100 Days (14 page)

“What made you stop and talk to me?” he asks.

John smiles at him and says, “You look like one of my favorite students.”

“Well… thank you. For listening,” Jake says sincerely, hoping that his sparse words convey so much more.

“Of course. Take care of yourself, Jake,” John says.

As John walks away, Jake takes a long last look at the fountain and turns back the way he came. His thoughts fall into quiet reminiscence, and he recalls trips in the car that seemed endless, remembers sitting in the back seat and convincing himself that the car wasn’t moving, that the buildings and trees were chasing one another past the windows while Stevie Wonder played quietly and his parents held hands over the center console. As the trees and buildings move slowly past on his way back to the parking lot, he lets himself wonder if they were holding hands that night, if they broke their grasp or held on more tightly when they began to skid.

Crossing the street just past a small Catholic chapel, Jake sees Aiden standing in the shade of a tree at the entrance to the parking lot, his hand raised in a small wave.

Jake smiles and waves back.

When he reaches the RV and pulls himself up through the open side door, Aiden is dropping tea bags into two white mugs. The kettle is switched on, the water bubbling. Jake leans against the doorframe for a moment and just watches, reminding himself of his wish.
I wish to be what he needs me to be.

“How was it?” Aiden asks, glancing over his shoulder.

“Strange, and… okay,” Jake says, pushing himself upright and walking closer, his fingertips trailing along the countertop. “It was okay.”

“Sure?”

The kettle boils, and as Aiden reaches for it, Jake impulsively takes his out­stretched arm and pulls him into a tight hug, pressing his forehead to Aiden’s temple. A moment or two passes before Aiden reaches up to wind his fingers in Jake’s hair, just as he did down in the darkness of the cavern in Luray, and as he does so, Jake presses a fleeting kiss to his cheek.

It isn’t much, or even close to enough, not yet. But Jake is on his way.

2,323 miles

Day Twenty-eight: Georgia

Every once in a while, Aiden acutely feels the blessing of having Jake Valentine in his life. This—their second day in what he thought would be Savannah but actually turned out to be Atlanta—is one of those times.

When they left Columbia yesterday, Jake turned out of the Sesquicen­tennial State Park with a smile the brightness of which Aiden could barely remember him ever sporting before; and when Aiden retrieved the trip folder from the glove compartment to look up their destination zip code for the GPS, Jake’s arm shot out and clamped the folder shut, dragging it across to his own lap. He wasn’t quick enough, though—Aiden had already seen the booking confirmation for Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta.

“Atlanta?” he asked. “But isn’t Savannah right on the way to Florida?”

Jake groaned and shoved the folder back at Aiden. “It was supposed to be a surprise since the dates worked out so well, but you might as well know.”

Aiden reopened the folder and flipped straight to the “GA” divider. His eyes went wide when he saw the tickets. “Jake, are you serious? I thought Pride was always in June.”

“Most places it is, but Atlanta’s so hot in the summer that they have theirs in October. You’ve never managed to make it to one before, so…”

“Oh my god,
marry me,”
Aiden breathed, so excited as he took in the folder’s colorful contents that he forgot his words a second later.

And now here he is, still a little headachy from Kiki by the Park last night but loving every single second of his first-ever Pride event. They’ve been standing on Piedmont Avenue—across the street from The Flying Bis­cuit Café, where they ate a grotesquely large breakfast—for over three hours already. The crowd, thousands strong, cheers as music blares over a PA system and the first of the floats approaches from the other end of the street, crossing a road that’s probably called Peachtree, judg­ing by how many of them there are. He and Jake are shoved up against each other, Aiden behind and slightly to the right with one hand at either side of Jake on the railing. It’s an almost a perfect mirror of that magical night in Provi­dence, the memory marred only by his near misstep. He’s begin­ning to think that perhaps now, perhaps soon, it won’t be such a misstep after all.

“This
is what you’ve been missing out on all these years,” Jake tells him. “Do you love it?”

