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Watching them on the sofa, Ema curled into Eva’s side, Lovro fell into a familiar thought. It was a quiet one, one he tried not to indulge too much lest it take root in his mind.
Ever since the party and the never have I ever and Ema and Tina drinking while Lovro sat there and felt shellshocked. They’d laughed, like it was a joke. Wait, no, not a joke. They weren’t poking fun at anyone.
But as if it were easy. As if it were something that was fine and good and everyone could laugh about together.
Not like it was something that hung around Lovro’s neck like a millstone.
It was something to have these fears, something else to watch someone trample all over them. Eva hooked a finger into Ema’s earring, tugging lightly, and Lovro let himself wonder.
Was there something more than a joke here?
Eva leaned into his side and dug her elbow between his ribs, “You with us?” She stayed there, head titled to stare up at him and Lovro smiled, grateful. Eva would never let him fade away.
Lovro shifted slightly under her weight, standing up as she took the hint and leaned back into herself, “Yeah, sorry, just—” He shook his head and sighed, decided to start again, “More drinks?”
Ema smiled faintly up at him, head leaning on the back of the sofa, and Eva opened her mouth to say something.
“I know, Eva,” Lovro said and took the cups from their hands, fingers brushing against Ema as she winked at him. His stomach turned, queasy, but Lovro just smiled and walked back into the kitchen.
This was good, he could be helpful, and also get as far away from them as he could in this claustrophobic apartment. It probably wasn’t healthy to be hiding from two people in as many rooms. But Lovro had rarely made a good decision in his life, just darting from one mistake to another.
The boys were in the kitchen, bent over the table as Mario did something complicated with shot glasses and Jakov laughed in the background. Lovro dropped the cups on the table and leant on the edge, elbow knocking into an empty vodka bottle.
It was loud and the boys startled, looking up at him with shouts and grins.
“Welcome back,” Filip cried, eyes darting over Lovro’s shoulder and back to him again. Lovro didn’t turn around, didn’t want to know what he was looking at.
Maša had got some juice for Eva, dropping it in the fridge with a casual shrug that afternoon; Lovro headed to the fridge but Jakov reached out and grabbed Lovro’s wrist.
“Come on,” Jakov said, pulling until Lovro sank into the chair next to him.
Lovro glanced back at the sofa and they were sitting close together again, trading whispers at the party danced on around them. Somehow, Lovro didn’t feel jealous. Scared, slightly; he didn’t want to know what secrets they were telling each other.
Eva showing embarrassing photos, Ema talking about how he couldn’t get it up.
His fingers itched for the lighter in his pocket, the joint that was already rolled up and sitting on Nora’s bookshelf. But the thought of weed took him back to Ivan, the memory of Ivan on the arm of the sofa with his legs spread around Lovro.
The way Lovro’s heart had raced, he’d been so nervous that he’d felt sick. Frozen, like he was in the headlights of a car that only maybe wouldn’t kill him.
The way Ivan had leaned into him against the window, the brushes of his skin against Lovro’s had felt like electric shocks. He’d been sure that Ivan could hear it, the effect that Ivan was having on him.
The way Ivan had changed after Sonja had turned up. The way it couldn’t have been anything, not with his girlfriend there. The way Lovro must have been imagining it all.
That was what happened when he got his hopes up, when he let his dreams out of the little box where he kept them safely locked away.
Also Jakov would kill Lovro if he smoked without him, accuse Lovro of rubbing it in his face. But mostly the Ivan thing.
Lovro placed his hands on his thighs and tapped out an idle rhythm. He could feel Jakov watching him, they’d known each other long enough that Jakov knew all of his tells. Lovro couldn’t deal with that right now, Jakov’s open face.
He didn’t know what Jakov would ask; worse, didn’t know what he would answer. Lovro leaned into Mario as Filip tried to re-create Mario’s tower, “Explain this to me.”
Fingers dug into Lovro’s hair and he looked up; Ema was there, leaning on the back of his chair.
“You never came back,” she said, pouting, and like that Lovro’s attention was dragged from the game. Right, he had a girlfriend.
“Sorry,” Lovro said and stood up, “here, let me.” Taking Ema’s hand, Lovro led her away from the boys until they were in the doorway, watching over the apartment.
