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“I’m sure you can be very nice.”
“Jesus Christ. No wonder I’m such an asshole. This is the kind of support I get.”
“You’re going to be the nicest. You’re going to be so nice. Even to Theo.”
“Fuck me, I forgot about Theo.”
That made Shaw laugh again.
It took North a while to find a way to speak again, and when he did, he was surprised at how hesitant he felt. Almost timid, and he didn’t think he’d felt timid in a long time, maybe not since he’d been a child. “Emery said some stuff about me. About how I make jokes, about defense mechanisms. About giving people shit—I guess that was part of it too.”
Shaw was quiet for a while. He traced one finger across North’s chest and asked, “How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t know. Shitty.”
“North—”
“I mean, he’s not wrong. He’s Emery fucking Hazard; when is he ever wrong?”
“I bet John-Henry keeps a list.”
But the joke slid past North. “He’s not wrong, not really. Growing up, and then at Chouteau.” It was hard, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t quite summon the words. It was hard to be the queer kid in Lindenwood Park. It was hard to be the guy paying his own way when everybody else had trust funds. It was hard when you were afraid because you knew the person you loved most in the world kept getting hurt over and over again, and you couldn’t do anything about it. And it was hard when you’d grown up being told never to show fear—never to show anything. What he wanted to say was that it was hard when you’d never been allowed to be gentle, not until you met a certain doofus who wouldn’t take no for an answer. And so it was easier to be an asshole, but a funny one, because it kept everybody at arm’s length. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it, so he said, “He’s not wrong.”
An old man in a custodial uniform passed their window, pushing a cart that bumped along the uneven floor. Then silence. Then a bird. And then silence again.
“God,” North said, and he tried to laugh, but he wasn’t sure what to call the sound that came out. “Do they all hate me?”
“No! No, no, no.” Shaw stretched up to kiss him.
North shook his head.
“They don’t hate you,” Shaw said. “They’re our friends.”
North shook his head again.
“They are,” Shaw said firmly.
“Ok.”
“North.”
“I said ok.”
Shaw was silent for what felt like a long time. “You won Emery over, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” North said.
Another of those pauses came. Shaw made an unhappy noise. “North, I don’t want you to be sad.”
North touched that coppery patch of Shaw’s hair and forced himself to smile. “I’m not sad, baby. I’ve got you.”
22
Voices pulled North from his bed.
He and Shaw had spent the day relaxing, after what felt like endless days and nights of work. They’d taken their dirty clothes to the laundromat, and while the clothes washed, they’d walked up and down Market Street so Shaw could check out the shops. Then, after switching the clothes to dry, they’d gotten a very late lunch—halfway to dinner, really—at a cop bar called St. Taffy’s. They’d brought their clothes back to the motor court, and while Shaw meditated (napped), North flipped channels.
Until, that was, he heard men talking outside their room.
