Poster Boy

by Anne Tenino

  Julian took a huge breath, chest expanding, then blew it out slowly, in the manner of someone who’d googled tips on how to relax before speaking publicly. “Okay, um, my assignment was to research ways that European men approach women. Which I haven’t really had a chance to do,” he gave Danny a bit of a stinkeye. “Because we haven’t been out a lot.” He very obviously didn’t look at Toby. Jock glanced at him in time to see Toby throw his napkin on the table and his eyeballs heavenward.

  “What, I’m your social director?” the dude said. “Walk down to the village if you guys need to go out at night and conduct research on the mating rituals of the French.”

  Danny frowned and pointed his fork at Toby. “That’s not very supportive,” he hissed. “Go on, Jules. Tobes didn’t mean to kill the atmosphere.”

  Jock had his doubts about that, too.

  Jules did the calming breath thing again, tapped his cards three times, stood frozen for a few seconds (Jock took a wild guess that it was three), and then tapped them three more times. “Okay, so, I went online and looked some stuff up, and this is what I came up with,” he rushed out before glancing around the table.

  Jock did his best to look supportive.

  “Um. Suave, European pickup lines.” He lifted the cards up to his nose and read off of the top one in the worst fake accent Jock had ever heard. “Your skin, she eez as smooth and creeeemy as cheese fondue. I would love to steeck my fork in zat.”

  Jock tried not to laugh, he truly did, which was more than he could say about some of the guys at the table. Ricky spewed a fine mist of coffee over everything before cackling so hard he had to clutch the table to stay in his chair. Toby had clamped his lips shut, but laughter kept erupting out of him, forcing itself around his attempt to take this seriously. Danny glared and yelled at everyone to be supportive, but Turbo and Gomer were guffawing so loudly they drowned him out. Next to Jock, Noah gasped like he’d laughed himself right out of air.

  Jock caught Toby’s eye, which was a total mistake, because they both gave in to the general mockery of Julian. At that point Jock could honestly say he was cracking up over the rest of the guys as much as Jules’s come-on à la Emmentaler. Until Julian shouted over everyone, “What? I like fondue.” After that it was more about laughing at the dude. Jock crouched over his plate with his head down, trying not to humiliate Julian more than necessary while he lost it. Noah jostled his arm, hard, then again, this time trying to push Jock out of his chair. Still chuckling, he turned to face his neighbor, and was met by the sight of someone’s ass smashed into someone else’s groin, the unknown pelvises—male pelvises—grinding against each other violently, in a jerky rhythm.

  Noah and Turbo. Never thought Turbo’d go for it. And shit, especially not at breakfast, in front of everyone. Had Julian’s pickup line had an unintentional effect? Turbo was all over Noah, arms around his waist, squeezing him so tightly it looked like he was trying to fist Noah’s belly button.

  Never thought Noah’d be into the rough stuff either. And he didn’t look like he was enjoying it. His face was turning purple, and he was desperately trying to suck in a breath, body flailing and spasming as Turbo drove his fist against Noah’s stomach again, up toward his diaphragm, like he was trying to force Noah’s air out.

  Wait a second—

  “Shit, he’s choking!” Gomer shouted, leaping out of his seat and reaching across the table, as if that could help.

  A cough so soft it was anticlimactic was all the warning the dude got before a chunk of fromage et croissant flew out of Noah’s gasping mouth and beaned Gomer directly in the forehead. Gomer jerked back, pawing at his face, falling against Madame’s chair and toppling over the back of it. The crack of his head hitting the tile floor more than made up for Noah’s lack of exclamation.

  Noah’s sucking breaths were the only sound for seconds after that, until Turbo let go of him and stepped away. Noah flopped to the floor with an audible thump.

  “Okay.” Toby stood up, chair legs screeching on the floor, perfectly calm. “The bus to the hospital leaves in five minutes. You two—” he waved his finger between Julian and Danny. “You’re in charge of getting Gomer to the van. Don’t jostle him more than absolutely necessary. Jock and Turbo, you’ve got Noah.” Toby glanced down at the floor. “He’s probably okay, but if he needs—”

  “I’ve got it,” Jock said, nodding. He’d seen enough trauma to handle this. There wasn’t even any blood.