“I love it,” Aiden says, and he can’t help it; he winds his arm around Jake’s waist and rests his forehead on Jake’s shoulder. Jake only tenses for a moment before he relaxes into the hold, leans back against Aiden and threads their fingers together across his stomach. Aiden grins into his shoulder, loving this newly affectionate side of his best friend—it’s only a few days since Jake visited his mom’s old college, but ever since that peck of a kiss in the kitchen, he seems to be making an effort to touch more; a glancing nudge at Aiden’s thigh as Jake got up to go to bed after their movie; a brief squeeze of his arm as they waited in line for brunch at Café Strudel; a fleeting brush across his lower back as Jake edged around him in the narrow walkway to take his turn in the RV bathroom.

Aside from this driving Aiden slowly and quietly crazy with desire, a softly tingling buzz in his bloodstream, it makes him feel… special.

The crowd goes wild as Atlanta’s police and fire departments proceed by, red and blue lights flashing. Following their progress, Aiden catches the gaze of the tall-dark-and-handsome man next to him, rainbow stripes painted down his neck and arm. The guy gestures at Jake—who is looking the other way, craning his neck to see the floats coming down the street—and gives Aiden a thumbs up and a wink. Aiden can’t help but grin even wider.

“Today is perfect,” he says into Jake’s ear, and resists the urge to nuzzle his neck.

“I knew you’d love it,” Jake says, and save for the occasional whoop or cheer as each float goes past, they settle into the comfortable quiet they’ve always been able to fall into together.

The parade is an hours-long riot of color, sound, light and laughter that holds Aiden’s attention rapt. He takes in floats for Bubbles Salon, Chi Chi LaRue and the Swinging Richards. He is awed by the number of fami­lies march­ing under a PFLAG banner and proclaiming their love for their queer chil­dren and relatives, and the huge, bright turnout from Atlanta’s Gay-Straight Alliance. The longer the parade goes on, the more intoxicated Aiden feels by the very air surrounding them, filled with love and acceptance for every­thing that they all are. It’s one of the headiest feelings he’s experienced in a long time.

As the parade begins to draw to a close, a strange hush falls over the crowd farther up the street. Still holding onto Jake, Aiden turns them sideways and leans over the railing to get a better look.

“It’s Angel Action, like they did for Matthew Shepard up in Laramie,” Jake says, and Aiden realizes what he’s looking at: a procession of angels, everyone dressed in flowing white robes and holding boards emblazoned with the names and faces of LGBT teenagers who committed suicide as the result of bullying and victimization.

All at once Aiden’s giddiness fades, and sadness and melancholy settle over him like a well-worn jacket. Finding it hard to watch the angels as they pass by, he drops his forehead to rest on Jake’s shoulder again and pulls him close.

After a moment, Jake turns to face him. “I know what you’re thinking about,” he murmurs, his hand a gentle pressure lifting Aiden’s chin to meet his gaze. “Don’t.”

“I should have been there. If we hadn’t had that stupid fight—”

“Ade, it was a couple of bruises. Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Jake says reassur­ingly, but when Aiden closes his eyes he can still see purple rage blos­soming across the freckled skin of Jake’s cheek and jaw, the steel in Jake’s eyes as he looked at the contents of his rucksack strewn across the dirty floor of their high school locker room. “Besides, you came back for me.”

“It still shouldn’t have happened,” Aiden mutters darkly, shaking his head and looking at his shoes.

“Need I remind you that it got him expelled? At the very least, maybe he thought twice before doing it to somebody else,” Jake says. “Will you please look at me?”

Aiden does, and after a pregnant pause, Jake grins and shakes him by the shoulders until he’s smiling, too.

“I was
lucky
to have you, Aiden Calloway,” Jake says. “Look at all those poor kids who didn’t have someone like you, a best friend who wanted to fight their battles for them.”

“You’re right,” Aiden agrees, something settling in the pit of his stomach even as he does so.
There’s that word again: friend.
“I was lucky to have you, too.”

“I know you were,” Jake quips, and turns back around to watch the end of the parade.

