Long Way (Adventures INK Book 2)

by Mercy Celeste

  “You’re not coming back?” Darren said this time, surprising Skip. Skip shook his head. He’d known it was coming, the end of their era. He never thought he’d be the one to end it.

  Darren was the first to step forward. Skip didn’t expect the hug. Or to have Rose and Lucinda wrapped around him too. Blake and Sam stood off to the side, anger and disbelief in their eyes respectively.

  “Come to Cliffside, this fall,” he invited, knowing they wouldn’t come. “There’s plenty of room.”

  They made promises they wouldn’t keep. He backed away, avoiding the Marine, and the hurt in Sam’s eyes. He needed to go…

  I don’t need a daddy.

  … Before he did something stupid that could never be undone.

  “Excuse me, but who drove the Subaru Forrester?” The manager interrupted Skip’s great escape. The feeling of dread washed over him at the question. He’d helped Colt buy that fucking car, and it had delivered its owner to his place of rest, serving its purpose to the very end.

  “That would be me,” Chad said, his voice level and disinterested. He was just answering a question about an old car. One that meant nothing to him.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but a tree fell during the storm the night before last. We managed to save most of the things in the trunk. I have the boxes here in storage. But the car… it was a total loss. The hotel is prepared to offer compensation. Our insurance will contact you regarding the matter.”

  Skip tried to tune out the news. He tried to drown out the ringing in his ears. But he knew. Just like he’d known all those years ago that this was where he was supposed to stop. This was where his car had chosen to die. This was where his life had started again. He was never going to walk away from fate; he knew that now.

  “Is there a shuttle or a taxi that can take me to the nearest town, where I can rent a car?” He heard Chad ask, his scalp prickling a warning. Leave. Leave now. Run.

  He ignored the warning. “I can give you a lift.”

  Chad turned to face him, his blue eyes devoid of any emotion. He nodded and turned back to the desk. “Tell me where my car is?”

  Twenty minutes later, Skip pulled into the parking lot of the same mechanic who’d taken his old bug thirty years ago, and waited for Chad to make his decision on what to do with the remains. He came out carrying a bag of things he’d salvaged from the car with a grim smile on his face.

  “They gave me cash for the scrap. It looks like a hot dog bun, all caved in down the middle. Something tells me Dad would get a kick out of that. He hated that car. More than anything in the world, he hated that car. I never understood why he kept it for so long.”

  Skip didn’t understand either. He never did understand Colt. “I’m heading north to Oregon. Where do you want me to drop you?”

  Chad sat very still, for a long time, holding a picture in his hands. He offered it to Skip. It was from the year they’d all met, when they were so young and innocent. Skip had forgotten how long his hair was then. Almost all the way down his back. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a haircut, probably when he was nine or ten. He looked exactly like what he was, some throwback to a different era that the rest were trying so desperately to emulate. He saw their faces. He remembered that day. He could still feel Jimmy’s hand on his shoulder. He could still feel his mouth on him in the dark.

  Jimmy, the one who’d taken the place of the father he’d lost when he was too young to know that a man like Jimmy could never love another man.

  He gave the picture back to Chad. His heart ached too much to look at it any longer. “You keep it.”

  Chad caressed the picture where Colt would be. He didn’t need a daddy. He’d had one.

  “I’ve never been to Oregon,” Chad said, and tucked the picture into the bag and set it on the floor behind Skip’s seat. “I have nowhere else to go, and all the time in the world to get there.”

  Skip reversed out of the lot without saying a word. His heart hammering in his chest, as he headed for the highway that would take him north. Because he had a deadline, and there was no sense in sitting around arguing with the fates.

  Chapter Nine

  He had no real desire to see Oregon.

  Chad sat in the passenger seat of the Jeep watching the scenery creep by for nearly a hundred miles, before he realized he’d never wanted to explore the Pacific Northwest. He checked his phone and found several missed calls from his mother. He’d never told her he was coming home. She’d been after him for weeks to ignore his father’s passing and come back where he belonged.

  “I’m thinking about going back in,” he said into the long stretch of silence. Skip hadn’t asked his plans now that he was out. He might be the first person who hadn’t. Or told him what he should be doing with his life, now that he was a civilian. “I don’t want to go to school.”

