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The air was thick and hot as soup, the sun beating down mercilessly from above. The day was the type to drive everyone – even the most adventurous – indoors in seek of relief from the heat, the type to make everyone want to sleep until the night provided some relief. Despite this, sitting in front of the AC unit while his mother shuffled slowly around the house with a glass of iced tea in hand was beginning to grate on Link’s nerves. He finally stirred himself from his seat by the window, gathered up wallet, sunglasses, and keys, and went to see what Rhett was doing.
Outside Rhett’s house, he stopped for a moment to wipe away the sweat already streaming down his face. For a moment he considered parking and going inside to spend time with Rhett’s family, but the thought of being cooped up inside another house on such a hot day made him feel anxious. He laid on his horn three times before Rhett emerged, yawning as he shambled down the driveway in a t-shirt and cargo shorts similar to Link’s own.
“You were sleeping?” Link asked as his best friend climbed into the truck as gingerly as if the passenger seat was made of paper.
“Yeah. Took all the ice-packs in the house and made a blanket out of ‘em.”
Link wrinkled his nose. “Sounds great.”
“Hell yeah, it was.” Rhett’s knee was jiggling madly. “Let’s get outta here. I’m bored.”
The heat felt too oppressive for Link to want to drive too fast. They cruised around town and the fields beyond, windows rolled down, upbeat pop music emanating from the radio. Link felt a momentary sadness. In just a few weeks, they would be packing up this truck for their move up to NC State. They’d still be roommates, sure, but Link’s dad had been telling him that being an engineering major was going to be a lot of work. Link wondered if he and Rhett would be too busy to drive around like this again. Maybe they’d also be too busy to hang out much.
He stole a few glances at Rhett as he drove. His best friend was turned away from him, head resting in his hand as he looked out at the landscape around them. Link could just make out the faint trail of his elongated sideburns, a desperate attempt to finally grow a beard.
“How’s Kate?” he asked.
Rhett stirred, wiping his face dry on his t-shirt. “We broke up.”
“What?” Link turned briefly towards him. “When?”
“Last week.” Rhett tilted his seat as far back as it would go and yawned, stretching his arms far above his head. “She thinks I’m gonna meet some girl in college and cheat on her or somethin’. Plus I don’t think her friends like me.”
Link laughed. “I coulda told you that, man.”
The road beneath them went from asphalt to gravel, the stones grinding beneath the wheels of the truck. Even with the windows open, Link could barely feel the breeze. He finally cruised to a stop by the side of the road and turned off the motor, cutting the radio off mid-commercial.
His keys jangled briefly in the silence. Rhett’s eyes were closed, one arm bent behind his head. Link watched his face for a moment before he realized that staring was probably weird. He snapped his gaze back to the view of open fields through the windshield.
“You think you might meet somebody you like in college?” Link asked.
Rhett laughed. “Man, I always meet somebody.”
Link rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t deny that Rhett was telling the truth. He always seemed to be able to find girlfriends. Thinking about girls made him acutely aware of the heat pressing in uncomfortably close around them. He sat up, yanking his shirt over his head, tossing it aside with a sigh of relief.
“You ever had a girl call you ‘basketball boy’?”
“What?” Rhett squinted at him, confused.
“Hey there, basketball boy.” Link settled back into an approximation of the Lionel Ritchie pose, his voice as seductive as he could manage. “I bet you don’t know what to do with those balls .”
“Oh stop it,” Rhett said, but the embarrassed grin on his face belied his words. “And no, I haven’t. You ever had a girl call you soccer boy?”
“Nah.”
The conversation wandered to college – rehashing stories told by Rhett’s brother Cole, discussing how they were going to fit their things into Link’s truck and Rhett’s car, speculating on what their third roommate would be like. Link might have dozed again, but he wasn’t sure. He remembered Rhett taking his shirt off though, tossing it in the backseat on top of Link’s.
“It’s hot,” Rhett said unnecessarily.
Link was sprawled across his seat, one foot up on the dashboard, his hands behind his head. “That’s summer for you. He cupped a hand around his mouth and sang, his voice high-pitched and off-key. “ Summer summer summertime !”
Rhett winced. “Stick to rapping, man.”
His words only made Link laugh. “Always happy to oblige.” He launched into the second verse, his favorite of the song.
Guys out hunting and girls doing likewise
Honking at the honey in front of you with the light eyes
She turns around to see what you beeping at
It's like the summer's a natural aphrodisiac
His voice trailed off. The heat sapped any remaining energy he had for rapping with much conviction. He tilted his own seat back.
“You sound just like Will Smith,” Rhett murmured.
