"You liar."

"What?"

It had been a warmer day once they'd gotten back on the road. They'd taken to the highway with all of the windows rolled down. Tab ditched his hoodie before too long so despite Emmett's melancholy mood he had both the flapping of an oversized tank shirt and wild windswept hair to catch his eye. He may have smoked a few more cigarettes than typical this day.

Currently that ride had been slowed down to a crawl. All of the cars were caught in a gridlock and Emmett couldn't see the front of the line at all.

"You said this drink was going to be sweet. All I can taste is grass." Emmett took another sip from the plastic cup, made a face when the taste of leafy greens slipped through all of the blended fruit.

Tab just chuckled. "I guess I'm just thinking by comparison. You definitely won't like mine then." He picked up his own cup, swirls of green in color, and shook it in Emmett's direction.

Emmett was certain he was looking at the cup like it might bite him. "I'll try it just to make mine taste better." He snatched the cup from Tab's hand, hesitated, but took a sip. If there was juice mixed in he couldn't tell. The only flavors he was getting were kale and protein powder. "Terrible." He fit Tab's drink back in the cup holder. "Fine, if we go by comparisons you're not that much of a liar after all."

Emmett thought he would have gotten another laugh but Tab didn't say anything, only stretched forward to lean his arms and chin on the wheel. Traffic still wasn't moving.

"I did... tell a pretty big lie."

Emmett looked over at the kid. His face was red and he was adamantly directing his gaze out the windshield.

Emmett scoffed. "Look at you. How big of a lie could you possibly tell?" He lit a cigarette.

"Oh, it's a big one."

"Ooooooh," Emmett repeated mockingly. "I guess you'll have to tell me so I can decide for myself."

Tab turned his head to look over at Emmett, his face still partially hidden behind his folded arms. He still couldn't hold Emmett's gaze. Emmett took a drag from his cigarette, waiting impatiently.

"We didn't actually sleep together that first night."

"Wha-" He shouldn't have spoken with a mouth full of smoke. He choked on it, spurring on a coughing fit that made his throat burn and his eyes water. "What do you mean?" He managed to ask in a stained voice.

"I mean, we were definitely planning to but we didn't get that far. I shouldn't have joked about it with… uh, what's his name? Jonas? I thought you were gonna deny it, not say like, 'oh well, shit happens'."

Emmett leaned back in his seat, feeling… Well, he wasn't really sure how to feel. "Why didn't we get that far?" You better not have been a straight boy all this time, too coward to finish what you started.

"You said you were going into your bathroom to get changed, aaand you didn't come back for a long time. By the time I went in you were passed out."

"Well, perfect." Emmett tried to shrink down further into his seat. If only death would just take me. "I hope we got around to some other fun before that happened."

"Yeah, uh, you were taking a lot of pictures…" Tab had turned away, completely red faced again. “Among some other things…”

"Pictures?" Emmett reached behind his seat, where he'd left his camera bag sad and neglected. It was not as if he needed it before it came time to do the job. He powered it on, started clicking back in the photo reel. He hadn’t touched it since that first shoot with Tab and there were still at least a dozen or so useless pictures taking up space on his SIM card. That was a problem for later.

It was a good thing he hadn’t thought to check his camera sooner. The pictures were absolute shit and didn’t do much to make that night any more clear. What was clear was that Emmett was no better at taking a selfie while drunk than he was while sober, one just resulted in blurry, off center frames while the other just manifested that same fake smile, again and again.

“You said other things too?” Emmett asked as he frowned at a particularly blurry and mysterious photo.

Tab must have thought the conversation was over cause he nearly jumped from his skin when Emmett brought that back up. “You know, normal hook-up type stuff.” Emmett fixed him with a direct stare, unyielding. “We were about to fuck, we covered all of the bases leading up to that!” Tab blurted out before ducking his face against the steering wheel.

“I think there are more bases than you know. You’d actually need a few nights to cover them all.”

“I wish I hadn’t told you this.” Tab groaned.

Emmett clicked through a few more of the photos, found the beginning of that mysterious evening, just a candid picture of the kid walking down the nighttime city streets, a look of surprise at the stolen shot. Cute, no wonder I pestered him.

One more click took him back a couple years to a guy who featured too strongly in his life even now that they were separated. Disgustingly, looking at the photo made his heart race.

Emmett took a drag from his cigarette, tapped the ashes out the open window. Traffic was still crawling but they weren’t too far away now from an exit. If he’s still at the same place then he doesn’t live too far from here.

“If this is for an accident maybe we should get off of the road early today.”

It’s not for him obviously, it’s so I can give Tab another chance if he wants it.

He didn’t believe himself either.

“We didn’t make it very far today.” Tab sounded disappointed but it only took a few moments of staring out at the endless line of cars for him to switch the car into gear. “But I am tired of looking at the same taillights for so long.” He pulled off onto the shoulder, directing them straight to the exit.

Emmett threw his cigarette butt out the window and immediately lit up another one.