It still felt odd to be with her around them, like they’d look at him and know that he was pretending. That something wasn’t quite right but Lovro was trying anyway.
He could ignore it from over here.
Lovro leaned into Ema’s side, told her about his friends. About Eva and Filip and—
Ivan was here. The realisation sat heavy in Lovro’s stomach as he and Sonja slipped through the door and took their coats off.
Why was he here? Lovro had tried, he’d really tried.
He’d thought about it, hadn’t even really known that it was on his mind. But then Ivan had cornered him and Lovro had lied and that had been the decision made for him.
Now Ivan was here and he was looking at Lovro. Lovro blinked and looked away. It felt worse than being caught out in a lie, like there was another step to it, something else that was just escaping Lovro’s grasp.
“Is tha—” Lovro’s mind shorted out, the question swallowed by background noise before he could even figure out who was asking it.
The party faded into a blur, seeing Ivan through a crowd and ignoring him and then seeing him everywhere and talking to him, even when every fibre of his body was screaming at him to run away.
It was like a dream, people’s lives spinning around him as Lovro struggled through in slow motion. Things were happening around him, and Lovro was just being carried along in their wake.
He was background in a montage.
Ema dragged him out to dance, leaning up on tiptoe to kiss him but Lovro couldn’t focus, not with Ivan this close by. Ema’s lips felt distant against his own, like he was in an echo of his own life, and Lovro opened his eyes.
There, across the crowd, through the bodies and flickering lights, Ivan and Sonja. Ivan was bending down, crowding himself so close to meet Sonja’s lips.
Lovro kept watching, even as it made him feel sick. If he let himself fantasise, let the world grow faint around him, he could pretend. Ema’s lips could fade against his, they could be harder, skin rough with stubble around them. Lovro could shift, head tilting up into the kiss instead, body leaning into someone taller than him.
He was lost in it, this fantasy, when something glinted across the room. It was dark and it took Lovro’s dizzy mind a moment to realise that it was Ivan. Ivan with his eyes open, staring straight back at him.
Lovro felt cold, a sudden shock of fear, and he couldn’t help the way his body stiffened, but Ema didn’t pull away from him, arms winding tighter around his shoulders instead.
It was terrifying, like Lovro had been spotted mid-crime. Like Ivan was going to open his mouth and scream it to the room, that Lovro was a pervert and a creep.
But Ivan just kept watching, eyes dark over Sonja’s shoulder.
Fuck.
He wasn’t avoiding Ivan on purpose but it kept happening and Lovro wasn’t going out of his way to claw his way back to him. This was being a bad host and Vito had already caught his eye several times, head nodding at Ivan and Sonja.
But Lovro had shaken his head each time and now they were here, a crowd shrugging their way into coats and dragging pairs of shoes from the pile.
Lovro could feel eyes on the side of his head as he pulled his fleece on but he didn’t want to touch that, so he turned back to Jakov and Eva fighting over some stupid coat and tried not to think about it.
Nothing made sense. Everything was sprawling out in front of him like a maze. Each time he thought he had a grasp on what was happening, something came along and turned it upside down.
Finishing tying his laces, Lovro stood up and opened the door, slamming it shut after him. He’d take the stairs down, he needed time to think.
Lovro felt drunk as they stumbled from the apartment, far drunker than he was. It was the proximity, the awareness of Ivan. He was there, always just out of the corner of Lovro’s eye.
Lovro didn’t know how much longer he could take this—whatever this was. It was like he was burning up under his skin. He simultaneously wanted everything and nothing. It terrified him, he couldn’t even put a name to what he wanted.
It was too bright to look at head on, too bright and made him feel vaguely seasick.
So, he would just think about something else, something nearby. Creep up on the thought.
Lovro stepped to the side, waited for the rest of the group to walk past and it was just him and Ivan at the back. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t even know the shape of his great spectre of thoughts.
But Ivan didn’t give him time for that, heading off into the square and who would Lovro be to not go with him, to not follow wherever Ivan would take him?
There was a buzz under Lovro’s skin. It was a low thrum, the thrill of breaking off from the group and doing something, just the two of them.
That Sonja was here, but Ivan chose him anyway.
