by Courtney Lux
“I’ve got a picture of you and your brother, and I don’t think you always hated each other.” Trip closes his fingers over Nate’s. “I think you’re a good person.”
iv.
Here’s the thing about fathers where I’m from. Well, parents in general, I guess. Whuppin’s are a fact of life when you’re young. It’s the thing that connects all of the kids around here—whether you’re the kid in the house with a garage and your own room or you’re living in your grandma’s trailer sharing a bed with five of your brothers—if you make your parents good and mad, you’re gonna get a whuppin’.
It ain’t much for most kids—couple swats on your ass, maybe a smack upside your head from your mama. Still, to see the way some of them kids get to blubbering when the teacher calls their parents, you’d think they were going to receive a flogging worse than the one Jesus Christ himself got. Bunch of fucking babies, if you ask me.
I don’t know how teachers know as soon as you get in their class—if we’ve got a look to us or if they talk about it in meetings or something—but they always know which parents to call when kids are cutting up in class and which parents you can’t call because those kids—kids like me and my brothers—we don’t get a whuppin’. We get a beating.
I had a substitute once when my second-grade teacher had to leave on account of having a baby, and I guess she didn’t get the memo or couldn’t read the look or maybe she just didn’t like me because she broke that golden teacher rule of “Thou shalt not call the parents of the kids who will beat them senseless for anything and everything.” It wasn’t all her fault—I was never a good student and was a real fuckin’ terror to be reckoned with—so I like to think she thought she was doing the right thing calling my parents.
That was the most scared I’d ever been in my life—sitting there at my table and trying to add seventeen and thirty-seven and praying like hell my daddy would be too drunk or too busy to remember I had a meeting with his belt once I got home from school. Bethy Rikken sat next to me back then and I remember her holding my hand for a bit and that was kind of nice—she lived a few trailers over from us with her aunt, and I think she felt bad about tattling on me for fighting on the playground. I wasn’t mad at her. I was too goddamn scared to think about anything else. She held my hand the whole way out to the parking lot after school and even asked if I wanted a ride home with her and her aunt.
I didn’t. I wanted to walk and maybe never go home. Putting it off never helped nothing, though, so I walked home behind Gid and his friends and prayed and shook and tried not to throw up my lunch. I didn’t cry, though. I made it the whole afternoon in my classroom and all the way up to my daddy’s belt coming down on me before I cried. I’m still proud of that.
I wish we only got knocked around when school called, but that belt and I are well acquainted. I’m pretty sure most parents just use their hands to knock around their kids, but my daddy is an old-fashioned kind of guy, I guess. He never seemed to have anything against smacking us with whatever was closest at hand, but he favored the belt. I made up a whole story in my head about that belt. I think it used to belong to my grandpa, and he probably used it to beat my daddy and then passed it on to him when he had his own kids. I wondered sometimes, while my daddy was wrapping it around his hand, if he knew which parts hurt worse, and if he remembered the sick feeling that started in the bottom of your gut when you heard the creak of the leather the same way I did.
I wondered, too, which of my brothers would inherit it. My brothers didn’t step in for me that day, and I didn’t expect them to. I wouldn’t have either if it had been one of them. Being a hero didn’t save anyone; it just got both of you an even worse licking than if you’d just let it be. Besides, me and my brothers didn’t like each other.
Hell, Gid and I hated each other so bad, we’d try and set one another up for a beating. It was a funny hierarchy we had growing up. The twins were real close and usually did okay taking care of each other, Michael and Jeremiah were that way, too. Probably because they went through it all first before there were more bodies to put between them and our dad. Gid wants our daddy to like him in a bad way, so he didn’t have much to say to any of us, and hell, did they all hate me. I’ve never been sure why—because I was the youngest or I made them have to shove one more body into the already-cramped bed or if there was just something about me that didn’t feel like one of them. I really don’t know. Not that it matters.
