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“Be back in the car in five minutes.”
The curt dismissiveness of his father’s response didn’t go unnoticed by Todd Anderson as he walked into the gas station. His steps were lazy despite the steady drizzle that had been coming down for the last few hours, and his eyes remained downcast.
“Hi! Welcome to Speedway sir!”
Todd looked up at the rather chipper cashier worker and managed to stutter out some sort of greeting, he really needed to get better at talking to people. The last year at Welton had helped him with that a bit, but he still was pretty lacking when it came to conversation.
But after he went to the bathroom and paid for a pack of gum, he knew he’d been less than five minutes. He’d been checking his watch for Christ’s sake.
Apparently his father had disagreed, or forgotten, both were possible, and quite frankly sucked.
But yeah, now he was standing outside a gas station a good two hours from home, and his family had left.
It would have been poetic if he wasn’t in the fucking rain without a proper jacket.
“You have to be kidding me.”
He kicked at the curb for about a minute, this was really typical. He knew they didn’t mean to leave him, this would probably be some funny story they ended up telling in like twenty years. But right now it felt shitty because the longer he waited here the longer they were in the car without knowing that he wasn’t even there.
So, when he finally walked back into the gas station and dialed up the payphone, he probably sounded pretty upset. At least that’s what the voice on the other end of the line thought.
“ Jesus Todd are you okay?”
He frowned a bit. “What? No, I mean yes, Neil, I’m fine, I-I just need a ride.”
“ You sound upset. ”
“I-Well, I sort of am I guess? But that’s not the point, I feel really bad for asking, but can you pick me up? I’m at a rest stop of Route 6.”
“ And why are you there, exactly? ”
Fuck, he’d skipped over that part in the anxious haze of making the phone call. “I, sort of um,” he screwed his eyes shut, there was literally no way to not sound pathetic when he said this, “got left here? Accidentally, by my family.”
“ Jesus Todd… ”
“It’s not that bad! But I just don’t really feel like waiting for them to come back and I know you live near here and I just thought-”
“ I’ll be there in ten minutes. ”
Todd released a long breath and let himself relax. “Thanks Neil.”
“No problem, hang tight okay? ”
He nodded silently before realizing that he couldn’t convey a nod over the phone. “Okay.”
The other end of the line clicked off and Todd hung up. The cashier was definitely looking at him now and the part of him that would usually send him into a self loathing spiral was surprisingly quiet.
Neil would be here soon, pathetically sooner than his family, and he could actually relax.
A honk brought Todd back into the present, he glanced outside and saw Neil waving from his car. He’d gotten here in eight minutes, the only thing he’d had to do since he hung up with him was watch the clock so if he was being honest it was actually eight minutes and thirteen seconds. Not that he cared.
He waved back at Neil before walking up to the cashier quickly. “If a guy comes in here looking for me, he’s my Dad, can you tell him I’ll call the hotel from home?”
The pitying look the girl working sent him made him want to crawl in a hole and die , but he just settled for thanking her after she agreed and almost running outside to Neil’s car.
“Fancy seeing you here Anderson,” Neil said lazily, although if Todd was being completely honest he could see a hint of sadness in his eyes along with some other emotion he couldn’t identify.
“Hey Neil,” he shut the door and fumbled with his seatbelt for a few seconds, “Thanks for picking me up.”
Neil pulled out of the station pretty fast, he was probably speeding but Todd could care less at the moment. “No problem.”
There was a pretty heavy silence for a few seconds before Neil let himself look over at Todd, who’d taken to staring at his feet pretty interestingly.
“Hey, buck up,” Neil said as he shoved Todd’s shoulder lightly, “You didn’t really want to go on the trip right?”
“Not really, I guess.”
Neil nodded. “Well then the way I see it, you got a pretty sweet deal.”
“How so?” Todd tilted his head and let the ends of his mouth turn up a little bit.
“You get a free weekend away from your parents, you get to stay with me, which is really the best possible outcome-”
“Wait what?”
Neil just shrugged and kept watching the road, a smirk that could have rivalled Charlie’s own graced his face.
“Neil, I can really just call a cab, I don’t want to impose or anything.” In reality he just wasn’t prepared to spend what would probably turn into the whole weekend with Neil, but he’d probably have to have a few teeth pulled before he admitted that.
“Nope, non-negotiable, we haven’t been able to hang out at all since school let out and pretty soon we’ll be going off to college,” there was a pretty noticeable strain in his voice after he mentioned college, “and I’m forcing you to spend time with me.”
There was really no use protesting with Neil when he set his mind to something so Todd just nodded. “Well when you put it like that.”
“Exactly! And we’re here.”
Todd got out of the car and was in the house pretty fast because the rain had started coming down even harder, still got soaked through pretty good, which Todd took to mean he’d have to borrow some clothes. Which wasn’t necessarily unappealing considering his current company.
“Mom! Todd’s here!” Neil took his and Todd’s dripping jackets and brought them into a side room. Todd could hear approaching footsteps and awkwardly tried to find something to do with his hands before Neil’s mother showed up.
“Hello Todd! It’s been too long since I’ve seen you!”
“Thank you so much for having me Mrs. Perry,” Todd said. They both laughed a bit, fake laughed really, when she backed off from a hug as Todd was soaking wet.
“Please, it’s no trouble, I wish Neil’s father was home, he really enjoyed meeting you at the graduation ceremony.”
Neil walked up behind his Mom and rolled his eyes a bit. “Oh yeah, he’s at a conference in Manhattan all weekend.”
Todd almost smiled at the exaggeratedly bored look on Neil’s face when his mother explained why he was attending. Something about radiology, the rest was a mixture of far too boring and far too complicated.
“Well, make yourself at home, let me know if you need anything,” she finished mechanically, heels clicking on the tile floor as she walked off.
