Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

According to some magazine Mom had read once, talking while driving lowered the pressure because it took away the need to look at each other. It supposedly worked for talking to your teen, anyway.
    I meant to honor Alan's wishes and stay in the truck, but as I waited that damn Kelly Lesniewski came wandering up the sidewalk. He jerked his chin and straightened his jacket and marched inside. I grabbed the coffee and sweets and went after him.
    The elevator was closing at the end of the hall when I came through the door, and Kelly was in it. I took the stairs. I was scared and angry, but it was still four damn flights of stairs. When I came out on the fourth floor, Kelly had Alan backed up to a wall, like the jerk jock hitting on a cheerleader in high school— arms up both to loom over him and to keep him from escaping. I set my stuff down and got my phone out.
    "You're a fag," Kelly was saying as I took a picture. "You like it. Why don't you—"
    "Yeah, I'm a fag," Alan said. "And you're a pig." He grabbed Kelly's shoulders and slammed his knee into Kelly's crotch. I laughed out loud as Kelly crumpled with a whine. Alan grinned at me as he stepped away from Kelly to hit the elevator button.
    "Fuck!" Kelly gasped. "I'll kill—"
    I walked over and grabbed Kelly's hair. Good God, ten in the morning and he smelled like a brewery! "Hey, dumbass," I told him, holding my phone so he could see his picture. "Say hello to D&T and goodbye to your education. It wasn't doing you a damn bit of good anyway."
    "Ding dong, your ride's here!" Alan called.
    "Fag-lover," Kelly growled, "I'll—"
    "That's right." I picked him up by the hair and a grip on his coat. He wrenched away, took a swing. I bobbed under it and smashed his nose coming back up. Too easy— he was drunk and didn't know how to fight anyway. Blood gushed as he grabbed his face, staring in shock. "I am a fag-lover," I said. "I'm also the son of a bitch who's going to kill you if you ever come near Alan again." I shoved him in the elevator and hit the button for the lobby. He didn't try to come back out before the door closed.
    "Fucking Batman," Alan cursed into the empty hall. "We… should go."
    "I sent him to the lobby," I said, realizing I should have sent him up instead, to give us time to go down. "I'd rather wait. If it's all right with you."
    "Sure." Alan walked over to pick up my bags. He wasn't wearing makeup. Well, lip gloss. His hair was an ashy grey-blond that stuck out around his head, and he was wearing a big bulky sweatshirt, the kind Will wore all through middle school. He looked— careless. It made me nervous. "I guess…" Alan said, "I guess we could wait inside. At least you could sit down."
    "I don't mind talking out here, if you want." He'd wanted neutral ground, and his apartment was about as far as we could get from that without going to my living room with Lilia and Twiggy as audience. I didn't want to talk in the dim and urine-scented hall, but I did want Alan to have what he wanted.
    God, he tied me up in knots so easily.
    "Just talk, Lukas," he ordered, shoving the bags back at me as he fished his key out of his pocket. Hell. I swallowed hard, took the bags, and kicked the impulse to just grab him. Last time I'd touched instead of talking. Hopefully I'd learned from that mistake.
    "I— when I apologized after I kissed you," I said as he opened the door, "I didn't mean I was sorry I'd kissed you." He turned to stare at me. My heart thudded in my ears but I babbled on. "I was sorry you didn't want me to, and that I didn't give you any warning so you could avoid it. And I didn't kiss you because I felt sorry for you. I wanted to tell you how brave and amazing and brilliant I thought— I think— you are, and I just took a stupid shortcut instead and—" He still stared, his eyes wide and his face so beautiful, and his lips shiny with sparkles. "—and I just want to kiss you again so much —"
    Alan grabbed my face and kissed me. I held the coffee away from us and wrapped my other arm around him and kissed him back. He pressed against me, all the line of his body against mine, and kissed me silly and kept kissing, his lips gliding over mine and I tasted strawberry lip gloss. His thumbs tugged at my jaw and I opened my mouth and he deepened the kiss and my head started spinning. All I could do was hang on.
    He turned us, still kissing, and backed me up, pushing me into his apartment. His hand slid down my arm to take the bags from me, came