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It’s easy to get bored into the lull of Eden’s Twilight. It’s easy to sit at a table at the back, watching his teammates make drunk asses of themselves, writhing in a mass of bodies. It’s simple, for Andrew, to sit amongst the group with a bored expression and a tiresome attitude and yet a keen eye. Engaging in the innocuous, crude, slurred conversations around him is not a priority for Andrew on nights like tonight. Here, he stays staunchingly sober, unwanting to have a nasty reaction on the new stoner-pills Bee has him on.
So Andrew sits in the booth, hand wrapped around an ice water, wishing for something interesting to happen.
“I mean it, we haven’t had sex since we got engaged. It’s been a year and God am I ready to get married,” Nicky slurs, Allison giving a loud cackle and a shriek of laughter. “I’m going to love being married. I already love Erik so much I can’t imagine my life without him, you know?” he says, voice too loud for words too tender. “Are you gonna get married?”
Allison stares into the distance. “Maybe, I think I’d like it,” she says, and Andrew didn’t miss her eyeballing Renee, looking soft and mushy. Andrew looks away from her.
“What about you Andrew? Maybe you have a secret lover you haven’t said.”
Allison gives a cackle and Aaron tells him to shut up, both giving their cacophony of reasons as to why Andrew didn’t have a partner, why he is unlovable, and Andrew… Andrew is fucking done with it.
Why should he be defined by other people’s perception of him? Bee is always telling him he’s worthy of love, that he deserves to be loved and to love so why do Aaron and Allison keep acting as if he doesn’t?
“Maybe I do,” he says, voice strong, firm but quiet. Silence falls over the group, even those that weren’t listening before.
Nicky stares at him blankly. “You what?”
“I do. Have a boyfriend.”
Allison looks at him, agape. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” he lies flatly, revelling in the shock and the sweet, sweet revenge. His eyes are flat, his voice is flat- allowing them no satisfaction in everything they were hearing. At once, they seem to process this new information and Andrew immediately removes himself from the table and from the club altogether, standing and walking to his car, and driving the hell away from it all.
Andrew couldn’t get the stupid conversation out of his head- for two reasons.
One, he found it amusing that in that moment he chose to be offended by Nicky, Aaron and Allison’s childish antics. It wasn’t as if these intrusive questions are uncommon or unusual, particularly on any given night in Eden’s. Andrew flicks his pen across his fingers while sitting in his pure maths class- a class he’s only doing because he was too lazy to see the admin office to change- sitting next to Renee closer to the back of the classroom. In honesty, Andrew can’t see the board from back here, which makes his understanding of the content far more wishy-washy than it could be, so generally, he sits in the back and doesn’t do very much.
Renee nudges him slightly. “What are you thinking about?”
Andrew gives a sigh. “I need a fake date to take to Nicky’s wedding.”
Renee contemplates this for all of a moment before saying, “You could start with the guy that keeps staring at you from across the hall?” She points vaguely in the direction of the front and Andrew squints.
The guy is a flaming redhead with light eyes that kind of freak Andrew out, in an entranced kind of way. His face is scarred across his jaw and under his eye and Andrew is intrigued, to say the least.
“He’s been staring at me?”
Renee tuts. “Every day we’ve had class since the beginning of semester.”
Andrew processes this, looking at the guy until they made a sterling eye contact, time slowing around Andrew.
He pauses, and lets the moment drop.
After the class, Andrew waits for Redhead to appear, and when he does, Andrew walks up to him and says abruptly,
“You stare at me.”
The guy colours immediately, looking away. “S-sorry, I don’t mean to-“
Andrew interjects, “I have a proposition,”
And so, over coffee in the college cafe, Andrew lays it all out to him. Neil, he learns, is a pure maths major who wasn’t sure he liked guys until recently. He’s always freakishly compliant.
“Don’t touch me without my permission, and I’ll afford you the same respect. After the wedding, we’ll fake break up and that’ll be that, but until then, we’re method acting.”
Neil snorts. “Okay… And what’s in it for me?”
Andrew looks at him wryly. “I’ll buy you that awful coffee every day for the rest of your degree.”
“Done.”
Andrew isn’t sure why he agrees, but he isn’t going to complain about it.
