Finding North

by Carmen Jenner

  I nod. I shouldn’t, because I have to unpack deliveries and there’s a whole heap of other shit to do in the morning before we open, but I don’t give a rat’s arse. I need this. I need to unload. And for once I need my life to be driven by more than just work.

  “Where’s jailbait tonight?”

  “Brad,” he says, matter-of-factly, “Went home to his mother.”

  “Shit,” I say. “No more underage arse for you.”

  “Oh, he’ll be back,” he says. “And I’ll remind you that eighteen is perfectly legal.”

  “Eighteen is a disaster waiting to happen. Do you remember what you were like at eighteen? Because I was a complete waste of space.”

  “You’re avoiding the topic here, William.”

  “I told him I love him,” I blurt out.

  Josh glares at me, as though he’s offended by that remark. “Are you fucking crazy?”

  “I don’t know.” I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter anyway. I told him and he flinched. He actually fucking flinched.”

  Josh takes my hand and squeezes. “He’s just scared. You’ve been out of the closet how long?”

  I shrug, because I know he doesn’t really want to know; it’s rhetorical.

  “He needs time, and you’re gonna give it to him. And then when he comes around, you’re really gonna give it to him,” he says with a wink.

  I nod in agreement, but my heart isn’t in it at all, because once again I find myself standing on the edge of a precipice. My toes dangle precariously over the ledge, and I don’t know if I’m going to jump or if the whole cliff-face is going to crumble beneath my weight.

  Once, North tore my whole world apart. I promised myself I’d never fall again. Turns out I lied.

  North practically hisses the moment he sits down on the bar stool across from me. “Where were you last night?”

  “Hello to you, too.”

  His jaw is set, his gaze hard and accusing. If we were alone, he’d punish me—or he’d attempt to. “I called you.”

  “I turned my phone off.”

  “I came by.”

  “And I wasn’t here,” I say. He grits his teeth. “Are we drinking beer today, North? Or do you need something a little darker to fit your mood?”

  “Bundy,” he barks, and I cock a brow. Last time he drank Bundy rum in my bar, he ended up half-naked on my stairwell with my hand jammed down his pants. His frown deepens. “You’re avoiding my question.”

  “You didn’t ask nicely, but I can see you’re all twisted up about it so I’ll be kind enough to put you out of your misery.” I take the bottle of Bundy from the shelf and pour the man a stiff drink. I have a feeling he’s going to need it. “I was in Newcastle.”

  “You said you had to take your dad to his meeting.”

  “Change of plans.” Realisation dawns on him, and his response is exactly what I’d expect. His face flushes with anger.

  “Did you fuck him?” North demands, too loudly. He glances around the bar to see who might be watching. No one could care less.

  I lean in. “Careful, North, you’re coming dangerously close to sounding like a jealous lover.”

  “Just tell me. Please?” he says, knocking back the entire glass of rum and signalling me for another. I fill it again and reach for the soda hose, but he covers his hand with it and I shake my head and pour him a double.

  Someone’s out to drink himself stupid tonight. A part of me wishes I could join him. It used to be simple. Boy meets boy. Boy likes boy. Boy fucks boy, and then boy finds someone else to play with on Grindr. Now it’s … complicated.

  I’m called away to fill drink orders, but somewhere between drinks three and four I take pity on the poor bastard. “We didn’t fuck. He listened to me bitch and moan about you for several hours, we got drunk and slept in his bed. Nothing happened.”

  I thought that my confession might appease him, but if anything he looks even angrier. “What?” I say, losing my patience with all of his bullshit.

  “You slept in his bed?”

  “Yeah, that’s usually where people sleep.”

  North clenches his jaw. His cheeks are ruddy with anger and his dark gaze bores into my own. “From now on, you don’t sleep in anybody’s bed but mine.”

  Did I wake up in a parallel universe or is this the same guy who flinched yesterday when I told him I loved him?

