8
Dex was lulled watching the stations pass him by. It was off-peak, a rainy Saturday morning slog of a train ride. The train was half full of poshos off to the Cotswolds for the weekend, or so Dex imagined. Ostensibly, he was slogging through piles of research on his laptop. In reality, however, he’d stopped paying attention once they’d passed Reading. He was thinking about the first time he had visited his parents at their new home, and he was thinking about Al.
He remembered how when he decided to pick Al up from school, everyone had begun to file out, and he had watched white face after white face, all uniformed and chatting and so very much belonging. Girls walking hand in hand, long, shiny hair playing in the breeze, boys climbing each other in games of macho one-upmanship. And there, slinking out all on his own, had been Al. One of maybe three black faces that Dex could see. One of a handful of dark faces in all the school, probably.
Small, awkward—an alien in a sea of sameness. Dex’s heart had clenched, and he felt almost sick at the sight of it.
His mum hadn’t mentioned this part. He should have known, should have thought, but he’d been so busy up his own arse, he hadn’t actually realised.
Al had come up to him, and his face said it all. Dex had cuffed him on the shoulder, wrapped his arm around his neck, and they trudged home together, Dex learning the route for the first time. His own family, in the Cotswolds. Unsettling didn’t begin to describe it.
If he had seen the looks sent his way in just those twenty minutes of waiting, he couldn’t imagine what it was like for Al. Day in and day out, consistently the black kid, the weird kid, the small kid who had yet to hit a growth spurt.
Now Dex thought about what would greet him at home. Home. It didn’t feel like home. Nothing about it felt like home, not even the familiar worn furniture inside his parents’ small but modern house. The kitchen was state-of-the-art, incongruous with all of their things. It was hard to believe his dad had landed the financier to the spies job he had now, but there it was.
Guilt about wanting to be back on familiar London ground pushed firmly to the back of his mind, he focused on the article he had in front of him and did his best not to think about what he looked like to the crowd of commuters around him. The only black guy heading towards the same destination.
+
Mum had gone all out with the fry-up. As soon as he was through the door, Dex smelled hot buttered toast, fried eggs, mushrooms, beans, all of his favourites.
“Hiya,” he greeted, dropping his bag carefully in the foyer.
“Dexter!” Dad’s voice boomed out from the kitchen. Mum was at the hob, looking exhausted but cheerful as she spooned out beans onto toast. Dad looked well, his nose half in his phone, tablet off to the side. Dex wondered how he didn’t spill coffee onto any of his electronics day in and day out. Al was nowhere to be found.
Dex sank into a chair. He’d had to get up at arse o’clock to make his train, and one cup of terrible train coffee did not make up for that. “Smells amazing,” he told Mum as soon as she slid a plate in front of him. “Got any coffee?”
“The kettle’s just boiled, hasn’t it?” She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead, ran her hands over his locs. She probably thought she was being subtle, but he always knew what that tiny wrinkle of her nose meant. When will you get rid of these and get yourself a proper cut? He shook his head and began shoveling food into his mouth.
Dad put down his phone and pushed his glasses off his face as he watched Dex eat. Dad. He looked distinguished with his grey temples, but it was always a shock to see it. Every time Dex saw his parents now, they looked smaller somehow. Just a bit more worn, just a little more tired. Was it possible that they changed so much in the few months and weeks, or was he being weird and imagining it? They were in their late forties, and Dex had heard somewhere that that wasn’t old at all. But it was close to fifty.
“Well, here you are, love.” A miraculous cup of coffee appeared next to Dex’s plate. “Can I get you anything else? Do you want a bit of a kip after breakfast?”
Dex wanted nothing more than to sleep, but that hadn’t been the plan for this weekend. “I’m all right. Sit, relax.”
She waved him off, but then sat down with her cup of tea anyway. Now he had both of them staring at him indulgently as he ate. He swallowed a bit of egg and laughed. “All right, what?”
“Oh, it’s just good to see you, isn’t it?” Mum laughed. “You look good. Maybe a bit thin.”
