by Edie Danford
Nick made a surprisingly good nurse—cold compresses, icy popsicles and warm hands and warmer kisses—but my extreme itchiness and my extreme neediness to have him give me more than gentle kisses and careful strokes, made me a crap patient.
“Your ass is beautiful even when it’s all bumpy, babe,” he’d said on Wednesday afternoon. “But I’m gonna keep away from it until I’m sure it’s me and not the bumps that are making you scream when I touch you.”
Yeah. That one made me pout. But he had one paper to start, one to finish and an exam to prepare for, so I languished in my tower alone for a couple days with my antihistamines and Epsom salts.
By Friday afternoon our texts had gotten out-of-bounds raunchy and my hives had almost vanished. Nick planned to finish one of his papers by five. I told him to get it done by four and hoof his hot ass over to my place for fucking, wine and cheese, in that order.
At four sharp I had cheese softening on a plate, some Malbec airing on the counter and my dick hardening by the minute.
Four twenty, four thirty, hell, even five, I was only semi-antsy. But by five fifteen, I was texting him with pictures I would’ve been embarrassed to send just a short hour earlier.
When he finally texted me back he didn’t even make note of the embarrassing pics. The shortness of his response was also sort of embarrassing: Dealing with a change in plans. I’ll check in later.
At eight, after having eaten most of the cheese, all of the fancy crackers and consuming more than my share of the wine, I was feeling decidedly irked. And really horny. So I could either jack off and pass out on the couch. Or I could schlep into town and track down my errant knight. If I had to finish his goddamn paper myself in order to get my hands on him, I’d do it and do it happily.
Jacking off and passing out on the couch sounded depressingly like the last few days. Tracking down Nick sounded proactive.
Exchanging my lounge pants—Nick’s faves—for jeans, a soft button-down and a jacket, I left the tower. Wouldn’t do any good to drive because parking was going to be insane on campus.
It was a big party weekend—Homecoming. A lot of the alums who showed up went wilder than the students, shedding their corporate togs and banishing their briefcases to bacchanal with the best of them. One of the frats put on a huge bonfire and, as I got closer to the Green, I could see a hellacious glow beginning to rise over frat row.
When I got to the library, Nick wasn’t in the study carrel where he’d been camped for the last couple days—he’d sent pictures and a sexy description (unbelievable but Nick could make even studying seem hot) to me.
I chatted with a couple people at the library café—probably the most loser place on campus to be on Homecoming Eve—even though I didn’t feel like chatting and, after sending Nick another text—this one a terse, Where the hell are you?—I headed to Vegan House.
It was damn bizarre that I had felt more at ease in the deserted café than I did walking down frat row. The scene was so fricking familiar, from the groups of hooting guys bouncing up against groups of laughing girls, to the scent of beer and pine trees and perfume, to the righteous sound system at Fen House blasting a mix from wide-open windows. But I felt no urge to linger, no need for a beer or ten, no desire to seek out fun with hundreds of happy boys and girls.
I wanted Nick.
The scene inside Vegan House was slightly more mellow—weed being the drug of choice over alcohol. I squinted through the haze and was happy to see Kelsey’s spiked hair on the porch-side’s edge of the crowd.
“Hey, Kelse,” I said, brushing my hand against her tattooed forearm.
She sent me a blissed-out smile. Her arm was draped over the shoulder of a gorgeous girl with shiny red lips and even redder hair. Unfortunately the girl’s eyes were bloodshot enough to match the scheme. She didn’t seem to register my presence.
“Joshua,” Kelsey said, nodding. “How the fuck are ya?”
“Okay,” I said. I got right to the point and asked, “Have you seen Nick?”
Kelsey raised her brows slowly. The amount of blue eye makeup she wore made the brow-raising process look surreally like birds taking off in a dusky sky. Of course, her eyes were bloodshot too and it kind of ruined the effect—or maybe that could be a sunset sort of theme? I returned her smile and waited patiently for her answer.
“Uh….”
A waited a few beats, several beats. Long enough for a verse of an extremely dullsville Mumford & Sons song to hurt my ears.
