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“You’re pathetic, Gatsby.” Daisy proclaims, swiping the joint from between Gatsby’s fingers and bringing it to her red lips. “Pathetic I tell you.”
“You talk like an old Brooklyn man when you’re high.” Jay remarks, his voice thick with haze and fatigue.
“Don’t compare me to Nicky.” Daisy drawls, expelling smoke from her mouth. “Oops! Am I not supposed to say his name?”
“Fuck you.”
“Been there. Done that.”
They were in Jay’s living room, drooped over each other on the leather couch, rain hitting the penthouse window with ferocity.
Surprisingly, Gatsby and Daisy had remained in each other’s good graces after a rather anticlimactic end to their two year long relationship. So good, in fact, that Daisy had her head in Jay’s lap, smoking Jay’s weed and making fun of him.
When Daisy arrived at Gatsby’s penthouse around two hours ago, her hair wet and sticking to her face, he offered the warmth of his home in exchange for no conversations about Gatsby’s... little problem. Of course, this was before Daisy searched through Gatsby drawers under the pretense of borrowing clothes, finding marijuana in his bedside table. She had threatened to tell the school, which even though Gatsby knew was an empty threat, he didn’t even argue with her, knowing that he would feel even more pathetic smoking alone.
Not long ago, Gatsby had harbored an obsession for Daisy. Whether if it was her laugh or her silk scarves or her mile a minute speeches about absolutely nothing or the fact that she was the first girl to give Jay head, he held on to the Daisy notion for longer than he’d care to admit. That was the year Nick Carraway, Daisy’s mysterious and handsome cousin, moved to town.
Gatsby was completely intrigued, inviting Nick to the parties he had been throwing to get Daisy’s attention. They began seeing each other often, and Gatsby had spent hours staring at Nick’s lips that first time they met. He then spent hours convincing himself it meant absolutely nothing. And then he spent the next three years boning Nick’s cousin (not that he wasn’t madly in love with Daisy because, as Nick can attest, they very much were disgustingly in love).
The problem is Gatsby’s in love with a someone else. Well, more precisely, the problem is Nick. The problem is Nick and Chester McKee.
God help Gatsby that all of the sudden he’s competing with Chester fucking McKee.
Gatsby sighs, taking the joint from Daisy’s fingers and bringing it to his lips, tipping his head back and letting the smoke cloud above his face. “He’s really with Chester, huh?”
“Well I saw them today.” Daisy slurs, looking at Jay with her large eyes. “They were cute. You should be happy Nicky finally went after someone he knows will love him.”
“Stop.”
“He loved you ya know.” Daisy mentions, handing Jay the joint . He cringes at the past tense, sighing and closing his eyes patiently. After another hit he discovers he doesn’t even feel like smoking. “You absolute dope.”
“I didn’t know back then, Fay. I didn’t.”
“Oblivious too, old sport.” Daisy teases, setting off a string of giggles, screwing her eyes shut in hysteria.
Gatsby’s issue was Nick Carraway, more specifically falling in love with Nick Carraway years after Nick had fallen for him. Years of calling Nick pet names and leaning on his shoulder and watching him button his shirt in front of the mirror. Gatsby had missed him like he did the morning train or the first ten minutes of his English class. However, missing Nick has larger repercussions than the detention he’d received for being late.
“You loved me too.”
“Ya, but we all know I’m more grateful for getting away from Tom than I am for getting together with you.”
Much to his discontent, Nick spent most of his second semester of high school assisting Gatsby in pursuing Daisy, causing her eventual breakup with her long time boyfriend and friendly neighborhood jackass, Tom Buchanan, which despite Jay’s current dilemma, he was unequivocally grateful.
“Jackass.” Gatsby whispers.
“Look who’s talking.”
“You’re not being very nice, Fay.” He mumbles, his voice cracking ever so slightly.
She rolls her eyes, but when she looks towards him, tears are swirling over his pupils, and he’s adamant on facing the ceiling so she won’t see.
“Gatsby...” Daisy holds his hand.