That was crap, obviously, but she always said that. “How are you? When did you get off your shift?”
She squinted at the clock on the microwave. “Just about two hours past, I suppose.”
Dex winced. She’d always had a mental schedule and would appear at home at all hours of the day long enough to make sure everyone was clothed and fed and properly looked after and then disappear for a double shift at the hospital. Sometimes, Dex had come home to find her slumped over on the sofa, book open in her lap, dead to the world. She was the queen of the twenty-minute kip. It was starting to take its toll, though, he could see. The skin under her eyes was darker, thinner; the short hairs at her temples had begun to salt-and-pepper like Dad’s. “When do you go back in again?”
“Oh, not till tonight, got plenty of time,” she said, waving him away. “Now, more importantly—have you got a new boyfriend yet?”
“Muuuum.”
Dad just laughed at them both, pulled his glasses back down onto his nose, and went back to checking his phone and iPad all at once.
+
Al didn’t emerge until nearly noon. By that time, Dex’s mum had already gone into her bedroom for a nap, Dex had had a throw-down with Izzy over text on how it had not been his turn to do the washing up, thank you very much, and Dad had gone into his office—also known as the room where Dex now slept—for some unexpected conference call.
“Oh hey,” Al said with little inflection.
“Hey yourself.” Dex gave him a few minutes before following him to the kitchen. He parked his hip on the counter, watching Al struggle with his breakfast. It was like he had all of his limbs in the right places, but making a cuppa at a normal speed was beyond him. Dex sort of wanted to grab the kettle away from him for his own safety, but didn’t, knowing how easily it could enrage him. Al, for his part, ignored him until he had his tea and toast.
“Do you want me to make you a fry-up?” Dex asked cautiously, and did a double-take when he saw the Waitrose label on the bread. He lifted the loaf in silent question to Al, who just shrugged and shoved a piece of toast in his mouth.
Mum had always gone to Morrisons, or Sainsbury’s. For a while when Dex was about ten, it had been Asda. This was new.
Dex flopped down on the chair across from Al. Al was starting to fill out more, and it was possible he’d grown an inch or so. Dex honestly couldn’t tell anymore. It was like time and distance was warping his awareness of what he knew his family to be, starting with the unfamiliar house down to how many wrinkles mum had at the corners of her eyes. Disorienting. It was like someone had come in while they’d all been away and rearranged everything in ways you couldn’t pinpoint but knew were all wrong.
Dex waited until Al’s cup was half-empty. “Want to do something today?”
Al shrugged without looking at him. Dex hated this gulf between them. He had no idea how to navigate it. But if Al was going to be all teenage ambivalence towards him, Dex would just have to push it.
“We’re doing something today, and you get to pick whether it’s you showing me around town—”
“It’s raining.”
“—or it’s me holing up with you in your room and playing Nintendo. Loudly. By myself.”
His tone must have worked, because Al froze with his toast halfway to his mouth and gave him a panicked look. Then he swallowed the toast, bunged the rest of it on his plate, and said, “Fine. We’re going out.”
“Good.”
+
Al used to be a pretty chatty little kid. Half the time, Dex had no idea what he was saying, but then, he also hadn’t always been listening. His ears were perked up now, but Al was silent. They trudged down High Street with nary a word said between them, apart from Dex asking Al if he’d been to this place or that.
When would I? or Why would I? Dex was beginning to wonder if Al hadn’t been replaced by a pod person. He was also vaguely approaching the end of his rope, so he turned up the collar of his jacket, slipped his knotted hands into his pockets, and let the silence stretch out. At least Al had come out with him.
Cheltenham was, as anticipated, exceptionally posh. It was also exceptionally white. Beautiful Regency-era buildings housed all sorts of shops catering to, Dex imagined, all sorts of yummy mummies and their moneymaking husbands. Cafes and restaurants lined each street, with historic buildings and museums announcing just how cultured and one of a kind this place was. Dex couldn’t deny it its beauty, but he wasn’t precisely enjoying it.
