I woke up with a start, my arm tingling with sleep.

Groaning, I went to roll over before hearing a soft sound. I froze.

I carefully opened my eyes and felt my heart hammer when I saw Max sprawled out on my chest. One of my arms was trapped under his body. I lifted the other and hesitantly reached over.

I brushed a lock of his unruly hair out of his face. His nose scrunched and he burrowed against my chest, letting out a disgruntled sound. I held my breath and waited until he stilled.

Max’s hair was a bird’s nest, like always, except this time I knew exactly why it looked that way. It had been my hands that had twisted into the strands to tug and rearrange them.

I burned with a surprised giddiness, a complete sense of excitement that was bubbling so brightly that I was sure Max could feel it through my chest.

I felt—happy.

Last night felt more like a dream—a dream I had had many times before, but one that I liked to pretend hadn’t existed before last night.

I’d told Max that I liked him! He’d kissed me!

He—

The memory of his mouth against me was almost too much. I hadn’t thought I would ever get something like that. Not with Max, not with any guy.

I wasn’t sure what had come over me yesterday. I was not that guy. I wasn’t the kind of guy who told people they had feelings—I wasn’t really even the kind of guy who had feelings. I never admitted to stuff like that.

Remembering the sounds he'd made, the way his blue eyes had burned when he looked up at me, made me wonder why the hell I hadn’t told Max how I felt years ago. All of the workplace rivalry tensions we had could have been put to far better use.

I couldn’t stop staring at Max. He looked better in his sleep—less aggravating.

I wondered if it was possible to have such unnecessarily gushy feelings about him when I also thought he was very annoying. Half the time, I wanted to strangle him. But the other half—

He muttered something unintelligible in his sleep, and I smiled. Max frowned and then groaned, long and low, so that if I hadn’t been awake before, I was fully awake now. I felt my breath catch in my throat when he blinked awake and looked at me.

A wide, crooked grin pulled at his lips. He wrinkled his nose. “Are you watching me sleep?”

His voice was was with sleep, his words dragged like gravel and smoke. I wanted to roll around in it. It sounded almost as good as he had last night.

His eyes widened, and I realized my hand was still in his hair and I had tightened my grip accidentally. “My arm is asleep,” I said dumbly.

He raised his eyebrows but rolled off of me. I lifted my numb arm and watched as it fell, the dead weight dropping it back to the bed. I sighed. “You broke it.”

He sat up and stretched. His arms stretched high above his head and he shot me a completely unimpressed look. “Fuck off, it’s fine.”

“It’s broken,” I argued.

He rolled his eyes and reached down to touch his toes, stretching his back as he folded in on himself. He gave me a once-over. “It better not be.”

I flushed.

He winked.

He jumped out of the bed and hesitated before leaning over and kissing my cheek. My eyes widened and watched as he bolted away to the bathroom. I heard the shower turn on.

I flopped back to the bed, feeling myself grin.

For the first time, I found myself thinking that maybe I could do it—maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, so terrible to come out.

It had been less than twelve hours of not hiding it, not fighting it, and the tension I’d been carrying in my shoulders since I was twelve was finally gone.

The thought came crashing down as soon as it was built. My grandparents. I couldn’t come out, couldn’t do that to them—after everything they’d done for me, after everything they’d sacrificed, I could never do that. It would kill them.

I swallowed hard.

The bathroom door swung open and Max’s head popped up from the corner. His hair was dripping, and he had one eye closed to keep the soapy water out. “Are you joining me or what? We’ve got to hit the road.” He did a terrible impersonation of my voice.

I grinned without meaning to and forced the thought out of my mind.

I could worry about what I would do later—right now, I had a shower to take. Now was not the time for worries; it was the time for finding out what Max looked like wet.

I knocked on the door, went in, and slowly stripped. Max peeked out from behind the shower curtain, his eyes darting down me appreciatively.

I could feel myself blush. I ignored it and cocked my head. “Can I join you?”

