by Roan Parrish
“Want one?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you like whiskey?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, let’s try.” Alex poured a splash into one glass and handed it to Corbin, their fingers brushing softly, then poured a more sizable amount into his own glass. “Cheers,” Alex said, clinking them together. The tinkling of the glasses touching rang out, clear as a bell in the cavernous kitchen.
Maybe this is what friends do.
Corbin sniffed and the scent reached up his nose with thick fingers. It took him back to curling in bed as a child, lungs rattling and skin dry and hot.
“I think my aunts used to put this in my cough medicine.”
Gareth and Alex laughed, but Corbin could recall the sluggish feeling he got after drinking the cordial, crawling under the covers and sleeping for hours. It made him miss his aunts with a sudden pang he hadn’t felt in years.
He sipped the amber liquid and felt the burn reach down his throat as well as up the back of his nose. It tasted like heat and plants and fire. When he slid his glass back across the table for more, Alex grinned at him.
When he’d finished his drink, Corbin sensed Wolf was near. He stumbled against the edge of the table and Alex’s arm shot out and caught him. Gareth snorted from the stove, but Corbin didn’t care. For once, he felt warm and floaty, in alignment with the flows of energy. Alex’s hand on his hip lingered there a moment and Corbin felt it through jeans and sweater, felt its loss as he moved toward the door.
Winter was a promise in the air, and Corbin shivered in his wool sweater. Wolf tramped toward him, Stick close behind.
“Where’s everyone else.” Corbin scratched both dogs’ ears.
In the woods, in the woods, in the woods.
“You coming inside tonight.” Wolf tipped his head, considering the question, then puffed up his fur and settled in on his haunches next to the door. Not tonight, then, but soon. Corbin knelt and threw his arms around Wolf’s neck, burying his face in fur. “Night.”
They went inside, and Corbin fed Stick. The smells of bacon, butter, and parsley filled his nose as the warmth of the kitchen welcomed him.
“Corbin,” Alex said, catching his elbow. “Aren’t you cold?” He gestured to the knees of Corbin’s jeans, which were wet from where he’d knelt in the snow.
“I’ll make a fire,” Corbin said.
“Why don’t you change out of those pants?” Alex asked. Gareth snorted again.
“Oh, right. Okay.” Corbin shivered as he walked upstairs. The subtle command in Alex’s voice had put Corbin in mind of all the things he’d imagined Alex commanding him to do. In his bedroom, he fumbled out of his wet jeans and into dry corduroys, but the air was humming and there was a buzzing in his ears that usually meant something was about to happen.
Downstairs, he built a fire in the living room fireplace and then rejoined Alex and Gareth in the kitchen. Alex’s eyes lingered on his pants in a way that made Corbin flush.
“Sorry,” Alex said. “I guess I was just expecting sweats or pajamas or something.”
“I don’t have any.” Corbin always slept naked, loving the sensuous slide of sheets and blankets against his limbs in the winter, the cool breeze raising hairs on his arms and legs in the spring and autumn, and the warm sun falling on his bare skin on summer mornings. Alex’s eyes heated and he gulped the rest of his whiskey, looking away.
Corbin slid back into his seat and filled his own glass. After a minute, Alex and Gareth started talking easily, and he lost himself in the ebb and flow of their words. When Gareth put something in the oven, then pulled out the chair across from him, Corbin wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
“Okay, so no bullshit about what we’re thankful for. Let’s play Never Have I Ever instead.”
“Are you thirteen?” Alex asked.
“Never Have I Ever is a drinking game, so I did not play it when I was thirteen. Besides, it’s a great way to get to know each other,” Gareth insisted, looking pointedly at Corbin.
“I don’t know that game.” Corbin wasn’t much for games.
“It’s easy. You say ‘Never Have I Ever,’ and then fill in the blank. Anyone who has done the thing has to drink.”
“Why,” Corbin said, and Alex started laughing.
“No reason. Just for fun,” Gareth said. Corbin wrinkled up his nose, confused. “Okay, how about . . . Either Or?” Gareth offered.
“Or we could just talk like adults,” Alex said.
