by Liz Jacobs
Dex leaned in closer. It was odd, having a real-life person who could have an actual, like, informed opinion on this right there in front of them. He wished Lance were here to listen. It was tedious hearing him spew his revolutionary bullshit from his middle-class white boy mouth.
“I mean,” Nick said. “I don’t know that I can be offended. It’s a bit simplistic, I guess. My parents lived through Communism. I didn’t.”
“What was it like, d’you know?”
“Well … My mom used to talk about the food shortages, or like … sometimes there wouldn’t be toilet paper available. Like. In the town where they lived.”
“What, are you serious?” Izzy’s eyes widened. “Sorry, that was well rude, wasn’t it?”
Nick laughed and shook his head. “It’s pretty crazy even to me at this point. But yeah, like … I guess relatives would come visiting from another city and bring toilet paper with them. Or if there was a meat shortage, we’d bring it from our city. That kind of stuff.”
“But it wasn’t like that when you were growing up?” Dex asked, quickly scanning the bar for patrons. Bah. “Wait, hang on, I wanna hear this—” He trailed off, taking orders from five separate people, mixing cocktails, pulling pints, all the while straining to hear what Nick and Izzy were talking about. He was curious. He’d never been anywhere apart from, like, France and Portugal for hols with his parents and Al. Russia always felt so forbidding to him, so mysterious. Brutal, in some ways. When he looked at Nick, the word brutal seemed the farthest thing from his mind.
+
Izzy twisted in her seat to make sure Nick was out of earshot as he went to the loos. “Right. You are into this boy!”
Dex quickly scrolled through the ways he could dispute this but found none. Eurgh. “I hate that you know me so well.”
Izzy gave him a look that could only be described as pitying. “Babe. You’re not being very subtle.”
Oh God. “How not subtle?”
“Weeeeell. You’ve done a full-on one-eighty on him, for one. You also get this look on your face, like…” She pulled a face that was presumably a close imitation of Dex’s besotted expression. It was excruciating.
“No, God, Iz, please tell me you’re exaggerating. D’you think he knows?”
Izzy laughed. “No, babe, you’re totally safe. If anything, he’d be the last person to figure out you fancy him.”
Dex beseeched her with a look to be honest.
“I swear to God!” She raised her hands. “Seriously, can you see Nick, of all people, sitting there, thinking, golly-gee-whiz, I think that gorgeous, confident Dexter quite fancies me?”
When put like that, she had a point. “All right. Fine. But oh God, I have got to get past this. It’s insane. It won’t go anywhere.”
“Whatever. Anyway, you working till close tonight?”
“You know how it is. Bills, bills, bills.”
“That a yes?”
He took an order, began pulling yet another pint. “Yes, Isabel.”
“All right, Christ, don’t bite me head off. I think we should—” She twisted around, looked in the direction of the loos, then turned back towards him, leaning in. “We should take Nick back to ours after this, if he’s up for it. What’d you think?”
Dex shrugged, taking the Stella guy’s money. “If you think he’d be into it, I suppose?”
He was saved from having to listen to her by a pink-haired girl who sidled up to the other end of the bar. He went to do his job.
11
Nick blinked. He was feeling good. Really, really good. He was curled up in a chair in Dex and Izzy’s living room with a beer, watching them going back and forth on whether or not Dex was being too hard on his brother. At some point, Jonny had come back and joined them, all three housemates scrunched up next to each other on the couch.
“I’m not saying he’s a total pain in the arse,” Dex was saying. “Just that he is currently a pain in my arse.”
“He’s having trouble adjusting, Dexter,” Izzy countered. She wasn’t entirely sober, so adjusting came out sounding slurred. It was pretty cute. Nick took another sip, then told himself to chill out with that. He was riding a good sort of buzz he didn’t want to tip over into messy drunk territory. He had to watch it.
Jonny was currently eyeballing his housemates with typical Jonny-like amusement. He seemed to be doing a bit better, Nick thought. Nick was glad he was back, anyway. He wanted to catch him at some point to apologize for real, but he couldn’t decide if it would just make all the crap float back up to the surface. He was chewing the thought over when Izzy called out his name.
“Hmmm?”
