Six

I’d been deemed capable enough to return to Oxford and started Michaelmas term as a second year with the kind of confidence and buoyancy I could only have dreamt of the previous year.

My passing grade for my first year was 72.8%, which, across four papers, was better than even I thought I’d done. I’d been advised via an email (the day after receiving my result) that my second-year accommodation was in Longwall Quad. It was closer to many of the buildings where my classes were, and as second and third years were guaranteed single rooms, it was an all-around improvement. I was appointedacosy,low-ceilinged roomsetinto the eaves on the third floor, far away from anything resembling an industrial bin. The space reminded me a little of my bedroom at home. It was smaller than my dorm last year at Ellis, but a large arch window madeitfeelbigger.

Bast was first to text me. He’d gotten a single, too, but was in St. Swithun’s with Nikita. Irish Conn was in New Buildings, which, as the name suggested, was a new build development a five-minute walk from campus, which everyone had wanted. Personally, I preferred the older buildings, bin lorries and single-glazing aside.

After unpacking, I lay on my bed and stared at the old wooden rafters above. I was glad to be back. Though this summer had been healing in ways I hadn’t expected, I could feel myself starting to feel penned in. The last few weeks, Beth and Luke had stopped bickering in hushed voices in other rooms and started doing it out in the open, in front of me, forcing me upstairs or out for a drive. I’d driven to every beach on the island and sat in every coffee shop at least once.

After his return from Italy, I’d gone to see Gideon where he’d pretended that my little outburst the day before he left hadn’t happened. He’d brought me back a bottle of Limoncello in an extravagant frosted glass bottle. He hadn’t mentioned Cas once. Despite what I’d said to him the day of my explosion, I’d wanted to know. How was he? What did he say? Did he ask about me? What was he wearing? Did he seem happy? In love? All these questions burned on my tongue as I asked him instead how Florence was and whether he went to see Michelangelo’s David. (“Oh, Perseus with the head of Medusa is far superior, Jude! And the Abduction of a Sabine Woman. Glorious and ghastly!”) He even offered to take me there himself to show me. I tried to imagine it. Gideon and I, in Florence together, drinking in little cafés and eating dinner in fancy restaurants. Would he expect me to carry his bags for him? His water and fan? Would people think I was his son or his lover? Either way, it seemed like something he’d said off the cuff and had no real intention of ever doing. So, I’d just nodded and said, “Tell me when, and I’m there.”

He told me he was going to be staying at his house in London for a while to allow for the renovation work to take place – he couldn’t abide the dust. Asthma! he’d said, dramatically, like it was the name of a new broadway musical – and told me I was welcome to visit him there whenever I wanted.

I’d only been to London once as a child. It had been Christmas time, and my parents had taken me to see the lights at Covent Garden and then to a performance of the Nutcracker. So I said maybe I’d come visit him around Christmas.

It would beat going home to Jersey to listen to Beth and Luke fight.

Finn texted me a few days after term started. It was late Friday night, and I’d just gotten home from my first shift back at PP. I saw his text when I came out of the shower.

Finlay:

Your friends are here. Where are you?

Me:

Where’s here?

Finlay:

Call yourself a Classics student? Is that even proper English?

Me:

Definitely proper English. How drunk are you?

Finlay:

Not too drunk to suck your cock

Me:

We’re still doing that?

Finlay:

I’d really like to, yes

Me:

Would you now

I was lying on my bed, wrapped in a towel, with the window cracked open to let the fresh air in. The room, being in the roof space, was hotter than the one in Ellis.

Finlay:

I thought about your cock a lot this summer

I wasn’t sure that was true, but it still caused a little niggle of guilt to pull at me since I hadn’t thought of Finn once that I could remember.

Me:

I don’t believe you.

Finlay:

You still at Ellis?

I tried to think of the last time I’d gotten off, and couldn’t, which made me embarrassed and a little worried. I was eighteen years old, a second year at Oxford, and the last time I’d gotten off was so long ago that I couldn’t remember it.

Me:

Longall. Third floor. Room 4.

