23
Dex stood outside Nick’s building and breathed on his hands to warm them against the chill of January wind. He had no idea what he was doing or why he was doing it. He just knew that all the crap that he’d been feeling over the holidays had boiled over into something he could no longer contain.
He had, at least, been able to wait until Friday before his feet took him here seemingly of their own accord.
On Monday, just as he had been blearily pouring coffee into a mug, Izzy sneaked up behind him and delivered the news that Nick was back.
Turned out, Nick hadn’t received any of Izzy’s messages at all until he got back to London. Something about his SIM card. Dex didn’t care. He had yet to receive any response to his texts.
No. Nick was still avoiding him. And it was crap, because Dex had utterly failed to stop thinking about him. Instead, he was genuinely pissed off—something he hated, but also couldn’t seem to shake. It was completely unfair, he knew that. Nick owed him nothing. But it had hurt. Hurt in a way he hadn’t been prepared for. It had been monumentally stupid to go and start liking a boy before he was properly over Michael. Except, he found, he was. Over him. Because Nick.
What was worse, London felt more alive to him now that Nick was back. Even with all his hurt and simmering anger, Dex felt his heart thumping hopefully inside his chest. He’d almost turned around three times on the way here, but even as he considered and reconsidered the entire venture he knew he would go through with it. Now all that stood between him and Nick was a door, a staircase, and his own unwillingness to see what would happen on the other side.
Just talk to him babe
Izzy’s text alert sat on his screen.
Easy enough for her to say. Even if she was right. He just had no idea where to start.
He took the stairs two a time, just to get it over with.
Hey, was just passing by, thought I’d say hi, by the way, why did you run out on me when things were going so well?
No.
Fourth floor.
Oh hey, Nick, how about we try that snog again?
Ha. Definitely not.
Sorry I accosted you with my mouth and hands and stuff. Truce?
Ugh.
He pictured himself walking through the door and throwing himself at Nick. Embarrassing. Or Nick opening the door and Dex turning right back around and running off in mortification. What he couldn’t picture was Nick’s face. What he might look like when he opened his door and found Dex on the other side of it.
His heart was going overtime by the time he found himself in front of Nick’s door. He leaned in to listen, just on the off chance that maybe Nick wasn’t alone. Or maybe was asleep. Oh God, what if he was asleep? What if he was in the bathroom? Fuck, fuck.
Just talk to him babe
Not helpful, Isabel. She hadn’t been helping or had any pointers on how to start the conversation, and Dex was completely at sea.
He lifted his hand and rapped on the door.
It didn’t take long. The room was tiny, after all. It couldn’t have been more than five steps for Nick to cross it and open the door.
When he did, Dex had to force himself to breathe. Nick looked so pretty. Dex had nearly forgotten. He was barefoot, wearing a worn T-shirt and trackies. Behind Nick’s glasses was an expression of such genuine shock that Dex found himself simply saying, “We should talk.”
Nick swallowed visibly and stepped away from the door without a word. He seemed uncertain, but when Dex looked at him, Nick didn’t look away.
“Nick,” Dex breathed, and felt his muscles draining of tension. Something about seeing Nick’s face, seeing him here, right in front of Dex, felt so good, he couldn’t even hold onto his anger. “I’m sorry.”
“Why? No, I’m sorry. I didn’t…” He petered out, and Dex’s lungs burned with anticipation.
“You didn’t what?” Something about the muted light of Nick’s desk lamp and that raw, uncertain expression on his face called for quiet. The only other sounds came from the bathroom pipes and the clanging of the radiator. Dex was beginning to sweat. His skin was too aware of Nick’s proximity.
“I didn’t think you’d wanna talk to me, actually.” He sounded sad.
“Oh.” Dex swallowed. “Why?”
Nick shook his head like he was dislodging thoughts and made the three paces towards the bed. Acknowledged Dex with a shift of his shoulders.
Dex shrugged out of his jacket and let it drop to the floor. Then he shucked off his shoes one by one and made his quick way to the bed.
They now faced each other the same as they had the time when he’d cooked for Nick and only thought of what kissing him might be like. When Nick had opened up, even just that little bit, and Dex had soaked it in.
The silence between them now weighed on Dex, but he waited a full minute before saying, “So why wouldn’t I have talked to you?”
