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The apartment was too big.
The apartment had always been too big. He’d have the money, but he didn’t need two bedrooms and two offices when he’d be spending most of his time on court or in the gym or traveling to and from games.
What was he supposed to do, alone with two bedrooms?
The thing was, Jace Williams was old. Old compared to Andrew. Old in professional-athlete years. Andrew gave him three years max before he’d retire.
And Jace Williams was not only old, but one of the Boston Bearcats’ starting strikers.
They’d need a new one. A new striker. And taking into consideration transition period and whatever else went into getting a new player to work well with the others, Andrew’s best guess was that they’d start sending out offers a year from now. A year after signing him.
What a coincidence.
The apartment wouldn’t be too big with another person living there. With running shoes cluttering up the entryway. With protein powders in the kitchen cabinets and fruit taking up half the fridge space.
The second bedroom would be occupied. Occasionally. (Rarely.)
The obnoxious monstrosity of a smoothie maker he’d ordered online and that was currently presiding over the kitchen island and demanding attention would see some action.
He kind of hated the smoothie maker.
He kind of hated the empty entryway.
He kind of hated the apartment.
He’d been here for less than five minutes, and he didn’t know how he’d make it an entire year.
And one year was the best-case scenario.
He might’ve fucked up. (He’d definitely fucked up.)
It had been going great. Everything, surprisingly. He and Aaron were still talking, and would continue to do so even now that they didn’t live practically on top of each other anymore. Nicky had accepted his abrasive edges and short answers and was okay with it, would keep calling, would keep Andrew as part of his life. Bee was a phone call away if he needed her, but mostly he didn’t.
He had friends, most of which were very annoying and some of which (Renee) he could stand to listen to for more than ten seconds before the urge to stab something became overpowering.
And he had Neil.
Correction. He’d had Neil.
It hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment decision. He didn’t know if that made it better or worse. Worse, probably.
He should’ve gone about it in a different way. The question had surprised him. He’d thought they were on the same page.
Then again, the situation was different for him. There was only one person he’d give the second bedroom to permanently. He knew that. He’d had time to figure it out, between juvie and working at Eden’s and the boring, boring year of college before they’d dragged Neil out of that shithole in Arizona and he’d upended Andrew’s understanding of what could be possible, with the right person.
Neil, though… Neil had only ever known Andrew. Had never tried, never experimented. Said he didn’t want to, but that had been when Andrew was around to keep him out of trouble and everyone but their closest circle far, far away from his pretty eyes and his smart mouth and the fucking cheekbones that he’d grown into.
So. Andrew had thought… A year. They’d be separated anyways, with him going pro after graduation. Hearing Neil’s voice over the phone or reading his attempts at communicating over text could never be enough when he’d had the real thing.
A year. One year for Neil to figure out what he wanted.
If that was Andrew, there was Jace Williams and his retirement and a too-big apartment and a smoothie blender on the kitchen island waiting for him.
If it wasn’t… Andrew had kind of refused to entertain that possibility. Neil was endgame. It was either Neil or a string of depressing and disappointing hook-ups for the rest of his life. It would be a sad life.
He hoped it wouldn’t be that.
He hoped… Fuck. He kind of wanted to put his fist through the wall. He’d fucked up. He should’ve told Neil, all of that. Put his thoughts into words and those words into the world. Communicate like an adult.
But what’d come out had been There is no this and This is nothing and Don’t wait for me and I won’t wait for you.
As far as communications went, this one had been a truly epic fail. His worst one yet, maybe. (Definitely.)
The worst part had been Neil’s reaction. He hadn’t looked at Andrew when he’d asked the question. He’d kept his face turned towards the setting sun.
Andrew had turned. Had watched his words land.
There had been… nothing. Neil’s face had been bright in the sun, his eyes half closed, his skin glowing despite the fact that summer had barely started. His hair had been lit up, red and orange like flames.
He had been silent. Silent in a way he never was. Silent in a way that meant he was keeping everything inside where nobody could hear or see or feel.
Where it could hurt only one person, whatever it was he wasn’t saying.
So Andrew had said his words, because a clean cut was better than weeks of slowly losing contact but also maybe because everything was changing and he wasn’t ready and he was afraid and maybe it hadn’t been going great after all and maybe he was a liar and was lying to himself and-
He said his words. There is no this and This is nothing and Don’t wait for me and I won’t wait for you. They hurt on their way out.
Did they hurt on their way in?
Neil didn’t let him see. Neil had closed his eyes against the sun. His lashes were the only thing about him that was moving, a slight tremble.
He’d always been better than Andrew, at hiding everything within. Neil had learned to read Andrew like a book, over the last three years, and made it look easy.
And Andrew… Andrew knew Neil better than anyone else. But only when Neil wanted him to.
Right then, Neil did not want Andrew to know anything.
“Okay,” he’d said, as if it were. Acceptance, just like every other time Andrew had drawn a line, had said No, had set a boundary.
And that was when Andrew realized he’d fucked up. Monumentally.
Because Neil Josten fought tooth and nail for the things he wanted, but if Andrew said No, he backed off. That was who he was. Who he’d always been.
“Okay,” Neil had said, and Andrew had been reeling with his realization, and Neil had gotten to his feet. He’d turned (away from Andrew, not towards him, denying him a last glimpse of his face) and he’d left.
Andrew had been left behind, feeling empty and guilty and hating Josten and mostly himself. He’d used the dying embers of his cigarette to light the next, and the next, and the next.
Neil didn’t burst out of the doors six floors beneath his feet, but Andrew knew he was no longer in Fox Tower. There were other exits. Exits that weren’t in his direct line of sight.
Neil was gone.
He hadn’t returned when Andrew had to leave to drive Nicky to the airport the next morning.
He settled into the too-big apartment and the team of strangers. Pretended he could ignore the cursed smoothie maker on its perch.
He didn’t get any alarmed or concerned or threatening calls from the busybodies for the first few days, which meant Neil hadn’t told any of them that they’d separated in more than the geographical sense. What he got were questions about how he was settling into the new apartment, if he’d taken a look around the city yet, if he already had a good grasp of the Bearcats’ synergy (Kevin).
They were his friends too. He forgot that, sometimes.
His new bed was around four times the size of the twin mattresses they’d had in the dorms. The twins he and Neil had squeezed into next to each other on good days for three years, the twins they’d somehow made work.
