Nights Without Night (Fox Lake Book 2) Read online

  “He reminds me of you,” he says and laughs when I punch him in the chest.

  “Jesus, are you made of rocks?” I whine, clutching my hand.

  “Drama queen.”

  “Just you wait. Imma get you one of these days. Just. You. Wait.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “Imma ninja-skills your ass.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “God, you are so-” I go to stab him with the spatula I’m holding, but his hand catches my wrist before I can even blink. I ignore the heat trembling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Say what now?” he smirks.

  “Urgh. You are disgusting, get off,” I say, pulling my wrist from him. He lets me go.

  “If I were a dog, I’d be, like…a cross between a golden retriever and a husky,” I say, turning back to the pan.

  “That…kind of suits you, actually.”

  “And you’d be a terrier.”

  “What the fuck.”

  “Kidding,” I laugh. “You’d be like…a boxer. All chest.”

  “I’ll take that. Also, should I worry about your obsession with my chest?” he asks. I’m glad my back is turned to him.

  “Yep. That’s what I have to go through to get to your heart.”

  “Aaaaw!” he coos.

  “To rip it out, asshole.”

  “You want to rip out my asshole?”

  “Oh my God. I’m going to kill you.”

  “You are very violent today.”

  “You inspire me,” I say, turning my head to stick my tongue out at him. He smiles wide and I feel weightless.

  We eat in front of the TV. I put a movie on, trying to catch Isadoro up on what he’s missed. I don’t know if it’s necessary, but I avoid anything with explosions and gore. He wouldn’t tell me if it bothered him anyway.

  After we do the dishes, I settle by the coffee table to do some homework, my back to the couch. The night is cold outside but here, it is warm and safe. The TV is on low, and I can feel Isadoro behind me, quiet and relaxed. The scene is so normal, I suddenly imagine myself doing this alone like I’ve done a million times before while he was half a world away. The fragility of this moment hits me unexpectedly, like it’ll crack under the slightest pressure. Fear, sadness, relief—it makes me dizzy, suddenly, and I take Isadoro’s hand in mine, trying to calm myself. I keep my face turned away until he squeezes my hand. I look then, and his lips are tilted in a smile. Small, but genuine. I breathe. I press against his legs for a moment and just feel his presence.

  Here, with me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We build a routine.

  I go to college while he works out, or goes to the shelter, or simply stays home. I have a lot of homework, but we cook together often, and his presence is conducive to concentration. He goes to work with me on the weekends, him at the door and me behind the bar. Despite my fears, nothing bad happens. He usually goes straight home after any outing, but he socializes with me sometimes. What he never does is date.

  Isadoro had been a labelled lady-killer when we were younger. When he got his first kiss when we were twelve from the coolest girl in the class, he’d rushed to tell me about it. I remember listening raptly, grossed out and fascinated by the mere mechanics of it. Isadoro’s good looks had always been obvious, but I’d had to grow into my body and face. I’d been all elbows and ears and would have been at the bottom of the food chain if it weren’t for Isadoro. As it was, I had my first kiss during a game of spin-the-bottle when I was fifteen. It had landed on a boy named Brandon, and he’d blushed when he kissed me. So had I.

  The party had been near La Portera, and Isadoro and I had walked back in the balmy summer air. We had sneaked into my room, giggling and trying to pretend we weren’t buzzed. Isadoro slept over so often that the camp bed in my room was almost permanently unfolded and I’d thrown myself on my bed, looking giddily up at the ceiling as he sat on his.

  “Spin-the-bottle kisses don’t count as first kisses, you know,” Isadoro had said suddenly, cutting through my high. I’d turned my head to glare at him.

  “Says who?”

  “Says everyone,” he said.

  I’d rolled my eyes but couldn’t help the flare of annoyance.

  “Don’t worry, I can give you your first kiss, ‘cause I’m such a good friend,” he’d offered haughtily.

  “Keep it,” I’d snorted, even though my heart had started racing.

