“Sweet Jesus. Now you’re an alcoholic? It’s work. It’s stress. It’s booze. You are a fucking piece of work.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Tuck said, his head snapping up, tears shining on his face. “Don’t you give a fuck that this is what matters? We matter, Mickey. You and I. We’re amazing together. And I screwed up; I know I did. I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. But you don’t seem to care that . . . that what we had is falling apart. Why am I the only one fighting to keep us together?”

  “Are you going to leave? Because if you’re not going to leave, I’ll go.”

  “Ok. Run away. Like you always do when things get bad. I’m the one who wants to stay and work on this. I’m the one who’s willing to change.”

  “You think I need to change?”

  “I think—no, Dr. Farr thinks we need to talk about Shaw.”

  “All right. I’m done.” North stood up.

  Tucker scrambled out of his seat too, taking a step forward before he caught the glare on North’s face and froze.

  “That’s part of the problem between us, Mickey. Can’t you see it? He’s always there. He’s like your shadow. There’s no room for me in your life if he—”

  “Don’t come back here again.” North backed toward the kitchen. “I don’t know how you convinced my dad to let you inside, but I’m going to tell him to put that shotgun up your ass and pull the trigger if you try it again.”

  “Don’t run away from me, you fucking coward. Get the fuck back here so we can figure this out. I love you, Mickey. I know you. I know all your shit and I still love you, and that soyboy twink can’t say that. He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t have any idea who you really are. Go ahead. Drive over there tonight. Fuck him like he’s a toy you’ve been keeping on the shelf. But remember: he doesn’t know you, and when he knows you, he’s going to run away as fast as he can. And I’ll still be here, Mickey, I’ll still love you—”

  Whatever else Tucker might have said, it was lost in the clatter of the screen door springing shut. North hustled along the side of the house; his only, overriding fear was that Tucker might transgress the rule about the front door and come outside to continue their conversation. But the front door stayed shut, the way it had for more than a decade, and Tucker didn’t come after North.

  North wanted to laugh as he slumped against the Beamer. Of course Tucker hadn’t come after him. He didn’t need to. He’d already landed the fatal blow. He doesn’t know you, and when he knows you—

  Wild energy surged through North. He launched across the lawn, the summer-brittle grass crunching underfoot, and grabbed a paver from the flowerbed in front of the house—nothing but old mulch, the way it had been for over a decade now. He ran back to the Beamer, raised the paver over his head, and brought the stone down as hard as he could. He let go at the last moment, right before the paver punched through the tempered glass of the windshield. The Beamer’s alarm beeped and blatted; lights strobed across the dark street.

  “There,” he screamed raggedly back at the blind front of the house. “There’s your fucking marriage.”

  Then, fumbling at his pockets, he managed to drag out the Beamer’s key and peel it off the keychain. He placed it under a windshield wiper. If Tucker were too slow and somebody else took the car, good fucking riddance.

  Then, his keyring still in one hand, North walked down the block.

  He found the Caravan on the next cross street, where Tuck must have parked it in hopes of avoiding North’s notice. When North got in the car, the familiar stench rolled over him. What had Shaw said? Like eight cats giving birth in the back. Something like that. He started the Caravan, and it died when he pulled away from the curb. In the quiet, he realized the Beamer’s alarm had finally been deactivated. North started the Caravan again and drove back into the city.

  The Borealis offices were dark. Cars lined the narrow city street, and eventually North gave up on finding parking. Instead, he did what he hated to do: he put the Caravan inside the garage, right next to Shaw’s gorgeous Mercedes roadster, and then let himself into the offices and crept down the hall. He could sleep on the floor in the inner office; he certainly wasn’t going to risk going upstairs, especially not when he thought he had spotted Jadon’s car out on the street.

  As North worked the key in the lock on the inner office door, though, a sound caught his ear. He froze, straining to hear. It came from upstairs, a low, droning noise that raised North’s hackles. He couldn’t put a name to the noise, but it activated something primal in his brain, putting him on alert.