He’d slept better, in the foot of space between Neil and the wall. His new bed was too empty, just like the rest.
He counted the days, when he lay awake in the small hours of the morning. Days, and then weeks.
Practice was the same as it’d always been, only now he wore blue instead of orange and got paid for it. There were new people that he had to make understand the concept of personal space, which he managed without even drawing any knifes. Bee would be so proud.
There were calls from Nicky, who’d gotten proposed to a second time the minute he’d stepped foot on German soil, and Aaron, who’d found a tiny apartment he was sharing with the cheerleader that he complained about but Andrew knew he really liked.
There were no calls from Neil.
There was nothing, from Neil.
Not that he’d expected there to be, but… well. Hope didn’t work on logic.
And then, two weeks after Don’t wait for me and I won’t wait for you, messages did come. Messages that diverged from the busybodies’ usual inane bullshit.
He was at practice when the conversation started, and ignored the flood of messages for a while after. Only when the notifications started annoying him did he open the group chat to mute the annoyances for a few hours. He exited the chat without reading any of their nonsense, then buffered for a few seconds when he realized he’d caught a flash of Neil’s name, more than once.
His memory filled in the rest. He says he’s fine, the last message from Dan had read, and he hadn’t even consciously decided to enter the chat again by the time he was already frantically scrolling to the top.
Matt Boyd | 16:21
Hey guys, Neil hasn’t been picking up my calls
Or texting back
Can any of you check if you have more luck?
Allison Reynolds | 16:23
Same
He’s been MIA for days
I thought the fucker blocked me
Nicky Hemmick | 16:24
What the hell, me too?!
Is he okay????
Dan Wilds | 16:30
Doesn’t pick up for me either
I’ll call Coach
Renee Walker | 16:52
Mine go straight to voicemail
I think calling Coach is a good idea
Andrew? Do you know if he’s okay?
Aaron Minyard | 16:56
If none of you have heard from him in more than 48h he’s probably dead
Abducted, at least
Nicky Hemmick | 16:57
Don’t say that
Matt Boyd | 16:57
Shut up
Allison Reynolds |16: 57
Stfu
Nicky Hemmick | 16:58
I’m actually getting worried
He’s all alone
Aaron Minyard |16:59
He’s not alone
Matt Boyd | 17:00
Andrew? Did you hear from him?
Is there something going on again?
Aaron Minyard | 17:06
Andrew’s at practice
Also, he wouldn’t tell you
Also also, Neil hasn’t been picking up my calls either
In case anyone was wondering
Allison Reynolds | 17:08
Shocker
Big news
Nicky Hemmick | 17:09
Dan? Any news from Coach?
Kevin Day | 17:10
What’s this
He’s alright
Matt Boyd | 17:11
You talked to him???
Kevin Day | 17:12
I talked to Dad
A few days ago
He would’ve mentioned if anything was going on
Matt Boyd | 17:13
Not good enough
He wouldn’t let Coach know
Plus, a lot can happen in a few days
Aaron Minyard | 17:15
With Josten, a lot can happen in five minutes
Dan Wilds | 17:16
Just got off the phone
Coach says he’s still alive
But acting shifty
Hasn’t seen much of him lately
Nicky Hemmick | 17:17
Oh shit
Allison Reynolds | 17:17
Shit
Matt Boyds | 17:18
Shit
Nicky Hemmick | 17:18
What is he up to?
Is it the mafia again??
Aaron Minyard | 17:20
Better not
Andrew would kill him
Renee Walker | 17:22
Aaron
Aaron Minyard | 17:24
You know it’s true
Stg we’ve been gone for two weeks
Can’t believe he got himself into trouble already
Matt Boyd | 17:25
I’m taking the next flight
Allison Reynolds | 17:25
Same
Renee Walker | 17:26
Kevin? You would know if anything yakuza-related was going on, right?
Kevin Day | 17:27
Probably
I don’t think it’s that
Dan Wilds | 17:29
Me neither
Coach said he’d try to talk to him
Maybe wait with the flights
Aaron Minyard | 17:30
Might squirrel away from fright if you show up without notice
Renee Walker | 17:32
He’s past that
Aaron Minyard | 17:34
Just like he’s past ghosting us?
Nicky Hemmick | 17:36
I think he’s lonely
Think about it
He’s alone for the first time since
You know
Matt Boyd | 17:40
All the more reason to fly out immediately!?!
Allison Reynolds | 17:41
Second
Dan Wilds | 17:46
Babe
Calm down
You too, Reynolds
Let’s wait for Coach’s verdict
Nicky Hemmick | 18:24
This is killing me
What’s taking so long?
Aaron Minyard | 18:27
Have you ever tried hunting the asshole down?
Matt Boyd | 18:28
Don’t call him that
But yeah
It’s impossible
Allison Reynolds | 18:30
Slippery bastard
Should’ve put a tracker in him when I had the chance
Renee Walker | 18:32
That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?
Allison Reynold | 18:34
Effective though
Aaron Minyard | 18:40
Extreme circumstances require extreme measures
I’m pro putting a tracker on him
Dan Wilds | 18:45
Coach called back
He talked to Neil
He says he’s fine
And that it wasn’t mafia-related, at least
Matt Boyd | 18:47
He said he’s fine?!!
Allison Reynold | 18:49
Red flag if I’ve ever seen one
I call bullshit
Nicky Hemmick | 18:50
OMG he’s back online jfjkjw
I’m calling
Matt Boyd | 18:51
He’s still not picking up??
Allison Reynolds | 18:52
He really is back online
Give him a few minutes
Bet Nicky’s just holding up the line
Nicky Hemmick | 19:02
I was and I’m not sorry
Aaron Minyard | 19:03
What’d he say
Allison Reynolds | 19:03
!?
Dan Wilds | 19:04
Matt’s talking to him too rn
Nicky Hemmick | 19:06
He said he forgot to charge his phone
And that he’s fine, which, yeah
He sounded okay though
Promised to pick up when we called
Andrew exited the chat, swiped to Neil’s contact again, hovered his finger over the call button.
It wasn’t mafia business. Kevin would’ve known, and would’ve called in a panic, had it been.
The others had panicked, which was reasonable when Neil went ghost. And they’d made very clear that they didn’t know…
They’d thought Andrew would have a status report for them. That Neil would talk to him, if something were actually wrong.