“Call me Jay.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just-“ Daisy pauses, sitting up so she can look Jay in the face. “You should have seen him back then, Jay. His eyes, Jesus, his eyes. He lit up.”
“Ugh.” Jay groans, pain seizing him momentarily.
“And, and I didn’t know until he told me. Until we were falling in love. He- he told me he was fine.”
Gatsby nods, a high pitched noise crawling out of his throat.
“I- I want to tell him.” He’s so quiet, so small, if Daisy weren’t laying on his shoulder she wouldn’t be able to hear him.
“Okay-“
“Not to cause trouble, no. I’m happy for him.”
She stared at him for a long while, the tears forming droplets on his long eye lashes. He’s so broken and beautiful, and Daisy’s tightens her hand around his.
“I know.”
-
Gatsby falls asleep watching When Harry Met Sally, a single dry tear on his cheek. Daisy knew he had cried, probably when Harry and Sally first part after making it to New York, but she doesn’t say anything.
Jay falls in love often. With potted plants in the flower district and tiny ceramic animals at museum gift shops. With girls who beg him to dance whenever an Ed Sheeran song plays at his parties, and boys with Elvis glasses. But it doesn’t last long. Never.
Because he’s spent a while acquitting love with infatuation, obsession, desire. He’s spent even longer believing it’s more of a monetary exchange than anything else.
The thing about Nick, Daisy realizes, is that Gatsby likes him just as much as he loves him if not more. Sure he wants to give Nick a thousand roses, wants to romance him in the bedroom, everyone knew that. But Gatsby also wants to talk to Nick, wants to have Nick’s eyes on him the second he walks into the room, wants Nick to straighten his tie.
It was heart wrenchingly disgusting. And very sweet.
She kisses his forehead, tucking him further under the soft throw blanket he was using before grabbing her soggy raincoat from the gold coat rack and leaving.
-
“Jordan,” she says, holding her cellphone to her cheek once she’s in the lobby of Gatsby’s building.
“What do you want, sapphic woman?”
Daisy giggles, tucking a piece of her wet blonde hair behind her ear. “You know I want you, obviously.”
“You had me last night. I recall you were screaming my name, Fay.”
She hears a frustrated grunt from the other side of the line, and Jordan suddenly laughs. Daisy extends her arm towards the street, flagging down a bright yellow taxi with an add for a new Anne Hathaway vehicle film on the roof of the car.
“We’re in public, Jordan!” Nick’s voice is muffled between the car horns in front of Daisy and Jordan’s laughter on the other end of the line. “You guys are gross.”
“Oh, I know.” Jordan drawls, chucking down directing her attention back to Daisy. “You needed something.”
“Yes, um, is Nick dating that guy? Chester McKee?” Daisy quips, opening the door of the car and settling on the leather seat. She smiles at the driver and whispers, “The Fay estate.”
“Huh...” Jordan trails. “Nick, are you dating Chester McKee?”
Nick groans, probably grabbing the phone from Jordan’s hand. “We’re hooking up. Jesus, two gay kids and all of the sudden we’re dedicated and in love.”
Daisy flinches, sputtering, “but- but I saw you! You were holding hands after school!”
“Daisy, are you six years old?” Nick asks, clearly frustrated and grumbling into the phone. “I was dragging him home so I could fuck him!”
Jordan is giggling again. “We’re in public, Nick!” She laughs. “I didn’t know you were a top.”
“Oy vey, I hate you both.” He says, his voice growing distant from the receiver as he hands the phone back to Jordan.
“I might’ve told Gatsby that Nick is taken,” Daisy whispers.
“Oh god, Daisy-“
“And he might be telling Nick he loves him tonight....”
“What?”
“I- I gotta go! Don’t tell Nick!”
She hangs up the phone with great urgency, shoving it into her pocket and saying, “Stop the car!” She slips a twenty to the driver and struggles onto the sidewalk.
The traffic prevented her from getting too far from Gatsby’s, but when she jogged towards the green awning in the front of his building, she noticed him getting into a fancy car, clad in a baroque patterned button up and a nice pair of jeans, his face full of anguish.
