A/N: Hello everyone! Back again with another chapter!

Before we get started, I would like to thank everyone that read last chapter! I would also like to give a huge thank you to Side1ways, Guest, winterschild11, RainbowDiamonds, and XxxAnimaniacxxX for reviewing!

I hope you all enjoy!

The shower's steam of steady water was highlighted by James' truly terrible voice as he belted out the worst rendition of Bon Jovi I'd ever heard. I winced, pulling the toothbrush out of my mouth.

"Please stop." I begged for the hundredth time. James didn't even stick his head out from the shower curtain. He just sang louder.

I brushed my teeth quickly and tried to ignore the fact that James was somehow walking the line of annoying and adorable so easily, I feared he'd stay on it forever.

I spat in the sink and rinsed off my toothbrush. I grabbed my jaw and moved it, squinting in the mirror. The five o'clock shadow I was sporting was quickly growing out. James had woken up this morning with plenty of stubble on his jaw, and as incredible as it looked on him I wasn't quite sure I was pulling it off.

Halfway through the contemplation, James' phone rang.

"James." I said. He didn't stop singing. "James, your phone."

He sighed and his head popped out from the curtains. He had his hair spiked up with soap, some of it dripping near his closed eyes. "Just answer it. Unless it's my mom. Then you better not answer it."

I laughed and rolled my eyes, shaking my head when he started in on another verse of Dead or Alive. I left the bathroom and found his phone plugged in on the nightstand.

"Hi, this is Kendall."

"Uh, I'm looking for James. This is Mark. I'm his mechanic."

"Oh, hi! I'm James' business partner. Is the car okay?" I asked as I sat on the bed.

"Oh, yes. The car is ready to go."

"Awesome!" I covered the phone with my hand and called out, "Car's done!"

James whooped, and the shower turned off.

"-and I had to admit, it was weird." The mechanic was saying.

I frowned. "Wait, the car was weird?"

"Oh, no. The car was fine. It's just that most people wouldn't wait longer than necessary to fix the car."

I wrinkled my nose. James came out of the bathroom, one towel wrapped around his waist and the other scrubbing at the water in his hair. "I don't get what you mean."

James mouthed What is it? I shrugged back at him.

"I gave your friend the option to order the part overnight or regular." Mark clarified. "He chose the slow way."

My head snapped up and I locked eyes with James. He tilted his head in confusion.

The mechanic was still talking. "Anyway, I'll have the car delivered to you now. It should be there in about ten minutes."

I swallowed. "Okay, thank you."

I hung the phone up and carefully sat it on the nightstand. James was watching me warily. "What happened?"

"Car's ready." I said.

He nodded, shoulders relaxing. He went over to grab his clothes. I watched him as he dressed.

He tugged on his jeans and slipped a t-shirt over his head. I played the mechanic's words over in my head.

"Kendall, man, what's wrong?" James frowned at me as he slid on his watch.

"Did you purposefully keep us here longer than we had to be?" I asked.

James froze. It was just for a half-second, but after five days together, I could see it; the way his muscles locked before he had to manually relax. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean." I stood up. "Did you?"

James sighed. "I...didn't pay for the overnight. Harris hadn't approved it."

"Bullshit!" I snapped. "You know as well as I do that Harris would have paid it."

"Oh, do I now?"

"Is this some sort of trick?"

"A trick?" James quirked his eyebrow, smiling, as if I was being ridiculous.

Anger pulsed through me with a vengeance. "Yes. Is it a trick? Are you trying to get me fired?"

"By waiting an extra two days? Come on. That's ridiculous."

"I am not ridiculous." I closed the space between us in two strides. James' eyes widened.

"I didn't say-" James started before cutting himself off, shaking his head. "Besides, I'd be in just as much trouble as you."

Sure, except that...I remembered the ease with which James had convinced me he'd be the one to call Harris and explain the situation, how he had been handling all the correspondence with the boss. He's always stepped outside when he'd done it, distracted me with whatever he had at hand when I worried about it. "I don't believe you."

"Kendall-"

I turned anyway and started shoving my clothes into my duffle.

"What are you doing?"

I gritted my teeth. "The car will be here in a few minutes. We've got work to do."

James' hand closed around my shoulder. I jerked away.

"Listen, I can explain."

"Fuck off, James. Let's just...get on with it."

James was silent, and then I heard his own duffle bag unzip and him mutter a quick, angry whatever.

I packed as hastily as I could, dropping the motel key on the bed for James to deal with, and went outside to wait for the car.

