by Liz Jacobs
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Emergency mtg at Arms, u back?
Dex frowned at his phone. What could possibly be considered an emergency on a Sunday evening, especially one that would have to be discussed at the pub?
Wtf is happening?
He was already halfway out the door when Izzy’s reply came.
Jonny’s dads ill, has to go home.
Shit. Shit, double-shit.
It wasn’t a secret Jonny didn’t get on with his parents, and it definitely was sort of a known thing that his dad was a right bastard. Dex could only imagine what was going through the poor guy’s head at the moment. No wonder he’d needed the pub.
Jonny, like Dex, Izzy, and Nat, had spent the past summer in London, but unlike the rest of them, he hadn’t really had a choice in the matter. It also hadn’t been his first. His parents, backwards as they were, couldn’t face the fact that Jonny now lived as Jonny full-time, thriving as the man he’d always known he was.
What shocked Dex was that Jonny’s parents had told him about his dad’s illness at all. Were they expecting him, or was he going there against their wishes? It must be serious for them to have deigned to communicate with their son.
Dex reached the pub soon enough, shucking his jacket halfway and throwing Tosh a wave where he stood behind the bar.
“Corona?” Tosh mouthed.
Dex threw him a thumbs up in answer.
Beer in hand, he found them, Nick included, in the back. Dex received a round of cheers like he was a conquering hero being welcomed back home. He slipped in to sit next to Izzy, slightly embarrassed, and turned his gaze to Jonny.
“Mate, you all right? What’s happened?” he asked.
Jonny looked rumpled. He was usually on par with Steph for most relaxed person to be around, but he looked pale and visibly agitated. Dex noted his glass was nearly empty.
“Dad’s got to have heart surgery. It was a bit of an emergency, I guess. I wouldn’t have found out, but Sophie phoned, told me.” His cousin. The only one in his family who wasn’t utterly made of stone. “Said Mum’s pretty frightened. I’ve got to go, haven’t I?”
By the looks on everyone’s faces, Dex guessed this wasn’t the first time this question was being asked, nor the first time it was answered.
“Mate, it’s your call,” Alex said. “I’m telling you, there’s no wrong choice here.”
“There is though. If I go, Mum might go mental, and who knows what it would do my dad. I mean, what if his heart actually gives out?”
“But what if you don’t?” Steph’s quiet voice cut in.
It continued in this vein. Dex looked around at everyone and noticed their unhappy faces.
No one, however, not even Jonny, looked as pale as Nick.
Dex felt a shock go through him. He barely noticed that Nick had apparently got a haircut sometime between now and the last time Dex had seen him, because Nick looked like a ghost. His glasses hid his eyes a bit, but his hand was rigid around his barely started beer, jaw set in a way that made him look much less delicate than normal. Dex followed Natali’s gaze and saw that she’d noticed, too. They exchanged a look.
“Babe, I’m getting you another,” Natali said to Jonny. “You too, Iz. Dex, help?”
Dex felt awkward leaving the table a second after he got there, but he knew a signal when he heard one.
“Okay, something’s up with Nick,” Nat said as soon as Tosh took their orders. “He was with Izzy when Jonny texted, I guess, and she gathered everyone and brought him along, but he’s been so quiet, and he looks—”
“Like shit,” Dex supplied, even though that wasn’t precisely what he’d been thinking. In fact, if not for his dead-eyed expression and rigidity, Nick would look like a queer fucking wet dream right about now. His haircut was of the short-back-and-sides variety, with curly fringe in the front. A complete change from the crazy Beethoven hair he’d been sporting. Suddenly, his face took on a distinctive shape, and he looked different. Strong. Hot. It brought his cheekbones into stark relief. It also showed his ears, which turned out to be just this side of Dumbo-sized. Dex found them enchanting.
“Yeah,” Nat nodded, leaning her elbows on the bar. “D’you think it’s because Izzy told him Jonny’s trans?”
Unpleasant thought. Dex frowned, thought about it. “God, I hope not, that’d be shit. When did Iz tell him?”
