Open Road
By M.J. O’Shea
Angus has been with the same guy for ten years. When his boyfriend breaks up with him the night of his thirtieth birthday party and announces his engagement to a twenty-two-year-old less than ten hours later, Angus is… a mess. To put it lightly. He spends days in bed, drinks himself into a stupor every night, and ends up losing his job and his apartment. His best and oldest friend, Reece, decides it’s time for an intervention. And a change of scenery.
Reece and Angus take off on a buddy trip across the US. They don’t have much of a plan; they just start driving. It takes Angus a couple of days to do much more than grunt when Reece talks to him, but slowly he opens up. They drive, talk, heal, shout, drink a bit too much sometimes, dance, meet new friends… and somewhere between Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine, they fall in love.
Which was the last thing in the world Angus expected.
Table of Contents
For Jeana, my best friend—El Tigre in Waikiki, Cecile and the money pants, Jared and the Voodoo Lounge, Matua and the Castro. We’ve had our share of adventures… they just didn’t end quite the same :) Love you!
Portland, Oregon
January
“I’M SO
old.” Angus flopped down on his best friend’s leather couch and closed his eyes. “How did we get to be thirty?” He’d been trying to distract himself for months, but the day was coming. Less than a week and the big old three-oh was upon him. It felt like the end of the world. No, it
was
the end of the world. The end of him being young and hot and full of potential. It sucked.
Angus got a hard poke in the stomach. He opened his eyes to his oldest friend in the world making the dorkiest face he’d ever seen. Angus couldn’t help laughing. Hot as he was, Reece was seriously good at making himself look completely unkissable. And he also was really damn good at making Angus forget about his temperamental angsting.
“I’m only four months after you, man. If you’re old, what does that make me?” Reece asked.
Angus sighed. Reece would never get it. “Straight thirty and gay thirty are two very different things. Have I not taught you anything?”
“You’re gonna have to explain that to me.”
“You just don’t get it. Like, thirty for you is still young.”
“Thirty for you is young too.” Reece rolled his eyes. “You still look like a teenager, babe. I think you’re going to be fine.”
Reece was so delusional. He had years of being hot ahead of him. In Angus’s world, which was youth obsessed and ready to throw away aging twinks with the trash, twenty-five was getting old. Thirty was… time to be put out to pasture. Angus was starting to feel like a carton of out-of-date milk. Might as well. He was pale enough after the wet, sunless winter they’d had.
And then there was Reece—gold Scandinavian skin, wheat-gold hair and green-gold eyes, big, brawny, smile like a supermodel. Everything about him was…
golden
. Like he glowed somehow. Reece was annoyingly beautiful, and sometimes Angus hated him. Of course, he also loved him more than just about anyone in his life, so the hatred was fond.
Angus sat up. “I’m not fin—” He was distracted by his phone buzzing in his pocket. Brad. Angus pulled out the phone and waved at Reece to be quiet.
“Hi, baby. How’s Corvallis?” Angus’s longtime boyfriend was off packing up the apartment he’d used all semester when he taught a weekend photography class at Oregon State University—two long hours away from their home in Portland. It had been an endless couple of months with him gone every weekend and a few weekdays as well.
“It’s fine. What are you doing?”
“Oh, you know, just some laundry. Watching a movie. What time are you getting home tomorrow?”
Brad sighed into the phone. “I told you already that I was going to stay until Monday. Some of the staff are throwing me a little good-bye dinner.”
“Do you want me to drive down?” Angus felt a hole in his chest whenever Brad was gone, like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. He knew it was stupid—he was an independent, grownass man, nearly thirty and all that, but still. He didn’t like being alone.
“No. There’s no point for just a dinner. I’ll be home sometime on Monday.”
“Okay,” Angus said quietly.
“I’m surprised you’re not with Reece,” Brad said. The sneer was in his voice.
“Oh, yeah, um, he was busy.”
Reece made an irritated face at Angus. He wasn’t a fan of Brad. The feeling was more than mutual. Angus had been trying to get them to be friends for nearly ten years, with just about zero luck. It had become easier to not inform Brad of his friend dates with Reece. Too bad he couldn’t avoid talking to Reece about it.
“That’s just as well. I’m going to let you go, but I’ll see you Monday.”
“I’ll give you a call tomorrow, see how the dinner went,” Angus said.
“Oh, babe. You don’t have to. I’ll be busy, and it’ll be loud. We can hang on until Monday.”
Apparently Brad could. Angus bit his lip. “Okay,” he said.
“Talk to you later, babe. I’m going to go.”
“I lo—” Angus realized he was talking to nothing. Brad had hung up.
When he looked up, he was met with a stormy-faced Reece. “Are we going to discuss how you have to lie to Brad now and tell him you’re not hanging out with me?” Reece looked like he wanted to punch something.
“I know you two have had some… political problems.” Which was putting it lightly. They’d never actually punched each other, but on a few occasions it had been really close. Angus knew Reece’s face better than his own. “It’s just easier to play Switzerland.”
“Fuck Switzerland.” Reece flopped down on the couch next to Angus.
Angus loved Reece’s house. He’d helped pick every wall color, picture, and piece of furniture over the years. It was just as much home as his and Brad’s apartment. Usually. At the moment, he was feeling a little uncomfortable.
“You’ll understand someday. When you get into a serious relationship of your own.”
“Wow, that wasn’t condescending at all. So I haven’t been Mister Long-term Relationship. That doesn’t mean I’m a fifth grader who needs a talk on how life works for grown-ups.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“It sounded like it. You always get that way when you’ve been talking to Brad. You turn into
him
.”
