My best friend Mari and I bought the concert tickets months ago, despite having no real plan for how we’ll get there. Neither of us has a car, and no one in our country-music-obsessed town shares our taste, or is going.

Legal adults or not, it’s a school night, which means asking our parents is off-limits. So, we dust off the classic I’ll be at my bestie’s house studying excuse.

Every dollar we had went to the tickets, and Uber is a luxury we can’t afford. So we decide to go old-school, nineteen-seventies style, and hitchhike.

The concert is in the city about twenty miles up the highway, an easy commute if you have wheels, a treacherous journey on foot. It’s dusk when we get to the on-ramp, and we have about three hours before the opening act.

Being a port city, trucks are everywhere, rolling in, rolling out, steady and constant, and we’re hoping to catch one to our exit in the city.

Is it dangerous for two teenage girls dressed scantily for a concert to hitchhike? Yes. Do we care? No.

We’re determined to get there.

We walk up the on-ramp toward the drawbridge, the scent of salt mingling with gas as we wait to thumb a ride until we hit open highway, where someone can safely pull over.

Below us, the river roars, catching the last light of the day’s reds, oranges, and blues glittering on the water. Port lights and the town’s riverfront light up the banks as the first stars appear.

We don’t have to wait long before I hear the unmistakable sound of a diesel engine drop to a slower, heavier idle. How do I know that? I have a stepdad who drives a flatbed. Then the air brake hits loudly, Phhhhhhh, and startles my bestie. I laugh, and she shoves me.

The truck pulls off to the side ahead of us, the sound of the gravel in our ears as we jog up to the door. It’s a huge, long-nose American semi, orange with a black racing stripe, twin smokestacks, and a sleeper cab.

I grab the sidebar and jump up on the stirrup step, my heel catching in the grid, and I have to wriggle it out. I jump in first, and then Mari. Both of us are in the passenger seat, which feels like a springboard. We’re all smiles, excited about getting a ride.

“Hey, ladies,” he says, eyes on the road as he releases the air brake and another loud Phhhhh sounds as he eases back onto the highway. “One of ya sit on the sleeper, please, and one of ya buckle up.”

I jump onto the sleeper bed, and Mari buckles up.

The cab is fairly clean. He has just gotten a new load at the port and must have cleaned up before leaving. Coffee is in the holder and still steaming, and a donut bag sits next to it on the center console.

“This is so cool!” my bestie squeals, looking around, her first time in a truck. “It looks like you’re in an airplane cockpit.”

He chuckles, “I take it you’ve never been in an airplane cockpit either?” It makes me laugh. She shrugs, unbothered.

“So where to, ladies?” he asks, looking back at me in the rearview.

Jesus, I catch his eyes, and I forget to inhale. They’re dark brown, deep, and I swear, looking into them lights up every nerve in my body. He takes off his ball cap, throws it on the dashboard, and runs his hands through his longish, soft brown curls.

My friend slowly turns her head, eyes wide, mouthing silently, holy fuck, El… he’s soooo hot! And she’s right. Broad shoulders, arms thick from hauling cargo and rolling tarps. Ink covers both arms, meaningful, not random, a story. His story. A square jaw covered with stubble, not unkempt, but sexy…it makes my chest ache.

He looks back in the rearview again, flashing a crooked grin, southern drawl dripping off his tongue: “So, what’s up? Cat got your tongue? Planning to rob me, or need a ride somewhere?”

My friend smiles. I forgot he asked a question!

I stumble over my words: “Uh… just to the city. Concert tonight at the arena.”

“Shit, really? Lucky bastards. I love those guys… damn, I wouldn’t mind catching them myself,” he murmurs.

My friend mouths at me, rolling her eyes upward. I think I’m in love. I laugh, but my heart is hammering in my ears. He meets my eyes again, and I can’t breathe, heat pooling low.

The silence stretches for several miles as the lights streak past and music fills the cab, not country.

Every once in a while, he looks in the rearview mirror, and shock waves wash over me; it feels mutual.

“You look… younger than most truckers,” I blurt out, voice trembling. My friend shoots me a knowing look, a grin pulling at the corners of her mouth. I glare back, embarrassed.

“Well, that’s rude,” he teases, dark and smooth. “Truckers can be all kinds of things, young, too, ya know.” He holds my gaze for a few seconds before adding, “God, you have… the most beautiful eyes,” slow, deliberate, syrupy.

Before I can stop myself, words fall out of me playfully, “That’s it,” I declare. “Pull over right now.”

My friend gasps, half in shock, half in laughter.

His grin widens, “Don’t tease me, girl, I spend way too much time alone to be played with like that.”

The look on my friend’s face is unreadable. Is she scared? Intrigued? Confused or equally willing?

He looks over at my friend and says, “Are we doing this?”

