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On the first day of summer break after the championship, Neil walks into the kitchen, finds Nicky performing oral sex on a can of condensed milk trying to get the last of it out, and turns around. He’s as far from superstitious as it gets, but that has to be a sign of some sort.
Andrew’s barely awake when Neil steps back into the bedroom. The late morning sun is on half his face, turning one of his eyes brighter, more colours fractured in it. He doesn’t react at Neil leaning against the doorframe, simply sits up and stretches like a cat, blinking as slow.
‘What,’ he says finally after a minute of Neil crossing his arms and staring.
‘Vacation,’ Neil says. ‘Just the two of us. Far from here.’
-
They haven’t had one, unless those twin cots from the first days back from Baltimore count, and Neil doesn’t want to count them. Doesn’t want to have to make do, anymore, not when there’s so much more to reach for. Like coming home to the same airport over and over, or having a regular drink order at Eden’s Twilight, or Andrew’s obnoxious, huge car sparkling under the unforgiving sun, waiting to be loaded up with their things.
And Neil has so many things now.
It’s going to take Nicky and Aaron seven business days to get over it, which is as long as Neil and Andrew are going to be away, so it’s perfect timing. He ignores Nicky’s open-mouthed stare and whatever’s happening on Aaron’s face in favour of throwing his bag in the trunk and half-listening to Allison explaining the route to Andrew. Neil was the one to ask her to find them something, and though he possibly owes her all of his remaining lives now, she took all of ten minutes to book them— in her words— a shack in the middle of nowhere so that no one has to hear you freaks.
We’ll send you a video, Neil had tried, then shut up when Andrew fixed him with an unimpressed look.
‘You’re welcome, by the way,’ Allison is saying when he tunes back in. She’s raising a pale eyebrow at Andrew, who’s more likely to eat his own shoe than thank her for anything. ‘Safe travels, and all.’
‘Thanks,’ Neil says, for the both of them. That’s happening more, too, now.
-
It’s a three-hour drive, and they’ve picked the worst possible time to be on the road. Even with the aircon on full blast, the sheer wall of light that the sun keeps slamming in their way is enough to sear Neil. He puts his passenger visor down and tries to weld his sunglasses to his face to look out the window, but there’s nothing fun about the road this season of the year, and something infinitely more interesting sitting to his left.
Andrew only has his own glasses on because Dan rattled off no less than five minutes of sun-blindness related car accident statistics and only stopped when Andrew opened his glove compartment and shoved them on. Cut off from the hazel of his eyes by them, Neil seriously considers the pros and cons of getting into a crash for a second, then lets it go in favour of studying the sweep of Andrew’s nosebridge. The near-white gold of his hair falling over his forehead, curling under his ears. His lips give nothing away; he doesn’t lick them, chew them, quirk them. His hands on the wheel are relaxed, all of him in calm silence.
‘What kind of music do you listen to?’ Neil asks.
Andrew doesn’t say anything for a beat. Nothing on his face. Then: ‘The fuck kind of question is that?’
‘It’s not a trick question.’
‘Why do you care what music I listen to?’
‘Never mind.’ They’re pulling up behind a car so red it must be visible from space, especially with the sun beating down on it. Two and a half hours to go.
‘Fuck off,’ Andrew says.
Neil raises his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t even say anything.’
‘Fuck off,’ he says again. ‘I don’t know. I listen to whatever. The Beatles.’
‘The Beatles,’ Neil says.
‘Just put the fucking radio on.’
Neil puts a valiant effort into finding a station that might have oldies playing, and stumbles upon one that’s got something that sounds Beatles-adjacent. Neil wouldn’t know; it’s not his generation and his mother hardly took the time to show him her favourite music. Or her favourite anything. Their primary hobby was staying alive.
Twenty minutes of guitar and scratchy voices later, Andrew pulls over at a rest stop. ‘Coffee and doughnuts.’
Neil makes to get out, but Andrew makes an impatient be still gesture. ‘What, I’m not allowed to come?’
‘I know your order,’ Andrew says. Then points at the phone propped beside the dashboard. ‘Open the music app and put on playlist number fourteen.’
Through the bubble in his chest Neil asks, ‘Password?’
‘Don’t have one. You think someone’s touching my phone?’