“I mean, I’m guessing when Jonny texted her to tell her what happened. Nick was at ours, Iz had just cut his hair. I wasn’t there, mind, I’m just extrapolating.”
“Where was Jonny?” Jonny was openly out as trans, and sometimes Dex forgot there were people who didn’t realise. Maybe people who didn’t like it. God, he hoped to God Nick wasn’t one of them. How would Izzy have said it?
“With Lance, I think?”
Dex boggled, to which Nat shrugged eloquently. “Why isn’t Lance here, then?” If Lance really was such a good friend to Jonny, he added in his mind.
This time, Nat gave him an are you fucking kidding me? look. It squirmed through Dex. Right. Because he didn’t exactly make it easy on Lance whenever he was around. Nor Jonny, for that matter. Maybe he needed to stop being an arsehole to Lance now. Eurgh.
“All right, message received. But it would be such shit if Nick was having trans panic or whatever.” Who knew, really, if Nick was all right with their collective queerness?
“I know.” Natali cast a glance back at their table. “Who knows. Maybe it’s daddy issues.”
“That would be better?”
Nat grinned. “Well, more socially acceptable to our kind.”
“Yes, our kind adores some daddy issues.”
“Here you go, guys.” Tosh sent their glasses sliding across the bar surface.
“Cheers.” Nat threw down some bank notes, and Dex followed her back to the table with no better plan than to do his best to talk Jonny through whatever decision he was going to make and possibly to suss out just what the fuck was bothering Nick.
Dex found himself seated next to Nick. He hadn’t been this close to him since the club. Somehow, in all the time Nick had spent with them, Dex had managed to avoid just this situation. Now he knew why it had been a good idea to do so, and hated himself for it. He wasn’t here to beat himself up about how good Nick smelled this close up, or too feel a tiny stab of disappointment when Nick subtly moved his thigh so it was no longer touching Dex’s. Or to be so keenly aware of just how still Nick was next to him that he missed the conversation entirely.
Dex was here for Jonny.
“Look, all I’m saying is,” Steph said, “you may have some really shitty times when going back home, but if something dreadful happens, which it won’t, but if.” She trailed off. Jonny looked like misery itself. And to think, Dex had been moping about his own perfectly normal family visit.
Christ.
“You’ve got to take care of yourself, too, though,” Izzy put in. “What would be worse for you, you know?”
Jonny nodded glumly, took a deep breath. “Not going. Not going would be worse,” he finally said, voice quiet and resigned. “If I catch the early train tomorrow, I could be there before they take him to surgery, I think.”
“Will you be able to get to the hospital?”
“Soph would get me, she said. She’s got a car now.”
“Can you stay with her?”
Jonny nodded. A silence descended. When Dex dared to tilt his head Nick’s way, his locs caught and rustled against Nick’s shoulder. Nick jumped. Dex leaned in, whispered, “Mate. You all right?”
Nick turned his face and looked Dex in the eye. This close up, Dex could see that Nick’s eyes were redder than normal.
“I’m sorry, I should go,” Nick said, quiet as a dormouse, making no move to leave. “I’m not.” He cleared his throat and swept his gaze across the table before returning to face him. Dex didn’t think anyone was watching them. “It’s nothing, I promise, but I just—”
“What?�
�
“It’s just—well, the thing is—” Nick’s voice all but disappeared. Against his better judgment, Dex leaned in until he felt Nick’s breath on his ear, hoping it was encouragement enough to finally spill whatever the hell was happening inside him. “Ugh, look. My dad died. It was a heart attack. I guess I’m not over it.”
The words had been barely a whisper, but they rocked through Dex. Fucking hell. Daddy issues, indeed. Dex couldn’t have stopped himself from reacting if he’d tried.
“Shit. Nick, I’m sorry.” He did, at least, keep his voice quiet. Even with that, he could tell someone was watching them. He tried to look Nick in the eye, but Nick had trained his gaze on the table. A muscle in his jaw was jumping.
Dex glanced over at Jonny, saw that he was being comforted by Steph and Alex. “D’you need to get out of here?”
Nick nodded, then shook his head. “I can’t, that’s so … I mean, this isn’t my—” He broke off, clearly frustrated.
