I had gotten pretty used to the nearly-silent car rides with Sam. They felt surprisingly comfortable, for the most part. I wasn’t expected to add anything to the journey or the conversation, so I was able to curl up in my seat and fade away into my own little world, the only soundtrack to my wandering thoughts the soft hums of Sam mumbling along with his music. I may have felt like a massive screw-up, but even I could sit in a chair and not talk for several hours. The concept was foolproof, by which I mean that I couldn’t make a fool out of myself while doing it.

Adding Melissa to the journey quickly flushed all of that down the drain.

Now, it wasn’t that I was unhappy to have her around, because I wasn’t. If anything, it was actually kind of a relief, because it eliminated any need for me to interact with anyone whatsoever, which meant I could be as asocial as I wanted to be without facing any consequences.

The bad part, unfortunately, was that the woman never shut up.

It wasn’t entirely her fault, to be fair. She just had the kind of energy that only seemed to be found in cheerleaders and meth addicts, and I doubted she could control it if she wanted to. Everything she said was smart, measured, and engaging—there was no issue with the content of what she was saying. It was just the sheer volume at which words were being produced.

To his credit, Sam made a very game attempt to keep up with her, somehow managing to succeed in spite of her rapid fire talking. Most of the time, it seemed less like they were having a conversation and more like they were both giving lectures at the same time; their words and ideas ran together so much that they were talking almost simultaneously. After a while, the constant chatter was starting to give me a headache. How could people handle talking so much? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even had the urge to talk to anyone that much, but the two of them spoke like they were afraid of running out of air. I tried to lose myself in another one of Sam’s fics, but it was impossible. I was too distracted.

It wasn’t just the talking that was getting to me, either. That probably wasn’t even the biggest problem. If I was being perfectly honest with myself, the problem was that I had woken up in bed with another human being for the first time in five years that morning. And not only that, but the human being I’d woken up next to was Sam.

After opening my eyes, I laid awake, staring at him, watching the way his chest gently rose and fell with his sleepy little breaths. My fingers itched with the mad urge to reach out and stroke his cheek. His skin looked so soft, and I could feel the warmth of his body radiating off of him. He looked soft and peaceful and strong all at once, and I had to force myself not to curl up in the crook of his arm. We were both still fully clothed under the blankets, and I was already overly warm, but I wanted nothing more than to be completely enveloped by him. The most I allowed myself to do was gently pluck his cockeyed glasses from his face and put them on the bedside table. At least I had a good excuse for doing that if I needed one.

If I hadn’t admitted to liking him before, I didn’t have much of a choice after that morning. I even texted Damien as much when I messaged him to let him know I’d found him. Most of the car ride ended up being spent with me pretending to read fanfiction while I hastily texted my agent. Even though he was still clearly stressed, he seemed more than willing to talk about my love life. I’d always known Damien was a gossip, but he acted like my worry over liking a guy was downright soothing for him.

Lance: I’m just so freaked out right now. What do I do?

Damien: You could start by relaxing for five seconds.

Lance: Ha ha. What a great friend. You’re so helpful. Whatever would I do without you.

Damien: Or you could just be a dick about it, I guess.

Lance: This is serious! I really like him, D! Like, really REALLY like him! In a feelings way, too, not just a pants way!

Damien: Okay, first of all

Damien: Never, ever say “pants way” to talk about your sexual attraction to a human being ever again, or I will absolutely fire myself as your agent.

Damien: Second of all, you’re experiencing a crush. It happens to everyone. People develop crushes. Honestly, you’re about twenty-five years late to this party. God, I can’t believe I’m explaining this to you. Do I need to have The Talk with you too?

Lance: I’m going to chalk your attitude up to you having a really bad week and not you being an asshole.

Damien: I’m just saying, you were practically married. I expected you to have some kind of experience with this. You had a crush on Paul before the two of you got together, right? This isn’t your first rodeo.

