Page 86 of College Town

Tommy’s fingers continue their combing. “Hey.”

Lawson rubs at his eyes without moving his head, not ready to give up the pleasant tingles along his scalp. He’s going to have to address thatI love you so muchwith himself at some point, because it wasn’t real, and it didn’t mean anything, and was just a post-orgasm bit of nonsense. But not right now. Now his hair’s getting scritched and he’s not going to interrupt that.

“What time is it?” he asks.

“Just after four,” Tommy says without glancing up from his phone.

“’Kay.” When nothing else is forthcoming save the quiet plip-plip of a thumb typing on a smartphone, he adds, “Whatcha doin’?”

“Finalizing a few things.” There’s a few more plips, and then Tommy shuts off the phone and sets it aside. Without its bright glare, Tommy’s face becomes a shadowed oval, features indiscernible.

“Me-related things?”

“Mmhm.” He scratches down the back of Lawson’s head and plays with the curls there, then trails his fingertips to his neck and moves them back and forth, slow sweeps. Lawson shivers. “After breakfast, I’ll take you home. You should be safe to stay there, and so will your parents.”

Just like that, the pleasant shiver turns to anxious prickling. “Uh…”

Tommy’s hand stills. “That okay?”

“I dunno, you tell me. Is it? I thought I was gonna have to be your hostage ‘til all of this shit blew over.”

There’s a frown in Tommy’s voice when he says, “Well, I was worried about that, but after yesterday, and the work I’ve done since, I think it’s okay for you to go back to normal.”

“Normal. Except for the drug-dealing.”

Tommy sighs. “I told you: it’s just temporary.”

“Yeah.”

Tommy rakes his hand up the back of his head and to the crown, rougher this time, scratching hard, tugging at the longest curls on top. “You’re not going to believe me, are you?”

“We’ll see.”

“Shithead,” Tommy says, fondly. Then his touch softens. “Can I ask you something?”

In its own way, it’s a painful question, because they never asked that as kids. If they had a question, they blurted it right out, even if it was stupid or embarrassing or wildly inappropriate.Askingto ask is a more adult thing to do – and a thing that people who are no longer intimate with one another do.

But the question is painful in another way, too, because Lawson knows what he’s going ask. Even so, he says, “Sure.”

Tommy’s touch skims down his sideburn, across his cheek; there’s no word for it but acaress. God, Lawson’s beingcaressed. When was the last time anyone but his mother did that? And then he was, like,eight. “I’ve been wondering – and not – not in a judgmental way. I’m not trying to insult you.”

“Oh,” Lawson drawls, though his heart is speeding up, “you’re nottryingto insult me.”

“Why do you still live at home?” Tommy asks. Soft. Careful. His fingers follow the line of Lawson’s jaw, and then the soft skin beneath, so he can feel Lawson swallow before he answers.

“I just do, okay? ‘Cause I’m a great big failure. All the usual reasons.”

Tommy huffs in annoyance, and he taps his fingertips against Lawson’s chin. “You’re not a failure. Just because you work at Coffee Town–”

“I work at Coffee Town because I’m still trying to write stupid books that I fail to get published, ergo, a failure,” he says, more harshly than he means to. He’s breathing hard, and makes an effort to reel himself back.

“Lawson,” Tommy chides, gently. “Being an author is–”

“A moronic pipe dream that won’t make you a dime if you don’t know or pay the right people.”

“Something that takes a lot of time, a lot of hard work, and a lot of luck,” Tommy persists, the patience to Lawson’s prickliness, now, a role reversal. “If it’s about connections, I know a lot of people in New York who could–”

Before Tommy finishes the sentence, Lawson makes the mistake of imagining: a split-second fantasy of Tommy making introductions, and some Big Five publisher feeling obliged to look over his manuscript and offering him a handshake and a fat check. It’s a crippling, impossible fantasy, because Tommy does not love him, Tommy is a mobster, this is all temporary, and it will never happen.

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