“Gatsby!” She screams, but he’s already inside the car, heading in the other direction towards Nick’s in Brooklyn.
It was as if he were driving himself towards an inevitable doom.
-
When Gatsby reaches Nick’s apartment building, thanking his driver and stepping out onto the starlit sidewalk, he notices he has several missed calls from Daisy.
Shrugging, he stuffs his phone deep into his jeans pocket. “The Carraways.” Jay tells the doorman. The man smiles at him, recognizing Gatsby before Gatsby recognizes him. He nods and motions towards the elevators.
He’s had a recurring dream where he presses Nick against the wall of the elevator, his back accidentally pressing all of the buttons. The elevator then proceeds to stop on every floor, residents catching a glimpse of Nick and Jay as the doors opens and closes on each floor. When they finally reach the top floor, Nick yanks Jay by the sleeve onto the roof, kissing him deeply. Overlooking the entire city, Nick turns to him and says, “I’m falling in love with you.”
Jay sets a mental flame to the image, pressing the 7 button and watching it light up, thinking of that summer the elevator broke and Nick would clutch Gatsby’s wrist as they climbed the seven cases. “Jay, I’m gonna fall over.” He’d breath. Gatsby would laugh, wiping sweat from his forehead and saying, “I’ll carry you.”
He wonders how he convinced himself that he felt nothing akin to romance for Nick Carraway. How he held out for so long.
When he knocks on Nick’s door, he thinks of how when he leaves, this will be over.
It’ll be over.
“Jay!” He says, smiling with all of his teeth. Frankly, Mr. Shankly is playing from inside the apartment, and Gatsby’s feels his knees slowly buckling below him.
He finds it painful how Nick is unapologetically himself, how he’s embraced the whole white boy writer situation. Nick has an old typewriter that doesn’t work, and at least a hundred records. He sings to Ella Fitzgerald in the shower. It all makes Gatsby ache with admiration and love and want.
“Nick, hi.”
“You okay? You look.... disgruntled.”
“Oh, uh, well.” Nick frowns, opening the door wider as a gesture that Gatsby should join him inside.
Nick moves the needle off of the vinyl, and the music stops abruptly as he sits on the floral couch. “What’s going on? We haven’t talked in a few days.”
That’s because you’re boning Chester McKee.
“Well, I-“ he stopped himself, squeezing his eyes tight enough to will the tears away. Nick watches on in concern. “I’m going to say something. Can you just, uh, wait until I’m finished?”
Nick nods quickly, tapping the couch beside him and waving Gatsby over. Jay blushes, settling beside Nick as he propped his head up on his elbow. They were angled towards each other, and Gatsby really can’t stop thinking about kissing him.
“Well, ya see, I, um...” he blinks, focusing on a scuff in the floorboards, willing his eyes away from Nick. “I think I’m in love with you.”
He hears a strangled noise escape Nick’s throat, but he doesn’t dare look at him. “No... I don’t think. I know.” He breathes deeply. “I know I’m in love with you.”
Surprisingly, the world does not end like Gatsby assumed it would, and his lungs carry on and his heart carries on and the world carries on.
“I know that you’re with Chester... and that’s so great, like I’m actually really happy for you-“
“I’m not dating Chester, ya dope.” Nick interrupts, breaking his promise unapologetically.
“You don’t have to spare my feelings, old sport-“
“Don’t ‘old sport’ me!” Nick growls, his voice hard and low.
“Nick-“
“Shut up!” Nick shouts, standing from the couch. “Shut up for once in your god damn life!”
Jay presses his lips together, signaling to Nick that he would shut up for once in his god damn life.
“Two years.... oh my fucking god, I was in love with you for two years!” Nick grumbles, his voice shaking slightly. “And you would- you would look at me like I was everything, Jay! You would look at me like I hung the moon, but then you’d look at Daisy and I might as well have been a dead animal at the side of the road! And now I’m supposed to believe you’re in love with me... ya, sure, okay!”
Jay frowns, feeling the warm tears stuck in his eyes. If he could go back and tell Nick that he was everything, if he could go back and make himself realize earlier, he knows he’d trade his kingdom and then some.