“Some of us don’t seem to talk that much,” Gareth said. Corbin knew it was him.
“Well, that’s all right,” said Alex.
“Listen, Corbin. Are you cool with playing a few rounds of Either Or? I say two things and you pick one. Feel free to explain your answer. Easy.”
“Pick one to do what.”
Gareth narrowed his eyes. “Here, we’ll demonstrate. Alex, lakes or oceans?”
“Lakes. The ocean is exciting and dramatic, but a lake is steady, predictable.”
“See?” Gareth asked.
“So it’s which you like more,” Corbin tried.
“Sometimes. Or which you identify more with, or which excites you more, et cetera. Here, Alex, ask me.”
Alex sighed long-sufferingly. “All right. Gareth, ketchup or mustard?”
“You’re a bastard and you know I hate that question. Fine, mustard. Because ketchup is delicious on fries, but mustard has many uses and is the base of great vinaigrettes and so I have to choose mustard, damn you.”
Corbin had the distinct sense he was missing something, but he nodded.
“Great! Okay, Corbin, hmm . . . Oh, calm down, Alex. I swear, I have no idea what he thinks I’m going to ask you!” Gareth snickered. “Okay, uh, fate or free will?”
Corbin choked on his drink, throat closing around fire. Through a strangled cough, Alex swam in front of his eyes. Alex, in his aunts’ kitchen. Alex, where no other man had ever been. Alex looking at him like he might want to stay there.
Fate wasn’t a word the aunts ever used. It was too crude, too blunt an instrument to describe the delicate play of energy streams that intertwined like a symphony in the universe. There were things you couldn’t control—things so vast, composed of so many moving parts, so sunk into the fabric of the world, that to untangle them would be the work of more than one lifetime.
This was the curse. A brand that marked the Wales—not because of inevitability, but because of the way heat cut an imprint into wood or flesh. The result of a brand wasn’t fate; it was the laws of nature. Still, both were unchangeable without the ability to unwrite what nature had written.
But no matter how complex the things you couldn’t control, there were always ways to shift the flow. Ways to read the signs, to see how the universe was nudging you, and choose to obey or not. If you were attuned to them, they could give you a sense of what was coming, an idea where to go. Obeying made life easier, helped you follow the path that would be advantageous. The Wales were attuned. The Wales were very attuned.
It was a balance. If you were cursed, it was only fair to give you instruments to divine it.
But lately, Corbin had begun to feel that perhaps things were shifting, inverting. That, perhaps, his sense of which were the beads and which the thread was backward. Because Alex felt like an energy stream all his own—one strong enough that he was exerting a force on everything else in Corbin’s life.
Corbin had thought Alex was a sign pointing at the curse. But what if all the signs were pointing to Alex?
It crumpled Corbin’s mind like a page torn from a notebook, pieces touching unexpectedly, wrinkles making all new lines. Could a leaf be torn from the world as easily? Reformed with as little as a squeeze of the hand? If what Corbin had always known to be unchangeable was shifting, what solid ground did he have? Had his aunts known? Had they seen signs of their own?
Questions piled on questions until Corbin’s vision started to flip into his inside world
instead of what was before him.
“Corbin. Corbin, hey.” Strong hands reached for him and a soft voice pulled him right-side out again. Alex.
He blinked, vision confused, and heard someone whimper. For a moment he worried it was him, but then he realized that Stick had nosed between his knees and he was clutching her fur in sweat-dampened fists. She whined as he let go and rested her chin on his knee until he laid a gentle palm back on her head.
“I’m sorry,” Gareth said softly. “Let’s not play this game anymore. I’m an idiot. I was just trying to break the ice and get you to talk. Sorry. Shit, sorry, Corbin.”
Alex left one hand on Corbin’s shoulder and laid the other on Gareth’s arm, shaking his head. In that moment, Corbin saw so clearly who Alex was. The man whose touch could gentle. The man whose presence soothed. The man who was so full up with weighty presence he had ballast to spare.
His aunts had had a name for people like Alex. Kedge. The mooring that kept things from drifting off, kept them anchored to the here and now.