Playlist number fourteen is full of titles in Cyrillic, which Neil hasn’t had to use in years, so he tries making sense of maybe three titles before giving up and just putting it on. Muted electric guitar and dull percussion fills the car, at odds with the blue open sky outside and the quickly-rising heat in the car, but by the time Andrew returns Neil’s head is tipped back, leaning into the trance of it.
‘I like it,’ he says, when Andrew throws a wrapped doughnut into his lap and passes him the coffee.
‘I didn’t ask,’ Andrew says.
-
The cabin really is a shack in the middle of nowhere, if they don’t count the management’s own lodge a five-minute drive away. Nicky and Renée packed them enough food to last through an apocalypse and a half, so Neil’s not counting on stepping out for anything unless he discovers that Andrew likes to hike. The visual, ridiculous, of Andrew giving a fuck about nature enough to climb and go down things, sweating for free, almost startles a laugh out of him.
No, they’re not leaving. The cabin is perfect for two, and the bed is the biggest Neil’s ever slept in. The back deck looks right into the heart of the woods, impossibly green still, the sun coming through them in splatters of gold on old wood. Neil’s already thinking about the first drink they’ll have right here, the first smoke, and all the ones after. A week of nothing but this. No countdowns, no exams, no matches. If the dense trees pressing against the cabin weren’t so sturdy, he’d be scared they’d bend in the face of the terrifying nothingness of it.
‘I take the side by the door,’ Andrew says when he walks into the bedroom with his bag. ‘Move your shit.’
‘Right away, your majesty.’
The bathroom is magnificent for a shack, too. Large dark tiles, a ceiling-to-floor mirror, towels so soft Neil wants to steal one. He takes a cold shower, and when he shuts the water off, he can hear Andrew running the blender outside. For a second he marvels at the stupid, banal sound of it. Leans against the wet wall and closes his eyes, and wonders if he should buy a pair of pyjamas. Striped ones, maybe. Nicky’d know where to get a really soft pair.
Every thought, he’s discovering since they won the championship, is sillier than the last. Smaller than the last, somehow, Neil finally opening his eyes to the details of his daily life. Looking at them as bricks to a house he’ll build and not necessities leading him to the end of the calendar. Clothes and shoes and cocoa powder for the dorm kitchen. And a book or two, maybe, if he can settle down enough to dig into them. An appointment at the hairdresser’s, Allison’s been begging and threatening in turns. A cabin in the woods, for a week.
‘Josten,’ Andrew calls from outside. ‘Dry your ass. I made— something. Get us drunk in five minutes.’
Five minutes is almost a generous estimate. The first sip of Andrew’s concoction has Neil coughing, the glass tipping dangerously in his grip. Neil still makes it through halfway before heading for the bag of candy Matt snuck into his bag in the morning with a wink, and stuffing four strawberry gummies into his mouth.
‘You are no longer on drink duty,’ he tells Andrew. ‘Go shower. I’ve left my body wash and—’
‘Oh, he’s left his body wash,’ Andrew sings. ‘What else? Bath salts? Sheet masks?’
‘I’ve seen your purple toner,’ Neil reminds him. Almost laughs at the bird Andrew flips him, then gets to work on the rest of the drink.
-
They’re well and tipsy enough that evening that they turn in before midnight. Neil had hoped, scrubbing the car off himself in the shower, that they’d get their hands on each other— well, Andrew’s hands on him— sooner than later, but the minute they fall into the bed his eyes are already closing.
‘Weak,’ Andrew says, but then he’s lifting Neil’s legs with one hand to dig the blanket out from under them, pulling it over. ‘What are we doing tomorrow?’
‘Who cares?’ Neil asks, then remembers. ‘No, wait. Wymack gave me all the videos of the new recruits. We need to start—’
‘We don’t need to do jack shit. If you want to jerk off over Exy this week be my guest. I’m going to rewatch all the Fast and Furious movies. German dub.’
‘I haven’t watched Fast and Furious.’
Andrew’s silent for so long that Neil cracks an eye open. He’s on his phone, sending a text. Thirty seconds later Neil’s own phone goes off.
U HAVEN’T WATCHED F&F??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH U, Nicky demands, with some urgency.