Andrew was the only person who knew Neil wouldn’t. Not now.
Not after Don’t wait for me and I won’t wait for you.
And he… he wanted to. Shit, he wanted to. Press that button, hear Neil’s voice.
But he’d fucked up.
Promised to pick up, Nicky had texted. Andrew didn’t think that promise extended to him.
The busybodies thought Neil was lonely. Maybe he was. He didn’t have to be.
There were… people. Around Neil. Those people weren’t Andrew, but they were… potentials.
Potentials. He scoffed.
His phone buzzed in his hold, a message from Aaron coming in. Their private chat, this time.
Aaron Minyard | 19:31
Seriously though, is he okay?
Instead of answering, he locked his phone and threw it across the room, hard enough that he could hear the screen crack.
And then he put his fist through the wall.
They didn’t stop pestering him about it. He just stopped answering.
He’d never really been answering, but he did even less of it now. His texting became sporadic at best. He picked up the phone when Aaron or Nicky called, but barely replied to anything they were saying.
Summer progressed. Weeks turned into months, and he kept counting. He found his place in the team’s picking order (at the very top, where nobody bothered him). The season started. Games happened. He guarded the goal. Pretended to listen to his coaches’ feedback. Didn’t even pretend to consider the team captain’s invitations to team outings.
He went back to his empty apartment and his unused smoothie maker and lay on the couch or his bed or the floor or under his dining table, once.
Held his phone above his head and stared at Neil’s contact.
Scrolled through their chat even though he’d memorized every last message he’d ever sent or gotten from Neil.
Neil Josten | 05.24.
Double or triple fudge?
I feel like three types of fudges is too much fudge
You’ll get diabetes
I’m taking both
Ice cream. That’s the last thing Josten had texted him about. They hadn’t texted much, because they’d spend most of their time in each other’s orbit.
Fucking ice cream.
He’d brought both.
The first unreasonably hot day of the year, Andrew busy with finals and sorting through the offers coming in through the mail and selling the Columbia house and Nicky’s move. And Neil had gone and gotten him ice cream.
He’d kissed Neil into one of the beanbag chairs in thanks until he was flushed and breathless, but he’d never texted back.
He doubted he had the right to, now. (He doubted he’d get the chance to.)
He watched Exy on his giant new TV, as soon as the college season started up. Every single of the Foxes’ games, hungry for every little glimpse of their captain and starting striker.
Neil was magnificent. But… different.
Andrew didn’t think anyone but himself and maybe Kevin noticed, but there was something missing from the way Neil played. Something desperate and greedy.
Something that had caught the Son of Exy’s eyes even on shitty tapes and from half a continent away, once upon a time.
Even the most inattentive person would’ve noticed the difference in Neil’s handling of the press, though. It changed in that Neil no longer engaged with microphones or cameras shoved in his face. At all.
Kevin Day | 21:23
What is he doing??
Did you tell him to do that?
He can’t keep glaring at them every time a reporter asks him a question
Just because that worked for you doesn’t mean it’s a smart thing to do
I mean I guess it’s better than the train wreck his interviews were before
But those were got him publicity, at least
This is just… nothing?
Just nothing. Kevin’s assessment cut deeper than he ever could’ve known. And ever would know.
Needless to say, those messages stayed unanswered too.
He had a self-care-stay-sane routine. In the absence of Neil, this routine consisted of smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day and went to shit when one of his coaches found out.
They read him his contract again. A contract that stipulated clearly that smoking wasn’t something he could do, not in this capacity.
He knew. He’d signed the damn thing.
He didn’t bother telling them that he could’ve recited it top to bottom, had he so desired. They seemed appeased with the singular nod he gave them in reply to the half-hour health lecture he’d sat through. Kevin would be proud.
They told him smoking was a serious addiction and that they’d get him any help he needed to get him through this troubling period or whatnot (he was maybe 17 percent listening, at that point), so he threw his cigarettes away and stopped one day to the next.
Fuck them.
Serious addiction his ass.
The meds he’d been on in college, those had been a serious addiction. Aaron’s drugs, too.
Not fucking cigarettes. He could stop smoking anytime he wanted.
And stop thinking about them.
And stop smelling them every time he sat on the roof of his new apartment.
And stop instinctively reaching for them because he’d become so used to, so comfortable with them being around.
He called Bee after the fourth night of no sleep. She helped. With the cigarette thing. He was able to sleep, after talking to her.
The apartment was still empty when he woke up.
The smoothie maker was still mocking him.
He still wanted a cigarette.
He didn’t call Neil, because calling would’ve defeated the whole purpose. He tried to pretend he wasn’t a liar, once.
Exactly once.
I won’t wait for you, he’d said, and, well. There was only one way to make that statement a truth.
It wasn’t Eden’s, the club he finally chose, but it was close enough. There were Edens all around the world, if you knew where to look.
He did his old spiel. Sat at the bar, ordered something amber and top-shelf, waited until someone caught his eye.
Someone did. He didn’t understand.
He kept staring, because he didn’t understand, and the man noticed and interpreted it as interest. Sent him coy glances and started meandering over while Andrew kept staring and not understanding.
The man stumbled into the bar next to him (too close) and sent him another of those smiles and Andrew caught a whiff of his scent and his stomach turned, because it was wrong.
How could it be wrong, he asked himself, when he’d only just met this man?
And then he realized. His hair was auburn, the texture not entirely similar but close enough. His eyes weren’t piercing, but they were blue.
He was pretty.
He was wrong.
The man was wrong.
And Andrew too, for thinking he could do this when even the proximity to someone who so clearly wasn’t Neil made him want to throw up.
“Hey,” the man started (and his voice was wrong), and Andrew threw his drink back and left without another glance in his direction.
Music and laughter were spilling out of the club when he made it outside, down the street to where he’d parked the Maserati. He tore the passenger side door open, then the glove compartment, dug around until his hand closed around the crumpled pack of cigarettes Neil had stowed there for emergencies an eternity ago (the pack that he’d known about put pretended not to when he’d gotten rid of all the others; it wasn’t a problem if he didn’t know it was there) and slammed the door shut not-to-gently on his way out.
He leaned against the hood. Fumbled out a cigarette (his hands weren’t shaking, it was too dark to see and if he couldn’t see then they weren’t shaking) and then the lighter he still carried on his person at all times because the click of his old one had made Neil flinch exactly once after Baltimore before Andrew had thrown it as far as he could and gotten one that lit up soundlessly.
