by Lisa Henry
“I’ll ask him though,” Nick offers. It may be another lie. He isn’t sure. “Would Dad be cool with that?”
“Of course he would,” his mom says.
Something about her tone rings false to Nick. His mom’s not as good a liar as he is. But he smiles anyway, and pretends he believes it.
Devon: I asked Ebony out! We’re going to a movie on Wednesday night. Holy fuck!
Nick: Proud of u, bro.
Devon: Don’t let me mess this up, k?
Nick: You won’t! {}
Devon: What is that?
Nick: It’s a hug. I’m hugging u, Devon.
Devon: I’m so psyched. But also terrified. This is EBONY! EBONY!
Nick: You’ll do fine, Dev. You’re cute, and you’re tall, and you have nice hair.
Devon: ???
Nick: You are also smart and wonderful and give the best hugs. If u were gay, I would have jumped u years ago.
Devon: U sort of did.
Nick: And u were very cool about it, my poor confused little straight boy.
Devon: Because of u I thought I was gay for a week.
Nick: You’re welcome!
Devon: Also, Marlene quit today. Pauly says u can have her job as long as u don’t blow anyone on staff in work time.
Nick: SERIOUSLY? You want me to work with u? Aw babe, did u miss me?
Devon: U complete me.
Nick: Awww. ILY.
Devon: ILY too, bro.
Nick floats in the pool, eyes closed. It’s dark, and the breeze is a little cool, but it’s too nice to move. If he goes inside, he’ll have to peel off his wet board shorts, and remember to hang his towel up, and have a shower, and then find another towel, and that all seems like too much hard work when it’s so peaceful just floating here, tiny waves lapping at his skin.
When he was a kid, Nick used to like floating facedown and watching the way his hair spread out around him in the water like a dancing anemone. Until one day, screaming, his mom launched herself fully clothed into the pool, thinking he’d drowned. So after that he wasn’t allowed to “play tricks” in the pool. It had seemed easier to admit he’d been pranking her than to try to explain what he’d been doing, when Nick wasn’t sure himself.
He also used to tie his legs together and pretend he was a mermaid.
No, wait.
Merman. He was a merman, damn it.
That progressed to tying his wrists together too, and pretending he was an escape artist who was fast running out of air. After coming too close for comfort one day, he’d sworn to himself never to try that again. He still remembers the sick thrill of thinking he was actually going to die. How afterward he felt so alive that every color in the world seemed brighter for it.
He’s not an adrenaline junkie though.
He doesn’t even like roller coasters.
What he likes is . . .
What he likes is the thrill of kissing Jai Hazenbrook, and blowing him and being blown, and coming under his touch. He likes kissing him and feeling a shiver. He likes the way Jai’s touch lights him up at every point and makes electricity arc through him like he’s one of those plasma globes. Nick doesn’t need near-death experiences or roller coasters. Nick knows exactly where to get all his thrills. Tonight they didn’t even do much, and it was still amazing.
Nick pulls his fingers through the water, testing the drag.
He likes Jai in a new, quiet way that has nothing to do with how hot Jai is, but also doesn’t take anything away from that. Because how could it? Jai is incredible. He’s hot, but he’s also hotter than that because he’s not a dick about it. And he must know, right? His house must have mirrors. Failing that, he’s got to notice the way that people do cartoonish double-takes when they see him, jaws dropping, eyes bulging, hearts and twittering birds magically appearing. But he’s still not a dick about it.
Nick opens his eyes and stares up at the stars.
If Nick were that hot, he’d be a dick about it. An arrogant, smarmy dick who got laid every night. He’d wear a shirt that said, Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful, and people would think it was ironic, but it secretly wouldn’t be. He’d probably end up with a reality TV show of his own, because the only reason that people always say, “It doesn’t matter what you look like, it only matters who you are inside,” is because they feel the need to say it every time life proves them wrong, and it happens a lot.
Devon’s been saying it to Nick for ages.