My head was spinning. James lied to me. Even if he really wasn't trying to get me fired, even if he hadn't been lying to Harris, which was hard enough to believe, he had been lying to me. Lies of omission were still lies, and everyone over the age to ten knew that.

My stomach hurt. It was twisting and turning, and my organs were in pain. My chest ached, too. I didn't know exactly what it was that was hurting so badly, but I knew that I did not want to be feeling it right now.

With a start, I realized that I had trusted James. I had trusted him, let my guard down, felt things, told him things, things that...whatever. It didn't matter now.

I didn't matter now, and I had been an idiot to think for even a second that it had mattered then.

The car pulled up, followed by a truck. The mechanic wasn't the guy I remembered seeing, but he let me sign the receipts, handed me the keys, and jumped into the truck.

I was in the passenger seat when James came out of the motel lobby. He threw his bag in the back seat and closed the door gently. When he sat down, I looked out the window.

"Are you planning on ignoring me for the rest of forever, or just this drive?"

My teeth bit into my bottom lip to keep me from saying anything. James sighed.

The radio played low tunes that now even James had the energy to listen to. We drove quietly the rest of the way to LA.

We stopped for gas once. James threw a bottle of water at me so hard I thought I'd have a bruise on my chest for the next week.

He opened his mouth as if to apologize. I looked away. He got back into the car quietly.

A low thrum of guilt was pushing its way up my throat. I knew I was being too unyielding, almost unnecessarily rude to him, but it hurt. The betrayal that James hadn't even discussed with me.

I tried to tell myself that James would never actually lie, that he wouldn't actually rat on me to Harris, especially when I had never done anything wrong. Except...did I know that? Really?

Five days with a guy who I'd previously thought hated me, whom I'd previously thought I hated...was that really enough to say for sure that I knew him? That I knew what he would or wouldn't do for a promotion?

We pulled up at the offices where the package had to be delivered. James offered to take it inside.

"Why, so you can make sure it gets back to Harris that I was slacking off with this, too?" I snapped before grabbing the package from the backseat. "I've got it."

I delivered the package, shook hands with the clients, and called Harris before I made my way back out to the car. He seemed surprised to be hearing from me, but glad that the package was delivered. I assured him we'd be back in the office on Monday.

James was standing outside of the car, arms crossed over his chest and ankles locked. He stood like this a lot, and the low thrum of desire I had become used to curled in my stomach at the sight.

His hazel eyes were bright, locked on me as I walked across the parking lot. His hair was a wild mess, having dried right after the shower and then been tugged on for the whole drive up here. He hadn't bother shaving.

I hated how badly I still wanted him.

My phone rang in my hand, startling me. "Fuck!"

James smirked. I glared at him as I answered it quickly. "Hello?"

"Kendall?" Grandma's voice cut through the sexual tension easily.

I stopped in my tracks. "Grandma?" She sniffled. I frowned. "What's wrong?"

"It's Bill." She said quietly. Her voice was wrong-too frail too soft, too something I couldn't quite place my finger on.

"Grandpa? What happened?"

James stood straighter. I looked away from him.

"Grandpa had a bit of a spell. He was...you know I always tell him to wait for you, but he wanted to get it done, and he was on one of those ladders, and he just fell."

My heart slammed to a stop. "Is...is he okay?"

"He's in the hospital." She said. "You need to get home as soon as you can, sweetie."

I waved at James and started toward the car. He quickly got into the driver's seat. "Grandma? It's going to be okay. I'm on my way home right now. I'll be there soon. Are you at the hospital?"

James' head whipped to me. I ignored him. Grandma let out a very quiet yes. "I'll be there soon, okay?"

"Yes, yes, it's okay. No need to worry." Grandma didn't sound very convincing.

"I'll call you in a few hours. I love you."

"I love you, too."

Reluctantly, I hung up the phone. I buckled my seat and looked over; James was driving fifty. "Surely you can go faster than this."

James' eyebrows rose, but he stepped harder on the pedal and our speedometer sped up.

I didn't know how long we'd been driving when I startled awake. I jumped, my head hitting the top of the car. "Shit." I rubbed my head and blinked awake, looking around. "Wait, are we stopping?"

The car was idling in a hotel parking lot. I looked at James. He was blinking rapidly, his eyes bloodshot. He looked horrible. "I...Kendall, look, it's four in the morning. I did my best."

"We can't stop." I said, feeling the panic start to rise. "James! My grandpa is in the hospital. We can't stop."

"I've been driving for twelve hours."

"Then I can drive!"