Finn sent back a string of aubergine emojis, a few tongue emojis, and a string of raindrops.

And so things with Finn picked right back up where we’d left them a couple of months before. And just like before the summer, full sex remained just slightly out of my zone of comfort or interest. I was definitely getting closer to being okay with the idea of it, and Finn himself was the reason for that. As my nineteenth birthday came and went and the coursework of my second year started to pile, I was more grateful than ever to have him there when I needed him.

One night, Valentine’s Day night I think, after once again sucking my soul out through my dick, he nosed at the skin around my balls and then lower, near my hole and said, “You ever gonna let me in here?”

I stiffened a little. Looking down at him, I asked, “Is that what you want?”

He gave me an incredulous look as if it should be completely fucking obvious.

“I mean, you want to fuck me?” I clarified. “You don’t want me to fuck you?”

“Jude, I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me, and I do, but for some reason you’re still squeamish about this, and so I’m trying not to spook you.”

I sat up, blushing a little. “I’m not squeamish,” I said.

“Okay, but you’re something, I’m just not sure what.” Finn smiled easily. “You saving yourself for your wedding night?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

He laughed before his eyes turned serious again. “Look, I’m not pressuring you. And you don’t need to figure shit out before you’re ready or whatever. I’m easy.”

I believed him. There was nothing underhand about Finn; with anyone else, I might have sensed the lie in a statement like that, but not Finn. I just didn’t know why I was so hesitant about it. I’d slept with girls. Okay, two, but I hadn’t overthought that to this degree. Deep down, I suspected it was related to Cas, but I didn’t want to even attempt to figure out what.

“Anything you want to talk about?” he asked, sidling up so he was next to me on his bed.

“You want me to talk about my feelings?” I asked, eyebrow raised.

“Fuck, no. Just like...whatever you’re stuck on with this.” He waved between us. “Maybe I can help.” He gave me an odd kind of look. “You’re not a virgin, are you? I mean, you’ve had sex before? You had a girlfriend in high school, right?”

“Yes, I had a girlfriend. Yes, we had sex.”

“Okay, thank fuck for that.”

I hit him lightly on the chest.

He laughed before his eyes roamed over me appreciatively. “Look, I’d love you to fuck me, I’d love to fuck you, but all this is good too. I guess I’m just trying to understand where your head’s at. You’re a bit of a closed book, Jude Alcott.”

I frowned at that. “Someone once told me that my eyes gave everything away.”

He studied me then, hard. Not in the lusty way he had before but as if he were sincerely trying to figure me out. He stared into my eyes, then at my mouth, then back up to my eyes again.

When he leaned over me, noses almost touching, he whispered, “Oh yes, I see it now. Clear as day. You want to get fucked, hard.”

I shoved at him, and he tipped back over, laughing.

“Dickhead.”

I wasn’t even going to go. Finn hadn’t properly invited me. But then, we didn’t really do that – make firm plans with each other. But it was his birthday, and maybe I was trying to take things to the next level by turning up and showing him I cared. Plus, at the very least, we were friends, and it seemed the decent thing to do.

I’d shot off a text to ask Bast to come with me about a half hour before, and he’d agreed, meeting me outside PP, with a six-pack of Scrumpy Jack and a big smile. He was more sociable than Conn and less conspicuous than Nikita, who a lot of people were afraid of for some reason. Bast was the perfect wingman.

Seve had given me a bottle of wine for Finn – who he knew via Abby – and let me go early since the place hadn’t been busy, Marta throwing me a murderous glare as I pulled my jacket on and ducked out of there. It was raining. That consistent, weighty rain that seemed to drop from the sky in puddles so that I was sodden by the time we got to Finn’s place.

“I’ll find a girl and leave you to it, my friend,” said Bast as we headed up the stairs of the house on Fromme Street, a sky-blue townhouse Finn shared with four others, including Alex.

A few people were huddled together on the steps outside, two umbrellas shared between them, smoking weed. I smiled as I passed, though I didn’t recognise any of them. Inside, some awful dance music played over the sound system as we made our way through the house. Bast spotted someone he knew from the bike shop in the sitting room, so he went over to say hello while I went to the kitchen.

