by Courtney Lux
“Not long.” Trip sniffles, shivers. “Decided to wait around on the off-chance you were gonna get back sooner rather than later. I didn’t want to make the walk all the way back down if I didn’t have to.”
Nate looks at his watch. He’s still panting for breath. “Why didn’t you wait in the lobby?”
“Got kicked out.” Trip pushes himself to his feet. His knees hurt. “Don’t think your buddy who mans the door likes me much.”
Nate’s expression grows dark. “Come on.”
Curious about Nate’s agitation, Trip follows him back into the lobby. Nate stops at the doorman’s station and points at Trip. “You let him in when he comes by.”
The doorman’s eyebrows go up. He lifts both hands in defense. “You weren’t home.”
“You’ve seen him before. You know him.” Nate snaps. “You let him in.”
Trip has to make a conscious effort to mold his expression into something neutral. Nate usually makes idle chat with the doormen on his way in, asks about their families and offers to make a coffee run for them when it’s especially early or late. He is never rude, never angry.
The doorman looks equally alarmed by Nate’s sudden anger. He turns his gaze back to Trip. “I’m sorry. My mistake.”
“No problem.” Trip turns to Nate. “You gonna beat the poor guy up or are we going upstairs?”
Nate’s expression goes softer. “I’m sorry… just let him wait in here next time.”
The doorman’s expression is still a mixture of shock and concern over the sudden outburst. “Of course.”
Nate is silent in the elevator; his gaze is trained on the buttons.
Trip nudges Nate’s ankle with his toes. “You ever beat someone up?”
Nate casts a short glance his way. “Once. In high school.”
“You win?” Trip looks Nate over. He doesn’t seem like much of a fighter, but he’s strong enough to probably hold his own.
Nate nods. He looks at Trip again. “You?”
“Beat people up?” Trip smiles at his shoes and nods. “Only when people make me real angry, though.”
“Thought you were the angriest person in the world,” Nate mumbles. He steps off the elevator when the doors slide open. His shoes squeak as he walks down the hall.
“I get into a lot of fights.” Trip follows Nate into the apartment.
“What else do you do?” Nate turns to face him. He’s dripping all over the wood floor, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “When you get angry, what do you do with it all?”
Trip lowers his things to the floor beside the door, steps closer to Nate. “Wanna make a guess?”
Nate lifts a hand to Trip’s hip, but makes no other move to touch him.
Trip reaches for Nate’s wrist, pushes his hand down below the waistband of his wet jeans. “Could fuck me up against the wall. You think you’d like that?”
Nate’s fingers twitch against his ass, but still, he does not move.
“No?” Trip raises his eyebrows. “What about over the kitchen counter? Work out all that aggression with some rough sex; maybe leave a bruise or two.”
It has the opposite of the intended effect. Nate pulls his hand out of Trip’s pants and puts one hand on his arm to push him back a pace. “I’m gonna shower.”
Trip’s hands hang useless at his sides as he watches Nate strip out of his wet shirt. “You want me to go?”
Nate goes to the bathroom, pauses in the doorway. He shakes his head. “Go change. I’m cold just looking at you.”
Trip stays where he is and listens to the sound of the shower running. He considers going into the bathroom and climbing in along with Nate. He thinks better of it and makes a move for the stairs to seek out dry clothes.
Most of Nate’s things are too big, but he finds a white T-shirt that fits and a pair of sweatpants he only has to roll up three or four times. When he goes downstairs, wet clothes in hand, Nate is still in the shower. It occurs to him he has never been left alone quite like this. No doubt wary of Trip’s sticky fingers, Nate always keeps a close eye on him as he wanders the apartment.
He drops his things into the dryer tucked into the utility closet in the kitchen before moving to explore. He’s inspected nearly every inch of the apartment already. He knows that Nate’s books are organized by genre, his records are arranged by the year they were released and his DVDs are alphabetized. Usually Trip likes to put at least one thing out of order, just to see if Nate corrects it before the next time he comes over. He lets everything be for now and pulls a photo from the end table.