More than anything, he wanted to know that Nick was just as confused as he was, just as muddled. There was another part of him that was frightened, too frightened to admit to himself. The part of him that would hear Nick say, I hadn’t wanted to kiss you, I don’t like you, I’m not queer. Where Nick would look at him and say, I never wanted you.
Nick skittered his gaze over Dex, then looked at the wall and drew patterns with a single finger. “Because I was an asshole. And ran away.”
Dex felt hunger build in his belly. Maybe it was messy hope. Whatever it was, he drank in the sight of Nick in front of him, all bony knees and elbows, mad hair, beautiful fucking mouth, those fox eyes framed by long eyelashes. He knew the question to ask now. Should have asked it before this whole mess had happened, but he’d been too fucking scared. “Nick,” he said. “Are you gay?”
Nick visibly coloured. His throat and cheeks flushed an uneven pink, but when he met Dex’s gaze, he didn’t look away. “Yeah,” he croaked. “I am.”
Dex felt as if his very hands were on fire. He asked, “Have you ever been with a guy before?”
“No.” His voice was barely a rasp, and Dex swallowed against the tide of regret that threatened to swamp him. Fuck.
He’d scared him. Of course he had.
“I’m sorry. I freaked you out.”
“You didn’t. You did, but … it wasn’t all you.” Nick was rubbing his face with both hands. He had nice hands. They were well-made and expressive. An artist’s hands. Dex remembered holding Nick’s hand before they kissed, sticking a plaster on his finger. A shiver went down his spine. He had to calm down. Rushing was what got them into trouble to begin with.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh God. I’m not out. I’ve—it’s—” He broke off, clearly frustrated, and Dex wished he’d thought to bring beers or wine or anything to make this easier. “This is … new. It’s hard to talk about.”
“All right.”
“Just, um. Wait here, okay?” Before Dex could reply, he was left alone in Nick’s room.
Well. He was fairly certain that Nick wouldn’t have actually run off on him again, if only because he’d have to come back eventually. Nick’s room hadn’t really changed since the last time Dex had been there. Maybe a few extra of those postcards, which were so banal it was adorable. No sign at all that Nick had been gone—not even a suitcase. Dex wondered where he even kept it. He was about to stretch out to look under the bed when the door opened and Nick walked in.
He was holding two Stellas. Nick grinned as he handed Dex a bottle. Then he plopped back onto the bed and mirrored Dex in leaning against the wall.
Dex accepted that if he wanted to get anything out of Nick, he would have to be the one to start the conversation. “So.”
“The first person I told was Izzy. She guessed on her own.”
Christ. Izzy had fucking known. He guessed she’d known something, but she never said.
It’s none of my business, she’d told him. Fucking hell.
“But that’s … that must have been just this past—”
“December.”
“And you’d never said anything to anyone before? Not ever?”
Nick shook his head. He looked so small that his skinny, square shoulders were like armour rather than a part of his body. Dex wanted him so much.
“Fuck. How did you—” He shook his head. He had no idea where to start. “Wait, am I the second person to know?”
“I told my sister,” he said quietly. “When I went home. Over break, I told her.”
“Oh.” Dex swallowed. “Uh, how did she …?”
“She was good. It went … she was great, actually.”
Dex breathed out. “What about your—”
Nick shook his head. “Just Zoya.”
Dex nodded. Made sense.
What didn’t make sense was how Nick could have stood that. How he could have lived for twenty years and not breathed a single fucking word about being queer to anyone.
Dex could not have done it. And all those times they’d all just taken for granted that being queer was part of life and talked as if it was no bigger deal than anything else. All those talks about Nat, after Izzy had figured out she wasn’t straight, all those times when Nick had just sat there, accepted it all, and kept fucking mum about everything having to do with himself. Never shared, not once.
How? How was that even fucking possible? Where did all of him fit inside that thin, rigid body? What else was he hiding? How was he managing it?
Dex felt filled to the brim with questions, questions bubbling up around other thoughts, thoughts like, I know nothing about him, and What if that’s how he wants it? and Told you, Izzy, emotionally unavailable. It would never work.
“How? How did you—how could you live like that?”
Nick frowned.
Fuck.
