Page 141 of College Town

The sirens get closer.

“Lawson! Shit. Tom!” Someone drops down on Tommy’s other side, someone in a suit. It’s Noah. “Fucking…okay, hang on, hang on.” He puts something to his mouth – a radio – and speaks into it. “Officer down, officer down, I repeat, officer down…”

“Tommy,” Lawson says.

Tommy’s hand lifts, wavering, unsteady, and his fingertips wipe hot stripes of blood across Lawson’s cheek. “Luv you,” he slurs, and his arm drops, and he passes out.

33

There’s something about knowing that a thing has come to an end that forces you to slow down and savor it. The last day of school. The last long hug goodbye before you get on a plane. The last walk through a house before you move out, fingertips trailing over the empty walls. You pause a moment, and you let it wash over you, all of it. The experience you had.

That’s one way of handling the last of something. But sometimes, you’ve got to take it fast. The last drag on a cigarette. The last swallow of a drink. The last, broken-up bits of chip in the bottom of a bag, the whole thing tilted back so they pour into your mouth.

Other times, an ending gets you so twisted up and anxious that you ruin the whole damn thing before you ever get a chance to say goodbye.

~*~

It was cold out. It wasbitter. The rain that had plagued Eastman all day was starting to stick and freeze on the less-used roads, and Lawson’s parents didn’t want him to take the car out. Didn’t want him to, but didn’t forbid it. He snagged the keys and his jacket and lit down the front steps before they could retract their grudging permission.

The old Le Sabre skidded just once on his way to Tommy’s, but only a little, and the moment Lawson said “oh, shit” he had the wheel straightened out and the car rolling forward again. Still, he slowed down for the rest of the trip, and turned the wipers up another notch.

Despite the rain, Tommy was waiting for him on the sidewalk in front of his house, head swallowed up in the hood of his too-big jacket. At the start of their senior year, Noah had shot up, suddenly, and now Tommy was wearing all his hand-me-downs rather than new jackets of his own. Lawson smiled to himself as he slowed and buzzed the window down.

“Excuse me, little boy,” he called, “but are you lost? Do you need me to call your mommy?”

“Shut up,” Tommy said, opened the door, and threw himself down into the warm interior of the Le Sabre. “Jesus,” he said after he’d slammed the door, and pushed his hood back. “It’s fucking freezing.”

“Like, literally,” Lawson said, and leaned forward to flick at the windshield, through which he could see a light skein of ice starting to form on the wiper blades.

“Drive,” Tommy said –ordered. “Before my mom comes out here and drags me back inside.”

Lawson doubted Mrs. Cattaneo’s ability to drag anyone anywhere, but he pulled away from the curb and headed down the road. “Yeah, my folks didn’t want me out in this either. I guess we can’t go up McGarry Road.”

“Not unless you wanna get stuck up there all night. That’d be romantic.”

Tommy wasn’t usually what most people would call sweet. Hecouldbe, and often was in the heat of the moment, when they were skin to skin, but when they weren’t having sex, he could be a little brittle around the edges. Tonight, though, his tone was extra sharp. It vibrated in the enclosed space of the car, and Lawson glanced over with a frown.

Tommy sat forward in his seat, warming his hands in front of the heat vents, and glared at Lawson when their gazes met. “Watch the road, dumbass.”

“Yes, sir,” Lawson drawled, and did as told…but he was concerned. Curious, more like. Something had filled Tommy with nervous energy and he didn’t think it was the weather.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“The practice field behind the school,” Lawson said, grinning, proud of himself for the idea. It was a short, relatively flat stretch of roads between there and home, and the rear gate was always unlocked, the cameras were busted, and no one would be there to witness whatever they got up to there.

Tommy didn’t respond, and Lawson started to doubt.

“But if you wanted to go somewhere else–”

“No, that’s fine.”

Okay, something was definitely up. “You feeling okay?”

“Fine.”

“Are you sure? If you don’t want to–”

“I said it was fine, Law, just get us there.”

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