My mama didn’t care much for me either. Probably because I embarrassed her. She never did nothing to stop my daddy when he’d come down hard on one of us. I don’t blame her either. If she’d have gotten in the way, she’d probably have been smacked around the same as one of my brothers if they’d have tried to do anything.
Even with all of them brothers right under the same roof as me and all those kids who knew exactly what it was to be scared fuckin’ silly when you knew you were going to get smacked around by your old man, I didn’t have one goddamn friend when I was a kid. My brothers hated me, the kids in the houses hated all of us trailer-park kids, and the trailer-park kids all hated me because they needed someone to look down on, and I was an easy target with my different-colored eyes and being kind of a runt compared to a lot of them.
So that day when Bethy held my hand and walked with me out to the parking lot was something new for me. Having someone there—having someone hold my hand, that made it hurt. When there’s no one, you don’t know any different, but when someone holds your hand, it makes it so you realize hands are good for more than a beating.
Between Pastor Welk and Bethy Rikken, I think they’re the reason I realized I wanted something different, that I was meant for something better. I don’t know if I love them or hate them for that.
eight.
“You need a winter jacket.” Nate lifts his hand higher on the doorframe for Trip to slip underneath and into the apartment. “It’s thirty degrees out today.”
“What do you call this?” Trip pulls at the drawstrings of his sweatshirt as he steps out of his shoes. He’s sweating and shivering all at once in the sudden warmth.
“That’s a sweatshirt I gave you months ago. It gets colder out, Trip. It doesn’t just stay a constant fifty degrees out there.” Nate follows Trip to the kitchen. He doesn’t comment when Trip immediately throws open the refrigerator door. “It’s early in the season, too. Eventually these random cold days are going to turn into a constant thing.”
“I’ll wear more shirts underneath, how’s that?” Trip pulls a can of soda and cracks the tab on it. “Stop hassling me and just say ‘hi.’”
Nate sighs, then steps closer to touch a brief kiss to Trip’s mouth. “Hi.”
Things between them have been good. Really good. There had been an awkward morning after Nate’s drunken confessional, but they’ve moved past it and Nate seems lighter, calmer.
He isn’t smiling now, though. He presses the back of his hand to Trip’s forehead. “You’ve got a fever.”
Trip steps out of the contact. “I run hot.”
“I run hot.” Nate touches the inside of his wrist to Trip’s cheek. “You run cold.”
“So warm me up,” Trip purrs. He presses himself close, raises himself up on his tiptoes. He’d planned on kissing Nate, but ends up stepping back to sneeze.
“Sexy.” Nate sits at the breakfast bar beside his open laptop.
“What’re you working on?” Trip steps around the counter to look at the screen.
“Just research.” Nate pulls the open barstool closer, and Trip sits down beside him. “Thinking about working for some place smaller, more personal.”
“We had a deal!” Trip shoves the laptop closed. “You still have two weeks left… three? I can’t remember anymore.”
“Don’t touch the screen.” Nate shoots him a look before opening his laptop back up. “Deal was I couldn’t work for three months. If I want to s
tart at the end of this, I need to start getting interviews now.”
“You’re no good at this at all.” Trip sulks. He doesn’t like people breaking their promises.
“You’re such a drama queen. It’s an interview, that’s it.” Nate takes a drink from Trip’s soda. “I feel good about it. This break’s been good for me, I think.”
“You develop a soul sometime in the past couple months?” Trip mumbles. He points at the soda can. “You’re gonna catch my cold.”
“Been talking to my sister more. I’m sleeping more; I’m happier, I’m good. Great, even.” Nate frowns at him before looking back to his laptop. “And I’m exposed to a hell of a lot more of your bodily fluids in other scenarios than I am just taking a drink from your can of pop.”
“Wanna be exposed to some right now?” Trip closes the laptop again, careful this time to keep his fingers away from the screen.