“Hell yeah,” she squeals, adding, “we got a few hours,” and shrugs, looking back at me with a smile.

He doesn’t hesitate as he throws on the jake brake, sounding like a machine gun, roaring Brahhh, and slows the rig into a low rumble that we both feel under our feet as he pulls to a stop in the breakdown lane.

Hazards click on. He reaches for the CB. “Dispatch, this is Haywire 24,” his voice smooth and thick through the speaker. “Had a sensor light pop. Gonna pull over quick and check it out. Shouldn’t take too long.” He turns and winks at me. He opens his door and jumps out. I can see him in the rearview mirror, throwing down reflective triangles before heading back.

I know I started this, but dammit, I’m feeling nervous! My mouth is dry, and my thighs shake. My friend has more experience, so I look at her for reassurance. She smiles at me sweetly and whispers, “This is going to be fun, just follow my lead, okay?”

He slides back into the driver’s seat, and Mari quickly pulls herself onto his lap, straddling him and immediately starts kissing him. I feel like a fish out of water until he catches my eye, soft and gentle, and my nerves begin to ease.

After a few minutes, he slowly makes deliberate moves to get my friend up and into the cab with me. She scoots all the way in as he pulls off his shirt, belt, and jeans, never taking his eyes off me.

I freeze on the edge of the bunk as he lowers himself over me slowly.

“Don’t be nervous, baby. I won’t rush you, okay?”

I nod, my breath shallow.

Mari comes up behind me, lifts my shirt over my head, and kisses my neck. It feels like ice water hitting me, and I jolt. This is a first for me, a threesome and a girl! But he looks at me and smiles while she whispers in my ear, “Close your eyes.”

I melt into it.

After a few minutes, I’m not sure whose hands are whose as my clothes are peeled away and lips find their way all over me.

“Baby, are you ready?” he breathes into my ear.

I swallow hard and say yes.

He lies behind me, turning my back slightly toward him in a spooning position, one hand curled gently around my friend’s throat as he kisses her above my head, his other hand slipping higher between my thighs, slow and devastating. I gasp when he finally presses into me, the sensation stealing every coherent thought from my mind.

I feel him guide her head down, lower, closer, and I hold my breath for what comes next.

“That’s it, good girl,” he whispers to her as her attention turns to me.

Mari catches my eye and grins before she disappears between my legs. Between his steady rhythm and her mouth exploring new territory, my body can’t tell where one feeling ends, and another begins. I’m overwhelmed with new sensations, and I completely forget how to breathe.

Before long, all the air leaves my lungs, my body completely surrendering as it trembles hard through wave after wave of pleasure.

He slows and buries his face in my neck. “Oh my God, baby, that felt so fucking intense,” he breathes heavily, kissing along my jaw.

Then, after a moment, he pulls Mari up over me with intent. They work together, and she settles into the perfect position for me to reciprocate and give back what she has just given. He steadies himself into her unapologetically, his intensity returning.

I am far less sure of myself than Mari is, and it feels clumsy for me at first. But she arches into me, moaning loudly, and I keep pace; my confidence starts growing.

I’ve never been this close to a woman, and the scent of cocoa butter lingering on her skin, mingling with the unmistakable scent of her desire, is completely overwhelming.

It’s no longer a mystery why men go to such great lengths to find themselves exactly here, completely undone by a woman's warmth, scent, and gentle moans. It’s making me dizzy.

Without warning, she breaks open with the same intensity I felt moments before, but with a flood of heat. She pulls away from he and I and flops heavily beside me, wiping my face with her thumbs and kissing me.

Satisfied and now eager to please him, we work together. He lies on his back against the pillows, running his fingers through our hair and along our necks. We move in tandem to repay him properly.

He's relentless on us both, moving from my mouth to Mari’s and back again. One of us keeps our attention low and the other high as he groans loudly.

It doesn’t take long before it ends in a rush. He unravels, control slipping, his head falling back.“Fuckkkkkk,” he sighs heavily as his body shakes.

Mari took the brunt of his pleasure in her mouth and on her neck.

“Don’t be greedy,” he teases as he coaxes my head to meet Mari’s mouth. She leans in and kisses me, as he slides his fingers up her neck and into our mouths.

My friend rolls out of the bunk immediately afterward, breathless and mumbling excitedly about what just happened. He and I linger a beat longer. He runs his thumb over my lips and then my cheek, my head tilting into his palm. He clicks his tongue softly, flashes that crooked grin, and gives me a wink before exiting the bunk.

He drops us off a block from the arena, our attention shifting to the upcoming concert. The night is alive, music already humming from the venue. My friend jumps out without hesitation, and I’m right behind her. His fingers curl around my arm as I’m slipping out the door.

“Those eyes, baby. Fuck. I sure do hope I get to see them again.”

I smile back as I hop down next to my bestie and we disappear into the crowd.