And instead of raising it, he paused.
He stared at that lighter in the dim light of a distant streetlight. The cigarette in his other hand snapped in two, and he dropped it to the ground because he’d fucked up and his skin was crawling and that man hadn’t been Neil, could never be Neil because Neil wasn’t here because Andrew had pushed him away and what was he doing, what the fuck was he- and Andrew flung the lighter into the dark and took a few steps away from the car and tried to put his fist through a wall again.
Brick, this time, instead of his apartment’s drywall, which meant that pain exploded from his knuckles up his wrist and forearm, harsh and sudden enough to shock and settle him back into his bones.
Blood started dripping off his fingers when he dropped his arm to his side.
He was panting. His knuckles were throbbing. Probably broken.
It wasn’t a knife on the inside of his arms, but it wasn’t much better.
He stood in the dark staring at that brick wall until the pain in his knuckles had dull to a distant throb he could ignore if he so pleased, until his heart had calmed to something that wasn’t whatever rage-induced mania it had been before.
Then he turned on his phone’s flashlight and started searching for the lighter.
It took an hour to find.
The back of his hand was both dry and sticky with cracked blood by the time he wrapped his fingers around the sharp edges, almost dizzy with relief.
It took another hour of sitting in the car and flipping the lighter around and around and around and ignoring the caked blood and the split skin that started bleeding again every time he balled his hand into a fist before he plucked his phone out of the cupholder.
It was 1 a.m. in Boston, which meant it was 1 a.m. in South Carolina.
Bee picked up on the fourth ring.
He told her the cigarettes were still a problem.
He didn’t go back to the empty apartment that night. He wasn’t sure split knuckles would’ve been enough to keep him there.
Aaron showed up. Out of nowhere, uninvited.
That wasn’t fair, maybe. Aaron was his twin. His brother, now, finally, tentatively. He could visit whenever he wanted.
The question was why.
Andrew was making dinner when his doorbell rang for the first time since he’d moved in, and for eight seconds – the time it took to get from the kitchen to the front door – something wild and desperate caught fire inside his chest. It couldn’t- Could it be?
It wasn’t.
His own face was staring back at him when he tore the door open, the sight sobering enough to douse the fire, to wrap around the wild thing in his chest and choke it to death.
“Aaron,” he said, surprised and somehow simultaneously disappointed and not.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Aaron hissed with a scowl, and Andrew’s stomach dropped because- But he couldn’t know. Neil wouldn’t tell Aaron, of all people, and the scowl on his brother’s face didn’t mean shit.
Scowling was Aaron’s default expression.
“Making dinner,” Andrew said, and stepped aside to let his brother push past him and into the empty apartment.
Aaron stopped in the living room, scowling at the couch and the TV and Andrew’s dining table and – Andrew didn’t need to follow his line of sight to know what he was looking at – the fucking smoothie maker. Yeah.
“This is pathetic," Aaron told him. “Even for you. Especially for you. What did you do?” he asked again and Andrew busied himself in the kitchen because he didn’t like the look in his brother’s eyes and fucking shit, maybe he did know. Maybe Neil hadn’t had to tell him. Maybe he just knew.
“What are you talking about?” Andrew gave back, because just because Aaron had made the effort to come here and start a fight didn’t mean that Andrew had to like it. Certainly didn’t mean that he was going to make it easy for him.
“I was- am worried about you,” Aaron said, which was a horrible way to start. The point didn’t seem to be to express concern, however, but to paint a picture, which Andrew realized very quickly was worse. “You’re texting less and talking less and ignoring everyone else. I thought you were cutting me out. So what did I do? I went to talk to the guy who’s an expert.” Andrew’s stomach dropped. “The only guy who even remotely understands what’s going on inside your head because he’s just as fucked as you are.”
“Shut up.”
Aaron ignored him. “So imagine my surprise when Josten not only doesn’t know what’s going on, but tells me he can’t help me with you anymore.”
That… stung. More than it should have, considering all of this was Andrew’s doing. He kept stirring a pot that didn’t need stirring to avoid having to look at his brother. “What’s your point?”
“My point,” Aaron snapped, “is that you moron broke up with him!”
“Maybe he’s the one who broke up with me,” Andrew said, just to be contrary, and didn’t even bother with his usual not-a-relationship-therefore-not-a-breakup shit.
Aaron barked out a laugh. “I thought that, for half a second. But I was looking at him. That was enough to know.”
That made Andrew look, narrow his eyes at Aaron. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s supposed to mean he was miserable,” Aaron hissed cruelly. “He looked like shit. He sounded dead. He-” Here his voice became different, almost… pleading. “Andrew, he couldn’t even look me in the eye! And he was still fucking worried about you!”
I deserve this, Andrew had to remind himself. All of it. The emptiness. The rib that must’ve broken at practice and that he hadn’t noticed until then and that had splintered now and was piercing his lungs and his heart and his stomach and his throat and causing pain and pain and pain and-
The spoon splattered red sauce everywhere when he dropped it. He propped his arms on the kitchen counter, leaned his forehead against them so he didn’t have to see his brother’s face that was and wasn’t his own.
He breathed through the pain.
He counted to ten (which, fuck, fuck, was something Neil had taught him) in English and German and Russian (a language he’d learned with and for Neil).
He pressed his eyes shut. He breathed, and counted, and hated himself and Neil, most of all. Always Neil.
“Shit, Andrew.” Aaron said quietly. He’d gotten closer. He wasn’t touching, because he knew Andrew better than that. “I didn’t know…” He trailed off. Which. Yeah.
Andrew hadn’t known, either. (He fucking had. He had known, and he’d said them anyways, those cursed fucking words.)
“What are you doing?” Aaron asked again, helpless in a way Andrew was all too familiar with from a voice that was and wasn’t his spitting insults at him from behind a locked bathroom door. Helpless, and gentle in way that made Andrew want to scratch and bite and hurt. “Have you been talking to Bee?”
“It’s not like that,” Andrew rasped out (why did his voice sound like that?) (the punctured lung, it had to be).
“It’s exactly like that,” Aaron replied vehemently, and Andrew rued the day his brother had grown a spine because now he had to stand here and listen to truths he wasn’t willing or ready to admit to himself. “I’m not gonna pretend to understand what it is that you and him have, but it’s working. Do you think you’ll find something like that again?”
