Free What It Takes by Jude Sierra

some air,” he explains when he sees Milo’s look. His cheeks are red from laughing.
    “All-righty then,” Milo says, shrugging. They drive quietly with the low hum of the radio in the background.
    “How are we getting in anywhere?” Andrew asks.
    “Fake IDs!”
    “How old did you make me? I have a baby face.”
    “Twenty-one,” Milo replies. “I’m hoping they won’t be too picky, though.”
    “If you say so.” Andrew shrugs.
    The quiet in the car lingers, and Milo gets the strangest feeling that the laughter and ease of a moment ago is unspooling behind them along the highway. It’s overcast, the sun has set and the quiet in the car has become too still. When he looks at Andrew, he’s doing that thing he does, where his thumb picks at the nail of his index finger. It’s his thinking tell. No, not thinking. Mulling. Milo resists the urge to sigh. He knew Andrew would support him, but he also knew it would be hard for him.
    °
    Provincetown is... not what Milo expected, mostly because it’s so busy. The streets are full of people walking the sidewalks and down the middle of the road, laughing and weaving their way through traffic. It’s almost insane, trying to navigate and find a place to park.
    “There, there—” Andrew points to a meter. “Wait, I don‘t know if I have change for a meter.”
    “I brought money, no worries.”
    “Wow, you really planned ahead.”
    “Well, you know me—”
    “Cross your t’s and dot your i’s,” Andrew finishes for him, and they share a smile.
    Milo fishes the IDs he’s had made for them out of his wallet as soon as they’re parked. “Here.”
    “How did you get these? I had no idea you were such a deviant,” Andrew teases. The truth is Andrew might be the only person in the world who really knows how deeply rebellious Milo wants to be, and when the timing is right, is.
    “Secret’s in the sauce,” Milo says and winks. He’s feeding coins into the meter.
    “This is a prime example of how I should have known you were gay,” Andrew says with an eye roll.
    “What?”
    “You can quote from Fried Green Tomatoes without blinking an eye.”
    Milo laughs and bumps against him.
    “We’ll have to come back and feed the meter in two hours if we aren’t ready to go.”
    “Cool.” Andrew sets a reminder on his phone and nags Milo to do the same.
    °
    Milo gives him the names of a few places they can go, but Andrew tells him to pick; he’s not paying much attention. Instead, he absorbs it all, the myriad faces and the noise. There is a festival atmosphere, without the garish lights or the fried sweet smell. He watches a drag queen handing out fliers and a girl in a Rocky Horror costume teasing a group of guys gathered with arms slung over shoulders and hands slipped into back pockets. The air is buoyant. Andrew feels he could fit in perfectly. It’s a place for adventure, so far from his life that he feels as if he could slip out of his skin at any moment and become something new, brilliant and unfettered. The thought makes him hungry. I want to do it all.
    “I think we need to go this way,” Milo says, pointing past a row of shops: crafts and sex toys and a hamburger joint. Several pride flags flutter in the breeze. Two gorgeous men pass by, holding hands. Andrew laughs for no reason.
    “I’m just happy,” he says, when Milo gives him a curious glance. Milo smiles in return; not his fullest, but a real one—the proud one that appears when he knows he’s made Andrew happy. It’s a look Andrew knows is only for him; it’s a scrap he holds around his heart. It’s hope without hope. It’s enough, mostly.
    “Come on.” Andrew looks up at him and links their arms. “Let’s go do something wildly uncharacteristic.”
    “You’re gonna do your homework?” Milo jokes.
    “Oh, aren’t we the comedian.” Andrew follows when Milo tugs him along. The streets are haphazard and crowded enough that it’s a little confusing. In a store window Andrew