What am I doing going to Oklahoma with Parker? I should be staying home, sending out resumes, calling marketing firms, and putting out more feelers for a job. I spent the past two weeks doing just that, with no luck. My savings won’t last forever.

I finally had to break down and tell my mom what happened. Of course, that meant spending the next week convincing her not to drive over and shove a heel up Ryan’s ass. My mom’s the best. What she lacked in money while I was growing up, she made up for with love. And sometimes a little too much protectiveness. Probably why I’m so eager to try any death-defying activity that I can. I think she would have wrapped me in bubble wrap growing up if she could have. Also probably why I’m not about to broaden my job search to the Glenwood Springs area, despite how much she thinks she would love it. Actually witnessing me live my life might give her a heart attack, and her worrying would drive me insane.

A shiny silver Volvo pulls up outside my apartment, and the smiling man who rushes from it to my side brushes away all my concerns. Time away is exactly what I need. Time to think. Time to plan. Time to get a piece of that ass. Or more precisely, gift him with mine.

“Morning,” he says with a sleepy grin. His cap is on backwards and he’s wearing those damn track pants again, the ones where he’s oblivious that they cling pornographically to his ass. “I’ve got coffee and bagels waiting in the car.”

He grabs my suitcase and carefully situates it into his trunk, like it’s a puzzle piece and there’s a certain place where it belongs. I was about to protest him carrying my luggage for me, but I now realize it probably has more to do with him needing that order than him seeing me as lesser or needing help.

“You do know it’s just three days, right?” he says, eyeing the size of my suitcase compared to his small travel case and hanging bag.

“I wasn’t sure what outfit would be appropriate, so I brought multiple options,” I say with my hands on my hips. I will not apologize for wanting to look my best.

“Good thinking,” he says and kisses my cheek.

Any arguments I might have been preparing flee at the touch of his lips.

We pile in, and I immediately reach for the coffee while he hooks up his phone to his car sound system. He sets up his navigation and points out the trash bags and wet wipes, obviously worried that I’m going to demolish his pristine interior with my presence. I hadn’t noticed the car was this perfect the other night. It makes me a little proud to think Parker let me dirty it up like we did. Heh.

“Feel free to play dj,” he says. “I have several playlists, or you can pull up your own if you have them. I don’t care what the music is, I just need to have something on while I drive to help keep me awake.”

Parker’s musical taste is kind of basic, which I had been expecting, but I find a surprising alternative 90’s playlist and set it to shuffle play. He says it’s roughly a ten-hour drive, so I’m sure there’s still plenty of opportunity to argue over musical tastes. By the time we reach the highway, we’ve settled into early morning small talk between bites of bagel.

“Can I ask you a question?” Parker asks while simultaneously turning down the stereo using buttons on the steering wheel.

“Sure.”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want,” he rushes to say. “And I hope you don’t get offended, because I don’t mean for it to be an offensive question.”

He chews on a thumbnail, and I can’t think of a time when I’ve seen Parker this nervous. I would call it cute, except I’m worried the question might make me rethink that descriptor. Still, I can’t stop the side of my lip from quirking at him.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, and shift in my seat, the better to watch him be flustered.

“I’m not asking out of curiosity or to question you,” Parker says, glancing between me and the road, I’m guessing to check my reaction. “I’m asking because I like you. And I want to get to know you. And it seems like this is an important piece of getting to know and understand you.”

“You want to ask me about being nonbinary.”

He nods, and once again nervously glances in my direction.

“It’s okay, you know. I just hope that what I say doesn’t scare you off or anything.”

Parker’s quick to shake his head. “No, you definitely won’t do that.”

Well, isn’t that interesting. I know Parker likes me. That much has been obvious since my disastrous date with Ben. But in what way he likes me, and how much, those are the mysteries that have plagued me for a couple of weeks now. What little we texted during that time was strictly road-trip related.

I take a moment to collect my thoughts before starting. This is the thing I’ve thought more about throughout the course of my life than anything else. If you stop to think about that, it’s ridiculous. Not what I’m going to be when I grow up, or how to be a decent human being and fellow citizen. No, I’ve spent decades figuring out if I’m a boy or a girl, when it turns out I’m neither. And if we weren’t so fucking culturally predisposed to only think in blacks and whites, then it wouldn’t have been an issue. It didn’t have to be an issue.

“Before I identified as nonbinary, I spent a lot of time trying out both genders. Obviously, I spent my childhood as a male. But I thought maybe what I was feeling meant that I was supposed to be female. I would hide away for entire weekends and give myself a female name and only wear women’s clothes, but that didn’t feel right either.”

I usually feel defensive when I talk about this with other people, because I’m expecting them to argue or belittle me. I know that Parker won’t do that, but I’m still nervous for his reaction.

“I can see that,” he says, his brow pulled down and lips pursed like he’s truly absorbing and digesting my words.

“You can?”

“Well, obviously not meaning I share those feelings, but I can see that’s how you would feel. How you see yourself.”

I don’t know why I’m surprised he’d react like this. The man is all empathy and kindness. It makes it easy to go on.

“I found a group online, and really explored everything that people there had to say. Everyone who is nonbinary is different, just like everyone who is male or female is different. Male comes across differently for you than it does for Zach, for example. For me, except for my dick, which we’ve already established I’m very fond of–”

“Me too.” Parker smirks at his own interruption, which earns him a gentle smack on the arm.

“I wouldn’t feel right having a traditionally masculine body. Broad shoulders, deep voice, hair everywhere, bulky muscles. I know that isn’t every guy, but most guys don’t shudder at the thought of that happening to them. I’m lucky enough to naturally have a pretty androgynous body. Some people, if they wanted to get rid of those traits, would have to take some sort of hormones. I don’t. The worst I have to endure is waxing every month, when I can afford it.”