He didn’t say it to be cruel, Andrew was well aware of that. He didn’t say it because he thought there were no people out there who could figure out how to be around Andrew the way Neil had.
He said it because he knew Andrew had held perfection in his hands, and instead of treating it like the precious thing it was, he’d crushed it in his hold. And now he was freaking out because there were shards of glass sticking out of his palms and he hadn’t expected those to hurt.
“No,” he pressed out when he was sure nothing else would escape him alongside the word. He turned the heat off on the stove and took a less-than-steady step away from it because he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t swipe the pot right off the counter.
His back hit the cupboards on the other side and he slid down until he was sat, legs sprawling across his kitchen floor.
Aaron joined him after a few moments of silence, and Andrew leaned his head back against the cupboard because he still couldn’t stand to see the truth in his brother’s face.
“You’re hurting yourself,” Aaron told him, no bullshit. And there it was: the truth. Laid bare in the few feet of kitchen floor between them. Flayed open and ugly and bleeding. “And you’re hurting him,” Aaron continued, and that was the part that was unbearable, that made Andrew feel destructive enough to punch walls and break bones and- and nothing.
All of which he’d already done.
“You need to fix it.”
He went back to weekly appointments with Bee. They weren’t the same over video call, but they were necessary.
Fuck, they were necessary.
Aaron stayed with him for few days, which Andrew didn’t like because the second bedroom was never supposed to be Aaron’s but didn’t hate either because it made the apartment ever so slightly less empty.
Aaron emptied every single bottle of alcohol he found into the sink (which wasn’t necessary, alcohol had never been the problem) and Andrew stood by and watched and said nothing, because he knew he was scaring his brother.
Aaron made him promise at least one call per week. Aaron made him promise to keep up with his therapy sessions (which he would’ve done anyways). Aaron made him promise to put in effort.
Aaron made him promise quite a bit. Andrew went along with all of it because he knew…
He knew what he’d been doing wasn’t sustainable. That what he had done, exactly four months, one week, and five days ago, was self-destructive.
He had pretended it wasn’t, somehow. Until now. That he’d said those words for Neil’s sake.
What a ridiculous notion.
Neil was stupid, but more than capable of making his own decisions. The problem had never been Neil.
The problem was Andrew, who’d stopped using knifes because he had knuckles and glass shards.
Who’d had a precious thing and been too impatient to wait for it to break on its own, so he’d done it himself.
When maybe it never would have broken.
Andrew gave himself the rest of the season. Neil would be busy wrangling his team, Andrew making a living and working through the mess inside his head that had lead to the mess that was his life.
Then he’d make the coaches extend their offer.
Then, he’d fix it.
It went according to plan for a while. Therapy. Aaron. Nicky. The Bearcats.
The apartment was still empty, but he was working towards a goal now. It had a different feel to it, somehow. Something anxious.
Something almost excited.
He visited Aaron and the cheerleader for Christmas, which was made bearable because she clearly knew what was going on with Andrew but didn’t say a word about it and instead attempted to bury him under an avalanche of home-made cookies. His nutritionists could go fuck themselves.
Katelyn made mean cookies.
Nobody mentioned the fact that Andrew had come alone.
The Bearcats made it to the death matches. The Foxes did too. Renee visited over spring break. Clearly noticed that something was going on but didn’t push when he didn’t bring it up. They sparred. It was good.
A very big part was still missing, but it was… okay. Stable. For now.
Two months left.
The Bearcats got kicked out of championships, a 3-5 loss the team took hard and Andrew cared little about.
The Foxes didn’t get kicked out. Of course they didn’t. Not with that captain.
Six weeks.
The Foxes had been making plans to surprise Neil on the day of his graduation, in the group chat. Andrew had been included in those plans for the start, without having to contribute a thing. It gave him a date. A countdown.
Andrew watched every one of the Foxes’ matches, eyes hunting Neil across the court, trying to see what Aaron had seen.
Miserable, his brother had said. Neil looked thinner, maybe. Sharper. His eyes were colder when the reporters tried to get him to comment on their win, after.
Kevin had stopped texting him about Neil’s new press strategy. Maybe he thought Andrew didn’t care.
He couldn’t have cared more.
Neil, silent in front of a camera, was fundamentally unsettling.
Four weeks, now.
The Foxes won championships. Andrew was on the edge of his seat for the entirety of the game, which he would deny until the day he died. Neil scored a final goal in the last minute of the game, an unnecessary point that got him barreled over by on of the Trojans’ backliners.
Andrew hadn’t realized he’d jumped up until he was right in front of the screen, muttering “Get up, get the fuck up” at Neil, unmoving on the court floor.
Unmoving for one excruciating heartbeat, then two, then three, before he pushed himself up, shook his head and let the backliner pull him to his feet while the commentators went crazy over the goal.
Andrew wasn’t crazy over the goal. Andrew knew that a year ago, Neil wouldn’t have taken the shot. Wouldn’t have risked injury for a game he’d already won.
That goal… Andrew thought it was maybe Neil’s own version of glass shards and split knuckles, then dismissed the thought. Neil wasn’t. He wouldn’t.
He wouldn’t.
Andrew wanted to drive to Palmetto. Right now. Fuck the countdown. He needed to see Neil. Needed to see that he was alive, that he wasn’t being stupid, that he hadn’t cut himself on the mess Andrew had left behind.
He was halfway out the door when he realized what an idiotic idea that was. And how far too late it’d come.
Neil had finals to worry about, for the foreseeable future (three weeks and four days until his graduation). Whether he was hurt or not, he wouldn’t be grateful if Andrew showed up now and brought either drama he’d long since gotten over, or entirely new questions.
And the truth was that most likely… most likely, he’d gotten over Andrew by now.
Andrew knew it had been important to Neil, their… thing. That Andrew had been important. That if he’d stood up and chased after Neil on that rooftop, or if he’d swallowed the words from the start, he could have had it. Him. Them.
But it had been eleven months. Eleven months of less than nothing. Eleven months of none of the busybodies noticing something was off, that Neil was heartbroken in any way, shape, or form.
(Eleven months of none of the busybodies going crazy because Neil had mentioned someone new, either, which was the only reason Andrew held out hope. They would have noticed. They must have.)