“I wanted you.” Nick whispers. “I still want you! I always wanted you, Jay!”
His eyes widen as he watches Nick fold his arms in front of his chest as if he had just told Jay about a paper he was writing or the groceries he had just purchased.
“Nick,” he whispers, walking towards the boy in the corner. When he puts a hand on Nick’s shoulder, the other boy stumbles back, visibly stung and hell bent on keeping his distance. “I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry.”
Nick doesn’t say anything, only shooting Gatsby an icy glare and leaning against the wall. Jay turns away from him “I’d do it over again.”
“You can’t repeat the past.”
It stings him in a way he didn’t expect, as if he didn’t already know what Nick had told him. He turns around, Nick’s eyes already on his own.
“We have right now though, don’t we?” Jay says softly, taking a tentative step forward towards Nick. “And I want you.”
Another step. “Now.”
He’s about to move closer when Nick pushes himself off of the wall and pulls Gatsby into him, connecting their lips in one fluid movement.
Jay finds himself almost too stunned to kiss back, easing into Nick’s touch after a few disorienting seconds. Then he’s there, running a hand over Nick’s upper back, biting his lip almost feverishly.
Nick is threading fingers into Gatsby’s golden hair, saying, “I’ve thought about this.” He kisses him again. “Messing up your dumb rich boy hair.”
“You think about me, old sport?”
“You knew that.”
Gatsby laughs into Nick’s mouth, pulling the other boy towards the hallway, almost tripping on the over turned corner of the rug. He has a hand on Nick’s neck and another attempting to undo the top button of the cream colored polo Nick is wearing.
“Let me help you with that...” Nick teases, kissing Jay quickly before unbuttoning his shirt with a certain coolness Jay had never seen on him before.
He laughs breathlessly, trying to cover up how turned on he is right now before realizing they’re at Nick’s bedroom door and he’ll probably be having an orgasm sometime in the next hour. “You’re so... um...”
“Yes....” Nick teases.
“Hot.” Jay supplies, running a hand down Nick’s arm. “You’re really hot.”
“I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Like what?”
“Nervous.”
This only makes Jay blush harder, sputtering over his words as Nick pulls his shirt off completely, a wry smile on his face. “What are you smiling about?” Jay asks, rolling his eyes a bit.
“You’re really hot.” Nick whispers, kissing Jay’s jaw. “And I get you all to myself.”
When they meet eyes again, Jay can feel something building in the pit of his stomach: a certain fiery excitement he had never felt before. Not with Daisy. Not with anyone.
He kisses Nick again, groping at the wall behind him for the door knob before pushing it down and pulling Nick into the bedroom.
-
They’re down to their boxers after a considerable amount of breathy whispering and fumbling with each other’s belt buckles, and Nick is playing with Jay’s waistband when Jay says, “I don’t think I’m ready for, uh,”
“Penetrative sex?”
Jay almost chokes on the air in his throat, and Nick laughs, kissing Jay’s lips quickly. “Well, that makes it sound awfully formal, old sport.”
“You’re not ready for fucking?” Nick asks again, a smirk on his face. Jay knew he was a smug bastard, but not to this degree.
“I’m not ready for fucking....” Jay trails off, waiting for Nick’s face to fall. For him to be disappointed.
Instead he says, “I can wait, ya know?” He runs a tender hand over Jay’s cheek. “I can still get you off.... if you want-“
“Yes!” Jay responds a little too quickly. Nick laughs, kissing him again before sinking between his thighs. He kisses his rib cage, a hand trailing slowly up Jay’s hip and gripping the elastic of his Calvin Klein’s.
“I swear,” Nick chuckles, looking up at Jay through strings of his brown hair. “Only you would have underwear this expensive.”
“I’ll have you know that Calvin Klein is a respectable and relatively well priced-“
“Would you mind if we stop talking about them and get them off of you instead?” Nick asks, his voice laced with sass and hazy lust. He slides a thumb under the elastic, trailing it lazily over Jay’s hip bone. The fucking tease. Jay nods.