I thought about that for a while. Much as I was loath to admit it, he was right. I had been with Paul for a long, long time. I was supposed to be familiar with butterflies in my stomach and the desire to be as close as possible to someone. I mean, sure, I’d been out of the game for a while—being a hermit tends to put a pretty big damper on a person’s romantic life—but I should have at least remembered feeling that kind of ecstasy and desire around someone.

But I didn’t.

In fact, looking back, what I felt for Paul seemed to shrink in comparison to the warmth that blossomed in my chest whenever I heard Sam laugh.

And that was utterly terrifying.

I had been with Paul for years. He was my high school sweetheart. I had planned on spending the rest of my life with him. Losing him had destroyed me so thoroughly that my entire life had crumbled around me, and five years later, I still hadn’t recovered. I had been totally broken by my love for him.

And then along came someone I barely knew, someone I’d only met a few days before, and I was completely enamored. It went beyond the comfort and contentment I’d had with Paul; it was exciting and new and fun. Sam didn’t see me as a burden or as someone who needed to be coddled; he looked at me like I was important, like I meant something, and that made me want to be better. I thought I had put all of myself into my relationship with Paul, but with Sam, it was more than that. I wasn’t just putting my effort into it—I was creating entirely new guidelines to live my life by. I was starting to push myself.

I was also starting to think that caring about someone else more than I’d cared for Paul might end up killing me.

The snow grew thicker and thicker the further across the country we went. It wasn’t even quite dark out when we decided to stop for the night. The Rabbit’s tires were starting to fishtail at every stop sign, and waiting to find another hotel felt like tempting fate. Besides, the car felt almost oppressively cramped with the addition of Melissa and all of her luggage. The three of us half-fell out of the car, stretching and complaining as we dragged our things into the hotel. It was a chain, but it was nice and clean, and we were all able to get our own rooms. It was a relief after being cramped together in my car for ten hours.

Still, there was a restless energy hanging in the air. Melissa and Sam were still reveling in their newfound friendship, and even I had to admit I wasn’t ready to go up to my room just yet. I felt like I had in high school: full of nervous energy and a desire for something to channel it into. The three of us hung around in the lobby, none of us willing to be the first to break off from the group.

“You know,” Sam finally said, “I saw a sign for a pool back there. Did you guys bring swimsuits?”

“Yes!” Melissa’s eyes lit up with delight. “That sounds perfect right now! Especially if they have a hot tub.”

My back throbbed, reminding me of how tight and achy it had become from the journey. “I’d kill for a hot tub right now,” I agreed. “Or even a sauna.”

“Yeah, Volkswagen doesn’t seem to care too much about making cars that are comfortable for long trips.” Sam stretched, and I hungrily took in the sight of the pale sliver of stomach that was revealed when his shirt lifted up. I saw Melissa shoot me a smirk and I looked away, embarrassed. “How about we get all of our stuff in our rooms and we meet down at the pool?”

We all agreed and headed off to our separate rooms. As soon as I shut the door behind me, I pulled out my phone and texted Damien.

Lance: We’re all going swimming. I’m going to see him shirtless.

Damien: Woah, woah, slow down there, buddy. Buy the guy a drink first!

Lance: I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.

Damien: Don’t worry. I very much am. You’re swimming together in a public pool, not giving each other lap dances. The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll catch some kind of disgusting parasite from being in the same water a thousand people have peed in.

It’s so nice to have such supportive friends.

Still, I had to admit that Damien was right, at least about Sam. I was a grown man, not a horny teenager. I could handle seeing a guy shirtless, no matter how attractive he was. I’d watched plenty of Chris Evans movies, after all. I had proven I could handle looking at a hot guy in public.

That was the assumption I went off of before I got to the pool. As soon as I walked in, though, all of those thoughts went out the window.

Over the past five years of self-imposed isolation, I’d forgotten what a massive difference there is between seeing a cute guy on a screen and seeing one in real life, and I was confronted with that fact head on. When I saw Sam in his swim trunks, I had to make an effort not to let my jaw drop.