He did not drive down to Palmetto that day. He had a countdown. He had a plan. Neil would sign with the Bearcats in a few weeks, and Andrew would know that it was salvageable. Andrew would drive south for Neil’s graduation, would apologize, would explain (would beg, if it came down to it), would hope.
And then… he’d put in the work. Any work.
His plan failed at step one.
He’d convinced Richmond to send out the offer early. Had put emphasis on how desperately they needed new blood, how good a fit the Foxes’ captain would be for their team.
And he would be, of course he would, but Andrew thought the main reason why Richmond followed his advice was because it was the first time he’d engaged with any of the staff or put any sort of effort beyond the bare minimum into his game, and she was simply overjoyed.
And then the offer was sent. And it was three weeks until D-Day, and no reply came. Then two. Then ten days without answer.
Then Kevin called, and pulled the floor out from beneath Andrew’s feet.
“What did you do?”
“You’ll have to be more-”
“Andrew,” Kevin cut him off, his tone colored by a shade of fear Andrew had never encountered before. A sharp, angry sort of fear. Something with bite. “Neil’s coming to Chicago.”
There went the floor.
He pretended to be ignorant so he’d have ten more seconds of imagined stability. “To visit?”
Kevin was merciless. “He signed with the Hawks. Paperwork went through just now.”
And he was falling. Falling, when he was so afraid of heights.
He’d had a plan. Neil was supposed to-
Neil was supposed to. And that was the problem, wasn't it? The ball had never been on Neil’s side of the court.
Andrew had taken the ball and run away with it. How delusional had he been, to expect a pass from Neil when the only thing Neil had left were glass shards?
Neil had never been supposed to do anything. Andrew was the one who’d needed to act. Weeks ago.
(Eleven months ago, on a rooftop in Palmetto.)
Kevin was talking when he could hear again over the ringing in his ears. “-don’t know whatever the fuck you’re doing but you need to get your shit together, you can’t even imagine- Do you know what he said? When I called him?”
“What?” Andrew gasped into the receiver, because he needed to know, he needed-
Kevin’s voice was cutting. “He asked if I was sure. That I wanted him there.”
One punch to the stomach. Two.
“Andrew, he was afraid he wasn’t wanted.”
Three.
Andrew felt so much he became almost numb with it. “I’m going to fix this,” he told Kevin and himself, because if he didn’t, he’d… He didn’t know what he’d do.
“You have to,” Kevin snapped, and the fact that there was not a single mention of Exy and synergy and potential told Andrew more than Kevin’s tone about how dire the situation really was.
“The graduation. Are you coming?” Andrew asked, because Aaron knew but Aaron had already said he wouldn’t have time, and Nicky wasn’t flying out either and Andrew wanted one person there, one person who knew, in case it all went to shit.
Kevin sounded indignant. “Of course I’m coming.”
“I’ll pick you up from the airport.” It was as much a cry for help, for company, as Andrew was ever willing to utter.
Kevin was his friend, had been around for years, had seen him at his worst and best and drugged and sober. Kevin understood without him actually saying the words. “Okay. If this goes wrong…” Kevin exhaled a tired breath. “You’ll have to face him as an opponent on court for the rest of your career. You know that, right?”
Andrew didn’t think that was the worst part, but he understood where Kevin was coming from. “I know.”
He was at the airport too early.
He had never been too early for anything in his entire life, but he had nearly an hour to idle away before Kevin’s plane would land.
Which was great. An hour to overthink.
As if he hadn’t done enough of that on the ten-hour drive down.
He meandered through the airport shops, desperate for any kind of distraction (fingers itching for a cigarette). It had more noise and more people than he preferred, but it did the job of keeping him out of his head alright.
Ten minutes before Kevin’s plane was supposed to land, he came across a flower shop. And stopped. And stared.
It was ridiculous. The notion of him buying flowers for someone, of showing up with a bouquet.
It was something other people did, normal people.
But he’d done everything until then his own way, and look where it got him. Maybe…
Fuck, maybe he just needed all the help he could get.
“Are you serious?" Kevin had frozen with the passenger’s door halfway open, staring at the roses in the back. He sounded incredulous. “You’re serious.”
“Shut up,” Andrew told him, and slammed his own door shut.
Kevin followed after a beat, stayed silent as Andrew tore out of the airport parking lot. A few miles, now. Half an hour. Maybe less.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
Andrew shot Kevin a look that he hoped encompassed how badly he needed his friend to keep his mouth shut. He’d wanted him here, yes, but now that he was, Andrew didn’t actually want to hear all the ways in which this could go wrong.
Kevin was not deterred. “Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“I’ll start with sorry,” Andrew snapped. “And go from there.”
“That’s…” Kevin paused. “Yeah. Okay.” He pulled his phone out, squinted at the screen. “They’re at the restaurant. I’ll tell them we’re…”
“Ten minutes out.” His hands clenched around the steering wheel, his knuckles white. Ten minutes.
Ten minutes.
The restaurant was bougie. Too bougie to be anyone but Reynolds’ choosing.
He got the roses from the backseat while Kevin tapped his foot like the impatient toddler he was and then trailed after him inside, feeling ridiculous. Feeling like an idiot.
Why had he bought the roses?
They were at the very back. Andrew saw Reynolds’ hair first, and then a server stepped aside and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t-
There he was.
Neil. Andrew’s rabbit. His junkie.
He was back to looking like a runaway, years of hard work undone by Andrew’s mistakes. Andrew saw the tense set of his shoulders from half the restaurant away. And he saw-
He saw the moment Neil realized he was there.
Neil had always known. Didn’t turn or lean in Andrew’s direction or anything tangible like that, but there was always something indescribable that changed, as if he could feel Andrew’s presence. A shift in attention. Always towards Andrew, not away.
This time was no different.
Neil knew Andrew was there, and he didn’t turn. He didn’t relax into his seat, like he would have before. He was looking at Reynolds in front of him, and nothing else.
Kevin reached them first, touched Neil, said words… Andrew wasn’t listening, couldn’t. He noted that Neil never answered, never looked up, never smiled, didn’t notice the way Kevin’s face fell. He kept his focus on Reynolds with a focus that was almost desperate, even if his face was blank. Calm.
Miserable, Aaron’s voice echoed in Andrew’s head, and now he saw it.
