“We’re going to the ridge.”
“Yes.” Lance turns the volume up and settles back, shoulders dropping.
The road narrows and climbs through oak and chaparral. Gravel snaps under the tires. The valley shows in quick breaks between the ridges, then opens all at once at the pullout we found years ago on a wrong turn.
Lake Elsinore sits below, silver under the light. The Santa Ana Mountains stack out in layers through the haze. Warm sage-and-dust air rolls in when Lance drops his window. A hawk rides a thermal overhead, circling slow.
Most people miss the turn.
The view hits the same way it always does. Doesn’t matter how many times. It’s almost always like the very first time.
Clouds have broken just enough to let the light come through in long, flat bands. Where it hits the lake, the surface shifts from gray to something like hammered steel. Bright in one stretch, darker in the next, changing as we watch. Further out, the valley spreads into a wide basin, towns scattered across it, small from up here. Beyond that, the horizon keeps going longer than it should. The chaparral on the slopes carries that dry sage smell, sun-warmed, drifting in through the open window.
Lance has both arms braced on the dash before I’ve even stopped moving, already looking. His face goes open, unguarded and younger somehow.
Savage Garden’s “Truly Madly Deeply” plays on from the tape deck. Of all the damn songs.
“This view, man,” Lance says, grinning at it like it personally did something for him. “Gets me every time. It’s just…beautiful.”
“Yeah,” I say, my eyes still on him. “It is.”
I’m not talking about the view.
He rolls his window all the way down and warm air moves through the truck. Neither of us talks for a while. The tape runs on low.
This is the thing about this ridge. We’ve ended up here after bad weeks at work and good ones too—in rain, fog, and once in near-dusk when neither of us felt like heading back.
Lance adjusts a little in his seat, still looking out at the valley. “How long since the last time we came up here?”
“April, maybe, before your schedule got stupid.”
“My schedule’s not stupid.”
“You picked up three overtime shifts last week.”
He doesn’t argue that one. He keeps his attention on the view without saying anything. The light changes as the clouds move, the valley changing from silver to a deeper shade, the far ridgelines fading toward purple in the haze. The towns below catch the light at the edges.
He turns to look at me with that easy, boyish grin still on his face, and something about being on the receiving end of it while we’re sitting up here with the whole valley behind him does a number on me.
“Thanks, G,” he says.
I put the truck in reverse. “Now you’re ready to go home.”
“Now I’m ready to go home.” He faces forward and rolls his window halfway up.
We’re back on the 5, heading south. “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls is playing now. Lance sets his hand on my thigh, palm down, slightlyabove the knee. It’s like he’s thought about whether to do it and decided yes.
I keep my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road. He doesn’t move.
I know he’s not trying to start anything. The whole experiment we’d agreed to, whatever word fits what we’d set out on his couch that day, it was just that. An exploration.
He’s been here before, in pieces. Knows what a man’s hands feel like on him, what it’s like to touch and be touched. We all did back at Azure Tides. That night on Vince’s couch this weekend had its own rules.
But this, right now, feels different. There’s no crowd to hide behind and no easy context to lean on. It’s just him choosing it here, in the quiet space between the truck, the low hum of music, and the long stretch of highway ahead.
I put my hand over his. My fingers slot into his like they’ve done it before, easy. Neither of us looks at the other. Eyes stay on the road while the tape plays. I know him well enough I don’t need to look to know he’s smiling.
We stay like that until the Spring Valley exit. I need both hands for the off-ramp and he lets go without being asked.
