Finding North

by Carmen Jenner

  Welcome to Sugartown (Sugartown Series #1)

  Enjoy Your Stay (Sugartown Series #2)

  Greetings from Sugartown (Sugartown Series #3)

  Now Leaving Sugartown (Sugartown Series #4)

  KICK (Savage Saints MC #1)

  TANK (Savage Saints MC #2)

  REVELRY (Taint #1)

  Harley and Rose

  Toward the Sound of Chaos

  CLOSER (Taint #2)

  HURT (Taint #3)

  JETT (Savage Saints MC #3)

  GRIM (Savage Saints MC #4)

  KILLER (Savage Saints MC #5)

  Red Maine’s blue-collared bad boy, North Underwood, has a dirty little secret—Will Tanner.

  Friends since kindergarten, North had been the one to jump first, and his fall into Will’s bed ten years ago had been no exception. Will and North had been inseparable, but things change, people grow apart, and even a blazing flame can dwindle to a dying ember over time.

  The more things change the more they stay the same.

  After a run in with a bottle of Bundy rum, Will and North find themselves in a compromising and all too familiar position.

  Blurred lines, bad decisions, and one wrong foot after another lead these two down a spiral of sarcasm, secrets, and sex, but when North’s hetero status is called into question he can’t figure up from down. And despite Will telling himself he wouldn’t fall again, he’s head over heels and wandering without a compass.

  Love is love.

  Love is truth.

  Love … shouldn’t be this damn hard to figure out.

  “People will stare. Make it worth their while.”

  – Harry Winston

  For Steve, Michael and the Sydney Boys,

  because we all deserve the right to say I do.

  For Troye Sivan, without your beautiful music

  this book would never have happened.

  “You comin’?” North says, looking back at me from the edge of the cliff. Sweat glistens on his naked torso and his blond hair is lit up like a halo by the sun. I squeeze my eyes closed, burning the image into the back of my lids. I stand as far from the edge as the rail at my back will allow. Cold ocean spray hits my face even from this high up, and even with my eyes closed I feel woozy as the sun beats down on my back and shoulders.

  North’s feet thud on the sunburnt grass towards me. His hand cradles mine. Springing my eyes open wide, I stare down as he pries my fingers from their tightly fisted position at my side. My best friend threads our hands together and his gaze meets mine, and with the madness of a hundred devils written all over his face in the form of his crooked grin, white teeth, and mischievous cool blue eyes, his message is clear without ever saying a thing: Don’t you dare let go.

  I don’t wanna let go. I don’t wanna be chicken shit. The other kids watch us from the water below, and even though all I want to do is run in the other direction, when North jumps, I follow.

  I always have.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  “No.” My heart squeezes and skips a beat.

  North runs, pulling me along with him. My feet dig into the rocky edge of the bluff, and then there’s nothing but air beneath them. I’m freefalling, his hand laced with mine. His face is a mixture of panic and joy, and I know mine is the same because both emotions war within me.

  I hope I always feel like this. I want to always be right where we are now, my hand in his, freefalling. Not into the water, but into one another.

  But even twelve-year-old me knows that once North finds out my secret, this feeling, these butterflies torpedoing inside my gut, will all be ripped away, replaced with thorns, fear, hatred, and ugly words.

  So I commit to memory his face, his tanned skin and golden hair, the bright blue eyes that appear haunted with sadness almost as much as they swarm with excitement, and the way I feel with his hand in mine.

  I lock those things inside me, and I won’t ever let them go.

  Not even if he does.

  “Gimme another,” North demands, slamming the empty glass down on my bar. He reeks of Jack. The tight set to his jaw and his steely blue gaze tell me he’s looking for a fight. He won’t get one here, because apart from Phil—a harmless old drunk perched on the edge of his stool at the end of the bar—North and me are the only sorry bastards left. And I gave up fighting with him a long time ago.

  “Another,” he slurs. I fold my arms over my chest and lean back against the counter opposite him.

