The Eighth Excalibur

by Luke Mitchell

  Done with it. So done that he forgot to even be surprised when he threw open the front door and found Marty and the others all sitting on the living room couch, waiting for him. They’d even gotten Copernicus out of Nate’s room. The looks on their faces said it all.

  Today was the day.

  Perfect.

  For a long moment, no one spoke. Marty took in his appearance with open concern. Kyle and Zach couldn’t even bring themselves to meet Nate’s eyes. Discomfort pulsed through the room like a giant, wriggling slug.

  “Was that you outside?” Marty finally asked.

  Copernicus looked nervously between Nate and his couch fellows, panting up a storm. Nate held Marty’s gaze until his friend looked away and spoke quietly to the floor.

  “We need to talk.”

  Nate turned his gaze to each of them in turn, waiting for Kyle or Zach to corroborate Marty’s claim. “Is this supposed to be an intervention?”

  The tight-lipped looks they traded were all the answer he needed. But there was something more there, too. Something unmistakably off. Like he didn’t smell right to his own pack anymore.

  A pang of unexpected fear passed through him, followed by one of desperation as it dawned on him that his friends were afraid. Afraid of him.

  When the hell had that happened?

  Why was he even surprised he hadn’t noticed?

  He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to reconcile what had happened outside with the confused, worried friends sitting before him now, and with the sudden and bone deep certainty that he couldn’t stand to spend another single goddamn night cooped up without them.

  He swallowed, mouth parched, and tried to keep the waiver from his voice. “Any chance I can just say I’m sorry and skip to the part where we all grab a beer?”

  21

  Raise the Roof

  In retrospect, Nate wasn’t sure he’d ever really fully appreciated the meaning of the phrase, “I need a drink,” until he was halfway through his first lovely pint of Liberty Craft House’s newly tapped creamsicle IPA.

  It was mildly alarming, how drastically a splash of alcohol blunted his raw nerves. Then again, he also couldn’t help but think he’d never actually known true stress until the Merlin had yanked him feet first into the wild—and alleged, whispered the alcohol—world of the Strange Alien Shit Show. But it didn’t matter.

  That evening, for a precious moment, everything almost seemed to be back to normal. Add in the fact that Gwen and her friend Kelsey should be there sometime soon, and it was all entirely too much of a relief for Nate to let his own dark thoughts or even the Excalibur’s brooding silence sully it.

  He was practically in heaven.

  Or so he told himself as he took another sip of his sweet-yet-hoppy beer and tried to savor the taste, scanning the Liberty Craft House crowd for additional distractions. As far as State College bars went, Liberty never got too crazy wild—possibly owing to the fact that it had a killer draft list and tended to attract the less-than-wild college beer snob crowd. Even so, it was a Friday night, and the place was fairly packed beneath its rustic sphere lights and open girder ceiling—a look which Zach had informed them was called “industrial-chic,” whatever that meant.

  Nate’s gaze paused on a pair of hazel eyes watching him from the bar across the room. His insides clenched reflexively, mind leaping to that goddamned SUV before he could remind himself how ridiculous and paranoid the thought was. The girl was already looking away, playing it as if she hadn’t been staring. It was only then that he recognized her as the same jogger who’d witnessed the football-hurling prelude to his breakdown that morning.

  He swallowed, cheeks flooding with heat, mind grasping at the hair-thin chances. Then her eyes flicked unexpectedly back to his with a coy smile, and this time, it was Nate who looked away, back to their booth table, cheeks positively burning as he took another long pull from his glass.

  “How long did you say you’ve been working out?” Kyle’s voice broke into his thoughts. He’d followed Nate’s gaze.

  “A few weeks.”

  Kyle shook his head, glancing around the room. “Damn, dude. I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to the epicenter of so many hot lady stares.” He took a long pull of his beer. “Almost makes me wanna start working out.”

  Zach chortled into his glass.

  “You’re just imagining things,” Nate said.

  “Ehh,” Marty said beside him, looking a bit buzzed himself. “I’m pretty sure he’s not, dude. Not to insult that adorable face of yours, but it seems like your gym results might be pulling their weight.”

