Finding North

by Carmen Jenner

  He frowns, and then he takes in the room around us and shoots up off the futon, giving me a wary look. “What the hell am I doing here?”

  “You blacked out in the bar, dumbarse. I dragged you up the stairs.” I put some distance between us and absently flip through the contents of my wallet for something to do, because the sight of him in my bed is a temptation I could never ignore. I’ve always loved the way he looks in the morning—hair all mussed from the pillow, sleepy baby blues, and his full lips pink and swollen, as if he’s just been kissed. The hard-on filling the front of his jeans never hurt either.

  But it hurts like fuck now.

  “You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “You still live here?” he asks. His eyes widen as he glances around my apartment. It is kinda gross; there’s shit from one end to the other. I’m not a neat freak, and I don’t tszuj when it comes to interior design like the guys from Queer Eye. There are three things I’m fucking stellar at: mixing drinks, sarcasm, and fucking. Being a stereotypical gay guy? Not really my strong suit. “It’s exactly the same. I mean, aside from the renovations, and you don’t have that racing car bed anymore, but it’s …” North trails off, looking awkwardly about him.

  “Still filthy? How very un-gay of me,” I say, picking up his wallet from the coffee table and lobbing it at him. He doesn’t try to catch it, and it falls to the floor with a heavy thud. I don’t need him looking around this room reminiscing; I do enough of that shit on my own. “Time to go, arsehole.”

  “Can I take a piss first?”

  My eyes roll down his shirt-clad torso to the morning wood straining against his zipper. I can’t help it. They roll back up and unapologetically meet his gaze. “Sure.”

  He gives me a nervous glance and then clears his throat, walking toward the bathroom. “Just don’t sit on the seat,” I say. “There’s a nasty case of that homosexuality thing going around. Wouldn’t want you to catch it.”

  He stops dead in his tracks and bows his head, likely pinching the bridge of his nose, though I can’t see his face from where I’m standing. North turns and looks at me, really looks at me, and for a beat I feel like a complete fucking arsehole. I don’t want to be angry after all these years. I want things to go back to the way they were.

  And then I remember that this isn’t my doing. It’s his. So I shove all thoughts of what we used to be aside.

  “Will,” he murmurs, but I shake my head. I can’t listen to whatever he has to say. It doesn’t matter. He lost the right to say anything more to me than “Give me another drink” or “Make it a double” when he pushed me away.

  “Shut the door on your way out,” I snap, collecting my keys off the coffee table and heading downstairs.

  I stand in the empty bar, knowing I need to haul arse and start setting up, and I need to forget the past. I wish there was a way to burn the memories of that man and our childhood together, from my brain because holding onto that shit doesn’t do me any fucking good. It can’t ever go back to the way it was, because we’re no longer the same people. North did that. In an instant, he ripped away everything.

  A second.

  A few little words.

  And one fucking huge slash through the middle of my heart.

  I’ve never had a problem with the walk of shame. In order for it to be a walk of shame, you actually have to have some to begin with. My ex, Tammy, stands at my front door. No, that’s not right. She’s in my doorway, blocking my entrance from the house that I own, the house I built, and her puffy eyes burn daggers into mine. I wish I had been out all night shoving my dick in someone else. I mean, if you’re going to be accused of it …

  “Who was she?” Tammy asks, only it’s not so much a question as it is a demand, and she screams the words. Not for the first time, I thank god that I have no neighbours.

  “I didn’t fuck anyone, Tam. I drank too much. I was too wasted to drive, so I walked and fell asleep on the beach.”

  “Don’t lie to me. Don’t you dare lie to me, North. You were with Jenny, weren’t you?” she says, driving her fingers into her strawberry blonde hair. The little black negligee rides up her thighs, and I try not to look like a complete arsehole for checking her out while she’s having another one of her dramatic little episodes, especially since she already has the wrong idea. When I’d let her move in after she lost her apartment I explained that this wasn’t a thing. I was just helping her out and when she got back on her feet, she’d find another place to live. I thought that had been crystal fucking clear, but obviously, like all men, I don’t know shit when it comes to women.

