Off Campus

by Amy Jo Cousins

  He let go and dropped his forehead against Reese’s hip. The hands in his hair stayed.

  “Sorry.” He kept his head down for a moment and felt like an asshole for hiding. He looked up, fearing to see that white, drawn look on Reese’s face that meant he was trying hard not to react to something that terrified him.

  Reese had pulled half of his hair into a samurai top knot and anchored it with a bright green elastic, so for once his whole face was visible.

  It was flushed pink.

  Not white. Not pale and looking shaky around the edges. Pinking up with the glow of a guy whose dick was getting hard because he was turned on by their play.

  Tom didn’t realize how hard he’d braced himself to see fear until all the adrenaline flushed from his muscles, leaving him weak and a little shaky himself.

  Holy shit.

  He was so not the right guy to be doing this.

  He didn’t realize he’d let go of Reese entirely, his own hands cradling his head as he braced his elbows on his knees. Reese’s fingertips danced again on his nape, the tiniest connection between them.

  “You gotta find some other guy for this, Reese.” The hand on his neck stilled. “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing and one of these times I’m gonna get it wrong.” He tilted his head back to look Reese in the eyes, trying not to flinch at how vulnerable it felt. “I’m so fucking terrified that one of these times I’m going to touch you in the wrong way. I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Hey.” Reese pulled his hands away from his face and brushed over his hair, smoothing it down. “It’s okay.”

  “Yeah, but it won’t be if—”

  “Then I’ll deal. We’ll deal,” he promised at the look Tom shot him. “I’m not a child. And I’m not broken. This is hard sometimes. Don’t you think I wish you could throw me down on the bed and fuck me ’til I see stars?” Tom’s dick went from half asleep to all the way awake in an instant, the zing of hell, yes shooting up his spine. A matching heat lit in Reese’s eyes as he kept talking. “Not yet, big boy. Someday. Maybe. But I’m a fully grown human being. You are not responsible for making sure nothing bad ever happens to me, especially when the bad things are only in my fucked up brain. One, good luck with that.” He smiled down at Tom. Always over him. Tom never forgot to make himself smaller, pull himself in so as not to threaten. He wondered if Reese understood how Tom measured his actions, his posture, his very location in a room, in order to make sure Reese felt in control. “Two, I’m the only one who can fix me. Though I appreciate that you’re willing to try.”

  That was the coin on the scale tipping the balance into guilt all over again. He’d already lost count of the number of times Reese had given him another chance, had kept his heart open out of generosity and a bravery that Tom knew he fell short on matching. He dropped his gaze again and shook his head.

  “You should kick me to the curb now, before you get attached. I am not what you need.” He knew he was talking about so much more than just his fear of making a wrong move and triggering bad memories.

  “I’m not worried.” Reese’s voice was low, his fingers more sure than ever as he ran his hand down Tom’s neck. “Besides, it’s too late anyways.”

  Tom looked up at Reese’s lopsided grin.

  “Already attached. Sorry.”

  He shouldn’t get a rush of warmth from that grin, those words. This was a man who was working his way back to whole and who was going to get there. Who’d be happy and healthy and a part of the world in a way Tom was afraid he might never be again.

  He grabbed Reese’s hand from the back of his head and pulled it down to his mouth. Pressed his lips to the back of Reese’s wrist, then held his hand in two fists while he laid his forehead against their clasp.

  “Okay. Yeah. Too late.”

  So he ran, legs pumping beneath him, the ache of lactic acid building faster than it used to as he leaned into the curve and flew back onto the straightaway, Reese whooping and hollering from the far side of the track. He ran until the sweat poured off him and his muscles burned and he hoped it would be enough.

  Because he wasn’t going to do that thing, the one thing that would stop hurting Reese. And that was going to break them, sooner or later.

  If he could run fast enough and far enough, maybe later wouldn’t come.

