7
Nick was sweating profusely. The club was loud and overwhelming, and he found himself mesmerized by it against all odds. It was easy to lose himself in the crowd, easy to become member and witness all at once. He had almost been happy to see everyone disperse, even Izzy and Dex, after they rescued him by the bar. Without anyone watching, he felt his shoulders unwind.
He was at a club and he had no desire at all to leave. It was amazing. He finished off his beer and stood on the edge of the dance floor just bopping to the beat a little, letting the unfamiliar songs take him places. No one was watching him. That was the miracle letting him loose, allowing him to think, I can do this. I got this. Zoyka would be so proud when he told her. He swayed more, kept his eyes closed, got into it. Got lost in it.
He had talked himself in and out of coming tonight a thousand times over the course of the week. It was just not him. It wasn’t. He didn’t do this. The closest he’d ever come was a high school dance, and that had been such torture, he’d been the guy who left first.
He had mulled tonight over again and again, come up with so many scenarios as to what could possibly go wrong that he got sick of himself, shut the process down. He hadn’t told his sister about it at all, just so she wouldn’t have a chance to talk him into it. But then Izzy’s text had come through while he was deep in The Pickwick Papers, and before he could think of an adequate way to decline she was banging down his door, Dex in tow.
Dex. Another problem Nick had contemplated numerous times over. He hadn’t been sure what to expect from the next time he saw him.
He definitely hadn’t been expecting to see him on the other side of his door, looking possibly more uncomfortable than Nick as Izzy filled his room with her presence and threw all of his clothes around like his own psychotic personal stylist. He was beginning to suspect he was in over his head when it came to knowing her, but it comforted him.
If they didn’t want him around, would they go to all this trouble?
Nick smiled to himself and pumped the air when “Rhythm Is a Dancer” started up. He’d even known this song before they came to the States. God, he hadn’t heard it in years. People around him hollered and whooped, and he joined in, feeling outside of himself for the first time in a while.
It wasn’t until he was out of breath and screaming along to “Jump Around” that he felt an arm wrapping around his waist from behind and yelped.
Someone laughed in his ear—a girl—and when he twisted around to look, he came face to grinning face with Natali. Immediately he tensed up, too aware of how clammy and sweaty he was and how ridiculous he must have looked from the outside. This. This was why he hadn’t wanted to come. He began to pull away, but Natali slung both arms around his neck and pulled him in.
“I fucking love this fucking song!” she yelled in his ear, and relief, hot as lava, poured through his whole system. Something about the way she clearly hadn’t cared that he’d been jumping around like an idiot made it so much easier to yell back, “Me too!” then close his eyes and jump up and down with her. He could do this. He could.
So he did.
+
A while later, he had managed to get himself another drink. How, he had no idea. His legs were killing him, he was completely out of breath, he was probably so red in the face that he looked like a cartoon, but somehow he had slunk in between two people at the bar and actually got the bartender’s attention, which was a first for him. It was the same dude who’d served Izzy earlier, and when he saw Nick, he jogged over and gave him a grin that took Nick aback. He managed his order and paid like a normal human, and acknowledged in his mind that the look he’d received may have been skirting close to flirty.
He wasn’t dealing with that, so he made his way to a relatively empty spot, and the lukewarm beer tasted like manna from heaven. He felt liquid, fuzzy-headed and lovely. He was ridiculously pleased with his current life choices. Pleased that he had successfully danced at a club without anyone pointing at him and laughing, pleased that he’d been able to dance with Natali and not flip out.
“Ohhh my God, I am fucking knackered.”
Nick jolted and looked over to where Izzy had sidled up next to him. Her hair was a wild mess around her head, her top falling off one shoulder. Her bra strap looked red, but it might have been the spotlights messing with him. When he looked beyond her, he caught sight of Dex making his way over to them through the throng.
He looked … glowy. It was strange to think that, probably, and maybe everyone looked glowy to Nick just then, but he appeared relaxed and happy and just a little rumpled and sweaty. Not like Nick, who was a soggy mess. Nick tipped his head back against the wall and took a sip of his drink. Dex had great legs, he decided. Slightly bowed, steady, long. Lean. His jeans looked really good on him.
“Having a good time? I thought I saw you dancing with Nat,” Izzy said in his ear.
“Yeah, it’s been awesome.” He made eye contact. “Thanks for getting me.”
She looked pleased with herself. “Anytime.” She caught Dex by the hand and pulled him into her sweaty embrace.
