Page 114 of College Town

“Who the fuck’s Nancy?”

“The nurse who helps with my dad.”

“The…Oh.” Tommy’s brow smooths as understanding dawns. “Oh, do you…?”

“I have to help him with his shower.” Though he looms over Tommy up against the Navigator, Lawson feels like the smaller party. Little and vulnerable and breakable. “And help him into bed. Mom can’t manage these days, with her back–”

Tommy nods, too big and too rapid for his current state, and then winces. “Yeah, no, that’s…” His throat bobs, and he blinks, and makes a visible effort to gather his wits. “Okay. We should go.”

Lawson sighs, half-relief, half-disappointment. “I dunno how you want to do this. I can bundle you in with your friends over there” – he tilts his head toward the idling Town Car three spaces over – “or one of them can come drive and drop me off back home. We can–”

Tommy starts shaking his head, and then swallows thickly.

“Dude, you’re gonna make yourself hurl.”

“No, I’m not,” he says, a little breathless, but stops shaking his head. “You drive. We’ll go back to your house.”

“And then they’ll take–”

“No. I’m going home with you.”

“Well, yeah, I have to get home, and the car has to get–” Then Lawson understands his meaning.

No matter the big pupils, and the unfocused gaze, Tommy’s staring at him with something like determination.

“We’ll drop me off,” Lawson says, voice going faint with nerves. It’s stupid, really, because Tommy’s already been back inside his home, and seen his parents; seen the shame of outdated furniture and the abandoned ramp. But his heart knocks all the same at the idea of taking Tommy home tonight. After he’d been grabbing at him, and leaning on him, and kissing him, and calling himbabein front of Leo and Dana. “And one of your people can–”

Tommy shoves him in the chest, not hard, and not coordinated. But he’s making a point. “Am I not allowed in your house anymore?”

Lawson wants badly to touch his face, to smooth the groove from between his brows and ease the tension in his jaw; thumb at the corner of his mouth until he smiles. Instead, he says, “No, you are. Of course.” And helps Tommy into the passenger seat.

He falls asleep before Lawson’s got his own belt buckled, for which he’s grateful. Between the author talk and the touching and the “take me home” business, Lawson needs a break from all the honesty, even if it’s only fifteen minutes.

He fires off a text to his mom at a red light, assuring her he’ll be home soon to help with Dad. She texts back that they’re still watching TV and not to rush. Dana texts, too, saying she and Leo got home safe and wishing him, and Tommy (she adds a winking emoji) a good night. He sends back a string of clown faces and the light changes.

His game plan, such as it is, is to park, climb as quietly out of the Navigator as he can, and walk down the driveway to flag down the Town Car and see if one of the guys in it can drive his boss back to the mansion. It’s the easiest way to solve his dilemma. Tommy might be pissed when he wakes up in his stone castle instead of Lawson’s driveway, but so be it.

The game plan flies out the window, however, when Lawson brakes the Navigator to an easy halt behind his own car and Tommy startles awake with a snort.

The noise startles Lawson, too, and he punches the brake the rest of the way down, so the Navigator dips in in front, and throws them both against their seatbelts.

“Shit!”

“Shit,” Tommy echoes, and wipes a hand down his face. “Wha’ izzit?”

Lawson throws the car in park and kills the engine. “We’re at my house. But,” he rushes to add, twisting in his seat to look at Tommy, “that’s okay. You close your eyes, go back to sleep, and I’ll go–”

By some miracle, the fifteen-minute nap seems to have tipped Tommy from outright drunk into that special, hateful in-between state when the hangover starts to kick in, the anxiety ratchets high, and the whole night feels like one big pulsing mistake. Lawson himself is very familiar with this state, and always finds he wants a sandwich, a gallon of coffee, and to take his shoes off if he can’t properly sleep off a night of drinking.

“Shut up,” Tommy tells him with feeling, and starts wrestling with his seatbelt.

Lawson barely resists thunking his head off the steering wheel. “Do you need help?”

“No.”

Lawson lets him manage his own belt – badly, with more than a little cursing involved – but walks around to the passenger side to help him down. It’s a good thing, because Tommy’s feet get tangled and he all but falls out into Lawson’s arms.

“Hey, now, slow down. It’s not a race.”

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