  He locked his eyes on the finish line and tried to outrun the knowing that it would.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Reese told Tom he better plan on spending part of his Christmas holiday at the Anders’ house, he knew better than to argue. He was stressed out enough about the holiday, though Reese had been the one to suggest that they skip gifts. Tom’s laptop froze and couldn’t be brought back to the land of the living during the mad, no-sleep rush to finish research papers and projects in the last week of the semester. He knew Reese assumed it was more a matter of not having time to go buy a new one than a money problem, because he still hadn’t gotten around the explaining exactly how bad things were. Reese thought he was charmingly anti-materialistic for someone who’d grown up with obscene wealth. He thought Tom hadn’t noticed the sole of his running shoes separating from the body of the shoe, peeling dangerously farther with every early morning run he logged on the track or on the trails, avoiding the rest of the team.

  He knew his shoes were in dire need of replacement. Could feel the cushion in his insole had worn out completely by the ache of tendonitis in his knees. He took to timing his runs so he could ice his knees afterward while Reese was gone, wanting to avoid questions about that too.

  He’d told Reese he’d rejoin practice in the spring, when training officially began for the outdoor track and field season. He would train by himself through the winter, trying to pick up some of the ground he’d lost. They argued over whether this meant Reese got to postpone asking the campus health center about a therapist or if he should have faith in Tom’s intentions and start now.

  Tom had a hard time vouching for his own side on that one.

  In the meantime, arguing politely about therapy kept everyone off the subject of why Tom hadn’t pried away an hour or two to go buy a new laptop as he moved into one of the many campus computer centers on a semi-permanent basis. He kept his earbuds screwed in tight and his eyes on the screen, ignoring anyone else in the room unless it was Reese, bringing him another travel mug of coffee with three shots of espresso and urging Tom to come back to the room and share Reese’s laptop.

  No way. He took enough from Reese already without leaching computer time from him in the busiest week of the semester.

  But logging round-the-clock hours on the opposite end of campus, where he’d discovered the least populated computer center was on the top floor of the science building—yellowing lights, limited heat, and no vending machine in the building kept all but the most desperate or delirious of souls away—meant he’d run out of markers to call in when it came to resisting Reese’s demands for the holiday.

  “Tell you what I want, okay? I want a meal with you and my dad and me all at the same table. I want you to sleep over when you can, even if it’s only for a few hours. I want to fall asleep on the couch watching old movies and let my dad make us pannkaker for breakfast.”

  At Tom’s blank look, he explained. “It’s Swedish for pancakes.”

  Tom tried to picture it and felt the kneejerk denial rising up in him. He wanted to get his own shit done during the break. Christmas was over for him as a holiday, its nostalgic pull gone. Pretty much the opposite. He’d prefer to never think again of the excess and careless waste of years past. Thinking of everything he’d had and trashed or tossed away made him sick to his stomach. How poorly his father had prepared him for anything other than inheriting wealth.

  Reese looked him in the eye. “We make a lot of compromises for each other, you and I. This one isn’t mine.”

  He had a moment of shouting F
uck you! inside his head, raging at this man giving him ultimatums and drawing another fucking line in the sand and telling him to jump. His hands tightened on the back of the chair and the spasm shot up his arms until his shoulders locked and he glared at Reese.

  Who didn’t flinch.

  “Fine.” He could taste the blood in the word as he bit it off. He didn’t even know why he was so angry. The dread had been building in his gut at the idea of going weeks without sleeping next to Reese or sitting next to him, wracking his brains over tax law or watching The Bourne Identity for the twentieth time. He’d grown used to being tethered to the world again, of having someone who would notice his absence if he didn’t show up. Returning to the way he’d lived for the year before re-enrolling at Carlisle this past September seemed impossibly hard.

  He didn’t know if he had it in him any more to hold the walls up that allowed him to function in his own isolated bubble, impervious to any arrows slung his way by the world. The thought that he might not be able to hold it together terrified him.

