Day 0 Kutztown, PA — The Day Before #2
“This town is going to be so boring while you guys are gone. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. You’ll have to keep Max out of trouble for me, okay? I know I can trust you since you’re one of the girls.”
I lean against the counter, crossing my arms tight over my chest and meeting Max’s gaze, doing my best to let my eyes do the talking. He’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, and he must read me loud and clear, because at least he has the courtesy to blush.
He clears his throat. “Hey babe, do you want to go to my room? You know, because I think Sam has a lot to do before tomorrow.”
“Mmm, you only have one thought running through that empty little head of yours, don’t you?” She presses her tits against Max’s chest, dragging him down into a kiss. I look away carefully. “Well, I guess that’s why I came over. Later, Sam.”
Suddenly, I don’t have an appetite anymore.
MAX
“I can’t believe I have to climb a ladder for you to fuck me.”
Krista flops down onto my bed, rolling over onto her back, and I follow her up the rungs into my loft bed, the metal frame creaking underneath us. “Sorry, babe, it was the only way I could get everything to fit.”
Sam and I have talked it over, and we’re pretty sure our apartment used to be a one bedroom, but somebody moved the walls around. It would explain a lot.
“You’re lucky you’re cute enough for me to overlook it.” She wraps her arms around my neck, spreading her legs for me to lie down on top of her, and pretty soon I’m well on the way to forgetting pretty much everything I ever knew.
I promise I’m not completely shallow, even if I’m not the smartest guy in the world.
I mean, Sam’s smart as fuck, and somehow he’s stuck by me all these years.
But this girl — I just can’t help it. Krista is pure spitfire, all five feet nothing of her as brassy as her bottle-red hair.
I met her over the winter, when Sam and Roxie and I played a basement show two towns over.
After our set, she waltzed over to me and told me she thought our band sucked and she only came because her friends dragged her along, but she was glad she did because I was so hot.
And I don’t know how it happened (booze probably), but two hours later I ended up going down on her in the bathroom, her ass perched on the edge of the sink and the heels of her Doc Martens digging into my back.
I dunno, she just does things to me.
Like she’s doing right now, tugging my shirt up over my head and dragging her fingernails down my spine while I mouth kisses along the line of her throat.
She was out of her tank top before we even made it onto the bed, and now I’m snaking a hand underneath her, undoing her bra strap and burying my face in her tits.
Her absolutely fucking luscious tits, each a perfect handful fitted against my palms, pink nipples turning to tender peaks under my tongue as she arches her back, holding me in place and showing me exactly where she wants me.
She tugs at my hair, and when I look up, she’s propped on one elbow among the pillows.
“Are you actually going to fuck me tonight, Max? Or is it going to be — one of those nights?”
“Nnnnh —”
And just like that, I’m playing pool with a rope.
Okay, this is embarrassing. It’s not like I’ve never gotten it up with her.
I don’t think she’d still be here if we hadn’t had our share of hot sex.
It’s just — sometimes I think back to that first time, when I took off my pants and she laughed.
Or the way she wants my fingers just so and God help me if I don’t get it exactly right.
Or the way her voice echoes in my head sometimes when I’ve done something completely boneheaded.
Sometimes my brain and my dick just don’t get on the same page and that’s just how it is.
But I like to think I’m a considerate lover, so I plant a kiss right in the middle of her chest and plaster on a smile. “Just as soon as I take care of you first, baby —”
It’s a short trip down her belly, pushing up the plaid miniskirt and pulling her panties down, spreading her thighs apart.
And as I bury my tongue between her folds, as her fingers tug the hair at the crown of my head, making my eyes water, as she throws back her head and lets out a shuddering cry, I know there’s at least one thing that I can do right.
SAM
I have to get the fuck out of here.
I cover my ears with my hands and curl up into a ball, trying to drown out Krista’s moans.
I know I shouldn’t be listening, that I should get up and put on my headphones and finish packing my shit.
But it’s like a bruise I can’t help pressing with my thumb, and so I listen to the squeak of Max’s bedframe and I try not to think about how much I hate myself.
Fuck this shit.
I scramble out of bed and strip off my T-shirt, replacing it with a ribbed tank top that hugs my skinny chest and leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination.
A quick trip to the bathroom to put some gel in my hair and take care of the steps necessary to get ready for what I’m about to do, and I’m banging out the front door, taking the stairs two at a time until I’m standing on the street in front of my twelve-year old hatchback.
We live above a little coffee shop, and it’s open mic night, a girl with a beat-up acoustic guitar visible through the plate glass window.
But I’m not here to socialize. I settle behind the wheel of my car and pull out onto the main drag.
It was always easy for Max. We’re both underfed punk nerds, neither one of us particularly tall or whatever.
But there’s just something about Max — that crooked smile, that complete lack of guile, like a golden retriever with an electric guitar — that girls just go for.
And so he got started early, making out with Katie Hyland behind the Sheetz after school just around the same time that I was beginning to admit to myself the thing that pretty much everybody else seemed to know about me from birth.
Being the only out gay kid in our small Pennsylvania town — well, it was fucking lonely.
I didn’t have my first kiss until our freshman year in college, at a house party with a bunch of freaks and misfits.
By then I was so hard up that I didn’t even bother to tell him it was my first time when he shoved his hand down my pants.
And that pretty much set the tone for everything that’s happened since.
I’m not a relationship guy. I operate in significant glances, in whispered rumors about what might happen if you show up and stand in a certain patch of shadows at a certain time.
I’ve learned to feel eyes on the back of my head, or more importantly, lingering on my ass in my ripped jeans.
And while I’m still lonely as fuck, at least I know how to get my dick wet.
That’s what I’m going to do right now.
It’s not too far down the highway — it doesn’t matter which direction, or exactly how many miles I have to go.
I pull into the service plaza, one of those deals with bathrooms and fast food joints and a gas station, a place to clean the puke off your kid after too many hours in the car.
But this late at night, most of the families are already tucked away at home, and it’s just lonely travelers looking for a way to keep their eyes open for the next stretch of road.
I park my car and wander around to the back of the building, where there’s a streetlight next to a blank stretch of wall.
I lean against the pole and wait, my hands shoved in my pockets, trying not to let my heart jiggle out of my mouth.
It doesn’t take long.
He’s older than me, probably in his mid-thirties, cheeks covered in three days of stubble and hair growing over the collar of his cut-off flannel.
Maybe you wouldn’t clock him, but when he zeroes in on me and drags his eyes down all five feet eight inches of my body, I know I’ve found what I’m looking for.
He walks past me, continuing on into the building to take care of whatever business he came for.
But when he comes out again, he gives me another look over the rim of his cardboard coffee cup and then turns, weaving among the tractor trailers parked on the other side of the plaza. I straighten up and follow him.
He’s parked way at the end of the lot, and I stay about ten paces behind him, keeping my distance until he stops and leans against the bright blue door of his truck. When he turns, I can’t quite read his expression.
“How old are you, kid?”
“Twenty-one,” I answer truthfully, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. Still, he shrugs and softens, leaning into my space, reaching up one hand to graze my cheek.
“I like your hair —”