by A. J. Truman
“I’ll check it out.”
Rafe didn’t seem to believe him, but he didn’t push it any further.
Rafe’s boss came out for his hourly check of the place. The rest of the time, he was holed up in his office watching TV and reading, per Rafe’s reporting. It was a sweet life.
“Hey Alfie,” Rafe said.
Alfie came over and rubbed Rafe’s shoulder. “Mate, have I told you how excited I am to have you here until May?”
“Multiple times.” Rafe tried to act modest, but Eamonn loved watching him soak in the acclaim.
“I’m going to keep training you. By spring, you’ll be bartending Friday and Saturday nights, making a lot more than you do now. Is this the boyfriend?” Alfie turned to Eamonn and shook his hand hard. “Thank you for getting him to stay!”
“Oh, no. I didn’t—”
“I’m staying for a variety of reasons,” Rafe said.
“Well, I’m sure having him here didn’t hurt.” Alfie elbowed Rafe and broke into a wheezy laugh. Rafe laughed along with him, though Eamonn could tell it was only for show.
Once he left, an awkward silence hung in the air between the boyfriends for a moment. Then it was gone, but not forgotten.
RAFE
All during medieval history class, Rafe thought about Eamonn, wishing him luck on his interview. Even if he wasn’t crazy about Eamonn taking the job. Rafe had seen people he worked for in his internships miserable but unable to leave their jobs. They were stuck. Rafe didn’t want that to happen to Eamonn. If only he knew how much he was truly capable of.
On his walk back to the dorm, he got a Facetime request from Coop. He waited until he was in his wifi-enabled dorm room before answering. His finger hovered over the accept button.
“Hey,” Rafe said. He took deep breaths and rubbed his free palm on his jeans.
“What’s up? What are you doing for Thanksgiving next week?” Coop asked.
“I’m cooking it. Or attempting to.”
“Nice.” Coop cocked the brim of his hat. Rafe found it adorable how this white kid from suburban New Jersey tried to act all tough.
“How’s Matty?”
“He created his own version of Alexa that can turn the lights on and off and play music. I told him to name it Fuckface so that when you ask for something, you go ‘Hey Fuckface, what’s the weather outside today?’”
Rafe laughed. He missed his daily dose of Coop. They had really great roommate banter.
“I can’t wait for you to play with Fuckface in January.”
And here it came. The inevitable moment Rafe had been delaying. Now was time to pull the trigger. “So actually, um, the thing is…is that I’m extending my trip. I’m staying at Stroude into spring.”
Coop’s mouth hung open. “Oh. Like the whole year?”
“Yeah. Through May.”
“So you wouldn’t come back to Browerton until next fall?”
Rafe nodded yes.
“Wow.”
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live abroad, you know? I want to take full advantage, and just going for fall semester is so short. I want to travel and keep experiencing all England has to offer.”
“Yeah.”
“And I’ll be back junior year!” Junior year. He wouldn’t return to Browerton until he was an upperclassmen. It sounded so much longer when he put it like that.
“Yeah,” Coop said, still shell-shocked.
“And I know you’re thinking I’m just staying because Eamonn is my first-ever boyfriend, but I’m not. Of course I’m excited to spend more time with him, but he’s just the free gift with purchase.”
“Yeah.”
“Coop, please say something else besides ‘yeah.’” When Rafe got to his room, he kneeled on the floor and held the phone in front of him like he was praying to it.
“What about Dance Til You Drop?”
“Dance Til You Drop,” Rafe repeated. It was a thirty-hour dance marathon that Browerton hosted every year in March to raise money for charity. He and Coop had agreed after missing out last year to do it as sophomores. They were going to dance like Charlie Brown characters for the entire time. Rafe thought of the time they practiced in their room last year.
“We can do it our junior and senior years,” Rafe said.
“I guess so. Maybe I can rope Matty into doing it with me.” But it wouldn’t be the same. “Aw man, and you’re not going to see any of my performances this year.”
“Film them and put them up on YouTube.”