  Tom withdrew their last week on campus and didn’t know how to stop it. The battles raging inside his head were making him crazy. Between his need to never do anything to hurt Reese and the only way he knew to keep himself functioning—total and stoic isolation—he was wracked with worry that he’d fuck up on both ends.

  Because he was okay with everything that had happened to him. Okay with what he would do in order to survive, to hold it together, to stay at his top-tier college long enough to get a degree that would open doors for him. He might even admit to some pride at how well he’d managed to take control, to nail down each and every detail and master every rule and regulation. For someone who hadn’t known where to find his own Social Security card, much less how to fill out W-4 for a job, he’d done good. He knew that.

  But in public it still burned. The first time he’d told a friend he was going to have to get a job, flushing as he’d asked for a place to stay while he looked for one, the friend had eyed him strangely.

  “Stay in the pool house. We’ll go to Mallorca for the summer and by the time we get back, I’m sure your lawyers will have it all cleared up, okay?”

  Tom, who knew this mess was his life now, had nodded and stopped calling that friend. Or any friend. They didn’t understand and the humiliation of trying to explain it was a blow to the face that he couldn’t put himself through again. Not after the first half dozen times at least.

  Thinking back, he knew that if he’d called Cash, his friend would have tried, although no doubt he too would have been unable to believe, deep down, that it was all gone. All of the money, the properties, the casual ease with which Tom moved through the world. Gone. Tom could hardly believe it himself for months at first. How could anyone else understand?

  He’d stopped expecting them to. He didn’t ask for help anymore. For a while, he’d hung around occasionally with his old crowd, desperate for some human connection with people who knew him, pretending that nothing had changed. But it was too hard to spend time around people who didn’t understand why he couldn’t join a last-minute trip to the slopes in Vermont for the weekend or head to Manhattan for some clubbing. His friends thought him melodramatic and showed their irritation when he backed out of every jaunt.

  He hadn’t spoken the words out loud, “I have nothing,” to anyone other than his father’s lawyer and the bankers who’d explained to him that everything, everything, was frozen and would most likely be lost when the final judgment was made and the civil suits started rolling in.

  Which meant Reese had no way to understand why Tom froze and all of the color drained from his face when Reese handed him a battered laptop with a red bow stuck off-center on the lid on Christmas morning.

  He’d shown up before midnight on Christmas Eve, parking on the street outside the Anders’ house and sending Reese a text message to come and wake him in the morning. He felt awkward waking up Reese’s dad in the middle of the night and knew from experience that it wasn’t cold enough yet to make sleeping in his car unsafe. But it hadn’t been sixty seconds later that Reese was banging on his window, his smile fierce in the cold as he hopped with bare feet on the frozen ground. Tom had already fallen asleep, exhausted after three days straight of driving.

  “Tom! What the hell? Get inside, you lunatic.”

  He’d stopped first to wrap his arms around Reese’s slender torso, burying his face in his neck and holding on tight for what felt like ages, until he jerked back in alarm. Shit. He’d practically been smothering Reese.

  “Sorry,” was all he got out before Reese tugged him back in close and wrapped his hands around Tom’s waist.

  “S’okay. Really.” Reese pressed his forehead against Tom’s sternum before pulling back to look up at him and smile. “It’s okay.”

  Tom kept his arms around Reese loose and easy. Holding him but easing up on the death grip.

  Inside, he’d insisted on sleeping on the couch in the living room, since there wasn’t a guest room. Only the master bedroom and Reese’s old room, which Reese swore his dad would be fine with Tom sharing. Tom refused.

  Reese had narrowed his eyes at that and handed him a pile of bedding. Tom, who couldn’t have said if it was manners or another public declaration of gayness that he ducked out of fear, kissed him goodnight at the bottom of a darkened staircase and stumbled his way through the living room to collapse on the couch. He punched up the pillow under his head, wrapped the scratchy homemade afghan Reese had given him around his shoulders, and decided he’d figure it out when he could think straight.

  In the morning, Reese knocked him flat again with the laptop.