I waved my hand in front of her face. “You in there, Kelse?” I asked.
She jerked and her smile came back to life. She dropped her arm from the girl’s shoulders. “Yeah!” she said. “Nick. Nick is in his room for once. With a very hot blond.” Her bird eyebrows flapped their wings.
My own eyebrows shot up. A thread of tension cinched the nerves at the back of my neck. “For real?”
“Yep. Arrived from L.A. this afternoon, I guess.”
L.A.? Pete. Must be Pete…
He’d decided to show up this weekend, after all? Weird, because I thought Nick’s plan had been to tell him spring would work better. So had Nick changed his mind and not told me? Or had Pete blown off Nick’s suggestion?
I snapped back to awareness when Kelsey put her hand on my arm. “Don’t look so worried,” she said as I met her bloodshot gaze. “Dude’s twinkalicious deluxe, but you’ve got him beat in the brains and class departments by a gazillion miles.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Okay. Good to know.” My mouth was dry and tasted a little sour from the wine I’d downed earlier. I looked around the hazy room, wondering if I should fortify myself with a beer before I sought out Nick and his twinkalicious guest.
“Go on up.” Kelsey nudged me again and tipped her head toward the stairs. “I’m sure you won’t be interrupting anything.”
Her reassurances were oddly un-reassuring. I nodded and said, “Catch you later.” Then I hoofed it up the stairs.
As I started down the hall to Nick’s room, I heard voices coming from the direction of his door. Loud voices. I paused a few steps away.
A voice I didn’t recognize—more high-pitched than Nick’s and definitely more worked up than Nick seemed capable of—said, “Then why didn’t you just tell the truth? Jesus! How long were you going to keep this from me?”
Oh shit. Sounded bad. And it sounded private.
I knew I should say something or knock—loudly—or leave. But my heart—which had started to race as I ran up the stairs—decided to lodge in my throat and my feet felt like they’d been glued to the floor.
“I don’t want to go over this again and again,” Nick was saying in a low, angry voice. “I don’t need to tell you every fucking thing that happens in my life. And I was going to tell you, but on my own time—”
“Before I got on a plane for nine hours would have been an appropriate time to tell me you have a goddamn boyfriend.”
Wow. Not good. I stepped forward, raised my hand and rapped on the painted wood with my knuckles.
They didn’t hear my knock because Nick was shouting now. “I told you not to come! For chrissakes, Pete!”
“You said you were busy with school work. Not busy fucking Josh-fucking-Pahlke.”
Pete’s voice held the rotten ache of jealousy. I still couldn’t move. It was as if the shit I was hearing had snagged my skin and if I took a step in either direction I would bleed all over the place.
“It fucking hurts to find out this way,” Pete was yelling. “To think I was going to be able to spend time with you—to cheer you up for twenty-four hours to take your mind off all this college crap—only to find out you’re living in some kind of fantasy—”
“God! Enough with the drama already. I can fuck who I want, when I want—”
“Nobody’s saying you can’t, Nicky! Just be honest—”
I needed the whole story. Now. I stepped up to the door. I knocked—loudly this time. “Nick,” I called. “It’s me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Josh
THERE WAS TOTAL silence for a few seconds. Then Nick whispered something that sounded horribly like, “Get dressed right fucking now!”
The door opened. Not all the way. Nick stepped into the narrow space. He looked as sick as I felt. “Josh.” He ran a hand over his pale face. “Sorry. I was about to call…”
Yeah. Right. I swallowed and said, “What the hell is going on?”
He cast a quick glance over his shoulder and then looked back at me. “Pete showed up unexpectedly.” He rolled his eyes, like, can you believe this? and then he said out loud in a hoarse voice, “I’m really, really sorry I left you hanging this afternoon.”
The thread cinching my shoulder muscles loosened slightly. I found his super-annoyed expression to be weirdly comforting. He was still Nick. He hadn’t become someone else over the last few hours. The tension in his stiff shoulders and tight jaw, the tee and the flannel shirt he was wearing, his jeans, his boots—he hadn’t been lounging around all loose and half-naked (like he did with me), at least not recently. His friend was in town and apparently his friend was a pain in the ass. And apparently there was some intense history between them that I needed to know.