There was a kid in junior year who Nick crushed on pretty badly. His name was Ash, and he was cute and cool and also gay. And when Nick finally worked up the courage to approach him—not even to ask him out, since he never got that far—Ash just put a hand on his chest and shook his head: “Nuh-uh, short stuff.”
It still stings to remember it. Nick had spent ages thinking about the things that Ash might like, and the things they could talk about, and the movies and music they probably had in common, but Ash didn’t care about any of that stuff, all because Nick wasn’t tall enough.
“He’s just a dick,” Devon said staunchly. “If he doesn’t want to get to know you, that’s his loss, bro, not yours.”
Except how was it Ash’s loss? He’d find some taller boy who fitted him just fine, and he’d be happy, and it would never even occur to him that maybe he should have taken a chance on the short kid.
“It doesn’t matter that you’re short,” Devon said. “You’re a good guy.”
Sure. A good guy who would literally be overlooked every time.
Jai doesn’t care that Nick is short. Okay, so maybe that’s because Nick offered to suck his dick that day on the site. That’s an icebreaker, probably. But also Jai doesn’t care because Jai is definitely not shallow. He is the opposite of shallow. He has depth. He has a tiny backpack for ants and he doesn’t care about material possessions and he travels the world.
He also offered to let Nick fuck him.
Holy shit.
The memory of that conversation hits him in the guts like a sledgehammer.
Welp. Nick can either lie in the pool all night, getting colder by the hour, or he can head upstairs with that thought in his head, and jerk off furiously until he collapses.
Nick goes with option two.
Jai: Did your parents get angry?
Nick: It’s cool. Ish.
Jai: Good.
Nick: Turns out there’s a whole world of porn out there with twinks fucking older guys.
Jai: Told you.
Nick: It’s hot.
Jai: You’re interested?
Nick: Very much so!
Nick: BTW, do u like making pizza?
Jai: I guess.
Nick: Like at a ship.
Nick: *shop
Nick: Pizza Perfecto is hiring. My friend Devon works there. Can probably get u the job if you’re interested.
Jai: Yeah, that would be great.
Nick: I’ll get Dev to text u with the details if u want.
Jai: Thanks.
Nick: K. Good night.
Jai: Good night.
On Monday, Nick takes his dad lunch at his office. It was his mom’s suggestion when, racing out the front door ten minutes after Chris, she noticed he’d forgotten his lunch. So at 11 a.m., hoping that’s not too late—what time does his dad eat lunch, anyway?—Nick heads downtown with his dad’s lunch slung in a plastic grocery bag over the handlebars of his bike.
He’s really starting to hate his bike.
When he gets to his dad’s office, he considers leaving his bike outside in the hope it gets stolen, but in the end wheels it into reception with an apologetic smile for Charlene, the firm’s receptionist.
“Nicky!” she exclaims, like he’s still five years old. “How are you, sweetheart?”
“Good,” Nick says. “Um, sorry about my bike.”
She waves his concerns away. “Just lean it up against the wall there. I’ll buzz you through.”
Chris Stahlnecker is an accountant. He’s a partner i
n the firm, which is not as exciting as it sounds. It’s not like he works on the top floor of some glass-and-steel monolith in New York or something. He works in a two-story brick building in downtown Franklin, and brings his lunch from home. A sandwich and an apple and a tiny container of potato salad. Talk about the high life.
Treading his way upstairs, Nick wonders if his dad ever just wants to scream and go all Michael Douglas in Falling Down. He wonders if his dad is happy with life and with the way the regimented days stretch out in front of him, every one like the one before, and then he wonders if he could ever just ask him a question as naked as that.
His dad is on the phone when Nick reaches his office. He frowns questioningly, and Nick holds the bag up. His dad points at his desk, and Nick shuffles inside and sets his lunch down. Then, because it would probably be rude to walk away without even saying hello, he sits down across from his dad.
His dad ends his call. “Nick. Mom said you were bringing my lunch. Thanks.”
