Beta Test (#gaymers) (5 page)

“That obvious?” Tristan offered a rueful grin. “My family didn’t take those kinds of vacations. We’ve driven down to San Diego, but mostly my parents like flying places. And they both work too much for many vacations, but they’d take me and my nanny along if they were headed to a conference in a fun city or something.”

“And your friends aren’t the road-trip type?” Ravi was pretty sure he knew the answer to that but keeping Tristan talking and not spreadsheet shuffling was a good thing.

“Nah.” Tristan scratched behind his ear. “I went to Stanford like my folks, but mainly just focused on school. No road trips. And my folks paid for movers to move my stuff from Stanford to Santa Monica, so I never did that drive myself either.”

A flush crept up Tristan’s neck and his hand did the same shaking thing it had when Ravi had asked about his mother. Interesting. And just as he had with the drink, Ravi had a strange urge to put Tristan at ease.

“Well, Tris, we’ll pop your road-trip cherry gently. Why don’t you find us some music?” Ravi indicated his phone on the seat between them, which he’d already plugged in to the auxiliary port on the car stereo.

“Oh, I did cue up a few podcasts on my phone. Industry updates—”

“
Tristan
,” Ravi groaned. This was going to be a
long
drive. “You don’t want me falling asleep, right? I live, eat, sleep and breathe the gaming industry right now. I don’t need any industry updates. What I need is tunes.”

“Okay.” Tristan picked up Ravi’s phone as gingerly as he might a grenade. “You don’t have a log-in password?”

“Disabled it so you could play navigator.” That got a little smile from Tristan, and damn if Ravi didn’t want to do more quasi-thoughtful things just to make him grin.

The truck cab was quiet while Tristan clicked around on Ravi’s phone. “Anything on here’s okay?”

“Anything.” Ravi navigated where 405 merged into I-5.

Another long pause and the opening strains of
The Breakfast Club
soundtrack filled the cab, the start of Ravi’s ultimate 80s classics playlist.

“Fabulous choice.” Ravi wasn’t faking enthusiasm this time—he really did love oldies and classic 80s and 90s hits too, with a particular love for movie soundtracks.

“Yeah?” Tristan offered him a grin so tentative it made Ravi’s stomach wobble. Maybe this journey wasn’t going to be so terrible after all, and that thought—and the whole melting-under-the-force-of-Tristan’s-grin thing—made Ravi way more nervous than the threat of days of boredom had.

* * *

Tristan could forgive an awful lot for a love of 80s camp, and Ravi had the soundtrack for almost every movie that Tristan’s nanny Maria had loved. Maria had let him sneak-watch TV with her on late-night cable when he couldn’t sleep.

He kept humming along and then having to stop himself from singing.

“Oh, go ahead and sing along.” Ravi laughed, a deep, rich sound that warmed Tristan all the way to his toes. “Either you’re really good at it, or you suck and then I can rejoice that you aren’t all perfect.”

“I’m not perfect.” Tristan sure as heck didn’t
feel
perfect.

“Dude. Come on. I’ve never seen you less than 200 percent prepared—you iron everything, your color-coding system is boss, and you’ve got management convinced you’ll be running the place in another six months.”

“Really?” Tristan hadn’t realized that Ravi had such a high opinion of him. He’d mainly assumed that he annoyed Ravi. Tristan was too busy feeling overwhelmed at work to really feel confident in the job yet.

“Really. And I’ll buy you another coffee drink when we stop for gas if you’ll stop whispering along to the song. That halfway shit’s annoying.”

“We’re expensing all the food,” Tristan reminded him.

“Yeah, but I’m offering to order for you.” Ravi gave him a quick grin. He
so
had Tristan’s number.

“It’s not that
I
watched all these movies,” Tristan tried to explain.

“I did.” Another grin. “I’ve got two sisters, but I’m not ashamed to admit I dig this music. Love listening to it while I run.”

“Your sisters aren’t all about Bollywood movies?”

Ravi made a face. “Swear to God, I want a Not All Indians T-shirt. My mom loves Bollywood, but my sisters were all about the old 80s cheese and 90s sitcoms.”

“Sorry.” Tristan didn’t
mean
to be ignorant, but other than passing contact in college, he didn’t really know any other Indian Americans. Just then the
Dirty Dancing
theme came on, and feeling bad about stereotyping, Tristan let himself sing along, same as he had with Maria in her little room over the garage. So what if he was terrible. Maybe he could make Ravi laugh and restore some of the unexpected easiness between them.