Aiden breathes slowly, trying to rid himself of the sense of deflation over­taking him. Watching the passing faces of teenagers who thought they had no one at all, he knows they really are amongst the lucky ones; and only a few hours ago, at the beginning of the parade, Aiden felt extra thankful to be able to call Jake his best friend, too.
Am I really willing to put all of that at risk?

He wants more; he’s had one taste and it isn’t nearly enough. But for now, the ball remains firmly in Jake’s court. This is why, when Aiden gets into bed tonight and Jake slides his own warm pillow over to Aiden’s side of the bed, Aiden won’t crowd Jake’s body with his own and pepper the skin of his bare shoulder with kisses.

This is why, when Aiden feels Jake pulling away from him to wave at the final group in the parade—scantily-clad men in black booty shorts and thigh-highs, wearing black angel wings and bearing signs offering free hugs—he simply loosens his grip and lets Jake slip from his arms.

“Hey! Hey, over here!” Jake calls out, and one of the angels saunters over. His light brown hair is styled up and away from his face, bringing all the focus to his piercing blue eyes and the sweep of rainbow colors accenting his prominent cheekbones. Inclining his head toward Aiden, Jake tells the angel, “My friend here could use a hug.”

“Is that right? Aren’t you enjoying the parade, sweetheart?” the angel asks, raking his gaze down Aiden’s body.

Heat fills Aiden’s cheeks, and he raises his hands a little. “I’m—no, I’m having a fantastic time, I don’t need a free hug—”

“How about a free kiss, instead?”

Before Aiden knows what’s happening, broad, sun-warmed hands cup the sides of his neck and soft lips alight upon his own. For a handful of moments, he lets himself get lost in the feel of the angel’s mouth, lips gently working his own open with increasing pressure until Aiden is kissing him back and almost moaning into the sensation,
finally, finally,
and he can taste cinnamon gum—but Jake hates cinnamon, this isn’t right, what is—

Aiden hears Jake clear his throat, and in a blink the kiss is over. As he pulls away, the angel presses a condom into Aiden’s slack hand—if that isn’t just the tackiest thing ever, he doesn’t know what is—and with a suave grin, says, “I’ll find you later, tiger.”

“Oh my god,” Aiden breathes as the angel turns away to rejoin the parade.

“He can’t have been
that
good,” Jake scoffs, and Aiden almost steps back as he sees that same steel in his eyes. Jake crosses his arms over his chest as he watches the crowd of angels continue down the street; the almost sheer fabric of his white T-shirt stretches over his upper arms, and Aiden swallows.

“No, I mean—” Aiden lowers his voice. “He told me he’ll find me later. He’s headed for the park. I need a disguise!”

“So you don’t—” Jake stops and drops his gaze. Aiden watches as a small smile quirks the corners of his mouth for a passing moment. Then Jake’s expression clears, and he looks back up. “I think you’d make a very fetching Batman. They probably have face-painting in the park, actually.”

The crowd has begun to filter into the street and march behind the end of the parade toward Piedmont Park for the rest of the day’s Pride events. Letting the whim take him, Aiden grabs Jake’s hand and links their fin­gers together. It feels like the Brooklyn Bridge all over again. “You know, if you want to go full Bowie, I won’t stand in your way. I know you have an addiction, but it’s really kind of adorable.”

Jake silently swings their joined hands between them and circles Aiden’s palm with his thumb, another one of those new little things he does that makes Aiden feel as if he’s been thrown a curveball and doesn’t quite know what to do, other than smile at Jake for just a little too long and with a little too much hope.

2,541 miles

Chapter Four

Day Thirty-one: Florida

“Ugh. Is there no such thing as ‘behind closed doors’ anymore?”

“What?”

“Come look at this.”

From his vantage point in the RV’s open doorway, hands wrapped around a mug of hot tea, Jake watches the couple making their way back from the beach. The girl’s shoes hang from her fingertips and her long turquoise skirt billows around her, the lower third of it either tie-dyed or soaked with seawater, Jake can’t tell. The guy with her stops every few paces to bury his hands in her shoulder-length blonde locks and kiss her as if nobody is watching.