Nick tugs them gently down Jay’s legs, maintaining eye contact with him as he did so, and Jay can’t help but smile at him.
From the moment they first met at Jay’s party in the 9th grade, Jay felt seen for once, like Nick didn’t want anything from him but his smile and his company. Now, as Nick asks him once more if he’s okay, Jay is caught between happy tears and complete bewilderment, because maybe Nick wants more than his smile, maybe he wants his dick in his mouth, but his eyes alone can make Jay feels like he exists for more than just his over the top parties and his copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. Nick wants him for him, and nothing else.
When Nick finally takes him, Jay swears he blacks out for a moment, swears he’s transported back to when he was twelve years old and he had just figured out how his dick worked.
“I’ve t- thought about this..” Jay stutters, grabbing a handful of Nick’s hair.
“That’s sweet!” Nick cues, looking up at Jay momentarily before resuming.
“Fuck you.”
“Someday.”
Then he comes, and then they’re kissing again. “I should, ya know, help you out...”
“In a minute.” Nick mumbles, tucking his head into Jay’s neck. “Just a minute.”
Jay can wait.
-
That night, when Jay finally pulls his shoes on and Nick’s mother returns from work, unpacking her computer onto the dining room table and taking off her coat, Nick walks Jay to the door, rubbing a circle in his palm before bidding him goodbye.
They don’t kiss, don’t make a move to do so, but the way they look at each other is enough to reveal what’s passing between them.
When Nick closes the door, Gatsby lingers a moment, hearing Mrs. Carraway exclaim, “you? And Jay Gatsby!”
“Stop it, mom.” Nick responds, probably turning a deep red.
Not so smug now.
“My son, courting the king of New York!” Mrs. Carraway yells. “You’re getting everything you wanted, Nicky.”
“Ya.” Nick says, his tone laced with a smile. “I am.”
-
“Can you read what this says?” Jay asks, pulling out a crumbled piece of paper from between the pages of his algebra textbook.
Nick takes it from him, squinting at the rubbed out lettering. “When’d you write this down? The Middle Ages? I can barely read it!”
“Neither can I... that’s why I’m making you do it.” Jay says, a benign smile on his face.
They’re headed to the New York public library to pick up something from Jay’s required reading list he’d been given for drama class. At first, when Jay asked Nick to accompany him on this trip to the library, Nick only laughed and said, “You seriously don’t have whatever book you’re looking for in your home library?”
Gatsby rolled his eyes, pushing Nick’s shoulder lightly. Nick took this as encouragement: “Ya know they’re all real, the books! You can just open them up and read them at any time!”
“If I didn’t know you were this annoying, I would’ve asked you out already....”
Nick stopped in his place, Jay walking ahead of him. He smiled, knowing his words had their desired affect.
“I can- I’ll stop.”
When they make it to the library, walking through the automatic doors and straight into the stacks, Jay sees one Chester McKee using a library desktop in the far corner of the room. “Hey, it’s your old flame.” Jay observes.
“You talk like you’re from a different century, you know that?”
“You love it.” Jay quips, turning towards Nick. “You should say hello.”
“I don’t have to...”
“Ya, but I’m letting you know it’s okay if you want to.” Jay says, scanning the shelf idly. “Not that you needed my permission or anything.”
Nick smirks, scoffing briefly. He leaves Jay in the stacks and walks tentatively towards Chester on the other side of the room, passing the owl eyed librarian and the various students at the front tables.
“Hey.” Nick offers, standing over McKee’s shoulder and starting at the photo on the screen.
“Oh, Nick!” Chester exclaims, turning towards the other awkwardly in his wooden chair. “I was actually meaning to call you..”
“Listen, Chester-“
“I heard something peculiar about you and one Jay Gatsby...” McKee trails off, raising an eyebrow at Nick. Nick only blushes and McKee punches his arm. “Who knew you were such hot commodity!”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, I never will.”
