BLAKE
Blake woke to a sunset-washed sky and Oliver gently stroking his shoulder.
“Hmm?” Blake asked, still disoriented.
“Look.”
Blake stared out the windshield obediently, yawning, and then sat up with a start when he realized what he was seeing. “Oh, wow. I can’t believe I thought I’d seen them before. They’re—”
“Unmistakable,” Oliver finished for him. “You know them at once when you see them.”
“Yeah.” Blake closed his eyes again when he felt an unhappy little pulse between his eyes, but relaxed slightly when Oliver’s cool fingertips combed the hair back from his temple. They slid over his forehead in a gentle touch, as if Oliver thought he might be able to soothe the pain from the outside. That he had the impulse made Blake smile.
“Head hurting?” Oliver murmured.
Blake tilted his head against Oliver's hand, sighing. “Not yet. But soon.” He made a gesture in front of his face without opening his eyes.
“I have no idea what that means.” Oliver made circles with his thumb above Blake’s ear, just the way Blake liked.
“Lights,” Blake tried to explain. “When a migraine’s coming, that’s what I always notice first. I see little flashing rainbows when I close my eyes.” He blinked his eyes open again and frowned. “I used to like rainbows.”
“Do you want a pill?”
Six weeks ago, the specialist Blake had started seeing had prescribed some new medication, and while sometimes his migraines still came roaring in, unstoppable despite the medicine, the pills seemed to help at other times.
“I don’t have anything to drink with one.” The pills were large, and tasted horrible.
Oliver took his hand from Blake’s face so that he had both on the wheel as he changed lanes. “We need to stop and let Cujo out anyway. You can get a bottle of water.”
Blake nodded, not even bristling at Oliver pushing him to take his pills—as he might have a month or two earlier. He was getting used to Oliver asking, and trying to take it as a sign of care rather than as part of Oliver’s efforts to control everything and everyone.
Or maybe it was just Oliver being a control freak, which should probably have irritated Blake. But part of falling in love with someone seemed to be feeling only amused fondness at the thought of the flaws in their personality. And anyway, if Oliver wasn’t wound so tight, it wouldn’t be nearly so much fun to tease him... or to take what he doled out when he snapped.
The station they found was more of a truck stop—oversized, with a large lot full of parked trucks. Oliver parked near a grassy median that divided the small-vehicle refueling stations from the truck-refueling pumps. Blake got out of the car and stretched while Oliver slid into the back seat to negotiate Cujo out of her seat and onto her leash.
A red semi-truck was pulling up to the pumps for the big trucks. It was the same color as the one they’d seen at the rest stop, and at the reminder of Oliver coming in his mouth, then jerking him off while a stranger was feet away, Blake grinned with a pleasant shudder.
He got his bottle of water and was almost back to the car when a middle-aged, burly trucker hopped out of the red truck and approached Oliver and Cujo. “Hey,” he said to Oliver, and then immediately bent down to offer Cujo his knuckles. “Cute dog.”
At first, Blake worried how Cujo would react, but she was all wriggly and social, as she sometimes behaved with certain strangers. There wasn’t much of a pattern in how she assessed potential friends and enemies, but she’d clearly decided the trucker was the former.
As soon as he realized Cujo was okay, a few other dots connected in Blake’s mind. The red semi-truck didn’t just remind him of the one from the rest stop. He was pretty sure it was the same one.
The trucker wore jeans and a button-down denim shirt. His medium-brown hair was long and pushed back with product, and his beard was groomed. He had something of a sexy lumberjack vibe going, if Blake was being honest.
“That your car?” the trucker asked, looking up at Oliver with a broad, knowing smile.
The exact situation they were in had obviously clicked in Oliver’s mind, too, because he just stared silently at the other man in a rare state of shock.
The trucker smiled lazily. “Thought so.” He moved his curious gaze from Oliver to Blake, then back again. He was probably Oliver’s age—in is late thirties, or possibly a little older. “You ever let anyone watch, or are they only allowed to listen?”
Oliver narrowed his eyes, like he was unsure whether he was being teased or propositioned. And then the trucker’s grin went from sly to somewhat rueful, and Blake was fairly sure that it was the latter.
He couldn’t help a thrill at the suggestion—imagining Oliver pushing Blake over the hood of the car and taking him in plain view of the travelers and station attendants around them. In reality, Oliver wouldn’t do that, but there were several corollary possibilities: bathrooms, the advertised hotel rooms above the truck stop, et cetera. The trucker could be their audience.