There probably isn’t anybody else watching, aside from Jake. And Aiden, of course, when Jake feels the gentle press of Aiden’s chest against his shoulder blades; not close enough, but not far enough, either.

“You don’t think they’re kind of cute?” Aiden asks.

“I think I’m surprised they don’t burst into flames, being out in broad daylight and all,” Jake says with a sniff, and sips his tea.

Aiden leans against the doorframe and looks at him pointedly, arms crossed over his chest. “So you’re telling me that if someone kissed you like that, you’d really give a shit where it happened.”

“I can safely say that if someone kissed me like they were trying to eat my face, I’d make for the nearest exit.”

“I think you’re jealous. The heat is getting to you.”

“It’s not the heat at all. It’s that we had to stop at yet
another
Misery-Mart, this time with homeless people living inside, and also that I’m a great kisser, and watching
that
makes me want to throw up.”

“A
great
kisser, huh?” Aiden drawls, and Jake could kick himself. The all-day sunshine and humidity has done little for his mood since they arrived in St. Augustine yesterday, but it has done wonders for Aiden, and currently he seems to be in the mood for teasing. Jake can almost hear the rest of the conversation unfold before they’ve even had it; the trap is already set.
How does he always manage to get under my skin like this?

“I’ve had good feedback,” he says as nonchalantly as possible, sipping his tea and glancing back out of the doorway.

“Show me.”

“What?!” Jake splutters. He wipes a few stray drops of tea from his chin as he regards Aiden with an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m very serious,” Aiden counters, drawing himself up to his full height and dropping his arms to his sides. “Lay one on me.”

“If I remember correctly, you’ve already had one laid on you in the past few days,” Jake says hotly, and turns on his heel to take his mug to the sink. He lifts the lid and unceremoniously dumps out the liquid, suddenly not remotely thirsty. He rinses his mug quickly and notes Aiden’s silence but chooses not to comment further; it was already a low blow to bring up
that
kiss, since Aiden neither instigated it nor professed to enjoy it, but it’s been playing on Jake’s mind since Sunday.

Specifically, the way Aiden’s eyes fluttered closed after a second, the twitch in his hand as if he wanted to reach up and pull the angel closer, and—what stung the most, a jagged cluster of razorblades at the base of Jake’s throat—how the muscles in his jaw clenched and tightened when, just for a moment, he kissed the angel back.

He’s been running hot and cold ever since, flirting shamelessly and then keeping his distance so subtly that Jake can’t call him out. It’s damnably frus­trating and a great part of the reason for Jake’s sour mood.

“Jake.”

Deep breath.
“What?”

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t,” Jake says, turning and bracing himself on the counter behind him. “And hey, what happens on the road trip stays on the road trip, right?”

“That’s what we agreed, yeah,” Aiden says.

After a pause, Jake says, “I might go for a walk. Seems a shame to waste such a beautiful night.”

“Even with the humidity?” Aiden asks with a nod to Jake’s upswept hair, which has begun to droop despite regular reapplications of hairspray.

“Ah, it’s done for anyway,” Jake says, gathering up the soft blanket draped across the chair behind the cab. Aiden still stands in the open doorway, hands behind his back, and Jake smirks as he approaches him. Wanting to mess with him right back, just a little, he crowds into Aiden’s personal space, parts his lips just so and lets his gaze linger on Aiden’s mouth the perfect fraction of a minute too long. “I won’t be long. Movie when I get back?”

Aiden’s lips purse in a smile. Jake is already on the second step when he hears him murmur, “Sure.”

Jake makes his way down the beach, bare toes digging into the fine sand, and takes a deep lungful of fresh ocean air. The sun has just dipped below the horizon, and the spill of colors in the sky is fading into a deep cornflower blue. Venus is rising in the west. Despite the humidity, it’s the second beautiful night in a row, and he walks until the RV is well out of sight and he is alone on his little stretch of shore.

