Page 56 of Follows with Intent

Jadon slapped the door. It was old, solid wood, and the clap sounded enormous. It startled Nico, and pins and needles ran through him. “You can take care of yourself? Be serious, Nico! You talk this big game about how independent you are, how important your career is. Fine. But this isn’t your career. This is someone hunting you like it’s a fucking game! I thought you understood that! You can’t take care of yourself, you’re—”

Jadon stopped himself, but Nico had heard the unspoken remainder of the sentence. “What?”

“A civilian.”

Nico shook his head. “I’m a what?”

Jadon didn’t answer. His chest rose and fell like he’d been running.

“I’m a grad student. No, that doesn’t sound right. I’m a kid. Except—” It was strange how easy it was to smile. “—I’m older than you. I’m a model. I’m a dumb underwear model. How did you put it? Giving fuck-me eyes to a bunch of old men.”

It only took a moment before Jadon seemed to find his footing again. “What do you want me to say? The way he looks at you, the smiles, the touching. He’s not talking about publishing your paper because he thinks you’re a breakout scholar, Nico. He thinks you’re pretty and you’ll do whatever he wants you to do as long as he can promise to help you.”

Nico laughed, and that felt easy too. “Fuck you, Jadon.”

“You want to be taken seriously as a scholar, right? That’s what you keep saying. But it’s hard to take you seriously when your big professional breakthrough comes because you gave an old creep what he wanted.”

“That’s life, okay? That’s how life is. People want things from you, and you can either play the game or not. It won’t be the first time I sucked a cock to get what I wanted, Jay. But then, I’m not perfect like you. I’m not Jadon Reck. I’m not Superman. I can’t run a million miles every morning and eat vegan power bowls and solve every case that lands on my desk by working twenty-two hours a day.”

“Pack your bag.”

“You know what’s sad? You’re a good guy, Jay. Or, most of the time. When you’re not being such a complete asshole.”

“Pack your bag, or I’ll pack it for you.”

“I’m going to do you a favor because you’ve tried hard to help me this week, and I appreciate that. I’m going to tell you the truth. The truth is, everybody who spends more than five minutes around you can see what you’re doing. How hard you work. The hours you keep. No sleep. Minimal food. Constant exercise. Everybody looks at you, and even though you think you’re doing a good job hiding it, they can tell you’re falling apart. You’re as bad as an alcoholic—you picked work as your drug of choice. And that’s sad, because I think for the most part, you’re a good guy, and you deserve to be happy. But you’re so scared of making the same mistake again that you’re killing yourself. You’re like a little kid who’s so afraid of the dark that you’ll burn the house down while you’re still in it just to have some light.”

Jadon wavered on his feet. One hand moved, barely more than a twitch, but in Nico’s mind it was like Jadon had reached for the jamb, like he was afraid he might fall. His lips moved, but it didn’t sound like his voice when he said, “Maybe you’re right. But at least I know who I am. I’m not so desperate for other people’s approval that I’ll be their little rent boy to feel like I belong.”

Drunken, Halloween laughter rose outside, muffled by the glass.

Nico shut the door slowly and thumbed the lock, and he listened until the sound of Jadon’s footsteps faded.

15

Nico

Nico sat on the floor of the dorm room for a long time. The building was never truly silent, so he listened to the sounds: the wind raking the roof; the plonk of rain drops against the glass; the ping and clang of the old boilers. His face felt hot. His eyes were dry. He made lists in his head: pack, find a hotel, call an Uber. Then he’d start over, amending the list: find a hotel first, then pack. Find a hotel that you can afford. Get an Uber.

Instead, he changed into running shorts and a tank. He grabbed a hoodie and realized, too late, it was Jadon’s, so he left it. He left his phone too, and his last thought, as he pulled the door shut, was, Fuck it.

His run took him into Forest Park again. He made sure not to follow the same route that Jadon had taken him on. That was part of the reason, he was sure, why the park felt so different. And the fact that it was late afternoon, moving into evening—that was part of it too. The sun was a small, hard ember in the west, the sky brushed in broad purple strokes, and dark hung in the branches, thickening. He passed two women fighting, shouting as they shoved each other until one of them misjudged a curb and fell, screaming. He passed an old man laying out a piece of cardboard on a bench, the tarp on the ground next to him suggesting he planned to spend the night. One of the tiny creeks he crossed was choked with foam go-cups and single-use plastic bags and what he thought, in the gloom, might have been a dead possum. The sound of his steps on the pavement seemed too loud, echoing out into the vast darkness, and even though his body warmed and loosened as he ran, he felt cold the whole time. He caught himself thinking, occasionally, treacherously, of the hoodie. And then he’d have to remind himself that it was Jadon’s. The pain was like something lodged under his breastbone. In his mind, it was the tip of a knife.

When his legs were shaking and he couldn’t run anymore—could barely walk—he dragged himself back to campus. Full dark had settled. The campus lights popped on in little white spheres that didn’t do much to push back the night. A group of grad students—math, he guessed, or engineering—passed him; they were dressed in normal clothes, but they wore headbands printed with equations and formulae, and they were laughing and talking excitedly. One of them (the only one Nico recognized, the Pythagorean theorem) shoved his friend as he laughed, and then shouted, “We are all totally going to make love tonight!”

Make love, Nico thought, and he waited for the giggle. Instead, tears stung his eyes, and he had to grapple with the wave of emotion that threatened to crush him.

Harlow Hall was roasting after the chill October evening, and the heat was half-welcome to Nico and half-suffocating. He dried his face with the tank as he pushed into the stairwell. A startled squawk made him freeze. And then he stared.

On the other side of the door, Gio was rubbing his shoulder and glaring—first at the door, and then at Nico. Next to him stood Dr. Meza, who had changed into a marled sweater and looked elegantly casual. They were holding hands.

Gio reacted first, dropping Meza’s hand as color rushed into his face. Meza considered Nico, but his expression remained cool and unperturbed. He caught the door, met Nico’s eyes, and said, “Evening, Nico. I guess you’re not joining us for dinner.”

How long had it been? An hour? Two? Nico tried to work out the sequence of events. At most, two hours had passed since that awful encounter on the quad. And in that time, Meza had already moved on. What had it been, Nico wondered. A blow job in the dorm room? Or maybe they were saving that for a more romantical evening, and today, in a hurry, it had been making out, maybe a quick fiver? It must have been a rush for Meza, hooking Gio so quickly. Or maybe he’d been working on him all week, the way he’d been doing with Nico.

Now, to Nico’s surprise, the giggles came. He shook his head, fighting another wave of laughter as he said, “No, Dr. Meza. I won’t be joining you.”

Annoyance tightened Meza’s features. Gio still looked scared out of his mind.

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