I shouldn’t have agreed to a fifteen-hour road trip to a family function with my fuck buddy. This is too intimate, it’s too boyfriend-y. So why did I agree to it? And why do I feel just a little bit excited?

I grab my bag—packed with a week’s worth of clothes—and fling it over my shoulder. I check the time, Rebel should be outside waiting, so I lock my door and head down.

As expected, Rebel is waiting in his idling car just outside my building. I toss my bag into the back seat and climb in.

“Hey,” Rebel greets me by leaning over the center console. Without thought, I press a quick kiss to his lips, and then I freeze, my stomach jolting.

That wasn’t a let’s get down to business kiss, that was a nice to see you, boyfriend kiss. And the scary thing is it felt so natural. I pull back and paste on a smile. Rebel looks just as surprised and unsure as I feel.

“Hey, listen, I know I told you to call me Rebel, but I think that might be weird in front of my family.”

“Oh, yeah I guess that makes sense. So...I should call you Hendrix?”

His real name on my lips feels strange but somehow also a little thrilling. I can imagine rasping it as he pounds me from behind.

His eyes widen a fraction, and the slightest hint of a blush rises in his cheeks. “Yup, is that okay?” he asks, his brisk tone out of balance with his shy expression.

“Yeah, it’s cool.”

An awkward silence settles between us for a few beats before a genuine smile returns to Rebel’s face. “Guess what we’ll pass right by on our drive.”

“What?”

“Vegas.” Rebel waggles his eyebrows at me, and I do a fist pump.

“We’re going to stop, right?”

“Fuck yeah, we’re going to stop,” Rebel agrees. “It’s only five hours to Vegas. So we’ll head there and spend the night, then we can split the rest of the eleven-hour drive from there.”

“Works for me, let’s do this.”

“Thanks again for coming,” Rebel says, the hint of vulnerability leaching into his expression again.

“No thanks required, just the sex you promised.”

“Oh yeah, we’re definitely doing that. And feel free to entertain yourself during the first portion of our journey by giving me road head, if the spirit moves you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

As we pull out of the parking lot, Rebel selects a playlist, and I relax into the passenger seat.

Even once we’re outside the city proper, traffic is at a standstill. Rebel and I entertain ourselves singing along with the radio, pointing out random road signs or anything that gives either of us a chuckle, and talking about nothing and everything.

“Tell me about losing your virginity,” I prompt with a wicked smile at Rebel, who throws his head back and laughs at my question.

“Oh man, this is a really awkward story. I dated this guy, Justin, my junior year of high school. He wasn’t the love of my life or anything, but he was hot and one of the few other openly gay guys. Anyway, we’d been dating for a few months and done everything else so we figured it was time to go where neither of us had gone before. We argued for over a week about which one of us would bottom. Both of us were nervous about being the one to take it. We ended up agreeing to flip a coin for it, I flipped and it came up tails…”

I laugh at the grim way Rebel recounts the story. “Aw, poor baby,” I tease.

“Oh, yeah, just wait. With the important details decided, we made a plan for him to come over to my place after school when I knew we’d have the house to ourselves. We clumsily undressed each other, like we weren’t already well practiced at getting each other naked. Once we were naked, things took a turn for the worst. We’d watched porn to figure out technique, and as I’m sure you might realize there’s one thing that’s missing from a porn education.”

“Oh, my god, you poor thing,” I gasp, guessing where this story is going, and doing a terrible job of stifling my chuckle behind my genuine sympathy.

“Yeah, no prep, no lube, I just bent over, and he went right for it. It felt like my ass was being torn in two. Luckily, he wasn’t the most well hung guy ever, but it was still not awesome. After about thirty seconds, I told him to stop, and he said ‘give me a second.’ When he didn’t stop, I got pissed and shoved him off me and then punched him in the jaw.”

“Oh my god, how is this a real story?”

“I know, it’s crazy, right? That’s not the embarrassing part, though. Apparently, my mom had come home at some point and overheard us. After Justin left, she sat me down and talked to me about lube and prepping for, and I quote, anal play.”

“Yeah, that’s awkward,” I agree, trying to catch my breath from how hard that story made me laugh.

“She’s a great mom. Both my parents are awesome. I wasn’t sure how they’d take it when I started doing porn, but they were cool about it.”

My good humor sobers as talk turns to his parents.

“What about your family? You haven’t mentioned them before.”

“I grew up in foster care,” I answer with cool detachment.

Understanding dawns on his face. “What happened to your parents?”

“Who knows, who cares,” I snap. “They weren’t around a lot when I was young. When they were home, they slept a lot and fought all the time. In hindsight, they were probably drug addicts. When I was six, my mom dropped me off at a police station. She said she’d be right back. That was the last time I saw her. I bounced around to different foster homes until I aged out of the system.”

“I’m sorry.”

The pity in Rebel’s expression is enough to make me want to hit something. “Don’t be. I was fine on my own. I don’t need to rely on anyone but myself, and I’m good with that. I don’t need to be coddled.”

“I get it,” Rebel assures me. “What about your first time?”

The tension in my shoulders relaxes. Bless Rebel for the subject change.