Page 84 of We Could Be So Good
Afterward, Nick’s arms are around him, his face in Andy’s hair, and only then does Andy realize that Nick is unusually silent. When he turns his head, he sees a muscle tensing in Nick’s jaw.
“Are you all right?” Andy asks.
“Jesus Christ, yes.”
“I don’t mean your dick, Nicholas. I mean your brain.”
Nick snorts at this. “I’m good.” And he kisses Andy long enough that he forgets he had anything to worry about.
***
Andy wakes to an empty bed and a quiet apartment. He doesn’t hear the shower running or the percolator bubbling. He doesn’t hear off-key humming or the sizzle of eggs in a pan.
When he gets out of the shower, there’s still no sign of Nick. He probably went out to get the paper and some bagels, like he does most Sunday mornings. But usually he waits until Andy’s awake. Usually he asks if Andy wants to come, because he knows that Andy’s a giant baby about being alone, but he’s too kind to mention it and instead lets Andy tag along on all his errands like a well-behaved dog.
Andy is reminding himself that nobody gets mugged or beaten at tena.m.on a Sunday when he hears the door open. And, sure enough, Nick comes in with a bag of bagels, a couple of Sunday papers, and a stricken expression.
“I thought you’d still be asleep.”
“I just woke up,” Andy says, which is an obvious lie because he’s standing there in a towel, dripping wet.
“I thought about waking you, but you looked...” He breaks off, his face doing something complicated.
“No, it’s good. I needed the sleep.”
Nick stares for a minute, clutching the bagels and papers to his chest like a life preserver. “I’ll.” He clears his throat. “Coffee.” He disappears into the kitchen.
Nick is weird sometimes. That’s all. Today he’s just weirder than usual. Andy gets dressed and when he goes back to the kitchen, there’s coffee and a bagel waiting for him next to theTimesSunday supplement and a freshly sharpened pencil.
He’s on his second cup of coffee, halfway through his bagel, reading an article about yet another atrocity Robert Moses wants to commit in Lower Manhattan, when he realizes Nick hasn’t said a word the whole time. He isn’t even looking at the newspaper open in front of him.
“Okay, out with it,” Andy says, folding up his paper and tossing it aside. “What’s eating you?”
Nick makes a noise, a single syllable of confusion. “Nothing?”
“Oh my God, stop. Don’t lie to me. Do you need me to get out of here for a few hours? I could visit my dad.”
“Why would you think that?” Nick looks like he’s been slapped.
“Because—you’re not acting like you want me here!” Andy knows he isn’t being fair. Nick’s unusually silent for one meal and Andy’s jumping to conclusions. He’s not being fair at all.
The truth is that after last night, Andy feels like his body has been rearranged in some subtle way and that now it belongs to Nick; it’s a stupid thought but he’s having it anyway. He’s worried that what they did somehow ruined things, and that this is why Nick can’t look at him normally, as if everything they were to one another hinged on a secret No Sodomy clause that neither of them knew about. He’s just filled with dumb ideas this morning, but they’re the only ideas he has, so he’s keeping them.
“I always want you here!” Nick’s on his feet now. He steps around the table and kneels in front of Andy. “That’s the problem.”
“Care to explain that?”
“Not really.”
Andy sighs. Operating on the idea that if a man’s kneeling at your feet, he probably isn’t cross with you, Andy touches Nick’s cheek. Nick presses into the touch. “Try anyway.”
“I should have tried to get you and Emily back together.”
Andy is too stunned to come up with anything more incisive than “What?”
“That would have been best for everyone, right? You loved one another and you could have made it work again. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about being found out.”
He strokes a thumb over Nick’s perfect cheekbone. “I’m not worried about that.”
