Page 18 of Men in Shorts

“Once or twice, when I’ve been spending too much time there.”

“I thought this was like that.” Brodie dragged a hand through his already tousled hair. “‘To the lad in the Passenger shirt who’snotin Level Two tonight: I miss seeing your face. I miss kissing you. I miss the way you smell after a shower.’ You swear you didn’t write this?”

Duncan could have written the post—it expressed his exact thoughts—but he hadn’t. “I swear on my mother’s grave.”

Brodie gave a light gasp. “I didn’t know your ma was dead.”

“She’s not. But she’s got a headstone reserved in the family plot, so technically…” He laughed as Brodie flipped him off. “As for the post, it could still be for you. Maybe you’ve a secret admirer.” The thought made Duncan more than a little jealous. “Maybe one of the many lads you loved and left this year.”

Brodie held out Duncan’s phone, reddening again. “I didn’t love any of them.”

He met Brodie’s gaze and held it as he reached out to take the phone. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

Their fingers brushed, sending a wave of electric warmth through Duncan’s body. Brodie’s lips parted slowly.

Then his phone blared on his pillow. Duncan recognized the ring tone as Bruno Mars’s “When I Was Your Man.”

Brodie cursed under his breath, then flicked a furtive glance at Duncan. “It’s-it’s an old mate.”

“Should I leave?”

“No.” Brodie lifted the phone to his ear. “Fit like, Geoffrey?”

Duncan turned away, dismayed Brodie had chosen such closet-y words—an old mate—for his ex-boyfriend, even here, even with him.

“Na, min, I’m fair awake,” Brodie said into the phone. “Aye, better, ta. Still affa trachled, but the fever’s away.”

As they made small talk, Duncan ate breakfast and examined his chemistry notes, trying not to eavesdrop. Though there was tension in Brodie’s voice, he sounded more natural than Duncan had ever heard him, either because he and Geoffrey shared a history or an accent.

Brodie’s tone went suddenly serious. “Aye, Ma told me last night. Mrs. Baines’s niece has been clypin’.” He took in a long breath. “It was bad. She said…” He cleared his throat. “Never mind. What about you?”

Duncan stopped chewing at the sound of Brodie’s pain. What had his mother said to him last night? Who was Mrs. Baines, and what was her niece gossiping about?

“Aw, min, that’s horrible,” Brodie said. “That’s fair coorse. Fit you gonnae dee?” He paused. “You’re gonnae report it, right?” He let out a frustrated sigh. “No, you cannae haud your wheesht. Your silence just gi’es them more power.”

Duncan plugged his earphones into his tablet. As much as he wanted clues to the mystery of Brodie Campbell, he was beginning to feel like an intruder. He turned up his music to block the voice behind him—the words, at least, if not the tone. Over the course of the first song, Brodie went from angry to sympathetic, then finally dropped to a steady calm.

In the brief silence between album tracks, Duncan heard him say, “I ken this sounds a cliché, but it does get better. I promise.” Brodie enunciated the words as he repeated them, hitting thet’s with a forceful tongue. “It. Gets. Better.”

Duncan marveled that Brodie could set aside his own hurt feelings to help his ex-boyfriend. Selfishly he hoped this turnaround had been inspired by mere compassion—or Brodie’s desire to hone his therapy skills—and not rekindled affection for Geoffrey. He nudged his music’s volume down so he could be sure.

Brodie was rattling off a list of LGBTQ resources, some of which Duncan had never heard of. “And you can ring me any time. Preferably not in the middle of the night,” Brodie added, “but if that’s when you need me, I’ll answer.”

Duncan gritted his teeth at the thought of Brodie lying here in the dark, chatting to his ex, sharing secrets kept from the rest of the world. Kept from him.

He kicked himself under the desk for being ridiculous. Brodie clearly wanted to forget their night together—technically, their twenty-five minutes together. Their hookup was a mere blip compared to his relationship with Geoffrey, or even to Duncan’s own past romances.

But to Duncan, that night had seemed the exclamation mark to the long, rambling sentence of their year together. Passing cheeky notes with Lorna and Paul during mind-numbing psych lectures. Seeing each other in the hallway here at the flat, at each other’s best (before parties) and worst (hungover the following mornings). Always revolving around the same places and people, coming ever closer to collision, like satellites in unstable orbits.

Time was running out. In a few weeks, Brodie would go home to Geoffrey, and Duncan might never discover whether they were meant to be just mates. Or whether they could be something more.

* * *

Brodie said goodbye to Geoffrey,then lay back on his pillow to think. Unlike the call with his mother last night, he’d never expectedthisconversation. He’d assumed Geoffrey was gone from his life for good.

Now they were going to be…what, friends? Just like they swore they’d be last September when they’d left for university, before Geoffrey decided to pretend Brodie had never existed? What if Geoffrey discarded him again?

The thought didn’t slice through him as it once had. Apparently his heart had formed a Geoffrey-proof shield.

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