“Bet,” he grinned, and threw the curtain open. I bit my lip, fighting a smile and shaking my head.

I carefully stepped in, refusing to actively be embarrassed by his eyes scraping across my naked body. As soon as I was safely inside of the shower, Max’s arms shot out and tugged me toward him. The water was warm, and it beat down on my back in a way that had my head rolling back.

“Feel good?” Max asked in a murmur. He shifted us until he was standing behind me and grabbed the shampoo bottle. Squeezing some out into his hand, he slowly started to run the shampoo through my hair.

His fingernails scraped softly against my scalp, his hands and fingers slowly and softly washing my hair. My head was lolling back, nearly falling on his shoulder every time he did it.

His hands slid down, still soapy, to wash my neck and shoulders. He moved his hands down my arms, across my back, and down to the cleft of my ass. It was an ineffectual attempt at bathing, but his hands felt so good pressing against my skin and muscles, knots easily being worked out with minimal pressure. It was like Max himself, his mere presence, was what was making me feel better.

I turned around and leaned back, rinsing the soap out of my hair. Then I wound my arms around him and swallowed hard.

He was watching me softly. A bit of panic curled against my gut, but I ignored it resolutely.

“Hey,” I said.

His lips quirked. My eyes dropped to them. “Hi.”

“How safe to do you think it would be to make out right now?” I asked.

Max laughed. “Two grown men in a wet and soapy shower, no real ability to catch themselves if they slip? Very unsafe.”

Despite his words, he surged forward and kissed me. It was slow, a languid pace, his chin tilting as he angled his head to kiss me deeper. I chased after him until he was pressed against the tiles, the water pouring over us like a waterfall. Max’s tongue slid against mine, and his hands held firmly to my hips.

We stood there kissing, learning the curves and tastes of each other’s mouths, until the water turned cold. We finished washing quickly, laughing as we tried to avoid the ice-cold pellets of water, and stealing kisses against each other's shoulders and necks whenever we could.

It was not the most effective shower I’d ever had, but it was certainly the best.

An hour later, Max and I were dressed and ready to leave. He was whistling, and I couldn’t find it in me to be annoyed by that.

We threw our bags into the back seat and I went to return the keys. One of the rooms had been completely unused; I considered asking for a refund for it, but then realized I would need to explain why. So. No thanks.

I came back and saw Max standing in front of the open hood with his arms crossed.

I stood next to him and shoved my hands in my pocket.

He tilted his head at the engine. I frowned. “What are we looking at?”

Max glanced at me, seemingly surprised I was there. “The car won’t start.”

“Oh.” I leaned over and looked into the empty abyss that was the car engine. “Is looking at it helping?”

“Shut up.” Max gave me a gentle shove. “Go sit down.”

I lifted my hands in defeat and happily acquiesced. I slid into the passenger seat and leaned against the door, waiting.

A minute passed, and then two, and then Max slammed the hood down and slid into the driver’s side.

“So,” he said, tapping one hand on the steering wheel. “Turns out I don’t know anything about cars.”

I laughed. He shoved me again. I laughed harder.

I went inside to get us coffee and bagels from the breakfast bar while Max called a mechanic. We ate the bagels dry, sitting on the step of the motel’s entrance. Max was dressed more appropriately today, because we had to deliver the package. For the first time, I was allowed to look.

I gazed at him, at the way his slacks pulled against his thighs, at the way his sharp collarbone was visible from his striped button-down. He drank his coffee and watched me back.

The mechanic came over and gave us an appraising, unimpressed look. I tried to follow his explanation of what had happened to the engine, but from the way that Max’s eyes were glazing over, he seemed equally confused.

“Wait—so. What?”

The mechanic sighed. “It’s going to take a few days to fix. We’re going to tow it to the shop. You need to get anything out of it?”

Max jumped up and went to grab our things and pay the mechanic for his time. A bout of panic curled around my guts as I sat there, frozen on the stoop.

The car was broken. Max’s special, important, expensive black car was broken, and now we couldn’t take the package to LA.