  “You gonna send out announcements to the whole town now? ’Cause the way I see it, you don’t get to say shit about whose bed I’m sleeping in until you’re ready to let everyone know that I’m doing a lot more than just sleeping in yours,” I snap, and walk away before I can say something I regret. And while the other customers might not have been paying attention earlier, North’s little display of petty jealousy just garnered us a lot of unwanted attention. The whole bar watches our exchange, and he’s too fucking distracted to see it.

  Rob Underwood approaches, slapping a hand against North’s shoulder, forcing him to jump. The man glares at me. “What’s going on, Son?”

  “Nothing.” North shrugs Rob’s hand from his shoulder.

  I turn away and fill more drink orders, because on the average day it takes everything I have to deal with the man who abused North as he was growing up. All the beatings, the neglect, and the alcoholic rage? Rob Underwood is the very worst that humanity has to offer, and he should have been locked up a lifetime ago for the way he raised his son.

  “You know you’re drawing a lot of attention over here. The boys are starting to ask what’s what, and why you’re having words with this little fairy.”

  “Cut it out, Dad.”

  He leans in and lowers his voice, “That didn’t look like no dispute over how much booze he’s putting into your glass there, which makes me wonder what the hell you have to talk to a fucking homo about.” He slams his empty glass down on the bar. “Fill ’er up.”

  “I think you’ve had enough, haven’t you, Rob?” I say.

  “I think if you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut your little pansy-arsed trap and get me another beer.”

  Just as I’m about to shower down this fucker with icy-cold water from the soda hose, North turns and punches him square in the face. Rob reels back. The dull thwack of pounding flesh is like a homing beacon to all the other patrons. Everything stops. All eyes slide towards the commotion, and every body in that room stills. All except North, who shakes out his hand as his dad clutches the side of his face. It takes Rob all of two seconds to get his composure back, and he comes up swinging, fists flying until he finally connects with the side of North’s head, who isn’t attempting to throw another punch because he’s busy deflecting them. And as much as I’d love to see North beat the shit out of that mean old fucker, I can’t stand by and let this happen in my pub.

  While Jenny huddles into the corner, Sal pulls the baseball bat from under the counter and climbs over the bar in order to get to them. I hurl myself across the bar too, and grab North’s shoulders, pulling the burly fucker back. Dad attempts to do the same to Rob, but he pushes him off. “Get your fucking fairy-lovin’ hands off me, cripple.”

  My dad doesn’t flinch the way I might have. He doesn’t so much as blink. He does reach for Rob’s shirt and head-butt him, though. The resounding crack makes my stomach twist with fear, but it’s short-lived when Rob staggers out of Dad’s grip and slurs. “Fucking fags, the whole lot of you.”

  North struggles in my grasp. Every cell in his body vibrates with rage, with the will to punish and maim, but he’ll have to tear my arms from my sockets before I let him go. I won’t let him become his father.

  “Get the fuck outta my pub. You’re banned for life,” Dad shouts, as Rob stumbles for the door. “If I see you in here again, you’ll be walking away with a lot more than a sore head.”

  “You’ll regret this. The lot of ya,” Rob sneers. The hatred in his gaze is not directed at North, or my dad—it’s solely for me. “You’ll regret it.”

  I haul a struggling No
rth out the back to the exit and into the empty beer garden. He tries for the door, and I shove him back.

  “Move,” he says.

  “Calm the fuck down,” I snap. “You’ve been itching for a goddamn fight since you walked in here this afternoon. Probably before that, if your mood was anything to go by.”

  “He doesn’t just get to call you that shit.”

  “Newsflash, dickhead, freedom of speech means he gets to call me whatever the fuck he wants. He’s not the only arsehole in town throwing around names,” I say, taking a deep breath, because you need the goddamn patience of a saint to deal with Underwood men once they’ve flipped their bitch switch. “You think I let that bother me?”

  “He shouldn’t say shit like that.”

