Page 55 of College Town

“Tom,” Frank says, warningly.

Tommy lifts his head and scowls. “No.” He’s no longer bristling like a cat, but he’s firm. Implacable. Very in charge in a way Lawson would find hopelessly sexy under different circumstances. “I came to New York. I abandoned everything I cared about, and I came to study under you, and I took over the business when you needed me to. I did all this.” He gestures to the room around them, presumably the whole house. “I’mhere. But I’m done playing pretend.”

He turns to Lawson, then, and his eyes fill with a sadness so heavy Lawson feels it like a dropped stone in his belly. “I’m sorry, Law.” His voice shivers, goes too intimate for an audience, electric across Lawson’s skin. “For everything. But especially for today. I never wanted you to get hurt.”

Lawson has to clear his throat before he speaks. “Little late for that.”

“Yeah.” A regretful, humorless smile touches Tommy’s mouth. “Guess so.” He looks to Frank and Noah again. “Leave us.”

It’s a command, and, unbelievably, they obey it.

“This is a mistake, Tom,” Frank says at the door, but Tommy’s look sends him out and away, panel closing firmly behind him.

Lawson doesn’t see it, but there’s clearly a clock in the room somewhere, because in the ringing silence that follows their departure, he hears its tidytick-tock, tick-tock.

Tommy holds a pen between both hands, blunt thumbnail playing with the cap, a deep groove between his brows as he contemplates the closed door.

Lawson has no idea what to say, half-convinced he’s dreaming, and so he sits, and waits, noting the contrast of the fine leather of his chair against the cheap cotton of his work khakis.

After what feels like an eternity, but is really only fifty seconds – Lawson counts thetick-tocks– Tommy rakes a hand through his hair and deflates. He stands, and goes to the sideboard without glancing Lawson’s way. “I’m having a drink. You want one?”

I want some goddamn answers. I want all of this to make sense. He says, “Sure. What the hell.”

Tommy moves a few decanters around, then pours a healthy two fingers of Glenlivet in a glass. “You like Scotch?”

“Uh, no. I usually drink wine.”

Tommy glances up, sharply.

“But I can make do with vodka. Or, you know, whatever.”

“Lemme see.” Tommy goes to the front corner of the room, slides a wooden panel on a credenza aside, and reveals a hidden minifridge. He roots around a second, then turns, brandishing a bottle in each hand. A chilled bottle of Smirnoff, and one of Sauvignon Blanc. Lawson recognizes the label, and knows it didn’t come from the grocery store.

“The wine. Please.” He feels a flush of self-consciousness. Hedoesdrink whiskey, but he doesn’t want his head swimming right now – he’s not had lunch – and he wonders if Tommy will judge him for forgoing it now in favor of wine; if he’ll find him feminine, or weak, or repellent.

But Tommy nods, stows the vodka, and goes to find a corkscrew on the sideboard. He twists it down into the cork with sure, swift movements; he’s done this a lot. Has probably done it for the fiancée – why else would he have white wine chilled and ready? Or perhaps for some client. Someone he was trying to – what did you call it? –shake down. Or maybe impress. Maybe he likes a glass himself, now and then, when he’s dismissed his brother and uncle and sits stewing behind this big desk alone.

Lawson watches the flex of muscle in his hair-dusted forearms, traces the still-knobby but strong shapes of his wrists with his gaze, and is struck once again by the galling knowledge that he doesn’t know Tommy at all anymore, if he ever did.

It’s a chilling thought, and he folds his arms over his chest; resolves to make it through whatever this is, and then do his darndest to move the hell on, finally.

Tommy pours a brimming tumbler – “Sorry, I don’t have any wine glasses up here” – and brings it over; offers it in an outstretched hand like he doesn’t want to get too close.

Lawson smiles and knows it’s half-assed. “Do I look like a guy who drinks out of wine glasses?”

Tommy offers a rueful half smile of his own and perches on the edge of the desk, facing him. His feet don’t reach the floor, and it’s terribly endearing; probes at a vulnerable place in Lawson’s heart he worries he won’t ever be able to excise. “You look like someone who drinks Natty Light out of cans.”

“Ouch.” The wine is light, crisp, and the perfect temperature. Lawson slurps down half of it in three long swallows and earns lifted brows for his efforts. “But not an inaccurate hypothesis.”

Tommy takes a measured sip of his Scotch. Grins, small but true this time. “Remember that time you stole that bottle of peppermint schnapps from your dad’s liquor cabinet?”

“Oh God. Now I do. Nothing like trying to clean mint vomit out of the carpet.”

Tommy chuckles. When he does, his face lights up, like it did in the car earlier. The frown lines melt and turn to laugh lines, and his eyes dance, and the boy Lawson knew shines out through the face of the man he’s become.

Lawson drops his own smile; it’s too heavy to hold. He slumps back in his chair and cradles his glass between his fingertips. “Tommy.” He sees Tommy flinch at the name, like someone hit him with a cattle prod. “What are we doing?”

Tommy sighs, and deflates. Rubs at his jaw. It’s a new gesture, like so many of them, one he developed sometime over the past twenty years. “Yeah. I dunno. I figure…” He tips his drink side to side. “What the hell. I owe you–”

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