Out of this World (Browerton University Book 5)

by A. J. Truman

  They ordered drinks, though Eamonn also asked for a glass of water. He didn’t feel like getting drunk. He wanted to be somewhat present.

  Eamonn told him about the Christmas party.

  “Sounds fun!”

  Eamonn shrugged. “Wasn’t my scene.”

  “Well, it will be.”

  “It’s a good place to work, but…it’s all right.” Eamonn didn’t even feel like talking about it. “It’s a job.”

  Heath held up his glass, and they clinked to something. Eamonn couldn’t remember. “I got offered a job at the Tate working in their business affairs department. I’ll be surrounded by great works at the office.”

  “Cheers, mate!” Eamonn saluted him with his drink.

  “Can’t believe we’re all moving on. Even Louisa is scheduling job interviews for January.”

  Eamonn cocked an eyebrow. “Back on, then?”

  Heath blushed. It was amazing how goofy his face could look when he was smitten. “I think this time it’s going to stick. That night when I fell, we went back to her room and just talked the whole night, about everything. We’ve been doing loads of talking about what went wrong in the past. It feels different now.”

  “Different is good.”

  “And if it all blows up in my face, you can happily tell me you were right.”

  He clapped his tall friend on the shoulder, while a pang of jealousy hit his stomach. Heath’s good news was just a dash of salt on an open wound.

  “That’s really great, mate,” Eamonn said. He took a long sip of his drink and happily let the alcohol burn his chest. “Really great.”

  Heath stared at him for a long second, then shook his head.

  “What?”

  “You look like complete shit,” Heath said.

  “Bugger off. I just came from a party filled with free top shelf liquor and food.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “What? Is there a stain on my shirt or something?”

  Heath rolled his eyes. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you are a complete sodding cunt of an idiot.”

  “What is the right way to take that?”

  “I can’t stand looking at you.”

  “Fuck you.” Eamonn stood up and pushed Heath. Heath stumbled off his bar stool. He came back at Eamonn and shoved him hard with his tree limb arms. Eamonn hit a chair on his way to the floor.

  Heath stood over him. “You hate your new job. You don’t want to work there. Yet you’re just going to give up and take the safe route instead actually trying for something great.”

  Eamonn jumped up. He was never one to give up in a fight, not when his opponent was spewing lies about him. He charged at Heath, and they both fell backwards into another table and chairs. Salt and pepper shakers shattered on the floor.

  “You don’t know a bloody thing about me!” Eamonn said.

  “Right. Cause I’ve only known you for the past three years and roomed with you. You’re a complete stranger!”

  They rolled around on the floor. Eamonn kept pushing Heath off him, but his friend wouldn’t let go.

  “I’m supposed to be the puff here!”

  “I can’t take watching you act like a prize fucking idiot.” Heath sneezed. He let go of Eamonn to cover another one.

  Eamonn was going to say something, but sneezed also. The pepper was all over the floor, and they’d rolled around in it.

  “So what if I want a job that allows me to support myself and achoo help out my mum and sisters?”

  “There are loads of jobs that do that, ones you could like. Rafe redid your C.V. and looked for jobs for you, but you did nothing. Achoo! And I don’t think your family wants you being miserable on their behalf. You’re not a martyr. So get off your cross and shove it up your achoo!”

  Heath elbowed Eamonn in the stomach. He sank to the floor and crouched into a fetal position. Heath went to stand up, but Eamonn grabbed his foot and dragged him back down.

  “Oy!” The bartender swatted at them with his broom until they separated.

  Eamonn punched Heath in the back, the only place where his fist could connect.

  “You punched me in the fucking kidney, you twat!”

  “You fucking deserved it!”

  Pub patrons pulled the friends apart. Heath glared at Eamonn so sharply it could cut glass. Heath was not one to get angry, and never at Eamonn.

  “What the hell has gotten into you?” Eamonn asked.

  “I can’t stand watching your life turn to day-old shit. Rafe was the best thing that ever happened to you, and you just let him go!”

