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Edwin excuses himself from Charles’s conversation with Brad and Hunter under the guise of getting another drink. There’s something slimy about those two he doesn’t like. Charles swears they’re good guys and they play a wicked game of cricket, but they look at Edwin like prey.
The kitchen island is covered in white plastic cups, cans of beer, Guinness and Red Bull, bottles of spirits and cheap schnapps. Edwin refills his cup with lemonade and vodka then leans against the side of the counter to take a break and sip his drink.
Edwin watches Charles for a moment; he laughs, readjusts the plastic devil’s horns on his head and takes another gulp from his cup. Edwin breaks his gaze to scan the room for other potential conversationalists.
Thomas stands across the room by the television, which is playing a YouTube mix of Halloween music videos. He tilts his head back as he laughs at something a girl, Litty, tells him. On the way back down from the giggles, Thomas catches Edwin’s eye.
Edwin tries to stop the corner of his mouth from lifting in amusement. He knows what’s coming next. Edwin turns back to the kitchen island and tops up his lemonade with some more vodka. Just to look busy. And get a bit tipsier.
‘What are we drinking?’ Thomas asks from over Edwin’s shoulder.
Edwin turns to look at him. Thomas’s genius Halloween costume is black cat ears and a matching crop top with ‘I’m a cat’ written across the front in caps. Edwin’s eyes linger down to Thomas’s belly button until he remembers that he should focus on the guy’s face.
‘Vodka lemonade,’ Edwin answers. He pretends to pick lint off Thomas’s shoulder, watching Thomas’s eyes follow Edwin’s fingers. ‘Is that really the best costume you could come up with?’
Thomas flourishes his hands to gesture around the dim room. ‘I had a party to plan. And what are you?’
‘Dracula,’ Edwin says. ‘But without the fangs, I hate those plastic things people put in their mouths.’
‘Well, feel free to bite my neck anytime.’ Thomas winks. ‘Will you pour me what you’re having?’
‘You’re so lewd,’ Edwin says playfully. He leans over the island to grab the lemonade and fills Thomas’s cup halfway. He unscrews the vodka bottle and tops up the drink.
‘Maybe I meant it,’ Thomas defends. He leans against the counter and takes a tester sip of the drink.
Edwin rolls his eyes. ‘You’re just doing this because you’re lonely.’
Thomas grins and leans in, whispering in Edwin’s ear, ‘Maybe I like you because you’re lonely too.’
‘That still doesn’t convince me of your reasoning.’ Edwin bumps Thomas’s shoulder with his own. It’s a push-and-pull game; push Thomas away enough so he doesn’t get too hopeful, but give enough so he doesn’t go away completely. Maybe it’s cruel, but maybe they both need someone to flirt with.
‘Maybe, I’m actually trying to help you,’ Thomas says.
Edwin turns to him and raises his eyebrows.
‘Trying to help you forget the reason you look a little sad even when you’re drunk,’ Thomas explains and directs his eyes at Charles, standing on the other side of the room, talking to Brad and Hunter with unabashed enthusiasm.
‘I’m not drunk, not yet. And I don’t know what you mean,’ Edwin says, looking down at his cup and running his finger around the rim. ‘Even if I did, I don’t know if hooking up with you would fix the problem.’
Thomas rolls his eyes. ‘It might not fix the problem, but maybe it would make you feel better for a while.’
Edwin glances back at Charles. Crystal has joined him and the boys; Charles puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into his side. He looks up and meets Edwin’s eyes. Charles tilts his head in question when he sees Edwin standing with Thomas. Edwin shakes his head minutely.
Edwin feels Thomas lean back into him. ‘Anyway, you know where to find me if you ever want me.’ He pushes off the kitchen island and struts across the hardwood floor to embrace and chat with a couple of girls who just arrived.
After that interaction, Edwin doesn’t feel ready to join Charles. Not with the weight of this secret inside him and Thomas airing it like that. Instead, he wanders outside to the small backyard for some fresh air.
The backyard is mostly a wooden veranda with a square of grass surrounded by hedges. There’s few people out here. Edwin leans against the brick wall and breathes in frigid air. Inhaling like he would drink water.
People always say you have the best years of your life at university. In some aspects, that’s been true for Edwin. He’s experienced cosy game nights and cricket games and finding his best friend. At the same time, he’s also felt crushing stress and alienation and fear of the future and doubt in his own self worth. Most of all, he didn’t expect these mixed up feelings about his best friend. And he’s not sure if those could lead to the best or most crushing thing to happen to him.
Maybe he’s uncertain about whether he’ll ever confess his feelings to Charles, but he’s still allowed to kiss people in the meantime.