“You’re going to be missing an entire year of college life here. Parties and stories.”
“I’ll make stories here.”
“But I won’t know them,” Coop said with a smile. Rafe thought about the games and events he would miss. Stroude didn’t seem to have the same school spirit that Browerton had, or at least his flatmates had no interests in seeking it out. No tailgates or football games or festivals. No blizzards that blanketed the campus in winter or a river to rest along in spring.
There was Eamonn, though. Rafe wasn’t staying just for him, but that free gift with purchase was very valuable. He had never felt this way about anyone before. He knew in his heart that what they had was more than some study abroad fling. He just hoped that Eamonn felt the same.
“Maybe I’ll come out to visit you,” Coop said. “I’ve never been to London.”
“You’d like it. I’ll look up British rappers we could see.”
“Nice.”
“So start looking up flights.”
Coop gave him the captain’s salute and ended the call. Browerton had never felt so far away.
Chapter 25
RAFE
Heath inhaled the aroma coming from the oven. “Rafe, my friend, you have a gift. You’re like a less prickish version of Gordon Ramsey.”
Rafe mashed up potatoes at the kitchen table. “I love Thanksgiving. All you have to do is eat!”
He checked his computer spreadsheet where he organized his Thanksgiving menu and created the food preparation schedule. He spent the past week watching YouTube videos and reading food blogs. This was his biggest culinary challenge, and he wasn’t going to muck it up.
“What exactly is Thanksgiving?” Heath asked. “It celebrates when you Yanks committed genocide on those poor Native Americans, right?”
Rafe shot him the middle finger. “Like you Brits are so much better. The British Empire ruled the world for centuries. You think they took over colonies politely?”
“Touché.” Eamonn swung into the kitchen with a bag of cranberries and two bags of white bread. “It took me three stores to find one with cranberries.”
Eamonn dropped the food onto the kitchen table. He opened the oven door where the turkey cooked. “That is one sexy bird.”
“Can you help me take it out? I have to baste it.” Rafe pulled out the oven shelf holding the roasting pan. The bird sizzled in its juices.
“Are you meditating?” Eamonn asked.
“No. I’m smelling. Can you smell that?” Rafe asked. Heath came closer, and the three of them took another whiff.
“It smells delicious,” Heath said.
“It smells like Thanksgiving.” Rafe felt a tug on his heartstrings. “It smells like my grandparents’ house.”
Rafe was using his grandmother’s recipe for the bird, but he didn’t think he could actually replicate it. She had the special ingredient, one of those grandmotherly touches where she didn’t have to use any measuring cups. But he was doing something right if the aromas aligned. “I can’t believe I’m successfully cooking Thanksgiving dinner.”
“This is going to be the best Thanksgiving meal we’ve ever had,” Eamonn said, pointing between him and Heath.
“It’s the only Thanksgiving meal you’ve ever had.”
“Thus the bar is incredibly low.” Eamonn kissed him, which gave Rafe an extra boost to keep on making this the best meal ever. However low Eamonn’s bar might be, Rafe still wanted to impress him.
“Heath, will you begin ripping up the bread into small pieces. Next, we’re going to make the stuffing!”
“Are we literally going to stuff a turkey’s arse with bread crumbs?” Heath asked, seemingly disgusted and intrigued at the same time.
“No stuffing the stuffing. All of the turkey’s body cavities will go unviolated. My mom told me that she and my grandmother never stuff the turkey.” Rafe had eaten eighteen Thanksgiving meals, but had never stepped foot in a kitchen on Thanksgiving. The menfolk sat around the living room TV watching football (or scrolling through Instagram on their phones while football was on in the background in Rafe’s case). Rafe was let into a special club when his mom divulged family recipes to him.
Rafe and Eamonn basted the turkey. He remembered the epic Asda grocery trip to get most of these Thanksgiving supplies. It was almost as magical as their first time there.
“Heath, when you’re done, can you and Eamonn move the table and chairs into the hallway for setting up?”