Izzy giggled. “You’re all dreamy over there. I was saying, don’t you think Dex is being unfair with Al? He’s just having a difficult time, and this one here believes that if he doesn’t talk about his shit, he won’t get his problems solved. But, like. Al’s a bloody fourteen-year-old.”
Nick took a moment to come up with a careful response. He still had difficulty navigating what people expected him to say and what was the best thing to say and would he stick his foot in his mouth if he opened it? Probably was always a safe bet. “What is he adjusting to?”
Dex opened his mouth, but Izzy was already on it. “Dex’s parents just moved to a posh new place where it’s basically all white people, and poor Al is basically all moody and mute teenager coz he’s one of, like, three people like him in the whole school.” She paused. “Do I have that right?”
Dex rolled his eyes and nodded. He addressed the next bit to Nick. “Essentially. The problem for me is that I can’t help him if he doesn’t fucking talk to me. He used to talk to me all the time. I couldn’t get him to shut up.”
Nick nodded. His beer was sitting heavily in his belly, thrumming through his veins. He’d forgotten to eat, and his tongue had loosened. “That’s hard. Adjusting to a new school can be hard.”
“Oh shit. I’m such an idiot. Of course you’d know.”
“I mean, everyone starts a new school at some point, don’t they?”
“Well, yeah, but like … You had it extra special, I guess?”
“Still does,” Jonny piped up. Everyone turned to look at him. “He’s in a different country again, Iz. Duh.”
Nick gave him a smile. He couldn’t begin to describe how different this was to ten years ago.
“Well, he’s all right now, isn’t he?” Izzy said. “Right, Nick?”
He nodded, then caught Dex’s watchful gaze. A jolt shot through his belly. It wasn’t nerves, but it felt like nerves. A fluttering hot wave, there and gone. “Yeah. It’s better.”
“What was it like, then?” Dex asked. He had this way of talking that felt like he was whispering directly into Nick’s ear—something Nick really, really wished he had never experienced, because it still made his toes curl to remember. He’d been barely aware of it at the time, but the sense memory had stayed.
“What was what like?” he asked.
“You know…” Dex waved his Corona-holding arm in an expansive sort of gesture. “Adjusting to an American school, new country, all that.”
He never knew how to answer this question, because the option of answering honestly seemed nonexistent. Nobody wanted to hear that shit. He gave his usual. “It sucked, I guess. But it got better.”
Dex narrowed his eyes at him. Izzy said, “Well, that’s detailed.” Then smiled, as if to cover up the remark. “So, what helped? Looking for advice, here, you understand. Since Dex won’t ask.”
Nick’s family had been his salvation. He would sit in his last period, look out the window, and watch the school buses line up one by one with a sort of desperation that felt like grasping onto a lifeline. He would picture the front door of their apartment, his mom and Zoyka already waiting on the other side of it. A place where he could speak and be understood. A place where he didn’t feel ridiculous just for existing. “I guess my situation was different.” He paused. “We were all of us in it together. Do
es that make sense?” An island of four plopped down in the middle of a sea of hostile forces. “But my sister helped the most. We stuck together.”
He’d never actually said that much to anyone, before. He and Zoyka had been pretty close growing up, even with him being the annoying little brother. But it wasn’t until they had no one else that they became Kol’ka i Zoyka, a two-headed unit. Their first place in the States, they’d shared a bedroom and had bunk beds. Nick had the top bunk, and late at night, after their parents had already gone to bed, they’d talk in the dark. Zoyka would extend her hand against the wall, and he would grab it. Another lifeline.
“Hmmm.” Izzy made a meaningful face at Dex, who tugged at her until she was curled up with one arm wrapped up around his middle. Jonny twisted until his feet were planted under her butt. Talk about a multiheaded unit. Nick had never had that kind of physical closeness with anyone, not even Lena. And the idea of draping himself over Dex’s body like a blanket seemed laughable. He had barely held himself together when Dex touched his hand.
“Look, I get it. It’s just hard to do when I’m here. And he’s there. And Mum and Dad work so much. I just can’t be that much help through a phone, you know?”