Edwin steps back inside and seeks out Thomas. He’s not difficult to find; uproariously popular, yet lacking any real friends, so Edwin just follows the noise of the loudest conversation. Edwin watches Thomas for a few moments, telling a group of people and holding up his cup when he hits the punchline. People laugh. Thomas looks up like he feels Edwin’s gaze and their eyes meet across the room once again.
Edwin hopes Thomas gets the message. He must, because Thomas politely excuses himself and saunters over to Edwin.
‘You’ve made up your mind?’ He says, low and rough, close to Edwin’s ear.
‘Take me somewhere quiet?’ Edwin asks and turns his head to meet Thomas’s eyes.
‘Of course,’ Thomas says softly. His hand slides down Edwin’s forearm until their hands meet and entwine. Thomas pulls Edwin away down the hall and out another door to a quiet area of the garden.
It’s dark out here, and cosy. They’re standing on a grass strip bracketed by the outer wall of the house and a line of hedges.
Thomas closes the door behind them and puts his hands on Edwin’s shoulders. ‘Just tell me to stop whenever you want, okay?’
Edwin nods. He’s beginning to feel heady and even more so as one of Thomas’s hands slides down to his waist. He’s leaning in close, but Edwin can tell that he won’t make the first move.
Edwin reaches up and wraps a hand around the back of Thomas’s neck, fingers rubbing at the short hair on his nape, pulling him closer until their lips meet.
Thomas is soft with him. He only bites a little when Edwin presses into him harder. Thomas isn’t sloppy either; when Edwin had kissed a boy in highschool it had been too wet, but Thomas knows what he’s doing and this kiss is so much more satisfying. He doesn’t like Thomas that way, but he likes this kiss, he likes being held and desired.
Edwin pulls Thomas against him with a hand at his waist, sliding against the bare skin between his jeans and crop top. Thomas has one hand in Edwin’s hair and this feels right, like maybe they’ve built something in all those moments flirting over study sessions and takeaway coffees before class.
‘Edwin?’ Charles’s voice interrupts them and Edwin pulls away from Thomas with a surprised inhale.
The moment cracks and falls apart. Edwin sees Charles and feels like he’s betrayed himself.
Charles stands several feet away with an unlit cigarette between two fingers and a lighter in his other hand. ‘I’ll, um… I’ll go have a smoke in the street then.’ Charles bolts back around the corner to the main garden.
Thomas raises his eyebrows. ‘Awkward,’ he says. ‘Shall we, uh…’
Edwin puts a hand over Thomas’s mouth. ‘I genuinely really enjoyed that, but I think the moment’s over, I’m sorry.’
Thomas catches Edwin’s hand and shakes his head. ‘Don’t apologise.’ He grins softly and winks. ‘You always know where to find me.’
Edwin gives him a closed mouth smile in return and walks down the grassy path in Charles’s wake. He doesn’t intend to seek out him but when Edwin can’t find him in the garden or living room, he walks onto the street to check.
Outside, the music from the house becomes rhythmic throbbing and the air stills. It’s a Thursday night and garbage bins wait on the curbs for collection in the morning. Some of the houses still have lit windows, but they’re few and far between in this part of suburbia.
Charles stands on the pavement a few houses down the road. Edwin watches him breathe out smoke and then take another pull from the cigarette. Just watching him, Edwin suddenly feels miserable and tipsy enough to actually long for a smoke too.
Charles looks up as Edwin approaches.
‘I thought you were trying to quit all that,’ Edwin says in lieu of a greeting. It comes out accusatory and he backpedals. ‘Sorry, I mean-’
‘I know,’ Charles interrupts. He smiles like he’s holding back a laugh. ‘And I am, but I just can’t seem to kick them when I drink.’
‘I do admit it’s the only time I like them myself,’ Edwin says.
Charles grins, properly this time. ‘I bet your dad used to let you have a scotch and cigar after dinner on Fridays.’
Edwin scoffs. ‘God, no. I had to sneak drinks and steal cigarettes when the old man went out of town.’
Charles laughs, tilting his head back with the action. He holds his cigarette out to Edwin. ‘Since you’re hell bent on me quitting, maybe you can make sure I don’t smoke the whole thing.’
Edwin grins with his teeth, and takes it from Charles; there’s still half of it left. Edwin takes a drag and watches the smoke slide up into the air as he breathes out.
‘So, um, you and Thomas, eh?’ Charles asks.
They’re standing shoulder to shoulder and as much as Edwin wants to see every reaction on Charles’s face, he doesn’t dare look at him.
‘Not really, we, um,’ Edwin’s mouth pulls to one side as he thinks, ‘we both just wanted someone to kiss.’
Charles pulls the cigarette packet from his pocket and lights another. He fills the air with another exhale of smoke. ‘Oh yeah? Still didn’t think I’d ever see you kissing him of all people.’