‘Fuck you,’ Neil says to Andrew. Almost reaches out to jab him in the ribs, then decides that his new life is worth too much to risk. He falls asleep to the sound of Nicky’s incoming texts, each more hysterical than the last.
-
Despite what he said, the next morning Andrew hauls two industrial-sized mugs of coffee to the dining table and settles beside Neil as he fires up the tablet he borrowed from Matt at the end of the semester. All the videos are on a cloud folder painstakingly maintained by Kevin, complete with a spreadsheet of his notes, which Neil refuses to read until he’s gotten his own read on things. He’s discovering that it’s the best way to work with Kevin— perceive his own instinct first, then give it shape with the chisel of Kevin’s technical knowledge. Neil knows what works and what doesn’t— Kevin knows how and why.
And Andrew, well. Andrew’s still new to giving a damn about Exy, but he’s not new to giving a damn about Neil and Kevin. He listens to them and remembers the last detail of everything they say, then gives them hell during their night drills, putting their strength and patience both to the test.
‘This one’s gonna fold,’ he says, pointing at the striker they’re signing on, a tall, lanky girl with a murderous aim and long legs. ‘You’ll have to keep her away from Kevin the first couple of months. Let Renée and Dan handle it.’
‘Like Kevin’s going to let me keep anyone away.’
‘He will.’ The I’m on it is unsaid, but Andrew states it like a fact. The rest of the morning he says nothing else, only watches the videos with Neil, takes in the stats and notes on Kevin’s spreadsheet, and even snorts at a couple of Kevin’s comments.
That afternoon they heat up microwave lasagna and settle before Fast and Furious. Nicky’ll work on getting Neil educated, Andrew says, but in the meantime they’re going to watch the loudest cinema of the past decade. He isn’t affronted the way Nicky is, simply takes Neil’s lack of pop culture knowledge in stride.
He knows that there wasn’t the time or energy for it before. To watch anything, or read anything, or listen to the Beatles.
Halfway through the movie, Neil says, ‘They made ten of these?’
‘And we’re watching all of them,’ Andrew says. ‘Can’t think of a better date.’
‘Am I dreaming? Did you just say date?’
‘What happens in the mountain shack stays in the mountain shack.’
-
In the evening, down three whiskies, Andrew works him apart on the couch that’s nonsensically big enough for both of them. He tucks Neil’s hands between the cushion and the armrest, then swallows him down without undressing him fully. Neil’s T-shirt is bunched up over his chest, boxers around one ankle, half his scars on display and the other half tightening with his ragged, gasping breaths. Neil turns his face into the cushions and bites one of them, groaning through his teeth when he comes in Andrew’s mouth.
He keeps his hands away as Andrew straddles him, but turns his face back up, eyes wide open even as Andrew’s own close, as his hand closes around his own length, unhurried, sleepy, almost.
-
It breaks some sort of seal. The next day passes in a haze of making out on the couch— that they fell asleep on, waking up with Neil pressed against the backrest and Andrew sprawled over the rest of the space, not even a blanket on them— and making out in the kitchen and making out on the balcony.
When Andrew goes to shower he leaves the door wide open, an instruction Neil’s all too eager to follow.
Under the hot spray they kiss again, and again, and again. Neil wants to do something other than just hold onto Andrew’s hair, so even as their tongues twine, he reaches blindly for the shelf where their soaps are, and finds the tube of Andrew’s stupid, pretentious, vain shampoo. Squeezes too much of it into one hand and starts working it into Andrew’s hair, thumbs pressing the spot where his nape meets his hairline.
Andrew— tips his head back and groans loud, voice bouncing off the walls but swallowed just as fast by the water. Neil stops for a second, not sure if his dick can actually take it, then returns to his task with vigour. By the time they finish they’ve inhaled enough steam to go dizzy from it, and he stumbles on his way to the towels. Turns around to see that Andrew’s got his own around his waist, dark against his pale skin, and he’s leaning against the doorframe of the shower, eyes closed.
‘Time out,’ Andrew says. ‘I can’t feel my fucking mouth anymore.’
Good, Neil wants to say. He could teach Andrew’s mouth to feel only him. Come here.
But Andrew would never come. So, hungry and happy, Neil turns away, and towels himself off.