  “Time to go home, mate,” I say with a grin that I know will rub him in all the wrong ways. Or the right ones, depending on how you look at it. Maybe I lied about fighting with him.

  I’ll admit, there’s a sick, twisted part of me that takes great delight in nights like this. They don’t happen often. It’s pretty rare for him to stay at the pub until closing, but once every six months—maybe more, if I’m lucky—North Underwood drinks himself into an angry stupor in my bar.

  “I’m not your mate,” he sneers.

  “Fine. Time to go, arsehole.” I tuck my septum piercing away, because if it comes down to punches being thrown, that shit’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker if it gets ripped out.

  Once, North would have sat at the bar while I worked, and we’d have flung empty insults back and forth. I’d have poured him drinks and listened to him bitch about his dad, or his hard day scrubbing down decks and painting hulls while working in the boatyard, and he’d have complained about how his latest conquest was withholding pussy because she wanted more of a commitment from him. During all of this, I would have secretly pined and wished for a way to make my best friend forget pussy altogether.

  Once, we’d done all those things. Though looking at the red-faced, angry drunk across from me now, I’m reminded that once was a long time ago. And now our lives were very different.

  North comes in with his buddies almost every day. He works over at the steel mill since his dad’s boatyard went bust. And like all of the men in this town, he gives me a wide berth. Except when it comes to letting me pour his drinks.

  Rumours travel fast in small towns, and the rumours about me are all true. Except for that one about me fucking sheep because I couldn’t find another homo to stick my dick in. Firstly, Red Maine is a fishing town, we don’t have sheep. And secondly, this is Australia, not New Zealand.

  Yes, I like to fuck men, but I’m not as camp as a row of tents. I don’t like Kylie. I’ve never seen Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I don’t dress in sequins and moonlight down at Tasty Tarts as a drag queen. I like dick, but I have no desire to dress like a woman. Do women even like dressing like women? Makeup, waxing, short skirts, gowns, bras and high heels? Can you get any more fucking uncomfortable? I’m not effeminate. I’m not walking around town spewing phrases like, “That outfit is faaabulous, darling” or “Gay is the way,” and I’m not marching in any fucking parades. I just want to be treated like a person. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

  Despite the years of friendship, the secrets we’ve shared—and the fact that secrets weren’t all we shared—North forgot to treat me like a person. He forgot so much that now he won’t even acknowledge me unless it’s to order another drink.

  “Are you fucking deaf?” he asks in slurred indignation. “I said, get me another.”

  “Go fuck yourself. You should be good at that by now,” I say.

  Phil finally eases his fat arse off the stool and throws some money on the bar. He nods and stumbles towards the door, walking through it without a word or a backward glance. I don’t mind Phil. He’s a decent guy. He’s never forgotten to treat me like a person, but then I guess being a drunk who ran his wife and kid off the road thirty years ago, he’d be used to the bullshit this town serves up, and he doesn’t care. I don’t think Phil care
s about much of anything, as long as he doesn’t have to wait for me to refill his glass.

  “What’d you say, fuck-face?” North shouts. He’s so fucking trashed, I doubt he’ll remember anything in the morning. Not that I’d expect an apology, even if he did.

  “What are we crying over today, North? Did another one of your bimbos ditch your bitch arse again?”

  “Fuck you.” He glares at me, shoving the empty glass away. It teeters and rolls along the bar, and I abandon my rag to grab it before it can fall to the floor. “I don’t need your shit.”

  “Right. You don’t need anyone. You’re North Underwood. You’re fucking invincible,” I say calmly, though years’ worth of pent-up rage swells inside me like a tide. I wanna grab him and shake the fucker. I wanna ask what the hell happened to him, to us. I wanna beat his goddamn head in. Mostly though, I just want to get the fuck out of here and go smoke some weed while I jack off and think about his lips wrapped around my dick.

  Instead, I go back to wiping the counter and waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I know it’s coming.

