He shifts in his seat and drags his hand down his crotch.
He has to be hard. He has to be.
“Alright, how old are you?” he asks.
“Twenty-two, you?”
“I’m twenty-one.”
“Middle name?”
“Stafford.”
“Really, you sound so distinguished. Mine’s Carter.”
“Caleb Carter,” I say softly, and he wiggles in his seat again.
“Could you refrain from saying my name until we get home?” he says on a groan.
My eyes glance at his hard dick straining through his pants. “I’ll try.”
“Okay,” he adds. “Um, tell me where you grew up.”
“Romania for the first five years and then moved to New York. You?”
“Grew up right here, my whole life.”
“Have you ever traveled?” I ask.
“Nah, but I’d like to visit all fifty states one day, you know? Maybe travel overseas.”
“Bet you’re well-traveled,” Caleb says, and I shrug. He has no idea how lonely I was traveling with shitty parents who didn’t care about me, who didn’t want me. Sometimes it felt like I was carrying all that emptiness across the vast ocean alone, only to drown in it. The weight of it, the responsibility…
“I have traveled, but most of it wasn’t for leisure.”
“That so?” he asks.
“My parents would drag me to events all over the world. I rarely had time to explore like I wanted to.”
“Oh, how you suffered,” he jokes, but I can’t even fake a smile. He has no idea what I’ve been through. What my name and legacy mean to my family. What I must carry forward. For them. Never for me.
“I did, Caleb. My childhood was not…ideal.”
He blinks at me, his face falling.
“Care to elaborate?” he asks gently.
“No.”
I don’t want to bring that up, not now. Silence strains between us, my father’s voice making an appearance in my mind. I can’t keep this up. I told myself not to, and here I am holding his hand.
This is wrong. All of this is wrong.
I gently pull my hand from his, wiping my palm on my pants, and then place it back on the steering wheel. He sees it all, and I can sense his despair. He hides nothing.
“Sorry, man,” he mutters. “I just want to know you.”
He can’t. Doesn’t he know? He fucking can’t.