  “I didn’t let him go! He left. He was always going to leave.” Eamonn tried to squirm free. Another patron came over to restrain him.

  “Rafe busted his arse to find a way to stay in England. He wanted to stay for you because for some reason, he fucking cares about you and believes you’re capable of more than settling for a future you don’t want and never wanted. And what did you do? Nothing! You just sat back, too scared to make a real effort, because at least this way, you could blame someone else.”

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  “There are loads of American companies that sponsor employee visas. Maybe if you’d come to one of those job fairs with me, you would know that.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why?” Heath held up his hand before Eamonn could remind him that he had a fucking family he couldn’t just abandon. “And don’t use your family as an excuse.”

  “It’s not an excuse.” Eamonn kicked pepper at Heath’s shoes. “I’m not going to walk out on them like my dad did.”

  “This is not the same thing! But as long as it keeps you from having to make a fucking choice, you’re happy to use it as an excuse.”

  Heath signaled for the patrons to let him go, that he was no longer a threat. They did the same for Eamonn. Heath grabbed his jacket from the coat rack.

  “You’re just walking away?” Eamonn asked, itching for another fight.

  Heath got right in his face, and his intensity hit Eamonn at his core. “I’ve never seen you so happy as you were with Rafe. Fuck, it was like I got my old mate back. He made you come alive, and you just gave that all up. You didn’t try to hold onto it.”

  “The last time I tried, I got my heart broken.”

  “Yeah, it’s a good thing you didn’t try this time around. You definitely didn’t get your heart broken.” Heath put on his jacket and threw a few extra quid on the bar. “Happy Christmas.”

  Chapter 30

  RAFE

  Rafe went back to Browerton a few days before winter quarter started up. He wanted to get into campus mode. Christmas with his parents had been a nice time, but he was ready to be on his own again, ready to be his working, independent self here in America.

  He walked through the Browerton campus, and it was the same buildings and same pathways. Nothing had changed except for that one new residence hall they’d finished building, but it still felt different. Or maybe he was the one who was different.

  Rafe signed up for winter quarter classes and got all of his textbooks. His friend Coop was renting an apartment off campus sophomore year, and Rafe crashed with him a few days. He contacted local businesses about finding a part-time job. This cupcake place called Dollop said they might have an opening and to contact them again in mid-January. He tried to put in an application at the one gay bar in town, Cherry Stem, but the owner said he didn’t like to hire people under twenty-one because of liability issues. Even though it was legal, which Rafe reminded him of, he’d had a bad experience with a runner drinking out of customers’ glasses.

  “It was like the first second these kids get anywhere near liquor, they lose their minds!” the owner said. “I think they need to lower the drinking age to eighteen. This will make kids less prone to binge drinking and better at handling their alcohol. It’s eighteen in England, and everyone there can hold their liquor. Well, you should know.”

  Rafe did. The mem
ories of his time at Stroude glowed in his mind, but like the brightest ray of sunshine, they were followed by a dark cloud. There was one Brit in particular he couldn’t get out of his mind. He hoped it would get easier, and he hoped that a new year at Browerton older and wiser would snap him out of this funk.

  On New Year’s Eve, Coop took Rafe to a house party a few blocks away. It was a bitterly cold night, the kind of cold England never got.

  “When does Matty get into town?” Rafe asked.

  “Sunday night. He likes to maximize family time, and it’s still eighty degrees in Dallas. I can understand him not wanting to come back so soon,” Coop said of his boyfriend.

  The party took place in an old house that had been rented out entirely to college students. The windows glowed with festivities indoors. A wall of steam hit them when they entered. Coop whipped off his sweater. He took any opportunity to walk around in a tank top. Though if Rafe was that jacked, he’d probably do the same.

  “What do you want to drink?” Coop asked him. Since he had the muscles, he would push through to the bar—or rather, the kitchen table that housed all the alcohol.

  “Do they have Midori Sours?” Rafe asked with a nostalgia-tinged smile. Could one have nostalgia for something that happened only a few weeks ago?