Not all guests could fit around the table in the kitchen. The flat across the hall was letting them borrow their table and chairs, and they were going to combine both sets in the hallway. Thanksgiving wasn’t the same without an elongated dining table.
Rafe and Eamonn shoved the bird back in the oven.
“Also, I invited Allison,” Rafe said, mostly to Heath.
“Cool,” he said, but Rafe caught a flicker of panic in his eyes.
“Is that okay?” Rafe asked. “All of her friends went to Rome this weekend.”
“Wait. Why would you think it wouldn’t be?” Heath asked back.
Rafe was too busy to tiptoe around this. “I know you and Allison hooked up. Shagged. Whatever you want to call it. I saw her leaving your room. I’m assuming Eamonn already knows because you guys are best friends and that seems like something you would’ve told him.” Rafe paused to get confirmation on this. Eamonn and Heath both nodded yes. “Good. I couldn’t not invite the only other American I know here to Thanksgiving dinner. Are you and Allison still…”
“Shagging?” Heath asked.
“You know what? It’s none of my business. I have a meal to cook.” Rafe opened the fridge to get the green beans, but immediately shut it. “Like I said, it’s obviously none of my business, and you don’t have to answer—”
“We shagged twice. Both times we were perfectly pissed. We had a good laugh about it,” Heath said, and Rafe breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to host a dinner filled with drama.
“Does Louisa know?” Rafe whispered, just in case she barged in.
“No. And she doesn’t have to.”
“Would she be jealous?”
Heath and Eamonn exchanged a look that said they didn’t know the answer for sure.
“Let’s just keep it between us,” Eamonn said.
“Well, you and her were all about keeping it casual. Will it be awkward if Louisa is at dinner no matter what?” Rafe got the green beans for real this time and began snapping off the ends. “I feel like you guys have barely talked to each other for weeks. You’ve downgraded to acquaintances or something, particularly since she’s been hanging out with Nathan more.”
From what Rafe could gauge from the times they all were together, Heath and Louisa had mastered the British stiff upper lip tradition of holding in one’s feelings. The détente continued. Though judging by Heath’s solemn expression currently, Rafe realized that was only a one-sided agreement.
Eamonn got a beer from the fridge. He offered one to Rafe, who declined. “I need to stay sober and in the cooking zone. But you guys go on ahead. Thanksgiving isn’t complete without a drunk uncle.”
“What’s in that?” Heath asked, taking the beer Rafe refused.
“It’s an expression. There’s always one relative at Thanksgiving who gets way too drunk and starts saying inappropriate, offensive, and blatantly racist things at the dinner table.”
“That only happens at Thanksgiving?” Eamonn asked. “You Yanks need to drink more.”
Rafe put Heath to work chopping up onion and garlic, while Eamonn was in charge of sautéing the green beans.
“Question for you, mates,” Rafe said. Mate didn’t really roll off the tongue for him. “Does Stroude have like a dance-a-thon event or something like that?”
“What’s a dance-a-thon?” Heath asked.
“It’s where you dance nonstop for a whole day or more to raise money for charity. And each hour is a different kind of music, and people dress up in costumes to dance. The whole school gets into it. Anything like that?”
Heath and Eamonn looked at each other like Rafe described something out of a science fiction novel. Like most traditions, it sounded weird for anyone who wasn’t part of it.
“That sounds exhausting,” Heath said. “And why would you wear costumes?”
“I don’t know. To get into it. It’s fun. At Browerton, they do a dance-a-thon that lasts for thirty hours.”
“Sounds a bit dodgy,” Heath said, wiping away an onion-induced tear.
“Yeah. I guess you have to be there.” Rafe smiled to himself. He checked the weather report, and Stroude would be lucky to get an inch of snow all winter. For the first real snowfall of the year, kids at Browerton would run onto the main quad in boots and their underwear for Snow Spree.
Rafe looked up and caught Eamonn staring at him like he was trying to read his mind, but it was an inside joke he couldn’t get.
Heath went to his room to wipe his eyes. That left Eamonn and Rafe, separated by more than a kitchen table at the moment.