Nick grins, his eyes immediately finding Gatsby leaning against a book case. Jay’s already staring back at him, and when Nick catches his glance, the book he’s been carrying hits the floor with an animated thud. “You guys are absolutely disgusting. Go before I throw up on your too tight jeans.”
Nick laughs (he’s been laughing a lot lately) and looks at Chester again. “Thank you. You’re- you’re really cool, Chester.”
“Likewise, Carraway.” McKee answers, a wry smile on his lips. “I’d like to thank you for being my gay awakening, but anyone would’ve hooked up with the nearest person to get through that god forsaken nightmare of a party.”
“Don’t remind me-“
“I’ve got enough pictures of Myrtle’s Victoria’s Secret to fuel Tom’s fantasies for the next ten years.” McKee states bitterly. He gestures towards Gatsby, saying, “go. He’s anxiously waiting.”
Nick just smiles.
-
“How many guys have you slept with?” Jay asks absently.
They’re in the elevator on the way up to the penthouse, arms full of staples bags rather than alcohol and party supplies.
Nick has an art history diorama due Monday, so Jay decided to call off festivities for tonight, much to Daisy’s dismay.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Gatsby!” She exclaimed in horror. “What in the world is more important than a good party?”
He had merely smiled at her, making an exaggerated gesture of locking his lips before flicking away the key. She only shook her head, mumbling about going to find Jordan. For some reason, Jay hasn’t told anyone. He hasn’t posted any obnoxious pictures online or even so much as changed his Facebook status.
Perhaps he was still in slight disbelief that Nick had accepted him, that this past Sunday he had been teary and barely high, heading towards Nick’s apartment with baited breath. Now, he can kiss Nick’s cheek if he wants to, can say how much he loves him and how much homework he has in the same breath. Perhaps he wants it to be just their thing for a little while longer.
(He also found it comical that the only people who knew were Nick’s mother and Chester McKee, but that’s beside the point.)
“Hm...” Nick trails, making a show of mulling it over, counting off on his fingers before saying, “three.”
“Oh, uh, cool!” Gatsby supplies, biting his lip and leaning against the elevator banister.
Nick joins him at the banister, wrapping his arms around Jay’s waist, his cheek molding to Jay’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter to me, ya know.”
“I know, I...” he veers off the rails quickly, forgetting what he was going to say in the first place.
Jay knows he’s in love with Nick. In fact, it’s basically the only thing he knows at 18 on the precipice of being a second semester senior.
At the beginning of the semester, following Jay’s breakup with Daisy, Dan Cody (basically Jay’s only fatherly figure) was hospitalized. Jay had sat by his bedside for almost three days when Dan asked him about Daisy. Jay, instead of making up some rhyme or reason for the whole thing, said, “I’m in love with Nick, Dan.” Dan had laughed, saying Jay was confused, that he himself had felt that way one time or another. “Rest.” He said. Jay needed rest. Jay needed Daisy.
“Did you know I’m bisexual?” Jay asks, turning in Nick’s arms to face him.
“Well, I certainly do now.” Nick responds, putting a secure hand at the back of Gatsby’s neck.
“But-“ Gatsby stops himself, feeling his throat thickening rapidly. He swallows and says, “Did you know? Like earlier?”
Nick considers it, tilting his head for a moment, saying, “do you remember Klipspringer?”
Gatsby chuckles lightly at the memory. “The pianist at my Fourth of July party.”
“You watched him all night.” Nick remarks. “You got with Daisy that Fall, but that night, you were all about Klipspringer.”
He laughs, remembering jumping whenever the gawky boy would materialize next to him. He had these pretentious round glasses, and despite the New York heat he was wearing an organza scarf around his neck. Half of his face was concealed by his hair whenever he would lean over the piano, his fingers jumping the keys with feverish passion. At the end of the night as he and Nick cleaned the pent house, Klipspringer asked how he did, and without thinking, Jay said, “you must be a descendant of Beethoven.”
The older boy had laughed and waved goodbye to Nick, and a few days later, when Gatsby was leaving the house to meet Daisy for lunch at Russ and Daughters, Klipspringer called. Gatsby accepted the call with shaky hands, letting out a tentative “Hello.” He wiped his sweaty hand on his jeans, waiting for Klipspringer to reply, say something Gatsby had been privately fantasizing about for weeks.