There, I found Finn, leaning against the fridge, while talking to a tall guy who was built like a rugby player. I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or not, and I couldn’t decide how I felt about it, so I hesitated just out of their eyeline a moment before deciding to just dump the wine and go mingle. But then the rugby guy turned, Finn, a second later.

A look of shock moved over his face, which I assumed meant that he was flirting. And that I’d interrupted.

“Jude? I didn’t …you’re here...” He paled, panic pouring off him in waves as he stammered. I glanced at the rugby guy again and tried to give a reassuring smile.

“Yeah, bar was dead so Seve let me go.” I shrugged and held out the bottle of wine to him. “Happy Birthday.”

He stepped forward to take it. “When did you get...here?” He was looking over my shoulder and around the room. I thought he was looking to see who I came with.

“Literally just now. I came with Bast. You okay?”

He slammed the bottle of wine on the counter, took me by the arm, and manhandled me toward the utility room, practically shoving me inside. It was a small windowless space filled with cleaning products, dirty laundry, and unopened boxes of wine and beer. I looked at him, wide-eyed.

“Look, it’s fine, I don’t give a shit if you’re trying to fuck him, Finn. You know we’re not like that.” Maybe I’d come here with some other notion, but clearly that was stupid and I was actually pretty okay about it.

Finn gave me a tired sort of look.

He said, “I’m not trying to fuck him, Jude. I just don’t know what you’re doing here.”

I felt my cheeks heat with something. “Eh, because it’s your birthday, and I thought we were friends.” He’d been posting about this party on his socials for the last week. I’d assumed he hadn’t invited me because he’d assumed I’d be here anyway. Clearly, that old saying about assuming was spot on.

“Friends.” He snorted. “Yeah, okay.”

I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Forget it. It’s supposed to mean nothing.” He was still skittish, but now he seemed annoyed, too. Vaguely, I wondered if he was on something. But he didn’t seem drunk or particularly out of it.

“Look, sorry, I didn’t think before coming. I should have texted—”

“You know I care about you, right?” Finn said, startling me. “I mean, I’ve made that abundantly, and some would argue, pathetically obvious.” He laughed a little. Okay he was definitely drunk, I could tell that now. But it wasn’t the sleepy, flirty drunk I was used to. This was something else. Bitter. Thorny. “Does being with me make you feel close to him or something? Is that it? Or are you using me, because you think if he found out, he’d be pissed off about it? Or fuck, maybe it’s for some other reason you don’t even understand.”

He didn’t need to clarify who ‘he’ was. I knew.

It felt like he’d slapped me across the face. Had that been what I was doing? Was I using Finn as some way to get back at Cas? Stopping short from fucking him because it might be too much for Caspien to forgive me for. Embarrassment came first, then shame.

I struck out, blind and defensive. “Fucking hell, Finn, if you didn’t want me here you should have just told me.”

“I didn’t invite you, Jude,” he said coldly. “That should have made it clear enough.”

I didn’t understand what had caused this shift in Finn from who he’d been when I’d last seen him. But he was right: he hadn’t invited me. I shouldn’t have come.

I nodded. “Yeah. Okay, I guess I’ll go.” I moved toward the door but stopped and looked at him again. He still looked on edge, like he was frightened of something and though I couldn’t understand why, I was terrified right then that it was me.

My voice was soft when I spoke, “Look, I don’t really understand where this is coming from, but I care about you, too. And I’m sorry if you’ve felt like I don’t. I’m sorry if you’ve felt like I’ve been messing you around, but it’s not...” I shook my head. “I just thought you were okay with how things were. Sorry for...coming.”

Sorry for everythingwas what I’d meant. I gave him a sad smile and pulled open the utility room door.

My heart stopped.

Caspien stood at the kitchen counter, pouring wine from a bottle into a glass.

I blinked a few times, convinced it was my imagination. He couldn’t be here, he wouldn’t be here. But it was him. My heart knew it. My body knew it.

