The Drifter by A.M. Arthur

You never know what you’re going to find on the side of the road, or if picking it up will change the shape of your life.

It was supposed to be a simple trip: fly to Plano, Texas, get the registration for the 1968 Charger convertible that Kyle had been left by a dead uncle, and drive it back to our place in Leesburg, Virginia. Simple in that I’d been planning to dump Kyle the day he got the bad news—no sense in suffering through Valentine’s Day if we had no future—but even I’m not a big enough prick to end a dying relationship just when someone I used to love heard his family had passed.

I’m not entirely sure when things between me and Kyle started going bad. We met in college, but didn’t date until late senior year. The first two years were actually pretty damned good, even after the car accident that wrecked Kyle’s shoulder and destroyed his dreams of a pro-baseball career. He didn’t let it faze him at all, just kept going after life like a dog with a bone. We lived together and supported each other. We were happy and in love.

Then on our three-year anniversary, in the middle of a crowded Halloween party, with both of us dressed up like sailors, I proposed to Kyle.
He said no.