13

Jadon

That night, Jadon didn’t sleep.

At first, it had been the excitement of it all—the two of them alone, that whole floor of the dorm to themselves. They’d padded naked to the bathroom. They’d showered together, and showering had turned into fooling around, and Jadon lasted a slightly more respectable time, but only barely. The whole thing had felt like a crossover between a slumber party and a hookup, with a weird college porn background, and it had been hot and fun and…easy. Maybe that wasn’t the right word. But everything had felt right with Nico. There had been no awkwardness. No uncertainty. It helped that Nico had initiated everything, but it also helped that he was so responsive, that he was so eager. It helped that he was Nico, because that was what made it so different from a hookup. It was one thing to find someone cute to fool around with. It was another for it to be someone you—well, Jadon shied away from the feeling, unwilling to look at it too closely, not yet ready to name it.

You make me feel safe.

They’d made a mess of one bed, so they agreed to share the other, even though it was a twin and the logistics meant being a tangle of limbs. As soon as Jadon had turned off the lights and climbed into bed, Nico had turned into an octopus: arms and legs wrapping around Jadon, tangling them together, and then his breath evening out almost immediately into sleep. Jadon had lain still at first. And then, when sleep didn’t come, he’d carefully adjusted the single pillow (since Nico was sleeping happily on his chest). And then, when he realized nothing short of a bullhorn would wake Nico, he’d moved around until he was propped up and comfortable. Nico clung on to him and slept through all of it.

Then Jadon had opened his email and started reviewing the footage that campus security had sent to him. He’d wanted every possible approach to Harlow Hall, everything from the last week. Someone was following Nico, someone who had assaulted other young men on campus. It was the same suspect; Jadon was sure of it. And last night, someone had been in the building, waiting. That meant that the suspect had approached Harlow, had entered it, might have even left something behind—a fingerprint, a footprint, something. Jadon knew he wouldn’t be able to get anyone out to process the scene; technically, nothing had happened. Worse, the lieutenant didn’t believe this was a pattern of assaults. And even if, by some miracle, he got techs out to the dorm, there was no way of knowing what the suspect might have touched, where he might have left a print. Which meant his next best option was reviewing footage from the security cameras around Harlow.

It was difficult on his phone. Part of that was the interface—he would have preferred his laptop and a mouse to make it easier scrub forward in the recordings. And part of it was the size of the screen, which was too small for him to make out fine details. But he didn’t have his laptop with him, and even if he had, he didn’t think Nico would appreciate having a computer balanced on top of his head. That was another sign, if he were being honest with himself, that things were different. Maybe dangerously so. A hookup had never kept Jadon from doing his job the best he could; he’d turned more than one guy out of his house because he needed to get some sleep or, more frequently, he needed to work. Tonight, though, he was performing as a human pillow for a sleepy octopus, doing half-assed work on his phone.

Because someone has to be here, he told himself. Because someone has to stay the night.

Never mind that he could have let Nico sleep alone. That he could have sat on the floor and worked. Could have asked Cerise to drop off his laptop.

The videos themselves proved frustratingly worthless. Of the ones from that night, only a single video showed the suspect approaching Harlow Hall. He walked up to the main entrance, and the light near the door went out, and after that, it was impossible to tell what had happened. The suspect had gone inside, Jadon knew, but there wasn’t anything on the video to prove it. He fast-forwarded through hours of footage from that camera, hoping to catch another glimpse of the suspect. Maybe he had passed the dorm earlier to investigate the light and figure out how to disable it. Maybe he’d gone into the building another time during the day to learn the floor plan. But when the room began to lighten, and Jadon realized with groggy dismay that it was morning, he hadn’t found anything to help him.

When Nico’s alarm went off, he flopped around with one hand until he found his phone and silenced it. Eyes still closed, he groaned, “How can it be morning?”

Jadon chuckled. He brushed Nico’s hair away from his forehead. And, before he could reconsider, he kissed the smooth skin there.

Nico made a discontented noise and pursed his lips.

Jadon kissed him there too.

Nico parted his lips.

“No,” Jadon said with a laugh. “Time to wake up.”

Eyes opening to slits, Nico stared up at him. “We should shower.”

