100 Days (4 page)

It’s sparse, clips of passing cars and scenery rushing by with omnipresent music in the background and snatches of idle drive-time conversation. Jake transfers it all to Aiden’s laptop and wipes the memory card. He and Aiden have plans for the footage they collect, plans for a documentary that will net them an Academy Award—even though they haven’t quite figured out what the point of the documentary will be. Details.

After looking out the windshield to make sure he’s alone, Jake flips the small screen around and holds the camcorder up in front of his face.

“It’s day one, and we’ve just arrived in Hampton,” he begins brightly, looking directly into the lens. “The sky’s blue and the sun’s high, which can only mean two things: two days on the beach, and lots of sunblock.”

Jake pauses, his gaze faltering and slipping to his mirror image on the screen.
These video diaries are only for me,
he reminds himself. No one knows about them, not even April. They’re his space to document his thoughts and feel­ings, something that he can call entirely his own. In light of the comeback his codependent tendencies have made, he needs something that’s just his, and this video diary is it.

“Leaving home last night was… it was hard. Not just the goodbye part—I always knew that part would suck, since my relationship with Charlie is pretty crappy. She’s probably happy that I’m gone. No, what’s hard is knowing whether I’m really doing the right thing. I think when we got to Arundel and I brought it up, Aiden realized how much he was asking of me to just take off with him. Don’t get me wrong, I’m… I’m thrilled that we’re doing this together. I am. But this isn’t just some day trip to Vermont or even a week on the West Coast. This is three and a half months of nothing but the road and each other, and I’m a little bit terrified that home won’t ever feel like home again. And a little bit more terrified that it’ll feel too much like home, and I’ll never want to leave.

“But even with all that, I really am glad to be here. This place has so many memories for both of us—it’s one of
our
places, and nowhere else would have felt right.”

Jake smiles in spite of himself; he almost feels as though he should be lying on a leather couch. He doesn’t lay himself bare like this for anyone—except perhaps Aiden, on occasion—and knowing that this video diary is just for himself… there’s an odd sense of freedom in it.

He has to cut his monologue short, however, when he happens to glance through the windshield and see Aiden approaching. He shuts off the cam­corder, makes short work of transferring his footage to a folder buried in the depths of Aiden’s bizarre organizational system and hopes against hope that Aiden doesn’t find it.

“Who were you talking to?” Aiden asks as he steps up into the RV. He pushes his sunglasses up on top of his head and regards Jake with curiosity.

“No one. Just thinking out loud.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Always.”

Aiden chuckles and drops the paperwork he’s holding onto the passenger seat. “So I figure we can take the laptop to the beach with us and watch
Jumanji
there. And god, I’m
so
hungry. I passed, like, thirty restaurants on the way here and everything smelled fantastic. Are you hungry?”

“Yeah, actually,” Jake says, his stomach quietly grumbling at the mention of food. He stands up, the prospect of getting out of the RV and stretching his legs a happy one. “What are you in the mood for?”

“I was thinking Ocean Wok, since it’s close. The calamari…”

Jake groans aloud, his mouth already beginning to water. “Excellent choice.”

“Or, you know, we could head up to the Urchin. See if they’ve added anything new to the menu lately,” Aiden continues, his tone mischievous, and Jake doesn’t miss the teasing gleam in his eyes.

“No.
Anything
but croque-monsieur.”

95.0 miles

Day Four: Vermont

The farther from Maine they drive, the more Aiden senses the dust settling around him. Granted, there’s only actually one state between them and the place he has called home, but being on the road is freeing in a way that he never expected.

Yet he can’t sleep.

He’s been counting sheep for nearly an hour, trying not to toss and turn too much lest he wake Jake, who is stretched out next to him in the recovery position. The clock beneath the wall-mounted television at the end of the bed reads 2:37 a.m. Aiden sighs quietly, finally giving in and getting out of bed with slow, careful movements. Sliding the bedroom door shut behind him, he pads out into the living area in his T-shirt and pajama pants. His laptop is still on the couch with
Beetlejuice
open on the screen, and Aiden thinks about watching the rest, but it just doesn’t feel right without Jake—particularly since Jake has never seen it before. Instead, he flicks on one of the spotlights over the couch, reaches for his battered messenger bag and pulls out a pen and the nondescript black notebook he bought from Sherman’s in Freeport.