He’s studied it before. It looks like Nate’s family and it can’t be more than a couple years old. They’re arranged in front of a sign marked “Pine View Resort.” Nate has his father’s height and his mother’s nose. He and Nora have the same ears. There are more people that look like grandparents and aunts and uncles, but Trip is sure at least of Nora and Nate’s parents.
The bathroom door clicks open and Nate steps out with a towel wrapped around his waist. “You put your clothes in the dryer?”
“Yeah.” Trip settles the picture back on the end table. “You want me to throw yours in there, too?”
“Thanks.” Nate pauses at the base of the stairs. “Could you do something else for me?”
“Depends on what it is.” Trip leans into the back of the couch; his gaze flits from Nate’s naked chest to the towel slipping low on one hip.
“Pull out a bottle of something to drink?”
Trip goes to the kitchen. “I can definitely do that.”
He pushes through the bottles in the liquor cabinet until he comes up with an unopened bottle of whiskey. He pours some into two tumblers and goes to the couch with them.
Nate comes down the stairs dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. He retrieves the bottle of whiskey from the kitchen counter and puts it on the coffee table before taking the open spot beside Trip on the couch.
Trip raises his eyebrows when Nate throws back most of his drink and reaches for the bottle. He refills his glass and pours more in Trip’s. “You’re gonna get us drunk, Nathaniel.”
“That’s the plan.” Nate takes another long pull from his glass.
Trip takes a smaller sip, wary of this stormy side of Nate. “You have a shitty mile time or something this week? Didn’t get your spot in the New York Marathon?”
“Marathon sign-up was a long time ago.” Nate mumbles. “I’m trying for next year.”
“So it’s the mile time that’s got you so bent out of shape?”
Nate doesn’t answer. “Remember when I got fired?”
“Kinda hard to forget.” Trip tucks his too-cold feet under Nate’s thigh.
“I worked hard there.” Nate shakes his head. “Put in more hours than Kel and half those pricks combined. I was good. Really good.”
“But lacked passion.” Trip leans back into the arm of the couch. “Much like your failed relationship.”
“I am passionate.” Nate mutters. “Or at least I thought I was. I don’t know what I am anymore. This was the plan, you know? I went to the right school and picked the right major and got the right job. I did it all right. I had a plan.”
“We’ve talked about this before.” Trip sips his drink and watches Nate pour more into his glass. “Ain’t the whole ‘plans not working out’ thing why we got our deal going?”
“I need a plan. Plans are how you move forward. It’s how things get done.” Nate shifts in his seat.
“Relax, you’re fine.” Trip pushes his toes up into Nate’s leg. “You can go get a job whenever you want. Breathe for a bit, huh? Pull that stick out of your ass.”
“If I bother you so much, how come you stick around?”
“Who says you bother me? I like you fine.” Trip tips his glass from side to side, sloshing the whiskey inside. “And a deal’s a deal
. I’m holding up my end.”
Nate looks at his glass. “It’s been over a month and I don’t feel any different.”
Trip tucks one of the throw pillows behind his back. “You lookin’ to bitch or you actually want some advice?”
“I don’t know. Both, I think.” Nate pinches the bridge of his nose. “You got advice on what to do when you start realizing you’re twenty-six and still have no idea what the hell you’re doing?”
“Stop letting small people make you feel small, Nathaniel.” Trip takes a drink. “So what if Lovett dumped you and your boss is a prick? Say ‘fuck you’ and just keep going.”
“You said it, too.” Nate drops his hand to his lap. “You said you could see how they’d think that.”
“I’m a dick.” Trip lowers his glass to the edge of the coffee table. “And so are you today, by the way. I know you like to feel sorry for yourself, but, Christ, you are in special form this evening, sugar.”
“I hate when you call me that.” Nate sits back against the couch cushions, his drink on his lap.