  Toby’s shoulders relaxed infinitesimally, and that gave Jock a rush he wasn’t expecting at all. He’d never felt like this when he’d helped out his coach. Seriously need to stop thinking about him that way.

  “Thanks,” Toby breathed.

  “What’m I supposed to do?” Ricky asked.

  Gomer groaned, but didn’t offer other commentary. Madame hustled over to him, crouching down, and Danny followed her.

  “Ricky, call the school and tell them you guys won’t be coming in today.” Toby paused to sigh. “I’m going to take a wild guess you’re all going to want to go to the hospital too.”

  “Well, I mean . . .” Danny said, looking up from where he knelt next to Madame Bovinary, arm around her shoulders to comfort her. “We can’t really say it was a successful trip to Europe if we don’t go to a hospital at least once.”

  Toby’s eyebrows shot up, but he turned toward the door. “I’m going to get the van and bring it to the front entrance. You guys meet me there with your fallen comrades.”

  Madame took control as soon as Toby walked out, herding them all to the door and supervising their loading into the van. Jock had never seen it done so efficiently. Then she commandeered the seat next to Toby, which was a relief to Jock. The bros had gotten in the habit of engineering it so he always sat there. He’d tried to get someone else to ride shotgun, but no matter what he did, the guys were in and out of the vehicle, switching places like it was a clown car, until Jock took his place on the front passenger side.

  Had he seriously thought the guys didn’t notice he and Toby had something—whatever it was—going on? Thank God Madame Bovinary took precedence and sat in his regular spot.

  Except as soon as her butt hit the seat, Jock realized he wanted it back. That was his spot, and it didn’t matter what the guys thought, because it was his life, not theirs, and he’d sit next to Toby if he wanted to.

  Fuck, he was a blind idiot when he wanted to be.

  Madame began giving Toby orders. “The clinique in Saint-Rémy—”

  “Clinique les Alpilles?” Toby asked. “That’s where the college contracts for health services.”

  “Bon.” She nodded, then slapped the dash with her palm a couple of times. “Allez, vite. I’ll direct you.”

  An hour later, Jock found himself in the waiting room of what looked like a pretty American urgent care clinic, except for the signs in French, with Noah sitting near him, telling him what the doctor had said after they’d checked him out. “I’m gonna have the bruise on my abdomen for a few days. He said it’s, like, internal. They did one of those scans on me, the kind they give pregnant women.”

  “Ultrasound,” Jock supplied. He wanted to get up and move. He’d been sitting here too long, but it sounded like Noah needed to talk. He stretched his arms out, laying them on the back of the seats next to him. That’d have to do for now. Toby was pacing, sorta. Wandering to one side of the room, past the potted plants and the industrially upholstered armchairs to look out one bank of windows a minute. Then he’d wander on, past the rack full of some kind of medical literature to the other bank of windows where he’d stand a while. Then he started over. Jock was jealous of his mobility.

  Noah cleared his throat, but it didn’t help the raspiness. “And I got this spray for my throat. It makes it numb.” He made a face, swallowing a few times. “I don’t like it.”

  “You sound like someone throat-fucked the shit out of you.”

  Noah brayed. That’s what nearly choking did to his laugh: turned it from a norm
al sounding thing to an echoing, high-pitched grating bark. Clamping his mouth shut, cutting off the sound, he turned to Jock. “That’s fugly.”

  “It’s not a good sound for you, man,” Jock agreed.

  Toby wandered up to them, hands stuffed in his pockets. Well, to Noah. That was who he halted in front of, not Jock. “You all right?”

  Noah shrugged. “They let me go; I must be.”

  Toby sighed, glancing around the room. “I wish they’d tell me what’s up with Gomer.”

  Jock almost asked why they’d tell him, but, duh, he was responsible for them, wasn’t he? Madame B mothered them, but she wasn’t in charge in the college’s eyes. Sucked to be Toby. And Jock hated that he was adding to the dude’s stress. Gotta fix that. “He’ll be all right,” Jock said.