  “Oh god, that’s the reason you broke up with me.”

  Fuck. Here we go. I thought in order to break up with someone you had to be dating them first. She knew what this was from the very beginning.

  I need her shit like a goddamn hole in the head. My brain is pounding like an anvil was dropped on my skull, and Tam wants to talk about my previous one-night stands? I should just tell her I spent the night with a man and be done with it. At least it might shut her up for a bit, and I could finally get some peace and quiet.

  “I know what you did with her last year when we broke up,” she continues. Or maybe she just never stopped talking, and I zoned out. Wouldn’t be the first time. “The whole town was talking about it. She told Susan down at Curls ’n’ Things that the two of you got wasted last Christmas Eve and that Santa wasn’t the only one coming that night.”

  I smile, because I have very fond memories of that Christmas. Me and Jenny didn’t just make the naughty list that year—we burned that mother fucker to ash. I always had a thing for good girls.

  Tam screams her frustration, and I realise a little too late that now is not the time for reminiscing. Jesus Christ. She and I weren’t even a thing then, and even if we were we’d never been serious. At least, that’s what I thought.

  She’s a sweet woman when she’s not PMSing, which seems to be every other fucking day, but she wants things I can’t give her: stability, a family, love. I don’t know how to give anyone those things. I’m not worth any of those things, so how can I give them to another?

  I rub my temples and move past her into the cool of the house. I head straight for the junk drawer and pull out some painkillers. Pouring myself a glass of water, I down them in one go.

  “You look like hell, North,” Tam says quietly.

  “I feel like it too, so I’m gonna go take a shower, and then I’m going to bed. You can either come if you want, and maybe we can work off a little of that tension of yours, or not—I don’t really give a shit.”

  Tam’s lips flatten and her eyes bore into mine in indignation. I turn away, at the end of my rope with her fucking head games. I shouldn’t have offered to fuck her. That was stupid, but fuck, I need to bury myself inside something and forget all about whose house I woke up in this morning and just how familiar that room was.

  When I get out of the shower I only half-dry myself, ’cause it’s hot already and I can’t be fucked even going through the motions. I leave the towel on the floor and head into my room. Tam’s stretched out on the bed in front of me. Her little black nightie is gone and her bare pussy is already pink and swollen with arousal.

  I walk towards the bed. “Spread your legs, darlin’.”

  She plants her feet on the mattress and opens her thighs for me. I palm her pussy. Tam moans. Spreading her lips apart with my thumb and index finger, I smile when I feel how ready she is. This is exactly what I need—to bury myself in some hot, wet snatch.

  To forget.

  I avoid the bar like the plague for two days straight, but by the third day I can’t stay away any longer. As I walk in, I’m greeted with the usual suspects: guys from work, barflies I’ve known since I was a boy, and Daddy dearest. I’ve barely set a foot inside before he starts flinging insults in my direction—shit about Tam, and how he hasn’t seen me outside of work because I’m under her thumb, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

 
; Dad’s a mean old bastard. He always has been, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t want to beat that fucker’s head in for something or other, but I usually let it slide because I’m used to his bullshit. Not today though.

  Today, I’m done. “How many drinks you had, Dad?”

  He glares at me, though I know calling attention to his alcoholism isn’t exactly an insult to him. “Not enough.”

  “Guess not. It’s past six and you’re not trying to slam your fists into my head, so on a scale of one to fifty, we’re probably only at twenty-three,” I say. “I’ll go grab a beer and come back when you’ve liquored up some more.”

  “Oh, cry me a fucking river, kid.” He leans on the cherrywood table. There’s no apology or remorse in his stare. There’s nothing behind his eyes. Nothing at all. This man is dead inside, rotten right to the core, and for the longest time I couldn’t see it. I wanted to be just like him—strong, brave, a man’s man. But he isn’t any of that. Just an angry old drunk who never gave a rat’s arse about anyone but himself. I walk away, but Dad says, “Christ, you’re a whiney bitch. You sound like your mother.”