Lovro didn't understand Ivan’s plan, but he picked up the tree when Ivan asked. The joy poured through him and he found himself giggling as they ran with the tree, dragging it along the table and knocking everything to the ground.
He felt free, like he could fly if he just tried.
He hasn’t felt like this, not in a long time. Not since he was a child, before everything else in his life settled on his shoulders.
But now Ivan was here and Lovro was bursting with it. It almost scared him, how strong his feelings were. He knew what they were, knew this nervous fear and giddy excitement.
He was used to the thoughts, but it was another thing to have Ivan crowding into his personal space.
Lovro could feel Ivan’s eyes on the side of his face again and he turned into Ivan’s gaze, even as some unnamed thing screamed at him to keep looking forwards, to pretend that nothing was happening.
Ivan’s eyes felt like a brand on his skin and Lovro watched as Ivan’s eyes darted to his lips. Lovro felt frozen, terrified. If he moved, if he somehow broke this moment, then it would become something.
It could become anything, a thousand spiraling possibilities spreading off over the streets of the city, and Lovro didn’t know which would scare him the most.
Then Ivan leaned in, head tilting as he came closer and without thinking Lovro did the same. He’d spent so long thinking about this, so many lonely nights with thoughts of boys and stolen kisses.
But the lights were too bright, the air too cold around them. This was big, and public, and Lovro panicked, slamming a hand into Ivan’s chest.
Ivan didn’t make him that free, never that free.
There was a shout across the square, Tina’s voice echoing, and Lovro dropped the tree to the ground. He needed to get away, needed to be anywhere but here.
Lovro didn’t look back, couldn’t look back. He didn’t want to see Ivan’s face, didn’t want Ivan to see his.
The queue was short outside the club, just long enough for the guy on the door to take a payment and wave them through. But they were still bunched up, and Lovro could feel the crushing heat of Ivan as his arm pushed up against him.
Of all the evenings he’d considered, all the thoughts he’d run through as he jogged to catch up with the group. It wasn’t this: Ivan laughing it off and pretending that nothing had happened.
Lovro felt like he was going mad, that this was all a prank at his expense. He also felt alone, hands in his pockets as he hunched his shoulders in the cold.
He’d lost Ema but he could hear her laughing up ahead with Eva, Jakov crowing over some stupid joke. Lovro didn’t know why they insisted on this, pretended like they didn’t desperately want to be dating again.
Maybe it was a point of principle. Or another dare, just one they weren’t admitting to each other.
But then, who was he to say anything with his search history burning a hole in his pocket. Lovro let his eyes drift to the side and Ivan was there, back to Lorvo as he looked down at Sonja.
They looked good together, a masochistic part of Lovro’s mind offered. They suited each other, were so used to each other’s rhythms that Lovro didn’t know who was leading, which of them was making decisions and which following.
Lovro felt sick, guilty. Even though he knew this, even though he accepted everything. He still had the thoughts, was still kept up at night while the thoughts whirled through his head.
And Sonja didn’t know, didn’t know what they’d just been doing. Or, not doing. Almost doing.
The more Lovro thought about it, the fainter it got. Had Ivan even been leaning in? What if he’s just been standing there and Lovro had let his daydreams get the best of him?
Maybe it was Lovro. Maybe he was a bad person, twisting Ivan up. Maybe she hated him, hated how he was breaking her boyfriend. Maybe she was standing there, blaming him for everything.
Someone shouted his name and he looked up to find himself all alone on the street, Jakov sticking his head out of the door of the club, “Are you coming?”
Lovro paused, had half a mind to say no, actually. To turn around and go back to the apartment and curl up in Nora’s bed by himself.
But Jakov kept staring and Lovro gritted his teeth, turning to follow him through the doorway.
It was dark inside, music so loud that Lovro couldn’t hear his own thoughts and this was what he needed. He needed to be somewhere where he felt distant from himself.
Jakov led him up to the group and then Ema was there, crowding up into his space and grabbing his hand. She grinned and Lovro tried to pretend that this was okay, that everything was still the same.
She rested a gentle hand on his neck and pulled him down and Lovro let it happen, the familiar boring press of her lips against his own. He knew this, could get through the evening of this—even as his thoughts fractured into pieces, even as he could feel the tremble under his skin.