  Marty frowned a little as he said the last words, like maybe he was remembering just how freakishly fast those gym results had popped up, but then Zach chimed in with a, “Heh! Pulling their weight. Punny,” and Marty’s face came alight with pleasure at his unintended pun, strangeness forgotten.

  “You guys are drunk,” Nate grumbled, glancing down at his phone, wondering how soon Gwen would be there.

  “Maybe so,” Kyle said, finishing his beer and staring pointedly at Nate’s chest and arms. “But all I’m saying is that I might take a run at you myself if you don’t find yourself a less tight shirt by the time I finish another beer.”

  “So in five minutes, then,” Zach said.

  Nate chuckled and looked down at his rather snug black t-shirt, cheeks pulsing with another wave of heat. He would’ve been lying if he said there wasn’t something primally satisfying about seeing his once droopy sleeves pulled snug with newfound muscle, but he also couldn’t help but think he was quickly approaching the line where he might as well cut the sleeves off and stamp Alpha-Sig-Sig across his forehead.

  The situation below the table wasn’t much better, either. Jeans had been more or less out of the question. He’d gone with a previously-baggy pair of khaki cargo pants which, while a little snug themselves now, at least had some elastic give to them.

  New clothes, he decided, were probably in order soon. His parents would probably be delighted for the easy Christmas ask.

  If there was a Christmas.

  Jesus.

  “Nate?”

  Nate blinked back to reality, where their waitress was watching him with an expectant look. He eyed his roommates then asked for another round, gathering that they’d already done the same. Only Marty kept watching him, as the waitress departed with a friendly smile. Watching him like there was something more, his expression suddenly sober. Or at least less chipper.

  “Listen,” he started. “Before Gwen gets here, uh…”

  Nate tried to keep from tensing. “I thought we were skipping the intervention.”

  “Yeah,” Marty agreed, bobbing his head. “Yeah, we are but—”

  “But maybe we just kinda wanna hear more about what happened that weekend,” Kyle cut in, trying to sound playful about it, like this wasn’t something they’d all been circling around all evening. “We never did get the full story from you. Like, what was it even like, taking Emily Atherton in those big strong arms of yours, for instance?”

  “You mean after we both almost died?” Nate asked, more sharply than he’d meant to. He was pretty sure it only strengthened Marty’s resolve.

  Maybe if he threw them a little bone. Distracted them.

  “She did ask me out to Indigo a couple weeks ago.”

  “Whoa!” Kyle cried, jerking back from the table and drawing several surprised looks from their neighbors. “And you…? I mean, it’s Indigo, yeah, but Jesus, dude. You didn’t…?” He shook his head. “God, you have to warn me before you drop a bomb like that, man. My poor heart can’t handle the oceanic shift to my raging erec—”

  Zach coughed loudly, rattling his glass against the table as he did. Pointedly, he looked from Kyle over to the nearby table of five girls who’d looked over at the first outcry. Kyle put on his most winning smile and gave them a little wave of his fingers that came off about two hundred percent creepier than intended, judging by t
he way the girls all turned quickly back to their conversation, looking a little bit like they wanted to laugh, and a little bit like they’d just encountered an especially gnarly strain of drain mold.

  “Yep,” Kyle murmured. “Definitely gotta start working out.”

  Zach shook his head at Kyle, but seemed equally perplexed by Nate’s decisions. “So you’re turning down dates with Emily Atherton now, huh? Bold move.”

  “It was just, like, for Copernicus custodial talk, I’m sure.”

  Nate was starting to regret this “distraction.” He glanced at his phone, wondering how soon Gwen would be there.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Marty asked.

  Nate shrugged and finished the rest of his first beer. “Guess I was still kinda keyed up from everything.”

  “I’ll say,” Kyle muttered, looking more than a little keyed up himself. “So what’d she smell like?”

  “Jesus, man,” Zach said.

  Nate was about to chime in with his own two cents about Kyle’s borderline fixation when the waitress promptly reappeared with their second round. Zach and Kyle took it as a chance to attempt being benignly flirty. Marty just took it as an opportunity to reset their conversational focus.