The next day, Andrew wakes up to a text.
Morning Drew. Coffee today after class? xx - Neil
Andrew shoots back his assent and flops back into bed. This is way weirder than he thought it’d be. He barely knows the guy- but clearly Neil knows him, at least a little.
Andrew builds a profile in his head.
Neil Josten- second year, athletic scholarship for Exy. Mathematics major. Red hair, scarred face, huge blue eyes under a set of thick, reddish eyelashes.
All things about him struggle to reconcile in Andrew’s head- Neil’s entire physical presence feels like a confusing puzzle.
Andrew sits in his classes and keeps an eye out- but amongst his chemistry and physics classes, he keeps an eye out but doesn’t see Neil. Not until his last class, that same class from the other day.
Same professor, droning up the front, and Andrew still can’t see Neil. He scans every face in the classroom, every scratch of focused pen, and can’t see Neil. He wonders why for all of a second until, late and sweating, Neil walks in.
He mutters with the professor for a moment before looking up and seeing Andrew, walking to him.
Andrew is… Well, Andrew is beside himself. Neil, glowing with sweat and panting and cheeks flushed red (because, Andrew reminds himself, Neil is a fucking ginger ). His freckles are more apparent now that he’s far closer to Andrew. His pencil breaks in his hand.
Neil’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “What did the pencil do to you?” he asks, taking the seat beside Andrew. He pulls out his notes and peers over to Andrew’s to catch up. Andrew lets him, too distracted by the perfect yet messy curls under his chin as Neil leans over his desk.
“I can’t imagine I missed too much, did I?” he asks, and Andrew gives an indeterminable grunt that Neil, somehow, accepts as an answer.
After a few moments of quiet, Neil leans in again. “Are we still on for our ‘first date’?”
Andrew gives him a confused look.
“You know, like on the timeline of our relationship, this would be our first date. After this afternoon, we have to act like we like each other. Have you ever seen The Proposal?”
Andrew shakes his head.
Neil sighs. “My teammates made me watch it last week, so when you offered… I’m officially Sandra Bullock.”
Andrew just shakes his head bemused in an almost indecipherable way.
Neil huffs. “Are you always so quiet?”
Andrew rolls his eyes. “Are you always so talkative?”
Neil scans his face for a moment, going steely in his own expression. “This is your problem. You don’t get to treat me like shit, or I’ll walk and you can find another fake-boyfriend.”
Andrew sighs. “Fine. I’m sorry. I’m just distracted.”
Neil barely buys the excuse but nods and leans back. “Well, you should be more focused on me. You’re meant to want to date me. Or, at the very least, want to be my friend.”
Andrew huffs, because that is exactly the problem; maybe he does want to date Neil.
Their first date goes well, Andrew making more of an effort to get to know Neil, and Neil being more receptive to Andrew’s subtler expressions. Andrew finds himself preoccupied with thoughts of Neil more often than he expects to.
When Andrew wakes one morning, he finds himself making coffee and thinking of Neil’s purist nonsense, “ Coffee as God intended.” and his own retort, “ Drink your bitter bean juice then.” followed by Neil’s shot of, “ You’re a beverage coward.”
And then he’s smiling in his kitchen, over a cup of coffee too bitter.
A few weeks fly by, him and Neil undoing stitches in each other’s pockets, their study dates being a regular and welcome addition to Andrew’s routine. He and Neil bicker, over the most inane things,
“You could just call it a tap.”
“But it’s a faucet.”
“You sound ridiculous,” Neil sighs, flicking Andrew’s forehead.
“I don’t make noise just to be heard,” Andrew mutters back, earning him and cold look, and the hint of a smile.
Andrew alsos finds himself attending Neil’s games- because Aaron, Nicky and Aaron are on the team, and if he’s building an alibi about having a boyfriend, this will stir the pot.
Andrew is sat on his couch in his dorm, working through some school when there’s a knock on the door. He gets up and opens it, and a post-Exy Neil appears.
