We Could Take To The Highway

Chapter Three

By: Jondy Macmillan

Their first night on the road, James veered off course.

He knew that the schedule they'd carefully mapped out involved getting on the San Bernardino Freeway until they could hop on the I-15 toward Barstow, with its street fairs and glow stick dealers and dry heat. There, they'd drive straight on into Arizona. It would only take a few hours to cross the state line. But…part of him knew that Kendall might never come back. And he didn't want his best friend's last image of California to be Hollywood, the glitz and the glamour and the illusion of shiny happy people.

He wanted Kendall to know there were places that were beautiful. Breathtaking.

Just like home.

So that way, maybe when-or if, his mind whispered- Kendall eventually decided to leave Minnesota again, he'd know there was more to this place than pop music and palm trees, than plastic surgery and great tans.

Although James was a hardcore advocate of living in luxury, he was still a Minnesota boy at heart. He liked to commune with the Great Outdoors, as long as the communing didn't last longer than a day, and wouldn't wreak havoc on his hair. Joshua Tree National Park was one of his favorite places. In the midst of the desert, it sat eight hundred thousand acres wide; people drove through the outskirts all the time without even knowing they'd entered government property.

He'd been there twice before, with girlfriends who hadn't thought the one hundred and forty mile ride from LA was a Big Deal. The first had been a nature freak he'd met at one of the eco-friendly boutiques off Rodeo Drive, and she was the one who convinced him that if all he'd seen of California was the ocean, he hadn't really seen anything at all. The second was a makeup artist he'd met on a shoot, and he could still remember the way her smile had seemed brighter than the sunlight. Neither relationship had lasted long, but he could recall what it was like being there with these girls, sweet scented and sprawled beneath the stars.

He wanted Kendall to have a memory like that, of him and James and the sky burning overhead. Something to cling to on cold winter nights, even if the last thing Kendall would think of on nights like those was James.

"Dude, is this the right way?" the blond boy asked, poring over a map of California that was so wrinkled it was hard to determine which lines were interstates and which were the borders of the pacific, "I feel like it's-"

He paused, squinting, and finally concluded, "-not."

"What tipped you off?" James replied cheerily, wiggling his fingers out the window to feel the wind rush over and under them. His mom used to tell him that doing so was a quick way to become an amputee. She had all these horror stories about guys she knew. One dude broke his hand on an orange plastic cone. But his mom wasn't here, and James was a rockstar.

It was kind of like being invincible.

Kendall chuckled, his face lighting up with the impish smile James liked to think about sometimes, late at night, when there was nothing to distract him from all the thoughts he tried to avoid during the day. Watching the landscape turn to desert brush, the band's leader queried, "So, I guess we're not lost then?"

"Trust me," James laughed, "I'll get you exactly where you need to be."

"Somehow that's not very reassuring."

This time, James didn't even bother with a retort. He cranked up the radio until it was howling with static and one of their songs, something about a girl and a party and feeling kisses all the way to your toes. Gustavo had written it, which begged the question of what girls the record producer had been kissing, but it wasn't a bad song. The beat was catchy, and the lyrics were actually poetic.

Kendall refused to sing anything he thought sucked. He was pretty opinionated about what the band would and wouldn't undertake, and stubborn as a bull. It was probably why Big Time Rush had done as well as they had. Their fearless leader had done everything in his power so that his friends could have everything they'd ever dreamed of. So that James could have everything he'd ever desired. Kendall was just that good. Like a knight from a fairytale.

When he closed his eyes, James could envision first time he'd realized that Kendall was different. A hero. Maybe not the kind from old legends, not an honest to god prince charming or a comic book character with a cape, but the kind that people talked about when they referenced fire fighters or cops or the bravest people they knew.

He was twelve years old, and it had felt like everything was ending.

See, James hadn't always wanted to be a popstar. When he was five, he'd played with power rangers and ninja turtles, not karaoke machines and salon sets like everyone seemed to think. His dad and his hockey coach had been best friends from like, the dark ages, so he'd been having play dates with the older man's obnoxious son since before he could even form words. God, he'd hated that kid. Hockey had never really been his thing, but he'd joined because of the coach and because of his dad, and he was awesome at it. He didn't have Kendall's natural grace or leadership, but he was brutal and quick and the best fighter on the team. And then he actually got to meet Kendall, which was a whole different story, but obviously lead to the most epic friendship ever. His life up until that point had been pretty fulfilling.

Then, one night, his parents sat him down and admitted that he'd been adopted.