Three sets of eyes narrowed at him when Kevin fell into a seat, leaving the one next to Neil for Andrew. Renee was the only one who greeted him with a smile. He had eyes for none of them.
Three seconds.
Two.
One.
He sank into the seat. Close enough to smell Neil, now, close enough to count his lashes and to touch and he wanted to, God he wanted to.
Andrew placed the bouquet on the table between them, and four sets of eyes nearly fell out of their sockets, none of them ice blue.
Neil noticed, though.
He noticed, and his gaze dropped, and he didn’t understand. There was a slight furrow in his brows. There was a slight hitch in his breath, almost unnoticeable, before it returned to the steady metronome it had been before.
Steady enough to be artificial.
Kevin was merciful enough to engage the others in mindless and uninteresting and unimportant chatter, which got some of the attention away from them (and Andrew was grateful for that, so fucking grateful). He could do this. They’d get through the meal, and then they-
“Neil,” he said before he’d thought it through, because Neil was still staring at the flowers and Andrew needed one glance, just one glance to tell him if there was even the slightest chance of-
He missed the point where Neil’s breaths picked up again, where the hitch became a gasp became a choke became-
The sound of Neil’s chair clattering to the floor clued him in alright, and Andrew was out of his own in less than a heartbeat, not reaching out because he would’t, he had no right, but-
Neil still wasn’t looking at him. He flinched away from the table, the roses, and his hands were shaking and he was-
“I’m sorry,” he gasped out, eyes wide and wild and desperate in a way Andrew had last heard him sound kneeling in a motel room in Baltimore. He made a sound like a hurt animal, moved further away from the roses. From Andrew. “Sorry,” Neil continued, and Andrew hated that Neil was the one apologizing, hated the way he forced everything his eyes were showing and the rest of him wasn’t down because it was painful to watch, must have been unbearable to feel. “I can’t- No. Sorry.”
And then-
He should have expected it, maybe.
He’d expected a Neil that’d gotten over him. Should have but hadn’t expected that the hurt would be so deep, so fresh, that Neil was miserable, that he’d been carrying these kinds of feelings around for almost a year.
Neil was out of the restaurant in a heartbeat.
“What the fuck?!” Reynolds hissed, standing too, her glare venomous in a way he hadn’t seen in quite a while. All of it for him, of course.
“Did you fucking-” Matt started, equally enraged, only to be cut off by Kevin.
“Andrew,” he snapped, motioning between Andrew and the exit when Andrew tore his eyes from where Neil had disappeared. “What are you doing? You need to move!”
And he-
Yes. He needed to move.
It was enough to snap him out of it. He moved.
There was no reality in which Andrew could ever be fast enough to catch up to Neil, with or without the head start.
But he’d seen the direction Neil had taken off in, and that was enough. Because Neil didn’t get very far.
Andrew found him in a side street four blocks away from the restaurant, and the sight stopped his heart and his body and the whole world around him.
Neil’s back was pressed against the wall, his legs pulled close to his body, his face hidden between his knees and his arms wrapped all around him as if to keep himself from breaking apart. His hand was clamped down on his nape, fingers digging into the skin there in a way Andrew was all too familiar with.
It was the way Andrew used to soothe, and didn’t now, because he’d been the one to cause this… breakdown. Because that’s what it was.
He could hear Neil’s choked gasps from feet away, too short to deliver any oxygen. Could see the way he was shaking, all of him. Could hear the wet sounds of his breaths, could see the way the fingers of his other hand were digging into his hair, pulling at the strands.
He could see, right in front of his eyes, what he’d done. The results of that evening on the roof one year ago.
It was his fault.
He was the one who needed to fix it.
Andrew took a step closer, and Neil made a sound that was almost a laugh, if laughter were a twisted, desperate, scared thing full of pain.
“Neil,” he said, helpless but steady, because he needed to do something. This Neil, this hurt… it was impossible to keep doing nothing.
And Neil- froze. Completely. Absolutely.
His shaking stopped. The noise he’d made stopped. His breathing stopped, maybe, probably.
Neil lifted his head. His eyes found Andrew first, widened, and were those-
Neil was standing before Andrew could say anything more. Was shaking his head, was breathing again but backing away and Andrew-
Andrew froze, too. Lifted his hands as if to show he was unarmed, because if Neil ran again, if he knew Andrew was following- He’d never catch up.
Neil needed to stay right where he was.
He did (thank fuck, he did) and he was staring and Andrew couldn’t help but stare in return, now that Neil was finally looking at him, to take in everything he’d missed.
Miserable, Aaron had called him. It was that. And it was…
Neil was thin. Thin like he’d been in Arizona. He looked ragged. He looked…
And his face. His face. It hadn’t been a trick of the light or anything, before. Neil’s face was wet.
Neil was crying.
Neil wasn’t only miserable, he was heartbroken.
“You fucking asshole,” Neil whispered, and he was crying but his voice was almost steady. And it was fair, it was fair, because Andrew was, but- “Did you think I ran because I wanted you to chase me?”
Andrew hadn’t thought, not really, not beyond Fix this.
Neil rubbed a hand across his face, under his eyes. His expression was… less, when he let his arm fall back to his side. Just less. “Fucking… grow up,” he snapped, and sounded only tired.
He turned, and Andrew was almost too slow, distracted by the fact that Neil’s face was wet again already, distracted by the two lines of tears running down his cheeks and neck and along his jaw to gather at his chin.
Neil was crying.
Andrew moved out of instinct. Out of self-preservation, maybe. He put himself in Neil’s path. Not blocking his way, because he wouldn’t, but there.
“Neil,” he said for the third time, and that wasn’t enough, that could never be enough, he needed to open his mouth and start talking and he needed to do it now. “I’m sorry.”
He hadn’t said those words before, not since the Spears, not to Neil. It wasn’t much. It was a start.
Neil misunderstood. “You’re sorry? For what, showing up here?” He sounded self-deprecating. “Yeah. Great fucking surprise. Thanks. I’m leaving.”
Don’t follow, Neil didn’t say and didn’t need to, and his face did a little twitch then, something darkly amused and incredulous.
He closed his eyes when Andrew didn’t move out of his way. Closed his eyes as if not to see him. But his ears…
His ears were open, still.
And Andrew talked. “No. I’m sorry for what I said last time.”
There is no this. This is nothing. Don’t wait for me. I won’t wait for you.