-
Neither of them knows how to cook. Neil’s grown up on sandwiches and coffee, and Andrew’s never bothered. Luckily the most complex dish they have to attempt all week is getting some pasta al dente to dump mushroom sauce into it, so Neil’s tasked with making mixers while Andrew watches the pot.
‘I mean,’ Andrew’s saying over the sound of the water simmering, ‘Kevin probably holds the record in being killed off during fuck marry kill. Not because he isn’t hot, but because he’s an atrocity to God.’
Neil snorts, digs around the fridge for lime. ‘To be fair I think Kevin would kill everyone right back.’
‘Wouldn’t kill you.’
‘Yeah, he needs me on the team.’
‘No,’ Andrew says. ‘That comes second. First is I’d make him eat his own bone marrow. Suck it out like meat from crab legs.’
‘Jesus, ew.’ Neil resurfaces with the lime, takes it to the bar top. It’s only rum and coke, but if they’re living fancy this week, they might as well go the extra mile. ‘And you? Fuck, marry, kill. Kevin, Roland, Matt.’
‘Sicko. Marry Kevin, fuck Matt, kill Roland. He knows too much. I can’t have him telling you shit about me.’
‘That ship’s already sailed. You should’ve stopped taking me to Eden’s Twilight when you realised you like me.’
‘I don’t like you.’ Andrew turns and throws a fusilli noodle at Neil. Neil catches it, tastes. Thumbs up.
‘It’s all right, everyone makes mistakes,’ he shoots back.
‘Yeah,’ Andrew says drily. ‘Some are just...five foot three inches tall, and kind of long-term.’
That does it. Neil feels the laugh bubbling up like a trainwreck he can’t stop, and before he knows it he’s letting it loose. He wants to cover his mouth but it’s too late; it’s already ringing in the quiet kitchen, over the simmering water and fizzing coke and the crickets outside.
When he dares to look, Andrew’s staring at him, spatula in one hand, with something new in his eyes.
Andrew asks, ‘Are you ticklish?’
‘What the fuck?’
‘Just answer the fucking question.’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Neil tries, but Andrew lunges, making for him, and the next second Neil’s holding his knife before him, lime juice still dripping off it, only to realise Andrew was feinting. ‘You’re unbearable.’
‘That means nothing. Give me a percentage.’
Neil grins. ‘Let’s start low. Give you wiggle room. Twenty.’
‘Twenty? That’s an insult. If you don’t want me dead what’s the point of any of this?’
-
That night Andrew rides him methodically, Neil’s hands under the pillow, fingers clutching the cotton almost hard enough to tear. Andrew usually keeps his eyes closed, or rolls his head back like this is all solitary pleasure for him, but tonight he’s locked gazes with Neil so openly, so directly, that Neil can barely dare to blink. In the dim bedroom Andrew’s pupils have eaten up his hazel to take more light in, and Neil, in flashes, feels like they’re both animals. Big bloody heart beating out of his chest as Andrew rocks his hips slow and devastating, his flushed, hard cock on full display above Neil’s hips.
‘Yes?’ Andrew breathes.
‘Yes,’ Neil says. The fact that he can’t touch— anything, is dire. Andrew is savage as always, biting his own lip bloody but refusing to kiss Neil, not when it would press their naked, sweaty bodies together when they’re both this close to coming.
‘I like your laugh,’ Andrew says, then.
Neil’s cock kicks. He groans behind his teeth. ‘Play fair.’
‘I’m playing fair. I could be tickling you right now.’
And Neil, because he has permission, laughs at that. In the shadows of the short, hot night, if he tilts his head just right, it looks like Andrew is almost smiling at him.
-
The week goes by, neither flying nor crawling. On the fourth morning they wake up to a slew of photos from Nicky’s arrival in Stuttgart, and Neil actually goes to the trouble of taking a picture of the woods surrounding the cabin, holding his cigarette up before the camera for good measure. Andrew makes a call too, to Betsy, it sounds like. Neil makes himself scarce and busy in the kitchen, where mini-pizzas are waiting to be shoved into the oven.