Nate turns to face him, clearly unimpressed. “Do you practice those lines?”
“In the mirror every single morning,” Trip replies solemnly.
“You can practice some more if you want.” Nate points at the bathroom. “And shower while you’re at it.”
“What’re you saying?” Trip pouts.
“I’m saying you still look cold and your hair’s dirty.”
“Your hair’s dirty.” Trip snaps right back.
“I showered this morning. My hair’s fine.” Nate turns his attention back to his laptop.
Trip lifts the soda can above Nate’s head. “You sure about that?”
“Dump that on me and I’ll send you right back out into the hall.” Nate glances up at the can, but he doesn’t look overly perturbed.
“I wouldn’t go without a fight.” Trip tips the can farther. “We both know I could kick your ass.”
Nate stands and moves to one of the cabinets. “Wouldn’t need to fight you, could just pick you up and carry you out, shrimp.”
“Don’t call me that.” Trip lowers the can to the counter.
“Don’t threaten me with pop in my hair.”
“It’s soda.” Trip folds his arms across his chest, mutters. “Goddamn Minnesotan.”
“Nuh-uh. Don’t you dare start calling me out on dialect differences.” Nate turns to face him. “Not when you say ‘lightning bugs’ and ‘buggy’ and ‘ain’t’ and call people ‘sugar’ and—”
“Enough.” Trip sulks. “You won’t have to carry me out if I just leave on my own.”
“You know where the door is.” Nate pulls down a bottle of pills and fills a glass with water from the sink.
“Think I liked you better when you were miserable all the time.” It’s not an altogether untrue statement. Trip likes this side of Nate that’s lighter and happier and funnier, but he makes him anxious. Nate is still uptight and serious and prone to long bouts of melancholy, but those moods have become increasingly rare. At some point, Nate will go back to work. At some point, he’ll go looking for a boyfriend, someone with a job that requires a suit and a four-year degree, and that will be the end of his arrangement with Trip.
“If you want me to shower with you, all you have to do is ask.” Nate puts the pills and water on the counter beside Trip.
“Never said I wanted that.” Trip takes his soda to the other side of the breakfast bar and pulls open the cabinet beneath the sink. He drops the can in the garbage instead of the recycling just to be vindictive.
“If I shower with you anyway, are you going to be nice?” Nate pushes the cup and pills toward Trip again.
Trip takes the pills and chases them with a drink from the glass. “I’m always nice when I’m naked.”
Nate watches while Trip takes another sip of his water. “Do you even want to know what you just took?”
“Are they gonna kill me?”
“They shouldn’t.”
“Then I don’t need to know.” Trip moves to the bathroom. “Come keep me company and make sure I don’t have an allergic reaction.”
They shower together and Trip realizes this isn’t something they’ve done since the first time he slept over. Despite it being somewhat unfamiliar territory, being pressed so close in such a small space is more comfortable now than that first time. Trip sings while he rubs a bar of soap over his skin.
“Went and had lunch with Kellan today,” Nate ventures. He has his back to Trip, so he has no way to read Nate’s expression. “He said he sees you once in a while—like other than when he comes over here.”
Trip pauses his singing. “He comes around sometimes. He brought us flowers last week. Well, brought Scarlett flowers.”
Nate clears his throat. “He mentioned Scarlett’s got a baby.”
Trip hums a note of acknowledgement. He hadn’t realized he’s never mentioned the baby before. “June.”
“Cute name. How old?”
“Getting close to one year.” Trip can’t wrap his head around it. He’s not entirely sure where the year has gone, and at the same time he can’t imagine a time without June. It seems as though she’s been around for as long as he can remember.
“You have other roommates?” Nate speaks again after only a brief pause.
“Yeah, some.” Trip pulls a bottle of shampoo from the wall shelf and reads the back. “You know this is for platinum blonds? You trying to color your hair?”
Nate ignores the question. “How many?”