Is it weird that his dad calls his mom “Mom”? That seems weird, but then most people’s parents do it, right? But once upon a time his parents were Chris and Marnie, and then Nick turned up and they reframed themselves. They shifted their perspectives to align with Nick’s, and that seems like a really strange thing. He wonders, when he goes to college, if they’ll have to relearn their own names.
“It’s no problem,” he says, and waits for his dad to point out that of course it’s not, since Nick doesn’t have a job to go to. Then he thinks about Friday night, and how his dad left the kitchen when Nick said he’d been with a guy. “Does it bother you I have a boyfriend?”
His dad meets his gaze. “It bothers me that you lie.”
It would be easier, probably, if his dad just didn’t like the fact he was gay. It would give Nick something to rail against, because he can’t help being gay. But he makes a choice to lie, every single time. “I’m sorry.”
His dad drags the grocery bag across his desk and unpacks his lunch. His sandwich. His apple. His little container of potato salad. He lines them up in a row, then scrunches the grocery bag up and drops it in his trash can. “Did you want anything else, Nick?”
Nick kind of wants to listen to Fall Out Boy at top volume and yell and punch a few walls, actually, but he only shakes his head and stands up again. “See you later, Dad.”
“Good-bye, Nick.”
When he gets back to the lobby and collects his bike, he discovers the grips of the handlebars have left black smudges against the otherwise pristine wall.
On Wednesday morning, Jai turns up at Pizza Perfecto and meets the owner, Pauly. Fifteen minutes after that, he’s being shown his locker and given a T-shirt that promises Pizza Perfecto is Franklin’s best pizza parlor.
“Okay, so we’ll start you off on the day shift,” Pauly says. He’s in his mid-to-late thirties, Jai guesses. Pudgy around the middle, probably because he owns a pizza parlor, with dark hair that’s beginning to thin on his crown. “It can get a little busy, but it’s nothing like evenings. Tips are shared with the team you’re on shift with. You okay with that?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s mostly part-timers here,” Pauly says. “We’ll start you on a trial for the first week, then if you want longer hours, we can fit you in. Now Marlene’s gone, I could use someone to open in the mornings. Most of these kids are still in bed at 10 a.m.”
“I worked construction,” Jai tells him. “Ten a.m. is not going to be a problem.”
Pauly gives him a quick run-through of how to work the register, and that’s it. He’s then officially a part of the team. Jai works his first shift that day, wishing he’d at least had a chance to wash his T-shirt first. It’s new and itchy. But the work is easy enough, even though some orders are a little out there. Who orders pizza without cheese? At least three people in that first lunchtime shift, so it’s obviously not as uncommon as Jai would have thought.
Jai has his second shift on Thursday evening, and, yeah, it’s much busier. The delivery guys don’t even have time to sit in the alley out back and chat, and the crew in the kitchen works to a rhythm Jai can only admire from a safe distance, moving seamlessly around one another in the relatively tight space.
The team working the evening is mostly a younger crowd.
“Hey, Jai, right?” A tall kid with scruffy blond hair and gray eyes introduces himself. “I’m Devon, Nick’s friend.”
Jai shakes his hand. “Nice to meet you. And thanks for getting me the job.”
Devon shrugs. “Nick said you needed it, so.”
So? But Devon doesn’t elaborate.
Working with a bunch of high schoolers and recent high school graduates is both fun and frustrating. Is Jai seriously the only one with enough initiative to run the mop over the floor or refill the napkin dispensers when there’s a lull? Because that’s apparently when the rest of the crew kicks back, turns the music up, and plays indoor baseball with a breadstick and olives.
When Jai asks what they’ll say if Pauly turns up and catches them, Devon just laughs. “Dude, Pauly taught us this!”
Jai watches as Casey pitches an olive to Ebony. She swings the breadstick, hits it, and the olive ricochets off the cheap print of the Colosseum on the back wall.
“Woot!” Devon throws his arms up. “She hits it out of the ballpark!”
“You guys are idiots,” Jai tells them with a grin.
This is going to be the easiest job Jai’s ever had.
