Open Road (8 page)

Angus didn’t know how to explain it. Maybe it was Reece. Being with Reece was always the best part of pretty much anything. So yeah. Everything sucked. But it was still… better.

They pulled over at lookouts, and Angus sat on a cliff with the wind in his hair and wondered what it would feel like to free-fall off into nothing. Late in the afternoon, they pulled into Pismo Beach, a small but touristy town a few hours south of Big Sur, and Reece decided that’s where they’d stop for the night. The place was exactly what Angus would’ve pictured a small California coastal town to be—boardwalks and fishing piers, touristy hotels, and a small main drag. He got out his phone and flashed a few pictures of the waning sun.

“Taking pictures?” Reece asked.

Angus shrugged. “It’s cute. Might as well.”

Reece nodded.

It had been a short day of driving, but both of them needed to rest after the way their trip had started—his fault, of course. Angus asked if they could find burritos for dinner, and Reece looked so pleased and surprised that he’d specifically asked for dinner without being reminded that they ended up combing town until they found a tiny little hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant to eat in.

Angus hadn’t really tasted food in months, but there was something about that little place, about the spice of the salsa and the colored lights strung across the ceiling, about Reece’s familiar, comfortable face, and the cheese that dripped off his fork, that woke Angus’s taste buds up.

“This is really good,” he muttered between bites. “I was hungry.”

Reece smiled big and bright at him and took a huge bite of his own dinner. “It is good.” He didn’t say much else. They’d never been the type to fill the room with unnecessary chatter, and everything they really had to say wasn’t meant for a quiet restaurant. Angus knew that time would come, when Reece would expect him to explain. It just hadn’t come yet.

“So,” Reece said when they were sharing a bowl of fried ice cream, “I might have scored us some concert tickets.”

“What concert?” Angus asked. “When?”

Another spark of interest lit in his belly. Angus definitely noticed the change. He used to live for concerts, the louder the better. He loved to get lost in the crowd, feel the guitar in his chest and the bass in his knees, live in the heartbeat of the music and not much else. Angus hadn’t done anything like that in years. He’d never realized how much he missed it until the thought of it sounded… kind of amazing.

“You know my friend Brenda, the one who lives outside LA and edits for that travel magazine?”

“Yeah, of course.” Angus had met Brenda once or twice.

“She has a few plus ones on her press pass for Coachella the day after tomorrow.” Reece smirked around his burrito.

“
Coachella
.” Angus said it like he could barely believe it, which made sense, because he
couldn’t
believe it.

The thought of Coachella, his Holy Grail music festival, on any other day would have had Angus jumping up and down and screaming like a banshee. As it was, it was probably one of the only things that had the ability to make him smile. Really smile. “You can’t be serious,” he said.

“Yup.” Reece nodded. “Get out your hipster jeans. We’re going to a music festival.”

“We’re going to
the
music festival. I knew there was a reason you were my best friend.”

“Yeah, I might suck at everything else, but I can get you some concert tickets from time to time,” Reece said.

Angus gave him a shy smile and dove in for the last bit of fried ice cream. “Don’t even think about it,” he muttered at Reece, whose spoon hovered a bit too close to the fat and sugar.

Reece grinned. “It’s all yours.”

THE NEXT
morning dawned blue and perfect. It was warm but not hot, bright but not too much sun. Pale tufts of clouds floated across the sky, and Angus couldn’t help but to throw open the balcony door and let the new air in. He looked out over a few blocks of town to the shimmering Pacific and wriggled his toes into the scratchy hotel rug like he could feel the sand. Reece had been right. Getting the hell out of Portland had done him a lot of good. His near-perpetual headache was gone, even in the bright morning sunlight, he was hungry for breakfast for the first time in months, and he genuinely wanted to get to Indio and the magic of Coachella. It was almost like some kind of quest or something, to get somewhere he used to want to go. Maybe he’d find something there. Or someone who’d been lost for a long, long time.

Who knows…?

Time to wake up Reece. “Get up, lazy.” He hopped on the corner of Reece’s bed until his best friend stirred.