“Just check in with him,” Nick said before he could stop himself. “And listen, if he talks. Don’t offer advice. Just listen, you know?”
His palms felt on fire for no good reason at all, but his reward was Dex giving him a smile—a small but still blinding sort of smile that dimpled his cheeks—and saying, “Cheers, mate. I’m gonna try.”
Nick smiled shyly back and took another sip of his drink.
The familiar buzzing of a phone broke the silence, and Jonny extricated his phone from under his butt. His frown turned to a hint of a smile, all warmth and light.
“What’s up?” Izzy asked.
Jonny looked up and shook his head, quickly slipping his phone back. “Nothing, just a text.”
Nick could tell Izzy was on the verge of prying, but stopped herself.
+
Nick woke up with a hammering heart to a completely unfamiliar scene. He was … well, he was in a room. He knew he was in a room, but whose room? Bits and pieces of the night before began slotting into his foggy brain. Izzy falling asleep on top of Dex. Nick swaying on his feet as he tried and failed to put on his shoes. Jonny putting a warm hand on his arm to steady him and saying, Mate, why don’t you just stay here? Nick being led up the stairs, still drunkenly protesting that it was too much of an imposition. Nick being gently deposited onto a bed—whose bed, he had no idea—then. Well, then he probably passed out.
He screwed his eyes shut, then opened them again. Something was digging into his hip, and a cursory pat of his hand revealed it to be the phone in his pocket. He moved his legs. Yep, still wearing jeans. He shifted, and his body groaned in response. Great. He hadn’t meant to drink that much, but Jonny had kept them well supplied until the wee hours of the morning. Nick was pretty sure he remembered Jonny pouring wine. A lot of wine.
He sat up and winced. Okay, so not too bad. Just a bit of a pounding in his left temple. Probably nothing a glass of water or two couldn’t fix. Then he looked around himself. The small room was pretty sparse, furniture-wise. A dresser on the left, a desk to the right of it. The bed was big, though, and soft, covered in so many pillows Nick was surprised he hadn’t suffocated in the night. Giant swaths of gauzy purple fabric hung across the ceiling with Christmas lights lining the edges. It all looked very dreamy.
He grabbed his glasses, ecstatic to discover them on the nightstand, and squinted at a poster over the desk. PJ Harvey. Then his gaze caught on a few small pictures tacked to the wall next to the bed, and he looked closer. Natali and Izzy. Natali, Izzy, Dex, and Jonny. Natali and a girl Nick had never met before. Possibly a girlfriend. Natali and an older woman who looked just like her, wearing a sari.
Looked like Nick had been deposited in Natali’s room.
God, what time was it? His phone was almost dead at 5 percent, but it did manage to tell him it was ten-fifteen in the morning and that he had an email from his mom and a series of texts from Zoyka waiting for him. He shoved it back into his pocket and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. It really was a very nice room, and he wouldn’t have minded sleeping there a little longer, but he had a monumental need to pee and an even bigger need to sneak out before anybody noticed.
Jesus, how much of an idiot had he made of himself last night? He couldn’t remember. He took his glasses off to rub at his eyes. Fuck. Fuck.
He grabbed his shoes from the floor and slowly opened the door, waiting for it to creak. When it didn’t, he did a tiny fist pump and closed it just as quietly behind him. The staircase was brighter than the room had been. He strained to listen and heard quiet voices downstairs. Crap. He would have to be really quiet.
One step, two, three, until he was down to the last stair, which creaked, because he was living out a farce. He winced. The smell of coffee wafted up the stairs.
“Oh, I think he’s up!”
Jonny. Nick slapped his forehead and very seriously considered running out even now, but then Dex’s voice behind him followed up with, “Oh, hey, morning, Nick—want some coffee?” and he turned around.
Dex’s head was the only thing Nick could see over the doorway. He was smiling, and one purple dread stood up in excitement over his head. Nick braced himself on the bannister with one hand, realizing that he was clutching his shoes to his chest with the other. He had never done a walk of shame before, but this was possibly close to what it might feel like.
“You all right?” Dex asked. He stepped out of the kitchen, and Nick’s throat went a little dry at the trying view of Dex shirtless, wearing only low-slung basketball shorts. That was a lot of skin. A lot of smooth, dark skin over muscle.