  “It’s not a gift! I know we said we weren’t doing that.” Words spilled out of Reese as Tom sat there, in his boxers with a blanket wrapped around his lap, for Christ’s sake. The sunrise had barely started graying the sky outside the big plate glass window when Reese had snuck down the stairs and squeezed in next to him on the couch. They’d settled in to some serious making out, Tom rolling under Reese until his boy stretched out and covered the length of him, when Reese had jumped up and run over to the Christmas tree looming in the corner. He came bouncing back gleefully, laptop in hand, to a shell-shocked Tom. “I stuck a bow on it because, you know, festive. But it’s nothing. Just a loan, my old laptop from high school. And it’ll probably make you nuts because the S key gets stuck and you have to bang at it. But it’s better than my running coffee across campus to that horrible science building with all the fetuses in formaldehyde because, seriously? Those jars creep me out.”

  Reese ran out of words, but Tom’s hadn’t come back to him yet. He stared at the scratched gray plastic and swallowed hard. Reese’s fingers crept over his.

  “It’s no big deal, okay, Tom?”

  He cleared his throat. Blinked several times. “No, I know.”

  “It’s really not. Don’t be upset.”

  “I’m not.”

  Reese scoffed politely and grabbed his face. He rubbed a thumb under Tom’s eye and then popped his thumb in his mouth. Tom knew he tasted salt.

  “I’m not upset. This is a really nice loan.” Damn. He had to clear his throat again. “I feel kinda bad that I didn’t get you anything.” Trying hard, he dug deep for a wobbly smile. “Could have given you my old high school track shorts. They might even have fit you.”

  “Yeah? You were a skinny ass punk back then?” Reese’s eyes were soft as he leaned forward and wrapped a hand around Tom’s neck, pulling him in for a kiss. “Like me?”

  “You’re not skinny. You’re…slim. Strong.” He sighed and set the laptop on the floor next to the couch, sinking back on the deep cushions and tangling his fingers with Reese. Maybe Reese would lie down too so Tom wouldn’t have to look in his eyes for this part. He got his wish when Reese scooched down and stretched out next to him, head on Tom’s chest.

  Tom kept one hand curled be
hind his head and played with the waistband of Reese’s sweatpants with the other.

  “So how much have you figured out then?” At Reese’s demurral, he groaned and pulled the arm behind his head to cover his eyes. “You can say it.”

  A short sigh warmed the cotton of his T-shirt on his chest.

  “You’re not working for money for books, are you?” Reese picked his words carefully. “Or, not just for books.”

  “No.” He waited, eyes closed.

  “You don’t have anyplace to go when we’re not at Perkins. You’ll be glad to shower here today.”

  He blushed and didn’t say anything, figuring silence was as good as a confirmation. He knew he didn’t smell so great, although he’d done a handful of bathroom pit stop washes with wet paper towels.

  “There isn’t enough money to pay for school, is there?”

  “There isn’t any.”

  “Any…money?”

  He shook his head and hoped Reese could feel it.

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s fifty grand for a year at Carlisle. How much financial aid are you getting?”

  “None.”

  Reese sprang up like a jack in the box. “What? Why not? It’s based on need. I should know. We’re hardly paying anything.” He pried Tom’s arm off his face and shook his chin until he opened his eyes.

  Open eyes didn’t mean he had to look at anyone. There was a nice big window over Reese’s shoulder and he could almost make out the hulking curves of ornamental bushes in the front yard now that the sun was up.

  “You file the FAFSA form in the spring and it covers—”

  “The previous year. Fuck. When your dad—”

  “Wasn’t short on cash, no.”

  “But they have to make exceptions…”

  “Getting myself declared financially independent is actually harder than it sounds. And I waited until too late.”

  He didn’t mention the override exception for parental imprisonment. He could barely explain his reasoning for refusing to accept that advantage to himself. The idea of trying to explain it to Reese, of Reese not understanding why Tom couldn’t do it, made him shudder with anxiety and nausea.