“Can I use your shower? I’ve been sex-cavated,” he says in lieu of a greeting. And, Andrew being a simple man, simply nods and Neil simply lets himself in, knowing the layout as it’s similar to his own. Andrew heaves a sigh and watches Neil move, lithe muscle flexing under tight shirt, thighs bulging from under tight shorts. He leans against his door for a moment, before gathering an old hoodie that’s too big on him and a pair of basketball shorts, leaving them outside the bathroom door, putting in headphones until he can breathe normally again.
When Neil reappears, it’s almost worse for Andrew, before now his hair is curly and towelled-dry and still damp, cheeks pinked and smelling like Andrew.
“We should… get familiar, physically,” he blurts, causing an immediate holler of ‘FUCK!’ to be megaphoned across his brain.
Neil’s expression goes to incredulous, before seeming to agree. “I guess… We’ll definitely get caught out if we’re awkward around one another.” He extends a hand to Andrew.
Andrew takes it, and Neil laces their fingers together, sitting on the opposite end of the couch. Andrew must look expectant, because Neil laughs. It’s a nice sound, and Andrew commits it to memory.
“It’s handholding, Andrew. It’s where people hold hands,” Neil says, teasing.
Andrew rolls his eyes. “I know that, genius.” He tugs Neil gently. “Yes or no?”
“Yes?” Neil responds, blinking in confusion for half a moment before Andrew tugs him closer, putting them chest to chest, Neil very gently laying on Andrew’s chest. It’s clumsy at first, but once Neil settles, they seem to share an exhale. Neil’s wet curls tickle Andrew’s chin, so he goes to brush the hairs away, but his hand gets caught in them, stuck in repeating the action, scratching his scalp.
Neil gives a slow exhale and eventually a little noise of happiness and Andrew’s hooked, immediately. He doesn’t stop.
It becomes a past time.
After practise, after class, after studying- they would retreat, sometimes silently, to Andrew’s dorm, and collapse. Sometimes in bed, sometimes on the couch, sometimes on the beanbags in the corner that used to belong to Aaron before he moved dorms to be closer to Katelyn.
Regardless of what they were doing or what they should be doing, Andrew and Neil finds themselves… cuddling.
And Andrew considers it an excuse just to be with Neil in a way that doesn’t make his brain go spiralling.
They get caught, eventually, because Andrew does what he swears he never would- start taking risks for someone he wasn’t protecting. But Kevin is safe, Aaron is on his way to being a great doctor, and Andrew accidentally left the dorm room unlocked.
Andrew and Neil’s limbs are entirely tangled- Andrew’s only sure he has a left hand because he can feel Neil’s in it. They’re on the beanbags, they’re dozing, and Neil has his head resting on Andrew’s chest. The weight of him, where it could have been a trigger, is more grounding than stressing. Neil absently presses a kiss to Andrew’s jaw- and a shiver runs through his body. Neil pauses, dropping his phone onto the floor nearby to look at him. His eyes are focused, looking at Andrew.
“Sorry, I should have asked, I-”
Andrew shakes his head minutely. “Yes or no?”
Neil nods. “Yes, you know it’s yes,” he breathes, looking like he’s broken the fragile line between something they can accept and something they don’t want to talk about.
Andrew takes Neil’s hands and arranges them on his shoulders, and Neil’s lips part. Andrew leans up, intentions clear, gaze flicking between Neil’s eyes and his lips. Neil leans in and there’s the slightest brush of lips before the door bursts open.
“Andrew, I swear to God, I cannot find this guy, and Kevin is going to kill me- oh. Well, I’ll be damned.”
Andrew defeats the kneejerk reaction of throwing Neil off him, because it doesn’t matter if Nicky sees them. It’s beneficial, actually, for them to be “caught”. It looks authentic.
(Andrew very pointedly does not entertain the thought that maybe they’re not pretending anymore, not after what just happened, at least.)
Nicky and Andrew stare at each other, and Neil bites his lip.
“I tried to tell Kevin that I can’t play. Abby said I’ve pulled a tendon and the damage could get worse if I practise on it until the rest of the week.”
Nicky rolls his eyes. Andrew’s heart is still in his throat. He barely processes the conversation Neil has with Nicky, but soon enough their intruder has left, and Neil retakes his post on Andrew’s chest for a blink of a moment before his phone rings. He gets up and leaves Andrew on the beanbags, mind swirling.