  With a jangle, he slid the keys back into his pocket and made his way through the kitchen, to the stairs that led to Shaw’s bedroom. The noise was louder here, and now North knew what he was hearing.

  He didn’t bother to be quiet on the steps; the old house creaked and groaned under his weight, but the sounds of weeping didn’t alter. North let himself into the bedroom, taking it in with a glance. No evidence of a fight remained. No thrown books with broken spines, no shattered glass, no displacement of the furniture. Shaw would have said something bullshit about the room’s aura, and although North didn’t believe in auras, he didn’t catch any hint of a fight in the bedroom. Then, as he rounded the bed, he spotted a bottle of lube that had rolled under the box spring, and a few feet away, a foil-wrapped condom.

  So that was the problem.

  The bathroom door was open, spilling out a ray of light and the sounds of sobbing. North tapped on the door, forcing it open another inch, but he waited. From inside came a hiccuping intake of breath, and then Shaw tried to say something, breaking into tears before he could finish whatever he was trying to communicate.

  Pushing through the doorway, North found himself returning to the habits he had acquired during their junior year of college, the first year they had lived together, the year when Shaw had fallen deeper and deeper into an abyss where, for a while, it seemed nobody could reach him. The first thing North had learned to do, the most important thing, was a quick assessment of the situation: no blood, no pills, no knives or razors. After that, he had to take in the rest of the situation, piece by piece. Shaw sat in the tub—no water—his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around his legs like he was holding himself together. North crossed the room and sat on the edge of the tub, the steel cold under his ass. From this position, he could see that Shaw was naked from the waist down, wearing only the Trail Blazers jersey that North had laid out for him that morning. His reddish-brown hair was in tangles—the sweatband was missing too—and when North opened his mouth to say something, Shaw buried his face in his knees and cried harder.

  Words, North decided, weren’t the right way to go right then. Instead, he rubbed Shaw’s back with one hand, the movements slow and gentle, small circles and then big circles and then broad horizontal strokes. The worst of Shaw’s shaking began to ease, although he was still crying. Squeezing the back of Shaw’s neck in reassurance, North got up and wet a washcloth and found a comb. He came back to the tub and pressed the cold cloth into Shaw’s hand; after a moment, Shaw’s fingers tightened around it, and he plastered the wet cloth over his eyes.

  Swinging one leg behind Shaw so that he straddled him at an angle, North held the comb in his teeth and began slowly finger combing Shaw’s hair, working out the biggest snarls by hand until the long, chestnut waves fell more or less evenly to the middle of Shaw’s shoulder blades. Then, taking the comb in one hand and a portion of Shaw’s hair in other, North worked the plastic teeth gently through the waves. He took his time, moving section by section. His posture was awkward, and a muscle in his thigh began to tremble before he was halfway through, but he didn’t dare move. He barely dared to breathe, as though a whisper could set off an avalanche.

  He was three-quarters done when Shaw lifted his head, the sobbing finally done, and said, “Ok. I’m ok.” His voice had been burned out by tears.

  North gently pushed his head forward again and resumed combing.

  “You don’t need to do that,” Shaw whispered. “I just freaked out for a little. I’ll be ok. You can stop.”

  North gathered another section of hair, teasing out another knot with the comb’s teeth. Then he went to work on another. And another.

  “My mom used to comb my hair like this,” Shaw said in that burnt-out whisper.

  North grunted an assent.

  “I told you about that, didn’t I?”

  Leaning back, North tried to decide if he was finished. Shaw’s hair shone now, a reddish-brown spill like fire at the end of winter. Toward the front of Shaw’s head was the coppery patch of hair that North liked the best. It was different enough in color to stand out, but only if you looked carefully. North had been looking carefully for eight years; he thought he could find that coppery patch with his eyes closed. He touched it now, just two fingers, and a shiver ran through Shaw’s whole body. North could hear Shaw’s dry swallow.