Trip isn’t sure what to make of this situation. He and Nate talk plenty, but it’s rarely so contentious. He wishes he could get Nate undressed. Sex is so much easier.
Nate reaches for the bottle again and Trip catches his wrist. “You looking to puke?”
“Just getting drunk.” Nate holds his gaze. “Thought you liked doing that.”
“I do, but I don’t like doing it alone.” Trip pulls the bottle from Nate’s grip and settles it on the end table beside the picture frame. “You’re well on your way to the bottom of the bag, sugar, trust me. Give it a few minutes or else you’ll be passed out and I’ll be bored.”
Nate doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t reach for the bottle. He works his jaw for a moment before speaking; his voice is quiet. “I’m sorry. It’s a bad day.”
“Aren’t all your days kind of shitty lately?” Trip raises both eyebrows.
Nate looks somber. “This one’s a little worse.”
Trip shifts in his seat. “Any particular reason?”
Nate finishes what’s left in his glass and puts it on the table. He rests his elbows on his knees and looks terribly tired while he studies the area rug under his feet. “Remember my brother?”
“The dead brother.” Trip makes a point of remaining blasé.
“Nick.” Nate picks at a hangnail.
“Nicholas, Nathaniel and Nora.” Trip hums a happy note. “Your parents Nina and Ned?”
“George and Laurie,” Nate mutters. “Nick was two years older than me. He was gonna take over managing the resort when he graduated, go part-time to school—my parents, they own a resort on Big Sand Lake.”
Trip stays quiet, afraid to interrupt this story with questions about where Big Sand Lake is and what sort of resort and everything else he wants to know.
Nate turns his gaze back to his hands. “We never got along. Do you have brothers?”
Trip’s caught off guard by the question. “Five of them.”
“That’s a lot of brothers,” Nate murmurs.
“Too many brothers,” Trip agrees. He’s fairly certain Nate won’t remember any of this, so he adds, “All older. Real mean.”
“Mine, too.” Nate speaks to his knees. “We got along sometimes, but mostly we just hated each other. Used to kick the shit out of each other when our mom wasn’t around and when we got older we just didn’t talk at all except when we had to. Did your brothers get better when they got older?”
Trip shakes his head. “Got meaner. Haven’t seen any of them in a long time, but probably not any nicer now.”
Nate rests a finger on the lip of his glass, tips it toward himself until it topples to its side. “He tried talking to me once a long time after we’d had our falling out. He came into my room and said something about me having to take over the resort. I never wanted to—run it, I mean. I wanted to move down to the Twin Cities. I didn’t think about why he was saying it. I was so pissed with him for even suggesting it, I didn’t hear anything else.”
Trip doesn’t know where the Twin Cities are. He nods anyway, scoots closer to Nate’s side.
“He, um, that same night he came to talk to me, he went back in his room and shot himself in the head.” Nate flexes his hands and stares at them as though he’s not sure what he usually does with them. “We all heard it. It was loud, really loud. He had the room next to mine, so I got in there first. It was… messy.”
The silence between them stretches, and Trip can’t stand it. He hates the quiet and he hates the way Nate’s hands are shaking, so he reaches out and folds them up in his own. “You didn’t know. It’s not your fault.”
“Maybe I should have, though.” Nate looks at Trip.
“You didn’t.” Trip holds onto his hands tighter.
Nate drops his gaze to their hands. “I couldn’t stand being in the house after that. I kept seeing it and hearing it.”
“So you ran away.”
“Yeah. I thought New York would make me better or something, I guess. The whole ‘if you make it here, you can make it anywhere’ thing, ya know?”
“Yeah, I know.” Trip traces the neatly manicured lines of one of Nate’s fingernails.
“I’m not making it,” Nate mumbles. “And, sometimes, I still get angry at Nick. My brother put a bullet through his head, and sometimes I resent him even more for doing it than I resented him when he was alive.”
Trip traces a thumb over Nate’s. “Easier than hurting over it, I guess.”
