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North’s hand tightened around the Pall Malls, panic needling his gut at the sound of Shaw’s voice. Theo must have spotted the reaction; he made a gimme gesture, palmed the pack from North, and stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Yeah,” Auggie whisper-called, “you should definitely hug.”
“He didn’t know he was supposed to hug Emery,” Shaw explained, now at full volume. “Sometimes you have to tell him even the most basic things.”
“Scram, dumbasses,” North called.
“Don’t get me started,” Auggie said. “Do you realize one time I showed up on Theo’s porch, nips out, and he still didn’t realize what he was supposed to do?”
“The adults are talking,” Theo said mildly.
“Hug! Hug! Hug!”
After a few seconds of listening to them chant, Theo said, “They’re not going to give up.”
“Give up?” North said. “Shaw’s going to escalate.”
“Kiss!” Shaw shouted.
“Uh,” Auggie said.
It was, perhaps, the most awkward hug on record. But only at first. And then North could feel how tense his own body was, and how long it had been since someone who wasn’t Shaw had shown him affection, and how some of the tightness in his muscles relaxed. When Theo patted him on the back, they separated, and both of them cleared their throats and stared at the ground. Theo even kicked a rock.
“That was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen,” Shaw announced as he emerged from around the corner of the building. He was wearing the gay Catwoman suit and, of course, no shoes, and Auggie had done something with Shaw’s hair so that it hung down his back. “Now you’re best friends.”
“I’m not sure—” Theo said.
“No,” North said. “We’re not.”
“Also, point of clarification,” Auggie said, “I didn’t actually have eyes on the hug, so—not that I care—but, like, was there a kiss?”
When Theo looked at him, Auggie grinned, but there was also a hint of a blush.
“I think we’re going to take off,” Theo said. He made the end of it a question, and when he looked at North, North nodded. To North’s surprise, Shaw hugged Auggie and whispered something in his ear. When he let the smaller man go, Auggie was smirking and, unless North was imagining it, avoiding eye contact with North.
“What?” North said.
“Nothing,” Shaw said.
“What did you say to him? Short Round, what did he say to you?”
“Get some rest,” Theo said as he steered a now laughing Auggie toward their car. “You need it.”
Auggie whispered something to Theo, and Theo belted out a laugh.
North gave Shaw the crook eye.
Shaw smiled uncertainly. Then, with a backward glance over his shoulder, he padded across the hot asphalt and took the stairs up to their room.
When North stepped out of the sun, the room smelled like weed, which certainly explained some of the Shaw and Auggie Happy Hour, with a hint of soap and the cool, damp air of the mini-split. He shut the door. His eyes were adjusting to the relative darkness of the room as he sat on the bed, so he couldn’t make out the expression on Shaw’s face, all the way across the room where Shaw sat on a chair.
Voices rose in the motor court’s parking lot, the sound of a man and woman calling, “Anthony! Anthony!” and a little boy’s laughter. The lines of Shaw’s face emerged from the gloom. The uncertainty there.
So, North went with tried and true. “What are you doing over there?”
Shaw shrugged.
“Get over here.”