I had guessed there was a lot more muscle to him than his thin frame would suggest, but I wasn’t prepared for the six-pack that awaited me. He had the kind of abs that I had only ever seen in commercials for fitness equipment, and he had the pecs and shoulders to match. What he lacked in bulk, he more than made up for in definition, and I could finally see exactly how his broad shoulders tapered down to his narrow waist. The light smattering of freckles over his chest and stomach only added to the appeal, and I imagined my lips seeking out each little spot and lavishing them all with attention. When Sam waved to me from his spot in the hot tub, I subconsciously held my towel up to cover myself.

I wasn’t a big guy, and my habit of forgetting to eat for days on end kept me slim, but I felt like a skinny wimp next to this geeky Adonis. It wasn’t until I reached the hot tub that I even noticed Melissa sitting on the side of it, dangling her feet in the warm water and sighing in contentment. Her bathing suit was a lot more conservative than her profession led me to expect, but it hugged her body in a way that made the few men lingering around the pool in plastic deck chairs stare at her. She didn’t pay them any attention.

I slid into the water between the two of them, keeping my arms tight against my sides to avoid taking up too much room. It was a pretty big hot tub and there was no danger of me bumping into either of them, but my nerves kept me huddled in a tight ball.

Sam and Melissa’s co-occurring monologues carried over from the car into the hot tub, and after a little while of listening to them laughing and joking about things I didn’t completely understand, I started to relax. I leaned back, tilting my head back against the tile surrounding the hot tub and just listened. They tossed around terms like “squick,” “lemon,” and “OTP” with ease, and even though it was all lost on me, just listening to their voices was nice. It was like I was listening to people speaking a different language. I didn’t have to focus on exactly what they were saying; instead, I could just appreciate the calm created by being a part of a group. That wasn’t something I had much experience with, and my entire being ached with how much I had needed it.

“There’s always going to be crack fics,” Sam said confidently at one point, “but I sort of wish there weren’t. It ruins the reputation of fanfiction and the people that write it. It makes us all look like insane perverts.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Melissa said, even though her tone implied exactly that, “but I still think it has an important place in literature. It’s sort of like fanfiction’s reaction to postmodernism. Crack fics are to fanfiction what Naked Lunch is to literary canon. It’s a rebellion, something that pushes the limits.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t do it for a reason.”

“A lot of people would argue that pushing the limits is reason enough.”

“I just can’t get behind that, I’m sorry. Maybe if I’d ever seen it done with any kind of integrity, I would agree with you, but all of it is just bad. And if you want to talk about homophobia in fanfiction, I think that’s where crack fics really come from. People see someone writing characters as gay, and they decide that them being gay is just as ridiculous as inanimate objects having sex with each other. It’s offensive.”

Melissa giggled. “I thought you said they didn’t have a reason?”

“They probably don’t. I just thought it made for a good argument.” The both of them laughed at that, and even I smiled. I was surprised that I was so unbothered by being left out of the joke.

“What’s the worst crack fic you’ve seen, then?” Melissa asked.

“Oh, man. That’s a tough one. Probably Eli and the books themselves.”

That made me open my eyes.

Melissa made a show of fake-yawning. “Wow. How original. Just like every other crack fic I’ve ever read.”

“Hey, you asked,” Sam reminded her.

“Yeah, because I thought you would have something really good to say! I mean, I’ve read fics about the Grand Doctor hooking up with the Author and Anna Lee in the afterlife. It’s going to take a lot more than a little man-on-book action to scare me off.”

I sat up, my mouth hanging open. “What?!” I said, starting to laugh in spite of myself. “People write ghost porn about my books?!”

“Oh yeah. Lots of people,” Melissa said. “Conceivably, if you can have sex with something, people have written porn about it, and The Books of Veracity are not even slightly exempt.”

“No! What? Why?”

Sam snickered at my surprise. “Because people are gross and weird,” he said with a helpless shrug. “That’s why fanfiction has such a bad name.”

“That’s a little reductive,” Melissa argued. “There’s nothing really that bad about crack fics.”

“As the original author, I’m going to go ahead and veto that opinion,” I cut in. I slammed my fist down on the side of the hot tub, pounding a fake gavel. “It’s official! Crack fics—whatever they are—are gross and weird!”