He pictured his mum running errands in between work shifts, wondered what it felt like. He’d got so used to London and its relative diversity. Hell, Birmingham hadn’t been bad, either. This felt like a wake-up call he hadn’t asked for. And this was where Al was growing up now, the weird kid on the outskirts.
Dex watched him trudging along next to him, looking like Mum, where Dex was all his dad. They barely appeared related, but Dex felt like a wolf protecting his cub whenever a passerby gave them a look of any kind. Was he being paranoid? Or did the two of them really stand out like sore thumbs? Another thing he’d lost perspective on. You never forgot, precisely, but sometimes the sharpness of difference got eroded, just a little, on familiar ground.
This wasn’t familiar in any way.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
How’s the Cotswolds you big posho?
Izzy. Dex rolled his eyes before responding. Stunning, what do u think
Al led them around the corner until they passed a big shopping centre, but didn’t go in. They kept walking.
I think it’s probs crap and u need to come home we miss u <3
It was awful that his spirits lifted at that. It had only been a few hours, but he felt so out of his depth here. Guilt at wanting to be back in his own flat with his own friends encroached once again, and once again he pushed it back.
It’s been like 6 hours u ok?
“Look, it’s raining and I don’t feel like being stalked in shops today, so can we just go home now?”
Oh. Dex tried to catch Al’s eye, but Al was scowling, looking straight ahead. Dex deflated. Cheltenham. Of course they’d be followed around each shop if they went inside.
“Yeah, sod it. Let’s just have a cuppa and see what’s on the telly.”
They went.
+
By the time he got out of the tube on Sunday, it was freezing and the sun had already set. He felt the drizzle all at once, London welcoming him back into its cold, grey arms. Not even the rain could ruin this return, though.
Al had relaxed a little bit around him, or maybe just got used to him in twenty-four hours, but Dex never got much more than a shrug out of him anyway. They’d stayed up late watching crap telly and drinking Yorkshire tea with digestives, and Dex had got a text off of Izzy with a picture of everyone at the Arms making sad faces at the camera. We miss uuuuuuu [heartbreak emoji], it had said. He’d sent a picture of his tea and Al. Later, he had tossed and turned on the study sofa and looked at Nick’s face turned obligingly sad towards the camera. He didn’t stop until he fell asleep.
Dex heaved his bag more firmly over his shoulder and trudged back to the flat, knowing that he had failed to help Mum and Dad out with Al and also got approximately zero work done.
He was so happy to be back home that he didn’t even care that Jonny had, once again, left beer bottles on the coffee table and was nowhere to be seen. Dex dropped his stuff in his room, then went in search of Izzy, but when he knocked on her door there was no answer. He looked at the time—was it too late or too early for them all to be out? And without him.
He frowned, trudged back down to the kitchen, and flicked the kettle on. Maybe this weekend was anxious mood, tea, and crap telly, and that was fine, because tomorrow was a brand new day or whatever. It was cool. He was fine with that.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Emergency mtg at Arms, u back?
Dex frowned at his phone. What could possibly be considered an emergency on a Sunday evening, especially one that would have to be discussed at the pub?
Wtf is happening?
He was already halfway out the door when Izzy’s reply came.
Jonny’s dads ill, has to go home.
Shit. Shit, double-shit.
It wasn’t a secret Jonny didn’t get on with his parents, and it definitely was sort of a known thing that his dad was a right bastard. Dex could only imagine what was going through the poor guy’s head at the moment. No wonder he’d needed the pub.
Jonny, like Dex, Izzy, and Nat, had spent the past summer in London, but unlike the rest of them, he hadn’t really had a choice in the matter. It also hadn’t been his first. His parents, backwards as they were, couldn’t face the fact that Jonny now lived as Jonny full-time, thriving as the man he’d always known he was.
What shocked Dex was that Jonny’s parents had told him about his dad’s illness at all. Were they expecting him, or was he going there against their wishes? It must be serious for them to have deigned to communicate with their son.
Dex reached the pub soon enough, shucking his jacket halfway and throwing Tosh a wave where he stood behind the bar.
“Corona?” Tosh mouthed.
Dex threw him a thumbs up in answer.
