At first, I was nervous Luke wouldn’t find rustic camping in the woods exciting enough to entertain him. Hearing about his near-nightly escapades and the kind of social calendar he kept in NYC, it’s hard to imagine him spending a quiet night in, let alone sitting still for more than five minutes. Maybe being stuck here for a couple of months with nothing to do made him willing to take whatever excitement he could get, but I’m not complaining.
By the time we’re done packing, the backseat and bed of the truck are bursting with supplies. Luke only has a small backpack of clothes, a pillow, and a sleeping bag; everythingelse is mine. With how full it is, you’d think I was planning a month-long vacation instead of a four-day weekend, but experience has taught me it’s better to be over-prepared. It only took one drunken mistake with a knife to remember to pack first aid equipment going forward, and I didn’t hear anyone complaining.
It's a little over a six-hour car ride upstate, and even though we started driving at 7 a.m., the roads are already packed as we merge onto the freeway. Everyone in Michigan seems to have the same idea to head north the last weekend before the public beaches close for winter.
The drive is comprised of talking, snacking on junk food, and listening to music—or rather, arguing over who has thebettertaste in music. We go back and forth with the AUX cord, showing off our collections like little kids quarreling over who has the better deck of Pokémon cards. It’s more fun than it has any right to be. Luke listens to my terrible singing and doesn’t judge me for it, and I get a front-row seat to his vocal genius, loving the way my skin tingles with every overture.
I make some interesting discoveries this way. For one, Luke is surprisingly obsessed with K-pop. Outside of BTS, I haven’t heard of any of the artists he listens to, and there aremany. Half the songs have non-English lyrics, and Luke doesn’t speak Korean as far as I know. That doesn’t stop him from jamming out, though. Some of those songs are catchy. I make a point to add a few of them to my playlists for later. They’d be good workout songs.
On top of the expected collection of show tunes and soundtracks that any self-respecting musical theater kid would have, Luke also has a shocking mix of bluegrass, indie, and folk music. He’s even got a lot of older country music, claiming it’s from the golden age before the genre went to crap.
“Anything that came out after 9/11 is utter bullshit,” he says passionately. “It’s like it turned into this aggressively patriotic garbage, always talking about how ‘America is the best,’ and ‘God this,’ ‘God that,’ and ‘we treat our women like property.’ I always found it obscenely gross and still can’t stand to listen to anything new that comes out like that.”
I’ve never paid attention to it, yet I can’t help but laugh once he points it out. There’s some truth in the observation. Not everyone did it, but many early 2000s albums followed that formula. At the time, I didn’t notice the shift, but going through my music now, I can point out handfuls of songs that would fit that description when I think about the lyrics.
Still, my music collection is vast, and Luke seems to enjoy the newer country songs I play when it’s my turn with the AUX (even though he pretends he doesn’t). I just make sure to avoid the ones he wouldn’t.
I’m playing through Elton John on my next turn when Luke’s energy from the morning wears off. We’re somewhere outside Gaylord when he curls up against the window and drifts off to the sound ofGoodbye Yellow Brick Road. By the time I notice, he’s out cold, and I turn the radio down.
I can’t stop glancing over at him while he sleeps. It’s as if my mind won’t rest until I’ve had the chance to study him, taking in every way his body relaxes when he’s not consciously holding it—from the curve and sweep of his hair as it falls over his face to the way his chest slowly rises with every breath. His face looks so at peace, and somehow, he still looks like a model, tragically handsome and perfectly posed as if he’s waiting for someone to take a picture. Lord knows I don’t look that good when I’m unconscious.
My brain drifts to what it might be like to sleep with him pressed against me, and the thought brings warmth to my cheeks. I’m tempted to brush my fingers through his hair,desperate to feel if it’s as soft as it looks, but I manage to restrain myself and force my attention back to the road with a heavy sigh.
Dear fucking lord, I’m hopeless. I’ve got to be the biggest pervert in the history of perverts for thinking about all this while the man is sleeping less than a foot away from me, completely oblivious.
Ireallyhope I’ll be able to get through this weekend without fucking this up, or I might die from the torture.
Pulling into a rest stop a few miles outside Mackinaw, I park and turn off the truck. Luke suddenly snaps awake and looks around with wild confusion before turning toward me like a deer caught in headlights.
Something in his expression makes me freeze. He’s genuinely panicked, like he forgot where he was. His eyes are filled with terror, and my heart clenches.
“Are you all right?” I frown.
Luke takes a deep, shaky breath and swallows, blinking a few times, turning away from me awkwardly. He rubs his hands over his face. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Are we there yet?” Luke asks instead, dismissing my question.
I study him pensively. “We’ve still got a couple of hours to go. We’ll cross the bridge in a bit, but there aren’t many rest stops before we get to the camp. So, if you gotta go, now’s the time.”
“Okay.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” I ask again. I can’t help it. It’s unusual seeing him so uptight, and the real fear in his eyes worries me.
Luke sighs and looks at me after a moment of silent contemplation. “I just had a nightmare. That’s all,” he says softly—embarrassed. “I’m okay. Really.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t,” Luke replies a little too quickly, and his eye twitches. But then he looks at me and smiles, small but genuine. “But thank you.”
I nod. I can tell he’s still shaken up, but he’s trying to brush it off and lighten the mood, so I let it go.
As we get out of the truck and head toward the building, Luke suddenly stops and stretches out his back in a positively feline way, with his arms up behind his head. His shirt rises a bit over his waist with the motion, and my eyes dart down to those goddamn sparrows tattooed on his stomach the moment they’re on display, as if they’re calling to me like a siren song. I silently curse myself for being too weak to look away.
This time, Luke 100% catches me staring, and he cocks his head to the side, arching a brow at me curiously. Oh,fuck.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, deadpan.