  “Were you happy in the military?” Skip asked the hard question, right off the bat.

  “Not particularly,” he admitted. He’d lived in fear most of the four years. Fear of dying. Fear of wanting. Fear of living. Mostly fear of living.

  “You have to make up your own mind. No one can do that for you. I could tell you to go, if that’s what you want to do. I could tell you that you sound like you’re going back because you don’t have a better plan. I could be wrong on both counts. What do you want to do?” Skip glanced over at him quickly, as he came to a stop sign. Chad saw his reflection in Skip’s sunglasses, and turned away to stare out the window at the white-dusted greenery. They were moving out of the area hit by the winter storm and into warmer weather. The sun shone here but, it wouldn’t for long. Night was coming.

  “How far to Oregon?” Chad asked for the first time. He had no idea, exactly where Skip was heading. Maybe he wasn’t going anyplace Chad wanted to visit.

  “Another couple of hours. And about four more to my cabin. There’s a map in the box. Pick a place and I’ll drop you off.” Skip turned right and kept driving, unaware that Chad’s hands had started trembling. He didn’t want to be dropped off. He didn’t know how to just come out and say what he wanted.

  He didn’t look in the box for the map. He opened a bottle of water and leaned the seat back a little. “Remind me when we cross the state line.”

  Skip glanced at him again, his lips pursed in a way that made Chad wonder what he was thinking.

  Skip turned on the radio and sang along with an oldies station while he drove. He had a surprisingly decent voice. He loved Brit-pop. Chad felt the smile quirk his lips, listening to the man sing along with George Michael.

  The station faded to static and Skip found another. This one playing modern pop. He didn’t sing. It just wasn’t the same. Skip came alive for that ‘80s stuff. Chad pulled the brim of his cover over his eyes, and let the movement of the car and Skip’s voice lull him to sleep.

  The Jeep swerved hard, throwing Chad against the door. Chad struggled to sit up when the car came to a stop. He looked around in the dark trying to figure out what had happened. Skip sat behind the wheel, clutching it hard in his hands. His eyes looked glassy in the light from the dash. He blinked rapidly.

  “You okay over there?” Chad released his seat belt and turned in the seat to look around. They were sitting on the shoulder without another car in sight. It was dark; he could see stars in the sky, and it was very quiet.

  “I think I fell asleep,” Skip admitted, sounding groggy. He didn’t let go of the wheel. Chad reached down and put the Jeep in park. “We’re still a couple of hours out. Don’t think I can make it. Not tonight.”

  It wasn’t very late, a little past eight. They’d gotten a late start after being up early. Chad stretched and opened his door. He needed to stretch and take a piss. He could do both out here with no one around. Skip was still sitting in the driver’s seat when he came back, his eyes closed.

  “Skip? Hey, man. How far to the next town?” Chad shook him, but he didn’t respond. He got back out of the Jeep and went around to Skip�
��s side and opened the door. “Okay, Skipper, let’s get you up and out.”

  Skip groaned, but he opened his eyes. There was pain behind the green. “My neck is killing me.” He reached out and draped his arm over Chad’s shoulder, and let Chad help him out and around the front. “And I gotta piss.”

  Chad leaned him on the hood of the car, and tried not to watch as Skip opened his fly and pulled himself out. He stared up at the stars as the sound of water hitting a tire filled the silence. Skip grunted when he was done, and stepped back in a stretch. He’d not zipped up. Chad wondered if he was just that tired. He wondered what that thing would look like erect. He wondered what it would taste like. Urine most likely.

  “Skip, you need to, uh.” He didn’t know how to tell the man his horse was escaping the barn. Skip stood there looking at him, his eyes heavy-lidded, his arms behind his head, the green blazing. The horse leaving the barn was starting to buck. The horse in Chad’s own barn was wondering why no one left its barn door open.