Their Fast and Furious marathon is going strong, though Neil’s only half-watching the films, more focused on the way Andrew’s watching. He has a way of losing himself in whatever’s happening on the screen, blank concentration, so that he ends up not reacting at all. Neil wonders if this— or anything— is genuinely entertaining to Andrew, or if it’s another way to pass the time between one party and the next. Or, maybe— Neil dares hope— one match and the next.
Andrew’s apathy is an infinite resource. Yet Neil dares hope that they’ll be able to put a stopper to it one day. In fits and bursts, maybe, at first— a match won here, a scrimmage gone wrong there, even fury at Aaron or Nicky or Neil himself— and then steadier and steadier. Neil knows what the shape of buried emotion feels like in his chest, and Neil knows what it’s like to bite back tears. But apathy— the kind Andrew works with, dark like ink— apathy he’s never known.
Andrew’s chest barely rises or falls under his big black T-shirt, and his face is as still as it always is, nothing more or less to it, except that Neil had never noticed how long Andrew’s lashes are.
Suddenly he might die if he doesn’t touch them, kiss them. But he will certainly die if he does, so he sits on his hands and grits his teeth, and tries to program his brain to dream about it later.
‘You’re not watching,’ Andrew says.
‘Why are you rewatching them anyway?’ Neil asks. ‘You must remember every detail from the first time.’
‘Don’t ask stupid questions. And look away.’
-
On the last night, heavy with alcohol and buzzed on clean night air, Andrew slips into bed beside Neil, then takes a long, deep breath.
‘Back to me,’ he says. ‘And don’t move.’
Neil obeys. Turns on his side and stares blankly at where the wall meets the carpeted floor, where a discarded shirt lies. For a long minute nothing happens. Then he feels the weight of the mattress shift, dipping just behind his back, and then—
‘Don’t move,’ Andrew says again, but Neil couldn’t even if he was allowed. Because one of Andrew’s arms is coming around him, snaking under his own arm and wrapping around his chest, until his back is pressed to Andrew’s sternum. Andrew’s forehead barely— just barely— touches his nape, so that Neil can feel his careful, measured breaths. ‘Two minutes.’
Two minutes is nowhere near long enough, and too long to survive. Neil counts the seconds in his head, in French, then Spanish, and when he hits forty his throat is already closing up, eyes burning so urgently that he thinks he might make a sound. Andrew does nothing else— doesn’t kiss Neil, or stroke his chest even though Neil’s every breath is trembling against his splayed hand. He simply stays there, perfectly, supernaturally still, and on the dot of one hundred and twenty seconds, pulls away.
Neil can’t hide it. He curls tight into himself as Andrew shifts back, and hugs his knees to his chest to have something to hold.
No. Neil can’t take it. So he acts out the only way he knows how— by harnessing language as escape, speaking without being understood. The soft syllables of his desperate French— every language he’s learned is a desperate one— leave his mouth before he’s finished thinking them.
There’s a beat of silence. Then Andrew sits up.
‘You think I won’t be assed to lean a language just to know what you told me,’ he says, ‘and you’re hoping I won’t traumatise Kevin by asking what it means. I’m not above either of those, so watch it. Next time, just tell me.’
Neil says it again. ‘T’es invivable. Mais je peux pas me passer de toi une minute.’
Something in his voice must give it away, because then Andrew’s saying shut up with real heat. ‘I can hear you. Shut the fuck up.’
He puts a hand on Neil’s shoulder and Neil turns around easy as anything, and then Andrew’s taking his jaw between ice-cold fingertips, pressing down hard, staring at him like he could siphon Neil’s soul out of his eyes.
‘Oui,’ Neil says, because that Andrew can understand. Always understand that the only thing to come out of Neil’s mouth when they’re this close, is yes. Yes and yes and yes.
-
They don’t talk all of the next day. Neil busies himself cleaning up the cabin and Andrew smokes what seems like half a pack on the balcony, leaning over the rail and looking intently into the trees, like they’ll give way for him if he pushes hard enough.
And— it’s a luxury. Of knowing that whatever misstep last night was, it won’t be the last thing to happen between him and Andrew. That despite it all they slept and woke up in the same bed, that Andrew made coffee for them both. Neil can’t compute the privilege of having the time to think things over and sort them out— of knowing it’s worth it because there’s a future to build. Of knowing that the effort he’ll make— the effort Andrew will make— won’t vanish into thin air on some ordained day, that it will layer on top of itself like watercolour, and slowly build a picture. Something to keep.