It wasn't the most terrible thing that could have happened. For the longest time, he didn't even really understand what it meant. And his parents; they were great people. His mom was a workaholic and spent most of her time away from the house, and his dad was a grungy mechanic with a bit of a reputation as an alcoholic, but they'd never hurt him. Even at five, James knew they'd done what they could. They never denied him anything, even though he'd made some ridiculous demands as a kid. They'd raised him right.

Thing was, he was curious about his real parents, about what kind of people they were. It was stupid, but when one of his neighbors praised his singing one day, when he and Kendall were splashing around in a plastic kiddie pool, belting out the theme song to Power Rangers, he had this idea.

His singing got him noticed. Maybe, one day, his parents- his real parents, would hear him, and they'd know, and they'd want to meet him.

It was a stupid idea.

When James was twelve, he found out his real parents were dead. It was a car accident on I-95. They were never going to hear his voice on the radio. They were never going to be proud of him. It was like this whole part of him had ceased to exist.

He'd hidden on the roof of his family's trailer for ages, until Kendall had clambered up there with him, slinging an arm around his shoulders and asking, "Dude, what's going on with you?"

The sky had been overcast, which suited James's mood just fine, and he'd been perfectly happy watching cloud formations and biting his lips raw until Kendall decided to butt in, "Nothing."

"Right," Kendall rolled his eyes, "Nothing. Whatever you say, man."

"Stop being a jerk."

"Okay. When you tell me why you look like someone kicked your puppy."

"I don't have a puppy."

"Now who's being a jerk?"

James could taste blood on his mouth from where he'd chewed through the skin and Kendall was being such an asshole, like he couldn't see that everything in the whole world had quit mattering, "Shut up."

"Dude-"

"I said shut. Up."

Kendall's eyes were dark when he leaned in and spat, "Make me."

"Shut the hell up," James shoved his friend's shoulder, sending him skidding inches over on the dew slick roof.

Frustrated, Kendall yelled, "Not until you tell me what your problem is!"

"My parents are dead, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?"

The blond boy reeled back, eyes wide with shock, "Wait- what?"

In a hushed voice, James barreled on, "Poor James, he's a fucking orphan. He doesn't belong to anyone or anywhere."

"James, your parents are downstairs. Your mom just made hot dogs- I don't-"

"Not them."

"Then who?" Kendall questioned helplessly, all traces of anger gone.

"My real parents. I was adopted."

"I- seriously? I didn't know that," his friend frowned, obviously trying to hide the fact that he was hurt by not-knowing.

"You do now. I just found out- my real mom and dad died in a car crash seven years ago. With their real son. My brother- I had a brother. One they actually wanted to keep."

Kendall stared at him for a good long while, his eyes fathomless, his breath turning to fog as he murmured, "James."

"Don't- just, shut up, okay?"

Kendall shuffled back toward him, his jeans streaking wet as he slid back across the trailer's roof to wrap his arm around his friend. For a while, they watched the sky descend upon them, until they were living in the clouds. Until they were wrapped in a mist so deep and dark it was like they were the only two people left in the whole wide world.

After a while, Kendall began humming- something slow from the radio, one of those songs that had idiotic lyrics about girls but a great melody. He paused a few seconds in, saying, "You do belong somewhere. You belong here with me, dude. You always have."

He continued humming, and James settled himself further into his friend's embrace, enjoying the warmth and the vibration of his ribs against James's shoulder, a stark contrast to the cold, wet rush of the clouds sweeping their town.

"And you know what?" Kendall halted again, and James could feel the way the words took shape in his chest, rumbling and tenuous until they erupted from his throat, "I'm glad you were adopted. If you hadn't been, I wouldn't have met you. You would have died in that car, and then where would I be?"

James sniffed. He hadn't even though of that, and it was too freaky and tragic to even consider.

"Is life really that bad, this way?"

"No," James admitted, even though the idea of loss still stung in a very real way. Even if he'd never met his real family, there was this void in him now, this possibility of what-if that had been snatched away.

Kendall hummed again, half-formed lyrics beginning to tumble from his mouth, and James nearly allowed himself a grin, "You're messing it up."

"Pssh, why don't you show me then?"

"I was only singing for them," James whispered, "So that they might hear me, and- want me."

"Does that mean you're going to stop? You're never going to sing again?" Kendall rolled his eyes to show just how completely ridiculous he thought that idea was, "You're too awesome for that."

"I- am kind of awesome, aren't I?"

Kendall didn't say anything, instead returning to the song. James joined in after a beat, his voice rising into the night with his friend's until the two wound together, creating something different. A new sound. Everything he felt, captured in a single note.

