Page 7 of College Town

Tonight is one such Grindr hookup. He’s twenty-one miles from home, struggling to take his shirt and shoes off at the same time in the entryway of an apartment that smells so strongly of lavender that the guy who lives there – his “date” – must be running one of those diffuser things Dana loves so much.

The guy – Jake? Jonas? Julius? Jason? – wears his dark hair swept back with gel, and his nose is a little too big, and he’s perfect…if he’d just stop talking.

“Wait…wait, yeah, there you go.” He pulls Lawson’s shirt the rest of the way off, and then his gaze goes on an appreciative little trip down his torso, and he actually whistles. “Fuck me,” he breathes, before he latches onto Lawson’s arms.

Lawson does. He’s too pent-upnotto.

But after, he rolls out of bed while Jake/Josh/Jim is snoring, gathers his clothes, and leaves, closing the door silently behind him.

~*~

He’s home at ten ‘til midnight, which might be a new record for “date” night. His childhood home sits quiet and unassuming on its only-slightly-weedy law – that’s his fault; he needs to go dig the hedge trimmers out of the garage this weekend – the lights off save the faint blue glow through the front window that means the TV’s still on.

He finds his mom tipped sideways on the couch, in front of Nick at Night, fast asleep, her current project a puddle of dropped white chiffon in her lap. Slowly, carefully, Lawson sets the sewing aside in its basket and pulls her glasses gently from her face, the TV painting the silver at her temples a stark, unsettling white. While Monica shouts “Iknow!” in the background, he pulls off Mom’s shoes and eases her feet up onto the sofa cushions so she’s properly lying down. Covers her with the blanket off the back of the armchair, and whispers the softest kiss to her forehead. She murmurs, but doesn’t wake, and Lawson’s smile feels like the only thing keeping a pained sigh of his own at bay.

Upstairs, the landing creaks when he steps on it, and he hears Dad shift in bed. He doesn’t wake, though, and his labored snores resume a moment later.

Who’s to say, a few minutes later, if the hot water sliding down Lawson’s face in the shower is salty with sweat or tears. That’s between him and the cracked mint-green tiles.

4

Does anyone react well to shock?

Asking for a friend.

~*~

Lawson works out the minimum amount to qualify him ashotamongst his Grindr hookups. Most of his exercise is thanks to helping Dad into and out of his chair, his tub, his walker, his bed. But. Lawson may have low self-esteem, but he knows he’s six-two, and that his arms are big, and that if he wears his contacts and bothers to flop his pale hair over his forehead just so, he’s attractive to some people.

None of that matters the day the love of his life walks up to his register at Coffee Town and does a double take.

“C’mon, Law, I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” Jessica says, and Lawson crams the blue visor on his head and takes her place at the register.

“Hello, welcome to…”

Every part of him jolts to a halt.

The man standing across from him ismaybefive-ten. Brown-haired. Lots of gel. Sharp face. He’s also wearing a suit. The kind of suit Dana points out to him in magazines and says, “You’d look hot in that,” and then they both laugh over the price tag. It’s black, subtle pinstripe; the shirt is black, the tie is the color of blood, and where the guy stands with his phone halfway to his ear, his sleeve has slipped back to expose onyx cufflinks and a watch that costs more than Lawson’s car.

He is objectively attractive, in that long-nosed, serious-browed way that Lawson always finds devastating when he has to look down to meet a man’s gaze. And when he does that this time, when their eyes meet, and he sees that the man’s are big, and brown, and more than a little sad under a veneer of impatience, the floor tilts beneath Lawson’s feet.

Heknowsthose eyes. Has seen them in his dreams for the past twenty years; has closed his own and pretended they were the ones watching him when he stripped off his clothes and felt a mattress dip beneath the weight of two people.

He's got lines on his face, now, that look like they’re from frowning instead of smiling, and a shadow along his jaw, beneath his close shave that reveals he’ll be all bristly there before he goes to bed tonight. But Lawson’s mind helpfully – brutally,unhelpfully – overlays old images over the figure who stands before him. Thirteen and swallowed up in a Colts sweatshirt. Fifteen and his voice cracking. Seventeen and drawing back, eyes wet with unshed tears,I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Law, I can’t–

Somehow, some way.Impossibly.

Tommy Cattaneo stands before him, all grown up and wearing Armani.

As Lawson stands gaping at him, Tommy’s brows screw tight together, deepening the furrow between to something on par with the Grand Canyon, and says, low and shocked, “Lawson?”

His voice isn’t much deeper than it had been the last time Lawson saw him, but it has this new, rough edge, like maybe he smokes occasionally, andoh God, Lawson is going to vomit. Or die. Maybe vomit then die.

Tommy – oh God, Tommy – still holds his phone a few inches from his ear, and a tinny voice issues from it, the tone questioning though the words are indistinguishable.

Tommy stares at him hard a second, then puts the phone to his mouth. “Yeah…yeah, I’m here, I’ll – listen, I’ll call you back.” His thumb disconnects and he slips the phone into his pants pocket, gaze still fixed on Lawson, brow still furrowed. His mouth works, once, soundlessly.

Lawson still hasn’t said anything. He hasn’tbreathed.

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