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The poem goes something like this: you’re in a car with a beautiful boy something something trying not to tell him that you love him something something roots. He’s never really had any sort of knack for remembering things like that and maybe there were parts that didn’t fit. Maybe he should buy a book of poetry. Maybe that was one of the dumbest things he’s ever thought.
He isn’t a boy and neither is Chanse, even though sometimes he feels like one and sometimes Chanse looks like one. They’re fully grown—everyone always has more growing to do but in the most literal of ways, they’re adults—and yet this is youngest Shayne has ever felt. And it doesn’t really make sense but, then again, none of what’s happening makes a ton of sense if anybody bothered to think about it for too long.
Chanse had bought a gift for Angela’s birthday. That wasn’t abnormal. What was was that it was apparently waiting with some guy somewhere just on the border of California and Arizona. It would take too long for it to be shipped and really the drive was what? Five hours? Six or seven? Not that many in the grand scheme of things. So he was going to pick it up. Amanda had said something about not wanting him to be going “to do all of this nonsense” by himself but then immediately followed it up with saying that she couldn’t help him.
Shayne had a lot of work to do. Places to go, people (unfortunately) to see. His head was buzzing with lists, with scripts, with ideas he couldn’t type out fast enough in his notes app. So, of course, he said he would go with him. People were surprised. Heck he was surprised. But he said it.
They’d left early morning. The plan was the do the entire thing in a day or so. It’s not meant to be more than that. It’s not a vacation. The wheels spin, the windows are open and they have boiling hot coffee and cheap bagels.
Conversation flows easily and then dies out but not because of awkwardness but because of the natural flow of life itself and how sometimes you just run out of steam. Like one of those old water jugs with a filter that needed time to let the new water drip drip drip into the container. When they don’t talk and the music is playing, Shayne steals glances at Chanse because they haven’t made it to the desert yet, there’s nothing else worth looking at. Not that he’d compare a cactus to Chanse.
(He laughs at his own internal joke about both of them being prickly. Chanse asks him what’s so funny and then says Shayne’s name in that way that he loves: chastising but also I don’t regret hearing it.)
There’s a shop on the side of the road, somewhere outside of the city where the air is dry and the dust blows into their hair and clothes, that sells junk and knickknacks. Pinwheels stuck into the ground turn and turn, blinding in the reflected light while little animal statues litter the rest of the front like they’d been planted and grown there. Chanse pulls into the dirt lot without asking. He latches a hand onto Shayne’s wrist once they’re both out of the vehicle, says come on, let’s go and just takes him along. Shayne’s skin tingles.
He’s not in love with him, he lies to himself. When they're done, Chanse is wearing a funny hat and there’s a tiny cat figurine in a sparkly outfit sitting beside a figurine of a dog wearing sunglasses on the dashboard. It’s us, Chanse jokes. Shayne is so overwhelmed by it that he wants to pick them up and eat them which is possibly the most Damien Thing he’s ever felt before and if he’s not too embarrassed by this entire situation, he’ll remember to tell him that later.
He’s not in love but he is but he isn’t. He should say something but dropping that on someone where neither of them could run away from it is both the shittiest thing he could do and maybe the most ideal. So he says nothing because he’s overthinking everything and sometimes he’s a coward.
Shayne starts to feel sick about three-and-a-half hours into the ride and Chanse pulls over again, rubbing Shayne's back because Shayne is so sure he’s going to throw up but thankfully he doesn’t. Chanse is saying words to him but Shayne doesn’t process any of them and he isn’t sure he was ever really supposed to know what they were.
A little ways out of their way in a small desert town is a diner. Shayne apologizes twenty times. They had granola bars in the glove compartment, he could have just eaten one of those and he’d probably have been fine. Chanse tells him to shut up in the kindest way possible and then buys him chicken tenders.
He’s in a car with a beautiful boy and the words are sitting in the back of his throat like he didn’t chew and swallow his meal properly.