  “I’m not my mother,” I snap, striding back to the table, my finger pointed at his face. “But is it any wonder she killed herself with a husband like you?”

  My father’s eyes are quiet and contemptuous, but his bloated jowls redden from more than just a lifetime of fishing in the elements. I embarrassed him. Wouldn’t be the first time, I guess.

  It’s no secret that my mother killed herself. When I was six years old she got up early one morning and walked off the wharf in front of our house. I’m told she suffered with depression. All I know is that the second she was gone, all of my father’s anger transferred off of her and onto me. And he hasn’t let a day slip by since where he hasn’t showed me in some small way that I’m the reason his existence is so fucking miserable.

  “What did you say, you little shit?”

  “Hey, come on, boys.” Smithy—a skinny red-headed Millwright from work—says, patting my dad on the back. Smithy’s what I like to call a smoother-over. He hates tension of any kind, so drinks at the bar with me and dad practically see him having fucking kittens most days. “He didn’t mean nothing by it, Rob. He’s just blowin’ off steam is all. You were giving him a good ribbin’, so let’s lighten up, okay?”

  “Get your hands off me,” Dad says, and he takes a step towards me. I just look at him. It isn’t the first time in my adult life he’s wanted to throw down, and I’m not the cowering boy I was once, and I’m not little any more either. I’ve put him on his arse several times since I became a man, and he doesn’t recover as quickly as he once used to. Must be a terrible feeling that—a father’s strength overthrown by his son’s.

  Like the worthless dick he is, Dad spits on the floor and stalks out of the pub, and I head over to the bar because I’m done with the accusing glances his buddies throw my way.

  “Still a mean old fucker, isn’t he?” Will mutters, as he wipes a rag over the bar.

  “Yeah, well we weren’t all fortunate enough to be blessed with Mike Brady for a dad,” I say.

  “You gonna buy a drink? Or should I pull up the couch so you can lie down and tell me all about your feelings?” Will smiles in that cocky way that only Will can. If he were anyone else, he’d get his skull beaten in because of that douche-kebab smile. Always the shit stirrer. “It’ll make a nice change from bottling them up for the last twelve years.”

  “Gimme a beer,” I say, attempting to hide my grin by scrubbing my hand over my mouth and chin and scratching at my stubble.

  “Tell you what.” Will rests his hand on the counter, piercing me with those big dark eyes. “Why don’t I give you a scotch and a piece of advice instead?”

  I glance around to see who’s watching, and lean closer when I notice no one gives a shit about what I’m doing. Except maybe Will’s work colleague, Jenny. Yeah, that Jenny. We fucked a handful of times after that Christmas, the last being two days before her wedding to some arsehole from Valentine—another small fishing community not far from here. Jenny called off her wedding, but that had little to do with me and more to do with the realisation that she didn’t wanna be a fishmonger’s wife, popping out babies and scooping up scales from inside the washing machine. Jenny watches the two of us closely, but when her gaze meets mine, her cheeks flame red, and she turns away, busying herself with cleaning down her side of the bar.

  “And what would that be?” I say softly, as Will takes down a bottle of Glenfiddich and pours us both a dram.

  “Stop giving a fuck,” he says, and raises his drink.

  “That easy, huh?”

  “Worked for me.” He smiles. An actual smile. Not one intended with malice, or the cocky grin he’d served up just seconds ago, but a real, live genuine smile. And it’s a beautiful thing. I haven’t seen Will Tanner smile since … well, it’s been a very long time.

  I smile too, because I always found Will’s moods infectious, and then I remember where I am, and more importantly who I am, and fear grips me, sweat tingling down my spine and unease roiling in my gut. “You tell anyone about the other night?”

  “You mean about the hot piece of arse I fucked on my futon? Or the other night, when you took a little nap in my bar and I had to carry you up to my room and have my way with you?”

  “What the fuck?” I hiss.