“It’s not rude, man, you’re a second away from a panic attack,” Dex said, maybe a bit more sharply than he’d meant to. “You could use a bit of fresh air.”
He had no idea why he was so insistent. He only knew that Nick was rigid with fright and God knew what else, and Dex could maybe help. And Nick had confided in him. That had to count for something.
Nick finally nodded, a single jerky move.
Dex slipped from the booth to let Nick out. Nick got up laboriously, as if his limbs weren’t obeying him. Dex exchanged another glance with Nat, saw the question on her face, shook his head.
“Nick’s not feeling well, so I’m actually gonna walk him home.” A stupid decision, but a decision. “Jonny, mate.” Jonny glanced at him, looking positively exhausted. Ugh. “I’ll see you at home, yeah? Pillow talk?” Jonny nodded, gave a tiny smile. “Pillow talk” was what they perversely called their late-night chat sessions on the sofa in front of the muted telly. Dex had no idea which of them had started it, but the name had stuck. He waved good-bye to everyone else, avoided Izzy’s questioning gaze, and caught Nick’s.
“C’mon,” he said. “I could use some air, too.” They walked out together.
9
Nick all but burst out of the pub and then, much to his humiliation, doubled over, dry heaving. God, this hadn’t happened in years. His face burned, but he couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t stop it. His heart was going to rip straight through his ribcage and bleed out onto the rainy street. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Breathe.”
A steady hand on his back, a voice in his ear. Nick’s throat dry-clicked. He shook his head, I can’t, I can’t breathe.
“C’mon, you can do it.”
Nick was vaguely aware of Dex crouching down next to him, his hand moving up and down on his back. He hated it and needed it at the same time. Hated that he needed it. Needed it like air.
Slowly, painfully slowly, his breathing evened out, and he no longer felt like he was going to vomit. His heart pitter-pattered inside his chest still, fluttering like a hummingbird. He felt his pulse in his ears, in his fingers, in the bottoms of his feet. When he swallowed again, he could do it without a cobwebby feel in his throat. He straightened up slowly and closed his eyes. Dex’s hand still soothed his back, and Nick had no idea how to make him stop. He was aware of trembling.
If the ground could open up and swallow him whole, he’d have welcomed it.
“Fuck.” He breathed through the last of it. His face, when he touched it, was clammy and warm. His shirt stuck to his back under his jacket, and he shook the jacket off, let it drop, felt the cold rain on his arms. He took off his glasses and buried his face in his hands. Street noises filtered in. Dex was no longer touching his back. He was quiet next to Nick, but present. Too present.
Nick didn’t know how long they stood there like that. If it had been up to him, he’d have stood there long enough to turn to stone and for Dex to walk away, but in reality, he couldn’t just slump like an idiot forever. Maybe everyone else was about to file out, and he’d humiliated himself enough for one night. It writhed in his belly, replacing the panic. At least he hadn’t actually vomited. Small favors.
“I’m okay,” he lied, letting his hands drop to his sides. Without his glasses, Dex was a little blurry beside him, but Nick could still tell he looked concerned.
“Okay.” Dex’s voice was careful, quiet.
Nick shivered, the cold finally seeping through, and bent to pick up his jacket, only to notice it hanging from Dex’s arms. “Oh. Th-thank you.”
“Not a problem. D’you want to walk?”
Nick slipped his rain-spattered glasses back on, put on his jacket, and nodded. They trudged together under the street lamps. Nick attempted not to think by counting numbers and letters on the passing cars’ license plates, slipping into the old habit like a comfortable bed.
He had to apologize. To everyone, but especially to Jonny, and to Dex, too. What they must think of him, derailing a night about their friend. Dex had barely even been there ten minutes when he had to go and babysit Nick.
He swallowed and made himself talk. “I’m sorry.” His voice was almost steady. He set his jaw. “I haven’t … This hasn’t happened in a while. I wasn’t expecting it, and you really didn’t have to—”
“It’s okay,” Dex said. “Really, promise.”
Nick nodded, not believing him for a second but trying to appreciate the lie. “I can probably make it back by myself.” He was aware that his attempt at a smile most likely looked wrong, but it was the best he could do.
