Page 51 of College Town

“Nothing,” Tommy says in a rush. “I just thought…nevermind.”

“No, what? What did you ‘just think?’ That she might have actually been successful? And gotten the fuck outta Dodge?”

Tommy sighs. “Law–”

“Not me, though. My dumb ass is still here. Still working a high school job in a college town, because I’m such a–”

“Shut up,” Tommy says, without heat. “I see you. Hold on.”

Lawson’s making his second pass in front of the Happy Hobo, and coasts along the curb, hands at ten and two. “What do you mean ‘hold on?’”

“I meanhold on. God.”

Lawson looks into his rearview mirror, and sees a hulking black Lincoln SUV pulling up behind the Mercedes. Its windows are tinted, too, but sight of it makes Lawson’s heart leap in an entirely different, less terrifying way.

“Is that you?” he asks. “Behind the Benz?”

“Yeah,” Tommy says, tightly, and then a horn blares.

A man on the sidewalk jumps in alarm. The couple crossing in front of Lawson’s car break into a run.

The Mercedes peels away from the curb, goes around Lawson, and speeds off and away, barely missing a pedestrian.

Lawson steps on the brake and lets his hands fall to his lap, where they jump and skitter like landed fish. His breathing goes thin, and high, and he can’t reel it in. The panic, ratcheting his whole body tighter and tighter throughout the crisis, crashes over him now all at once, a great tide of it, and he bends to press his forehead to the wheel, dizzy, stomach churning.

“Hang on,” Tommy says, and the call cuts off.

Lawson hangs on – barely, in the case of his sanity – because there’s nothing else to do. He can’t even summon the energy to reach over and disconnect the call from his end. The barest glance reveals his phone has handled that for him, its screen all cheerful oranges and pinks before it goes black.

The sharp rap of knuckles on his window should startle him, but he hasn’t got enough adrenaline for that. When the rap repeats, he heaves himself back and sees Tommy’s scrunched-up, worried face on the other side of the glass.

For a moment, Lawson’s seventeen again, and Tommy’s hair is too long and curling riotously over his ears, the lines on his face and the wrinkles around his nostrils born of fond annoyance.Law, open the fucking door. Because they were locked just because he got so cute when he was huffy. Then he’s thirty-seven, and Tommy’s voice is much lower, and rougher, when he says, “Law, open the fucking door.”

What can he do but comply?

When he shoves it open, Tommy leans in right away. Grips his shoulder, then his biceps, even ghosts a hand through his hair, brief but electric. He takes Lawson’s chin in a firm grip and turns his head so they’re eye-to-eye. God, it’s been twenty years since Tommy touched him, and the effect is no less staggering.

Not that he gets to bask in the magic of the moment.

Tommy snaps his fingers in his face. “Lawson. Are you having a breakdown?” he asks, quite seriously.

“Uh. No?”

Tommy frowns. “Yeah, okay. Come on.” He tugs, ineffectually, at Lawson’s arm.

Lawson blinks at him. “My car.”

“Leave it.”

“But I’m in a No Parking zone.” He doesn’t know why logic, of all things, plagues him now, when Tommy’s touching him, and leaning into his car, close enough to touch back. When he’s wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a red tie, and the sunlight winks off his watch, and strikes all the gold and tawny filaments in his dark eyes. He’s like the stern, masculine specter of a Renaissance painting, and Lawson’s worried aboutNo Parking zones.

He's never claimed to have good timing.

“Leave it,” Tommy insists, firmly. “Get your stuff, and come on. I’ll send someone for it.”

“You’ll send…?”

When Tommy tugs this time, he goes. Unfolds himself out of the car and is struck by another, acute wave of dizziness. He sways, and makes a grab for the top of the car door.

---