“You smell like cheese,” Caden says when Jai gets home from work after his lunchtime shift on Friday. His face lights up when Jai sets the pizza box down on the coffee table in the living room. “Pizza! Yay!”
He drops his video game controller and dives in.
Jai grins at his enthusiasm.
It’s good having a job again. Jai didn’t realize how much pressure he’d been feeling until it was gone. Suddenly the future is looking a lot brighter. The money from the pizza parlor isn’t anywhere close to what he was earning in construction, but Jai can make it work. He can go online and browse pictures of Argentina without his stomach clenching up with the possibility of failure.
It also takes some pressure off his mom, because an unemployed Jai isn’t just a Jai who’ll be stuck living in the basement, it’s a Jai who’ll also need feeding. And things are a little too tight for that not to be an issue. Janice would hardly let him starve, but Jai’s noticed how most of the brand-name products in the kitchen have slowly been switched out with generic substitutes. It’s only little things like that and the faulty hot-water system, but they all add up. Having work means taking the pressure off the family as well.
Jai sits on the sagging armchair across from the couch. He glances over at Kat. Her hair is bright purple and cut into a jagged, asymmetrical bob. “What the hell happened to you?”
Kat checks Caden isn’t watching before she shows Jai her middle finger.
Jai leans forward and snags a piece of pizza. “Looks good.”
“Ronny said I look like a clown.”
“Well, Ronny has a face like a butt,” Jai offers.
From somewhere in the house, he hears Ronny laugh.
“Jesus, am I the only person who went to work today?”
“Oh, how the tables have turned, right?” Kat asks. “I’m on my half day, and Ronny had another interview this morning, so hopefully that will work out.”
“What about you, Caden?”
“Vacation,” Caden tells him through a mouthful of pizza.
Ronny wanders in, Noah on his hip. Kat makes room for him on the couch, and he sits. Noah wriggles to reach the pizza, so Ronny takes a slice and picks off a few pieces of olive for him to try.
“You had an interview?” Jai asks.
“Yeah, for a permanent spot over at the high school in Lebanon.”
“Good luck,” Jai says.
“Yeah.” Ronny sighs. “I could use some of that. I’m sick of subbing, and I hate summer school already.”
Caden squirms into a space he makes between Ronny’s knees. “Daddy? Want to play Mario Kart with me?”
Ronny runs his free hand through Caden’s hair. “After pizza, okay?”
“Okay.” Caden leans into him.
“How about we give Uncle Jai a turn as well?” Ronny asks.
Jai snorts. “Last time I played Mario Kart, it was on an N64.”
“Good,” Ronny says. “I might actually beat you, then.”
“Bring it,” Jai says, and Caden crows and claps and gets so excited he drops his pizza on the carpet.
On Saturday night Jai looks up to greet his next customer, and discovers that it’s Nick. He’s wearing a faded T-shirt and skinny jeans.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Nick jams his hands in his pockets and looks around. “Pretty busy, huh?”
“Yeah, it has been. I think the family in the booth at the back is just finishing up if you want a seat.”
“I usually hang out in the kitchen if it’s full,” Nick tells him. “Pauly doesn’t care.”
Yeah, Jai is pretty sure that’s Pauly’s life motto.
Over at the last booth, the mom is levering her kid out of a spaghetti-splattered high chair, and the dad is signing off on the bill. Ebony is already there with a smile, helping the mom untangle the kid’s ankle from one of the straps. Then, the moment they’re gone, she’s wiping down the table and gesturing for Nick.
“Guess you got a spot,” Jai says.
“Guess I did.” Nick grins.
It’s almost eight, which means the dinner crowd is leaving and the drunk crowd won’t be turning up for a few more hours. Most of them don’t sit in the booths anyway. They usually buy their pizza by the slice and then stagger off down the street with it. They tip incredibly well too. Crumpled notes and handfuls of coins they’re too wasted to figure out. Often the entire contents of pockets ends up in the tip jar: condoms, phone numbers, keys, and, last night, a cell phone.
“What’s he ordering?” Jai asks when Ebony fetches Nick a Coke from behind the counter.