Now that their relationship is fully public, Andrew feels confident that he can wait for Neil after games, and if it’s just to see him freshly showered, sweaty and a little bit clingy, then so be it. It also looks good to the rest of the team, and to Andrew’s cousin, brother and their friends.
So he waits against the wall opposite the change room, staring at something on his phone until the door swings open. It’s not Neil, in fact, it’s Nicky.
“Andrew! I was just about to find you, actually. I just sent you the invites to my Bachelor party. You and Neil are coming, yeah?” he asks, eyes wide and pleading.
Andrew weighs this all up in his head. Saying yes means Nicky feels valued (Bee had told him to start prioritising that) and he also gets to spend a night with Neil in another setting where they are in full-pretend mode, and Andrew could-
“Yeah, I don’t see why not,” he says, and Nicky beams before looking gratefully at him, like a proud older brother who is finally seeing a change in Andrew.
“Neil makes you a better person.”
Andrew, cold, ruthless Andrew, feels a pang of guilt at Nicky’s admission.
The Bachelor Party is in a week, the saturday after the first Exy game of the season. Nicky had said he wanted to celebrate the start of season with his Bachelor Party and then the end of season with the actual wedding; Andrew feels some relief that the timeline of his and Neil’s relationship continues to stretch out.
“You got me involved very early on in the process, really. It’d look authentic to anyone else.”
Andrew nods and passes Neil the carton of Chow Mein once he’s not hungry anymore, who takes it and eats it gratefully.
“Your game is tomorrow,” Andrew says, getting up from his spot on the couch and walking back into the kitchen.
“You’re coming, right?” Neils asks, before Andrew can say anything else, and it feels tremendously like they’re dancing around what they’re really talking about.
Andrew nods. “Was going to.”
Neil gets up and throws away abandoned cartons and sits up on the kitchen bench. “I have an idea that’ll drive your brother insane.”
Andrew looks at him and raises an eyebrow, shutting the freezer door to look at him. Immediately, Neil reaches up and strips of his team jersey. Andrew pretends he doesn’t notice how the jersey tugs up his undershirt as well, revealing cut muscles over a scarred stomach, as well as his trail of hair leading to under his track pants. Neil grins at him, and Andrew isn’t sure if he knows Andrew is staring, or if he is just excited about pissing off Aaron. It’s attractive nonetheless.
Then Neil extends the jersey out to Andrew. “Wear it,” he instructs, and Andrew can feel the redness seep into his ears, and of course Neil knows and says nothing.
Andrew pulls on the jersey- it’s still roomy on him because Neil wears it baggy and even then is taller than Andrew, who is stockier than Neil, the stringbean. It’s fitting around his shoulders and biceps but it’s a little too long and he’s tempted to roll the sleeves where they sit over his fingers.
Neil grin fades as he looks at Andrew, going a pretty pink across his cheeks. Andrew, new to all things Neil, isn’t sure how to process this. For a moment, Andrew is sure Neil might kiss him; blue eyed gaze swapping focus between his eyes and his lips and absorbing the new image presented before him. For a moment, Andrew wants him to.
It scares the hell out of him. Sitting on the roof all those years ago has nothing on this.
Neil gets off the bench and much to Andrew regret, collects his keys from the coffee table. “Thanks for dinner, Drew, I think I gotta get going. See you tomorrow,” he says, and Andrew’s brain is a useless loop of DrewDrewDrewDrewDrewhecalledmeDrew .
He thinks he nods, and finds himself still standing there, fiddling the ends of the sleeves of the orange jersey.
Andrew sends Neil a text during the next day, Dont wear ur baggy shit to the party. Check ur dorm and gets a question mark in response, and then a smily emoji.
Andrew does as told and wears the jersey to the game, and spends most of the actual watching Neil’s legs, the raw athleticism there, the inexorable muscle and the unapologetic masculinity in how he throws himself around for the betterment of the game.
Neil is busy after the game, but Andrew makes a point of trying to see him, and once he earns an eye roll from his brother, he considers the evening a win and retreats back to his dorm. He sends Neil another text Played well and then keeps himself awake all night by remembering every moment he’s interacted with Neil.
The day of the bachelor party, Andrew and Neil can’t meet up beforehand, as Neil had make up classes from being at the game yesterday and Andrew actually had to do some work or he’d fail his degree altogether.
