Gabe Masters just wants a little company for the long trip home for winter break. When a sexy young classmate responds to his ad to share gas and company back to Tennessee, Gabe jumps at the chance to share the ride and, possibly, even his heart.
Kyle Crawford is trying to make it home in time for Christmas Eve service with his family, but when his ride’s truck breaks down halfway there, Kyle and Gabe are stuck in a roadside motel until the repairs can get done the day after Christmas. Sharing the only room available, the two strangers quickly find they have more in common than their burgeoning sexuality, and discover firsthand how some detours can turn friends into lovers. And lovers into something so much more ...
“Come on ...” Kyle extended a hand, big and wet and dripping. As if drawn by some magnetic force field, Gabe ascended the stairs in his wake, taking Kyle’s hand as soon as it was within reach. Forcefully, with a strength only hinted at by his long, sinewy arms, Kyle dragged him out of the pool and onto the concrete deck in one effortlessly fluid motion.
It was such a strange sensation, holding another man’s hand, that Gabe had little time to process it before Kyle dragged him over to the lone shower head next to the rolling cart stacked with blue striped pool towels.
“Wait,” Kyle blurted, dragging his phone from the pile of goodies he’d brought along with him. “Selfie first?”
“Dude. Now? Right now?”
Kyle’s voice might have been pleading, but his forceful body language made it clear he wasn’t taking “No” for an answer. “Come on, man. Christmas Eve. Road trip. Two flat tires! Christmas. Eve! Dollar store boxer shorts? You gotta take a stuck in some roach motel in some fleabag town with your mate selfie to commemorate this kind of an occasion, right?”
“I guess, sure. But ... in these?”
Kyle winked, in that vaguely saucy but not quite way he had. “What, we should take them off? I mean, I’m no frat boy, but ... I’m down if that’s the only way I can get a picture with you.”
“No, it’s just ... for you and me, right? No Insta posts on your socials or whatnot.”
“OMG, just ... come here, prude!”
Kyle drew him tight, one arm clutched protectively, almost tenderly, around his bare shoulder. The touch was exhilarating, almost as much as the fact that Kyle practically towered over him. His skin was warm, wet and bare, a sensation that threatened to unravel Gabe completely. Kyle positioned the phone, Gabe mesmerized by the sight of them in the screen, so young and wet in the sunset, shadows making Kyle look even more beautiful as they smiled, heads together, beaming as the steam wafted off their smooth shoulders to drift away in the night. A few clicks for good measure and it was all over, far too soon for Gabe’s taste.
“Now, was that so hard Tough Guy?”
Gabe rolled his eyes, playfully shrugging from Kyle’s grasp despite wanting to linger there for longer than he cared to admit. “No. Send it to me, K?”
Kyle chuckled, nodded and tossed the phone onto the pile on the table near where they stood.
A frayed drawstring attached to a little ring on the shower handle brought the rusty spigot to life, the warm spray dousing Gabe as Kyle held it for him. Gabe lavished in the warm, adoring spray, running fingers through his wet hair and wriggling beneath the running water. When he was through, he scrubbed his eyes free of the running water and glanced over at Kyle. “Your turn,” he said, switching places and shivering as he took the drawstring from Kyle.
Kyle nodded gratefully, dipping beneath the spray as Gabe struggled to hide his growing admiration for his new roommate’s long, lean body, pale as marble and statuesque in its flawless beauty.
“Take a picture,” Kyle murmured, stepping from the spray and handing them both towels as they stood, cold from the weather but warmed by the mere presence of each other. “It lasts longer.”
Gabe snapped to life, wrapping himself in the towel and peering gently up at Kyle’s blushing face. “Sorry, I just ... it feels like high school all over again, you know?”
“What? Showering with another guy?”
Gabe somehow found the courage to nod, then confess. “Yeah, been a while.”
Kyle paused drying himself to peer back at Gabe curiously. “What? Aren’t you some type of jock or something?”
“I mean, I was. In high school, but ...”
They traded their towels for T-shirts, sliding damp limbs in warm sleeves as they wrapped the towels around their waists for the quick walk back to the room. They stood, lingering, as if afraid of what might happen next. “And now?”
Gabe shook his head. “Not so much. I wasn’t good enough at lacrosse to get a scholarship and was over it by freshman year anyway, so ... just me in the shower these days.”
“I mean, it’s not like we were naked,” Kyle reminded him.
Gabe chuckled at the towel draped casually around Kyle’s waist. “Practically, though.”
