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“I get like that sometimes. When we’ve been off the road too long, which, to be fair, used to be a rare occasion, or when the routine gets too flat. I take drives to work it out.”
“What kind of drives?”
“I put some clothes in a bag, take the car, and drive for a few days.”
“You just leave.”
“Yeah. The open road helps clear my head.”
I stare up at him. “Does anyone know when you do that?”
“Nikko. Sometimes. I text him when I’m going to be gone more than a day.”
“And this time?”
“I told him I was taking a drive, but I didn’t say where.”
I sit up a little. “Fox, it’s a what, six-day drive from LA to Vermont? Did you mean to come here?”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “I was going to visit a friend in Wyoming. I’ve done that drive before. Wyoming is a good place to disappear for a few days. But when I got to Colorado, I should have turned north but...”
“You kept going east.”
He nods. His expression is open and unguarded.
“I wanted to see you,” he says.
The apartment is very quiet.
I don’t know what to do with those words.
At some point in the last ten years, I accepted that this isn’t the type of relationship where we say these things.
Are we friends? I’d say yes. But not more, right?
Right?
He’s looking at me like he’s expecting me to redirect. To make a joke. To let this pass without landing.
I lean up and kiss him.
His hand slides from my hair to my jaw. His thumb strokes the corner of my mouth. When I pull back, his eyes are closed.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I say, and my voice comes out quieter than I intended.
“I’m glad I’m here too.”
“How long are you staying?”
He looks at me for a beat. “Until the band arrives for Thanksgiving, then I’ll go to your parents’ farmhouse. Assuming that’s okay.”
“Two weeks.”
“Is that okay?”
I try to keep my face neutral, but I’m pretty sure I fail. Two weeks is not a hookup. Two weeks is not stolen time. In the ten years we’ve been doing this, we’ve never even dared to spend a full night together.
“That’s a long time to hide in a small apartment,” I say.