Sam cheered and Melissa stuck her tongue out at me.

“Enough about all that stuff, though,” Sam said. He nodded to me. “I feel like you’ve been out of the loop all day.”

“I don’t mind,” I told him.

“That doesn’t make it okay to leave you out,” he said gently. “What’s something else we can talk about?”

Melissa, without hesitation, said, “We can play Never Have I Ever.”

Sam groaned. “No, come on. We’re not kids at a slumber party. We can’t play Never Have I Ever.”

“Why not? It’s fun!”

“I mean, sure, it can be kind of fun,” Sam accepted, “but it’s so immature. It always ends up being about sex.”

“And that’s bad why?” Melissa asked innocently. “Do you have something you feel you need to hide about your sex life?”

The hot tub suddenly felt even warmer.

“No,” Sam replied patiently, “but that’s not the point. It makes people uncomfortable. I mean, wouldn’t you feel weird talking about your sex life, Lance?”

Realistically, there were a few very true answers I could have given in response to that question. “Yes, it makes me extremely uncomfortable.” “This seems like a stupid game.” “I don’t want to explain my love life to people I barely know.” All of those options would not only have been true, but they also would have gotten me out of a potentially awkward situation.

Instead, my stupid mouth decided to blurt, “I don’t know, I think it could be fun.”

Melissa pumped her fist in celebration. Sam raised a curious eyebrow at me. “Really? You want to play Never Have I Ever?”

“Yeah,” I lied, “why not?”

“Have you ever played it?”

“No.”

He smirked. “Then you’re going to find out exactly why not.” He sighed and held up a hand. “All right, fine. Let’s do it.”

I hadn’t played the game before, but I knew the basic premise. I had only ever really heard of it as a drinking game: for every thing you’d done that someone said, you put up one finger, and once you had five fingers up, you took a shot. I hadn’t realized there was a non-alcoholic version of the game to be played; it must have been a staple at sleepovers, something I didn’t really experience much as a kid.

Without being asked, Melissa began gleefully with, “Never have I ever had sex!”

“Oh, come on!” Sam complained, but he and I both put up a finger. I filed that information away. Sam thought for a moment. “Okay. Never have I ever worked at a strip club.”

Melissa wrinkled her nose, but she laughed. “Screw you guys!”

“You started it,” Sam reminded her.

I rubbed thoughtfully at my chin. “Never have I ever written fanfiction.”

Both of them replied with a dual “fuck you,” and I smirked as they both put up a finger.

“Never have I ever been kissed,” Melissa said.

“Really?” I asked. “Never?”

She shook her head. “Nope. I’m chaste and pure as the winter snow,” she said with a prim smile. Sam huffed a little, but he and I both put up a finger.

“Let’s see. Never have I ever...had sex while high.” When I bashfully raised a third finger, Sam squawked at me in surprise. “What?!”

“It was freshman year of college, and I accidentally ate a bunch of pot brownies and slept with my boyfriend. Not something I’d recommend, by the way. The brownies, I mean, not the sleeping with a boyfriend.” I could feel heat rising in my cheeks, both from the admission and the memory. It had been an intense night, and it was hard not to wonder what would have happened if I’d been in that situation with Sam instead. “Okay, then—never have I ever had sex with a woman.”

I immediately looked over at Sam’s hand, but he still only had two fingers up. A knot in my stomach came untangled for the first time in days, and I finally had an answer to the question I’d wanted to ask most.

After that, it devolved about as rapidly as Sam had predicted into different sexual situations. “Never have I ever given oral.” “Never have I ever gotten a hand job in high school.” “Never have I ever had sex in my parents’ basement.” The questions went on and on, and I found Sam and I “lost” rounds with almost equal frequency. Neither of us were all that experienced, but the game seemed to draw out confessions along with our responses. It wasn’t long before Sam was telling us about his first one-night stand with a frat guy in college.