He opened his mouth. “I really have to pee.” Fuck.
Dex pushed his tongue under his lower lip, clearly trying to stifle a laugh while Nick just stood there, trying not to die. “Well, go for it, man, don’t let me stop you.”
Nick’s feet finally moved, and he darted behind Dex to the bathroom. He definitely avoided catching his reflection in the mirror as he washed his hands.
When he finally emerged, Dex had gone back to the kitchen, and Nick had very little choice but to follow. Both stools were occupied, but as soon as Nick took two steps inside, Dex jumped up and wordlessly indicated for Nick to sit down. Nick shook his head. His nod to dignity in the bathroom had been to put his shoes back on, but now he had nothing to hide behind. He was probably making too big a deal out of this. He usually did. It still didn’t feel too great.
“How are you, mate?” Jonny asked cheerfully while Dex danced around the stool in Nick’s peripheral vision. Great, now his awkwardness was spreading.
“All right. Fine.”
“Yeah? Sleep well?” Jonny took a loud slurp of his coffee. He was clearly amused at Nick’s discomfort, but it was Jonny, so it wasn’t mean. Nick felt some tension unwind in his shoulders, in his belly.
“Yeah. Natali’s got a nice bed.”
Dex said, “Yeah, it’ll be our little secret.” Nick saw that Dex had already sat back on the stool. Good. He realized he was smiling. No idea why, but maybe just because Dex looked so comfortable and nice, first thing in the morning. Nick was doing his best not to look below his neck, but it wasn’t exactly easy, ignoring the tight curls of his chest hair and treasure trail dipping below his shorts.
“Would she mind? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“You didn’t, man, it was our idea,” Jonny cut him off. “Anyway, not like it’s the first time this has happened, and Nat’s cool.” He paused. “Mostly.”
“Anyway, relax, have some coffee,” Dex offered, and Nick, raised by a rather militantly polite mother, had no choice but to accept his kind offer. He felt their eyes on him as he stumbled around, figuring out where the milk and sugar lived, doing his best not to overturn the French press. Would there ever be a tim
e where he didn’t consistently feel like an awkward mess?
He stood at the counter and drank his admittedly delicious coffee, listening to Dex and Jonny chatting companionably until Dex’s phone buzzed on the table.
He grabbed it, fingered it open, and without a word he extended it toward them both. Curious, Nick leaned in.
Mum’s driving me bonkers again tell her I’m fine
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Jonny noted, one eyebrow up.
Nick gave Dex a sympathetic look. “At least he’s talking to you?”
“There’s that,” Dex agreed, looking down at his phone again. “All right, what the fuck do I say to that that isn’t ‘Clearly you’re not, so stop being a git’?”
“‘Get your fourteen-year-old head out of your arse’?” Jonny suggested, then swiftly moved out of the way of Dex’s slapping hand. “‘Tell your mum yourself, since you’re occupying the same space, presumably’?”
Nick racked his brain for some sort of a real suggestion. He wanted to help. He wanted to say something that would make up for having been an awkward uninvited overnight guest, at the very least. He wanted to please Dex in some small way. “How about, ‘Sure, but what’s going on?’ That way you’re leaving the door open.”
When he looked at Dex, Dex was already typing into his phone, nodding along. He looked up at Nick like he was waiting for more. The curves of his strong arms were distracting. Nick coughed.
“Um, that’s probably good to start. See if he takes it as a cue or whatever.” He thought about all the ways in which Zoya would try to shake him out of it when he’d been thirteen and hating everything. Hating the shame of being different, still, after what felt like a lifetime in America. Hating the concerned looks his parents would send his way, hating that they would retreat whenever he lashed out. She’d just wait for him to come to her, and more often than not, he’d capitulate and do it.
Dex nodded, prodded at his phone once more, and laid it flat on the table. Then he flashed Nick a grin. “Thanks, mate. I’m just sort of … unequipped. I dunno. I guess I feel—” He ran his hand over his dreads. His fingers shaped the bumps and grooves easily, like the running of water over stone. “I feel bad, you know? He’s stuck there in that posh cesspool, and I’m here—”