“Unh-uh. I fell for that once already. You shower.”

“What if I slip and fall? What if I drop the soap? What if my big, bad stalker is waiting for me in there?”

The words were light, but a hint of a quaver in his voice, the look in his eyes suggested it wasn’t entirely a joke.

“Nico,” Jadon said.

Nico’s lip trembled.

“Oh my God,” Jadon said. “We’ve got to be quick.”

Being quick wasn’t actually the problem; as soon as they were under the hot water, Nico’s mouth roving across Jadon’s chest, licking and kissing, like he wanted to devour every inch of him, Jadon was ready. Beyond ready. They ended up pressed against the shower wall, Jadon’s weight pinning Nico to the tile as Nico thrust his hips abortively, the tip of his dick barely moving against Jadon’s thigh as Jadon bit and suckled at his shoulder again, marking him with more of the dark purple bruises. He got his hands under Nico’s thighs and lifted so that Nico was supported in the air, pinned to the wall. Jadon thrust between his legs, his dick sliding along the cleft of his ass. Sliding over Nico’s hole. Nico came first that time. Jadon came a moment later, spattering the wall, arms trembling from holding Nico like that.

“What the fuck was that?” Nico asked, eyes wide, his chest and throat and cheeks still mottled with the sex-flush.

Jadon grinned and shrugged.

“We are definitely doing that again,” Nico said.

Working the bar of soap for lather, Jadon tilted his head and said, “Come here and I’ll get your back.”

Sex, it turned out, was better than coffee. At least, in the short run. Jadon felt fine as he dropped Nico off at Eldridge Hall for the last day of the seminar. He was totally alert as he rushed back home and changed. By the time he got back to Chouteau for the symposium, though, the rush of endorphins had faded to a trickle. His head was starting to hurt, and exhaustion made his body heavy, slow, and clumsy. While trying to get to his seat, he knocked over Allison’s coffee—which they managed to save, somehow, before it flooded the multipurpose room—and then, a moment later, he kicked Vic’s ankle.

“Watch out, motherfucker,” Vic snapped.

Before Jadon could respond, Vic pushed out of his seat and clear of the aisle. He hobbled toward the hallway.

“He twisted his ankle last night,” Allison said to Jadon’s questioning look. “I told him it was stupid to play soccer with twenty-year-olds. What if you break your leg? How are you going to do your job?”

Jadon apologized when Vic came back, but Vic ignored him, and the rest of the morning passed in an uneasy silence among the three of them. As the hours dragged on, Jadon found himself struggling to keep his eyes open. The heat, and the crush of bodies, and the droning voices all conspired to put him on the edge of sleep. His lids drooped, and he clawed his way back from the edge again and again before they broke for lunch.

He waved off Allison’s invitation to join her and Vic for a meal in Waverley; he’d had enough student union food to last him a lifetime. Instead, he picked up one of the coffee shop’s to-go lunch options—hard-boiled eggs, a handful of almonds, carrot sticks—and ordered himself a twenty-four-ounce Red Eye. Espresso and black coffee might not be a magic potion, but it came close to a prepackaged heart attack, and Jadon thought that might be what he needed to keep him awake through the rest of the afternoon.

Food in hand, he made his way across campus to Eldridge Hall. It was his first time inside the building; waiting for Nico on the bench had already felt like pressing his luck. The building seemed completely empty, which meant Nico and the rest of his group were still breaking for lunch. Jadon found a spot in the main hall and watched the door and paced, eating his eggs and carrot sticks, saving the almonds for last. The Red Eye seemed to be working, but he didn’t trust himself to sit down.

A quarter of an hour later, the scruffy rich kid entered, talking loudly with the Harry Potter type. They both gave Jadon long looks. Clark, Jadon remembered. The kid—he certainly acted like a kid—wore a fresh set of scratches amidst all that movie star scruff. Where had those come from, Jadon wondered. Clark’s face was a challenge, eyes fixed on Jadon until he stepped into what must have been the seminar room. It wasn’t hatred, not exactly. Jadon had seen hatred. He’d seen crazy too, although they’d had sensitivity trainings, and he knew not to call it that. But this wasn’t crazy either. It was something else. He remembered it from his playground days. There had always been kids who thought certain toys belonged to them. And they might not have been willing to fight you for them, but they’d watch, and they’d wait, and then, when they had their opportunity, they’d take it back.