We were supposed to deliver it today. Harris had been clear—be prompt, do well, get promoted. Now, we were trapped at some motel five hours out from LA, and we were going to be fired.

Max came back while I was crafting my “please don’t fire me” speech in the Notes app on my phone.

“Luke? Luke. Dude!”

I blinked and glanced up at him. “We’re going to be fired.”

“Dude.” He sighed and looked up at the sky. Then he shook his head and looked at me. “It’s going to be fine. Everything will be okay.”

“No, Max. Harris said to be prompt, and we’re both getting canned. You too! Can’t charm your way out of this!”

“I don’t charm—Luke. Settle down. Listen, I’ll call Harris. It’ll be okay.”

He held out a hand. After a beat, I took it and stood up. We were standing chest to chest now. “I’ll go check us back in, I guess.”

“Good!” Max said, shoulders relaxing. He reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. I tried not to melt completely into it, but mostly failed.

Max slipped out his cell phone and walked back to the car. I watched him for a second before going into the motel’s lobby.

“Um. Hi.”

“Back already?” The receptionist didn’t look up from the computer she was typing on.

I shrugged. “Yeah. We, um, actually need the room again.”

This got her attention. She quirked an eyebrow. “Room? Or rooms, plural?”

“Oh.” I glanced out the window. Max was leaning against the hood of the car, talking on the phone. He waved when he saw me. “Just the one with the King bed is fine. Um. Cheaper that way.”

“Whatever.” She started to type again. I handed over the company credit card and sent a hopeless prayer that Harris wouldn’t take any of this out of my paycheck.

After I got the room key, I pulled out my own phone and went to the window, a little out of earshot from the receptionist.

I called my grandparent’s house. It took a few rings, like always, but eventually she answered.

“Hi, Grandma. It’s Luke.”

“Luke!” she cried out, happily. “Are you back? How was the trip? Bill! Bill, Luke is on the phone! Luke! Your grandson. I swear, that man!”

I laughed. “I’m sure he’s coming.”

“Slow as a tortoise, that man.”

Grandpa’s voice was quiet, but I heard him mutter back to her, “Not as slow as you!”

I shook my head as they started bickering. I imagined them standing in the old kitchen with the faded yellow wallpaper, holding the phone between them as they happily argued about anything they could. “Guys? Grandma?”

“Oh, Luke, honey. Sorry. You’re home from your trip?”

“No,” I said. I looked out the window. Max was grinning at me through the window and sitting on the hood cross-legged. “It’s going to be a few more days now.”

“More days? Why is it taking so long for two grown boys to deliver a package!”

“Well, the car broke down.”

“What? I knew this was unsafe. Can’t you just put it in the mail for the rest of the way?”

“Grandma.” I sighed. “There’s a promotion on the line. We’ve got to do this right.”

She hummed. It was her conspiracy theory hum. I braced myself for whatever she was about to suggest. “Watch that other boy.”

“Max?” I asked, incredulously. “You love Max.”

“I do not!” she protested.

“Every time I complain about him, you tell me that I need to be nicer. You have since college.”

I imagined Grandma waving that away. “If there’s only one promotion, you need to watch out!”

Grandpa started to argue with her, as he always did when she got suspicious about other people, and I tuned them out as they forgot that I was on the line.

I glanced over to Max. He was typing away on the phone.

“Grandma, I gotta go. I love you guys. Be safe.”

I hung up quickly and crossed my arms, frowning at Max. Grandma was just being paranoid—Harris didn’t say there was just one promotion, and, besides, how was this supposed to be a competition? It was just driving.

But Max was the only one to drive. He was also pretty eager to call Harris instead of me.

Max’s head popped up and he made an exaggerated what are you doing? gesture with his arms raised. He cocked his head and motioned for me to come outside.

I shook my head. I was being paranoid. Max was just being nice—he didn’t have some sort of secret in with the CEO of the company. Surely, even Max would have told me about that.