He sits at his desk until Neil texts him he needs a ride to the bar. He changes, then, into black jeans with a black hoodie that he thinks used to be Aaron’s, and ruffles his hair before catching himself and calling himself silly. What was Neil turning him into? He grabs his keys and texts Neil he can meet him in the carpark.
He waits by the shiny door of the maserati, and when Neil appears, wearing what Andrew had sent him- tight jeans, a sheer shirt with a green snake appliqued onto the back of it. Andrew… Andrew is staring, and it’s hypocritical of him, and Neil smirks and points it out, because he’s a dick.
“I thought I was the one who stared.”
“Get in the fucking car.”
He does, but he grins while doing it, and it makes Andrew’s heart race.
Neil fiddles with the radio until some old Nirvana song comes on- only then does he lean back against the smooth leather and seem to breathe. He looks over to Andrew.
“The other day, I shouldn’t have forced-”
“You didn’t,” Andrew says, and it’s true, because Andrew first of all cannot even think of a time where Neil has forced him to do something. “What has Nicky told you?”
Neil sighs. “That you got really hurt, and sometimes you get weird about people touching you, and I never wanted to seem like I was-”
“I have boundaries. Strong boundaries. But if there was ever a moment were I doubted you or your ability to respect them, we wouldn’t be here.”
Neil is mollified enough by this rare (albeit clunky) revealing of emotion to sit quietly in the car chair quietly. Andrew, though, is the one who can’t seem to stop talking.
“And I would have let you.”
Neil looks at him sharply, examining his face.
“Let me what?” Neil asks, face splitting in a cocky grin.
Andrew glances at him as he drives. “Shut the fuck up, Josten.”
They arrive at the club, parking and walking in comfortable silence, Neil walking close to Andrew without touching him too much- just the occasional brush of elbows or the backs of their hands.
Nicky writhing and grinding as he is, is, unsurprisingly, shitfaced, yet so is Aaron and Katelyn when they arrive. It’s easy to slip into the cacophony of the bass and the shouting and the sticky floor when you’re five foot and the man that’s holding your hand is barely four inches taller. They find a corner to observe in, and Andrew stares right at Neil. He has a drink in his hand but isn’t drinking it.
Nicky screams when he sees them, and Neil indulges him far more than Andrew, dancing with the taller, drunker cousin with a graceless ease that makes Andrew’s chest do funny things. He’s not good , by any means, but Andrew admires the lithe athleticism in his movements and the jerky revealing of biceps and the moments where he could see cut abs beneath the mesh fabric of the shirt. A hour, maybe two pass, where Andrew watches and Neil glances at him to keep his eye and Andrew breath become a little laboured when Neil bites his lip and winks at him.
Andrew watches until a guy, a big guy, starts to dance up on Neil, holding his hips and grinding- and Nicky, assuming it to be classic club etiquette, doesn’t even blink, but Neil jerks away, and Andrew is pushing himself off the wall and grabbing the guy by the neck of his shirt. It’s not terribly dignifying to reach up high enough to do it, but by the time he’s on the ground, Andrew can’t be bothered feeling self conscious.
Their brief stint into active clubbing is cut short after that, Andrew walking Neil out, who’s a shaking wreck, deep in the throes of a panic attack. Once Andrew has him seated in the car, he gives him water and helps him breathe through it until Neil isn’t certain his father is going to jump out of the bushes in front of the car.
“If he did, Josten, I have a pedal that’d prove to be a little more than fatal,” Andrew says calmly and Neil gives a short, half-hysterical laugh.
The Bachelor party is not spoken about in the presence of Andrew or Neil up until it’s the night before the wedding.
That night put a rift between Andrew and Neil, and time is not on their side to get them back to where they were. Exy season hits the ground running and Andrew actually needs to study for his finals or he’s going to get kicked out of college accommodation. For just over a month, Neil and Andrew sit side by side and Andrew attends Exy games and wears Neil’s jersey like it’s his own, and Neil winks at him and kisses his cheek in front of the others and it’s good; but it’s empty.
