Page 115 of The New Place

Stop, he thinks. Please. Please.

“You’re not like anyone I’ve ever been with,” Abbot manages, and the watch catches the light, shining too bright in his eyes.

“Well,” Ned says and laughs. “Not that I’d know.”

He stills, at least, having said that. Must hear the way the words sound, rife with annoyance.

He doesn’t tuck the watch away though, just holds it in his lap.

Certainly nobody else has held that watch. Why? Abbot wants to demand of his father, but he’s not here, and Ned is, frustration on his face.

Yes, Abbot feels that too, discontent layering the air between them. But what’s the way out of this? Back to the way he and Ned normally are? Harmonious and uncomplicated, like this last year together has been?

It’s Beverly, he’s sure. Walking into his life with the troubles she’s always portended.

And Adams closing, and the hope of moving and the specter of a new phase of their relationship. Good, Abbot had thought, so very ready for the evolution ahead of him and Ned.

Now, that progress feels like teetering on the edge of an unknown future. Uncontrollable too, as everyone around them pushes and pulls, layering their assumptions and excitement and expectations over his and Ned’s own.

Still, though. Ned remains Ned, and how Abbot feels about him can’t—and won’t—change.

“My exes aren’t worth talking about,” Abbot insists.

Ned hardly looks convinced. Does he really think—what? That he’s not good enough for Newbury? Or for Abbot himself?

Because Ned is the special one. Nobody Abbot has met can hold a candle to him. Not even close.

Carefully, Abbot doesn’t look at the watch in Ned’s hands as he tries to find the right words to set them back on track. “Ned, you—you came up to Portland to see me.”

“Well yeah.”

“The beginning of the semester. As a surprise.”

Ned lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Course I did.”

“No, not of course,” Abbot says. “If I wanted to see Louis, I took the train to Paris.”

“From Maine?”

Abbot offers a smile at Ned’s joke. “From Geneva.”

But Ned doesn’t smile back. “You were with Louis when you lived in Geneva? When was this?”

“That’s not what I’m trying to say,” Abbot says.

“Were you two together since what, high school?”

“High school? No, of course not.”

“But you moved to Zürich, right? And then—wait, where did you go from there?”

“I went to university in Zürich,” Abbot says. “But Ned, what I’m saying is⁠—”

“You and Steve did your doctorates in Chicago, right?”

“Yes.”

“So when did you move back to Geneva, then?”