I try to walk it back but end up just stuttering over the words as my mouth tries to catch up to my brain.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” he assures me, laughing so hard now he has to wipe away tears. “Cow tipping isn’t real. I’d totally try it if it were, though. There’s not a lot to do where I’m from, but if you drive a couple of hours to Oklahoma City, there’s more entertainment. There’s still a couple of drive-in movie theaters near where my parents live, so I like to do that in the summer sometimes. There’s one gay bar that doesn’t totally suck, but I’ve never really been big in the bar scene. I like the outdoors—hiking and biking and stuff.”
“That’s so…wholesome.”
He narrows his eyes at me and shoves at my shoulder. “Are you making fun of me again?”
“I’m not, I swear!” I laugh. “I love it. All that actually sounds really nice.”
Riley kicks off his Vans and wiggles into his seat, getting comfortable. “So what about you? What do you do when you’re not working?”
I shift awkwardly, trying to come up with literally anything to say. Why can’t I think of a single hobby? Why am I so bad at talking about myself? I put my whole life on social media for the world to consume. Hundreds of thousands of people have seen me have sex, and I’ve never felt as self-conscious as I do right now trying to talk to Riley. “Um…well, there’s Aggie now...” I clear my throat, stalling. “I like hiking and biking, too. And I run in the mornings, but you know that…”Jesus, Luke, you sound ridiculous.“I love to travel as often as I can. And photography, of course. Capturing the beauty of places I’ve been is probably my favorite thing.”
“I’m so jealous, I want to travel.” Riley’s voice is wistful as he looks out the window. “My dream is to go to Hawaii one day. Have you ever been?”
“I haven’t actually, but I’d love to go one day, too.” I force myself to keep my eyes on the road and not look over to see his reaction to that. “Why Hawaii, specifically?”
“You know, I don’t know,” he muses. “I think maybe it seemed like the most exotic place I could think of as a kid. One of those dreams you latch onto when you’re young and never let go of until you see it through.”
“I’m not sure if I ever had anything like that when I was a kid,” I say regretfully.
Riley turns to gape at me. “Really?”
I don’t answer and keep my eyes on the road. The only thing I ever dreamed of was having literally any of my foster families want me enough to keep me, and that never came to pass, so I let it go. I can’t remember anything else I ever would have dreamed of or wished for. I’ve never considered myself a cynical person, but maybe subconsciously I am. The boy who gave up dreams. That would be the title of a movie about me. Jesus, now is not the time to start pulling up the floorboards of my mind and start poking around. Something about Riley’s confidence and optimism always has me looking inward and comparing us, and so far, I don’t like what I’m finding in myself.
“If you ever need a travel buddy, we could go together one day,” I offer, then wince as soon as the words are out of my mouth. My goal was to change the subject, but we have absolutely not known each other long enough for me to be offering something like that.
In typical Riley fashion, he turns that radiant smile on me. “Yeah? That would be so cool. Maybe one of these days my videos will take off and when I’m raking in the big bucks, we can plan it. Speaking of videos, what’s the plan for today? Do youhave a scene in mind or anything? We haven’t really talked about it.”
Nope, no plan at all,I want to say.I’ve just been dying to kiss you since the last time.
Obviously I can’t say that.
“No specific plan, no,” I say carefully instead. “From the photos, it looks like the en suite shower is pretty awesome, so I thought maybe we could start there. See how things go.”
There’s a fire burning in those sea-green eyes when I glance over at him, the same as the night we met. “Can’t wait.”
16
LUKE
“This place is amazing,” Riley mutters in awe, craning his neck to look up at the massive glass front of the cabin as I concentrate on punching in the four-digit entry code from the text message the homeowner sent. For some reason, my fingers are trembling, and it takes two tries to get it right.
The door swings open, and I let out a low whistle as we step inside. The place is much smaller than it looked in the photos, but I like how cozy it feels. The king-size bed in the open loft is visible from the main floor, a spiral staircase to my right leading up to the single bedroom and bathroom. “Shall we?” I ask, pointing to the staircase.
“After you,” Riley says with an exaggerated flick of his wrist and a slight bend at the waist. I roll my eyes with a smile and head up the stairs.
Dropping our bags in the corner, I turn and lean over the railing to scope out the light from the front windows. The overcast sky is giving us the perfect soft gray light that should look amazing on my camera. A happy little hum sounds from behind me, and I turn back to see Riley has kicked his shoes and socks off already and is curling his toes in the plush rug at thefoot of the bed. He hasn’t stopped smiling since we walked in, and I never want him to.
“It’s so soft,” he sighs. “Man, we really should have booked the night. We just got here and I already don’t want to leave.”
I’m kicking myself now fornotbooking the whole night.
“Let’s check out the shower,” I suggest, heading toward the bathroom. Riley bounces along like an excited puppy behind me.
Sliding open the barn door, we take in a small but luxurious bathroom. The walk-in shower is an open design with a rainfall showerhead in the center of a space that’s definitely big enough for two, and a bench on one end. It should be easy to set up one tripod in here and the other in the bedroom, and use one of our phones for handheld footage once we migrate to the bed.
“I can’t wait to get naked with you in here,” Riley breathes, never taking his eyes off the shower as he adjusts himself in his joggers.