  “Okay, dude,” he said, as the waitress departed with an especially friendly smile to Zach. “I know this isn’t really the time or place, but, well… Bradford texted me.”

  Nate studied his friend’s tight expression. “No he didn’t.”

  Bradford was one of the few IT classmates Nate hung out with enough to have merited a few concerned texts when he’d gone missing these past weeks. He’d already assured Bradford that he was keeping on top of that homework, though, and that he had made arrangements to make up those pesky quizzes off hours, all due to some personal problems. Which was why he wasn’t surprised when Marty’s resolve wavered a touch.

  “Fine. I texted him. And he told me he hasn’t seen you in class for a couple weeks.”

  “Ever since that weekend,” Zach added, finally finding his voice from where he and Kyle had bowed their heads in silence. Beside him, Kyle reluctantly bobbed his head, like this was a script they’d all practiced ahead of time.

  Nate sighed. “You just said this wasn’t an intervention. I told you, I’ve been busy.”

  “Yeah, busy juggling classes and your art,” Marty said, the first touch of anger touching his eyes. “Classes you apparently haven’t been going to. And the art…” He waved a hand helplessly. “Have you even talked to Hillman? Because as far as I can tell, all you ever do anymore is sit in your room or go to the gym.”

  “I told you,” Nate said, lips stretching with an unrecognizably acidic smile. “I’ve been metalworking.”

  Some part of him enjoyed their confused looks more than he probably had any decent right to.

  “Why would you lie about something like that?” Zach finally asked.

  “Or work out at all?” Kyle murmured.

  “Is this about what happened in that video?” Marty added.

  Nate froze. Was that just more digging, or had Marty actually seen something?

  He eyed his roommates one by one in the stretching silence. Had the Excalibur made good on his blackmail threats and shown them? He didn’t think so. He was surprised to find he barely even cared at this point. All he’d wanted was one night away from it all. One carefree night with his friends. And they couldn’t even let him have that much.

  “Are you all done?” he asked flatly, reaching for his new beer.

  “Why are you doing this?” Marty asked, visibly agitated now. “Why won’t you talk to us?”

  “We’re talking right now,” Nate said, squeezing his glass and resisting the urge to point out that they were doing so in the middle of a crowded public space for some god-awful reason. “What do you want from me?”

  Marty looked like he’d been slapped.

  “What do I want?” he echoed, his voice wavering slightly, like he was fighting back tears. “I want my friend back, Nate.”

  For a moment, the words sucked the air straight from Nate’s lungs. For a moment, he gaped, forgetting that they were in the middle of a crowded bar, not knowing what to say, or why he was acting like this, or why he should suddenly be so damned angry. But he was angry. Desperately angry.

  “Yeah?” he heard himself growl, in a trembling voice that wasn’t his own, a voice utterly furious that, after everything, he could still be made to feel like this by the so-called friends who really wanted nothing but to drag him back down, to keep him small and weak like them. “Well, maybe you should grow up and—”

  Something shattered, and a flood of cold liquid washed over his hand, down into his lap. Beer, he realized, wrenching his gaze away from Marty’s wide eyes and down to his glass. He’d squeezed too hard. Broken the glass.

  For a second, it was all Nate could do to sit there staring at the dripping mess. Then a bright, happy voice broke in beside them.

  “Hey, guys!”

  Gwen.

  Shit.

  “What are you all… Oh.”

  Gwen and Kelsey stood at their booth, drinks and backpacks in hand. They must’ve just come from lab, some part of Nate’s brain numbly noted, as their friendly smiles faltered, gauging the emotional resonance of the table, and taking in the mess of broken glass and creamsicle beer.

  “I… I need a napkin,” Nate heard himself say as he stood from the booth, not really sure where his feet were taking him, only that he needed to get away for a minute. Maybe more.

  “And you know what?” his mouth added anyway, feet stopping of their own accord, rounding him back on Marty and the others. “Maybe I just needed a break from everything, okay? Maybe I had my reasons, and if you really...”

