Page 21 of College Town

An ugly, disbelieving laugh bubbles in Lawson’s throat. “Talk? Talk aboutwhat? About how you moved away in the middle of the fucking night without one word of explanation? Or about how you’re back here now – also without explanation – looking like you just walked off the set ofThe Sopranos?”

Tommy’s face flushes dark, and Lawson’s belly twists up painfully.

“Which of those two things would you like totalkabout?” Lawson snaps, trying – perhaps not successfully – to cover his old, deep, hurt with nastiness.

“I–” Tommy starts, hand lifting, finger pointing. And then he catches himself. Sighs slowly, and lowers his hand. With the other, he massages the skin between his pinched eyebrows.

“Let’s hear it, Mr. Flashy Suit,” Lawson says. “Tom. You chased me out here to ruin my shitty fifteen-minute-fucking break, so go ahead.” He makes a mocking gesture of invitation.

Tommy massages further up his forehead, over the lines that weren’t there when they were kids, and peers up at him from beneath his half-curled fingers. “I don’t…I’m sorry.” His hand drops, and he looks younger, suddenly; still finely-dressed, but uncertain. Less like a Soprano, and more like the boy Lawson loved so fiercely.

Seeing him like that hurts worse, somehow, though. A reminder of what he always wanted, and what he lost, without ever understanding why.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy repeats, solemn, serious, both hands falling to his sides. “This isn’t how I wanted to do any of this.”

“Youwantedto do this?” Lawson gestures between them, incredulous. “You wanted to shout at me in an alley? And trot your beautiful fucking girlfriend, fiancée,whateverinto my place of employment?”

“What?” Tommy’s face screws up, but only a moment. Softer: “No, like…I wanted to talk to you. When I got to town. But I didn’t think I’d walk into Coffee Town on Day One and see you behind the counter. I thought I had time to get it right.”

“Right? Get it–” Lawson swallows down another laugh, this one even uglier than the last. “What the hell? You planned this, you–” It’s Lawson’s turn, then, to rub at his forehead; his brain feels tingly and too light and he lets himself sway sideways until the building wall catches him by the shoulder.

Tommy tips forward at the waist, starts to reach – and then tips back, arms folding in a way that jacks up the points of his jacket shoulders. “I’m moving back to Eastman.”

Shocked, Lawson asks, “What, permanently?” before he can catch himself. Before he can check the note of hope that spikes through his voice, sharp as an ice pick.

Tommy makes another face. “For a while, at least.”

“Why?”For me, Lawson wants to ask, but can’t possibly.Are you moving back for me?

Tommy’s arms tighten across his middle, and his expression shifts to something cagey. “For work. My uncle has multiple clients here in town whose accounts I’ll be taking over.”

“For work,” Lawson echoes flatly. Of course it isn’t about him. How he can even entertain the notion is proof positive of brain damage. “Client accounts.”

“I wanted to reach out once I got settled. Find you on Facebook or something.”

“I’m not on Facebook.”

Tommy’s eyes narrow like he knows that isn’t true. “Maybe go by your old house and–”

“Don’t,” Lawson says, fast and fierce, fear like a cold bolt through his gut. “Don’t go by my old house.” The idea of Tommy seeing that he still lives there, seeing Dad, and Mom, and the silver in her temples, and the chair lift on the stairs, the attempt at a ramp down from the back deck. Tommy in his suit, with his investment client accounts…no. No, he can’t be allowed there.

Tommy’s brows quirk, but he says, “Okay. I was going to find a way to contact you, though. So we could…”

“Talk? Yeah. You’ve said.”

“Lawson. Please.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Can…” Tommy glances across the alley, pained. When he looks back, there’s a pleading tilt to his brows that Lawson remembers all too well; it doesn’t work as well as it used to, but it hurts to look at. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

Lawson lifts his brows and gestures to the building he’s propped against.

“Fine, a cookie. You always liked the cookies here when we were kids.”

“My break ended two and a half minutes ago.”

“Okay,” Tommy says, huffing a little. “A drink, then, later. Tonight. There’s two dozen bars in his town.”

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