Finding North (16 page)

“What the fuck?” I say, shoving him backwards. He falls to the floor.

“Hey.” Some other guy with tribal tats and bad fashion sense steps between us. He’s smaller than me, so I know I could take him if it came down to it.

I point to the cocksucker that I just knocked on his arse. “This fuckhead just groped me.”

“Yeah, because you went into a cubicle,” Tribal Tats says. “Of course he groped you.”

“Jesus Christ. A man can’t walk into a cubicle to piss? What kind of fucking stupid logic is that?” I demand, and by now the whole bathroom is looking at me.

“If you wanna piss, use the fucking trough,” my attacker says. “You walk into a cubicle, you’re looking to get fucked, sweet cheeks.”

“Bullshit. I came to pee; it wasn’t an invitation for you to put your skeezy hands on my cock and give it a good hard tug.” I shake my head and push past the throng of men.

“Oh, you’re one of those,” Tribal guy sneers at my back. “Grass is greener, right?”

On tremoring legs, I stalk from the bathroom. There’s a knot in the pit of my stomach, a tightness in my chest that I haven’t felt for a long time.

I can’t do this. I can’t be here. I don’t belong here.

Pushing through the throng of bodies, I step outside midway through a full-scale panic attack. I can’t breathe. I hunch over, placing my hands on my knees, gasping for air like I just ran a fucking marathon. A hand on my back snaps me to attention, and I turn and push the guy before I’ve had time to register. Will stands opposite me, his hands raised, palms forward as if I’m a wild fucking animal that he’s trying to appease.

“Hey, what the hell happened?”

“I can’t do that,” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t go back in there.”

“Okay, we don’t have to go back in there,” he says.

“Some arsehole grabbed me in the cubicle.”

Will’s eyes widen. “You went into a cubicle in Sinners? Jesus, what the fuck were you thinking?”

“That I needed to take a piss. How the hell was I supposed to know it was like handing out an open fucking invitation?”

“Shit. I’m sorry,” Will says, but he’s smirking.
None of this is funny
. “I probably should have warned you.”

“You think?” I run my hand through my hair several times. It’s a nervous tick, and it gets worse the more stressed I get. Will grabs my wrist, but I pull free as if on autopilot. “This was a bad idea.”

Will sighs. “Here we go.”

I narrow my eyes. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Here’s where you freak out and decide you don’t wanna play gay this week, and I’m left standing with my dick in my hands wondering where the hell that leaves me.”

“Jesus, Will. I’m not fucking like you,” I say through my teeth. “I can’t just turn this shit on because you take me to a gay bar. I’m not even fucking gay. I like pussy, a lot of pussy.”

“You also like taking my cock up your arse,” Will says, and I dare a glance at the bouncer who doesn’t pretend not to listen. He stares right at us. “Gay, straight, bi—it doesn’t fucking matter. What matters is that you quit trying to fit into someone else’s fucking standard of what normal is. You like pussy, and you like dick; if you wanna enjoy both at the same time, who gives a shit? No one fucking cares, North. You care. And that’s where this whole goddamned problem lies.”

Will’s furious. If his words didn’t tell me, the tight set of his shoulders and his livid gaze would have. Behind him, two guys wearing baggy jeans and baseball caps approach. The closest brushes his shoulder as he walks past and mutters “faggot” under his breath. His friend fake-coughs and says, “Poofter.”

Rage wells within me. They sling insults as if they were weapons, and the truth is they are. These arseholes are looking for a fight. I step back, resisting the urge to beat their heads in, but it seems like Will’s more than happy to give it to them. He takes several long strides in their direction.

“Get your little homophobe arse back here and I’ll show you who’s the faggot.” Will launches himself at the first guy. He lays into him, throwing several punches in quick succession, and I have no hope but to throw myself into the fray because he’s copping shit from both of them.

I fist the guy’s camo hoodie in my hands and pull him off of Will. Punch after punch, I lay into his gut. He swings and gets a clean hit to my ribcage, but he drops his guard and my fist meets his face. He stumbles back towards the curb. It’s clear he’s attempting to shake off the dizziness that I’ve caused him; his pupils are dilated, and he sways where he stands.

I glance at Will. He’s on the ground, straddling the other guy’s waist. He cocks his arm back and connects with the arsehole’s face. I’m smacked in the side of the head, and I reel back, my ear ringing as I stumble across the footpath and into the club bouncer, who shoves me off. He’s on the phone—probably to the cops—and he wails on me too for disturbing his precious rainbow rope.

I stagger away from the bouncer and Camo Hoodie charges for me. Feinting to the side, I grab him around the waist, putting him on his arse and kicking him in the gut several times until he goes limp. Will staggers to his feet.

These arseholes are at least ten years younger than us, and we both look pretty fucking ragged. I rest my hands on my knees and catch my breath. Huffing, I glance up at Will, who smiles like a fucking maniac with blood pouring out of the side of his mouth. There’s a cut above my eye. Blood trickles over my lashes and down my face.

“I am too fucking old for this shit.” I pant. Will gives an exhausted nod, and then the sound of sirens catches up to us. Another bouncer exits the club, and Will shouts, “Run.”

Adrenaline courses through my veins. I run with Will close behind me. We bolt through a side alley and down several more streets. I run until the air burns my lungs and we’re at a dead-end laneway with dumpsters behind an Indian restaurant.

“Holy fucking shit.” I gasp. “What the hell … was that?”

