Page 24 of College Town

“Thanks, honey,” Lawson says, on instinct, and has the pleasure of watching Tommy’s face twitch into annoyance. “Sorry,” he says, when Cindy’s gone, and he’s taking a sip, dark satisfaction curling in his gut. “You were saying?”

Tommy’s pressing and relaxing his lips in a comical sequence of feigned relaxation. He takes a deep breath, lashes fluttering down on his cheeks, and says, “It was shitty, what I did. Leaving without saying anything.”

Lawson pauses with his drink halfway to his mouth. He wants, perhaps needs, to down it all in one go, like a shot. “Wow,” he deadpans. “You’re just diving right in, huh? Right for the throat.”

Tommy sighs, and rakes a hand through his hair, mussing it further. It’s a terribly attractive gesture, one that Lawson steels himself against (poorly). “You said you’d give me fifteen minutes. I’m trying not to waste your time.”

That stings. More than it should.

“Fine.” Lawson takes a sip of his drink, finally, and gestures at him. “Go on, then. You’ve had twenty years to concoct an excuse. This oughta be good.”

“Concoct–” Tommy shakes his head, squeezes his eyes shut a moment. “I didn’t have to concoct a story because it was real. Me leaving – the way we left – yeah, it sucked, but it wasn’t anything I could control.” He looks distressed – genuinely, ruining his hair with both hands, now – and he blows out a harsh breath that Lawson feels against his knuckles.

(Cool, at that distance, not warm the way it had been at the base of his throat their last night.I can’t, Law, I can’t, please.)

“Right,” Lawson drawls, and feels the meanness of his smile, swallows hard against the lump forming in his throat. “No control. Poor you: the boy with no control.”

Tommy frowns. “That’s not–”

“Except,” Lawson continues, “you hadsomecontrol. You got to makesomechoices. For instance” – he takes another long sip, finger lifted in a staying gesture so Tommy won’t interrupt – “maybe your mom forced you to move away, but you could have told me why. You could have given me some kind of advance warning. And you didn’t have to break up with me in the fucking shittiest way possible before you left.”

Tommy’s face goes through a sequence of frowns. He drains his drink, and fiddles with the empty glass, ice cubes clinking together. “I didn’t…I never meant to…”

“Dump me? Epically? Painfully? Cruelly?”

Tommy’s eyes flash, dark and furious. “I didn’t dump you.”

Lawson huffs a humorless laugh. “No? Let’s review the facts, shall we? You pushed me away, you told me you ‘couldn’t,’ and then you walked away and the next day you weregone. Your house was fucking empty. And I didn’t hear from you fortwenty years.”

Tommy pushes his shoulders back, spine straightening. He’s still a head shorter than Lawson, but it’s a commanding pose all the same. “I didn’t dump you,” he snaps.

Lawson blinks. “Dude. What the fuck would you call it?”

“I didn’t want to go.” In a small, miserable voice, “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Oh, well, as long as you didn’t want to–”

“Lawson!”

Lawson’s teeth click when he shuts his mouth. Pool balls clack together off to the left. He’s aware of gazes turning toward them, wondering why someone’s shouting.

Tommy takes a deep breath and rubs at his chin. When he speaks next, he’s calmer. Quieter. He meets Lawson’s gaze, and the seriousness in his sends a little shudder down Lawson’s spine. “Do you remember what I told you about my dad? About how he died?”

Lawson nods, because though it’s been twenty years, he remembers that moment vividly.

They were sixteen, just starting their junior year, and even if Lawson was the only one of the two of them who expressed his love vocally and vociferously, he knew that Tommy loved him back. The secret smiles just for Lawson, the gleam in his eyes; the soft, breathy way he murmured when Lawson kissed his neck.

He'd been doing just that, Tommy giggling when the new, sparse fuzz on Lawson’s chin tickled the skin beneath his jaw, when Lawson’s mom hollered up the stairs. Both of them froze. Both of them moved apart – but not far. They used to leap away from each other, like repelling magnets, putting three feet of space between them. Now they simply lifted their heads, and withdrew their hands and arms. Lawson thought that his mother suspected something was up, just the way she would look at him, lingering, eyes narrowed; the way she would inquire after Lawson’s “friends,” and then pause, and ask after Tommy specifically in an entirely different tone. If she objected to the idea of them together, she never voiced it.

“Law, that was Tommy’s mother on the phone!” her voice floated up from the foot of the stairs. “She says he needs to be home for dinner tonight. His uncle’s in town.”

And Tommy wentwhite. Lawson watched the blood drain out of his face in real time, saw the way his complexion turned to curdled cream, and his lips pursed like he might be sick. Lawson’s heart leaped at the sight of him like that – he looked frightened, he lookedterrified, and his hand shook when he made an aborted reach for his own throat, like he meant to press on the visible pulse there, to pin it down and stop it fluttering so wildly.

“’Kay, thanks Mom!” Lawson called back, belatedly, and then rested his hand on Tommy’s knee.

Tommy jerked – but he recovered fast, with a shaky exhale, and laid his small, neat hand over Lawson’s. “Sorry, I…” he started, and trailed off, biting his lip, gaze fixed on their overlapping fingers.

“You don’t like your uncle,” Lawson said, as gently as he could. It was an understatement, he knew, a careful prodding, but was surprised by the vehemence of Tommy’s answer.

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