“I guess—” Nick frowned, and his gaze was turned inward. Dex forced himself to relax his own shoulders, to breathe, to attempt to make this better without really knowing how.
“Wait. I’m sorry. You don’t have to explain. You’re—” Different. And he was. Dex was being an utter bellend. “You told me once that you felt like you passed. Being Jewish, that is, that you didn’t look it. Has being gay been like that?”
Nick genuinely flinched. “It’s been worse.”
Dex felt a dark shiver down his spine. “Why?”
Nick took a long pull of his beer, which drew shadows across his throat. “Because I’m not supposed to exist.”
“Nick—”
“No, really.” Nick pushed on, and Dex forced himself to shut up. Nick was talking. He was talking. “I’ve never known another Russian gay person. I’m sure they exist, I mean, duh, of course they do. I know that. Now. But when I was a kid, I had never met one. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t know any gay people.”
Dex was frozen.
“I don’t—I was alone. My parents never talked about anything like that, not ever. At least, not when I was a kid. And then they talked about it like it was something Americans did. Some Western thing. Not necessarily awful, just not for us. Not ours. So I couldn’t be … that. I couldn’t. I could be Jewish, I could be an immigrant, but I couldn’t be gay.”
Dex took a deep breath. His parents hadn’t been thrilled when he’d told them, but they got past it. And he could tell them. He knew of kids who couldn’t. Natali was still fighting her battles. God, being black and queer hadn’t been a fucking lark. He tamped down the memories, tried to bury them as they threatened to float up to the surface. Looking through gay magazines and seeing white guy after white guy, turning to porn and seeing only white guys or, worse, black guys without faces.
But he didn’t know anyone who’d flat-out never said a fucking word.
“Fuck. That’s—harsh, man. That’s really hard.”
When he looked at Nick, Nick simply shrugged it off, like he always did. Dex felt an overwhelming urge for Nick to admit everything he wasn’t willing to admit so he would see for once that he didn’t have to bear it all in silence.
“Nick, for fuck’s sake. You just admitted it was horrible, why are you always shrugging shit off?”
What was he doing? Making it even worse, a small voice reminded him, but he was too gone to listen to it.
“Do you know that you never fucking talk about yourself?”
“That’s not true!” Nick rose up on his knees so they faced each other. It wasn’t exactly an easy position to maintain, knees digging into the soft mattress in a lack of balance.
“It is! You give the barest of facts, you just throw shit out there like it’s nothing, even though it’s clearly not fucking nothing, and then you swallow it back down, like you’re not supposed to talk about it, but you get you’re no longer a kid, right? You get that you can, and you should fucking tell people this shit, and you don’t have to live like that?”
The sound of Nick slamming his hand on the wall brought him up short. Nick looked furious. Terrified. It seemed impossible that the two should coexist, but Dex saw it, all of it.
He was breathing fast, waiting for Nick to give him more. Vaguely aware that this wasn’t at all what he’d come looking for when he’d come here tonight, Dex couldn’t stop this ball rolling if he wanted to. He didn’t want to.
“I talk! Nobody fucking wants to hear this shit, all right? It’s boring, nobody needs it! What the fuck would talking about it do, anyway?”
“It’s not boring, Jesus, do you not listen when people ask you things? They want to know!” Dex threw the last vestiges of being cool to the fucking wind. “I want to know! I’ve told you I find it—”
“Okay, but for how long? How long do you think you would listen for?” Nick yelled over him. “Because if I start, I’ll never stop, okay? If I start, I’ll never stop.”
His voice was shaking along with the rest of him, and Dex was paralysed. He hadn’t—he hadn’t meant for this. He had never meant for this.
Dex didn’t think. He unfroze, reached out, tugged Nick’s arm away from the wall, and then he pulled him in. Nick went like he had no other choice, and the next moment Dex had him in his arms. Nick’s beer had spilled between them, soaking the duvet and their knees.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated, again and again.
Nick wasn’t hugging him back, just allowing himself to be held. Dex swallowed. Nick’s glasses were digging into his collarbone. They were both trembling now, like Dex had taken on Nick’s fear, and maybe that was good. Maybe that was what Nick needed. Had always needed. Dex took it, and he let himself be a spot for Nick to rage against.