James froze. After a second, I caught up.

My shoulders slumped. "I...okay. Okay. Okay, but just a few hours, right? I know...I mean, we gotta get back, so just a few hours?"

I chanced a glance at James. He looked stuck. When he thawed, his eyes flickered across my face and he set his mouth in a determined line.

Very slowly, James swallowed. His hand trembled as he lowered it to the seat buckle. "You can drive."

My breath caught in my throat. "What?"

"You...it's...you can drive. My car." He reached over and clicked my own seat belt. I was too surprised to say anything about it.

"James, I…" I didn't know what to say.

Maybe: I know how big this is for you. Or, this doesn't change anything. Or, For God's sake, thank you.

We traded seats. I adjusted the seat, the mirrors, and turned down the radio. I buckled my seat belt, and after I did so, James scrambled to get his own done. He leaned far away from me, pressing to the door, his eyes glued to my hands as they went to the steering wheel.

"I'll be safe." I said.

James swallowed. "It's my car, so you better be." His tone just missed breezy.

"Sleep, if you can. We can switch when you're rested if you want."

James nodded, a little too rapidly for me to believe he was okay, but I pushed the car into drive and slowly got back on the highway. It took nearly an hour, but eventually James relaxed in his seat. By dawn, exhaustion overtook him as he fell asleep.

I wanted to shake him awake, to demand answers now that I had the time to sit on the anger and guilt and hurt that had been bubbling under my skin all day. But that didn't matter. Not right now, not anymore.

All that actually mattered was getting home.

After nearly twenty-one hours in the car, with just a few stops at gas stations and sleeping while Kendall drove, there was almost no sight quite as beautiful as the Welcome to Seattle sign.

I nearly cried when I passed it. Kendall was asleep in the passenger seat next to me, having passed out as soon as we switched seats.

We'd barely said three words to each other since Kendall had gotten the phone call. I had tried a few times, but his anger was intense, especially when coupled with his worry over his grandfather.

I'd tried to respect it. But now we were back in Seattle, and if I let Kendall go without saying anything, I might never get the chance again.

I pulled the car over. When it was parked, I looked over at Kendall. His face was relaxed, head on his jacket that was pooled against the window.

I got out of the car, the door slamming behind me. Kendall startled awake the sound.

The sun had gone down, the air chilly now. I crossed my arms, wrapping them around myself as I walked off from the car. My skin was tingling, something like panic bubbling in my stomach.

It was the driving, the whiplash of emotions, Kendall being angry at me when, hell, I was kind of angry at him. It was a lot of things-it was physical now.

My stomach churned. Kendall's car door opened, his feet against the gravel louder than the traffic on the side of us.

His hands clasped on my shoulder and spun me around. His eyes flickered across my face, his expression almost as angry as his voice. "What the hell are you doing?"

"What am I doing? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Kendall's mouth fell open. "You...we're in Seattle, why did you stop driving?"

"I'm sorry that I needed a second."

I turned my back to him. My heart beat fast in my chest, the thumping so loud I was sure that Kendall could hear it, could hear how close it was to breaking.

Get ahold of yourself, I snapped silently.

Kendall huffed in annoyance. The heartache was starting to shift to panic, to meld with the fear that I'd never be able to see him again.

I knew Kendall-I knew that if I let him leave, if we stopped this trip with things the way they were, we'd never make it. Hell, we barely had a snowball's chance of making it as it was. I wouldn't be able to get him to talk to me, to try with me, once we went back to our regular lives.

The knowledge hurt.

"What are you doing?" He asked again.

I pushed the hurt down; anger came rearing up to take its place. I spun around and jabbed a finger at his chest. "What am I doing? You have the nerve to ask me that?! You don't know what the fuck you're doing."

"What?"

"You're living a lie, Kendall! You're a big, fat queer and you're pretending like that doesn't matter!"

Kendall's face fell and then hardened. "You have no right to say that to me."

"Fuck,I have more of a right to ask you than you do me. You should be asking yourself what you're doing."

Kendall knocked my arm away and glared at me. The look was vicious, cutting straight through me, like bright hot iron through skin. "You've been lying to me!"

"Oh, fuck off. You can be angry with me all you want. But you're the one lying. You're lying to yourself." I swallowed hard, trying quell the burst of anger that was draining from me quickly. "This isn't the time, though, and-"

"Fuck that." Kendall snapped. "Say what you want to say."

My eyes burned and I blinked rapidly to keep anything from falling. I felt a bit on fire. "Do you even feel anything for me?"