  Suddenly, everything was different. The world was different. Arousal ate up the oxygen in North’s lungs; it made him dizzy and hard, so hard that he thought his pants might split. Here they were, the two of them together after all these years, with no Tucker to stand between them, no lies. Tonight could be the night. Tonight, finally, North could have what he’d wanted for eight years. He could touch Shaw the way he wanted to touch him. He could have him, wholly, completely, the way he had needed to have him for so long. An ember of regret drifted at the back of North’s mind: would things have been different if North had manned up and asked Shaw on a date himself instead of trusting Tucker? Would this moment between the two of them, with North hectic like a fever was running through him, with Shaw shaking like a dry branch in winter, would this have come all those years ago? It didn’t matter, North decided. It was happening now. It was happening now.

  “Did he hurt you?” North asked, and his voice was so low and rough that he didn’t recognize it, didn’t even care.

  Shaw shook his head. “No.” The word was reedy and thin; Shaw was trembling, his fingertips white where he clutched his legs, holding himself together.

  North ran his fingertips over that coppery patch, and the trembling multiplied. He shushed Shaw, his fingers drifting lower, tracing over skin where the jersey didn’t cover it: the back of Shaw’s neck, a sliver of collarbone, the upper arm. Shaw was shaking like he was going to come apart, and North opened his mouth to tell him it was ok, everything was finally going to be ok between them. Shaw didn’t have to worry; North was going to take care of him.

  “North,” Shaw said, twisting around to face him, the word broken into pieces like Shaw was trying to speak through chattering teeth. “I don’t think—”

  Eight years was too fucking long. North bent and kissed him.

  Shaw drew back at first until North cupped his head, steadied him. Just lips at first, until North probed with his tongue, tasting Shaw’s lips, pressing forward, parting them. Then the kiss was deeper, drawing out Shaw’s breath, and after another moment, Shaw kissed back. Hard. Twisted around as he was, Shaw flailed, trying to get hold of North. North ignored him, his free hand resting along Shaw’s jaw, tilting his head back so North could kiss him harder, deeper, taking what he’d wanted since his freshman year of college. The kiss prickled the skin across North’s back, tightening it like goosebumps; it sent a jolt of need—the need to fuck, to forget everything else—through North, and he inched forward on the edge of the tub, only half-aware that he couldn’t wait any longer, that what he needed, he wanted to have right now if Shaw would give it to him.

  Then Shaw broke the kiss, planted a hand on North’s chest, and shoved him. North slid off the edge of the tub, landing hard on the tile. He squirmed back, raising himself enough to stare at Shaw in disbelief. The signs were all there: dilated pupils, a flush in the sharp symmetry of Shaw’s face, the mottling heat along Shaw’s neck, the rock-hard dick poking out from beneath the jersey.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Shaw said.

  “I thought—” North honestly couldn’t find words. He stared at Shaw, his mind scrambling for an explanation for what had just happened. A joke? Was this some kind of joke? Had North misread the signs somehow? And then, like a lightning bolt blasting a hole in him, the answer: Tucker had been right. Tucker might not have meant to tell the truth, but Tucker had been right anyway. Shaw might like North, might want to be buddies, might enjoy their friendship. But he wasn’t interested in him. Wasn’t attracted to him. Didn’t want him the way North wanted Shaw.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Shaw was saying, wiping his eyes. “Is every man in my life a fucking moron?”

  “Oh my God,” North said, scrambling to his feet. His dick was still hard, and that, somehow, was the worst part of all of it—a betrayal of how much he wanted Shaw. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” He shot toward the door, pausing just long enough to mutter, “I am so sorry,” before plunging into the hallway, across the bedroom, down the stairs. He crashed into the stove in the kitchen because he was running too fast and turning too slow, and a copper tea kettle spun—the color of his hair, a treacherous part of North’s brain said—and wobbled and fell with a clatter.

  North muttered, “I am so sorry,” to the kettle even as he kept running down the hall toward the garage. He climbed into the Caravan, started the engine, hit the garage door opener, and began backing up. The Caravan died. The garage door crept up slowly.

  At that moment, Shaw appeared in the door to the house, his hair floating wildly. “North, hold on.”

  “Oh my God,” North whispered, turning the key harder as the Caravan groaned and struggled to start.