Now that Nick knew they weren’t together, he felt a little … he supposed it was envy, really. He had never felt easy with anyone, not even Lena. Maybe with his sister, but that was different; that was family. They looked so comfortable, Dex sagging against Izzy, dark arm wrapped around her exposed pale shoulder. Nick jumped if you touched him. How must it feel to trust like this? He couldn’t imagine. So he just watched them and pushed down anything that could darken his mood. He could feel how a stray thought could pop his temporary joy, and he skated carefully around it, closed his eyes, pretended he was still dancing.
“All right, I’m going back out,” Izzy declared. “There was a dark-headed bloke over there somewhere I needed to look at more closely.” She went without another word. When Nick turned to Dex, Dex was laughing. He had one hand over his dreads, probably in an attempt to keep them out of his face. It made him look rakish.
He caught Nick’s gaze. “Don’t expect to see Izzy much if you go to clubs with her. This is her MO.”
Nick had absolutely no problem with that, which he felt, just then, the need to acknowledge. “I have no problem with that.”
“As long as you know what’s in store.” Dex settled next to Nick like Nick didn’t set his teeth on edge. Maybe he was mellowing out.
“Are you mellowing out?” Nick asked and then heard a record scratch in his head. Oh shit. When he dared to glance over at Dex, Dex was laughing, head resting against the wall.
“I so deserved that, man,” he said. “Look, I’ve been a dickhead to you, completely inadvertently, and—” Nick’s heart beat hard in his chest. “It wasn’t you. At all.” He pinned Nick with a look. A look that shivered through Nick’s spine. “Basically, I wanted to apologize for that. I’m going to be less of a dickhead from now on. Promise.”
Nick had no idea what to say. All he could think was how Dex’s eyelashes were ridiculous and made his eyes look made-up. How Dex’s throat glistened with a sheen of sweat. How much he really, really couldn’t have been having these thoughts at all because he—couldn’t. It wasn’t an option.
“It’s totally fine,” is what he said. “I appreciate it, anyway.” Then he nodded toward the writhing dance floor. “I’m just gonna—”
“Yeah, sure, go.” Dex nodded and plucked at his own T-shirt, unsticking it from his body in an easy movement.
Nick didn’t linger. He ran off.
+
But Nick couldn’t ignore things when it was just him in bed, in the dark. He twisted this way and that, tried to get comfortable and fall asleep, but the swirl of all that had happened chased him. He turned over onto his stomach, pillowed his face on his hands, and looked out into the London night. Maybe if he confronted all the crap instead of running from it, he’d actually be able to fall asleep. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe he could fool himself for just a minute.
Embarrassment writhed inside him, though. Now that he was sober, memories popped up in erratic shifts. Why did I do that? Why had he danced like an idiot? Why had he gone at all?
He had been rude to Dex, too. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt anxiety pooling in his stomach in a way that nauseated him. Why hadn’t he thanked him properly? There was probably something he could have said, but he had no idea what it was, because Nick rarely knew the right thing to do or say.
He groaned and covered himself with the duvet. The close, sweaty air underneath didn’t help, but maybe if he stayed there forever, he’d never actually have to deal with any of it. Suffocating on his own humiliation—what an ending.
Dex was a problem. Nick didn’t know why Dex being gay flipped Nick’s view of him, but it did. Now Dex was—no. Dex was nothing.
Nick was thousands of miles away, but the yoke of all he had to be extended far beyond that.
He wasn’t this. He wasn’t Natali and her confidence in who she was. He wasn’t Dex and his grace, his easy pride and acceptance of all that he contained.
Nick was the product of all things unspoken, all things fearful and untold. Don’t tell anyone you’re Jewish. It’s good, you pass, you don’t have the family nose. You have light hair, thank God. Your sister’s got the sad Jewish eyes, but you—you took after your dad. You’ll be okay.
Later, he’d begun to say these things to himself. Things like, Don’t mention how the sight of your middle school best friend sends your heart fluttering in a way that it never, ever should. You want to be him, that’s all. You want to know what it’s like to be that good-looking, to have that confidence, to feel your feet planted on the soil they were meant to stay on. That’s all it is. That’s all it’s ever been.
Don’t breathe a word of how you cried in the shower every day for a whole summer because you knew you were different and that the door your path led to was forbidden.
Don’t say it. Don’t even think it.
You aren’t that. You can’t be. That is not for you.
Move thousands of miles away. Accidentally meet people that you’ve always longed for and wanted to be like. Wonder, every night, why they picked you out of a sea of people who were so much more than you could ever be. You, a mess. You want to be just like them.
But you can’t be. Because you have to go back. You will always, always have to go back.
Dex wasn’t the problem. It was Nick. It had always, always been Nick.