Kendall swallowed hard. He turned his glare to the ground. The moon was bright enough that I could see the way his bottom lip was trapped between his teeth, the way his hands were curled into fists by his side. The road was silent now, no passing cars to make Kendall's silence less harsh.

He didn't say anything.

I closed the space between us and kissed him. It was rough, hard, and I felt the way his gasp flew into my mouth.

As soon as he started kissing me back, I pulled away. "Tell me that meant nothing to you."

Kendall said nothing. He glared at me, eyes hard as he searched my face for something. I don't know if he found it, but then he had his hands fisted in my shirt and he was pressed against me, kissing me as hard as I had kissed him.

I knocked him away and shoved him against the car door.

"You're a hypocrite." I spat.

He glared at me and opened his mouth to argue. I cut him off with a kiss.

He bit my bottom lip; I shoved my tongue into his mouth.

I couldn't tell if it was his hands or mine that undid our belts, but then our pants were pushed down and I had my hand curled around Kendall's growing erection. It was only at half-mast, but a few hard squeezes as we kissed and he was ready to go.

Kendall had one hand tightly wound in my hair, his fingernails scraping angrily against my scalp, while the other was inside my boxers, teasing, soft movements that had me aching within moments.

We slid each other out of our boxers. The cold wind bit at my bare skin, but the fire beneath was more than enough to keep me warm. Kendall's hand wrapped around both of us; the harsh slide of rough skin against our wet, gliding dicks had us both canting our hips forward, fucking hard into his fist.

One of my hands clung to Kendall's shoulder, my fingers digging into the material of his shirt, and the other one closed around the parts of our cocks that Kendall's hand couldn't. It was rough, and too dry, and Kendall kept biting my lip purposefully.

I couldn't breathe, and I didn't care. I didn't want to breathe. I just wanted to feel something besides this horrible, furious ache inside of my chest.

Kendall's thumb slid across the head of my cock and I cursed loudly, yanking away from his kiss to mouth at his neck. He had the fading bruises of our time together just underneath his shirt collar. I bit hard on his upper neck and sucked a hard kiss on him as his hips started jutting forward with renewed purpose.

I littered his neck with purple and red marks, biting and licking, uncaring about what parts of him I claimed as mine. If this was all I was going to get-a harsh hand fuck against a car, when we were both so angry and hurt we could cry-then I was going to make it worth everything I could.

Kendall's head was thrown back against the car, slow, languid moans pulling out of his throat as his hips fought against his hands pace. I could feel my own hips circling, desperate, trying to touch every bit of Kendall's skin that I could.

Kendall's hips froze. "James-"

I cut him off and kissed him. It was nothing more than open mouths pressed together, hands tightening, and then it was over. We came over each other's fists, both of our hips crashing into each other.

The high wore off in seconds.

I tore away from Kendall and wiped my hands on my boxers, quickly putting myself away. I redid my belt with my back to Kendall.

My chest felt hollow. For the briefest of moments, I wished I'd never met him.

Kendall cleared his throat. I heard the car door open. I heard him climb in and slowly close it.

I took a deep breath and went around to the driver's side.

Kendall was staring out the windshield, his face hard. He spoke as I turned the key over in the ignition. "You don't get to turn this around on me."

I scoffed. Kendall glared, but didn't turn to me.

"You're the one who lied. You tried to sabotage my career." Kendall continued as he tugged on his seatbelt, fingers closing around the strap hard enough that his knuckles turned white.

"I didn't sabotage your career, you idiot."

"You took every opportunity to call Harris." He continued as if I hadn't spoken. The anger from earlier was back full force, heady and heavy as it clouded my thoughts and vision. "Your only real purpose here was trying to impress the boss."

"I don't fucking need to impress the boss!"

"Oh, cause your work ethic is so spectacular!" Kendall still wouldn't look at me.

"Because he's my fucking uncle!"

If Kendall had been frozen before, this was something entirely new. His whole body locked; he didn't even blink.

All of the fight went out of me as the regret finally cut through the anger. Jesus, out of everything I could have said, why had I said that? "Kendall, that's-"

"Fucking drive. Or I will." He finally turned and looked at me.

He didn't look angry at all.

My hands shook as I pulled us back onto the road. Kendall's quiet was deafening.

I had ruined everything.

Done! So, yeah, it looks like things are kind of going downhill for Kames.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter, as well as if you happened to have a favorite part/moment!

Again, I hope you all enjoyed! Sadly, the next chapter probably won't be up until this weekend.

Until then!

-Epically Obsessed