But though the idea of someone watching them definitely appealed to Blake, he had no idea what Oliver would think of it. They hadn’t explored Blake’s voyeuristic streak together. However, Blake thought Oliver would enjoy performing. He obviously reveled in it in other aspects of his daily life, from having strangers admire his meticulous dress to appearing in court as an attorney or judge.
“Thank you, but we have a long drive ahead of us,” Oliver said.
The trucker smiled and shrugged in a no-hard-feelings kind of way, and then stroked Cujo a few times. “Aren’t you a little sweetheart?” he cooed. She licked his knuckles enthusiastically, like she was the friendliest creature on Earth.
“I’m Matt, by the way,” the trucker said as he straightened back to his feet, digging in the pocket of his jeans and holding out a card to Oliver. Oliver took it from him, and Matt winked. “In case you ever change your mind. I drive this route all the fucking time; you never know when we might be close by.” He looked over Oliver’s shoulder at Blake, and delivered a second wink and a broader grin. “You boys play safe.”
They walked back toward the car. Cujo, who resented being dragged away from the patch of mud and snow that had apparently contained a variety of fascinating smells, darted around their legs, winding the leash between their ankles until Oliver swore and Blake finally picked her up. She squirmed, dotting Blake’s coat with muddy pawprints.
“So, you’re an exhibitionist?” Blake asked casually as he dried Cujo’s paws with the designated towel from the trunk. Then, he bent and placed her in her seat in the back, buckling her in.
When he emerged again, Oliver was leaning against the roof of the car, waiting to meet his eyes. “What gave you that idea? I told him no.”
Blake gave him a cool look that he hoped conveyed just how unconvinced he was. “And then you took his card.”
Oliver shrugged. “I try to be open-minded. What about you?”
Blake felt his cheeks get hot. He thought again about Matt, or someone like him, watching them, and swallowed hard. “Yeah. I mean, if you wanted to.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Oliver murmured.
Twenty miles later, the sky had gotten dark and a light snow was beginning to fall.
“I wish we could see the mountains,” Blake murmured. The darkness outside and the snow had made the car feel like a warm bubble.
“We’ll see them tomorrow. They’ll dazzle you fully in the morning.”
Blake huffed a quiet laugh. “I’d like to see them as we get closer, though.”
“Maybe next time,” Oliver said absently. “I’m surprised you haven’t made this drive before. It seems like everyone I’ve met who’s from Kansas City has come out to the mountains this way more than once.”
“My friends used to go to Colorado all the time when I was growing up. But it wasn’t exotic enough for my mother, I guess,” Blake said. Usually, he didn’t like talking about his childhood. People either seemed to be so interested in it that he was uncomfortable, or hate him for the privilege. But he knew Oliver was neither of those things, so he shook off the impulse to change the subject.
“Where did she like to go?”
“Remote beaches. And not always the ones with warm sunshine and sand, either. She was really into shells for a while, and then seabirds. Our vacations were more like expeditions.” He had to stop to yawn, his jaw stretching until it cracked.
“Sleep,” Oliver murmured.
Blake put his right arm between the back of his head and the headrest, his eyes falling closed. “Mmm.” With his left hand, he reached blindly for Oliver. When their fingers were folded together on Blake’s thigh, Blake sighed contentedly. “What about you? Where did you go on vacation when you were a kid?”
“My parents were too practical for pricey vacations, but sometimes we went camping.”
Blake snorted, so surprised that he opened his eyes. “Camping?” he asked incredulously. “You?”
“Sleep,” Oliver said, his voice deepening in command. Blake closed his eyes again and squeezed Oliver’s hand in a silent “go on.” Oliver sighed. “It wasn’t my thing, no, even when I was a boy. Peeing in the woods and sleeping in a tent? Going days without a shower?” Blake felt him shudder through their linked hands, and he chuckled, but kept his eyes closed. “But sometimes the first part was okay. Getting there and seeing an old forest, or pristine mountains or hills. I can appreciate nature—I just prefer it from a safe distance.”
“I know you do,” Blake said, smiling to himself. “Tell me about the places you went.” A few miles later, he was lulled to sleep again by Oliver’s voice, sketching out valleys and rivers, meadows lush with unspoiled grass, and mountain peaks strung with fog.