“Should I wear the suede or the leather jacket?” Pete’s voice said from behind him. “Is it still raining? If it’s raining I can’t do the suede. And why don’t you open the fucking door so I can meet your goddamn boyfriend for real?”
Nick was staring at me, one shoulder slumped against the doorjamb, his features completely frozen with something that looked unendurable, his eyes a hard, dark brown. “Shoot me now,” he deadpanned in a soft voice.
Yeah…there was my favorite smartass. I felt laughter gurgling up from my chest; could’ve been relief, giddiness, fear, love—I don’t know what. I heaved a big breath and put my hand on his shoulder, drawing him in for a hard, brief hug. Just the familiar scent of him made me feel tons better.
I put my arm around him. “Hey,” I said, stepping into the room, keeping Nick tight against me. “You must be Pete. I’m Josh—”
The laughter that had bubbled up a few seconds ago busted out of my mouth. Nick’s small room looked like a boutique had exploded in it. Clothes were everywhere—rainbows of fabric on the bed, the dresser, the desk. Mostly they were pouring forth from three large, fancy designer bags that were taking up almost all the floor space.
I finally focused on the guy standing in the middle of it all. Pete.
A dude worthy of a double take. Or two. Maybe it was because I’d been immersed in the Ellery scene for the last several weeks and my eyes were used to college student style. Also, Vermont was an outdoorsy place full of outdoorsy, informal people. Warm and serviceable frequently won out over fashion.
Pete was utterly SoCal—I’d been around prime ski resorts enough to recognize the type—from his Pacific-blue eyes to his blond, highlighted, tousled hair to his perfectly tanned and sculpted (and bare) chest, to his artfully distressed jeans, to his beige suede low-heeled boots.
“Hi, Josh. Pete Schulz.” He did a walk-glide thing and went up on his toes to kiss my cheek. I caught a whiff of nice cologne before he pulled away. “Great to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you, I feel like I know you already.” He winked at me and then he winked at Nick. Nick’s features were pale and tight, his lips thin, as if the harsh words he’d hollered a few moments ago had drilled the life out of them.
“I’ve heard about you too,” I told Pete. It was the truth—I had heard more about Pete than I’d heard about Nick’s other friends. But what Pete had said about hearing a lot about me didn’t exactly fit with the argument I’d overheard. The way he looked me over carefully was also a bit freaky—not a standard checkout or a judgmental once-over like I might’ve expected. His gaze seemed friendly, familiar. As if he did, in fact, know me.
“All good, I hope.” Pete let a laugh rip, and “rip” was absolutely the way to describe it—the sound hit my ears with the same effect as a jammed paper shredder. His eyes were scrunching, his cheeks creasing, his white teeth flashing. Laughing for him was apparently a full-body event. I joined in. Hard not to. It was a very good laugh once you got over the shock.
Nick pulled away from me. “Pete,” he said, “put a damn shirt on and head downstairs. You can entertain yourself at the party for a while, can’t you? I need to talk with Josh.”
Pete scowled, but he knelt and began rifling through one of the bags. “I could probably survive a few minutes with that crunchy crowd.” He selected a shirt that looked floaty and white. “But I’m hoping your jock boyfriend will be able to show me where the prime jock parties are happening tonight.” He stood, put on the sheer shirt—I could see his nipples through the silky fabric—and smiled at me. “If Nicky has a jock, I want one too.”
I laughed again. I couldn’t exactly tell from his coy tone if he was serious or not.
Nick muttered, “Jesus Christ, save us all,” walked to the door and opened it wide. “We’ll see you in a few.”
Pete made a show of donning a short, fitted biker jacket—smooth leather, not suede. When he walked by me he made a kissy face that was surprisingly cute (considering it was a kissy face) and he left the room, leaving a cloud of pricy-smelling cologne behind him.