“Mm? Really?” Link turned his head and felt an unexpected twinge in his chest. Rhett was grinning at him, his eyes alight with genuine happiness.
Rhett laughed. “Nah. You ain’t from the city.”
“But I got light eyes though, right?”
Rhett opened one eye, his eyebrows knit in an expression of annoyance. “That was Will Smith talkin’ about a girl, man, not himself.”
“Oh.” Link settled back, let his attention wander again. He hadn’t realized he’d dozed off until Rhett spoke again.
“Your eyes are all right.”
His voice sounded strained, as if the thick air had begun to choke him. Link met his gaze and was confused when Rhett quickly looked away and cleared his throat.
“I dated a girl with real pretty eyes once. Remember Janey?”
“She moved, right?” Link was feeling that restlessness from earlier creeping back through his limbs. He wasn’t in the mood to talk about Rhett’s girlfriends.
“Last summer.”
A sudden thought crossed Link’s mind. “You didn’t talk to me much when y’all were dating.”
He was surprised to see Rhett’s already heat-flushed face turn even redder. “We were... we...”
“Got busy, huh?” Link bared his teeth. “Did a li’l neckin’ in her bed, I bet. You got to feel some, too?”
Rhett grimaced. “C’mon, man.”
His eyes were closed again, his chest bare and unprotected. Link lunged for him suddenly. He managed to twist one nipple before Rhett slapped his hand away, yelling in protest loudly enough to make Link burst into a fit of giggles.
“She ever do that?” he asked.
“No,” Rhett said shortly. “And you better not do that again, either.” He covered his chest with both hands.
There was a familiar warmth in that restless feeling now, a sensation that usually led to things Link wasn’t entirely comfortable with thinking about while he was shirtless in his truck with his best friend. Something about the humidity weighing him down, something about the way Rhett’s fingers curled loosely over his chest, made Link feel a little reckless.
“I had a girl do that to me once,” he said suddenly. “Then I let her put her hands down my...” He trailed off realizing too late that he’d said too much.
But he’d hooked Rhett’s attention now. “Seriously?”
Link nodded jerkily.
“Who was it?” Rhett asked, genuine curiosity in his voice. One corner of his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Tell me.”
“Nope.” Link tried to back away, reaching for the keys. “Let’s go–”
“No.” Rhett’s fingers closed around his wrist. His eyes searched Link’s face with a painfully sharp gaze. “Who was it?” When Link said nothing, he dropped his friend’s wrist with a disapproving noise and lay back in his seat again. “You’re lying,” he said triumphantly.
The tension broken, Link covered his mouth with a hand to stifle his laughter. “You almost believed me though, right?”
Rhett grunted in assent, his eyes slipping closed. “I had a couple of girls who wanted to touch me a little, so I let ‘em,” he said in the smugly superior tone that was usually enough to start an argument. Link was almost too distracted to notice. There was something about the way his lean body was stretched across the seat – knees spread wide, one hand rubbing his stomach in lazy circles – that made the warmth settle in Link’s belly almost too low for comfort.
Oh no. This might happen. This was going to happen. This was actually happening . In a panic, Link tried to think of awful things, of the time he and Rhett had almost wrecked on the road, of his fear that he and Rhett wouldn’t be together in college, of the lonely days he’d spent at his father’s place wishing Rhett was with him.
It was with no small amount of confusion that he realized that thinking about Rhett only made his predicament more noticeable. Sheer panic flooded his mind as he tried to surreptitiously adjust himself, glad that Rhett’s eyes were shut. All did was make things worse, and now Link was scared. He was going to get an erection right here right now and Rhett was going to laugh at him and then all their friends would find out, and then–
With a start he noticed the slight bulge in Rhett’s jeans.
“You ever...” Rhett’s tongue flicked across his lips again. “You ever jerked it in the truck before?”
Link wondered if the heat was messing with his brain. “What,” he said in a small, strangled voice.
Rhett’s hand stopped its slow motions, coming to rest with a thumb hooked on his waistband. Link’s eyes were fastened on it, not sure if he wanted to see more or if he wanted to bolt from the truck.
“Looks like you got something going on there, too.”
Rhett’s eyes were open now, fixed piercingly on him. In terror, Link drew his knees up to his chest, now painfully aware of how very shirtless and sweaty he was.
“It’s nothin’,” he said weakly.
Rhett’s voice was oddly cool. “You can take care of it if you want.” He gestured toward the field beside them. “There’s some trees over there.”
Link’s face was afire.
It was Rhett’s turn to show his teeth. “What, you still scared you’re gonna run out?”