Ravi drummed his fingers in time against the steering wheel and shook his head as the song ended. “Perfect pitch. I should have figured. I bet you were in one of those singing groups in college, weren’t you?”

“Oh no way!” Tristan shuddered. “I think my parents would have revoked my tuition check if I’d expressed a desire to sing on a stage.”

“You know, sometimes disappointing your parents is the only way to figure out who you were meant to be. And you’ve got a great voice. I’ve got friends in a couple of gay men’s choral groups. I could hook you up.”

Of course Ravi had friends who sang. The guy had friends who ran, friends who volunteered, friends who went clubbing—he had no shortage of friends. No one was more plugged in to the LA gay social scene than Ravi. And it was nice of him to offer, even if no way on earth could Tristan take him up on it. And if a little part of him gave a twinge of longing, well, that same part of him had survived watching others do show choir and the Stanford a cappella clubs. It just wasn’t in the cards for someone like him. “Thanks, but I’m good. Work keeps me really busy right now.”

Ravi snorted. “You need a life beyond work, you really do. Is it because I said they were
gay
singing groups?”

Oh heck. They really were going to talk about this. “That’s not the
only
reason,” he hedged. “And hey, didn’t you say we needed gas soon?”

Ravi laughed. “Damn. You’re not subtle at all when you don’t want to talk. Traffic’s still crawling. I want to wait until it clears up a bit before we stop. This stop-and-go traffic’s going to put me to sleep, though. Indulge me. I still feel bad for the other night.”

“Don’t.” Tristan meant it. The less they talked about Friday, the better.

“No, really, I do feel bad. I didn’t mean to force you out. Was that the first time you’ve come out?” Ravi’s voice was surprisingly tender and caring, and Tristan hated it.

“No.”

“But your family doesn’t know?” Ravi’s tone said he’d already made that assumption.

Well, for once Mr. Intuitive was wrong, but Tristan got no satisfaction out of answering him. “They know.” Ravi opened his mouth like he was about to ask a follow-up question, so Tristan quickly added, “Does
your
family know?”

“Yep.” Ravi’s mouth thinned to a hard line and his eyes narrowed. “Hey, look. We’re moving again, and I think I see a sign for gas at the next exit.”

Hmm. It seemed like Tristan wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to talk about his family situation.

“Hey, you want to try driving a stretch after we get gas?” Ravi asked, his voice light as if he hadn’t just shut Tristan down.

“Me?” Tristan’s heart clattered against his ribs. “The biggest thing I’ve ever driven was a Suburban—”

“It’s not so hard. The truck’s automatic with giant mirrors—the rental place is used to newbie drivers. I’ll talk you through it.” Ravi winked at him, and that wink made heat pool in Tristan’s lap, all sorts of inappropriate thoughts also gathering. Thoughts he’d had for months, really, but always managed to run from at top speed. The tiny truck cab, however, offered none of the safety of his cube at work and magnified every wink and gesture until Tristan was desperate for any distraction, even driving.

“Okay,” Tristan said, if only to give himself something to worry about other than his inconvenient attraction to Ravi.

Chapter Five

Ravi regretted the impulse to let Tristan drive almost immediately. It wasn’t that he was getting tired of driving—he’d done the cross-country thing enough to know how to pace himself, and despite what he’d said, he wasn’t at risk of zoning out or falling asleep. No, it was more that he wanted to give Tristan a shot of confidence. The guy was so efficient at work, never doubting his ability to stay on top of even tiny details, and Ravi had the strange desire to see him with that same confidence for other things in his life.

Like singing. Ravi’s friends Javier and Frank would seriously shit themselves to get Tristan in the Gay Men’s Chorus. But Tristan acted like his singing might be an affront to sensitive eardrums. Or maybe that was sensitive parents. And Ravi knew more than a thing or two about being under a family’s thumb, so while he wasn’t about to have some big joint bitch session, he did want to make Tristan more confident in his independence. None of this “mumsie and daddy won’t let me drive long distances.” The guy was twenty-four, for crying out loud.

But Tristan looked more than a little pale as he climbed behind the wheel after they finished filling up with gas. “So this isn’t that much different from driving a big SUV?”

“Nope. I was a little freaked out the first time I drove a truck in college, but I got over it quick. Just trust yourself.”

