Sadly, I assumed it was only a matter of time before something came up.

Nick was quiet for a long while before suddenly asking, “So you like the way my feet smell?”

It caught me off guard, but I laughed. Of all the things he might’ve had on his mind, it was cute to know Nick was still fixated on my weird attractions to him.

“That’s what you’re thinking about?” I asked, grinning from ear to ear.

As usual, he was in the back seat, treating it like his bedroom while I did all the driving. That’s how things worked. The back seat was his, the front seat was mine, and if we ever crossed into one another’s territory, it probably led to sex.

Nick complained a lot about our making a bunch of stops, but he never turned away from a quick fuck on the side of the road.

“It’s not just your feet. It’s all of you. I can’t explain it. Whatever you shower with or how much you sweat—it’s always there,” I said.

By then, we could talk about anything. It wasn’t like either of us had much of a filter before we started dating. After we got together, it was a steady roll down a hill of shamelessness. It was comforting to know I could say whatever was in my head. Nick was too weird to ever freak out. And maybe I was so desperate to make things work, he could’ve told me anything and I would’ve shrugged it off.

Maybe I wasn’t desperate. I authentically loved Nick, and I didn’t want to fuck things up... Yeah, I was desperate.

“What do I smell like?” he asked.

“Like comic books and soda. Or sweat and pineapples. No, I got it—you smell like a loser,” I joked.

“Dick,” he laughed.

Nebraska was beautiful. It honestly was. But after days of driving and driving and driving, I was mentally exhausted. My spine felt like it had been compressed into a single nerve. My eyes were dry. My brain was fogged. The road was an endless blur of asphalt and sky. I had to pull over.

We were in the middle of nowhere, which was never a safe place to stop—regardless of how nice the scenery was.

“Want to drive?” I asked, taking off my seatbelt and turning to look into the back seat.

“Your car?” Nick asked, like I’d spoken in another language.

“Yeah. It’s our car now,” I said.

“If we keep saying stuff like that, people might think we’re hitched.”

He was deflecting for some reason, but I went with it. “Maybe we should be.”

The look on his face. It was just us, so there was nowhere else for him to turn.

“We're casually making proposals now, Meat Head?” he asked.

“No, I was just suggesting...” I started.

“Proposing. You were proposing,” he interrupted.

I started pulling him into the front with me, but instead of having him sit in the passenger seat, I held him in my lap.

“Would that be so bad?” I said, running a hand under his shirt, feeling his smooth chest.

“Being married to a Meat Head?” he joked and swiftly killed the mood. I pushed him into the passenger seat.

“Don’t call me that,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s what they called me. Didn’t you hate it when people called you a loser or a fag?” I argued.

I barked at him.

“No one’s ever called me a fag... not to my face,” Nick said.

“People always called you a fag. I heard it all the time,” I confessed.

“Do I look like one?”

“No. Not right now. Not most of the time.”

“Then when do I?” he asked.

I took a breath, trying to de-escalate before I yelled again. Living in a car together for so long was bad for our relationship. Had we been a worse couple, our fights would have been more toxic, though. I'm glad we were good enough to keep going.

“When I have my tongue down your throat or you have me bent over,” I said with a straight face.

He didn’t say anything, but when he smiled again, I knew we’d avoided something that could’ve been bigger. Names were titles, and I didn’t want to be a Meat Head. I’m not sure how I felt about being a fag either—but at least a fag had someone to love.

“Do you want to drive?” I repeated.

“I can’t. No license,” Nick explained.

“I don’t care.”

“Okay... I don’t want to drive,” he confessed, which confused me until I remembered how his parents died.

I knew Nick didn’t have a license, but I hadn’t thought about why he was avoiding it. He was about to go back to the back seat, but I caught his hand before he could.

“Stay up here for a little. Give me something other than the road to look at,” I said before leaning over to kiss him.