Dex realised that Nick’s rage wasn’t like other people’s rage. It was contained heartbreak, the kind that didn’t know where to go. Nick’s hands found Dex’s shirt and grabbed on like pincers. Even as he quivered in Dex’s arms, Dex wanted him frantically. Desperately.
He sagged down. Nick was light, and he didn’t put up a fight. It was easy for Dex to nudge him away just long enough to slide the glasses off. Dex set them down on the bedside table. He splayed his knees to allow Nick to settle in between, and Nick did. Dex wished he could see his face.
But Nick buried it against Dex’s neck, and they sat there in a deafening silence. Dex didn’t know if his pulse ever would slow. God.
Kissing the top of Nick’s head felt so natural, he did it once, then twice. He lingered there, just holding him. He heard Nick’s breath hitch, felt it against his own chest, but neither of them spoke.
It felt like a long time, and also like no time at all. Dex was cold when Nick pushed himself away. He held his breath.
“Sorry. That wasn’t. Sorry, I was stupid, and you—”
“I was stupid, too,” Dex interrupted, and he thought about what he’d said. “I mean … I was stupid. You weren’t. I’m so sorry I yelled. That was a dick move.” He didn’t know what else to say. It all felt too big for words.
“You were right. I don’t know what to do.” He stayed where he was, still halfway between Dex’s knees.
“What if we just talked?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And you can say anything. I want to hear it all.”
Nick’s face was a picture of skepticism.
“Or, you can not tell me a thing. But I’d like to stay with you for a bit. If that’s all right.”
It felt like an age before Nick nodded and finally looked at him. Nick seemed done in, but Dex felt his chest lifting. “Yeah. I just have to … first.” He indicated the bathroom and slowly got up.
It wasn’t until the door lock clicked that Dex assessed the situation. Nick’s duvet was ruined and smelly with beer. He got up and left the door open as he ran to the kitchen and poked his head in the fridge. He found two more Stellas, hoped they were Nick’s, grabbed them, ran back. Nick was still in the bathroom, so Dex popped them open with his key ring, left them on the desk, then set to work on the duvet situation.
He dragged it off the bed, flipped it soiled-side down, and made a sort of nest on the floor.
There was hardly any floor left when he was done. He grabbed the two Stellas off the desk and just managed to get his arse onto the duvet when the bathroom door snicked open and Nick walked out.
He looked exhausted. He’d tried to tame his hair with some water to zero success, and wet ringlets hung down his forehead. His cheeks were splotchy pink, eyes swollen and glassy. Dex extended a beer towards him. His reward was a tiny crack of a smile—lopsided, uncertain, but a smile.
Nick made his careful way around Dex so he could settle down across from him, back against his bedside table. “Look, I really am—sorry,” he said.
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
Nick shook his head. “I am, though.”
Dex waited.
“I should have said something. Texted you. Or … something, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”
Dex thought about it all, remembered running after him. “You were scared, I get it.”
“I was terrified.” Nick’s voice had never sounded more firm. “But I hate that, okay? I hate being terrified. I’m done with being terrified.”
He looked terrified, but stubborn, too. Determined. His cheekbones stood out as he set his jaw and looked at Dex. Dex’s fingers twitched around his beer. “All right.”
Nick shifted and moved one leg until the tips of his toes were touching Dex’s ankles. Dex held his breath.
“I like you,” Nick said quietly. Dex clenched his jaw. “And I want you to know that. Now.”
“Good.” Crap. “I like you, too.” Might as well, right? “A lot. Glad we’ve got that sorted, then.”
Nick laughed. He looked at Nick’s uneven teeth, imperfect in his gorgeous mouth. He looked lit up from the inside. Maybe it was that his eyes were no longer spooked.
Dex pressed his advantage. “So, tell me things, then.”
“What kinds of things?”
He shifted until Nick’s toes slipped under his ankle. “Things that you’ve not let yourself say out loud before.”
Nick took in a deep breath—so deep, his chest filled out before collapsing in on itself again. “I’m always scared that my mom can see what I’m doing. Or hear what I’m thinking.”
“Wha—?”