  “Half of the people in that pub shouldn’t be allowed to take up valuable oxygen either, but they are. What are you gonna do, beat up everyone in town?”

  “I’m thinking about it,” he says, glancing up at a sky on fire with the sunset.

  “Then you’re an idiot. They’re just words, North. They have no weight unless you give them meaning. People can only make you feel small if you let them.”

  “Is that why you wailed on those two guys outside Sinners when they called us poofters?”

  “No. You were pissing me off and I just really wanted to beat some fuckers’ head in,” I say, my gaze holding his. That’s only partially true. For the first time since I was a kid, I’d let those barbed words sink into my flesh, just as those bastards had intended. I lost my cool because I knew they weren’t just words to North. Outwardly, he’s always been the tougher of the two of us, but he has an inherently soft underbelly that no one but me ever sees. One that I feel the need to protect.

  “The point is, you need to stop letting that man control your life. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your dad’s an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole and no matter what you do that’s what he’ll stay.”

  North blows out a harsh breath and runs his hand through his hair. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Yes. I do.” I pull my wallet from my back pocket and take the joint from it. Normally I don’t smoke on a shift, especially not out here when it’s still daylight, but we could both use a little settling of our nerves, so I light it up and take a few long pulls before handing it to him.

  He stares down at the spliff in his hand. “Jesus you’re a pot head.”

  “And you’re an alcoholic,” I say.

  He shrugs. “I’m only an alcoholic because it gives me an excuse to see you.”

  “You never needed an excuse,” I say, staring into his stricken face. I reach out and cup his cheek. “He doesn’t matter. All that matters is this. At the end of the day, all that matters is that you’re happy.”

  “I haven’t been happy since we were kids.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time to do something about that, then?” I ask, snatching the joint from his fingers when I realise he’s just going to let it burn away without even taking a toke.

  “Like what?”

  “Go see a doctor. Do shit that brings you joy,” I say, sarcastically. “Talk to someone.”

  “Real men don’t talk out their feelings, Will.”

  “Bullshit. Your dad has fed you nothing but lies since the day you came out of your mother’s vag. Emotions, crying, being unhappy, being turned on by a man doesn’t make you shit. It doesn’t make you a pussy or a fag. It makes you a human being. You’re incredible. You’re adventurous, you’re funny—when you’re not being a douche—and you’re courageous, even though you don’t know it.”

  “You forgot scared, fuck up—liar.”

  “Why those things?”

  “Because that’s who I am.” He shrugs. “You know, on paper I feel like I have my shit together. I’ve ticked all the right boxes—all but one.”

  “Whose boxes are you ticking? Your own?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do they matter? Make you happy, North,” I say, patting his cheek and taking one final drag on the joint before stubbing it out on the weather-worn fence palings and pocketing the rest for later. I walk back to the entrance. “Screw everyone else.”

  “Will,” he says, before I can walk away. “Are you happy?”

  I don’t reply, just give him one of my usual smiles and enter the pub again. The truth is my happiness hinges on someone else.

  Him.

  Dad’s truck pulls out of the drive, and the second I can no longer hear the engine I shove Will down on his back, stripping him bare and taking him, face to face in the hull of a boat that salt-spray and time have picked clean right down to its bare bones.

  Afterward, we lie there under the stars, the same as we’d always done as kids, only this time we’re naked and sated, and the warm summer breeze wafts jasmine and the occasional acrid scent of seaweed from the bay towards us. I listen to the waves lap against the shore and Will takes my hand. “You ever wonder what it’s like in other parts of the world?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.” He runs the pad of his finger over my palm, traces the lines and callouses etched into my skin. “Do you ever think about getting out of here, seeing the world? Fucking in the Greek Isles? Sleeping out of a car in Europe? Tequila shots in Mexico? Nudie runs through the snow in Aspen?”

  “You mean freezing my dick off?”