  Toby tilted his head, acknowledging what Jock said, and also that it was empty reassurance. But then Jock caught his eye, and he could read Toby’s appreciation of the gesture in them.

  “Monsieur Moore?” a guy in scrubs called out just then, holding a clipboard and looking around the room expectantly. Toby’s shoulders slumped as he turned and walked over to the guy, but Jock couldn’t tell if it was from relief, dread, or a mixture of both.

  “He saved my life, dude,” Noah said, reminding Jock he existed. And of course when he checked, Noah was watching Turbo talk to Danny across the room.

  “I really don’t think you should read too much into it.” It was worth a try; he might listen.

  Noah frowned. “Maybe you’re right, because when he was pressed up against me doing the Heimlich, he wasn’t hard at all.”

  Jock stared at the side of his friend’s stupid, mooning head, willing Noah to take it back. He didn’t. “You noticed? Maybe he had other things to think about, like keeping you from choking to death.”

  “So you think he might actually have gotten hard if he’d done that when I wasn’t choking?” Noah finally turned his attention to Jock, but only because he wanted to believe.

  “Reality check.” Jock waved his hand in front of Noah’s face. “It wouldn’t have fucking happened if you weren’t choking.”

  “Yeah.” Noah turned back to his object of affection. “But if it had . . . ?”

  “Jesus,” someone muttered. It was Toby, standing behind them, pulling his coat on. “Give it up, Noah. He’s never going to bone you.”

  Jock tilted his head back to see Toby. “So we’re leaving?”

  “Soon as they discharge Gomer. They don’t think he has a concussion, but we have to keep an eye on him. Like I don’t spend enough time doing that,” he added in a mutter, straightening out his jacket collar in jerky movements.

  When they all piled back into the van to return to the gîte, Jock found himself sitting in the front passenger seat again. He couldn’t say how it had happened, but he didn’t fight it this time. Besides, Madame B seemed happy sitting next to Danny. They were giggling together, having some kind of private conversation. A couple times, when Jock glanced back, he caught her patting Danny’s knee and giving him a sidelong looks from under her lashes. The third time, Danny placed his hand over hers and squeezed it, smiling at her, before they moved apart again.

  Huh. Under the guise of fiddling with the radio, Jock leaned closer to Toby, asking him quietly, “There’s no Monsieur Bouvinet, is there? I mean, I’ve never seen the dude . . .”

  Toby set his mouth in a resigned line. “No, he died in a farming accident, I guess. Thank God I don’t have that to worry about, too.”

  Jock turned the radio to static instead of the pop rock they’d had on in the background, giving himself an excuse to stay right here. “Um, you don’t really think Danny’d go for it, right? I mean, she’s, like, old enough to be his grandmother.” He kept fiddling until he found a new station. It sounded like more alternative rock than the crap the guys mostly listened to. Sweet.

  Toby blew out an exasperated breath, gaze flicking to the rearview mirror. “Weirder shit has happened in the history of the world.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Uh oh,” Toby said, whatever he saw in the mirror making him widen his eyes.

  “Okay, everyone.” Danny clapped his hands for attention. “Since we aren’t going to class today, I thought we’d continue Jules’s education. Let’s discuss where he went wrong this morning, shall we? Constructive comments only, guys,” he warned.

  Turbo snorted. “He came up with the cheesiest pickup line ever.”

  Noah’s braying filled the van, and even through his own laughter Jock caught Toby’s flinch at the sound of it.

  “That’s not very helpful, dude,” Danny said loudly enough to drown out the donkey guffaws. “Does anyone else have anything to—”

  “No,” Toby barked, louder than Danny and Noah combined, effectively shutting everyone up.

  For a couple of seconds. “Tobes, this is necessary for Julian’s devel—”

  “Danny,” he snapped. “Do not make me pull this van over. If you don’t drop this subject, I’ll do it.” Toby nodded emphatically, jaw set. “I swear I will.”

  Danny held his hands up, palms out. “Okay, okay, man. Sorry. Subject closed. Didn’t mean to cause any problems, I was only trying to—”

  “Shut. Up.”