Todd had to admit, Neil’s house was damn nice. Charlie had told him about it once, he was the only one of them who’d ever been there, and he’d so eloquently described it as ‘big and rich as fuck ’. He’d been surprisingly accurate.
Neil cleared his throat and pulled at Todd’s sleeve impatiently. “We can go up to my room.” He pulled Todd toward the stairs clumsily and started rambling.
“No one but Charlie’s actually been up to my room before so it’s kind of a mess.”
He laughed a little when Todd snorted, they’d been roommates for long enough that Todd got the general understanding that their ideas of messy were vastly different. “Whatever you say Neil.”
They got to his room and, again, Todd rolled his eyes because Neil room looked like something out a magazine, Todd hadn’t been able to see his floor in his own room for weeks.
“A real pig sty Neil,” Todd said, accepting the clothes that Neil tossed at him.
“Very funny,” he drawled, taking off his own shirt and throwing it in a basket. He pulled on a new one and Todd pretended not to stare, pretty poorly. He wasn’t quite sure what they were, but it was probably a level above innocent friendship and he didn’t know if this was some sort of sign or-
“The bathroom’s at the end of the hall, and the phone’s down there too so you can call where ever you need to.” Neil looked far too bemused for Todd to be comfortable. So, he nodded and went into their bathroom.
“Get it together,” he mumbled idly. He put on Neil’s shirt and almost whined because it was really soft and smelled like him in a totally not creepy way. One of the main advantages of being roommates was that they shared clothes a lot, and he actually missed it now that they graduated.
But any warmth was pretty short lived, and he left the bathroom and bit back a groan as he walked toward their phone. He knew where they were staying so he had to go through the operator and wait a few minutes before the someone at the hotel picked up.
“ Boston Marriot, how may I help you today?”
“Hi um, can you connect me to John Anderson’s room?” he heard a sound of affirmation before he started tapping on Neil’s wall a bit.
“ Can you confirm the spelling of the last name please? ”
“A-N-D-E-R-S-O-N?”
“ Okay, I’ll connect you right now .”
The line clicked off and he heard the phone start ringing again. He’s say there was a solid twenty percent chance they still hadn’t noticed he was there, if Knox was here he probably could have struck up a bet.
“ Todd? ”
“Jeff? Hey I-”
“ Fuck I’m so sorry man, we were all freaking out like five minutes after we left and realized, Jesus I’m sorry. ”
He almost laughed, Jeff always sounded awful when he tried to explain himself, for a lawyer he could be really awkward sometimes. “It’s fine.”
“ Mom and Dad...went out? That sounds so shitty but they said they knew you’d be okay. ”
That part stung. He clenched his fist for a half second before taking a deep breath. “It’s whatever, I’m at Neil’s though, I’ll be back to the house sometime this weekend.”
“ Neil’s that kid from your class right? ”
“Yeah.”
“Oh okay, just have fun and stuff, I’m really sorry Todd. ”
“It’s okay Jeff, really, don’t worry about it,” he said. And he really meant it. It wasn’t Jeff’s fault anyway.
“ Okay, goodnight. ”
“Goodnight.”
He hung up and took a second to collect his thoughts before walking back to Neil’s room.
Neil had laid down on his bed and was flicking through a notebook when Todd walked back in. He glanced up and smiled softly, patting the bed next to him for Todd to sit down.
Todd obliged and Neil laughed a little.
“What’s so funny?”
Neil shut the notebook and rolled onto his back. “I was so bad at poetry Todd, I don’t know why Keating spared me.”
“You weren’t that bad, you just needed practice,” Todd said, crossing his legs and tilting his head at Neil.
Neil snorted and put an arm over his eyes. “Says our very own Shakespeare, the great poet Todd Anderson.” He moved his arm just in time to catch the growing blush on Todd’s face, and shoved at his leg lightly. “Don’t be embarrassed, it’s true.”
Todd rolled his eyes. “Whatever, we all can’t be the next James Dean.”
It was Neil’s turn to blush. “Shut up.”
“I’m serious,” Todd said, “You’re really good, and your Dad said you can minor in acting as long as you keep your grades up right?”
“Yeah, if I can save up enough money I can pay for it to be my major too.”
“Exactly,” Todd exclaimed, “You’ll be great, I know it.”
The look of actual happiness in Neil’s eyes hurt for some reason. Not in a jealous way, Todd wanted Neil to be happy more than anything, but everytime Neil looked like he did right now, he could see the note of sadness behind it. That hurt Todd in a way that reminded him of how he felt during the school year, how much he felt.
“You keep staring.”
Todd couldn’t detect anything but fondness in Neil’s tone, so he just kept eye contact for a few more seconds and raised his eyebrows. “How would you know if you weren’t staring yourself?”
He smiled when Neil nodded, “You make a good point Anderson.”
Laying down next to Neil, Todd felt ridiculously safe. Which he was very aware sounded corny and romantic as fuck but it didn’t matter, he missed this. From the way Neil grabbed his hand, he knew he wasn’t alone in that.
They stayed like that for a while. Todd was really happy he’d decided to shut the door when he came in, the security of a wood door between them and the rest of the world reminded him so much of Welton he could have cried.
“I missed this.”
Having his thoughts voiced in an empty bedroom was another reminder of Welton.
“Me too.”
After a while Neil shifted and laid a blanket over the both of them. A few seconds after that, Todd curled into his side, an arm wrapping around his back, he felt the edges of his mind grow fuzzy. “I missed you Neil.”
If he wasn’t on the verge of sleep he knew he never would have said that out loud. But he did.
“I did too Todd.”
The last thing Todd felt before finally giving in to sleep was Neil pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.
It felt like the night collapsed around him, and as far as Todd was concerned, it might have.