Nico entered next, with a handful of other grad students. He wore the corduroy blazer, oxford, and trousers that he’d dressed in that morning, but with a new addition: the fake glasses were back. Walking next to Nico, Maya cut off mid-sentence when she saw Jadon, and Nico followed her gaze. A smile bloomed on his face, and he hurried ahead of the group. Maya was beaming, and when she turned to whisper to the girl next to her, they both broke out into giggles.

“You look handsome,” Jadon said, straightening the collar of Nico’s oxford.

“You told me that this morning.”

“But it’s still true. Would it be unprofessional if I gave you a kiss—”

Before Jadon could finish, though, Nico swooped in to peck him on the lips. His smile broadened, and he said, “I feel like I’m going to shit myself.”

“Don’t do that,” Jadon said with a laugh. “You’re going to do great.”

Nico bounced on his toes and glanced over his shoulder. The other students were filing into the room.

“Do you want to go in?” Jadon asked.

“It’s fine. It’s okay. We’ve got a few minutes.”

With another laugh, Jadon rubbed his back. “Let’s go in.”

Jadon took a seat in the back, nodding reassurance to Nico’s questioning look, and Nico sat in one of the front rows next to Maya. Maya asked him something in a whisper and glanced back at Jadon. Several of the other grad students were also giving him looks, including Clark. Jadon ignored all of them, and when Nico turned around, Jadon was ready with a smile and a thumbs-up. Then he realized he’d left his coffee in the hall.

At that point, three people who had to be the professors filed in. One was a white man who must have been in his seventies, with a fluff of hair like cotton candy and a round, almost feminine face. The next was a wiry white woman in some sort of robe or dress that looked several sizes too big for her. The third was a white man, and although Jadon pegged him somewhere in his fifties, he’d kept it tight. He was toned, trim, his hair fashionably cut but in a way that didn’t look like he was trying to act young. When he went to take off his jacket, he winced. One arm seemed stiff, and it took him several long, clumsy attempts to get free of the jacket. All three of the professors noticed Jadon, but if his presence was a problem, none of them said anything.

The one with the cotton-candy hair spoke first, and Jadon tried to keep up, but it was clear that he’d arrived in the middle of an ongoing discussion. The professor in the baggy robe-dress argued with the first one, and occasionally the third one spoke up. Some of the grad students tried to get into the fray—the Harry Potter type was practically vibrating in his seat, waiting for his opening. And Clark clearly had something he wanted to say. Both of them looked startled when Maya managed to put a word in before them.

Even though the argument itself didn’t mean much to Jadon, he recognized the feel of the room. He’d seen plenty of pissing matches before—law enforcement tended to attract the kinds of personalities that enjoyed drawing lines in the sand—and it quickly became obvious to him that, in academia as in so many other parts of the world, the pissing matches were more about ego than about accomplishing anything productive. The seminar might have been designed to help grad students, at least nominally, but the reality was clearly that it was a chance for these professors to get on their soapboxes and showboat and, most importantly, prove they were right.

Watching the students attempt to get involved, Jadon had to admit, was mildly amusing. It reminded him of the dog park. There was always a pack of big dogs running around the enclosure. They were doing their own thing—chasing a ball, or chasing each other. And then you had the little dogs who yipped and sprinted along behind the big ones. A lot of the times, Jadon thought as the Harry Potter type tried to interject yet again, the little dogs didn’t even seem to realize there was a size difference.

“Well,” the professor with the trendy haircut said, cutting through the argument, “we’d better wrap up this part of the seminar. We have one more student presentation, and then we’ll have our closing remarks. Nico, you know the format by now. You’ll give your paper, and then one of the professors will respond.” He smiled and added, “I’m the lucky guy. After my response, we’ll open it up to everyone, and you’ll have a chance to answer questions. Sound good?”