  “You’d let Brandon kiss you, but not me?” Isadoro’s voice said. I blinked at the ceiling. I suddenly felt the alcohol, the room spinning. Or was that just the blood in my veins? I closed my eyes. I could hear the summer bugs sing outside, and then the sound of the camp bed creak as he got up. I felt the dip of my bed and then him, over me, straddling me without touching me, just the warmth of his legs at my sides.

  I’d opened my eyes slowly. His face had tried to be mischievous, but his eyes were serious. There wasn’t a single thought in my head. Everything was rushing through me. I couldn’t speak, my mouth dry, and when I licked my lips his eyes followed the movement. I had never felt anything like the jolt that went through me then.

  As if it were happening to someone else, I watched him lean down toward me and then—a press of lips. The world became a trembling series of new experiences. The feel of his lips, dry and wet at once. The foreign feeling of them moving against me, and me trying to move against them. The brush of his breath. The moment when he settled on my stomach.

  Isadoro had been right. The spin-the-bottle kiss couldn’t compare.

  My hand, magnetized by the press of our bodies, was somehow guided to the back of Isadoro’s neck. At the moment of contact, a small noise escaped Isadoro and suddenly, his tongue was in my mouth. It was wet and uncoordinated, and even then I hadn’t been sure it was just my inexperience at play.

  He had pulled back to let us breathe, and I had felt the warmth of his panting against my mouth. I couldn’t open my eyes. When he leaned down again, the kiss had been better. Smoother. I’d disappeared into it until I felt myself get hard, out of control in the way your body is not yet all yours when you’re fifteen.

  Suddenly, it had been too much. I’d pushed him away. Isadoro had looked at me with startled, dark eyes, and rolled off me, chest heaving. I’d sat back and raised my knees, a barrier between us. We’d listened to each other breathe heavily until he cleared his throat. I’d peeked at him through my fringe.

  “There. Now you’ve had your first kiss,” he’d said. I hadn’t pointed out the waver in his voice.

  We had gotten ready for bed in the darkness. I could feel his presence as I lay down in the quiet and the summer heat.

  That hadn’t been the beginning of my feelings for him, but it had been the final nail in the coffin.

  In the morning, it was as if nothing had happened. Isadoro had continued his conquering ways, but never with another boy. I came out as gay a year later. No one had been much surprised.

  It isn’t that Isadoro’s current lack of partners is unusual for his situation, despite his teenage history. It’s just that casual hook-ups had been common during leave, and so their current absence is noticeable. Now, though, he’s not back for leave—he’s back for good, and maybe that changes things. A selfish, jealous part of me is glad, the one that wants to keep him for myself. Sometimes, it feels like I have too little of him. That I’d take anything he’s willing to give.

  But, as they say—be careful what you wish for.

  **********

  The bar we’re at isn’t too loud, and I manage to talk to Dexter, a friend of Ezra’s he just introduced, without trouble. A girl is flirting with Isadoro beside me, and I manage to mostly ignore it. The sight of her hand brushing his bicep, the clear sound of her laugh, the way his head is tilted toward her, smile crooked and striking; it’s all familiar territory. Despite the noticeable lack of dating in his life, that status couldn't last forever.

  It isn’t until I see them disappear toward the toilets, hands clasped toge
ther to navigate the crowd, that I feel the first real twinge. I ignore that too, like I’ve done so many other things, such as the seared memory of the time I had walked into my apartment to find Isadoro fucking someone over my couch. She hadn’t seen me, head tilted down, but Isadoro had. He’d kept thrusting, eyes locked on mine. Without my will, I had catalogued everything: the grip of his hands, the curve of his biceps, the flush on his face, the wildness in his eyes. When I’d snapped out of it, anger cauterized the arousal. I’d stepped out again, hands shaking, and hadn’t gone back until the early morning.

  He’d been up. I’d shut the door carefully behind me and just stood there for a moment, looking at him.

  “Sorry, man, I-”

  “Don’t do that again,” I’d cut in. He’d opened his mouth, but it had stayed empty of sound until it closed again. He’d shut his eyes, head shaking.

  “Alright. Sorry.”

