177. Trust Me – Part 1

~ JESSE ~

For half an hour we just sat together on the mattress with our backs to the truck cab and the picnic basket between our thighs, eating and talking. Cazz was eating like a horse—he’d obviously skipped lunch—yet also peppering me with fruit and nuts and some of their very tasty dried meat, apparently still determined to make me gain weight.

We were just… talking. And even though the air hummed with anticipation—mine as well as his—neither of us hurried. It was the first time, I realized, that we’d ever just… hung out.

“I thought you were taking me to a new den,” I admitted after we’d sat there an hour and weren’t eating anymore. Cazz had put the food basket to the end of the truck bed and we sat, arm to arm, looking at the city lights brigh