Gareth stood and pulled a pan from the oven. While he put together a salad, Corbin and Alex sat in silence, eyes meeting and parting, Stick sitting between them. The room drifted in and out of focus, and Corbin found words welling up in his throat. The wind outside whistled plaintively through the wind chimes and shook the words loose.
“This is the first time anyone’s been in this house since my aunts. Except the time you came in to use the bathroom,” he added. “First time anyone cooked who wasn’t them or me.” He shook his head in surprise. His lips felt a little numb. “’S nice not to be alone for a little while.”
He immediately felt disloyal to Carbon and Lex, Jasmine and Finnian, who’d kept him from being completely alone. But he thought they’d know what he meant.
Alex encouraged Stick to move, then yanked Corbin’s chair close so they were facing each other. He put his hands on Corbin’s shoulders and looked into his eyes.
“You don’t have to be alone anymore. Not if you don’t want to be.”
The sincerity in his gaze shook something dangerous loose in Corbin’s stomach and he blinked away tears. Alex didn’t know—couldn’t know—the torment his promise induced.
Corbin breathed through it. He didn’t think he could put Alex in danger by taking him up on all that the offer implied. Not unless he was absolutely sure he had bled the curse out of himself. Baked it out. And even though he’d sensed a shift, you could never be sure with these things.
Even now, when he could feel the warmth of Alex’s hands through his sweater, he found himself afraid of reaching out to him, afraid to touch him—the darkness he had so long known he could transmit still lay between them, in Corbin’s fear, if nowhere else. But his skin was awakened to Alex’s touch, buzzing like it wanted to lift off Corbin’s weighty bones and seek a greener pasture.
A pan thunked onto the table and a bowl of salad followed.
“Bacon and new potato frittata with chèvre, smoked paprika, and a parsley sauce. Baby greens with roasted garlic and lemon oil dressing, and parmesan croutons.”
“Looks beautiful,” said Alex.
“Thank you,” Corbin said, awed. He didn’t know what a frittata was, but it appeared to be eggs. Eggs, bacon, and potatoes couldn’t be bad. His aunts had never told him what he was eating. The food smelled amazing, but Corbin’s head spun when he moved to fill his plate.
“Whoa, lightweight, I got it,” Gareth said, and dished him a perfect slice of frittata and a green burst of salad that looked like spring and smelled like summer.
Gareth and Alex talked and joked as they ate. The food was delicious and Corbin felt better after he’d eaten, less floaty. Sometimes when he forgot to eat, his sense of smell grew more acute. But even with a full stomach, he could smell the way his familiar house took on the scents of the evening. Bacon and lemon, garlic and cheese, parsley and whiskey and companionship. And a light scent the color of green apple or the underside of a leaf turned toward the coming rain. Possibility.
After they ate, Gareth demanded a tour of the house. “This place is like Thornfield Hall,” he muttered.
Corbin trailed behind them as they walked through his home. His aunts’ home. Seeing it through unfamiliar eyes, it was clear he only lived in a third of the house, while the rest possessed the undisturbed stillness of an altar or a grave.
The tastes of whiskey and bacon were heavy on his tongue, but when Gareth pushed open the heavy door of Aunt Jade’s bedroom, all Corbin could taste was lilac. He must have made a sound because Alex shut the door and herded them back downstairs into the living room in front of the fire.
“What happened to them?” Gareth asked softly.
Corbin swallowed another mouthful of whiskey and stared into the fire, tongues of flame joining and tearing themselves apart again.
“They died. When I was fifteen.” He lay down on his back on the worn rug, eyes on the fire so he couldn’t see Alex or Gareth. “I got home from school one day and they were the same as always. I stayed in my room most of the next couple of days. It must’ve been the weekend, I guess. I got hungry so I came downstairs and they weren’t here.”
The aunts only left the house upon rare occasions, preferring to send him to get whatever provisions they couldn’t grow or make themselves.
“I knocked on Aunt Jade’s door first but she didn’t answer. Then Aunt Hilda’s. I hadn’t . . .”