Smiling, Nico nodded as he rose from his seat, collected his papers and moved to the lectern. He set the pages in front of him. He adjusted his glasses. His smile faded, and his features reassembled themselves into intense focus. It was a look, Jadon thought, few people had been privileged to see. And then he thought, He’s so beautiful. And then, Get rid of the damn glasses.

“‘Marry,’ Kierkegaard writes, ‘and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way.’ It is tempting to read these lines as evidence of Kierkegaard’s own ambivalence about marriage, or as more of the contrariness running through much of Kierkegaard’s work, or perhaps as the type of angst-producing absurdity produced by the limitations of finite beings in an infinite universe. But a closer examination of Kierkegaard’s aesthetics and their intersection with his soteriological construction of ethical love will show that rather than ambivalence, the complexities of choice and regret invite the Christian soul into the same kind of leap of faith Kierkegaard describes as a move beyond reason.”

Nico kept speaking, but Jadon quickly lost the thread of the ideas. Nico had done a good job of explaining his argument the night before, but now, hearing it couched in the technical jargon of academia, Jadon found himself unable to follow. Names, terms, references—he tried, at first, looking them up discreetly on his phone, but there were too many, and by the time he’d read a paragraph about Hegel, he realized he was missing Nico’s paper. So, he settled back in his seat and listened, enjoying the sound of Nico’s voice, the rise and fall of it. A radiator glugged and gurgled behind him, and the air began to warm. Outside, bare branches moved in the breeze. They cast dancing shadows through the leaded-glass windows. It felt like the whole room was moving.

Jadon might have made it if he’d had his coffee. Sleep didn’t come all at once. He caught himself the first time his head dipped. He forced himself to sit up straight, to open his eyes. It helped, for a few minutes. But there had been so many sleepless nights. And Jadon couldn’t move, couldn’t get up and leave, couldn’t do anything without interrupting Nico’s paper. All he could do was sit there.

The next time he blinked himself awake, it was because the silence woke him. He wiped his mouth—no drool, thank God—and raised his head. Nico still stood at the lectern. A slight hint of color showed in his cheeks, and he was clutching the pages he’d been reading from. Most of the grad students were still facing forward, with the exception of Clark. He had trained his camera on Jadon and was smirking as he recorded him. Sleeping, Jadon thought muzzily. The little shit caught me while I was asleep. The professor in the baggy robe-dress was watching Jadon too, her face unreadable. Nico was so intently not looking at Jadon that Jadon knew, immediately, that Nico had seen him.

Only then did Jadon realize the professor with the trendy haircut was speaking, his voice well-modulated and calm, his gaze moving from his notes to Nico as he added, “—be happy to help you find some of those articles I mentioned, of course, if you’d like to follow up with me after the seminar.”

Nico’s hands tightened around his papers. “Thank you, Dr. Meza. That’s helpful. I didn’t know—” He stopped and after a long beat managed, “I didn’t know about that body of work.”

Meza—the professor with the stylish hair—sat back, nodding.

“We’ll open the discussion now to the seminar,” the man with the cotton-candy hair said. “But first, I’d like to point out several inconsistencies in how you use the term subjectivity.”

After that, it was a bloodbath. Everyone was polite, of course. But Jadon knew what was happening. Long criticisms only barely disguised as questions. Or the questions that were flat-out interrogations. Or not even an attempt at questions—the Harry Potter kid went on for almost fifteen minutes, and from what Jadon could tell, he was reading from his own research.

Nico bore up pretty well under all of it. He answered questions. He took notes. He nodded and said, “Thank you.” That look of intense focus had faded, and in its place was a perfectly polished mask. He even smiled when someone made a joke. Jadon imagined this was the Nico who had posed for photoshoots. The blank, unexpressive perfection of his face. Like the real Nico had gone away somewhere.

And then, somehow, it was over. The cotton-candy professor made some final remarks, and then people were gathering up their stuff, exchanging goodbyes. The Harry Potter type rushed the professors, talking rapidly, hand outstretched. Maya hugged the other girl. Clark slipped out of his seat and headed for the doors. He paused when he reached Nico and said something too low for Nico to hear. Nico gave a one-shouldered shrug, and Clark said something else. Then he kept going, and a moment later, he was gone. The professors filed out, trailed by a few of the more persistent grad students. Maya lingered for a moment, looking at Nico and then at Jadon. She left too. And then it was the two of them, and Jadon’s steps sounded loud as he made his way down the tiers.