“I’m just waiting on final word from my study abroad advisor to make sure I officially have the green light, but she says it’s pretty much a go. I updated my health insurance policy to extend coverage, and that was the last step.” Rafe hoped that Eamonn would scoop him up in his arms and swing him around the kitchen whilst making out. Or something like that.
“Will staying here hurt your chances of getting into that BISHoP program?” he asked.
“I can apply from here and interview via Skype.”
“Will that look bad? You told me all about how every detail matters in interviews.”
“No,” Rafe said, although Eamonn did have a point. But why was he so concerned about BISHoP all of a sudden? Why was he bringing that up instead of celebrating? It was crunch time, and maybe he doesn’t want me here. Rafe thought things would be different with him, but maybe Eamonn was just another guy he was scaring off.
“Shit,” Rafe said, opening the fridge. “We’re out of butter. I thought I got enough.”
“I’ll run out to the corner store and pick up some sticks.”
“Thanks.”
Eamonn kissed him goodbye before he left the kitchen. He was a good boyfriend, and Rafe worried that the only thing keeping them together was an expiration date.
Chapter 26
EAMONN
A little sprinkle turned into a steady rain that blackened the sky. It would’ve been pretty had Eamonn been in a mood to admire beauty. He dug his hands into his pockets and hunched down to block himself from the downpour.
Rafe had done it. He had actually fucking done it. Eamonn should be ecstatic. His boyfriend was staying! He had aced the interview at his uncle’s company and was on the fast track to management! But all he felt was this sinkhole opening inside him. What was Rafe giving up to stay? Was Eamonn worth it? Rafe had all these ideas about who Eamonn could be, and as much as those ideas excited him, Eamonn doubted he could live up to them. He wasn’t some globe-trotting humanitarian. He had a family that depended on him.
He wasn’t impressed with the butter selection at the corner store. It sat on a dirty shelf inside a cooler whose door was frosted over with ice. He left the store and walked to the fancy market in town. Rafe deserved the most quality ingredients for his Thanksgiving meal.
Eamonn stopped at an alley a block before the market. Students at Stroude didn’t frequent the pubs in town. They were a bit
too dodgy for them. They would rather drink in the clean, friendly confines of Apothecary and other campus pubs. In the alley was the entrance to one of the seedier pubs, one of those places that didn’t have a name, just signs for the type of beer they carried. It was an example of what this town used to be like before fancy markets began coming in. Eamonn had never stepped foot in this pub, but he heard a familiar yell wafting from the alley.
“Get your bloody hands off me! You fucking cunts!”
Two men dragged Nathan out of the pub and threw him against the brick wall. By the looks of it, they’d already had some fun with him inside. His clothes were wrinkled, and his shirt collar was ripped.
“Go home and don’t ever come back!” One of the men said.
“Don’t tell me what to fucking do!” Nathan, like a rabid dog, leapt up and launched at him. The man socked him in the jaw. He and his friend were about to pummel him some more, when Eamonn jumped between them and pushed them back.
“Oy! Oy!” Eamonn yelled with his hands up. He could take both of these guys, but he wasn’t going to make the situation worse. “I got him.”
“Keep him the fuck away from here.”
“Like I would ever come back to this hellhole,” Nathan said from the ground.
Eamonn stared the men down, the three of them only communicating through animal instincts. The men kept glaring at him as they walked back into the pub, their breath swabbed in ashy smoke and stale beer. One of them spat at Nathan.
He knelt down to get a good look at his ex-boyfriend. Dried blood caked his puffy face. Bruises and black-and-blues formed a patchwork over his skin. If someone had told Eamonn that Nathan had gotten run over, he wouldn’t have second-guessed it.
“Nathan,” he whispered out. “Y’alright?”
“Does it appear that way?” Nathan stared at the wall in front of him.
Eamonn took off his scarf and wiped away some of the blood. “What happened?”
“I got in a bit of a kerfluffle.” Nathan’s words slurred together. He leaned over and spat blood into the street.