And Andrew… Andrew needs more because he’s losing his mind. He needs Neil, to have and to hold him, tangibly feel him like he’s never needed to before. It’s more than primal need, it’s more than longing, it’s a grieving of connection, a desperation for more of the tender touches that brought delight instead of disgust.
Neil has fundamentally changed Andrew as a person, there’s no contesting that; but Andrew doesn’t just want these changes, he wants Neil. And if it takes swallowing his pride and telling Neil that, going against everything in his essence? So be it.
That’s Andrew’s mantra as he sits in the Columbia house and puts flowers in his lapel.
Neil wouldn’t be coming til later, he’d been told. He needed to do an interview for something Exy related and then he’d be here.
It didn’t matter- Andrew felt his absence more than he’d admit. He’d grown used to having Neil warmth as a buffer to his own lack of social skill, his own lack of confidence in large groups such as these. Andrew had avoided them for so long that now, without his combatant attitude and his defenses, and without Neil, he didn’t really know how to navigate them. He stands by Aaron, who is less perturbed by his presence than Andrew had hypothesised, and helps Nicky breathe through his cold feet.
Andrew has white ribbons on his sleek, black Maserati- Nicky asked him to, “for my wedding, please, Andrew?”- and guides the nervous groom into the car and drives them to the venue. And Andrew is a cripplingly safe driver, but even then he’s distracted, thinking of what Neil is going to look like in a tux, what he’ll do when they get there, and then-
How will they announce their break up?
As if hearing his thoughts, Andrew hears Nicky sniffle.
“You know Andrew, I’m just… so proud of you. I always thought you’d end up alone and sad and marinating in your own misery, but I’m just so happy you and Neil found each other,” he says, heartfelt and soft, leaning forward from the backseat. Aaron gives a short from the front. Nicky whacks him. “I mean it, and it goes for the both of you. I mean, look at us. We’ve been hurt. And yet here we are. In healthy, honest relationships. And I’m proud of you both.”
Andrew swallows and carefully lays a hand over Nicky’s where it’s lying on the console.
“Thank you, Nicky,” he says, and it’s awkward and foreign and it’s cumbersome coming out of his mouth, but it is genuine, and Nicky can see that, Andrew assumes, because a pearly tear drips from Nicky’s eye and he nods, sniffing again.
Andrew’s desire to speak to Neil is now tenfold.
Andrew sets things up at the venue and then all things are ready, except Neil Josten, the redhead ring bearer, has not arrived.
Andrew, for a horrible moment, thinks something has happened to him- that’s stuck somewhere, that something from his past has recaptured him, and it’s so suffocating that Andrew steps outside to smoke for a moment.
He smokes one, then two cigarettes, desperate for something to happen, when finally it does- a black car pulls up, and Neil appears, doing his middle button up on his blazer and running a hand through his hair, looking a million-dollar man. Andrew doesn’t waste any time before going to him, grabbing him by the lapels and kissing him soundly.
Neil doesn’t say anything except a dreamy “ Hey,” in a hushed voice. Andrew takes his hand and gets him into the church.
The ceremony goes by without a hitch, and people cry, but Andrew’s most emotional response is when there’s a yes or no question asked in the ceremony and Andrew casts a deliberate look at Neil.
As Nicky and Erik kiss, Neil stepping away with the now-empty ring cushion, a great cheer goes up in the church. Andrew gives a very gentle smile, and Neil sits in the empty pew next to him, holding his hand during the walk to the reception hall.
It’s… nice. Andrew tries not to think about it too much.
There’s music, and Nicky and Erik dancing in the centre, and a warm, scarred hand occupying his own. He sips on champagne and holds onto Neil’s hand.
When the song changes into something softer, simpler, gentler, Neil tugs his hand. “Dance with me,” he says and it’s so genuine that Andrew just does as he’s told and goes with him.
There, swaying to the music, he wraps an arm around Neil and lets the red curls fall onto his shoulder, holding a hand and the other splayed on Neil’s back. They sway, shuffling steps occasionally, and Andrew’s so out of it with bliss that he only just notices Neil’s admission,
“Date me for real, Andrew.”
Andrew gives a soft huff. “I don’t think I ever even tried to do otherwise, Josten,” he says, and Neil laughs, and Andrew knows that this is the way it’s meant to be.