I could have closed the door, turned, and gone out the back door. But I couldn’t move. I only understood one thing: pure fear. My whole body shook with it.

And yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I drank every inch of him in, thirsty for what I’d been deprived of for two and a half years. His hair was shorter at the back and sides than I’d ever seen it, though long and messy on top. In profile, I could see his cheeks were pinked and his skin a little too pale, his frame leaner than it used to be. I could barely draw breath from how much I longed to go to him, touch him, hold him.

I suppose he must have sensed the weight of that longing because he stopped pouring and lifted his head, going very still suddenly before very slowly turning around. I saw his eyes widen slightly, before his expression went very deliberately, completely neutral.

I tried harder than I ever had to let my eyes show him absolutely nothing at all.

Behind me, I heard Finn let out a sigh, then a quiet curse, and suddenly I understood everything.

Cas’s eyes never left mine, his stare pinning me where I stood. His eyes were ice blue in this light, his mouth a deep pink slash on his face. I waited for him to say something, anything, because I was utterly unable. Then another fear hit me; was he here? Had he brought Blackwell with him tonight?

I had to get out of there.

Tearing my eyes from Caspien, I forced my feet to move. I strode past him and out of the kitchen, down the hallway out into the rain. I caught someone’s arm as I pushed through the crowd of smokers on the steps, but I didn’t apologise, and I didn’t look back.

I don’t remember the walk home, the rain soaking through my clothes and my skin, running into my eyes and mouth. I just walked. I stopped at the off-licence, bought a bottle of vodka and kept walking.

By the time I got to the dorm, my hands were shrivelled and my clothes weighed a ton. I turned on the small electric heater and stripped out of them, drying myself with minimal effort, before collapsing on the floor against the bed.

I drank straight from the bottle, burning hot mouthfuls that made me want to wretch after every swallow. After the fourth or fifth mouthful, it got easier. I’d come so close. So close to being okay. To moving on. To getting over him. Had he known and timed his re-entry so perfectly it was almost funny? If tragic heartbreak could be funny.

It had been months since I had last done it, but with another mouthful of vodka, I closed my eyes and remembered it all.

I let every painful memory flood back in, like a dam bursting and the swell rushing to the front of my brain, pouring over the walls I’d built.

I missed him. I missed what we’d had. The lie we’d had. The lie he’d let me have.

I missed how fucking special he made me feel when he looked at me – not some orphaned boy no one really wanted – but someone special. Special enough that I could be worthy of someone like him.

Deep down, I knew he was an awful, spiteful, empty person and I had the scars to prove it – but when he’d looked at me, when he’d let me touch him and hold him and have him, it was like—

I swallowed another mouthful. Dark, twisted arousal ebbed unwanted inside my boxers. I drowned it away with vodka, as I scrubbed at my eyes.

The thing that scared me most was that I was going to belong to him like this forever. He’d carved out a part of my heart and soul for himself and nothing except him would be able to fit inside it. It was him or it was nothing. It was him.

I hated him for it. Wanted to hurt him as badly as he’d hurt me.

I thought terrible thoughts, like going back to Finn’s and kissing him in front of Caspien, of dragging him upstairs and making him scream loud enough that Caspien would hear.

Maybe I’d force him to watch, maybe I’d—

The knock on the door was loud enough to hear over the hum and rattle of the convection heater and the radio. I reached over to turn the volume down on the speaker. It was always my first thought. That someone was coming to give me hassle the way Beth always had when I’d have the music up too loud. No one had ever done it here, but the instinct was still there.

I wanted whoever it was to fuck off and let me get drunk and maudlin in peace, and so I sat unmoving, hoping they’d do just that. They didn’t.

The knock came again, just as steady and determined as the first.

I grabbed a pair of sweats from the clothes horse and yanked open the door.

Caspien stood on the other side, relaxed and utterly bone dry. He was wearing a dark trench coat, leather gloves, and a look of complete petulance.

He stared at me a long time, before he said, “Well. Are you going to invite me in?”