  “We’ve got to talk about what just happened. We can’t just pretend it didn’t—”

  The Caravan grumbled and sputtered and started, and North yanked the gear shift to reverse. With a lurch, the minivan started backward, rolling out of the garage, scraping the still-rising door with a shriek. Then, miraculously, North was clear of the building, and the Caravan was still running. He shifted into drive. Shaw had come to the garage door, his dick still pointing out like he was trying to direct traffic with it on Washington Avenue. He was saying something. North couldn’t hear him over the thunder of blood in his ears.

  Then North punched the gas, and the Caravan sputtered, rolled forward, and carried him away.

  Chapter 30

  NORTH DIDN’T SLEEP; he drove around the city, snatching an hour here, an hour there. He stared into the illuminated plastic sign of a Dierberg’s from 2:13am until 3:17am. The parking lot around him glowed red in the empty dark. At five-thirty, he was sitting on the north side of the city, staring down a street of public housing: new siding, fresh paint, clean curbs. It didn’t look like one of the most violent places in America, but it was, and North kept hoping. When the sun finally broke the horizon, he was driving east on Highway 40, staring at the Arch as a nimbus of fire wrapped it. Then he parked in the shadows of an overpass, his eyes closed, and listened to the roar of morning traffic overhead. Sometimes, he thought, bridges and overpasses collapsed. Sometimes it just happened: hundreds of tons of cement and steel dropping all at once.

  At nine, North drove to the gym, showered, and put on the same clothes again. He’d forgotten, by this point, where his lone bag of belongings was. At his dad’s? At Shaw’s? Then he drove to an address in the Central West End: an ancient four-story walk-up that looked like it would fall over if North coughed on it.

  When North knocked, the door opened, and Jack was standing there: low-cut tee, jean shorts that hugged his ass, and the same white sneakers without socks that North remembered. He’d forgotten, though, that Jack was hot. Great shoulders. Great arms. That tight bubble butt. The low-cut shirt showed off a dusting of dark hair over well-formed pecs.

  “You look . . .” Jack seemed to struggle to find the right word. “Nice.”

  “I look like shit. But I’ve got an explanation: I feel like shit.”

  “Oh.”

  “Still wanted to see you, though.”

  “Oh,” Jack said again, this time with a smile. “Are you ok?”

  “Yeah, sure,” North said, flashing the grin that always worked on Chouteau boys like Jack. “I’ve got a hole where my heart is, and I’m bleeding out fast, but I’m planning on living through brunch.”

  “You’d better,” Jack said, pulling the door shut behind him and locking it. “I’ve got some ideas for after brunch.”

  “Ideas? What’s a pretty guy like you doing with ideas?”

  Jack blushed, and North thought it was still fish in a barrel with Chouteau boys—the college might turn over its student body every four years, but they never changed.

  When they got to the Caravan, there was a slight moment of awkwardness, first as Jack stared at the minivan, not quite believing what he was seeing, and then when he waited a fraction of a second before opening the door. North realized too late that he had been expecting North to get it for him. After that, though, the drive toward Josh Liebowitz’s house was like a million other first dates: North knew the right questions to ask, and Jack babbled along eagerly, talking about his internship, his time at Chouteau, his family, his friends. From time to time, Jack would ask North something, and North would catch himself smiling. It was kind of funny, the way Jack kept thinking this was going somewhere. It was kind of funny, the way Jack had thought that line about a hole in North’s heart was just a line.

  Their drive carried them toward the heart of the city, although they exited at Grand and went south, toward Compton Heights and the Tower Grove neighborhoods—not far, in fact from the Iris building. Liebowitz lived in a beautifully updated brick home with dormer windows looking out over the street. Although the building had to have been almost a hundred years old, everything looked new: the brickwork, the yard, the fence. Unlike Teddi’s house, though, nothing advertised the owner’s sexual orientation: no rainbow sculptures, no flags, no excess of any kind. In fact, aside from the expensive cars lining the block that must have belonged to Liebowitz’s guests, the house looked like it had been designed to be unobtrusively attractive.

 

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