“It’s too hot... too hot to get out.” Link stammered, his voice small. His heart was beating so hard that it seemed to make his whole body shake. He was held captive by the fierce look in Rhett’s eyes, but there was a part of him that craved more of his attention.
“Do it here, then,” Rhett said, a slight quaver in his voice betraying his own timidity.
And – maybe because Rhett was his best friend, maybe because this was something that Link was just realizing that he wanted, maybe because he was hot and restless and needed some way of releasing the tension at the thought of his first year of college – Link unbuttoned his shorts. He hesitated before going further, but to his shock, Rhett was doing the same.
“On th.. three then,” Link said, hating the crack in his voice. “One, two, three.”
They bared themselves together, easing shorts and boxers down just far enough. Link resisted the urge to cover himself again. The knowledge of Rhett’s eyes on him was both embarrassing and thrilling.
With a long sigh – something that might have been the word, “ Nice ” – Rhett closed his eyes again. One hand took hold of his shaft, moving in strokes just as long and slow as the circles he’d been tracing on his stomach earlier.
Don’t look. The thought drove Link to lie back on his own seat again, his fingers curling around the base of his cock. A soft moan from Rhett made him flinch. It’s okay. Just don’t look.
He tried to pretend he was back in his room, lying on his bed alone. He tried to fix familiar images in his mind – the last girl he’d kissed, the centerfold in one of the magazines he’d stashed in his mattress – but another whispered sound from Rhett drove all those from his thoughts. He opened his eyes to see Rhett’s tongue slide across his lips as he stroked himself faster, hand moving in a steady rhythm, sweat running down his face in rivulets. With a gasp, Link shut his eyes again. He shouldn’t be looking at this. Seeing the rise and fall of Rhett’s lean chest as his hand worked his cock was almost too intimate for him to bear.
He tried to focus on dealing with his own situation, hands trembling as they went through the familiar motions. If he told himself that the sounds from Rhett were from his own imagination or from a movie he’d seen, then that was okay, right?
As his left hand moved more quickly, his right hand trailed up his torso to run lightly across his chest. He teased one nipple first until it was tender to the touch before moving to the other. This was okay. He was still at home, on his bed, thinking of that centerfold.
Beside him, Rhett let out a pained grunt. “Link...”
Link’s eyes snapped open. He looked over in time to see Rhett squirm and whimper from between clenched teeth, his hips lifting off the seat as he came, shooting all over his chest. His hand moved a few more times before going still.
The sight spurred Link on. He slammed back against the headrest, fingers working furiously. His mind faltered then, all sense of reason gone as it circled around the same words. This is okay it’s okay don’t think about him no not... don’t...
He didn’t know at first that he was whispering all of this aloud, but by the time his brain caught up with his mouth, he no longer cared. Rhett was watching him and Link liked it. He liked it. His jaw clenched tight as the sensations in his groin intensified. Then, just when he was on the edge, he felt another hand, larger than his and very warm, close around his shaft. His eyes flew open, mouth forming a breathless moan. A few rapid strokes from Rhett, a quick, whispered, “C’mon,” and his toes curled inside his sneakers as he fell apart with a cry.
Slowly, awareness of the world returned. Rhett’s hand was still on him. With a sudden revulsion Link slapped him away. He was filthy. There was come on his chest, sweat stinging as it dripped into his eyes, and it was still, still oppressively hot.
Link kept a stash of napkins in the glove compartment, mostly because he didn’t like throwing away something that could still be used. Rhett retrieved these now, tossing a few to Link without making eye contact. He opened the truck door and turned away as he cleaned himself off.
There was no shame hotter or more agonizing than what Link felt as he wiped away the traces of the previous moments and put his shirt back on. His eyes strayed to rest on Rhett’s bare back, lingering on the muscles flexing there. But Rhett would not meet his gaze. At one point, Link opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it when he caught sight of Rhett’s face. His eyebrows were close-knit in either concentration or anger. Link wasn’t sure which, and he was too disgusted with himself to bother finding out.
Neither of them spoke on the drive back. Link glanced over once and saw that Rhett’s body was curled over the door as if he was prepared to jump out the moment the truck stopped.
They pulled up outside Rhett’s house after what felt like an hour’s drive.
“Hey,” Link began, but Rhett had already sprung from the truck. He strode back up the driveway stiffly, as if he was afraid of falling over. Without turning around, he went into his house and shut the door.
Link told himself that the wetness on his face was only sweat, but the ache in his throat and his eyes told him differently. Back home, he threw his keys on the floor, ignoring his mother asking him what was wrong. He stalked to the bathroom and stripped off his clothes, turning the shower on as cold as it would go. Beneath the icy stream of water he stood, heedless of how badly he was trembling, and let the scalding hot tears fall.