthew’s throat under the vast, open sky. The hollow sound in Jake’s voice when he talked about his coffin.
“You don’t know him at all,” Matthew said, the words quiet but fierce. “You see the dropout. You don’t see the person. He’s brilliant, dad. And he’s kind, underneath all the crap he’s been through. He doesn’t deserve you treating him like a contaminant.”
Saul’s expression shifted, surprise flickering through the sternness. He took a half-step back, his posture loosening. He studied his son’s face—the flush on his cheeks, the unfamiliar defiance in his eyes.
“I’m not trying to… contaminate you,” Saul said, his voice finally softening into something weary. “I’m trying to protect you. I just need to know you’re staying on your path.”
“My path is fine,” Matthew said, the fight draining out of him, leaving a trembling exhaustion. “I’m not going to flunk out because I had a burger with my stepbrother.”
Saul held his gaze for a long moment, then finally nodded, conceding the battle but not the war. “Okay. Okay, Matthew.” He clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, gave it a brief squeeze. “Go get some sleep.”
Matthew retreated upstairs, the confrontation buzzing in his veins. He passed Jake’s closed door, a slash of yellow light visible underneath. He didn’t knock. He went into his own room and closed the door, leaning against it.
The house gradually settled into the deep silence of night. Muffled voices came from his parents’ room, then the click of their light. The central air sighed on. A car passed outside, its headlights sweeping across the ceiling and vanishing.
He was alone. They were alone.
The anxiety of the dinner, the sharp pressure of Saul’s interrogation, began to melt, replaced by a relentless, heating current of memory. The feel of Jake’s hands on his face at the overlook. The desperate sound of his breathing. The way he’d said You see me? in the diner.
He thought of Jake alone in his room, just across the hall. The week stretching before them, a vast, empty canvas. The ‘concrete plan’ Saul demanded felt meaningless compared to the terrifying, exhilarating plan forming in Matthew’s own heart.
He was tired of being careful. Tired of slow. The secret wasn’t a fragile thing to be protected anymore; it was a living, breathing force, and it demanded more.
He listened until the house was perfectly still. He would wait. He would wait, and then he would cross the hall. He would overcome the frantic flutter in his stomach, the old fear of not knowing, of failing.
He was determined. The next level wasn’t in some distant future. It was now, on the other side of a closed door, in the quiet dark.
It was now, on the other side of a closed door, in the quiet dark.
He waited until the silence felt absolute, a thick velvet pressed against his ears, broken only by the distant hum of the refrigerator downstairs. He counted the slow, heavy beats of his own heart. Then he turned his doorknob, the click echoing like a struck bell in the hallway’s stillness.
The worn carpet was silent under his bare feet. Yellow light still leaked from the gap under Jake’s door. Matthew didn’t knock. He simply turned the handle and slipped inside, closing the world away behind him.
Jake was sitting up in bed, back against the headboard, a weathered physics textbook open but unread on his lap. He looked up, his dark eyes widening briefly before softening into exhausted warmth. He didn’t speak. He just set the book aside and opened his arms.
Matthew went to him, folding into the embrace, burying his face against Jake’s shoulder. Jake held him tightly, one hand cradling the back of his head, his lips pressing into Matthew’s hair. “Hey,” Jake murmured, his voice a low vibration against him. “Thank you. For today. The diner, the overlook… all of it. It was the first day in a year that didn’t feel like punishment.”
“It was real,” Matthew said, his words muffled by cotton and skin.
Jake’s hand stilled on his head. He drew a slow breath. “Saul cornered you, didn’t he? After I came up. I could feel it simmering at dinner.” His tone was flat, resigned. “The ultimatum. ‘Have a plan by the time we get back or else.’ The ‘or else’ is probably a one-way ticket to a cousin’s couch in Lubbock.”
Matthew pulled back to look at him. In the lamplight, Jake’s face was all sharp angles and deep shadows, the intelligent eyes clouded with a familiar, weary dread. The plan, the future, the impossible expectations—they were already colonizing this new space between them, poisoning the air.
