by Liz Jacobs
“I don’t fucking live here, either, you cow.”
“Tosser. Ha! Tosser. Toss into a ditch. Toss toss toss. I’m hilarious.”
“You are, babe. You’re the most hilarious.”
“Tosser.”
“Shut up now.”
“All right.”
+
Dex’s mum was the best mum. She had sneaked into the room just after ten sometime and left a pot of tea with two cups, a packet of paracetamol, and two glasses of water on his dad’s desk. He had been vaguely aware of this happening and only realised its full import after Izzy kicked him awake in her sleep and rolled over, snoring.
He dislodged his body from hers and nearly brained himself in an attempt to untangle his limbs from the sheets. The room had been surprisingly stuffy for winter, and they’d managed to shove the duvet off at some point in the night. He had a wedgie all the way up to his taint, but it all paled in comparison to the headache currently pounding through his temples.
He sat up gingerly to test the waters. Murky. He buried his face in his hands. Luckily, his father’s study was small enough that getting to the paracetamol and water was a matter of extending an arm and being able to form a grip.
He shouldn’t have thought of waters, or at least should have taken the pill dry.
Oh God, he needed a wee.
He did not think he could make it down the stairs, though. He also did not think he could face his parents or Al just yet. His options, however, appeared slim. He could either wee out the window onto his mother’s flower beds, go into his glass of water, or gather up what was left of his dignity and do his best at using an actual toilet.
“If you don’t stop shifting around I’m going to murder you where you sleep.”
“Oh, look who’s bloody awake now.”
“I hate myself,” Izzy croaked. She didn’t move. “I hate you. I hate tequila. I really hate Nat.”
Dex shifted just enough that he could poke her in the arse. “Your phone went off at some point in the night. Don’t you use Do Not Disturb?”
She almost nailed him in the balls in her scramble to get out of bed. “Don’t do that again,” he pleaded feebly.
“Holy fuck,” Izzy breathed.
Dex popped one eye open and tried to focus on her. She was hunched over her phone on the floor in her bra and pants and mad hair, grinning like a lunatic.
“What? Don’t make me come over there. Because I can’t move.”
“She’s only gone and texted me back! Look!”
She thrust her phone in his direction and when he didn’t respond quickly enough shoved it up to his nose.
Happy new year. See u soon, babe xo
“Whoa. That’s basically a love letter right there.”
“It is! Oh, God, I think maybe she’ll actually act normal at some point. Like, we’ll be able to have a proper conversation? Don’t you think?”
“I do,” he assured her, covering his eyes with an arm. “I really do.”
“Unless … God, it was bloody half three in the morning. She must have been fucking paralytic. Oh God, do I respond or what? What if she regrets it? What if she doesn’t mean it? Dex, help, oh God, what does it mean?”
“Babe,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Shhh.”
“Oh. Right.” The futon dipped around his feet. “Want me to check yours?”
“Who cares. It’ll just be a bunch of offers off Pizza Hut or some shit. Maybe Alex or Jonny will have texted.”
Dex heard rummaging around where he’d dropped his jeans and jumper on the floor before crawling into bed and passing out. “Got it.”
“Well?” he asked. “Out with it. You have zero messages.”
“Well, not zero,” she said. “You’ve got a text off Jonny, that’s nice. Oh, and a picture!”
“Please tell me it isn’t him and Lance snogging, I couldn’t bear it first thing in the morning.”
“You are such an arsehole,” she laughed. “No, but it is him and Lance and Alex and, oh! Nat! In a pub. They all look proper shitfaced, too, blimey.”
“Get in,” he mumbled.
“Anyway, he says, ‘We miss you both come back sooooooon not the same without you,’ with like ten heart emojis. Aw. That’s nice.”
“That’s it?”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged again and finally made himself move. He sat up. Swallowed through the dizziness. “Need a wee,” he sighed, and did as both nature and society demanded of him.