After spreading out the blanket and sitting down, he pulls his phone from his pocket and turns it over and over in his hands. He needs to talk to someone, to work his way through the mess of muddled feelings before it overwhelms him. April is the only person in his group of friends back home who wouldn’t tell him how much she’s judging him, but he knows she’s about to go onstage somewhere in Brooklyn. And the issues between him and his sister tend to crop up no matter what they talk about; he doesn’t have the energy for another argument with her. Yes, the distance is doing them some good, but the water hasn’t flowed under the bridge just yet.

The only other person he can think of is Aiden—and therein lies the problem. His thumb swipes back and forth, back and forth across his phone, clearing the screen of apps and then restoring them, until he catches sight of the camera icon. He pauses for a moment before tapping on it and going straight to the video capture option.

Squinting into the harsh glare of the flashlight when he turns his phone around—there’s no way it’ll pick him up otherwise, so he’ll have to live with the dreadful
Blair Witch
effect—he gives the camera a little wave.

“It’s October seventeenth, and we’re in St. Augustine, heading down to Key West tomorrow,” he says. “We had a four hundred-mile drive in from Atlanta on Monday, which was exhausting. Today we checked out some of the local tourist stuff, including this old hotel that has a café in what used to be the deep end of the pool. Then we wound up back here at the beach. We haven’t been doing very much, really.”

Jake pauses, recalling his conversations with Andrew and Professor Gold­man and how easy it was to open up to them as strangers; he pretends that he’s talking to them now, and takes a deep breath.

“Aiden’s been acting weird. More than usual, I mean. Back at Pride, one of the Free Hugs Angels kissed him, and for a second he looked like he was really into it, which—it hurt. And I wish it didn’t. The thing is, and I keep saying this, we’ve been best friends for so long that… I don’t want to risk everything we have, but right now I’m at the point where every time I look at him I want to kiss him, and it should be weird, right? It should be weird to think about him that way; it used to be!

“I don’t know what to do,” Jake says miserably. Finding himself with no further words, he turns the phone around and ends the recording, blinking as the impression of the flashlight seared behind his eyes fades. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Have you ever noticed
how phallic Florida looks?” Aiden asks the next day, glancing at the map Jake had printed and stuffed into the folder along with their campground booking.

“Is that all you ever think about?” Jake asks irritably. They’ve been on the road for the entire day, contending with freeway traffic and passive-aggressive drivers; now it’s nearing sunset and he’s almost reached the limit of his patience.

“Look at it,” Aiden says, waving the map in front of the steering wheel. “No wonder they call it ‘America’s Wang.’ Anyway, you’re one to talk.”

“As I was
saying,”
Jake intones, “everything happens for a reason.”

“Come on, Jake. You don’t believe in any of that.”

“No, you’re misunderstanding me,” Jake says, frustrated.
Why do we always seem to be on separate pages these days?
“You
know
I don’t believe in any of the spiritual stuff, but I do believe that everything happens for a reason. History, simple as that. Z wouldn’t have happened without Y, which wouldn’t have happened without X, back and back.”

“So what you’re really saying is that there isn’t actually any such thing as history,” Aiden says, and Jake nods with a smile.

“Right. Because one way or another, history is always present.”

They lapse back into silence as Jake concentrates on navigating narrower streets and then the campground. They park, check in and jump down from the cab with sighs of relief, stretching their cramped joints and muscles. When they turn onto South from Duval Street, Aiden takes Jake’s hand and links their fingers together and Jake’s pulse skitters.

He knows he’s been subdued since last night, lost in his own indecision and unsure of what to do next. He’s made peace with the fact that he wants so much more of Aiden than he gets—and took in Philadelphia. What’s really getting to him is that although he has recollections of what Aiden feels like, the weight and measure of him, he knows nothing of the taste of Aiden’s lips, or the pressure and temperature of his mouth.

He also knows that Aiden has taken note of his shifting mood—it’s clear in that same expectant tension Jake has noticed with increasing frequency since Rhode Island. Perhaps even before then, were he to trace it back.
No Z without Y, no Y without X, no X without—

“Wow,” Aiden says.

Before them stands the tall, anchored concrete buoy declaring the ground beneath their feet the southernmost point in the continental United States and Key West “Home of the Sunset.” The sky behind it is appropriately smeared with pink and orange and yellow, as the sun lazily descending in a halo of palest blue.