Two weeks ago, looking for something for Jake’s birthday before the idea of the Saint Christopher occurred to him, he saw the small display rack of notebooks and bought one on the spur of the moment. But the night before they left Maine, he hadn’t been able to get to sleep until he’d taken it out and written a long, rambling journal entry about the gig at The Cannery and everything he was excited for in the coming weeks and months. Journaling was something he hadn’t done since his early teens, but now somehow it’s already becoming a pattern again.

Aiden sits down with the notebook and pen and flips to the first blank page.

I’m an early adopter, always have been,
he begins after writing the date at the top of the page.
It’s
odd to me that I’m choosing this medium to document
everything when I could be making use of any number
of blogging sites, but this somehow makes everything feel a
little more… real, I guess?

Anyway. Right now we’re in Little River State Park in Waterbury, VT. Things so far are great, especially since Jake and I are finally getting to do a whole bunch of stuff around Vermont that we’ve wanted to do for years. I’m sure all those wide-eyed gasps and giggles made us look right at home with the rest of the kids on the Ben & Jerry’s factory tour yesterday. Well, I guess it was yesterday, given that it’s almost 3 a.m. now.

After the factory we headed over to the Shelburne
Museum, and while we were looking at the folk art
collection, Jake and I actually got to talking (again) about
digital versus classic. I was completely geeking out over this
fire engine weathervane, and I (stupidly) brought it up, because
if I was shooting some of this stuff I just
wouldn’t be able to capture the level of detail and
craftsmanship in some of these pieces if I was using
film. And then there was this strange mo­ment when he
just looked at me, and I could see him drawing
himself up like he always does when he’s getting ready
for a debate, but then… I don’t know, it just
looked like he had the wind taken out of his sails or something. Something about him—about
us—
really has changed since I got back, and I’m not sure that I like it.

I still can’t figure out what Charlie meant when she said, “Just
see
him.” I’m trying. I’ve
been
trying since that day I walked in on him with Pickup Line Guy, because that was
not
the Jake Valentine I knew.

I don’t know where that Jake Valentine has gone, but he isn’t here anymore.

Absently, Aiden taps his pen against his bottom lip and considers whether he needs to write any more. His eyelids are finally beginning to feel heavy, so he thinks better of it, slips the notebook back into his bag and sits back on the couch.

“Why are you awake right now? It’s ridiculous o’clock,” Jake’s voice, grav­elly and sleep-rough, comes through the now-open bedroom doorway.

“Old man,” Aiden teases him, running a hand through his mussed hair as he takes in Jake’s bleary eyes and the soft blanket wrapped around him. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Jake, you’re scary enough when you wake up in the morning, let alone in the middle of the night,” Aiden says. He drops his head to the back of the couch, and Jake sleepily raises an eyebrow at him. “I’m serious! You’re legitimately terrifying. You open your eyes and all I can see is fire, pitchforks and death.”

“Cute,” Jake huffs. He shuffles into the living area and collapses onto the couch, leaning over the center arm and dropping his head onto Aiden’s shoulder. Aiden flicks his eyes toward his bag to make sure that his notebook is out of sight and shifts down so that Jake’s forehead presses warmly against the skin of his neck. Jake clears his throat. “D’you wanna finish the movie? Or… I could make some cocoa.”

Aiden wrinkles his nose. “Cocoa? We’re not kids anymore, Jake.”

“Shut up. You know it’s delicious,” Jake says, sitting up and arching his back, the pale, freckled expanse of his neck fully exposed as he tips his head.

Aiden swallows thickly, flashes of Jake’s now daily yoga routine rushing unbidden to his mind. Since he’s come back from London, the subtlest of shifts in their dynamic has somehow given everything a humming under­current, a feeling he can’t pin down. Mostly, he chalks it up to the fact that they’re simply settling back into being
them
after spending a year apart; but the longer it wears on, the more he wonders if there’s more to it.