  Will rolls his eyes. “Jesus, North. Once upon a time you had a sense of humour.”

  “Yeah well, things change.” I down the scotch.

  “Yes, they do.” Will holds out his hand. It takes me a beat to realise that he wants me to pay him for the overpriced dram he just poured.

  “You know, once upon a time you used to give me booze for free,” I say.

  “That was when you were a sure thing,” he says, smoothly. “Now you’re just another drunk arsehole in my bar, wanting free booze.”

  Climbing off the stool, I fish out my wallet and throw some money on the counter top. I give Will the onceover, wishing I could tell him, but instead I turn and walk away without another word.

  If only he had any idea about what I wanted.

  Checking my watch, I shut off the dishwasher so its infernal beeping won’t make me fucking crazy. I sent Jenny home early because there’s just one customer, and I wasn’t happy with the way she was flirting with him. I like Jenny; she’s a good girl. No wait, scratch that—no way is she a good girl. She’s probably a fucking succubus in the sack, but for a sex-starved soul-sucking demon, she’s pretty likeable. I just don’t like it when she’s flirting with my … I just don’t like it when she flirts.

  “Last drinks,” I call to the near empty room.

  “Dude, seriously?” North says. “There’s me and you here; that’s it.”

  “Then I’m calling last drinks for you.”

  North polishes off the remainder of his beer and drums his hands on the counter. “And if I throw down two hundred bucks and ask you to pass me the bottle of Bundy?”

  “Then I’ll give it to you.” I lower my tone, roll my eyes over his torso as if my gaze alone could devour him. I shouldn’t flirt. I know this, but I do it anyway. Despite knowing the pub is empty, he glances around anxiously.

  North pulls out his wallet and tosses a couple of fifties on the bar. He looks pointedly at me and I snatch up the notes, shoving them in my pocket before pulling the Bundy rum from the shelf. I place the bottle in front of him.

  “You know we sell it at the bottle shop for forty bucks, right?” I grab another glass, dropping in a few cubes of ice. When I reach for the bottle, North’s hand covers mine. He glares, and his gaze burns into mine.

  “I believe that’s mine,” he says.

  “Always playing games, North,” I mutter. “Haven’t you outgrown that yet?”

  “I remember you liked games,” he whispers, and I have to work to school my expression.

  Twelve years on and still such a cock tease.

  Other
s may have tiptoed around danger, afraid to wake it, but North liked to seize its balls and give a good firm tug. And there was nothing he liked more than to rattle someone. And he’d always been so good at rattling me.

  “I liked a lot of things I outgrew.” I snatch the bottle away and pour a generous helping into my glass. North’s gaze burns a hole into me. He frowns.

  “Like me?” he asks, as though he doesn’t already know the answer to that question.

  I glare at him and I’m met with a slow, solemn nod of understanding. North clears his throat and pours a drink, downing it straight. For a long time, neither of us say a word, then he asks, “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Be yourself?” His gaze doesn’t meet mine. Instead, he stares down into the near empty crystal, as though he might find the answers he seeks in the remnants of the amber liquid in the bottom of the glass. “How do you live here, Will?”

  “Well, you take all your shit and stuff it inside boxes, and then you move it from one house to the next.” I pepper my words with sarcasm because his question caught me off-guard, and being an arsehole has always been my defence mechanism.

  “How do you wake up every day and be exactly who you want to be?”

  I shrug, playing down the effect his questions have on me, but inside I want to scream. Is he fucking kidding me with this shit?

  With a tight-lipped expression, and anger twisting my gut, I say, “I don’t know how to be anybody else.”

  He nods. I can read this man like an open book, always have. The hard set to his mouth, the sadness behind his gaze? He needs to unburden his feelings, but he won’t because we’re not friends. Not anymore. And though I may be the only person in the entire world he can talk to, instead he swallows it back like the liquor in his glass, and I grow tired of trying to find North in all that he won’t say.

  Jesus fucking Christ, I am too sober for this shit. We both need our man-cards revoked.