The Long Way

If you’ve ever driven across the country, then you’re probably aware of the mind-numbing fear that happens when you’re in the middle of the Arizona desert, there’s nothing around you but cacti and sand, and you see a sign that says “Next Gas Station 130 Miles Away.”

I became obsessed with checking the gas gauge, thankfully, because that literal warning sign didn’t even phase Beau. It wasn’t that he was careless, per se, but ever since we’d been kids he always assumed everything in his life would work out. Probably because it always did.

Me, on the other hand? Things hadn’t been so easy-breezy for me. I was reminded of that when I looked at the urn wrapped in a towel on the floor of the backseat, all that remained of my father. I thought about the last thing he ever said to me: Be true to yourself, kid.

I hadn’t been. Not with Beau. Not for years.

I stood at the gas station pump, the crumpled map spread across the hood of Beau’s battered pickup. The desert air was thick with heat and the chemical scent of gasoline. My auburn hair stuck to my forehead and I traced our route with my finger as the paper crinkled under, its edges fluttering in the hot breeze. I had planned out every mile. One week. Two thousand miles. We were almost there.

Beau leaned beside me, his blonde hair curling damply under his backwards baseball cap, the open front of his plaid shirt revealing the light golden hair across his chest. He smelled like motor oil and the coffee we’d bought inside. “You got every mile color-coded, don’t ya?” he teased, that easy grin of his making my stomach tighten the way it always had.

“Someone has to,” I retorted. “You’d just wing it and we’d end up in Mexico.”

We climbed into the truck. Beau took the wheel first. The desert stretched endlessly, the sky nearly bleeding from blue into orange and pink as the sun sank lower into the afternoon.

Our conversation came the way it did since we started the trip, in waves. We talked about cars, about the urn, about how strange it felt to be carrying my dad’s ashes across the country to be placed in the family columbarium.

“He always said the same thing when I was growing up,” I admitted after a long stretch of silence. “Be true to yourself. He knew. I think he knew I was gay before I did.”

I could feel Beau turn his head and study me. “You ever tell him?”

“Not out loud,” I shook my head. “But he knew.”

The tension between Beau and I had been there for years. Or, at least I felt tension. But wasn’t that standard for every gay guy? To fall in love with your handsome, straight best friend from childhood? Every time we brushed shoulders standing too close together in a bar, or when he’d hug me and I’d smell him before he pulled away, or when he would laugh and reflexively slap my knee. It all meant more to me than it meant to him. I thought.

“He loved you, dude,” Beau confirmed. I knew that. But I liked hearing him say it, trying to comfort me. “And I love ya, too.” He slapped his hand on my knee then, warm palm against bare flesh just beneath my shorts. The way my cock stiffened when he touched me almost made me sad. Because I still loved Beau more than just a friend.

“I feel like I’m betraying him, though,” I said softly.

“Why?”

“Because I’m not being true to myself. I’m not being honest.”

“About what?” Beau looked worried.

“C’mon man. Don’t make me say it,” I chuckled. But Beau stayed silent and kept his eyes on the road.

“I always had a thing for you,” I admitted. “Stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid,” Beau said too quickly.

I looked at him.

“You think I never thought about my gay best friend giving me some good head?!” Beau laughed innocently. Like it was a joke. But I wasn’t sure it was. So, I called his bluff.