  “What are those?”

  “Or maybe a Snakebite.”

  “I think it’s just the usual. Cheap beer and jungle juice.”

  “Cheap beer then.”

  Coop maneuvered his way into the mishmash of thirsty coeds. Rafe watched him go, almost expecting to see Heath’s head poking out from above the crowd.

  Kids clumped together in nearly every room. Somebody’s grandmother’s furniture decorated the living room. It could’ve been a set piece for a period play were it not for the huge flatscreen TV hanging on the wall. Times Square went nuts on screen, with the evening’s hosts narrating from a booth high above the masses.

  Do they have the ball drop in England? It was already the new year there. People were probably hard at work on their resolutions and turning over new leaves. Maybe Eamonn was at a pub with Heath and Louisa. Or maybe he was babysitting his sisters, which he would claim he was forced to do even though he secretly loved it.

  “Those people are crazy.” A guy sidled up to Rafe, wearing a Browerton T-shirt and jeans. He wore black, thick-framed glasses that were in style. “I know it’s Times Square and all, but they’re freezing, hungry, and most of them probably have to go to the bathroom but they don’t want to lose their spot. That’s not how I want to spend my New Year’s.”

  “I don’t know. It seems fun. Yeah, it’s inconvenient and probably uncomfortable, but it’s an experience.” Rafe found himself jealous of the revelers on TV, until he remembered how he almost froze on the way over here.

  “I’m Alvin.” He wiped beer foam off his thumb and shook hands.

  “Like the chipmunk?”

  “You know it. I don’t think my parents really thought this through.” He had a nice smile. That was something Rafe liked to notice in people. A genuine smile was one of the few times when we let our guard down.

  “Rafe.” He pointed to himself.

  “Do you want something to drink, Rafe?”

  “Someone’s already waiting in line for me.”

  “Like a boyfriend someone?”

  Rafe shook his head no. Alvin nodded with delight.

  What this actually happening? It might’ve been the first time in recorded history that a guy came up and started flirting with Rafe. He was not the initiator.

  Correction: the first time on American soil.

  Perhaps he had this post-European aura to him. It was a major milestone for Rafe, but he had no interest in celebrating.

  “What year are you?” Alvin asked. Poor, sweet Alvin, who was definitely Rafe’s type, but did not stand a chance.

  “Sophomore.” Rafe pointed at him.

  “Junior. What are you studying?”

  “Geology.”

  “Political science.” Alvin leaned forward and curved his lips into a flirty smile, a smile Rafe had given to plenty of guys in the past. “You have really nice eyes.”

  “Thanks.” He wanted to give Alvin something. A reference for future dates. A participation trophy.

  Alvin seemed to get whatever anti-vibes Rafe was putting out.

  “You’re not into this, are you?” He sounded firm, which Rafe knew was masking a feeling much more tender.

  “I’m sorry. You’re—”

  Alvin stopped him. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Wait,” Rafe said as walked away. He caught up to him in the hallway leading to the bathroom. “It’s not you. Really. It’s isn’t. I’m getting over someone.”

  “It’s fine.” Alvin continued walking.

  Rafe jumped in front of him, making Alvin lurch back and spill some beer on the floor.

  “Look, I’ve been in your shoes before. Many, many times before. I hated it. But there is someone out there for you. I promise you, there is. Don’t lose hope. Don’t try to shut down that part of yourself like I did, because it doesn’t work. And you don’t want it to work.” Rafe searched Alvin’s face for a trace of proof that he got through. He wanted to impart this wisdom so badly.

  He got an eyeroll instead.

  “Jesus, I was just hoping we could make out at midnight, maybe give each other hand jobs in the bathroom. Chill out, dude.” Alvin stormed off, but stopped at the end of the hallway. “Would you still be up for making out at midnight?”

  “No.”

  Alvin raised his eyebrows in a question and mimed jerking off.

  Rafe gave him the finger and motioned for him to run along.