A sudden, reckless courage surged in Matthew’s chest, hot and imperative. It was a dam breaking. If he didn’t speak now, the moment would curdle. He placed a hand on Jake’s chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart through his t-shirt.
“I don’t want to talk about Saul,” Matthew said, his voice surprisingly steady. “I want… I want to have sex with you. Tonight. Now.”
The silence that followed was profound. Jake didn’t move. His eyes searched Matthew’s face, scanning for doubt, for fear, for impulsivity. “Matthew.” His name was a caution. “Are you sure? Truly, actually sure? I don’t want you to regret this. I can’t…” He trailed off, a flash of old pain crossing his features. “I can’t be someone’s regret.”
“I’m sure I want you,” Matthew insisted, the heat in his face spreading down his neck. He swallowed. “I’m not sure I know what the hell I’m doing. But I’m sure of that.”
Jake’s expression eased, the protective gentleness from the overlook returning. He brought a hand up to Matthew’s cheek. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. Not when two people care. We go slow. You say stop, we stop. No questions. That’s the only rule.”
Matthew nodded, a shaky breath escaping him. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
Jake leaned in and kissed him, a slow, deep kiss that tasted like promise and mint. It melted the last of the anxiety, replacing it with a thick, pooling want. Matthew kissed him back, his hands coming up to grip Jake’s shoulders.
After a long moment, Jake broke the kiss. He held Matthew’s gaze, his own eyes dark with intent, and pulled his own shirt off over his head in one smooth motion. He tossed it to the floor. The lamplight played over the lean planes of his chest, the defined muscles of his stomach, the faint trail of dark hair leading beneath the waistband of his sleep shorts.
Matthew just stared, his mouth slightly open. He’d seen him by the pool, but this was different. This was for him. He reached out a tentative hand, his fingertips meeting the warm, smooth skin over Jake’s pectoral. He traced the line of a collarbone, then dragged his palm down over the hard, flat plane of his stomach, feeling the muscles jump under his touch. He explored the curve of Jake’s bicep, the solid, real weight of him. His own cock, already hard, throbbed painfully against the confines of his jeans.
“Your turn,” Jake whispered, his voice rough.
He tugged Matthew’s shirt up, and Matthew lifted his arms to help. The cool air hit his skin, followed immediately by the scorching heat of Jake’s hands sliding up his sides. Jake pulled him close, skin to skin, and the sensation was so profoundly new it stole Matthew’s breath. The feeling of Jake’s bare chest against his, the friction of body hair, the overwhelming intimacy of it—it was a shock that went straight to his core.
They kissed again, a deep, open-mouthed kiss that was all tongue and heat. Matthew’s hands were everywhere, learning the landscape of Jake’s back, the ridges of his spine, the powerful swell of his shoulders. Jake’s hands slid down Matthew’s back, palming his ass through his jeans, pulling their hips together. The rough drag of denim against denim, the hard pressure of their erections meeting—it was maddening.
Jake’s mouth moved to Matthew’s neck, sucking a mark that made Matthew gasp and arch against him. One of Jake’s hands slid around to the front, his fingers splaying over Matthew’s stomach before dipping lower. His palm cupped Matthew’s aching cock through the stiff fabric of his jeans, applying a firm, steady pressure.
Matthew groaned, a raw, needy sound he didn’t recognize as his own.
Jake pulled back just enough to look into his eyes, his own breathing ragged. His hand stilled, a silent question. Matthew, his head swimming, nodded frantically. “Yes. Please, Jake.”
The zipper sounded deafening. Jake popped the button, drew the zipper down slowly, and then his hand was inside, pushing past the waistband of Matthew’s briefs. His fingers, cool at first, wrapped around Matthew’s bare, hard cock.