  The urge to taste overwhelmed him. He was tired of wanting something he couldn’t have, when it was right there, beckoning him. There wasn’t another car on the road with them. Chad crowded Skip, backing him up to his open door, and pushed him into the seat. Skip sat and stared at him. He didn’t turn in the seat. He spread his feet slightly, and reached overhead for the roll bar and the top of the windshield. “If you want to, I’m not going to stop you. Been a long time since anyone looked at me like you do.”

  Chad felt the jolt of his words shoot through his body; his dick went so hard he couldn’t breathe. He braced himself against the Jeep door, while Skip looked up at him with lust in his eyes.

  “Take me to your cabin,” it wasn’t a request. He tilted Skip’s chin up, just like Skip had done to him several times.

  Skip dragged his cover from his head, and skimmed his fingers through Chad’s hair. “Suck my dick, Marine. And I’ll take you home with me, do dirty things to you. Any dirty thing you want, if you put those incredible dick-sucking lips of yours on me now.”

  Chad sank to his knees in the grass; the ground was cold. Skip spread his feet wider as Chad moved closer; he could smell the musky scent of Skip’s arousal. He didn’t know if he could do it now that he was so close. Skip must have read his disquiet. He stroked Chad’s lips with his thumb, slowly parting them. “Just like that, Chad. Just what you’re comfortable with.”

  Chad nodded and flicked his tongue out to taste Skip’s finger. Skip moaned softly and reached back for the roll bar. His other hand pressed the back of Chad’s head, gently, moving him lower over his now rigid dick. The tiny pearl of fluid on the head smelled so good, Chad flicked his tongue out once more, and this time the one who moaned was him. His gaze locked with Skip’s. The green of his eyes went dark, closing to mere slits. He petted Chad’s head, his breath harsh as he waited for Chad to take more.

  “You taste good,” he said, leaning over to bury his nose in the gaping zipper. He wanted to see all of him. He wanted to see more than just a few inches of dick. He didn’t have the time, or the ability to get Skip out of his pants. He licked the fluid streaming down the shaft to pool at the base just above the man’s balls. Chad reached inside and pulled those out. Skip stopped caressing his head and leaned back, both hands gripping the rails as he bit his bottom lip. “Skip…” he said the man’s name without knowing what he wanted to say after. Skip opened his eyes, but didn’t answer. “Come in my mouth.”

  Skip nodded and arched his hips forward. Chad opened his mouth over the head, the thick, salty fluid sluicing from the slit better than beer or birthday cake. He licked the head, feeling his way around the ridge, as it slipped from the protective folds of skin. He tasted so good, Chad could cry. “Chad, I can’t. Baby. I can’t. It’s too much.”

  Chad thought Skip had changed his mind. He latched on and sucked hard, for fear of losing this, now that he’d finally found it. Skip cried out, thrusting his groin hard into Chad as he grabbed both sides of Chad’s head. The fluid shooting into his mouth thicker, hotter, and tangier than the precum fluids had been. He didn’t understand that Skip had ejaculated, until Skip started to shake. Chad sucked him deeper into his mouth, enjoying the taste, and the feel of the thickness in his mouth. Skip tried to pull away, but Chad wasn’t ready to let him go. He sucked harder, wanting more. Skip begged him to stop. His body trembled violently, as he thrust deep into Chad’s throat. Begging him not to stop, he held Chad’s head in his hands, caressing and squeezing, as Chad’s mouth worked him, forcing cries from him that shattered the silence of the night. A bright light came from ahead of them and went past quickly, as Skip shot hard into his mouth, sliding his dick in harder and faster, as his body emptied itself and tried to shake apart.

  When he went soft in Chad’s mouth, Chad put him back into his pants and zipped him up. Skip didn’t move. Chad lifted Skip’s feet and turned him in the seat, and leaned over him to buckle him in. He kissed the man softly before he stood up and closed the door.

  Skip lay against the seat, his heavy-lidded eyes drooping, his breath still coming in ragged gasps when Chad slid into the driver’s seat. “There’s a small town not far from here. I was heading there. It has food and a couple of motels.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Chad said starting the engine. Skip moaned deep in his throat. Chad smiled. “One room or two?”

  Skip didn’t answer; Chad pulled out onto the highway and drove. The lights of the town came into sight, and he turned into the lot of the first motel he saw.