It wasn’t just that Dex had gone through the past few weeks pining and sad, but Dex had gone through the past few weeks pining and sad with a side order of ticked-off and confused.
When Nick had given him a boner and then ran off before they even made the fucking sauce, Dex hadn’t quite known how to feel. Izzy had found him in the living room watching Antiques Roadshow and drinking the dregs of the wine, finishing off a packet of crisps and half a pack of digestives. If she hadn’t known his plans for the evening, she probably wouldn’t have worried, but she had, and she’d taken one look at his face and said, “What’s happened?”
Dex still didn’t really know. Well, he sort of did. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t resent the fuck out of it.
“Why?” he asked Izzy for the millionth time after they’d finally had his mum’s fry-up for a very late breakfast and lazed in his parents’ living room whilst his dad was having a kip, Mum had gone to work, and Al was busy doing Al things in his own room. “Why do I always fall for emotionally unavailable guys? What is wrong with me?”
“You’re exaggerating. Didn’t you have a nice boyfriend at school?”
“Yeah, at sixteen, for about a month. And then we got bored of each other.”
“Of each other or you of him?”
“A bit of both. Anyway, that’s hardly relevant. Michael was the real first relationship.”
“Your schoolboy is feeling very sad and neglected. Wasn’t he your first, like, shag?”
“Point taken. But we’re talking relationship here, not just sex. I liked Jamal, but Michael was, you know. Love, I think.”
“I know. But he’s in the past, and Nick is now, and it’s different.”
Dex swallowed the Jaffa Cake as it transformed into a lump in his throat. “I am guessing he is also in the past, Iz.” Finished before it had started.
The thing was, Dex could tell Nick had been into him. It took him a while to get there, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. And if he hadn’t known before that kiss, he sure as shit knew afterwards. Sadly, the afterwards had also included Nick shoving him away and running out like the house had been on fire, and then not contacting anyone and buggering off to America for the holidays.
Despite better judgment, Dex had texted him a few times. He’d received zero response.
“Maybe just give him time,” Izzy said. Dex had attempted to get more out of her, because he had the distinct feeling that she knew something, but his every attempt at wheedling it out of her was met with assurance that it was none of her business nor his. Which was crap.
“Well, I don’t fucking want to give him time. He doesn’t need time, he needs to sort himself out, and I’m not going to wait around, it’ll probably take a million years.”
“That’s bollocks, and you bloody well know it. If you fancy him, you can wait. And I think you do.”
Dex switched the channel on telly a little bit more viciously than he had intended to.
“Ignore me all you want, but you know I’m right.” There was an Eastenders omnibus on. He could ignore her forever if he wanted.
He did fancy Nick. He didn’t particularly want to, all things being equal, but he did. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss in his kitchen. In one moment, a world of possibilities unfurled in his mind’s eye. The things he would have done for Nick if only Nick had asked him. Had let him. It had been a while since Dex felt like that. Not just horny and happy to get off, but excited. Really excited about
someone and the feel of their skin, the way they sounded when he made them feel good.
He had made Nick feel good. Nick had liked it. Liked Dex. Which was salt in the wound when he’d run off and disappeared without a trace.
“You’re being melodramatic. He’ll be back eventually. We’ll probably see him before term even starts.”
Dex highly doubted that last bit, even as the thought made his stomach fizz with sick anticipation. Dex knew Nick was good at making himself scarce. I don’t like being visible, he’d told Dex once.
“Iz, he’s just so fucking complicated. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to start anything.”
“Babe. Just give him time. He may come around. It’s not about you.”
Dex didn’t know if that made it better or worse. Maybe if it had been about Dex, he would have felt like he’d mattered. But what Nick had made him feel, first and foremost, was rejection.
“I think that makes it worse,” he told her, and she petted him wordlessly and shoved a biscuit in his mouth.
22
Nick must have dozed off sometime after midnight, because he woke up on the couch covered by a blanket, and all the lights save for the tree had been turned off.