“Same.”

That makes me do a double-take. “What do you mean, same?”

“Oh, right. I meant about waxing. That shit sucks.”

My mind and my mouth feel like they’ve been caught in a tornado and flung to an alternate reality. “You wax?” I try to think back, but both times we had sex, we kept most of our clothes on. I haven’t seen Parker’s naked body, and now I really feel the loss.

Parker grunts. “Shelby made me wax my chest hair. I didn’t have a ton, mind you, but she hated it anyway. It itches like a bitch growing back in.” He squirms in his seat as if it’s growing back in as we speak.

“But back to you. You said the female body is the same way? It doesn’t feel right?” he asks and I can tell he’s asking all this because he truly wants to get me, and not just to distract from more questions about his chest waxing. I’ve never had anyone devote this kind of attention toward me that wasn’t negative in some way. If he keeps this up for the whole weekend, my determination to not get attached is going to be toast.

“No, I have no interest or desire in having a vagina, nor do I feel like it’s missing from me. I also have no desire for breasts. I said it before, but really androgyny body-wise is where I feel most comfortable. That grey area where, if I stood completely naked before you with a censor bar over my groin and my chest, you’d scratch your head for hours and still not be sure.”

Parker laughs at the censor bar comment. “But you don’t wear strictly androgynous, I guess is the way to say it, clothes.”

“Nope. Clothing is then where I get to have fun with my expression. I like mixing and matching, and it’s very dependent on the day or the situation. Why did you wear track pants today?”

I snake a hand across to his lap and walk my fingers toward his dick. He swats my hand away. His voice is a higher pitch than normal when he says, “Do you want me to wreck the car?” He adjusts himself before continuing. “Because they’re comfortable and we’re going to be in a car for ten hours.”

“Exactly. So I brought half my wardrobe since I have no idea what your hometown or your family are going to be like, and I have no idea what is going to feel comfortable to me tomorrow. Plus I also didn’t want to be totally disrespectful or reflect badly on you, so I thought you could help me decide.”

Parker takes a shaky breath, and I worry that I’ve somehow upset him before he sweeps away my concern with a smile. He takes off his cap and scrubs at his hair before replacing it. It’s crooked and even more of his hair sticks up in tufts at the front.

“Thank you for that. For taking me into consideration. Jesus, we’re not even a full hour in and I already steered us to the heaviest possible conversation.” His laugh feels forced, but that’s understandable. It has been a heavy conversation. “Okay, from here on out, nothing more serious than musical tastes. So, Mal, how do you feel about Nirvana?”

* * *

I pull the car over at the Gas’n Go in eastern Kansas. We made good enough time this morning to stop for lunch somewhere in western Kansas, and I took over the driving after that. It’s a straight shot over flat land. I couldn’t possibly screw it up.

Parker fills up the tank while I stretch, propping one leg at a time against the back bumper and bending toward my foot. He napped during my turn at the wheel, and I’m not surprised. He loaded up on barbecue for lunch, some kind of monstrous sandwich with three kinds of meat, barbecue sauce, and coleslaw, and I’m pretty sure it sent him into a meat-induced coma.

“Do you want a drink?” I ask. “I thought I’d grab some snacks.”

“Hold on and I’ll come with you,” Parker says after a yawn. His hair sticks up on the right side where he slept against the door. It’s freaking adorable.

Inside the Gas’n Go, heads turn when the doorbell announces our entrance. Parker moves closer and puffs up his chest a bit, like he’s trying to protect me. Weirdo.

There’s only one restroom, so after we take turns, we grab a couple of sodas and a bag of chips to share and head to the front. The man behind the counter eyes me warily, and my eyes follow his. I’m in tight yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt that keeps falling down one of my shoulders. Parker has definitely noticed, and so I might slump just a little to encourage it, just like I might have waggled my ass more than necessary while scouring the aisles for road-trip treats.

“We good here?” Parker’s voice comes out low and threatening, and even I’m a little taken aback by it. The man behind the counter, certainly no match for Parker’s size and muscles, quickly shakes his head and rings up our items.

Parker walks me back to the car with an arm slung around my shoulder. I try not to grin like an idiot.

“You know, you didn’t have to go all alpha male back there. I’m not one of your girls that you have to protect,” I say after we’re back in the car and on the road.

Parker’s forehead wrinkles, but he keeps his eyes on the road. “One of my girls? Like I was some player? Is that what you think? Honestly, Mal, there was only ever Shelby.”

I scoff as I pop open the bag of chips, sending a burst of fake sour cream scent into the air. “Right. You never had any other girlfriends?”

“High school girlfriends, I had because it was expected. No one I cared enough about to actually have sex with. Shelby was the only one I ever actually, you know.”

I wish I was better at masking my emotions. Usually I’m brilliant at it, but Parker has the unique ability to tear those masks down. Right now, I could be Meryl Streep and still not be able to hide my shock at hearing that Parker had only been with one person before me.

“You’re not going to be weird now, are you?” he says through clenched teeth.

“Of course not. I’m just surprised. What kind of a person would be a dick about that?”

“Shelby.” His deep voice reverberates with pain, and I really wish there was something more I could do to make that bitch pay.

“You’re telling me Bible-thumper Shelby made you feel bad about not being with more women?”

The muscle in Parker’s jaw that runs below his ear twitches. It’s his only response. I reach for his hand. It’s the only way I can think of to put him at ease. He should know by now that he never has to be embarrassed around me. And if he doesn’t know that, then we’re going to need an in-depth lesson later.

“I’m honored that you chose me.”

His eyes briefly connect with mine before locking back on the road ahead. But it was enough to convey a flood of gratitude.

I thought I had it rough growing up, getting picked on for not being manly. Never did I imagine a golden boy like Parker would have the same issues.