  “One room. Can’t fuck me if you’re in another room,” the sleepy voice said from the dark. “Don’t take too long.”

  “Yes, Sir,” he said, just to hear the man moan again.

  He left the engine running, and went to the office window. Skip was asleep when he got back. He drove to the back of the motel lot and pulled up in front of the room he’d been assigned. “Hey, Skip, we’re here.”

  “Okay. Wake me in five minutes.” Skip didn’t wake up.

  Chad got out, and grabbed their bags, and went to open the room. He came back for Skip and pulled him out of the seat. Holding him up, he walked Skip into the room and dumped him onto the bed.

  He didn’t know if he was upset that he wasn’t getting laid tonight, or happy that Skip had stopped pushing him away.

  He unlaced the man’s boots and dropped them on the floor. “I’m going to get something to eat; I’ll be back. Okay? Skip?”

  “Mmm, hmm. Yeah, food would be good. And condoms. Lubricant. Get me…” a soft snore took the place of whatever Skip had been about to ask. Chad sighed and started to leave. He saw the phone sticking out of Skip’s pocket and took it out. It wasn’t locked. He resisted the urge to thumb through his pictures and pulled up the call button and punching in his own number.

  “I’m in your phone now; hit redial if you need me before I get back.”

  He left the phone on the table and the man on the bed. Nerves killed the erection he’d had since his first taste of dick. He’d taken advantage of Skip; he knew that much. He wouldn’t take advantage again.

  He decided he’d look for a place to rent a car, and get out of Skip’s hair before he pushed the man to do something they’d both regret. But first food… and maybe condoms… just in case.

  * * * * *

  He woke up in a strange place… alone. Skip rolled onto his hip and scraped his hair back. He found scalp and no hair. He was having the strangest dream. George Michael was there. They sang “Father Figure” for some damned reason. Then Boy George showed up and got angry because Skip wanted to sing “Careless Whisper” instead of “Karma Chameleon.” No offense Boy, but “Careless Whisper” is the greatest…

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” he rubbed his face as he sat up. “What the hell was in the convenience store coffee? Tasted like battery acid. Must have been…” he picked up his phone to look at the time, after nine. He’d stopped for coffee not long after dark. He’d left Chad sleeping in the Jeep, and that’s about the las
t real thing he remembered. There was a missed call on his phone from a number he didn’t recognize, and a missed text from the same number. He opened the message to find the Marine pointing to a restaurant sign. That had been half an hour ago.

  He looked around and found Chad’s pack on the floor near the bathroom, beside his bag. He felt drained and exhausted and starving. He had no idea where he was or how he got here. There was a fleeting memory of sitting on the side of the road with his dick hanging out.

  And pretty Marine lips wrapped around his dick.

  He started to wonder which dream was worse: the argument with the Georges or letting an overgrown kid suck his dick in public. Was it a dream? That was the question.

  He heard someone try the door; it beeped, then opened. Chad walked in carrying two bags with footlong subs in them and another bag from a drug store.

  “You didn’t text me back. I made a guess. Got a turkey club and a meatball with cheese.” The Marine set the bags down on the little table and pulled off his hat and his jacket before sitting to unlace his boots. “You look wiped out.”

  “I feel wiped out.” Skip staggered across the room to the table and opened the bag. He found bottles that weren’t caffeinated or carbonated. He took a green tea. “Which one is the turkey?”

  Chad shrugged and picked one up and sniffed. He pushed the other bag over to Skip. “I didn’t get chips or anything. I just wanted a sandwich, if that’s okay?”

  “It’s good. I’m hungry enough to eat the whole thing.” Skip opened the bottle of tea and took a long drink. “Kills the taste of battery acid at least. Remind me that convenience store coffee causes weird ass dreams.”

  Chad choked on a bite of meatball sandwich and coughed. He wouldn’t look at Skip as he turned a deep shade of red. “That might not have been a dream.”

  “Pretty sure having George Michael and Boy George argue over who was the best was a dream. It happens.” Skip reached for the bottle of lemonade and opened it for the man. “The blowjob, though… glad I was awake for that. Thanks.”