Gayloverboys

"Do you ever think about what happens after?" Julian asked one evening, his legs dangling off the edge of the truck. "After we actually leave this place?"

Leo was the quiet one, a mechanic’s son with grease permanently under his fingernails and a habit of listening more than he spoke. Julian was his opposite: a whirlwind of energy who painted murals on the brick walls of the town’s alleyways and spoke about leaving for the city as if it were a promised land.

The summer air in Crestview was thick with the scent of pine and asphalt. Leo and Julian had spent every July since they were ten years old sitting on the rusted tailgate of Leo’s truck, watching the sunset dip behind the foothills.