“Oookay.” Tristan drew the word out as he put the truck in Drive. They lurched forward as Tristan quickly braked for nothing more than the wind. “Sorry. Just getting a feel for the brakes.”

“It’s fine.” Ravi schooled his face to be more patient than he felt.

Tristan got them going straight, and the tight line of his mouth curved into a tentative smile. Well, at least it
did
, until he jumped the curb pulling onto the side road leading back to the interstate. “Oops. Oh crap. Maybe you should drive.”

Maybe.
Ravi shook his head. “Do a loop around the access road here before you get on the highway, but you’re doing fine. The way this thing eats gas, we’ll be stopping again soon, and we can switch back.”

Tristan muttered something under his breath, then sat up straighter, jaw going stiff and stubborn. Good. Ravi liked that resolute version of Tristan, even if it usually led to twenty-nine-step plans and a stack of spreadsheets. Tristan made his painstaking loop of all the gas stations and fast-food joints clumped together on the access road, then cautiously took the on-ramp to the highway. He got them merged into the slow lane and finally smiled for real.

“I did it!”

“Yup. We’re not dead yet.” Ravi’s fingers drummed restlessly against his thigh. Bending forward, he dug his sketchbook out of his messenger bag, which was next to Tristan’s. Tristan would make a great fussy junior officer on a spaceship. An old, plodding ship with a disinterested captain. So that’s what he drew.

“You’re evil,” Tristan said after a bit. “I’m dying to know what you’re drawing, but I’m not taking my eyes off the road.”

“Oh just some random doodles,” Ravi lied. “I’ll probably scratch them out and start something different.”

“Hah. You’re lucky my driving tutor taught me to never, ever glance at the passenger.”

“And to go fifteen miles under the limit?”

Tristan’s neck turned dark pink. “That’s more just me.”

“You and my older sister Lakshmi would get along so well. She’s a nervous driver too. Took driver’s ed three times.”

“I
can
drive.” Tristan’s voice was all defensive. “I passed my test on the first try and everything. It’s just...”

“Yeah?” Ravi prodded him as he added some horns to the spaceship captain on his drawing.

“My older brother died in a DUI when he was nineteen.” The words rushed out of Tristan as if he hadn’t quite meant to say that.

“Oh man.” Ravi wasn’t sure exactly what to say to that. Even with all his issues with his family, he couldn’t imagine a world without them. “I get why driving would be hard for you. How old were you when it happened?”

“Eleven. I swore I didn’t
want
to drive, but my parents got me the driving tutor anyway. Still, they’ve always encouraged me to be a bit...cautious.”

More like swaddled in gauze.
Ravi kept that thought to himself. “You’re doing great here,” he said instead.

“Yeah?” Tristan smiled, a self-satisfied smile that did weird things to Ravi’s insides. “You can turn the music back on if you want. It shouldn’t distract me too much.”

“You totally sing along at stoplights when you’re alone, don’t you?” Ravi gave the Tristan in his drawing dimples like Tristan’s to contrast his haunted eyes.

“No!” Tristan’s denial was a bit too sharp and his blush a bit too quick for Ravi to buy it.

Ravi switched the playlist back on. “How about you pretend I’m not here?”

“Impossible.” Tristan laughed, but it sounded a bit forced.

However, they did manage to settle in to something of a companionable silence for the next stretch of miles, Ravi working on the junior officer comic and Tristan driving through yet another long millimeter-an-hour road construction zone. The slow pace seemed to settle him down a bit, so Ravi tried not to complain too much about the terrible time they were making.

“If you open my travel folder, you’ll find that I marked exits likely to have vegetarian lunch offerings. I didn’t want to have to rely on crappy cell phone service on this stretch of highway to Google something.”

“You’re a vegetarian?” Ravi blinked as he pulled the folder up from the floor. Seriously, Tristan’s organization made his head swim.

“No.
You
are.” Tristan sighed. “I’m fairly easy to feed unless it’s fish. But I wanted to make sure we’d be able to find you something to eat.”

“Gee, Tris, I’m...” Ravi hadn’t even realized Tristan had figured out that he was vegetarian, let alone cared enough to make sure he wouldn’t starve on this trip.

“It’s nothing. If you’re well fed, you’re nicer. I’ve seen you on the rare days you skip lunch.” Tristan mock shivered. “Remember that one day when Katya was feeding you her emergency nuts and energy bar snacks?”