Instead, he says, “I’m leaving for Berklee next week, and I left my sneakers at your house.”
“Um- okay!” Gatsby said, shaking his head briefly. “I’ll leave them in the lobby for you.”
“Thanks, Gatsby. You’re a real one.”
He must have gotten off to that for several weeks.
“I sorta realized then that you were some variation of not straight.” Nick giggled, and Gatsby smiles shyly at him. “Damn, was I jealous of that piano player.”
That really makes Gatsby laugh, and all of the sudden he’s struggling for breath between his fits of giggles. Nick catches the bug, and now they’re tripping over their own feet as the elevator door opens, riding out the hysteria a little longer.
When they’re at Gatsby’s door, Jay fiddling in his pocket for his key ring, Nick asks, “why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Jay bites his lip, and Nick supplies, “not that you owed it to me or anything...”
“No... of course not.” Jay says, pushing the door open. He drops the staples bags on the floor. “You’re so...”
“I’m so...”
“Sure.” Jay fills in, sitting on the edge of the leather couch, Nick joining him seconds after. “You’ve been with guys. I’ve only been with your cousin and some girl on a Norwegian cruise-“
“You had sex with her?”
“And the only guys I’ve ever liked are you and some asshole senior I payed to play cheesy piano music for a party.... and he only ever called to pick up his sneakers.”
Nick puts a hand on Jay’s jaw, slowly turning his face towards Nick. “That doesn’t make it any less real, Jay.”
“I know, I know.” He whispers, his forehead softly meeting Nick’s. “I was worried you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Oh, Jay.” Nick wraps his arm around Jay’s waist, bringing them infinitely closer. “I’ll always believe you. And you owe no one an explanation.”
“But what if-“
“No one.” Nick repeats, looking into Jay’s eyes. “Not me. Not Daisy. Not anyone.”
Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know about him and Nick because he’s done trying to justify it to anyone. It shouldn’t matter that he dated a girl for three years, he shouldn’t have to answer questions about it, he shouldn’t have to argue with Dan on his deathbed that he’s into guys, too.
It was his thing, not anyone else’s.
“Nick, I’ve got something to tell you.” Gatsby announces suddenly, standing up from his spot on the couch. “Have you ever heard of bisexuality?”
“Jay, you don’t have to-“
“But I want to.” Jay says, continuing his tirade as Nick watched with an amused bewilderment from the couch.
“Bi, derived from the Latin prefix di, means two, and when you put that in front of sexual-“
“You dramatic bastard.”
“It means I’m into both men and women.”
“Are you done-“
“It means I thought of fucking Klipspringer for a few weeks, and then I dated your cousin for three years.”
“Okay, Jay-“
“It means I fucked your cousin, but I’m hell bent on fucking you.”
“We’ll see about that one.” Nick smiles, shutting Jay up with a quick kiss. “Let’s get this project done so I can make your dreams come true.”
Nick kisses him again before reading him and going to pick up the bags from the floor. He throws a wink over his shoulder, and heads up the stairs.
“Smug bastard.” Gatsby whispers before running after Nick.
-
As some sort of consolation prize for making it to second semester without dying or suing the administration, the school allowed the seniors a morning in Central Park.
It’s all well and good, really, except for the fact that it’s December, and no one’s fingers or toes stood much of a chance.
Nick and Gatsby are on the subway (driver’s day off), their hands gloves and wrapped around each other. Nick, who is the most unpleasant in the mornings, has his poster board for his art history presentation shoved under his arm, and though he’s insufferable, un caffeinated and exhausted, he radiates a sense of content. Jay, who is mumbling the words of Crazy by Patsy Cline in Nick’s ear, is the exact opposite. The boy took the train to Nick’s this morning only to get on another train back in the direction he had first come from. And he couldn’t stop smiling, like he’d made a secret deal that his face was only allowed one expression for the rest of the day. “I’m in love with you.” He had giggled into Nick’s ear right when the train had whirred to life. “Like so much.”