“How many blonds can use this bottle of shampoo?” Trip caps the bottle and puts it back down on the shelf. “None. Just you and your dishwater blond and me and my brown. Unless you got some other guy on the side.”
“No other guys, and your hair is auburn.” Nate adjusts the showerhead so that the water falls more softly on them. “I meant how many roommates do you have?”
“You’ve asked that before.” Trip picks up the razor and turns it over in his hands.
“Kellan says you guys lost one.” Nate cranes his neck farther to keep an eye on Trip and the razor, apparently wary of him potentially trying to carve out a spot of hair on the back of Nate’s neck or something equally impulsive.
Trip replaces the razor in the shower rack. “So do the math—and share some hot water. I thought we got in here because you wanted to unthaw me or something.”
“‘Unthaw’ isn’t a word. It’s just ‘thaw.’” Nate shuffles until he’s standing behind Trip. “What happened?”
“Skipped out.” Trip has the bottle of shampoo again and he’s working some of it into his hair.
“What happens to the rent then?”
“Christ, you have a lot of questions.” Trip offers Nate the bottle of shampoo. “Don’t take a genius to know we’re all paying more now and it fuckin’ sucks. You got anything else you wanna ask about my roommates?”
“Sorry,” Nate takes the bottle and puts it back on the shelf. He falls silent, but then he’s speaking in one big rush. “It’s just I’ve never met them. I’m not even sure where you live.”
Trip’s rinsing shampoo from his hair with his head tipped up to the showerhead. “You’ve met Scarlett.”
Nate’s hands come up to fuss with a spot in Trip’s hair he apparently deems not well-enough rinsed. “What about the other ones?”
Trip shrugs. “Why’s it matter?”
“They’re your friends, aren’t they?” Nate drops his hands back to his side. “I’m just curious who you hang out with or whatever.”
“They’re people, Nathaniel. They’re who I split the rent with so I don’t end up sleeping on a fucking park bench.”
“You’re not friends?”
Trip squeezes conditioner into his palm. “We get along fine.”
“Who are your friends then?” Nate pushes. He tugs a lock of Trip’s hair. “I mean other than me.”
Trip massages the conditioner into his hair and turns to look at N
ate. “Thought we weren’t friends.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“That wasn’t even three months ago.” Trip faces forward again.
“I told you about holding a grudge against my dead brother.” Nate’s voice goes softer. “That has to count for something.”
Trip doesn’t know what to say to that, so he starts singing.
Nate’s eyes are on him, prickling like static shock as his gaze drifts from his thighs to his ass to his back. Trip’s trained himself to not mind Nate’s staring, or anyone else’s. People can’t help it, they’re as drawn by the scars as they are by his mismatched eyes. The scars are too obvious, too strange not to draw attention. He jumps only when Nate’s fingers come to rest on a mark low on his back. He twists to face him, irritated and still trying to shake the surprise.
Nate withdraws his hand quickly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I just… sorry.”
Trip flexes his hands at his sides and shifts his expression into something teasing and flashy. “Betcha if you connect a few of them, they’d make an ‘N’ for Nathaniel.”
Nate has a look on his face that says he doesn’t think something so violent ought to be joked about. He seems to be learning to play along with Trip’s games, though. “Is there a ‘T’ for Trip?”
Trip faces forward again to finish rinsing the soap from his hair. “Don’t know. Go on and check.”
Nate hesitates as though he’s not sure what permission has just been granted.
Trip glances over his shoulder again. “Go on.”
It takes a moment, but eventually Nate touches a finger to a mark on Trip’s shoulder blade. The contact is so light it almost tickles, but Trip holds still and keeps washing his hair and singing. Nate’s fingers drift to other marks. “Here.”
“Yeah?” Trip pauses his song. “How about that—betcha down at St. Mark’s they’d charge a hundred bucks to do something like that. That’s a thing. D’ you know that? People get scars put on their bodies like tattoos.”