  He stopped before his voice could break, helplessly shaking his head at their lost puppy stares, lost himself for the words he was too upset to say. It was all fucked. A cruel paradox that, after weeks spent locked in, he should be here now, trembling in front of his friends, and Gwen, and what felt like half of State College, feeling more alone than he ever had before.

  He turned to go, murmuring an apology to Gwen, painfully aware of the eyes pressing in on him from all directions, lapping up this delectable little morsel of a public spectacle. Somewhere far behind, Gwen was asking the others if he was all right. He walked faster.

  Today was the goddamn day, all right.

  Something is wrong, Nathaniel.

  “No shit,” Nate muttered.

  Not that, the Excalibur said. Something important.

  Not now, Nate thought, trying not to outwardly scowl as he squeezed between two groups of their casual onlookers. They all went on sipping their beers, enjoying the show. One raised his glass in cheers.

  Set aside your sniveling college drama and—

  I said not now! Nate mentally snapped. Or shouted out loud like a goddamn madman, he realized, as the roar of the crowd dimmed around him, and even more startled and curious eyes turned his way.

  Fine, the Excalibur said, its tone perfectly flat, like that was that, and it was throwing in the towel for good. Have it your way, then.

  But Nate was more focused on the familiar voice cutting through the chatter of the crowd.

  “Holy shit. You really are insane, aren’t you, Arturi?”

  His stomach sank at that voice—sank with the sudden certainty that he’d somehow woken up in hell that morning, and that there would be no end to this nonstop thrill-ride of personal shame and surprise cock punches. He looked up and caught sight first of Emily Atherton, then of the beefy arm draped across her shoulders, and the sandy-haired Alpha-Sig-Sig Adonis attached to it.

  Goddamn Todd.

  Nate didn’t bother wondering at the chances, or at what the hell Todd Mackleroy was doing here, of all places. He just stepped around them for the exit. Or tried, at least, before the King of the Bros slid his arm free from his concubine and cut him off.

  “I don’t know what the hell’s up with you,” Todd
said, low enough that probably only the nearest circle of gawkers could hear, “but you owe us a new window, asshole.”

  Nate wasn’t really sure what compelled him to look to Emily for input on that note, but the move only seemed to fire Todd’s furnaces that much more.

  “You hear me, Arturi?”

  Behind him, Emily looked uncharacteristically meek.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  It was the finger jab that did it.

  One decisive injection of manly man authority, administered via Todd’s rigid index and middle fingers, right to the center of the pulsing red exterminate button on Nate’s chest, and he went from zero to murder in half a second flat.

  “You want a goddamn Knight?” he growled under his breath, his fist practically humming with electric excitement as he clenched it tight.

  “What’d you say, bro?”

  Nate cocked back to knock that self-absorbed sneer into low orbit.

  Then gentle hands took hold of his arm, and a soft voice was cooing at his ear. “Hey… Hey, you’re okay.”

  Gwen’s voice.

  She pulled gently on his arm, silently urging him to disengage. He kept his eyes on Todd, half-expecting the Greek A-hole to capitalize on the distraction and take his own shot. But he didn’t.

  The electric tension drained as Gwen’s hand found Nate’s fist. She frowned down at their joined hands, almost like she’d felt it dissipating, but then her attention swiveled back to Todd. And that’s when Nate’s higher brain caught up to what was happening.

  Todd and Emily. Here. Together.

  Gwen had just walked right into the bombshell Nate should’ve broken to her weeks ago. He turned to her, mortified, his own personal crises momentarily forgotten beneath the guilt. Except she didn’t look dumbstruck, or devastated. She didn’t look much of anything at all.

  Todd, on the other hand…

  Never once had Nate imagined he’d ever see Todd Mackleroy look so vulnerably human. He didn’t cower, exactly. Maybe the opposite. His back straightened under Gwen’s scrutiny, his chest puffing almost in challenge as he pointedly wrapped an arm around a less than flattered Emily. It was painful to watch, but not as painful as the look in Todd’s eyes, buried just beneath the dying phantom of his self-assured sneer. Nate swore he could see some part of Todd’s once-proud soul crumbling in there. He couldn’t look away from the sight.