He hadn’t noticed any signs. Hadn’t seen or heard or smelled anything out of phase. Hadn’t tasted bitterness at the back of his tongue or felt the pricking of unease on the back of his neck. Their end had been hidden from him.
“I opened the door to Hilda’s room and they were there. On the bed. Just . . . not there anymore.”
The nothingness that had possessed the room when he’d opened the door had felt like a dream of falling where you never hit bottom. Measuring the ever-expanding emptiness with the length of your own body. His aunts were gone, and what they’d left behind wasn’t the absence of them. It was the removal of everything they’d touched. Everything they’d influenced.
It was a crushing, begging, pawing nothingness that drove Corbin to his knees.
A nothingness that said: This is where you start from now. This is how things are. Alone. Alone, alone, alone forever.
“How did they die?” Gareth asked. Corbin heard what might have been Alex shoving Gareth.
“They died. They just died, it doesn’t matter how.”
But they’d died together, Corbin had comforted himself later. Then comfort had turned to fear when he’d realized he wouldn’t have even that.
Alex didn’t say anything for a while, but Corbin could feel his regard.
“Is that why you didn’t come back to school?” he asked softly. “There were rumors, I remember.”
“I forgot to go for a while,” Corbin said simply.
Weeks, months, bleeding together like moments inside a chrysalis until Corbin had no choice but to emerge and see the world, a changed thing.
His head swam when he sat up. He’d never spoken of this with anyone. But the air was oil thick and the leaves outside the windows were limned in moonlight and Corbin felt reckless, intoxicated by the release of confession.
“I stayed with them for a little while,” he said softly. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
He had curled up on the end of the bed like a cat, and stayed there for two days. What had made them the aunts wasn’t there anymore, but it was something. A focal point, at least, so that the world didn’t spin off its axis.
He’d made himself as small as he could, hugged his knees tight to his chest, and he’d stayed there with them, his only family, the only people who knew about him, about any of it. He’d stayed there and tried to forget that he couldn’t keep them forever. That soon they’d be gone and he would be alone, truly alone. A speck of dust, wheeling through the infinite universe.
Corbin risked a glance at Alex and saw understanding in face. Ye
s, Alex knew things about him. He knew things that he didn’t understand he knew.
Alex said Corbin’s name silently, the shape of his mouth forming the word that held Corbin in place. Gareth had made himself invisible. Gareth saw in a different way.
The tension in the air sizzled. Alex held out a hand and Corbin took it, and the tension snapped like a shock wave. Gareth jumped to his feet and said, “Do you have any music here? We need music.”
Corbin pointed and Gareth rummaged around in the cabinet, and put on one of the aunts’ records. Corbin recognized it, could remember it playing when he was small, but couldn’t have named it, and he sat with his eyes closed as the air lightened.
Gareth tugged him to his feet with the command to dance, and for the space of the next few songs, moments were detached, strobing. Corbin moved to the music, they laughed, and Stick ran around the living room, so joyful with the festive mood she almost bounced.
When Gareth went to the bathroom, he left Corbin and Alex standing there, inches apart. Whether Alex caught Corbin’s arm, or Corbin turned to face him, he couldn’t be sure. Every blink seemed to take eternity and Corbin couldn’t break eye contact, saw only Alex, the rest of the world an indistinct swirl behind him.
They moved closer, closer, looking into each other’s eyes. So close the air between them sparked and hummed. Corbin’s mind flooded with the images of Alex he’d entertained while he was alone. In those, Alex would pull him flush against his body, kiss him roughly, tongue him open until he was panting.
In this reality, they breathed together, chests nearly touching on their inhalations, lips slightly parted like they could taste the sweetness of each other’s air.
They stood, and the promise of a kiss formed between them, deferred.
“Dude.”
Gareth tried to tug Alex’s arm away from his eyes, and Alex groaned and pulled away, rolling to face the back of the sofa where he’d collapsed the night before when they’d gotten home from Corbin’s house.
Gareth gave up on his arm and flopped down to sit on his feet.
“Dude.”
“Since when do you say ‘dude’?” Talking made his head throb worse.