He blinked and focused on the glowing display of the cable box.
3:30
Eight-thirty in London already. He watched his mom’s small tree, lit up in all colors, the garland winking with the lights, and zoned out. It was a miniature of the sort of tree they used to have when he was a kid. It had been years since his mom had bothered with anything bigger than this fake little one she kept in her closet the rest of the year.
New Year’s had always been their big family holiday, but the last few years Zoyka had abandoned them to spend it drinking with friends, in true American spirit, while Nick stayed behind with his mom and Lena and toasted to the New Year over his mom’s usual feast of Salat Olivier, kholodetz, gefilte fish, and all manner of cold cuts. And, of course, the main course of roasted chicken and potatoes, the sort that had always been Nick’s favorite. They got so crisp and perfect, he would stand over the emptied baking pan and pick up the bits that the spatula had left behind.
This year, Zoya had stayed, and so had Jake, because of Nick. No Lena, of course. Nick hadn’t heard from her. When he thought of her now, all he felt was overwhelming guilt for not feeling much at all.
When he thought of his mom, he also felt overwhelming guilt.
When he thought of Zoyka, and even Jake, too.
His Aunt Sveta, his grandparents.
Dex.
Nick turned over onto his back and shut his eyes.
Coming home had been so strange. Of course it had already snowed in Michigan, and after Zoyka squealed at seeing him and wrapped him up in a bear hug, the drive home had been tense. Dirty slush on the roads and, everywhere around them, the sort of snow-muffled silence that Nick had loved as a kid but now set his teeth on edge. Another strange realization—he hadn’t been in a car in months. He’d ridden in a cab once, when they had all gone dancing. He wondered if he would even dare to drive now. The snow made it harder to recall the physical intricacies of controlling a car.
His mom had been so happy to see him, he’d felt a stab of vicious guilt when he realized that he hadn’t quite been prepared to face her. He hugged her back tighter than he would have otherwise.
She’d fed him all his favorite foods, stared at him with her chin propped up on her hand as he sucked up three meals’ worth of pelmeni. She had run her hand over his hair, twisted the curls of his bangs between thumb and forefinger, and said, “Synok. Did you fall in love over there or something?”
He kicked at the blanket now until it fell away from him. It was suffocatingly hot. He unzipped his hoodie, flopped around until he managed to free his arms, then shivered the next moment.
He’d said, “Ma!” as irritably as possible while his heart jumped into throat, and then he’d shoved more pelmeni in his mouth.
“What, ma? You have a look about you.”
“Maybe with London.”
He wasn’t in love, though. It couldn’t be love.
Whatever it was wasn’t love, because love was supposed to make you feel good, and all he felt was desperation clawing at his throat. It was as if with one kiss, Dex had crawled inside him and laid a trap. Got you. You won’t escape easily from this one. There was only so far he could run with its hook lodged in his chest.
It had been with relief that Nick switched out his British SIM card for his normal one once he got home. His number was back to a 734, and any messages from London remained inert on his other card. He relegated all social media to a folder buried deep inside his phone, just in case.
But the trap had been set, and whenever he shut his eyes at the end of each day, he relived that moment. Not even the kiss itself—although that stayed fresh in his mind in a way that terrified—but the moment when he had pushed Dex aside and run away like the biggest jackass on the planet.
What did Dex think of him now? Nick rotated on the couch like a pig on a spit. Get up and go to bed. Just do something. Brush your teeth. Take off your jeans.
He lay there, alternating crawling back under the blanket and shoving it to the floor, and listened to his mind whispering to him over and over and over again just what a mess he had made of everything.
Not the most auspicious start to the year.
+
“I meant to get this for her by New Year’s but didn’t get to it. So it can be a present from you,” Zoyka told him as they pulled into the mall parking lot.