No, it’s a luxury. The texts in his phone from his friends who’ll still be here at the end of this week and month and summer, the recruits who will sign up to be part of the team’s blazing, fearless future. Neil, if he thinks about it hard enough for just a moment, almost forgets what it was like to be scared.
-
They drive back at night, and in the middle of the week there are almost no cars on the road. Neil reaches over and plucks Andrew’s phone from the dashboard, and puts on playlist fourteen. The other thirteen he’ll ask about another day.
He drives calm and careful, both hands on the wheel, and loses himself a little in the muted, grey sound of the music. The occasional car passes them by, and this late at night he can even crack down the window, let the breeze in.
Half an hour in, Andrew says, ‘Pull over.’
They’re still in the middle of the nowhere; easy enough to stop the car on the side of the road. Neil obeys, kills the engine, then the music.
‘Come here,’ Andrew says. And if Neil, if he strains his hears just right, could almost think his voice is tight.
Neil goes. He crawls into the passenger seat over the gear shift, and it’s a tight fit, the glovebox almost pressing into the small of his back, his legs bent awkward against Andrew’s ribs, and it doesn’t help that he can’t hold on to anything.
On cue, Andrew says, ‘Hands on the headrest.’
Then, after Neil obeys, he— sways slow, slow into Neil, almost as if some magnetic pull is acting on him. One second, two seconds, three seconds, four: Andrew wraps both arms around Neil’s waist and holds him tight, tighter than he ever has— forehead coming down on Neil’s chest, nose pressing into his sternum, where Andrew must surely hear his pounding, terrified heart.
Neil can’t say please, so he says, ‘Not fair.’
‘Yes,’ Andrew says, and for a second Neil’s heart jolts so hard it hurts. Then Andrew follows up with, ‘Not fair.’
Neil huffs, smiles. Leans his head back to blink at the uncovered sunroof. He can see every star in the sky, so bright this far from the city. His fingers tighten on the headrest, go numb with how hard he wants to hold Andrew. Hungry and happy.
‘One day,’ he says.
‘Dream on,’ Andrew replies. Then, suddenly, nails digging into Neil’s back: ‘I don’t dream. About anything.’
‘Of course you don’t.’
‘Shut up.’ Andrew pulls away and reaches up, tips Neil’s head down by the chin. His eyes are so dark this late at night. His skin is so pale, hair so light. ‘I could never have come up with you. Not even in a dream.’
‘Good,’ Neil replies. ‘What could the dream Neil have done that this one can’t?’
‘Be quiet, for one.’ Neil laughs outright at that. And there it is again. Andrew’s looking up at him like— like—
‘And?’ Neil prompts.
‘I don’t know,’ Andrew replies, like he’s just realising it himself. ‘You show me.’
-
And Neil, Neil dreams. He’s only dreamt of this for a few months, but he’s dreamt it hard enough for it to be imprinted on the rest of the life he’s lived so far, so that he feels like Neil Josten, this Neil, was born aching for Andrew.
He’s so used to it being a dream that he barely understands, at first. Then he takes a deep breath, and leans in. Wraps his arms around the back of the seat; it’ll do. It must, because it lets him press into Andrew and feel the catch in Andrew’s breath, the shake of the next one. Neil’s forehead hits the shoulder of the seat, lips against the soft cotton of Andrew’s shirt.
‘How long do I have?’ he asks.
‘A minute. But Neil?’
‘Yeah?’
‘If you’re gonna do it, do it right.’
-
Andrew’s spine is a living being of its own under Neil’s hands, because it seems to thrum even with how still Andrew’s holding himself. Neil closes his eyes and runs his fingers over the bundle of nerves keeping Andrew alive, and feels Andrew breathe life into them. The full loop of Andrew’s being in his arms for once, even if for a minute. Even if for a minute. Even if this minute never happens again.
-
‘Enough,’ Andrew says, and Neil pulls back, looks up to blink the wet stars away. ‘We’ll try again tomorrow.’ We.
-
‘Yes,’ Neil smiles. ‘Tomorrow.’