There’s a game that he used to play sometime where he’d look at people’s license plates and try to make words or phrases with the letters, keep them in the right order. The first one he sees spells out TELL HIM if he makes the ‘1’ an ‘I’ and he decides the game was stupid anyway so nevermind.
If he says something and it goes horribly wrong they’d have to drive back in it. They would have to go back to work, to filming, to everything and have that hanging over them. Shayne doesn’t waste time thinking about what would happen if it did work out because when he does, even for a split second, it’s so terrifying that he can’t contain it.
The guy they pick the gift up from is weird but overall relatively harmless. When he’d heard it was for someone else’s birthday he took it upon himself to wrap it for Chanse and hands over a box that’s surprisingly well-taken-care-of, the paper shiny and covered in cartoon ducks with party favors sticking out of their beaks, a bright yellow bow taped to the top.
When they get back to the car, Shayne jokes that since they can’t check to make sure everything is intact without messing up this guy’s hard work there’s no way for them to know if the box is just full of scorpions. It’s kept in the trunk after that.
Shayne offers to drive back home. The sun is starting to go down. They’ll be driving into the night which he’s not the biggest fan of and for a moment he considers suggesting one of the thousands of motels around here but he agonizes on how that would sound and also they have responsibilities and a life to get back to (and what, a voice in his head that sounds weirdly like Tommy says, this isn’t also life?) and he’s foolish for thinking he should be able to clutch onto this for too long. Overstaying his welcome.
So they decide to just drive.
It’s getting darker and Chanse is now stretched out in the passenger seat. There’s music playing faintly through the car speakers, hooked up to Chanse’s phone and the world goes past in a fuzzy blur, the wind whipping through his curls. He’s laughing at nothing in particular, the sound a sort of manic energy of just all of this and everything and Shayne smiles despite himself, feels a fist squeeze around his heart in a good way.
He’s going to say it. Right now, right here in this moment he will and his mouth is open but then Chanse says oh we need gas and the moment shatters.
While Shayne is filling the tank, Chanse goes into the tiny store connected to the station and comes back out with snack cakes and a bottle of sparkling cider which Shayne is truly surprised they even had. Chanse explains that Shayne doesn’t want to look at the 'best by' date and also that he’d wanted wine but didn’t think it’d be right to give Shayne any and it wouldn’t be fair for him to sit there drinking it alone.
All Shayne says is: huh? and what?
Chanse rolls his eyes at him and the amount of affection in it could have bowled Shayne over.
They sit on the trunk, the frame on the car still warm and share the bottle between them. Their hands are sticky with frosting and whipped cream that still has granules of sugar that didn’t melt. The music is still playing, soft and syrupy, the phone between them. Shayne says something, he doesn’t even know what, but it makes Chanse laugh with his entire body, the laughter cracking through him like sunlight in the pitch black enveloping them out here.
He doesn’t know any poetry and he wishes he did.
He’s not drunk but he feels like he is. Why do you wish you knew poetry? He’d said it out loud and he doesn’t even have alcohol to use as an excuse.
Uh... is all Shayne manages to get out because the words he wants have been building like a pressure cooker but he’s too afraid to open it because what if it explodes but then Chanse is rolling his eyes again and leaning over, he’s wrapping an arm around Shayne’s neck and he’s still holding the bottle of ancient fizzy cider with the bubbles audibly popping and then he’s kissing him.
You’re so dumb, Chanse says when he pulls away.
Shayne tells him that he knows, he’s fully well aware of that, thank you very much. He can’t breathe and he doesn’t until Chanse chuckles and tells him to.
They drive home with a box of maybe scorpions in the back, with a dog and a cat on the dashboard and sparks behind his eyes, bursting like carbon dioxide in old cider. Chanse is turned slightly in his seat, runs fingers idly through the hair on the side of Shayne’s head and he feels like he could be blown clean out of the sun roof.
This could all change the minute they’re back in the city like a frightened animal running once the lights are turned on. They could change maybe, probably or maybe not.
Chanse takes Shayne's hand off the steering wheel for a moment to kiss his palm.
Hopefully not. He really hopes not.