  North lets out a grunt as he shoves off his stool. He takes an unsteady step back, and then he face-plants into the bar mat, sodden with stale beer. He slumps to the side and hits worn floorboards that are sticky with sixty years’ worth of fuck-knows-what.

  I sigh and finish wiping down the bar, then I lean over to check on him. He’s out cold. For a moment I just watch, remembering that face slackened with sleep and the way he used to drool on the pillow. I shut down those thoughts right the fuck where they are before they cause me more grief than this douche lying on the floor. Twelve years ago, a line was drawn in the sand. And that line can’t ever be erased.

  I walk over and toe North’s ribcage with my boot. He doesn’t wake. I contemplate tossing him out onto the street, or throwing a pitcher of ice-cold water over his face, but that never worked when we were teenagers. Once he’s out, he’s out. There ain’t no way of waking him up.

  “Jesus Christ,” I mutter, and lean over him. I could always just leave him down there, but then that’d make me an arsehole, because we have a rat. A vicious little fuck that’d likely chew off his face, given the opportunity. And maybe I should let it, but despite North weighing about twenty kilos more than me, I’ve always been the bigger person.

  After making sure the day’s takings are secured, the doors are locked, and the lights switched off, I hook my arms underneath his and drag him towards the stairwell leading up to my apartment. It takes some time, and when I reach my door and dump him unceremoniously on the landing, I’m pretty sure I’ve given him a concussion. I could just leave him out here, but if he rolled in his sleep and fell down the stairs the stupid dick would probably break his neck, and I’d end up in prison. I’d look like shit in an orange jumpsuit.

  Shoving my keys in the lock, I open the door and lift him again. The bastard weighs a tonne and my arms and back scream as I move him to my shabby lint grey futon.

  Once he’s on the mattress, I lean over to catch my breath and make the mistake of inhaling. Stupid, stupid mistake, because along with the whiff of sweat and booze and the aftershave he hasn’t changed in all these years, comes a thousand different memories. Ten years old and hiding in the closet from his drunken father; seventeen, stealing booze from my dad’s storeroom before climbing up onto the roof to watch the stars; North beating the shit out of Beau Williams when he called me a doughnut puncher in the seventh grade; and North’s face years later, twisted in an angry sneer when he’d called me a faggot and ran me off his property.

  Yeah, I know that makes me sound like a whiney little bitch, and we’d been men when North shattered my entire fucking world that day, but in a lot of ways I’d felt like a kid. I’d wanted to run to my mother and have her soothe my broken heart, but my mother was a bitch who abandoned my dad and me, and I was an awkward eighteen-year-old gay man in a town where your worth is measured in how many schooners you can throw back before dinner and still not wind up shitfaced. I was a fucking fag in a world of hardworking men—fisherman, steel workers, labourers—and I’d lost everything. Not because I’d been a douche, or treated him any differently, but because I’d loved him too much. I’d worshipped the ground he walked on. I was in love with my best friend, and it was a bitter, twisted thing. It changed me. It changed us.

  I’d had plans to leave this shithole town. I’d work my arse off at the pub, then I’d travel, but Dad had a stroke.

  In a single day, the strongest man I knew had been reduced to a twitching, drooling infant, and I’d lost my freedom, my savings, and my right to be a spoiled, selfish prat … all to a fucking blood clot.

  The Red Reef is the only licensed liquor provider in town. We’re a fishing community, so we open at the arse-crack of dawn when the men come in off the trawlers, and we close at midnight. It was the only place you could drink away your pay-cheque without your wife or girlfriend knowing how much money you were pissing down the toilet, but business had dwindled to nothing.

  The real homophobic patrons would buy a case of beer from the takeaway section of the pub and booze it up on the lawn. They brought lawn chairs to sit on, littered the yard with cans and rubbish, and pissed wherever they felt like it. Usually on our front step. I wasn’t surprised to find North’s dad among the haters.