“When I was a kid, I saw this movie. It was some … fantasy, I don’t even remember what it was called. It was in Russia. Anyway, the main character had this magic ball of some sort, like a fortune-teller’s, and all she had to do was ask it to show her a person, and it would. It would show her what they were doing at the time. It left an impression. And I really wanted one, too. I guess I internalized the possibility. That sounds dumb.”
“It doesn’t.” It made a bizarre sort of sense.
“Well, ever since then, I’ve imagined my parents having one and knowing everything about me. It really does sound dumb out loud, Jesus.”
“No. I think I get it.”
“When you and I … When we kissed.” It was the first time either of them had actually said the words to each other. “In the back of my mind, I thought my mom could see. After I ran away, I thought I was gonna throw up.”
Dex shut his eyes. Not exactly the reaction he had been hoping for, but this wasn’t about him. He felt a warm touch to his hand. He looked up. Nick was watching him, and when Dex moved his hand, their fingers caught.
“I fucked up so much. I felt like I couldn’t stop fucking up.”
“You didn’t.”
Nick squeezed his fingers and then slowly let go. “I did, though. And I guess it’s okay, because you’re still here.”
“I am.”
A pause. Wondrous. “Thank you.”
With anyone else, he wouldn’t hesitate to close the distance, kiss them, take control. But not with Nick. Tender and fragile, that’s how Dex felt around him. Clumsy and skirting disaster from too much feeling. So he waited.
It took barely any time at all, in the end. Nick, eyebrows drawn in concentration, rose up a little on his knees. Dex was aware of his every move. Aware of how much closer Nick suddenly was, and how hard the bed frame dug into his shoulder because he’d tensed in anticipation. Every tiny moment of Nick shifting closer sparked off Dex’s skin, electrified him into disbelief.
Nick leaned in, and their gazes met in a deliberate question.
Dex looked at Nick’s lips.
Dex leaned in. So did Nick.
Their first kiss had seemed so natural, and had ended in such utter disaster, Dex hadn’t been sure this would even happen.
Nick kissed him. His lips touched Dex’s and lingered. It felt so all-encompassing it was painful. It became impossible to wait, and so Dex slotted their lips together on a gasp. He closed his eyes and he simply held on.
He felt their kiss in his whole being. Felt the way Nick leaned into him—their bodies barely touching, connected at their lips and nowhere else. The close warmth of his presence was making Dex’s head spin. Nick was letting himself kiss and be kissed, and it was making Dex’s head spin.
Nick opened his mouth, and Dex found the courage to touch his jaw, and then it was as if a thread had snapped and they went frantic. Tongues and breath, too much of everything, and not enough. Dex went by feel and instinct, forgot all about technique and playing it cool and anything that wasn’t Nick clinging to him, devouring him whole, and then Nick was climbing into Dex’s lap, wrapping his slender arms around Dex’s neck.
Dex couldn’t breathe. He was all synapses and nerves, fingers that sought and clutched at Nick’s back, his waist, against his ribs under his T-shirt. Dex felt the weight of him, his thighs and knees digging into Dex’s hips, his hands roaming Dex’s back, and he had to hold himself back not to rip Nick’s shirt straight off of him, to grind up against him and get him off, make him lose his mind.
Dex was losing his mind.
He wanted to get closer, feel even more, get to Nick’s skin, fuck, get underneath it. His fingers found Nick’s hair all on their own, and he grasped it, felt the silky-coarse texture. His mind raced ahead of him, images of Nick naked beneath him, a sea of possibilities of Nicks—smooth and hairless chest, or maybe a sparse dusting of hair all down his stomach, or maybe it was tight curls, like Dex’s. His mouth was flooding with want, his dick with blood, his veins with heat. It didn’t matter what Nick looked like beneath his flimsy shirt and trackies, Dex was fucking desperate for him.
When Nick broke off, Dex fought back panic that he’d retreat and halt the moment. He held his breath. When he pulled back and looked at him, Nick’s lips—God, those fucking lips, now shiny and flushed—smiled.
Dex caught his breath and unclawed his fingers, allowed them to settle at his nape. “All right?”
Nick leaned in until their foreheads touched. The heat between them rose close to unbearable. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m all right.”
When Dex leaned up again, his breath ghosting just over Nick’s mouth, Nick met him halfway to the kiss. He didn’t hesitate.