chapter 1

Kyle Meeks stirred from a sex dream, vaguely aware of a ringing phone.

"Kyle!" his mom's voice called from the hall. "It's Jason."

Blinking at the summer morning sunlight, Kyle grabbed the receiver on the nightstand and cleared his throat. "H-hello?"

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty!" replied the boy from his dream. "Wake up!"

Kyle had met Jason four years earlier, on the first day of high school. Kyle had jostled through the crowded halls, lost, till Jason helped him find his homeroom. But not till senior year, when Jason stepped into a gay youth meeting, did a chain of events unfold that led to their becoming friends and falling in love.

"You'll never guess what's happened," Jason now announced, rattling out something about going to high school in Los Angeles. "You know I've always wanted to see the Pacific Ocean."

None of it made any sense to Kyle's groggy brain, especially since they'd graduated high school two months earlier. Not to mention that they lived in the suburbs of D.C., three thousand miles from L.A.

"Huh?" Kyle yawned and rolled over, wishing Jason were in bed beside him. "What're you talking about?"

"We need to talk about our camping trip," Jason replied.

Kyle sat up against the headboard, accidentally bumping his head. He was suddenly wide-awake. "Our camping trip?"

He'd been looking forward to that trip for weeks, hoping for at least a little magic with Jason in a summer that had somehow gotten eaten up by a drudge job at Chicken Little Rotisserie, boring family obligations, and freshman orientation at Princeton.

Both Jason and he had been so crazy busy they'd barely had time for romance. ("Hey, I just got home from work. My mom and dad went out. Come over, quick!")

The