  “You wouldn’t freeze. I’d keep it warm for you,” Will says, cupping my cock in his long fingers. The fucker strokes his hand up and down, and I swat it away, even though I’m already hard and raring to go. He laughs and then sobers, and I roll so I can see his face in the moonlight. “I’m serious.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it.”

  “I think about it.”

  I roll my eyes. “No shit.”

  After a long pause, he says, “I’m going, and I want you to come with me.”

  “What, like travel together? How would that look?” A lump forms in my throat, and fear nips at the pit of my stomach.

  “Plenty of friends take overseas trips together.”

  I scoff. “Do they also fuck in the snow in Siberia?”

  “Aspen’s in the US, you uncultured swine.” Will laughs.

  “What-the-fuck-ever. You know I’d never get the chance to see it, so who the hell cares where it is?”

  “Why wouldn’t you get the chance to see it?”

  “Come on, Will. You really think I can leave my dad like this? Who else is gonna remind him to eat? Fuck, most days we have to scrape together enough change to buy a freaking loaf of bread.”

  “And yet you can still find enough money to buy booze,” he says, his tone oozing acid.

  “You try telling him that he can’t drink with the money he earns.” I sigh. “Exams are finished, and I’ve already put in for a position at the steel mill. I start in January. I think I’ve almost convinced Dad to apply.”

  Will sits up, angrily shoving his legs into his jeans. “So what? Because he can’t control how much he drinks, you’re just gonna stay here and babysit him for the rest of his life?”

  “He’s an alcoholic.”

  “You hate your dad. What has he ever done but beat you and tell you that you’re worthless?”

  “He’s still my dad, Will.”

  Silence takes up all the space between us. His anger is written all over his face in the tight set of his jaw and the furrow between his brows, and I know it’s not because I won’t go with him, but more because I should be angry. I should hate my dad. Will’s right; he’s never done anything but tell me how worthless I am. He made me this way—this pathetic, emotionally stunted kid who’s afraid of nothing and terrified of everything. I should hate him, but I keep waiting for him to tell me he’s proud, that he loves me, that he’s honoured to call me ‘son’. Seems I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear those words from my father and even though I know I’ll never hear them. I keep waiting.

  I reach out my index
finger and smooth it over the crease in his brow. “You should go. Get out of this town. Send me lots of postcards. You can fuck whoever you want—a guy in every country.”

  “See, that’s the thing. No matter where I go I know I’ll only ever want one guy.”

  “Go. Don’t come back,” I say, and I tighten my grip on his hand. “There’s nothing in this shithole town for you.”

  “There’s you.”

  “I’m not worth coming back for.” I smile.

  “You have no idea what you’re worth; you’ve just never been told by anyone that loved you.” He traces a fingertip down my nose and across my lips. “Until now.”

  I grab his hand and clutch it to my chest, hoping he can feel my heartbeat, feel everything I have inside, even though I can’t say the words. The lump in my throat swells and a knot forms in my gut. I’m glad the moonlight obscures us a little, because it hurts like fuck to say, “Don’t come back here. This town is nothing but angry, bitter hearts and unhappy people. I belong here. But you, Will Tanner, you may have been born here, but you’ve never fit in, because there isn’t another soul in this place like you. You belong to them out there—to Mexico and Greece and fucking ‘freeze your dick off’ Aspen. Not here. This is where hope comes to die, and you deserve better than that.”

  “So do you,” he says thickly, kissing the tip of my nose.

  “Nah.” I shake my head and turn onto my back, looking at a sky painted with stars. It fucking kills me to think that one day, he might be under that same sky in another time-zone, fifteen thousand kilometres away, lying with another man. “I’ll die alone, a bitter, angry drunk just like my dad.”

  “Then I will, too.”

  I laugh humourlessly. “That’s the thing about dying alone—you kinda have to be by yourself.”

  “You hate being by yourself,” Will reminds me. “So I’ll keep you company.”