And maybe James would never be able to lure his biological family into meeting him, and maybe the only place he'd ever belong was in a trailer park in Minnesota, tucked beside Kendall Knight with the scent of wood smoke and pine and the sky falling down around them. He kept singing anyway.

His reasons had just changed.

That night had been the first of many where James had realized how much things like friendship and trust mattered. Before they'd been intangible concepts, things they taught in elementary school that had always rung hollow. Suddenly, Kendall had become the most important person in his life. He'd saved James, when he'd been prepared to give up. When he'd been prepared to give in. Kendall had shaped him, with deft fingers and a devilish grin.

Things had only gotten better since then.

James turned into the park, his palms beginning to sweat. Night had fallen half an hour ago, and the last traces of dusky rose were vanishing from the horizon. Kendall was watching the Joshua trees with interest; strange, brindly things, like something from a Doctor Seuss book.

Once, James had read that these trees were sacred, that the park was a spiritual place. He was kind of hoping they'd bring him good luck.

He pulled off the road, parking the car next to a small cluster of trees that weren't quite tall enough to block their view of the spectacular desert sky. The stars were just beginning to come out, to light up the night brighter than any neon sign Hollywood had to offer.

"Why'd you bring me all the way out here?" Kendall asked as James turned off the ignition. Even though it was bad for the car, he left the battery running so that the radio thrummed old country music. They'd lost the top 40s pop stations miles ago.

The brown haired boy grinned and motioned for Kendall to get out of the car. He grabbed a towel from the trunk and laid it over the hood so that the two of them could sprawl on top of the vehicle, backs reclining against the bug juiced windshield.

"It's not exactly a trailer, but-" James shrugged happily, because yeah, this felt just like all those night during high school when he and Kendall would climb on his roof and imagine the way the future was spread out before them.

Kendall's lips quirked and he clambered on top of the car, "This is almost kind of sweet."

"Yeah, well. I figured you needed one last memory of Cali, for the road."

"Do you take all your dates here?" Kendall's voice was jokey and carefree. He stretched his body taught across the car, shirt rising to show a strip of tan skin across his stomach as they sky exploded with light, revealing constellations, galaxies, the path of the Milky Way.

"Nah, you're special."

His friend fluttered his eyelashes spastically, teasing, but James could see the way he was observing the night with intent, the way his obvious homesickness began to recede when he saw Ursa Major for the first time in years.

They sat in silence for a long time, watching the stars come alive. It was kind of horribly gay, and James wondered if Kendall knew that normal teenage boys didn't do this, didn't huddle together in the middle of the desert, in once-holy places so that they could star-gaze together.

Unless they were hardcore stoners, but even then.

James loved the ocean; he'd been learning to surf, and he loved the scrape of sand against his skin and the smell of salt air. But he loved the desert too; the stillness and the way heat chilled with the onset of darkness and the way no one else existed for miles. There was the smell of dust and how his sneakers stained red with the clay-rich dirt and the way the world was so still he could count Kendall's breaths, the onetwo threefour beat of his pulse.

He decided it was time, to approach the thing he'd been avoiding. He'd known all along that this trip was his last chance, and here, in this place, he felt safe.

Like nothing bad could happen.

"So you and Jo, dude. Is that going to be a thing again?"

"What are you talking about?" Kendall snorted.

"Just that you looked pretty close, at the party, I mean."

His friend hesitated before turning on his side to face James, confessing, "Yeah, well. She's- special. I'm going to miss her."

"You guys could always- I don't know, do the long distance relationship thing?" James suggested, and this hadn't exactly been how he'd planned launching into the conversation, but he rolled with it.

"We're not- I don't like her like that."

"Oh. Maybe you'll meet someone in Minnesota?"

"I'm not really looking for a relationship right now. I want to concentrate on hockey," Kendall responded firmly, indicating the subject was closed.

Except James had always sucked at letting things go, and he was fully prepared to go all-in, because this might be his last chance to ask, to know.

Only words had never been his forte, and without even thinking about it, all the thoughts he'd been suppressing flooded his mind. He was too impulsive, acted on instinct too often. Kendall was still looking at him, eyes abyssal, unreadable. James couldn't help himself. He leaned forward, pressing his lips chastely to his friend's.

For a moment, it was perfect. For a moment, there was pressure and heat and Kendall melting against him.

Kendall, who then promptly shoved him away so hard that James rolled off the hood of the car, onto his butt in the sand, and demanded, "What. The. Fuck?"

James hadn't really expected violence to be involved in this, but then again, he hadn't really expected anything. He hadn't known he was going to kiss Kendall until he'd done it.