  It had been a strange incident I couldn’t figure out.

  As I talk to Dexter, I expect Isadoro to be gone for a while, but it’s only a couple of minutes before he’s back out again, the girl disappearing to the other end of the bar. He looks shaken. There’s a crack in his façade and the dim light shining through is sickly. It casts the same shadows I saw in his eyes that terrified night I found him on the couch. My heart immediately starts pounding.

  “What-” I try to ask as he reaches us, but he cuts me off.

  “Nothing. I’m gonna get a drink,” he says, moving off even though there’s a bartender near us. I watch him, concern heightening. I turn back to Dexter.

  “Imma-” I point toward Isadoro. Dexter nods, and I turn to follow Isadoro’s retreating back. He barely glances at me when I reach him.

  “Let’s go home,” I say, unable to put it less bluntly. His broad shoulders hunch into themselves.

  “I don’t want to fucking talk about it,” he says, and the swearword startles me. I shake it off.

  “We don’t have to. We won’t. Let’s just go, yeah?” I press. For a moment, Isadoro is a statue of himself, before he simply turns around, walking out of the bar. After a moment of surprise, I follow.

  The walk home is silent. Even when he was away, I’ve never felt this distance between us. Anxiety crawls through my gut, its sharp nails piercing organs as it goes. His stride is wide and fast, and I struggle to keep up, but I’m too scared to tell him to slow down.

  I’ve never feared telling Isadoro something before. Not like this.

  The silence condenses as we get home. In the moment before we turn the lights on, the darkness of the apartment is stifling.

  “Isa…” I attempt as he rips off his coat.

  “Don’t,” he says quietly, with force. My teeth click as my mouth shuts.

  A moment later, he’s disappeared into his room, the door shut firmly behind him. I stand in the living room for a long time, feeling empty.

  Helpless.

  **********

  Isadoro is even quieter after that day. He rarely leaves his room, even in the evenings when I do my homework in the living room. I debate whether to intrude upon his privacy, but finally cave and call the dog shelter. They tell me they haven’t seen Isadoro in two weeks.

  Almost three weeks after the incident, I come home to find him on the couch. At first, I’m relieved, until I see him staring blankly at the screen, where the news is playing. Syria, Afghanistan, T***p. It’s not good.

  “Hey,” I say softly.

  “Hey,” he replies, but his eyes don’t shift from the screen. I move toward the couch, but his voice interrupts me.

  “I need a drink,” he says. The blank tone unsettles me as much as the words. I know all about the rate of addiction in veterans.

  “Isa…”

  “Don’t. You don’t have to…Fuck. Just…just this once, alright?” he says, running a hand against his cropped hair. I dither for a moment before thinking, fuck it.

  I get the cheap vodka from the cupboard. There’s nothing in the fridge to mix it with, and it’s nasty as hell, but we’re not exactly making cocktails here. By the time I return to the living room, the TV is dark and silent.

  “Let’s play a drinking game,” I suggest, trying to pretend we’re not planning to get drunk at six in the evening to the tune of the hopeless depression the news can inspire these days. Isadoro snorts.

  “Sure.”

  We move the coffee table and sit on the floor next to it, pillows on the ground. We start with Speedfacts, having to say facts about each other and drinking if we stumble, but we know each other so well we barely take a sip.

  I am dizzily relieved at that. Not just because it slows the drunk train down, but because it assuages one of my deepest fears: that we don’t really know each other anymore. Eight years is such a long time, especially when both of us, Isadoro especially, have gone through experiences which feel like they have changed us radically. But our foundations have remained the same. We have kept in touch throughout the whole of his deployment, been glued at the hip at every leave.

  It hadn’t felt like enough. For so long, I’ve felt like Isadoro was slipping away. I struggled against it, but it seemed like a battle I wasn’t trained to win, not when life itself was my opponent. But now, here, laughing and heckling each other, it feels like I have him in my hands. Like he’s present.

  We play a few rounds of Snap or, as the kids at college call it, Snapshot, before moving on to Two Truths One Lie.