“So what am I getting her?” Nick clambered out of the frozen car. It was so strange being back home. It felt tilted. Not quite right. The roads were too wide, the sidewalks too narrow with the piles of snow already accumulated from the first storm. The buildings were too squat, too sparse. Too much glass, not enough brick. The sky was perpetually blue once the storm had passed.
“Tupperware. I’m done with her saving Chinese containers.” She rolled her eyes. “You give her the Tupperware, distract her, and I’ll pack them all up and take them to the dump. Well, to recycling. Loving the planet, blah blah blah.”
“She’ll know it was your idea.”
“It can be both of us. Saving her from herself. Reusing all that plastic can’t be good for you.”
They found a set with red lids at Target on post-Christmas sale. Zoyka made Nick trail after her through the clothing section, stopping in front of a clearance rack that made his eyes cross.
“Do you need anything? Socks or anything? My treat.”
Nick really didn’t. He started to say so, then stalled out as a figure walked around the jewelry corner and froze, something sparkly dangling from one hand.
They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Nick tracked every small change in Lena’s appearance. Haircut, different color. Hardly any makeup at all. She still looked small underneath her bulky winter coat and sweater. She still wore her flowered Docs and jeans.
Nick raised his chin at her. Such a futile greeting. Her response was no less awkward. They might have sufficed with that, nodded at each other as if they hadn’t been each other’s firsts, hadn’t held each other under her blankets hundreds of times, each lost in their own thoughts, as if they didn’t know every secret about each other.
Well. Not every secret.
It might have ended with their nods, except Zoyka saw Lena, too. Nick saw the moment their eyes met because Lena’s snapped alert. She shook her bangs out of her eyes and said, “Privet, Zoy.”
“O, Lenka, privet! We were just—” She waved toward the cart with the Tupperware set inside it. “For our mom. Nick’s home for the holidays.”
“I figured. Well, my mom’s waiting for me over there somewhere. Poka!”
She didn’t look at him once as she turned on her heel and sped off to parts unknown. His lungs burned. His cheeks burned. He hadn’t been prepared. How stupid was that? Of course they would have run into ea
ch other sooner or later. Their mothers were friends. How had he not expected this?
“You okay? Sorry I was awkward there, I just didn’t know what to say.”
“At least you said something. I just stood there like an idiot.”
She eyed him. “Hey, so there’s a new place Jake and I tried close to campus. They have awesome mixed drinks and funky appetizers and stuff, very froufrou. How about I treat you like you’re an adult and take you there?”
“Uh, I’m underage.” It was weird to realize that having crossed the ocean again, he had regressed.
“They don’t always card. And anyway, you can get a virgin something, and we’ll share the apps.”
“Sure, why not.” They hadn’t gone out, just the two of them, in nearly half a year. Secretly, he always felt a little thrill when she would offer to take him out. Didn’t matter how old he was and what he’d done, she was always the cool older sister.
“All right! You stroll, I pay. And then I’m throwing every shitty piece of plastic in mom’s kitchen straight down the chute.”
+
The froufrou place was called Yedi’s. It was painfully hipster— fake tea lights in Mason jars on reclaimed wood tables, mismatched chairs, and waitstaff all dressed in different patterns of plaid. The effect was marred only by the fact that everyone’s booths and chairs were covered in bulky Carhartts and Lands’ End jackets. It was hard to be cool in Michigan.
It wasn’t even that packed—likely due to the bulk of the students still being off for winter vacation—and they were seated in a nook with Christmas lights strung above them.
“I know. It’s hilarious. But the drinks and stuff really are good.”
The waiter did not, in fact, ask for their IDs. Nick ordered his drink with as much self-assurance as he was capable of, and it was only after the guy disappeared that Zoyka looked up at him with huge eyes. “Check you out! You’re all grown up!”
“Shut up.”
The thing was, she kept him comfortable with chitchat until he was two-thirds of the way through his drink, which consisted of God only knew what but tasted amazing, then looked him in the eye, and said, “Tak. Bratishka.”