Neil knew what he was talking about right off the bat. Neil…
Neil started laughing, and it sounded like he was breaking apart. “Tell that to someone who believes it.”
That… that made him pause. Neil had never questioned his words before. Andrew was a liar now, too, that was indisputable (he had waited when he said he wouldn’t), but Neil didn’t know that.
Why would he…
“Yeah,” Neil continued. “I know you, asshole. You don’t lie.” But he had. “You don’t make mistakes.” But he had, the worst one of his life. “You’re not cruel.” That one nearly killed him, because Andrew had been cruel, so unnecessarily cruel, and still, Neil’s trust in him stayed unwavering, his protection as fierce as it had been before Andrew had cut Neil’s chest open and ripped his heart out. “What the fuck would you be sorry for, hm? Didn’t expect I’d take it this hard, huh?”
He hadn’t. Not the worst, but another in a long line of mistakes.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get over it. Not anytime soon, God no. But maybe give me a decade or so and we could do whatever that,” he pointed at the street they’d come from, “was supposed to be. Sorry.” No. Andrew started shaking his head, because it wasn’t Neil who needed to say that word, never him. “But don’t be sorry for the…” Neil made a gesture between them, couldn’t even say the word because Andrew had never given him one and now he was sorry, when Andrew was the one who’d- “I’m handling it. I’m fine.”
He wasn’t. God, he wasn’t.
Andrew could feel the pain radiating from him, could hear it in the way Neil’s voice finally cracked, could see it in the wet tracks down his face.
And still, he told Andrew not to worry.
Told Andrew that he wasn’t cruel, when the truth was running down Neil’s skin.
One last time Neil tried to leave, but Andrew was right in front of him by then. And didn’t hesitate. He raised his hands, just like Neil sometimes did (had), to either side of the man’s face without actually touching him, hovering close enough to feel the feverish flush of his skin, to almost feel Neil’s sticky tears coating his palms.
“Neil,” he said, begged, as if it was the only word he could speak. “Can I touch you?”
Because he needed to- He needed to. Right now. More than anything else.
The words made Neil’s breath hitch, made the last bit of his composure snap, broke the gates in his eyes wide open and showed surprise and pain and a desperate flash of-
“You’re not cruel,” Neil told Andrew or himself or the both of them, because he didn’t know better, and it wasn’t a Yes but Andrew had seen-
Want. Desperate want, burning in Neil’s eyes, and the way his entire body was already swaying in Andrew’s direction.
Hopeful? No. Not that.
Resigned.
He saw the moment Neil gave up. Saw it and was glad for it because it got him what he wanted, and hated himself because he could see, he knew what it cost Neil.
“Yes,” he said for Neil because someone needed to say it, and finally, finally touched him and it was everything and Neil’s skin was warm and was sticky and the tears kept coming and Andrew pulled him down and leaned his forehead against Neil’s and they were breathing the same air, now, and he could not only see but feel as the tension shuddered out of Neil and- “Yes I am. I was. And I lied. And I made a mistake.”
The worst mistake of his life.
Neil closed his eyes, again. Maybe the sight of Andrew was unbearable.
“Don’t say that,” he said with a sigh, and tried to shake his head in Andrew’s hold but Andrew wouldn’t let him. Because he had said it, and he would again. “Don’t say that and take it away again.”
To know that once, Neil would have believed him. Would have trusted Andrew’s word.
“I won’t. I’m sorry.” He brushed his thumbs over the delicate skin below Neil’s eyes where it was almost purple. “I won’t.”
Neil stayed still only for another few moments, then pulled back. Back, not away, which made it marginally more easy to let him go. “What do you want, Andrew?”
The answer to that, at least, was simple. “You. Back.”
“You had me,” Neil choked out.
“I had the most precious thing,” Andrew corrected as gently as he could. "And I got scared and ruined it.”
“You said it was nothing,” Neil stammered around half a sob. “Andrew, I can’t- It was never nothing for me. I- If you tell me again, I don’t know if I can-”
Andrew made a soft noise to shush him, because he needed Neil to calm down enough to understand how serious he was, brushed more of Neil’s tears away so Neil could see.
There was no room for error, now. Here.
“I lied,” he said again, because he didn’t think Neil had caught the meaning, the first time, and because he needed to say it again and again and again until- This. This, exactly. This moment. The widening of Neil’s eyes. The realization. “It was everything,” Andrew continued, and Neil made a startled sound. “And I’ll spend however long it takes to fix it, if you’ll have me.”
It… didn’t quite do what he’d thought it would.
It did something, that was for sure.
It made Neil push his hands away, made him pull back, and for one short, horrible, terrifying moment, Andrew was convinced this was it. It wasn’t enough. He’d irrevocably fucked up the best thing that ever happened to him.
And then Neil fell against the wall in his back and slumped down to the ground into a position similar to the one Andrew had originally found him in, and he realized Neil was having a panic attack and that was something he could help with.
He did what he’d always done. He gripped the back of Neil’s neck and didn’t get pushed away. He pushed Neil’s head between his knees, and Neil followed where he directed him to.
He counted a steady beat of in and out and hold until Neil’s breaths stopped sounding so ragged, until they stopped whistling in and out of his lungs without actually doing what they were supposed to.
He listened when Neil started snapping and spitting and biting, finally angry now that he was at his most vulnerable. Accepted “Shut up” and “You hurt me” and “I hate you” and “You can’t fucking do that, don’t ever do that again” because all those things were true and Neil needed to say them and Andrew needed to hear them.
And he pressed his forehead to Neil’s temple in reply and said “I hate you too” and “I won’t” because he needed to say them and Neil needed to hear them, and Neil made a low, keening noise and slumped sideways, as if the wall in his back wasn’t enough to hold him up but Andrew was, and Andrew caught him and cupped the back of his head and tucked Neil’s face beneath his chin and wrapped his arms around his back and dug his hands into Neil’s shirt so he could pretend they weren’t shaking.
There were tears, dripping onto his neck, and they were his fault.
There were tears, already spilt, that he could never undo.
But there was everything, in his arms, and Andrew would not fuck it up a second time.
He knew it wasn’t forgiveness that had Neil in his arms again but defeat, resignation, because Neil wanted this just as much as Andrew did and was willing to go so far as to hurt himself over it.
Andrew would make sure he’d never have to.
There was a long road ahead of them.
He was glad to start.