“Take a picture!” Aiden exclaims with all the excitement of a child; and he stands next to the buoy and grins, bracing himself against it with one hand, his left foot crossed over his right. After Jake has captured Aiden’s bril­liant grin and forwarded the picture to Aiden’s mother, he notices a group of four teenagers a short distance down the sidewalk, crowded around a boom box that plays loud pop music. Watching them twirl and offer one another exaggerated bows as one song finishes, Jake smiles, lamenting the loss of his more carefree days.

One of the girls catches his eye as the punchy, melodic intro to Ellie Gould­ing’s “Anything Could Happen” begins to play, and she winks at him and shakes her shoulders back and forth. Jake laughs and shakes his head, gesturing over his shoulder at Aiden because it’s easiest. She follows with her eyes, looks Aiden up and down and calls out, “Right on, man.”

With a little wave, Jake circles behind the buoy and lets it cast him in shad­ow, continuing to watch the group dance while Aiden stares out at the ocean. Jake listens to the song, lets its beat and ebb ground him a little. Second only to film, music is his great love, and this song… this song is actually kind of perfect.

Because anything really
could
happen, couldn’t it? What if what happened in Philadelphia wasn’t a total mistake, but simply the prelude to Jake finally listening to what his instincts have been telling him for weeks?
What if, what if, what if…

“What are you doing? Come see this!” Aiden calls out.

Jake takes a deep breath and steps out of the shadows. Aiden is silhouetted against the fading sun, the light picking out the auburn in his hair, and as he stretches his arms up over his head, one finger hooked through the woven bracelet he bought earlier, he grins out at the horizon. Jake feels as if he’s watching Aiden through brand new eyes; he knows that there is rescue in those arms. Suddenly he wants to fall into them and hold on until he feels safe.

Aiden turns away from the vista, pushes his sunglasses up on top of his head and looks down at Jake, his eyes sparkling with warmth and light. He leans forward and holds out his hand, and he looks… beautiful.

Jake takes Aiden’s hand and steps up onto the wall. The building repetition of the lyrics leading to the chorus wraps him up in recklessness and resolve, because this is it, isn’t it? This is the real movie moment, to which the rest pale in comparison. Providence was a premature disappointment; the Brooklyn Bridge belonged to two people who never existed; Philadelphia was a rushed and disastrous taste, nothing more. The simple fact is, Jake doesn’t want to leave any more missed opportunities in his wake. He wants Aiden, pure and simple.

Every time we came close, every near miss, every mistake I chose not to make has led to this, hasn’t it?

No Z without Y.

The music explodes and so does Jake’s desire—his stomach leaps as he hooks three fingers into the collar of Aiden’s T-shirt and crushes their lips together in a kiss that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

It only takes a moment before Aiden is kissing back, inhaling sharply through his nose as he presses forward, his hands flying up to frame Jake’s face. It is pressure and give in perfect balance, exactly what Jake has been wanting but not letting himself have—until now, the wall of their friendship has stood strong between them, but as Aiden’s lips part, the bricks tumble down on top of them both and Jake pulls back.

“Fuck,” he whispers, looking away as Aiden’s eyes open. “I’m s—”

“Don’t you dare,” Aiden orders him. He cards his fingers through Jake’s hair and yanks him into a messy, hungry kiss that burns in its intensity, teeth catching Jake’s bottom lip. Jake scrabbles for purchase, loops his arms around Aiden’s neck and pulls him flush against him, and all at once he feels a click, a slot back into place, a page turning.

Aiden breaks the kiss and says, “RV. Now.” He takes Jake by the hand, pulls him down from the wall and back onto the street. Jake’s heart pounds in his chest as they run hand in hand back to the RV, and he barely keeps pace. Two kisses and he suddenly feels as if he’s standing on the edge of the world, the ground beneath his feet tipping, tipping, tipping him over the edge into a giddy sense of oblivion; and with the drama of the moment broken as he hears whoops and catcalls from the group of teenagers, he grins up at the sky.