“My sister called this morning to say she’s pregnant.” Nate’s fingers shift in his. “Not married yet, but she’s all excited, and now I feel angry at both of them. My brother for being dead and my sister for being pregnant and happy.”
It occurs to Trip that, for all the things he has done, he’s never held someone’s hand, not like this. He closes his hands tighter over Nate’s. “Told you that you were an angry person.”
“I guess you were right.” Nate stares at their joined hands with tired, hazy eyes. “I don’t think I’m a very good person either.”
“I’m not either.” Trip smiles at him grimly.
Nate pulls his hands free. He rests his elbows on his knees and presses the heels of his hands into his forehead. He lets out a long breath and something in the sag of his shoulders reminds Trip of a deflated balloon.
“It happened tonight, didn’t it?” Trip studies what he can of Nate’s profile. “Your brother—it was this night. That’s why you’re so bent outta shape?”
Nate nods. He sits up straighter, blinks as though he’s dizzy.
“You gonna be sick?” Trip watches him closely.
Nate shakes his head. “No.”
“Good. Come on.” Trip stands. “We’ll get you some water and send you to bed. That way we can put the day behind us, yeah? Then it’s a whole year before you gotta deal with it again.”
It’s too early for bed, but Nate doesn’t protest the plan. He climbs the stairs with Trip behind him. He stumbles a few times, but he makes it up with no more than a banged shin.
Trip strips him out of his jeans and ushers him under the covers before going back downstairs, where he fills a glass with ice and water and turns off lights, then makes his way back up the stairs.
He nudges Nate’s shoulder and offers the glass. “Drink this or you’re gonna have a rough morning.”
Nate accepts it, and Trip watches while he takes a drink.
“Good,” he says. The dryer downstairs is still running, and he’s dreading putting on his still-damp clothes. “Finish it and sleep on your side or something. I’ll be majorly bummed if you go and choke on your own vomit.”
He turns to go, but Nate’s hand closes over his wrist. “Are you leaving?”
“Doesn’t look like my services are needed here tonight
.” Trip shrugs.
“Stay.”
Trip shakes his head. “It’s fine. It’s still early. I can walk, maybe jump a train.”
“Stay.” Nate doesn’t release his wrist. “Please.”
Trip hesitates before pulling Nate’s hand from his wrist. “Okay.”
He slips into the right side of the bed, still dressed in his borrowed shirt and sweatpants. He accepts the glass of water when Nate offers it and takes a drink before leaning over Nate to put it back on the nightstand.
They lie facing one another. Trip can feel Nate’s eyes on him in the dim light.
Nate breaks the silence. “You ever done something really bad?”
“Sure.” Trip yawns.
“What’d you do?”
“How’s your memory after you drink?” Trip asks.
“It’s okay.”
“Then I’m not telling you.” Trip snorts.
“You never tell me anything about yourself,” Nate mumbles. “Know what I think?”
“Hmmm?” Trip shifts farther beneath the covers.
“I think you won’t tell me ‘cause you don’t want anyone to know you’re not that bad of a person.” Nate slides closer. “Wanna know something else?”
“I’m gonna have to remember you like to run your mouth when you’re drunk.” Trip rolls onto his back, then turns his head so he can still see Nate beside him.
“I like you.” Nate yawns. “Even though you’re kind of insane and you’re a nineteen-year-old park musician.”
“Thanks.” Trip pats his shoulder. “I like you, too.”
“Like I like you a lot, though.”
Trip runs the fingers of one hand through Nate’s hair. “Go to sleep.”
Nate is alarmingly obedient. Trip listens to the hum of the dryer downstairs and Nate’s breathing, loud and even with alcohol-induced sleep. When the quiet stretches too long, Trip rolls back to his stomach.
“Nathaniel.” He whispers and prods his shoulder.
Nate doesn’t respond.
“You wanna know a secret?” Trip finds Nate’s hand under the covers and brushes his fingers over it.
Nate’s fingers twitch under his, but otherwise he is still and silent, fast asleep.