Nico was packing up when Jadon reached him. He looked up and offered a too-bright smile. “Sorry about that. It must have been super boring.”

“No, I’m sorry. I can’t believe I did that.”

Nico slid his laptop into his bag.

“I’m sorry, Nico. That was so rude, and—God, I’m so mad at myself. I was so excited you invited me, and I screwed this up.”

“It’s okay,” Nico said, and he gave a little laugh. “You were tired. You’ve been working so hard.”

“It’s not okay. I am so sorry.”

“Jay, stop. It’s fine.”

Jadon watched Nico sling the backpack over one shoulder. He was still smiling. His eyes were bright.

“How did it go?” Jadon asked. “I’m not an expert on these things, but—”

“Great,” Nico said and walked out of the room.

When Jadon caught up with him, he finally came up with “It sounded like people had a lot of good feedback.”

“Sure, that’s how it always goes.”

Nico shouldered open the door and stepped out of Eldridge. The fresh air was good; Jadon felt too hot, a vague nausea rising with his redoubled headache, and the cool day was like a fever breaking. It had rained, and the brick pathways were dark and wet, but the sun was out again, and drops of water glistened on the edges of branches. Nico took off at a fast walk, and Jadon practically had to jog to keep up.

“I know you’re upset with me,” Jadon said as Nico turned toward Harlow, “and you should be upset, but I want you to know how sorry I am—”

“Stop apologizing.” A moment later, Nico rubbed his mouth and let out a breath. In a normal voice, he said, “It’s fine, Jay. Dr. Meza said he’d publish the paper with a few revisions. I’m going to meet up with him in a couple of weeks; he’s got this vacation home in Vermont, and he said I could finish the paper there.”

Jadon thought about how the professor had smiled. About how he’d said, I’m the lucky guy.

Nico met Jadon’s gaze, coal-fire eyes burning, and somehow, Jadon managed not to say anything.

They walked the rest of the way to Harlow in a silence that wasn’t a silence at all. The wet leaves made sticking noises under Jadon’s soles. The breeze whistled between the buildings. A crow landed heavily on a branch, and it creaked as it rocked under the bird’s weight. Their steps rang out in the dorm’s tiny stairwell. Nico kept one hand on the rail, and it made a soft ringing noise under his touch. He’s got this vacation home in Vermont. That smile. He said I could finish the paper there. That fucking smile. I’m the lucky guy.

There had to be rules about that kind of thing. Professional ethics. There had to be laws. He couldn’t ask him like that, invite him to the middle of nowhere in Vermont, and—what? A kaleidoscope of images: Meza passing Nico a glass of wine; a fire flickering on the hearth, throwing shadows in the hollow of Nico’s throat; the way Nico’s cheeks reddened in the cold; the professor’s mouth on Nico’s neck.

Jadon was so caught up in the torture of thoughts that he didn’t notice Nico had stopped walking until he collided with him. Nico rocked forward under the impact, but he didn’t cry out. He’s mad, Jadon thought. He’s angry because you fell asleep and, now you have to show him—

But whatever the rest of that thought would have been, shock cut it off. The door to Nico’s bedroom stood open, and the room was in shambles. Nico’s suitcases had been emptied onto the floor and thrown into the corner. More clothes had been taken from the closet and lay on the floor. The bedding was rumpled, even though Jadon had made the beds himself, the sheets and blankets neat and tight the way his moms had taught him. Because someone had lain there, he thought. And then, more clearly, He was here. He was in here, and he laid on the beds, and he touched Nico’s clothes, and he didn’t care that it was the middle of the fucking day.

Nico let out a laugh. The sound was hollow, disbelieving, and raw. He stepped into the room, shaking off Jadon’s touch when Jadon tried to stop him, and toed through the clothes on the floor. “My underwear is gone.” His breathing accelerated. His voice was higher than usual, tight, the sound of a man hanging on. “He was in here, wasn’t he? He was in here, and he took my fucking underwear.”