“Don’t mind a walk. It’s nice.”
It was drizzling and freezing, but Nick shut up. They crossed two intersections before Dex pointed to a darkened park nearby. “Want to?”
Nick squinted, made out a weird sort of sculpture garden. He realized with desperation that he didn’t want to go back to his dorm. “Okay.”
“Cool.”
Dex led the way. The street lamps didn’t quite reach inside the park, the trees protecting it from view. The sculptures turned out to be a set of oddly shaped colorful benches, smooth like water-weathered stone. When Nick sat down on a blue one, it propelled him backward and he yelped, just managing to hang on.
“You okay?” Dex turned around. “Oh, is that one of them spring things?”
Nick righted himself, his humiliation complete. “Apparently.”
Nick didn’t miss his grin. He ducked his head and sighed.
“It’s okay, you know,” Dex said a moment later. He, Nick noticed, didn’t fall ass over elbow when he sat down on his own rocking bench. The thought must have shown on his face, because Dex said, “You tested it for me.”
“You’re welcome.” Gingerly, Nick pushed one foot off the ground, and the bench swayed beneath him. Now that he was expecting it, it was sort of soothing. Like a swing, or a rocking chair. The rain didn’t reach them under the cover of trees, and his glasses slowly dried as he sat there, rocking. The back of his head was cold. Izzy’s haircut left him virtually shorn in places he wasn’t used to being exposed. He still had no idea why he’d let her, but he was actually pretty pleased with the result. And it had been free. And then Izzy got the text from Natali, and Izzy had dragged him along, and…
He looked down. His shoes were wet, small blades of grass sticking to the tips. It wasn’t that he never thought about his dad. He thought about him all the time. But he’d relegated him to the back of his mind, a place it was safe for his memory to inhabit without rendering Nick a complete and utter mess. Because when the mess came out, it came out in a vicious wave of this.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” Dex’s voice cut into his thoughts, and Nick looked up. Dex didn’t look like he was humoring him, but the offer still made Nick feel strange. “I mean, you don’t have to,” Dex added. “But maybe it’d help?”
Nick was aware of two things. One was that he very much never wanted to talk about this with anyone ever again, and the second was that he probably owed
Dex an explanation at the very least. Dex had been deliberately kind, which Nick couldn’t bring himself to push away, no matter the extent to which he had no idea how to deal with it.
He cleared his throat, squeezed his eyes shut for a minute, and said, “I haven’t reacted like this in a while, like … with a panic attack, I guess.”
“How long has it been?”
“Five years,” Nick supplied automatically, then looked up. “Sorry, that’s—since he died. And I guess about a year or so since I’ve done this.”
He’d just turned fifteen. It had been a muggy sort of summer day, no breeze. He was working at a Dairy Queen at the time. He had been just about to go on his break, brooding about something stupid, when Zoyka walked through the door, the bell clanging to announce her presence. He had never seen her like that before. Not once since. Her eyes, always heavy-lidded and big—she had beautiful eyes—were red and shadowed underneath. Her hair was all over the place. Nick still remembered the way one stray curl fluttered with the force of the AC blowing in through the vent over her head. That’s what he was looking at when she told him that something had happened with Dad. Nick hadn’t even taken off his apron. He’d been thinking about his best friend. Thinking about how he hadn’t seen Josh for a week now that Josh had a girlfriend.
“I’m sorry.” Dex’s voice was quiet.
Nick nodded, taking in a shaky breath. “Yeah, I guess talk of dads and hearts and … You know.”
“Yeah. I mean … yeah.”
When Nick glanced up, Dex gave him a small dimpled smile. He returned it, but it felt brittle on his face, a trepidation of muscles that felt unused. Even in semidarkness, he saw the questions Dex wanted to ask. He was grateful Dex wasn’t asking them at the same time as answers clamored to spill out, words he hadn’t said in years. Maybe the darkness made it easy. Only his mom and Zoyka knew it all. Lena, too. She’d been there. Before they became anything else, they’d been friends. Two immigrant kids, clinging to each other, united by language and misery.