Lovro didn’t know how Ema couldn’t sense it, couldn’t tell that he was one second from breaking apart.
But her hands were hot and steady and Lovro sank into it, maybe everything would go back to normal if he could just do this. Ivan would leave and Lovro could hang out with his girlfriend.
The club was full, everyone trying to run away from the January gloom, and Lovro felt penned in, trapped in this little life he’d made for himself. Bodies pressed against him and Lovro tilted his head against Ema and licked into her mouth. He knew his lines.
This would make everything okay.
With a shout from the crowd, the song changed into something that was slightly more familiar and Lovro felt Ema’s arms shifting around him as she stepped back. Ema smiled up at him and Lovro felt dizzy as the strobe lights shifted across her face.
Ema leaned back in and brought her lips to his ear, “I’m going to get that drink you never got me.” She laughed as she pulled away and Lovro realised she was teasing, but she turned and disappeared into the crowd before he could say anything.
That was all he did, stumbling along after people.
Lovro felt alone suddenly, in the middle of the dancefloor without Ema leaning against him and he hugged his chest, eyes wandering across the crowd. He could see Vito in a corner, attempting some tango with Maša in the corner, and he felt a pull to join them.
To go and laugh and have a fun time with his friends, to drag this evening back to what it was supposed to be. But there was a tall figure next to them, Lovro couldn’t quite see through the crowd and the shadows but he knew.
The person next to Lovro shifted and, of course, Ivan was there with his back to the wall. Sonja stood next to him, leaning up to talk into his ear, but Ivan wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were piercing instead, burning into Lovro like they'd leave a scar.
Lovro couldn’t do this. He turned around, tail between his legs as he shouldered his way through people on the dancefloor.
There was a bright glow at the entrance to the bathrooms and Lovro stumbled in, grabbing onto the edge of one of the sinks as his knees gave way.
Was this Hell? Was this night just happening to taunt him? To remind him how nothing was fair?
He had spent so many years scared, so many years pretending he didn’t have the thoughts he did. Lying to his friends, lies on top of lies as he felt himself spiralling down the drain. Lies to Jakov, lies to Eva, lies to Filip and Mario and Nix.
Lies to Ema.
Meeting Vito, the realisation that he wasn’t alone. It didn’t make it any less terrifying but it made it slightly more real.
Then Ivan, and Lovro couldn’t read anything. Didn’t understand what was happening, didn’t want to let himself dream. But then Ivan kept coming around, kept doing things and Lovro couldn’t help it, this kernel of hope.
None of it made any sense. Each time he thought he understood what was going on, Ivan did something else and switched everything around.
And Lovro was scared, he was absolutely petrified by it. What he would let Ivan do.
Lovro let out a shout and grasped the edge of the sink. He wasn’t someone who punched a mirror, wouldn’t let that happen to him.
Footsteps walked down the hall, and came to half outside the bathroom; the door creaked up but Lovro didn’t move. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this.
“What the fuck, dude?”
Lovro tensed but he could hear the even breathing of someone behind him. Mullishly, Lovro looked up at the mirror in front of him, taking in the reflection of Vanessa standing in the doorway.
She glanced behind her then stepped in and closed the door. She was so small, leaning back on the door with her arms folded, like she would take him down.
Lovro turned around and leant back on the sinks, fingers fiddling with each other. He didn’t know if they’d ever been alone together, if they’d ever had a conversation beyond the superficial.
It wasn’t awkward, somehow. Just the two of them and the muted sounds of the club through the door. Vanessa kept watching him and the patient waiting turned into something else.
Lovro’s cheek felt damp and he realised that he was crying, that there were tears on his skin. He didn’t cry. Lovro blinked the tears away even though he knew Vanessa could see them, he had to pretend.
Lovro sniffed and ran a hand across his cheeks. This should be more embarrassing, why did he feel separated from everything?
Vanessa tilted her head as she watched him, “Do you want Ema?” Lovro felt a sudden rush of affection for her, for her kindness to someone she barely knew.
Gently, he shook his head, and Vanessa nodded. She pushed herself off the door and grabbed the handle, turning back to look at him, “Okay well come back out when you’re ready, we all want to see you.”
The door swung shut behind her and it was just Lovro again, alone with his thoughts.