Rubbing his ass and trying to stand, James muttered, "Um, you are definitely overreacting."

"What? You just- you fucking just- what the fuck was that?"

"I know your experience is limited, but here on Earth, we call that a kiss. I'm pretty sure you've had them before. In fact, I seem to recall you and that girl from our one music video doing nothing but for months last year."

"James-" Kendall groaned, exasperated, "I know what- I mean, but, why? Why did you do that?"

James scowled. If he had planned all this out, he definitely wouldn't have accounted for this. He was almost offended. Did Kendall have to act like he'd just contracted leprosy?

He huffed and hoisted himself back on the hood of the car, resolutely crossing his arms and his legs, "It seemed like an opportune time?"

"But- I don't like you like that," Kendall averted his eyes to the Joshua trees with their splinter bark ending in leafy puff balls, to the sky filled with a million zillion stars. His gaze traced the curves of the Milky Way, searching out planets and galaxies and alien starships that would take him far away from here, with the long, lean lines of his best friend entirely too close. He exhaled, "I don't like guys."

"You're lying," James retorted, blunt to cover up the way he wanted to flinch from those words. He didn't handle rejection well, but it wasn't like he could curl up in the fetal position right here in the middle of the desert and listen to his guilty pleasure rhythm and blues, all about the different ways your heart could shatter. It wasn't like he could go out and get into a fight, flex all those hockey muscles that had withered away or turned into the sleek, flexible kind more suited to a dancer.

"I'm not," Kendall said apologetically, his eyes slate gray in the bright moonlight, "I kind of wish I was."

Now James was just confused.

"Then what was- what happened that night?"

"What night?"

It was like a fist to the gut, leaving him breathless, but not the good kind of breathless, the exhilarated kind, the top-of-the-world roller coaster plunge kind, or the kissing your best male friend for the first time kind. This was the kind of breathless James had only felt once or twice before, like when his fourth grade music teacher had told him he was a talentless plebe, or right before he'd left Minnesota when his adoptive parents had announced they were separating.

"You don't remember," he accused, and it seemed impossible, because he was the one who'd been punch-drunk, he was the one who'd wavered on his feet and slurred his words.

"James," Kendall said clearly, the name melting on his tongue in this slow, agonizing way. James had always loved how Kendall said his name, "What night?"

"Our third gig, the one in that seedy little bar Kelly booked because she had a connection with his owner," his voice sounded tinny and distant, not like James at all.

"She dated him in undergrad," Kendall recalled, "She giggled like a hyena every time he came near her, and then at the end of the night she ended up getting in a cat fight with his new girlfriend."

Oh, so he had no trouble remembering what Kelly had done, Kelly with her shiny, glossy hair and her shirts with plunging necklines and large amounts of cleavage.

James had shirts with plunging necklines. He had his lucky v-neck. Although really, it probably wasn't the same thing.

"Yeah. It was after our show. I was drunk-" he realized he couldn't find the words he needed. Because he'd spent so long not thinking about it. He'd spent so long pretending it hadn't happened but secretly hoping it would happen again. And now Kendall had- what, forgotten?

"You know what? It really doesn't matter," he finally concluded, embarrassed at having placed so much emphasis on something that obviously didn't mean a thing, at least not to Kendall.

"It does," Kendall insisted, his eyes wide, his pupils reflecting the stars.

"No," James growled, "It really, really doesn't."

"James-"

"I said fucking drop it, okay?"

He felt the burn of shame color his cheeks, and suddenly this sacred place, this place that had meant to have been Kendall's final good memory of California, seemed moronic. It was just a sandbox filled with weird looking plants. Not romantic or magic at all.

"Okay," Kendall shoved his hands in his pockets, rolling off the hood of the car. James could see the outline of his back still on the windshield, like a chalk outline on a sidewalk. His precious automobile was abruptly a crime scene, even if he wasn't sure what exactly had gone down. He'd been robbed of a memory, he'd been stabbed in the heart. He'd been betrayed. There were too many things to list, too much hurt and pain to catalogue.

James stuttered out lamely, "Let's just- go. We need to get to Arizona if we're going to stay on schedule, and the hotel I booked is still a few hours away, and- it's late. We'll probably have trouble checking in."

"Alright," his friend agreed, the stars making his dirty blond hair shine like a halo. There was a crease in his forehead that meant he was concerned, but James didn't want his worry, his pity.

Right now, he didn't want anything at all.

A/N: Ugh, this didn't turn out quite right. I think I repeated the word stars like a gazillion times. I hope you guys like it anyway, or I shall be terribly sad.