Reece blinked and rubbed at his messy scruff of wheat-blond hair. He was golden all over, just like always; Lord knew how, since they’d just come out of the wettest, grayest winter in the history of time. The white of the sheets draped over his perfectly sculpted bare hip reminded Angus of some annoyingly beautiful statue.

“You naked under there? My
eyes,
” Angus joked. He felt a bit nervous, though, and his throat got uncomfortably tight. He decided it was a good time to escape to the tiny balcony.

“I’m not naked, jackass.” Reece rolled his eyes. “When have I ever just stripped down in front of you and shown you the junk?”

“Tenth grade.” Angus snorted. “At Jordan’s beach cabin.”

“I was
drunk
. For the first time, I might add. I thought we weren’t going to ever bring that up again.”

Angus shrugged. He felt a smile rising up from his belly. “You asked.”

“I suppose I did.”

“Where are we going today?”

“I figured we’d cut inland around LA and head to Indio. We’re going to meet Brenda there in the morning tomorrow.”

Angus remembered Brenda. She and Reece had a minithing a few years back, nothing serious enough that ending it had made them unable to be friends. Then she’d moved to LA, and they had basically been social media buddies ever since. Angus had felt vaguely angered by her back in the day, but he’d barely remembered she existed until their conversation at the restaurant the night before. He had no idea why she was giving a near stranger and an old semifling what had to be highly coveted passes. But the thought of going to Coachella and getting lost in the crowd and the music actually appealed to Angus like nothing had in so long. He wasn’t about to question the gift.

“You want me to go get us something for breakfast?” he asked. “I showered last night.” Reece gave him a long, measuring look, like he didn’t quite trust Angus off on his own. Angus didn’t exactly blame him after his performance in their last hotel room. “Or I could just wait here and delete angry e-mails from my ex-boss while you shower.”

Reece dragged his long, muscled body out of bed and stretched. “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea. I don’t know what I want anyway.”

Which was code for Angus was on recklessness watch. Fine. He’d earned it. He slumped back against the bed and flicked through e-mails from his boss, his landlord, his family. He just deleted them all. Felt a bit bad about the ones from Mom and Peyton, but he couldn’t deal with anything like that, people caring too much. So he hit delete over and over and over until it hurt a little less. Then he shoved all his clothes he’d gotten out back into the bag, unplugged his charger and did the same, then plunked down onto the bed to wait for Reece to be ready to leave.

Southern California

THEY STARTED
on their drive to Los Angeles after a quick diner breakfast. It would be another fairly short day, other than the high likelihood of insane LA traffic. They were quiet for the most part—traded an observation here and there but not much else. It was getting much warmer over the hours, from wet and barely out of winter to what would be considered the middle of summer back home.

Reece had a hard time not staring at Angus, which he knew was useless. Watching him constantly wouldn’t make anything better. Angus seemed so much better than he had the past two days, but Reece wasn’t exactly buying it. He knew his best friend. There was something wrong still.

Of course there is, you moron.
People didn’t go from drunk and lying in their bed to quiet but perfectly normal in two days. Reece was smart enough to know that, even if he hoped it was true.

Still. He felt bad.

Somewhere outside of LA, hours after they’d left their charming little motel by the sea, he finally broke. Angus had been staring out of the window, watching the thickening Los Angeles traffic for nearly an hour. Reece couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Hey, are you, like, trying to be okay for me?” he asked. In retrospect, that probably wasn’t the best thing to say. Sue him. He wasn’t a counselor.

“No. I mean… well. What do you mean?”

“I guess….” Reece was already sorry he’d brought it up. Leaving well enough alone had never been one of his virtues. He had always liked things, and people, in their neat places. “I guess I mean a couple of days ago you were so angry and sad and
drunk
and now you’re almost you again. But you’re not. There’s something going on. I’m just trying to figure out if you’re putting on a show.”

Angus sighed and closed his eyes. His head thumped onto the headrest of the car. “What answer do you want from me?”

It was too late to go back and unask the question, so he plowed forward instead. “The truth, I guess. Not telling the truth about what was going on was what got us to this place, isn’t it?”