“Are we going to bitch at each other all night? Because if we are, I’m gonna go home and do some work.” Sometimes Angus and Reece sniped at each other like the brothers they nearly were. Usually Angus had a great time arguing with his most adored friend in the whole wide world. That night, he really wasn’t in the mood for Reece’s shit.
Reece tossed a pillow and hit Angus in the face. “Don’t you dare go home. We had plans tonight, and those plans didn’t include you taking off with your panties in a bunch just because Bradley the Magnificent called and ruined your mood.”
“Suck it.”
Reece shrugged. “Maybe I’ll try someday,” he said with a wink.
Angus shrieked and attacked Reece with armpit pokes and a few judicious knees to the balls before he gave up and rolled off Reece… and right onto the floor.
“Ow. Shit.” Reece dissolved into giggles at Angus’s misfortune.
“You laugh like a four-year-old,” Angus said sourly.
“You smell like one.” Reece wrinkled his nose.
Angus gasped and slapped a hand onto his chest. “I smell like a rare and perfect flower.”
“Flower of my ass.”
“You actually
are
four.”
Reece gave Angus a huge, toothy grin. “Are we getting Thai, sushi, or soup and salad?”
“I want cheese enchiladas. With extra cheese. And sour cream,” Angus said. He announced it like it was a foregone conclusion. He knew his best friend. It most likely was.
“Mexican it is.” Reece raised his eyebrows. “Cheating while the paleo police are away?”
“Something like that.”
Since Brad had been gone most of the week to finalize the semester, Angus had had days on end of no CrossFit, zero green smoothies, and only a single twenty-minute run. It had been kind of amazing. Of course his jeans were fitting a bit tight. After his birthday, he was going to have to put a lid on it and hit the gym again. It would be easy, since Brad was going to be in town a lot more. Fewer Sunday brunches with Reece and Cherry.
Reece shrugged. “I could go for a fish burrito and some flan.”
“And extra chips and guac. And queso dip.”
“Always.”
Twenty minutes later, they were back ensconced on Reece’s couch with their food and a movie. It wasn’t a club—Angus hadn’t felt like doing anything like that in ages—or one of Brad’s fancy cocktail lounges where Angus always felt a tiny bit out of place, but it was fun. The kind of dorky stay-at-home fun he and Reece had been having since they were six years old and just moved in next door to each other.
DAMN, DAMN,
damn….
Angus scrambled around his and Brad’s apartment. He’d sworn he had tons of time before Brad got back from Corvallis. Of course that was before he took a nap after work and overslept and decided he wanted to take a shower. By the time he got out and dressed, Brad was due any minute, and Angus’s crap was all over the apartment. Brad hated when Angus made a mess. Which was usually.
“Why am I such a goddamn disaster?” Angus muttered to himself as he loaded yesterday’s dishes into the dishwasher. He grumped and slammed and tried to move as quickly as he could. He still had his work stuff all over the coffee table, and the couch blanket wasn’t folded, and his laundry was—
He heard keys in the door.
Shit.
Angus slammed the dishwasher closed and ran out into the living room just in time to see Brad surveying the wreck he’d made of the coffee table.
“Nice,” Brad said. He rolled his eyes.
Angus scampered over and put his arms around Brad’s neck to give him a kiss. Brad turned his face, and Angus’s lips ended up squished against his cheek.
“That’s not a kiss, silly,” Angus said.
Brad detangled himself from the hug. “I’ve gotta clean this crap up, or I won’t be able to relax.”
Angus felt the pit heavy in his belly. “I’ll do it,” he said quietly. “It’s my stuff.”
He wasn’t looking forward to the look of disappointment on Brad’s face when he got to the bedroom and saw Angus’s clothes all over the floor.
“It’s fine. I need to sort out my luggage anyway. I can put it all away.”
Brad’s face didn’t say fine. Nothing about his posture said fine either. Angus knew the small, disappointed, downturned lips like he knew his own face. There wasn’t going to be a passionate reunion that night or anytime soon. Fantastic.
“What do you want to do tonight?” he asked. “I can make dinner, and we can talk about your last couple of classes?”
“We’re going to dinner with Mark and Jeremy,” Brad said. “They made reservations at Kitchen.” He pulled off his tailored blazer and hung it perfectly on a hanger before slipping it into its rightful position in the hallway’s coat closet. He turned and gave Angus the first genuine smile since he’d walked in the door.
“Kitchen?” Angus hated going to Kitchen. He always felt ridiculously uncool and usually hungry by the time they left. “O-Oh. I was kind of hoping to just catch up with us two. This week is going to be so busy with the party and all of that.”
Brad ran a hand through his dark hair and bit his lip. He looked frustrated. “Angus, I made these plans days ago. I haven’t seen Mark and Jeremy for weeks.”
You’ve barely seen me for weeks….
Angus knew when it was time to quit pushing. So he did. Instead he started shuffling his work stuff into the messenger bag he carried with him to the graphic design firm where he worked. Sure, Brad had said he’d clean it up, but if Angus didn’t put his papers away, he’d never hear the end of the grouchy remarks about it.
“Are you going to come in to the office for my birthday lunch tomorrow?”
He’d taken a few days off for the big birthday, so his friends at work were throwing him a lunch, complete with cake, before his vacation.
“I don’t really think that’s a good idea. I have a lot of my own work to catch up on now that I’m not teaching anymore.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course.” Angus tried to smile.