Beer in hand, he found them, Nick included, in the back. Dex received a round of cheers like he was a conquering hero being welcomed back home. He slipped in to sit next to Izzy, slightly embarrassed, and turned his gaze to Jonny.
“Mate, you all right? What’s happened?” he asked.
Jonny looked rumpled. He was usually on par with Steph for most relaxed person to be around, but he looked pale and visibly agitated. Dex noted his glass was nearly empty.
“Dad’s got to have heart surgery. It was a bit of an emergency, I guess. I wouldn’t have found out, but Sophie phoned, told me.” His cousin. The only one in his family who wasn’t utterly made of stone. “Said Mum’s pretty frightened. I’ve got to go, haven’t I?”
By the looks on everyone’s faces, Dex guessed this wasn’t the first time this question was being asked, nor the first time it was answered.
“Mate, it’s your call,” Alex said. “I’m telling you, there’s no wrong choice here.”
“There is though. If I go, Mum might go mental, and who knows what it would do my dad. I mean, what if his heart actually gives out?”
“But what if you don’t?” Steph’s quiet voice cut in.
It continued in this vein. Dex looked around at everyone and noticed their unhappy faces.
No one, however, not even Jonny, looked as pale as Nick.
Dex felt a shock go through him. He barely noticed that Nick had apparently got a haircut sometime between now and the last time Dex had seen him, because Nick looked like a ghost. His glasses hid his eyes a bit, but his hand was rigid around his barely started beer, jaw set in a way that made him look much less delicate than normal. Dex followed Natali’s gaze and saw that she’d noticed, too. They exchanged a look.
“Babe, I’m getting you another,” Natali said to Jonny. “You too, Iz. Dex, help?”
Dex felt awkward leaving the table a second after he got there, but he knew a signal when he heard one.
“Okay, something’s up with Nick,” Nat said as soon as Tosh took their orders. “He was with Izzy when Jonny texted, I guess, and she gathered everyone and brought him along, but he’s been so quiet, and he looks—”
“Like shit,” Dex supplied, even though that wasn’t precisely what he’d been thinking. In fact, if not for his dead-eyed expression and rigidity, Nick would look like a queer fucking wet dream right about now. His haircut was of the short-back-and-sides variety, with curly fringe in the front. A complete change from the crazy Beethoven hair he’d been sporting. Suddenly, his face took on a distinctive shape, and he looked different. Strong. Hot. It brought his cheekbones into stark relief. It also showed his ears, which turned out to be just this side of Dumbo-sized. Dex found them enchanting.
“Yeah,” Nat nodded, leaning her elbows on the bar. “D’you think it’s because Izzy told him Jonny’s trans?”
Unpleasant thought. Dex frowned, thought about it. “God, I hope not, that’d be shit. When did Iz tell him?”
“I mean, I’m guessing when Jonny texted her to tell her what happened. Nick was at ours, Iz had just cut his hair. I wasn’t there, mind, I’m just extrapolating.”
“Where was Jonny?” Jonny was openly out as trans, and sometimes Dex forgot there were people who didn’t realise. Maybe people who didn’t like it. God, he hoped to God Nick wasn’t one of them. How would Izzy have said it?
“With Lance, I think?”
Dex boggled, to which Nat shrugged eloquently. “Why isn’t Lance here, then?” If Lance really was such a good friend to Jonny, he added in his mind.
This time, Nat gave him an are you fucking kidding me? look. It squirmed through Dex. Right. Because he didn’t exactly make it easy on Lance whenever he was around. Nor Jonny, for that matter. Maybe he needed to stop being an arsehole to Lance now. Eurgh.
“All right, message received. But it would be such shit if Nick was having trans panic or whatever.” Who knew, really, if Nick was all right with their collective queerness?
“I know.” Natali cast a glance back at their table. “Who knows. Maybe it’s daddy issues.”
“That would be better?”
Nat grinned. “Well, more socially acceptable to our kind.”
“Yes, our kind adores some daddy issues.”
“Here you go, guys.” Tosh sent their glasses sliding across the bar surface.