The car was silent for a long time after that.
Damn.
He’d probably said too much. Angus had always been on the sensitive side, Reece on the sensible. Sometimes he didn’t know what he’d said that hurt his friend’s feelings. Sometimes… well, sometimes he wished he could rewind and start over. This was one of those times.

“Yes. I guess I am putting on a show, to a point. For you and for me.” Angus didn’t open his eyes. “What else am I supposed to do? I feel like hell, and I’m sad. Am I supposed to not be sad?”

You’re supposed to be over the asshole. He sucked anyway.
“No, you’re supposed to be you. I just want to help.”

“I think….” He rubbed at his eyes. “I think this is helping a little bit. I mean, I’m trying to act normal, and it’s not easy, but fake it till you make it, right?”

“Are you tired?” Reece asked. They’d been in the car for hours and hours with nothing but a quick bathroom break and a drive-through Starbucks.

“Yeah. Don’t know why. I’ve been sitting on my ass for hours, but I’m tired. And hungry.” Angus gave him a rueful smile.

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m hungry too.”

“’Kay.”

They were quiet after that. Reece thought he might have dodged a bullet, but then again Angus was back to not really talking. If they’d taken this trip a few months ago, they’d have been chattering a mile a minute. Reece tried not to think about it too much; instead he concentrated on weaving in and out of traffic.

“Where are we going tonight?”

“It’s only a few more hours to Indio, remember?” Reece knew they’d talked about it that morning. He decided to just pretend they hadn’t.

“Heading out into the desert?” Angus asked. “Time to do some shrooms and have a, like, existential experience?”

“You’ve watched that episode of
Entourage
too many times.”

Angus shrugged. “Sue me. Turtle’s hot.”

“Turtle? Really?”

“Definitely.”

Learn something new every day.

THEY STOPPED
for In-N-Out Burger at Angus’s insistence. It would be a travesty to visit SoCal without a trip to the burger temple, he said. Reece was in the business of making Angus happy during the trip, and every little bit of Angus’s old personality shining through was a step in the right direction. So health concerns aside, he shoved in a Double-Double and a huge order of fries animal-style and tried not to watch Angus and make sure he finished his food.

“Can we go to the beach?” Angus asked quietly when they got back in the car.

“Sure. I think we’re pretty close to Redondo,” Reece said. He checked his GPS, and it told him the drive shouldn’t be more than about twenty minutes. “Why do you want to go to the beach?” he asked. Reece was happy Angus wanted to do anything, but it wasn’t exactly in his personality not to ask.

“I honestly don’t know. It just sounds like it would feel good.”

“Then off to the beach we go.” Reece turned and smiled at his friend, who was really only half his friend and half a sad shell he wanted desperately to fill with some sunshine and a little happiness.

It was gloriously sunny at the beach, and warm. There weren’t a ton of people there—it was a weekday and not hot enough to swim, especially for a Los Angeles local, so Angus and Reece had a huge chunk of sand to themselves.

“We don’t have to stay here for a long time. I just wanted to smell the ocean water for a while. Put my feet in maybe.”

“Don’t worry about it. We have plenty of time.” Reece flopped down onto the sand next to Angus, where it was partially shaded by a shadow thrown by the boardwalk. “Feels nice, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Angus tipped his face up into the sun and closed his eyes. “I’m really glad I’m not at home,” he muttered.

They were quiet for a long time, which seemed to be the way things were lately. Reece was fine with that, he supposed. Things changed sometimes, and Angus, well, he’d done more than change lately. Reece just hoped it wasn’t entirely permanent.

“You want to go walk in the water?” he finally asked. “Just stick our toes in so we can say we did?”

“Yeah.” Angus gave him a shy smile. He toed off his Converse and started to roll up the legs of jeans that used to be snug, just like everything else Angus had with him. Reece rolled up his jeans as well and unlaced his sneakers.

“Race you to the water?” he asked.

Angus nodded and hopped up. He took off running before Reece even had a chance to start.

“You cheated!” Reece called.

The only reply he got was a wild cackle. It was one of the best things he’d heard in a long time.