Page 47 of Any Given Lifetime
Despite himself, and thinking of Dr. Green, Joshua wondered if he’d have to change his will yet again.
“So, look,” Joshua said, his voice quavering with the puff of condensed heat that left his mouth, “I think I’ve gone and lost my mind. And it’s safe to say it’s your fault. If you were still here, I’m sure you’d keep me grounded and all of this wouldn’t have happened. You’d laugh at me, and I’d accept that it was just a delusion.”
Joshua’s gut churned with the lie.
“Okay, so, maybe not. That’s the thing, Lee. This is the most real thing I’ve felt since you died. It doesn’t make sense, and I can’t tell anyone, but he’s my Neil. I know he is.” Joshua blew out a slow breath, tightness inside him making it hard to speak. “I think he knows he is, too.”
A blackbird cawed from a tree near the edge of the cemetery’s boundaries, and Joshua looked up to the sky, seeing the rapid brightening from the east.
“I talk to him by phone every day. It’s been three weeks now, and I can’t go twenty-four hours without calling him. I get the shakes if I don’t hear his voice—he sounds just like him. And ever since he’s softened toward me, I can tell our conversations scare him, too.”
Joshua remembered the day before, how his hands had trembled as he’d called Neil to ‘check in’ on the progress of the protocol development. Neil had already told him it would take a few weeks to design the specs so that everyone would be satisfied, and yet Joshua called daily with the excuse of making sure that things were going as planned.
“Yes, we’re still on track,” Neil had said as a greeting, his deep, gruff voice sounding annoyed and yet indulgent at the same time. “Yes, it’s all in the same place as yesterday. Yes, I will not rest until I have everyone’s signature. Yes, that’s a lie, because I slept four whole hours last night. Anything else, Mr. Stouder?”
Joshua had chuckled softly, his stomach wrestling itself in excitement and nerves, just like every time he spoke to Dr. Green. His brain had tripped around looking for another reason to keep Neil on the phone, though. And just when it had seemed like Neil would disconnect the line if he didn’t speak, Joshua asked desperately, “How’s your mother?”
There’d been a small hesitation before Neil had said, “Fine. Why the small talk, Mr. Stouder? If you have something to say, just say it. I don’t have time to pretend like you give a damn about my family.”
“I give a damn,” Joshua said, remembering Adair’s video of the woman with her face in her hands. “I know you’re an only child, and I’m keeping you busy. Just wondering if you’ve called your mother lately.”
There was a snort from Neil, and Joshua could imagine the eye roll that accompanied it. “I’m trying to get a project off the ground so that the asshole providing the big bucks for it will get off my back. I’ve been a little preoccupied. But, for the record, I spoke with her this morning, and she’s still alive and kicking, and for some strange reason happy that I am, too.”
Joshua barely refrained from admitting that he was happy about that, as well, and that talking to Neil, hearing his achingly familiar voice, so long gone and yet suddenly right there in Joshua’s ear again, made him believe impossible, ridiculous things.
“Now.” Neil had sighed. “I have things to do. If you could leave me alone for ten minutes, I might actually accomplish some of them.”
There was something in Neil’s tone, though, that made Joshua think that he didn’t really want Joshua to leave him alone, that he really wanted Joshua to find another reason to stay on the line, and Joshua sought frantically for one.
“Maybe I should come down and see what’s happening for myself,” Joshua had said. “After all, we’re talking about a lot of money.”
“No!” Neil had exclaimed, causing Joshua’s head to rock back in surprise, and his warning flags to rise. “We’ve got it covered. Your input will just…mess everything up. You wouldn’t even know what you’re looking at. Either you trust me or you don’t, Mr. Stouder. Make up your mind.”
The panic in Dr. Green’s voice had sewn through Joshua like a golden yanking thread, and he’d listened to the silence of the disconnected call for a few seconds before hopping into motion. Within minutes, he’d set up a schedule with the pilot to fly down to Atlanta the next day.
“So, here’s the deal: I’m going down there. In two hours, I’ll be on the plane,” Joshua told Lee’s gravestone. “It’s unreal, I know, but I have to see him again. I have to know, Lee.” Joshua hesitated, feeling like he was betraying Lee by saying it, but he needed to admit it all the same. “I’ve missed him so much, and I’ve wanted him every day since he died. If it’s him…if somehow this is real, and it’s really him, then I have to go be with him. I need him, Lee. I need him so much.”
Joshua stared in amazement down at where his feet mashed the grass at the edge of Lee’s grave and swallowed a lump in his throat. Crawling on his leather shoe, despite the onset of early winter, despite the frost and the morning cold, was a black-and-yellow bee. Joshua watched as it arched and thrust its stinger into the leather, delivering its message, before flying away to die alone. Joshua’s eyes filled with tears, and he bowed his head.
“Thank you,” Joshua whispered. “Thank you for understanding me.”
Neil poked atthe lines of code, messing with the commands again, trying to tweak the acceleration rate down a bit in order to lower the risk of damage to the cell membrane. He groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. He hadn’t slept, but at least he’d been able to bury himself in the work enough to put aside the nervous excitement of the prior day’s phone call with Joshua.
Neil didn’t know how much more his adrenal system could take—each day was a jolt of fear, joy, nerves, love, and anger. He didn’t even know how to sort through everything he felt when Joshua called, but he knew that he wished Joshua wouldn’t call, and he knew that he’d suffer beyond his ability to endure if Joshua didn’t.
The previous afternoon, during a fifteen-minute coffee break, he’d listened to Derek rattle on and on about a new poem that he was picking apart for another literature class, and he’d nodded at the right moments, keeping up the appearance of giving Derek any attention at all. He truly didn’t give a damn about how well words hung together, or what they might mean if twisted in different directions, and if various lenses of wishful thinking and subjective analysis were applied. But he liked Derek and wanted to keep him as a friend, so he put up with the nonsense.
“Neil,” Derek had said eventually, a hint of frustration in his voice. “Are you listening? I mean, I know you don’t care, but are you at least absorbing my words?”
Neil had nodded, but the truth was he’d been obsessing over Joshua’s threat to come check out the project in person. The thought of seeing Joshua again, shaking his hand, smelling his aftershave—it was too much. Neil couldn’t even consider it without feeling so full ofeverythingthat he wanted to yell, strip his clothes off, and race around the campus naked and wild with primal energy he couldn’t begin to contain. Joshua needed to stay away. Neil couldn’t live through seeing him again, not unless he could have him for real. And he wasn’t banking on that.
“Listen, Neil,” Derek had said, “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but it’s like you’re not even here. I don’t expect a lot from you, and I know we’re not dating, but I care about you, and—you know what I mean?”
Neil hadn’t been entirely sure, but he assumed that Neil meant he’d been a lousy friend lately. He’d gritted his teeth against the waves of stomach-tingling nausea that kept rushing through him every time he thought of Joshua’s phone call and focused on Derek. “I wasn’t listening. I’m sorry. It’s the project. I can’t stop thinking about it. But I’m listening now.” He’d gestured with his hand for Derek to go ahead.
It hadn’t even been a full minute before Neil had fallen into thoughts of Joshua again, and when he’d broken off to head back to his work at the lab, he’d noticed that Derek’s eyes looked a little hurt. He hadn’t apologized. He hadn’t even known what to say. Derek should find a real boyfriend; he deserved that. Neil could learn to live without having someone to fuck.
Tired and hungry, Neil put aside his work and checked to make sure his phone was working properly. Joshua hadn’t called yet, and it was getting late in the day. He’d usually phoned by now, completely destroying Neil’s productivity until he’d had time to calm down, which was why he’d taken to spending a lot of nights in the lab.