  When my dad finally came out of recovery, he saw what had been going on. He stood on the front steps of the Reef and cocked his shotgun, though he could barely use his right side. With his newly slurred speech, he told everyone that they could either come inside for their beer and be served by me or get the fuck off our property. He’d also threatened to shoot any bastard who had anything to say about my sexual orientation. They’d all muttered quiet apologies and shuffled inside like it was a fucking funeral procession.

  After that, everything pretty well returned to normal. Except for my friendship with North. I’d caught him smiling as my dad had spoken, but when our eyes met across the room his had burned daggers into mine, he’d thrown a nice tip on the sodden bar mat and walked out.

  Tonight, there was no tip. Just a drunken douchebag passed out on my floor.

  He snores, and I stare down at his peaceful face. With everything I am, I hate this man. I hate that he can still read me from across the room, just as I can still read him. I hate the soft creases around his eyes and the laugh lines surrounding his mouth. They suggest that he has a lot to laugh about now. That hurts, because I used to be the one to make those lines appear. I hate the way he wears his hair now, too long on top, as though it’s begging to be pulled. I hate that he seems to get more beautiful with age, more tanned, blonder, and bigger. Jesus Christ, that body. More than all that, I hate that every day his silence reminds me of what I gave up when I came out. I hate that it’s been twelve long years, and I haven’t stopped missing him, not even for a single second.

  Removing my boots, I strip down to my underwear. I brush my teeth and get ready for bed. My apartment is tiny. Once these rooms had been rented on a nightly basis, but not since my dad bought the place when I was a boy. This was my bedroom then too, though I’d since removed the racing car bed and taken down the posters of Silverchair that had been plastered all over the place. I’d knocked out the walls of the two suites beside mine and created a bathroom and kitchen. We did the same with the rooms beside my dad’s. It is as good a place as any to live—there is free booze, the kitchen downstairs is always stocked, and the cook, Bessa, is good to me and Dad. She makes sure our bellies are full and that we eat our greens.

  I can’t really remember living in a place before this. I know we have, but I’ve been at the Reef so long that it’s home. Even if it’s the size of a goddamn shoebox. The problem with confined living spaces is the fact that my couch and bed had to double as one, and as I stare at North, I feel a sense of sick satisfaction having him in my bed again. Even if he is unconscious.

  I climb onto the futon and lie beside him, careful not to touch. I’m no longer affo
rded that privilege. I’m so terrified of waking him that I barely breathe, though I figure it’s unlikely that he’ll wake in the middle of the night, wondering what the hell I’m doing sleeping alongside him. North sleeps like the dead, especially when he’s full of liquor. I’ll be up in a few short hours anyway, and with any luck, he’ll never know.

  I’ll know though, and as someone who remembers what it used to be like lying beside him, these next few hours are bound to be a beautiful and torturous hell. I think about all the nights as kids that we lay in this room, sharing the same bed, dreaming up crazy adventures that we’d have when we were adults, and my heart lurches with a sickening despair.

  North was my childhood. My first love. But he’s nothing to me now. We’re nothing.

  We stopped freefalling, and now we’re standing still.

  In the morning, I shower, scoff down a bowl of cereal, and get dressed to the soundtrack of North’s snoring. It’s six a.m. I need to head downstairs to let in Doug, the delivery driver, and I have no intention of letting North stay here any longer. The pub doesn’t open until seven, but there’s a solid hour of work to be done before then and I’m already behind because I overslept. Despite being unable to actually see anything beneath his clothes, I may have lifted the sheets for a little spank-bank inspiration and spent too long in the shower thinking about North as I jerked my chain. I’m not proud of the latter, but I’ll get over it.

  I stand by the bed, about to wake North, when he startles and sits bolt-upright. His forehead cracks against my own, and I reel back. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “Ah fuck, Will!” he shouts. “What the hell were you doing, leaning over me like some kind of fucking creeper?”

  “Trying to rape you in your sleep,” I deadpan, wincing and removing the heel of my hand from my forehead so I don’t look like a giant pussy. “I was trying to wake you, arsehole. What the fuck did you think I was doing?”