Nick stepped into the hall, one hand still on the doorknob, and mumbled something to him I couldn’t understand. Whatever it was, it made Pete laugh again and I smiled as Nick came back into the room and shut the door with a relieved-sounding smack.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah. He’s…” Nick heaved a sigh. “Something else.”
“Yeah. Well. I definitely have a few friends who would qualify for that term.”
“He didn’t used to be so obsessed.” He gestured at some of the piles of crap on the floor before stepping over them and sitting on the edge of the bed. He didn’t look good. Dark crescents under his eyes, and now his skin was looking more than just pale. He had a grayish-greenish cast. “Or, who knows, maybe he was always this way and I didn’t notice. Maybe the way I see him has changed.”
I sat beside him. He tensed when the mattress sagged and jostled his hip into mine. “I’m sorry, honey,” I said, putting my hand up and under the fall of hair at his neck. “It sucks to realize you might be growing apart from someone you were close to. But it doesn’t have to be a forever thing. Could be a phase you get over in a few weeks or a few months…” I rubbed slowly. “Distance can make things weird.” The muscles along his upper shoulders and the sides of his neck felt like they’d been replaced with stone. I worked my thumb against one of the lumps.
After a few moments, when it was obvious I wasn’t making any headway with excavating his tension, I dropped my hand and kissed his cheek. He smelled great so I nuzzled my nose into his neck.
He sighed, making a small noise that could’ve been pain or pleasure. For a happy moment I thought he’d turn his face and I could kiss him for real, but he pulled away from me and stood. “I need to tell you something.”
His tone was as gray and pinched as his face. “Um, okay. Sounds serious.”
He didn’t say anything. He began stuffing random clothes into Pete’s three bags and then shoving the bags close to the wall. He was moving without his usual grace—jerky, like someone was controlling him with strings, making him move when he didn’t want to. The wine and cheese I’d consumed earlier began to gurgle in my gut again.
“Pete and I…we…”
Acid burned my throat. I stood. I didn’t know if I was ready to hear this—
“We grew up in Lake Woods. Illinois. You know. We went to the same high school that you went to.”
My knees collapsed and my ass planted on the mattress again. I swallowed. “For real?” A gust of laughter pushed its way past the burn in my throat. It was a weird revelation. I mean why the heck was I just now hearing we were from the same town? But, God, it could’ve been so much worse.
“Yeah.” His expression was st
ill rocky. Maybe the really bad shit was yet to come?
“So you guys must’ve started right after I graduated, right?”
“Um, yeah. Well, Pete’s a year older. But we knew who you were. As you likely remember…” He cleared his throat and fiddled with the suede jacket draped over his desk chair. “You were a pretty well-known guy at LWHS.”
I shrugged. “I guess. A lot of that was because of my parents. Hard to be a Pahlke in that town and not have people know you.”
“You had your own accomplishments. Ones that guys like Pete and I took notice of.”
“That’s…um. That’s flattering. Not sure I deserved any admiration—”
“You deserved it.” He sat beside me. “I mean, I dug you not just because of all this.” He squeezed my thigh as his gaze traveled down my body. “I respected you because you were smart and out and so confident about it. It was inspiring.”
My cheeks were burning. Wow. How weird was it that Nick—a guy who inspired me every day—had admired me from afar in high school?
“I’m glad you were inspired. But God, Nick, I had just as many—probably more—issues than most kids in high school. Maybe I was just better at covering them up.”
He nodded. “Maybe. I had a really rough time in school—especially in middle school when cliques were forming and kids started judging, and I felt like I’d never find a way to fit in anywhere. I know now it probably had more to do with my personality and whatever than with being gay. But back then it helped to know there were gay kids—guys like you—who didn’t struggle as much.”
I put my arms around him and held him tight. My throat was thick and it was hard to breathe. I’d heard plenty of stories—horror stories—about what kids like Nick might have suffered. The darkness in his eyes and the tightness in his voice told me his “rough time” had likely been pretty damn rough. Made me fucking sick to think of Nick walking the halls of the schools I’d known so well getting bullied, treated like shit, feeling small.