The moment passes when Jake adds, with a wicked grin, “And growing boys need their sustenance.”

“I’m not—you have
one fucking inch
on me, Valentine,” Aiden protests. Jake swats at his thigh and moves to the RV’s narrow electric stove, then retrieves ingredients and a small pan from high shelves in the cup­board above. Aiden ignores the strip of exposed skin above the waistband of Jake’s low-slung pajama pants as Jake goes to the fridge. He pauses there for a moment, shaking his head and chuckling at Aiden’s—genius, in his opinion—reworked
Jumanji
quote in magnets:
In the jungle you must wait, until your turn to masturbate.

“So
do
you want to finish the movie?” Jake asks a few minutes later, rolling his neck from side to side as he stirs the cocoa in the pan.

“Sure,” Aiden answers, and pulls the laptop back toward him. “By the way, how and
when
did you manage to stock the cupboards so full? I didn’t see you bringing in any of that stuff.”

“I’m a stealth ninja and you’ll never learn my secrets,” Jake replies smoothly, and Aiden knows much better than to argue with that arched eyebrow.

He also knows much better than to deny, upon taking his first sip, that Jake’s cocoa is indeed delicious. Jake quickly rinses the pan and spoon, returns to the couch, wraps himself up in his blanket and drops his head onto Aiden’s shoulder once more.

A few moments later, he reaches up and quickly swipes his thumb across the skin above Aiden’s top lip, pulls it back and sucks it into his mouth, all without taking his eyes off the screen. Aiden freezes, trying to reconcile being at once confused and oddly turned on.

“What was that?” he manages.

“Mustache,” Jake says. “You always get them.”

After this, Aiden can’t quite relax. The remainder of the movie washes vaguely through his tired mind as he tries not to think too much about the warmth he can feel from Jake through the blanket separating them. He isn’t about to let a little sleep deprivation make a creep out of him. Because that’s all it is, after all—it’s a little too early in the trip to be calling it cabin fever—and it isn’t long before he’s resting his head atop Jake’s, focusing deter­minedly on the movie and
not
on the softness of Jake’s thick, messy hair against his cheek.

It’s just Jake, for crying out loud.

338 miles

Day Seven: Massachusetts

Jake (11:21 a.m.
)
– IMG_20122209_4976.jpg

April (11:23 a.m.)
– Rude. Where are you guys and why do you both look so attractive right now? I’m still in my sweats.

Jake (11:24 a.m.)
– That was yesterday, walking along the Charles River in Boston. Massachusetts is beautiful! And hey, you deserve a lazy day. I saw the video from last night and you guys were fantastic!

April (11:25 a.m.)
– Are you kidding me? It was fucking ridiculous. Damn Hugh and his obsession with obscure British indie bands.

Jake (11:26 a.m.)
– For what it’s worth, you sounded great. Will you guys be in Boston at all?

April (11:26
a.m.)
– Jen’s trying to get us a gig at some bar in the North End. Why?

Jake (11:27 a.m.)
– Make sure you go to Mike’s Pastry for cannoli. But for the love of god, hide the fucking box when you’re out.

April (11:30 a
.m.)
– …am I just supposed to guess why?

Jake (11:30 a.m.)
– We must have been stopped by at least thirteen people asking for directions. Just trust me on this.

At intervals since yesterday, by that very same river, Aiden’s eyes have come fleetingly to rest on Jake; and Jake wishes more than anything, as he turns his gaze out the window for the umpteenth time, that he could narrow his field of vision to nothing but the asphalt ahead of them and simply not notice.

But he can’t do that, any more than he can forget Aiden’s stupid, throwaway com­ment. It was nothing, and Jake
feels
stupid for being so fixated on it; what he needs most is for Aiden
not
to show him a living, breathing reflection of what Jake himself sees every time he looks in the mirror: a kid playing dress-up in an old man’s skin, a faintly haunted look in his eyes that speaks of too many things never dealt with, the way he regards himself with pity as he arranges his armor. And pityingly is exactly the way Aiden is looking at him.