Matthew cried out, his hips jerking involuntarily. The feeling was obliterating. Jake’s grip was firm, knowing, his thumb swiping over the slick head. “Fuck, Matthew,” Jake breathed, watching his face. “You feel so good.”
He began to stroke him, a slow, steady rhythm that had Matthew panting, his forehead falling onto Jake’s shoulder. The friction was perfect, building a coil of tight, screaming pleasure low in his gut. “I want… I want to touch you,” Matthew gasped.
Jake took Matthew’s wrist and guided his hand down. He pushed his own shorts and briefs down just enough, and Matthew’s fingers curled around Jake’s erection. It was hot and heavy and velvet-smooth in his hand, leaking moisture at the tip. He froze, unsure.
“Just like this,” Jake coached against his ear, his own hand still working Matthew’s cock. “Yeah, just hold me. Now move your hand. Up and down. however it feels good.”
Matthew mimicked Jake’s rhythm, a hesitant stroke that grew more confident as Jake moaned, his hips pushing up into the circle of Matthew’s fist. “Just like that. Christ, your hands.”
They stayed like that for a minute, a desperate, messy exchange of touch, foreheads pressed together, breath mingling. Then Jake nudged him back. “Off. All of it.”
They scrambled to shed the rest of their clothing, a tangle of limbs and brief laughter, until they were both completely naked on the rumpled sheets. Matthew drank in the sight of Jake, fully revealed: his long legs, the dark thatch of hair at his groin, his cock standing thick and eager against his stomach. The vulnerability was mutual, breathtaking.
Jake leaned over, fumbled in his nightstand drawer, and pulled out a small, half-empty bottle of clear lubricant. He slicked his own hand, then took Matthew’s cock in his grip again, the slide now wet and obscenely smooth. The new sensation was even more intense, a slick, hot friction that made Matthew see stars.
Then Jake took Matthew’s hand, poured more lube into his palm, and guided it back to his own length. He wrapped his lubed hand around both of their cocks, his fingers interlacing with Matthew’s, and began to stroke them together.
“Oh god,” Matthew whimpered. The feeling was overwhelming, too much. The heat, the slick, sliding pressure, the sight of their bodies joined in Jake’s fist—it was a sensory avalanche. He could feel Jake’s pulse thrumming through his cock alongside his own. Their precome mixed with the lube, making a wet, filthy sound with each stroke.
Jake’s pace increased, his breathing coming in harsh grunts against Matthew’s neck. “Look at us,” he snarled, his voice tight with strain. “Fuck, look at that.” Matthew looked down, mesmerized by the glistening, rhythmic motion, by the reality of their intimacy. “You’re so fucking beautiful. Come for me. Come on.”
The command, the raw need in Jake’s voice, unraveled him. The coil in his belly snapped. Pleasure detonated through him, blinding and white-hot, wracking his body with convulsions as he came, stripes of hot release painting his stomach and Jake’s moving hand.
The feeling of Matthew pulsing in his grip tipped Jake over the edge. With a choked-off cry, Jake followed, his own orgasm adding to the mess between them, his whole body trembling through the release.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. Jake slowly released them, his hand falling away, streaked and shiny. He collapsed onto his back, pulling Matthew with him. Matthew nuzzled into the damp hollow of Jake’s neck, his nose filled with the scent of sex and sweat and Jake. He traced idle, sated patterns through the dark hair on Jake’s chest.
“How do you feel?” Jake asked after a while, his voice a drowsy rumble.
“Great. Sticky. Amazing,” Matthew mumbled, pressing a kiss to his collarbone. “How was it for you?”
Jake turned his head, his lips brushing Matthew’s hair. “Perfect. It was perfect, Matthew.”
He reached over and switched off the lamp, plunging the room into a deep, comfortable dark. He pulled the sheet up over them, not caring about the cooling mess on their skin, and wrapped both arms tightly around Matthew. The last thing Matthew felt before sleep claimed him was the steady, solid beat of Jake’s heart against his ear, a rhythm more constant and comforting than any constellation.