  Danny did. Toby reached over and turned up the music, mumbling, “Told you there’s more bizarre shit in the world,” as he did so.

  “Uh-huh,” Jock agreed. Inside, he resolved to suck it up and talk to Toby. Because judging from what had just happened, the dude was going to a dark place, and Jock could at least let him know he wasn’t going to ignore this whole situation.

  Even if, after Toby found out all the details, he might decide he’d rather ignore Jock.

  If the bros didn’t stop engineering it so Jock sat next to him in the van, Toby was going to string some of them up by their fucking balls. A few of the smaller ones probably. Gomer was about the same height as him, but he was a skinny little fucker, and Jules was downright Napoleonic. Ricky was a little bigger than him, but he’d be easy to catch with that limp, and Toby could just kick him hard in his injured leg if he gave him—

  “Are you, um, busy?”

  Toby turned around from where he’d been adjusting the stupid side view mirror on the van to find Jock standing behind him, hands buried in the pockets of his jeans, shoulders hiked up around his jawline, looking uncomfortable. It was as endearing as hell and Toby kind of hated him for it. Well, that and making him wait around for the guy to make a move or a decision. “Just fixing the mirror. The motor inside it broke or something.”

  Jock’s brow wrinkled up. “Motor?”

  “You know, so I can adjust it by pushing some buttons while I’m in the driver’s seat.” Toby thought for a second about asking Jock if he knew anything about motors, but that smacked far too much of damsel in distress—or possibly mansel in distress—so he returned to the job at hand. Need to forget about him.

  “So you are busy?” Jock persisted.

  Toby’s fingers stopped, frozen on the armature that the mirror hung from while he tried to figure out what was happening. Possibly this situation wasn’t precisely what he’d thought. He’d thought Jock had wandered by and felt like he had to say something, or things would be even more awkward than they’d already become . . . but maybe he’d sought Toby out? Toby’s heart picked up, because after more than a week of being largely ignored—even when they sat next to each other in the van—he was ready for some news; even “Thanks, but I’m not interested,” would be all right. Really, it will. Because then he could overcome this asinine secondary-adolescence crush he’d developed on the sandy-haired boy with the beautiful chesticles.

  “Guess so,” Jock said quietly, then his feet crunched on gravel as he moved.

  “Wait.” Toby faced him again. “You aren’t just being polite?”

  Jock’s jaw clenched. “Polite isn’t really my thing.” He ducked his head, hiding behind his hair.

  “I know you’d like people t
o believe that, but I’m asking seriously.”

  “So was I.”

  Toby tilted his head, trying to get a different view on Jock. “What is it exactly that you’re asking?”

  “Just . . .” Jock shrugged, squinting down at the vineyards below them. “Wondering if you have time to talk. I mean, we haven’t really, not since . . . you know.”

  “If you’re wondering if I’m okay with the way things have been between us, then not really.”

  Jock’s face fell, sort of literally—his mouth turned down at the corners and Toby would swear his eyes drooped into the puppy dog look. “Sorry.”

  Toby studied him for a second, but if he wanted to know, he was going to have to ask, not try to read it off of Jock’s expression. “Are you thinking you don’t want—”

  “I’m still thinking,” Jock said.

  “That’s good to know.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, afraid they’d tremble with the relief of knowing that Jock hadn’t decided to just ignore this situation. He wasn’t sure he’d blame the guy if he did—this was the weirdest not-quite-relationship Toby had ever been in. If his heart would let him, he’d ignore it. But his heart was firmly mired in the quicksand of Jock’s packaging. Not just the package Toby usually focused on, but the whole thing. The way Jock loomed over him, and seemed so young sometimes while being so mature other times, and the way his hair was getting a little too long and almost breaching his eyebrows to tangle in his lashes, and the way he spoke, and the way they seemed to notice the same things, like the odd interactions between Danny and Madame B . . . and everything else, too. “Because I’m still waiting. And yes, I was worried you might blow me off again.”

  Jock didn’t need to go for the obvious “blow” joke, because the knowledge of it sizzled between them, traveling through that eye-to-eye connection they had, making them smile in unison.