“My roommate sexiled me that night,” he said, “which was ridiculous, because we were supposed to have a code of ethics where we would talk to each other before that happened, but I went back to my dorm and found a tie on the door. So we decided we’d go back to his frat house, because he had his own room there. But we show up, and what do we see on his private bedroom door but another fucking tie. Some stranger who sold weed to a bunch of the frat brothers wanted to hook up with some girl at a party, and they’d just pointed him towards the nearest open room. So now we had to hunt for a decent place to have sex at two in the morning, and we had to choose wisely because we only had one condom.”

“Oh my God.” Melissa’s face was buried in her hands, but she was peeking out from between her fingers, both embarrassed and thrilled by the discomfort of the story. “So where did you go?”

“Behind a shrub.”

Melissa burst into a shrieking peal of laughter. “I know!” Sam cried, laughing as well. “I know! There were people walking home from a party right on the other side of the shrub. It was so awkward. And the guy kept calling me John the entire night, but I just didn’t have the heart to correct him. The worst part, though? It wasn’t even worth it at all. The sex was terrible.”

“Well yeah, you were in a shrub!” Melissa giggled.

“No, that wasn’t even the bad part! Well, except for the part where I got mulch in some really uncomfortable places,” Sam continued. “I mean the guy was awful. I’m pretty sure I was the first guy he’d ever been with, and I’m not sure he was even full out to himself, you know? Like he was one of those dudes who will sleep with men but always find some way to say it’s not gay. He literally told me to suck his dick—which, by the way, lasted maybe two minutes—and then got so nervous when I tried to put it in that he threw up on me.”

“God,” Melissa gasped, her laughter coming so hard that she was soon wiping tears out of her eyes.

Man, I thought, when did this hot tub get so hot? And when did my trunks start shrinking?

As unsexy as the story had been, it gave me a lot of much-desired insight that my brain seemed to need to toy with. Sam had had semi-public sex. He’d given head well enough that the guy came within a couple minutes. He liked topping.

All of these points were starting to come together in my head in a way that would have been very satisfying if I was alone. But that was the problem—I wasn’t alone. And I was stuck there with a hard dick and a brain racing with images that were just way too interesting to shut down.

When Melissa’s laughter died down, I noticed her looking me up and down. I crossed my legs, but it was too late—she had definitely seen the none-too-small bulge in my trunks. There was only a small flicker of recognition in her eyes before she slid into the hot tub beside me. If I hadn’t been watching her so closely, I wouldn’t have noticed her hooking her pinky discreetly around the edge of the towel she brought with her and tugging it into the hot tub with her. She gasped and made a little disgruntled noise, complaining, “Oh, Goddammit!” She tugged the towel out of the water and started wringing it dry. “Great. Now how am I going to dry off?”

“Clumsy,” Sam teased affectionately. He hopped out of the hot tub, and I tried not to notice the way the tiny water droplets cascaded down his stomach towards the band of his trunks. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll go get another towel from my room.”

“Are you sure?” Melissa asked, flashing her doe eyes at Sam.

“Yeah, it’s no problem. You just got in. I was getting a little overheated anyway.” He dried himself off quickly. “Be back in a minute!” he called over his shoulder as he hustled towards the door.

Melissa didn’t turn back to me until the door was completely shut. “So, that was almost kind of awkward, huh?” she said, clearly proud of herself.

I melted into the water in embarrassment and relief. “You’re an angel,” I told her.

“I could see you were starting to panic a little.” She kept glancing back towards the entrance to the pool area, keeping an eye out for Sam. “Not that I think you needed to.”

“No offense, Melissa, but I don’t think you have a whole lot of experience with public boners.”

“I’m not saying it’s not embarrassing. I’m just saying you didn’t need to worry. So you like Sam, right? What’s the big deal?”

I gaped at her. I didn’t bother trying to argue against her assumption—after all, she’d be right. Instead I stammered, “What’s the big deal? I’m me!”

“What? You can’t be in a relationship because you’re a public figure?” She frowned. “That’s an awfully regressive point of view, don’t you think?”

