After I park on the side of the gas station, I walk in and the door chimes as I enter. Lucas glances up from the couple of guys he’s ringing up. “Fountain drinks are half off,” he calls.

“Thanks,” I barely respond.

I circle around the back aisles, eyeing the display of gummy worms as he thumbs through the cigarettes, looking for the exact package the guys at the counter are requesting.

“No, man,” says one of them. “The green carton.”

Lucas looks up again, watching me in the security mirror, and I can’t help but smile.

I nod to the back-room door and he gives me a quick head tilt as confirmation.

In the back room, I maneuver through boxes of stock and hop up onto the desk, trying to fix myself in the perfect, most seductive yet natural pose I can manage. Oh, who me? Yes. I always sit perfectly perched with half an ass cheek in the air. Maybe that’s not hot, though. I square myself on the desk and hold my hands in my lap. Yeah, no. Back to perching.

Lucas steps through the doorway with a big goofy grin on his face as he pushes his floppy blond hair back. He’s got this huge forehead that seems to tell you everything he’s thinking at all times. Every worry and relief is always written right there for me to see. “I was hoping you could make it tonight.”

He moves through the boxes in three easy strides and cups my face in his hands, pulling me to him gently but with force. Our lips collide, and I can still taste the spearmint gum he chewed in the hopes that I would come by and the waxy lip balm he keeps in the little tin under the cash register alongside the keys to the Camry he bought off his older sister when she upgraded to a minivan.

Lucas, Lucas, Lucas, Lucas. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we’d known each other better in high school before he graduated last year. It’s this impossible, fantasy-like alternate reality. We could have been this unlikely pair turned high school sweethearts. Maybe we’d even be popular—a novelty! Girls would love us, because straight chicks adore a gay guy and they really love two. Maybe other guys wouldn’t be threatened by us. Maybe they’d accept us. Lucas seemed to be one of them, after all. We would have each other. We’d be together. In public.

Lucas pulls my shirt over my head and I begin to unbutton his and then immediately stop myself. The stockroom feels private and safe, but in reality, anyone could walk right in.