“Cheers.” Nat threw down some bank notes, and Dex followed her back to the table with no better plan than to do his best to talk Jonny through whatever decision he was going to make and possibly to suss out just what the fuck was bothering Nick.
Dex found himself seated next to Nick. He hadn’t been this close to him since the club. Somehow, in all the time Nick had spent with them, Dex had managed to avoid just this situation. Now he knew why it had been a good idea to do so, and hated himself for it. He wasn’t here to beat himself up about how good Nick smelled this close up, or too feel a tiny stab of disappointment when Nick subtly moved his thigh so it was no longer touching Dex’s. Or to be so keenly aware of just how still Nick was next to him that he missed the conversation entirely.
Dex was here for Jonny.
“Look, all I’m saying is,” Steph said, “you may have some really shitty times when going back home, but if something dreadful happens, which it won’t, but if.” She trailed off. Jonny looked like misery itself. And to think, Dex had been moping about his own perfectly normal family visit.
Christ.
“You’ve got to take care of yourself, too, though,” Izzy put in. “What would be worse for you, you know?”
Jonny nodded glumly, took a deep breath. “Not going. Not going would be worse,” he finally said, voice quiet and resigned. “If I catch the early train tomorrow, I could be there before they take him to surgery, I think.”
“Will you be able to get to the hospital?”
“Soph would get me, she said. She’s got a car now.”
“Can you stay with her?”
Jonny nodded. A silence descended. When Dex dared to tilt his head Nick’s way, his locs caught and rustled against Nick’s shoulder. Nick jumped. Dex leaned in, whispered, “Mate. You all right?”
Nick turned his face and looked Dex in the eye. This close up, Dex could see that Nick’s eyes were redder than normal.
“I’m sorry, I should go,” Nick said, quiet as a dormouse, making no move to leave. “I’m not.” He cleared his throat and swept his gaze across the table before returning to face him. Dex didn’t think anyone was watching them. “It’s nothing, I promise, but I just—”
“What?”
“It’s just—well, the thing is—” Nick’s voice all but disappeared. Against his better judgment, Dex leaned in until he felt Nick’s breath on his ear, hoping it was encouragement enough to finally spill whatever the hell was happening inside him. “Ugh, look. My dad died. It was a heart attack. I guess I’m not over it.”
The words had been barely a whisper, but they rocked through Dex. Fucking hell. Daddy issues, indeed. Dex couldn’t have stopped himself from reacting if he’d tried.
“Shit. Nick, I’m sorry.” He did, at least, keep his voice quiet. Even with that, he could tell someone was watching them. He tried to look Nick in the eye, but Nick had trained his gaze on the table. A muscle in his jaw was jumping.
Dex glanced over at Jonny, saw that he was being comforted by Steph and Alex. “D’you need to get out of here?”
Nick nodded, then shook his head. “I can’t, that’s so … I mean, this isn’t my—” He broke off, clearly frustrated.
“It’s not rude, man, you’re a second away from a panic attack,” Dex said, maybe a bit more sharply than he’d meant to. “You could use a bit of fresh air.”
He had no idea why he was so insistent. He only knew that Nick was rigid with fright and God knew what else, and Dex could maybe help. And Nick had confided in him. That had to count for something.
Nick finally nodded, a single jerky move.
Dex slipped from the booth to let Nick out. Nick got up laboriously, as if his limbs weren’t obeying him. Dex exchanged another glance with Nat, saw the question on her face, shook his head.
“Nick’s not feeling well, so I’m actually gonna walk him home.” A stupid decision, but a decision. “Jonny, mate.” Jonny glanced at him, looking positively exhausted. Ugh. “I’ll see you at home, yeah? Pillow talk?” Jonny nodded, gave a tiny smile. “Pillow talk” was what they perversely called their late-night chat sessions on the sofa in front of the muted telly. Dex had no idea which of them had started it, but the name had stuck. He waved good-bye to everyone else, avoided Izzy’s questioning gaze, and caught Nick’s.
“C’mon,” he said. “I could use some air, too.” They walked out together.