Meant To Be (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Black Out

 

Instead of waiting for the rain to let up, Nate and Alex decided to make a mad dash for the car in the downpour. As neither one of them had a coat, they were soaked through within seconds and, when they finally got into the car, the seats felt soggy beneath them. Nate tried his best to sort out his mop of hair in the rear-view mirror whilst Alex fought the urge to wring out his shirt right there and then.

With dripping fingers, Nate turned on the heaters and started the car after massaging his knee a few times; it was really starting to ache and it didn’t help that his trousers were now somewhat moulded to his legs. He turned out of the car park and onto the main roads where the traffic moved at a snail’s pace because of the low visibility. The window wipers swished back and forth rapidly, momentarily mesmerising Alex, and the lights from other cars bounced off the wet windows like some sort of private disco in Nate’s car. The redhead desperately wanted to break the ever-growing silence and blurted the first thing that popped into his mind,

“Pissing down.”

Brilliant. Move over Tarantino, there’s a new wordsmith in town.

Alex nodded silently.

After another twenty minutes of waiting in traffic jams and avoiding overflowing gutters, the silence was weighing on the two males like a heavy, wet blanket. Neither man wanted it to continue but neither could think of something to say that didn’t involve the weather. It was only when the two cars in front swerved and collided with the hard shoulder that Nate finally spoke up. He slammed on the brakes, his knee protesting at the sudden movement, and the car jolted to a stop. Thankfully, no one careened into Nate’s car as the crash in front had been pretty obvious.

“Fuck!” he rested his forehead on the steering wheel a moment, catching his breath. The sound of metal on metal had brought back the memories of his own accident the previous year.

Alex looked at Nate as he sat up straight again, “You okay?”

Nate glanced at his passenger, suddenly aware that he wasn’t alone in the car, “Yeah, you?”

“I’m fine,” Alex looked at the drivers of the cars in front as they pointed and shouted at one another through the rain. He didn’t like the way they were getting closer and closer, like they were going to fight. “Should we go around?” What he’d wanted to say was ‘Let’s get out of here, please’ but Nate took the hint well enough.

With a curt nod, Nate manoeuvred the car around the accident and drove on, more careful now that he was aware of just how bad the road surface was. They passed another couple of accidents; a telephone wire had fallen across one of the more narrow roads in town, blocking their way completely and leading Nate to take a different route home, adding another ten minutes to their seemingly never-ending journey.

Finally home, Nate squelched into the house and went straight upstairs to change, leaving Alex to make some tea. Before he could boil the kettle, however, he heard Nate’s voice echo down the stairs,

“Take a shower if you want, Alex!”

He did just that.