Will bends over, catching his breath. “I … really … don’t like … being called a poofter.”

I lean my forearm against the dirty brick and breathe for what feels like a full minute, until my chest is no longer burning. “How did you get that guy on the ground so quickly?”

“You’ve been to my pub, right?” he asks. He has a point. For the most part, ours is a community of harmless blue-collar people enjoying a beer after work, but sometimes a visit to the Reef is better than turning on an episode of
WWE
.

Now that the adrenaline is ebbing, pain spikes in my knuckles, side and face. Will limps over and leans his back against the wall. He has a contusion on his forehead, and his jaw is swelling. He took a pretty bad beating before I got Camo Hoodie off of him, which was stupid and reckless.

“You’re fucking crazy,” I say. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

He snaps his head up to look at me. “I don’t know, that I didn’t like being called a poofter. That I should be allowed to argue with my boyfriend outside a gay pub without being ridiculed by a couple of hetero, dipshit thugs.”

“That’s all it comes down to for you, isn’t it? Who fits into your little gay or straight boxes?”

“What?” His head jerks back like I just slapped him. “That’s bullshit and you know it. Those arseholes needed to be taught a lesson.”

“It was fucking stupid, Will. What if they’d had a knife?” I slam the side of my fist against the dumpster. “You should have let it go.”

“Are you shitting me right now? One night, North, you’ve had just one night to understand what it feels like to be ridiculed for what you are, so don’t you fucking dare tell me to censor myself because it makes shit easier for you,” he says poking a busted-arse finger in my face. “I’d take on a hundred guys like that to fight for my right to walk down the street holding your hand. So don’t you ever tell me to keep my mouth shut when some douche starts gay-bashing my boyfriend.”

I feel myself flinch at that word, and it doesn’t go unnoticed. I didn’t mean to—it just shocked me is all. “You know what? I’m too fucking old for this shit. I’m going back to the car. If you want a ride back tonight you should come with me, otherwise I’ll see you around.”

Will shakes his head and spits on the ground. “You go on ahead. I think I might stay at Josh’s tonight.”

“No.”

“No?” he asks.

“You fucking heard me, Will,” I say, stalking back across the alley towards him. “You’re not staying with Josh.”

“Fuck you.”

“You know what?” I throw my hands up in the air. “Stay with Josh. Fuck him until your heart’s content, if that’s what you want. But if you don’t get in that truck with me, we’re done.”

Will scoffs. “Oh really?”

“Yeah, really.” I meet his gaze evenly. I might let him get away with a lot of things, but not this. I’m already in too deep, and I don’t know where the fuck we go from here. We got problems upon problems, and years worth of heartache and misery to work through, but I know if he crosses that line, if he doesn’t come home to Red Maine with me tonight, then this ends before it even begins.

The drive home is a quiet one, and when I pull into the lane at the back of the pub, Will smiles gingerly at me. “You wanna come up for another drink?”

“I should get home. I have work in the morning.”

“Twenty minutes?”

“Which will turn to forty and then an hour.”

“Yeah okay,” he says, and the sadness in his eyes tells me he doesn’t want to be alone. I don’t want to either. “I’ll just see you—”

“Shut up,” I say, and unbuckle my seatbelt. I open my door before he can tell me not to. We both ease out of the car like a pair of little old ladies and enter the pub through the back door. Neither of us say a word as we walk up the stairs to his apartment.

Once the door is closed behind us, I take his face in my hands and inspect the cut lip. It stopped bleeding a while ago, but he still looks like shit. I probably do, too. I certainly feel it.

“We’re a fucking mess,” I say, referring to much more than just our busted up faces.

“Did you expect anything else?” Will places his hand over mine and squeezes, and even that hurts like hell on account of my skinned knuckles.

“No, I guess not.”

“Come on, let’s get cleaned up,” he says, leading me to the bathroom. I grab a face washer from the rack above the sink and rinse it, dabbing at my eye. I removed the crusted blood, but the water trailing down my face turns red as the cut opens up again. I hold the washer in place and stare at Will in the mirror as he runs the shower and strips. He’s covered in bumps and bruises, but there’s a blue-black mark covering the expanse of his side from ribcage to waist.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, that fucker got me good. Before I knocked him out cold, that is.”

I stare at his leanly muscled body. Will’s tattoos make him a work of art, but to me he was always that—at least, from the time I was old enough to know better than to be caught looking. I spend almost every night pushing inside him, taking him on the bed, the kitchen bench, the fucking hardwood floor, and I still don’t feel like my hands are familiar enough with his body or that my eyes could ever grow tired of him.

Will steps into the shower, leaving the glass door open, an invitation. I remove my clothes. No matter what, no matter how crazy he makes me, no matter how much I might try and hide the truth, I’ve never been more attracted to another human being, male or female, the way I’m drawn to him.

“Hurry up and get in here, jackarse. You’re letting all the cold air in,” he says, running his face under the water. I step into the tiny cubicle and shut the door behind me. There’s barely enough room for one person, so we’re wedged together as closely as we can be.

Will wraps his arms around me, and I sigh and lean my forehead against his. He kisses me. I’m a lot gentler with his bruised lip this time. I run my finger over a small cut on his cheek. He winces. For a long time, we stand in the warmth, breathing one another’s breath. The fear, a blackness that roils constantly in my belly, threatens to overcome me and all I want to do is sink to my knees and sob. Instead, I fall into Will, and I find it’s a pretty soft place to land.