“Huh? Oh, no.” I had actually forgotten for a while I was considered a public figure. It wasn’t like I was the kind of person who got recognized on the street every day, and considering Sam and Melissa were treating me more like a friend than a celebrity, it had slipped my mind that being well-known could even be an issue. “No, it’s got nothing to do with that. I’m more saying that, you know, he’s him, and I’m me, you know? I’m like the opposite of him. We’re practically different species.”

She cocked her head to the side and squinted. “Hmm, I don’t know. You both just look like a couple of cute white guys to me.”

“Ha ha,” I grumbled, unamused. At least my erection had died down and I could safely uncross my legs. “Are you going to pretend you really don’t see the difference in quality between Sam and me? He was hot before he took his shirt off, but now...” I sighed. “He’s insanely good-looking. I’m just...insane.”

“That’s not true,” she assured me gently. “I happen to think you’re very handsome. You’re like a twink version of John Stamos.”

“Yeah, you know, I’m really not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not.”

“I think you should. John Stamos is cute.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Even if he happened to find me attractive, which is doubtful, I don’t think he would want somebody like me as a permanent fixture in his life, and I don’t think I could do a, like, casual hookup. I’ve had one relationship my entire life, and I’m still not over that.”

Melissa frowned. “The guy from five years ago,” she said quietly.

I was going to express surprise until I remembered what she’d said about gossip blogs. Apparently they’d gotten some things right. I swallowed hard. “Yeah. Him.” I took a deep breath, and I was surprised how shaky it was. “Losing him was so hard, Melissa. It was...it was the worst thing to ever happen to me. I’ve woken up every day for five years hoping this whole thing was a bad dream, but it wasn’t. It happened, all of it. And there are days when I still can’t handle it.” I ran a hand through my hair, slicking it back from my forehead. “I don’t want to drag Sam down with all my baggage, even if he was willing to put up with me.”

She put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “If it helps any, I think he’d be willing. More than willing. It seems like every time you stop looking at him, he starts looking at you.”

“He’s probably wondering how I manage to sleep for sixteen hours a day and still look like an insomniac.”

“No he’s—wait, I’m sorry, did you say you’re sleeping sixteen hours a day? There is no way that’s good for you. You need to see a doctor.”

I waved her off. “Nah, I’ve been doing it for a couple years. I’m sure it’s fine.”

She shook her head in response. I was fine with that—that was how most people in my life dealt with me after a while. People learned to just shake their heads and stay quiet.

Sam came hustling back over a few seconds later, dropping a fresh towel down beside Melissa. She thanked him with a beaming smile. Then, with a sly look at me, she forced a big, theatrical yawn. “Man, I’m getting kind of tired,” she said, all but winking at me. “I think I’m going to go hit the hay.”

“Aw, really?” Sam asked. I tried to decide by listening to his voice how disappointed he was to be left alone with me, but I was hardly unbiased; all I could hear in the subtext of his statement was the word “loser” being shouted at me over and over again.

“Yeah,” I said suddenly, hoisting myself out of the water. “I’m actually getting kind of tired myself. It was a long drive.”

Melissa glared at me. I ignored her.

“Aw man. You sure?” Sam asked.

I yawned as well, though I doubt I was as convincing of an actor as Melissa had been. “Yeah. And hot tubs always knock me out. Besides, I haven’t been sleeping all that great the past couple nights.”

I didn’t realize how bad that sounded until a mortified expression dawned on Sam’s face. “Oh, man, I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize I’ve been keeping you awake.”

“No! No, I don’t mean that,” I said quickly. “I just don’t sleep well on the road. Nothing to do with you. Last night was actually pretty comfortable.” I could feel myself digging a hole, and for what felt like the first time in my life, I had the common sense to stop there. “So anyway,” I said awkwardly, “I’m just going to head upstairs.” I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around myself, remembering to be self-conscious of my tiny frame. I mumbled a goodnight they probably couldn’t hear and promptly hurried away, but even after I closed the door to my room, I still felt Melissa’s judgmental eyes on me, telling me to stop being so pathetic.