Edwin shrugs. ‘I’ve gotten pretty used to him now that we have classes in common. And he wasn’t half bad for a distraction.’ Edwin has nearly smoked the cigarette down to his fingers and the nicotine with the alcohol is making his head feel loose and light.
From the corner of his eye, Edwin can see Charles turning to look at him. ‘What is it you need a distraction from, then?’
Edwin shakes the ash of his cigarette, watches it scatter onto the dark tarmac. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Charles turns to Edwin fully now. ‘It does to me. You’re my best mate, you know you can talk to me about anything.’
Edwin takes a drag and holds the smoke in, breathes out slowly. He feels yearning. He feels bitterness. ‘Not about this. Maybe, Charles, there are some things I can’t talk to you about.’
Charles shakes his head in denial. ‘No. No, that’s not true. Anything, Edwin, you can talk to me about anything. Hell, Eds, you could murder someone and I’d hear you out.’
Edwin breathes in one more lungful of smoke and extinguishes the cigarette in the dewy grass. He turns and throws it into one of the neighbour’s garbage bins. ‘That’s different.’
Charles turns back to looking into the street, at the sleeping suburban houses across the road. ‘Fine, okay then.’
They stand in silence. Edwin looks skyward; a satellite moves between the sparse stars, a cloud creeps closer to the crescent moon. He listens to Charles breathing in and out as he smokes. The deep inhale, the slow exhale. Even when Charles quits, Edwin will always associate this smell with him.
Charles rubs his cigarette out on the concrete gutter and flicks into one of the garbage bins lining the curb. ‘I’m going back inside but I’ll be around. Whenever you decide it’s safe to talk to me about it.’
Something in Edwin’s core tugs at him to follow Charles. It’s this yearning he’s had for years. To follow Charles whenever he walks away. To be close to him. To come home to him.
Maybe now is Edwin’s chance. While the alcohol and the nicotine make him feel light enough to risk it. ‘Charles,’ Edwin calls after him.
Charles turns back. Brown eyes wide, waiting.
‘Maybe we can talk about it.’ Edwin presses his fists together. He’s doing it, he’s going to do it.
Charles titles his head at Edwin and waits.
‘I, um,’ Edwin clears his throat. ‘I think I’m in love with you.’
His heart beats fast and erratically, blood roars in his ears. Edwin doesn’t think he’s ever felt this scared in his life. Even when those boys in secondary school pinned him down and pretended to sacrifice him to a demon.
Charles stares at Edwin like he’s waiting for more. After a few tense seconds, he stares down at the grass. Edwin knows that he needs to give Charles space to think but it takes a great deal of effort to hold his tongue and wait.
Charles looks up. ‘And that’s why you kissed Thomas?’
‘It… yes,’ Edwin says.
‘You wanted to distract yourself from me?’ Charles’s eyebrows have raised and his eyes are so wide and vulnerable.
Edwin’s not sure what he thought would happen, but now he feels bereft. ‘It sounds a bit shitty when you say it like that.’
Charles looks at the ground, mouth twisting in disappointment. ‘It felt shitty watching it happen.’
‘What?’
‘I think…’ Charles runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath and looks Edwin in the eyes. ‘I think I like you like that too.’
Really not what Edwin expected. Hoped? Yes. Expected? No. ‘Oh, um, good.’
Charles chuckles. ‘You don’t sound thrilled.’
How is he taking this way better than Edwin? When Edwin was the one that made the confession in the first place.
‘I think I was expecting a rejection.’
‘Well this isn’t that,’ Charles steps forward, arms wide, and pulls Edwin into a hug. ‘Come here.’
Edwin wraps his arms around Charles’s waist and presses his nose into the space between the collar of Charles’s jacket and his neck. He smells of smoke and spicy cologne and something else underneath that is just Charles. Edwin knows these smells from so many hugs before, but this time he can unashamedly enjoy it.
Charles pulls back, cups Edwin’s face in one hand.
‘Are you sure?’ Edwin blurts.
Charles chuckles and cups Edwin’s face with both hands. ‘Dead sure,’ he murmurs. ‘You know what I was thinking when I caught you two in the garden?’
Edwin shakes his head minutely.
‘I was thinking, “God I wish that were me”’. Charles strokes Edwin’s cheek bone with his thumb and leans in closer.
Edwin leans in further.
Their lips meet. Charles kisses him a little desperately, but still so softly. He strokes Edwin’s cheek with a thumb, his other hand wraps around the base of Edwin’s neck. Teeth nip at lips. Tongues meet. All Edwin can really taste is the cigarettes and the remains of bourbon and coke, but he loves it. He loves it because it’s Charles.
They part to take in a breath.
‘I’m sure,’ Charles whispers. ‘Can we do that again?’
‘Of course,’ Edwin replies. And he leans in for another.