“Me too.”
“Wait- what?”
“Did I not make that abundantly clear last night?” Gatsby turns a rosy red, chuckling softly. “I want to go out with you.”
”Aren’t we-?”
“Just say yes.” Nick pleads. Gatsby laughs again, his eyes gaping momentarily at the ceiling as if he couldn’t believe anything that had happened to him since last week. He nods his head.
Now he really won’t stop smiling.
Nick didn’t mind it. Not at all.
-
“Your internal organs are going to freeze.” Says Daisy as she warms her hands on her Starbucks cup. Jordan, who has forgone her jacket to show off her outfit, says, “Ya, but don’t I look like hot shit?” She does a little spin, showing off her leather pants and argyle sweater vest, one of Gatsby button ups underneath.
“You always look like hot shit.” Daisy says, kissing Jordan’s cheek. Jordan rolls her eyes, unfolding the bed sheet she brought for them to sit on.
Nick and Gatsby arrive soon after, and Jordan watches them, saying, “They totally had sex last night.”
“Well, duh. Look at them.”
They’re huddled close together atop Jordan’s sheet, Nick resting a hand on the ground behind Jay. They’re staring at each other with tired and content, Jay burrowing further into the crook of Nick’s shoulder,
“It’s disgusting.” Jordan remarks before throwing a clump of fallen leaves at the two of them. “You guys are disgusting!”
“You’re going there, Baker?” Gatsby challenges, getting up from spot beside Nick and grabbing a hand full of brown leaves. He throws them towards Jordan, most of them falling before making contact, but one landing on her perfectly combed brown hair. She gasps, her smile unhidden and gleaming, saying, “you’ll pay for this, Gatsby!”
Daisy and Nick watch them chase each other from the sheet like two parents watching their children grow up in some cheesy hallmark film they’ll probably watch before Christmas. “You’re so in love.”
“It’s Gatsby.” Nick smirks, his exhaustion presents in the tired crinkle of his eyes. “How could I not be?”
Daisy laughs, kissing his cheek. “I’m happy for you, Nicky.”
She then unfolds herself from her position, standing up and reaching an arm out to Nick. “I think we‘re needed on the battle field.”
Nick looks to Jordan and Jay who are both bent over in laughter and fatigue, their hands on their knees and their breath coming out in identical white clouds before their faces. He takes Daisy’s hand, pulling himself upwards and racing towards the others.
From where he’s standing, he notices all the seniors in clumps like the decaying leaves on the grass. The sky is grey and the trees are completely bare, and the air is filled with vibrant conversation. Their is a mutual feeling among everyone that this is the end of something, the start of something, the dawning of a new age, a new color, a new time. Nick looks at Gatsby who has since straightened his spine and resumed his leaf related assault on Jordan who has since taken Daisy as her personal shield, positioning the other girl in front of her as Jay lobs brown leaves in their direction.
Jay has discarded his coat, and now everyone can see the sweatshirt he’s wearing: an emerald green crew neck with a black and white photo of Neil Perry on the front with the words “Slam Poets Society” in blocky letters. Across Jay’s back, it’s says “Carraway.”
A deep seared warmth settles in him, and he smiles with all of his teeth. “Jay!” He calls, and almost immediately, as if God himself had summoned Jay Gatsby to the heavens, he abandons his game and returns to Nick.
“Hey,” he says quietly, watching Nick with concern for a moment before relaxing he’s smiling. “What is it-“
“Kiss me.”
And he does. In front of Daisy and Jordan and Tom Buchanan and Chester McKee and their English teacher and the entire senior class.
Nick connects their foreheads to have a front seat view to Jay’s eyes, watching as his skin crinkles when he grins from ear to ear.
He feels a mental camera pan out over the park until everything (The naked trees, the trusses of Jordan’s sweater vest, the lemonade chunks of Daisy’s hair, the flash of Chester McKee’s camera, the eyes of a hundred seniors, the Great Jay Gatsby, the whole of New York City) fades into nothing but a tiny speck on a large silver screen.