  * * *

  The party rolled on. Rafe only had the one beer. Not just because it was gross. He wasn’t in the mood to drink and be merry. He would’ve been a depressive drunk, and nobody needed to ring in the new year with someone like that.

  As it got closer to midnight, more people paired off. They all revealed themselves to be as desperate as Alvin. Rafe used to be the same way, spending the latter half of parties searching for someone to make the whole night a success. But he was in no mood to kiss anyone, not when his heart was still mending.

  Coop found them a spot on the carpet in front of the TV at eleven-thirty. Coop FaceTimed with Matty. They planned to do a long distance kiss.

  Rafe noted all the couples and soon-to-be couples that surrounded them. Coop seemed to read his mind. He rubbed Rafe’s shoulder.

  “It’s going to be a new year in a few minutes. A fresh start.”

  Rafe turned to his friend. “What if I don’t want a fresh start?”

  It was a question that didn’t come with an easy answer, or any answer for that matter.

  “I’m going to get some air,” Rafe said. He got up and went to the front porch, but it was full of party spillover. One kid set up an iPad that livestreamed the ball drop.

  He returned inside the house and squeezed through the crowd to the back porch. An ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts sat on the porch railing. The lingering smell of smoke hung in the air. But at least it was deserted.

  All except for one smoker.

  One very familiar smoker.

  “Hiya.”

  EAMONN

  Rafe gave him a look that brought Eamonn back to life, or at least helped him push back against the wicked jetlag he was experiencing. Eamonn wanted to pull him against his chest and smother him with a kiss, but he didn’t know where they were at. Rafe was in shock. He was in shock.

  “I’m not out here smoking.” Eamonn showed him his empty hands. “None of those butts are mine.”

  “You’re here,” Rafe said, still in a daze.

  “I coordinated with Coop. I landed in Pittsburgh.” He said it with an American accent, the only proper way to say Pittsburgh. “Then I took a shared van all the way to wherever we are.”

  “Duncannon, Pennsylvania.” Rafe ran a hand through his hair.
<
br />   Bleeding Christ. His hand felt so good. He missed all these details of Rafe that he’d taken for granted. The crease of his brow. The curve of his neck.

  “You flew all the way here. You hate to fly.”

  “I’m still not a fan. Our plane slammed into the runway when we landed. And the food was one level above dogshit.”

  That hadn’t been the worst part about traveling. When Eamonn had arrived at Heathrow Airport, he couldn’t go in. He stood outside the automatic doors, his heart trembling, bad memories searing his brain from the last time there. It took both Heath and Louisa literally shoving him inside.

  He went through the same security line that he’d been in when chasing after Nathan. That meant the same terminal. The scene of the crime. His gate happened to be one over from where Nathan had taken off from. God loved to fuck with him. He wanted to turn back. His stomach crinkled like foil. But his love for Rafe, his need to hold that Token Yank in his arms, it was stronger than all the sad stories of his past, all of his fears and doubts, and it would continue to make him a stronger man.

  “I had to come back,” Eamonn said. “I had to give you this.” He removed Rafe’s mobile from his pocket.

  “My phone! Did Scotland Yard find it?” Rafe turned it on and marveled at the home screen.

  “No. The bouncer at Laffly’s did. He found it behind the toilet. I think when we were in the loo...not using the loo, it slipped out.”

  “That’s what we get for not using the bathroom for its intended purpose.” Rafe looked at his phone one more time. The screen lit up his beautiful face, then he put it in his pocket. “So you came all this way just to bring me my phone?”

  “I am a gentleman.”

  The moment was too big for witty banter.

  “Eamonn…”

  Their lips met in a heat that could’ve melted all the snow around them. Eamonn cupped Rafe’s cheeks and savored the taste of his lips. He felt a part of himself get put back together.

  “So what do Yanks do on New Year’s Eve?”

  “We count down. And we watch the ball drop.”

  “Whose balls drop?”

  Rafe heaved out a laugh that was a cloud of air in his face. “The ball. It’s in Times Square in New York City. It’s all Waterford crystals or something like that. Then we sing Auld Lang Syne.”