  “You start,” I say to him, half-shots already poured for whoever loses.

  “Okay, let’s see…One, I stole money from Grandad-”

  “Lie,” I say immediately.

  “I haven’t even finished!”

  “Liiieee!”

  “Everybody steals a little money from their-”

  “Not you. Lie! Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie,” I shout, banging my hands on the table at each reiteration. Isadoro rolls his eyes but takes the shot. I grin at him.

  “Okay, my turn. Let’s see…I’ve never had sex with a vagina.”

  “That was a weird way of phrasing it.”

  “I was trying to be politically correct.”

  “You failed.”

  “Two, I’ve done drag.”

  “Believe it.”

  “And three, once a customer left me a $500 tip.”

  “The last one is the lie. That doesn’t happen in real life,” Isadoro chooses.

  “You’re so right,” I sigh, downing the shot.

  “When did you do drag?”

  “Ages ago, really. It was a birthday party, but I got called on stage and it was so fun. I did it a couple more times. I was pretty good at the makeup and stuff, but that shit is hard,” I say, remembering the frustration of having to ruin one eye because you can’t be bothered to fix the other. “Your turn.”

  “Hmm…Okay, once a girl called me Daddy in bed and I was sort of into it,” Isadoro admits. I gape for a moment before bursting into laughter.

  “What! Wait, why didn’t I know about this?”

  “Maybe it’s a lie.”

  “It’s not a lie. Why didn’t I know about this?”

  “It was during the leave you were caught up with your boy Rubio.”

  “Okay, first of all, his name was Claudio and you know that. Second of all, I saw him like three times during your month-long leave!” I protest.

  “Whatever. Two, I once went three weeks without bathing. And three…in training, a prank resulted in me having to stand to attention without any pants or underwear on,” he says.

  “Number two, you already told me about number three. Losing your memory already, grandpa?” I tease.

  “We’re the same age.”

  “You’re like three months older. You’re old. Drink up, loser,” I say. He laughs and drinks. “Let’s see, let’s see, let’s see,” I say, thinking. “Okay, one, I lied to you about the runway I did two years ago for that friend. It wasn’t suits. It was male lingerie,” I say. I’d been so nervous at the start, but it had been an i
ncredible power trip. For some reason, however, when I told Isadoro it came out as a lie.

  Isadoro stills, looking at me, his mouth opening and nothing coming out. I smirk.

  “Two-”

  “Wait, are there pictures?”

  “Two! My parent’s computer didn’t just break. I downloaded some porn and it got a virus, and I got so scared I’d be found out that I smashed it.”

  “Total lie, you would have told me. Now, about those pictures-”

  “And three, I used to have a crush on Mr. Tiller.”

  “Wait, what? When we were thirteen?”

  “Yep,” I say. He pauses.

  “That guy was a complete sleaze-ball,” Isadoro says, narrowing his eyes. I gape at him.

  “Are you demented? You used to love him!”

  “Sleaze-ball. And the lie is number two. Drink.”

  “Oh my God,” I say, putting one hand on his face and taking my shot with the other. “Silence be gone!” I gasp as the vodka burns through me.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Isadoro laughs.

  “I meant to say ‘silence’ and ‘demon be gone’ at the same time. Shut it, I’m perfect. It’s your turn,” I say. He looks at me quietly for a moment, an odd little smile on his face.

  “I was the one who told Jamie Lanson to back off,” Isadoro says.

  “What the fuck.”

  “He was bad news, Iván.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “He was bad news,” he repeats. I gape at him. I’d had a crush on Jamie Lanson when I was sixteen and Jamie was nineteen and amazingly enough, he’d seemed interested too. Until he wasn’t. His attention had cut off abruptly and I’d been devastated. Back then, I would have been furious if I’d known that was Isadoro’s doing. In retrospect, however…yeah. Jamie Lanson had been bad news.

  “You are so overbearing, did you know that?”

  “Yep,” Isadoro replies, popping the P obnoxiously.

  “Urgh, go away. What’s your next one then?”

  “I’ve jerked off in your bed.”