Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One

It happens on a Tuesday. 

Damen is half-asleep on Nikandros’ couch, sprawled over the mess of decorative pillows, wondering if he should order pizza for dinner. It’s his first cheat day of the month, and he deserves the indulgence only carbs can give him. He’s been on Tinder for twenty minutes, swiping left consistently. There are no real complaints he can think of, just the low and petty hum of jumbled critiques: too thin, too tall, too many pictures with the Eiffel Tower in the background, too wrong. 

And then Damen’s thumb freezes, his whole hand going rigid.

He knows that picture, has stared at it a hundred times in a hundred different places—at Kastor’s house, at the gym, at work. He knows that t-shirt because he was the one who bought it, an early Christmas present two years ago. Those black jeans cost six hundred euros, and Damen knows this because he had to listen to Laurent rant about it for three weeks last spring.

Laurent, 26, the profile reads. 6 kilometers away.

Damen sits up straighter on the couch. The inner walls of his throat feel dry, sand-papery. He reaches out for the beer on the coffee table before realizing halfway through that the can is empty. 

His screen goes dark, and Damen panics. He taps it what feels like a hundred times before it lights up again, picture-Laurent staring back at him with the faintest of smiles on his face.

The bio is short, flirty enough to contrast with the sober pictures, and it doesn’t sound like Laurent at all, which brings Damen so much relief he can barely breathe through it. Looking for some fun, hit me up xo is not something Laurent would write. Ever.

Ancel, then.

Damen’s thumb thaws and moves on its own, swiping right. It takes his brain an embarrassingly long time to realize why that was a terrible idea. 

A small part of him—the ones Laurent liked to laugh at—tells Damen that it’ll only be a few seconds before they match. It’s a matter of common courtesy, a nod to familiarity. Exes always reconnect through dating apps.

But the seconds turn into minutes, and soon those turn into half an hour, and then Damen is still staring at his home screen, waiting for the It’s a match! sign to pop up. 

He locks his phone and gets up to grab another beer from the fridge. He takes his time in the kitchen, counting tiles and dirty dishes, which he should have done by now. Nikandros is very fastidious about cleaning, a quality that had come in handy when they shared an apartment in college and has now turned Nikandros slightly sour. Damen likes his socks where he can see them, and that sometimes means a mess. Nikandros, the perfect embodiment of an architect, wants everything to look spotless and unused. Dirty dishes in the sink and socks over the arm of the couch are not, according to Nikandros, signs of a well-adjusted adult.

Laurent would agree.

When he can’t stand it anymore, Damen gulps down half of his beer and strides back into Nikandros’ living room, picks up his phone, unlocks it, and—

There is no match.

*

“He doesn’t know I’m calling,” is the first thing Nicaise says. He doesn’t sound hesitant or shy. He sounds perfectly normal. Like calling Damen at the office is part of his daily routine. Like this isn’t the first time they’ve talked in months. “I passed my driving test.”

Despite everything, pride blooms inside Damen’s chest. He tried to teach Nicaise how to drive almost a year ago and, when that did not work, paid for the first ten driving lessons. When Damen left, Nicaise had been about to reach lesson number eight. He still hadn’t known how to parallel park.

Damen says, “That’s—”

“There’s going to be a surprise party. At Berenger’s.”

“It doesn’t sound like it’s a surprise.” Damen shifts in his chair, the new leather squeaking under him in protest. “I don’t think—”

But Nicaise, of course, cuts him off. “It’s on Friday and it starts at seven,” he says, voice sharp and cold and too much like Laurent’s. “Bring me a present.”

“A present?” 

“A present.” The line goes quiet for a moment. Then Nicaise adds, “It’s the least I deserve, after putting up with you all these years.”

There are too many things Damen wants to say to that. He wants to reassure Nicaise that he does deserve a present, that he deserves, in fact, all the presents. He wants to tell Nicaise that he won’t be able to make it to the party, that he’s too busy, that it’s inappropriate, that he and Laurent didn’t match on Tinder three nights ago.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Damen says, closing his eyes and leaning back into his chair. He won’t go—he’s not that much of a masochist, no matter what Nikandros tells him—but he’ll make sure Nicaise gets his present. An Uber, maybe? “Do you want anything in particular? You can use the credit card extension I—”

“I don’t have it anymore,” Nicaise says. Did he cut the plastic card into pieces? Did he lose it? Damen does not dare ask him. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

“Okay,” Damen says. There’s an awkward pause that lasts far too long. Still, Damen doesn’t want to be the one who ends the call. He never wants to be the one who turns Nicaise away. “How are things? At home. With…”

“Horrible.” And then, just when Damen is opening his mouth to ask him if he truly means that, Nicaise says, “We’re fine. It’s—fine.”

Damen hears two loud knocks and startles, looking up from his papers only to see that there’s no one at the door. The line goes very quiet again, and Damen knows this time Nicaise is pressing his phone against his chest to silence the mic. 

“I have to go,” Nicaise says. “Don’t tell him I called.”

“You know we don’t—” Talk, Damen is about to say, but the sighing sound of the call being disconnected shuts him up. 

Damen puts his phone face down on his desk and, suppressing the irrational urge to do something stupid, turns his attention back to the case in front of him. 

It’s a messy divorce, two young kids caught in the middle. 

He tries—and fails—not to draw any parallels. Nicaise isn’t a kid, not anymore, and Laurent has always been a firm believer that marriage is the ultimate bourgeois trap and, as such, should be avoided at all costs. Between them, there aren’t half a dozen properties to be divided, assets to fight over. There’s only an almost finished house, big enough to host a family of five, and it’s all Damen’s. If they’d gotten a divorce, Damen would have come out of it unscathed. They didn’t even have a joint account.

A knock on the door. For a split second, Damen forgets he’s not on the phone with Nicaise anymore.

Pallas is there, a steaming cup of coffee in his right hand and a folder full of papers in the other. 

“Kastor sent me to let you know he’s having a last-minute meeting with Makedon. Something about the Garnier case?”

Damen nods. He gets up and purposefully leaves his phone at the desk, telling himself it’s for the best. Eyes on Pallas’ cup, he says, “Is that for me?”

“Black, no sugar.” Pallas hands him the cup. He pauses, hesitant, as he watches Damen take a sip. “I forgot something, didn’t I?”

“No,” Damen lies. “It’s good. Thank you.”

Before, Damen used to take his coffee like this—no sugar, no cream, no artificial sweeteners—and he liked it well enough. Four years of drinking sickly sweet coffee with Laurent shouldn’t have changed Damen’s taste buds. He can still enjoy this, maybe even more than the sugary concoction Laurent and Nicaise used to force down his throat every morning for breakfast. 

To prove his point, Damen downs the whole cup in three gulps, burning his tongue in the process. He throws the empty cup in the trash as he makes his way to Kastor’s office, barely repressing the urge to pat himself on the back. 

Progress.

*

The meeting lasts two hours and forty-six minutes. By the time Makedon is done explaining to Kastor why it’d be unwise of them to take on Garnier as a client, Damen’s head feels like it’s about to explode. He powers through it, straight-spined and blank-faced, and doesn’t complain when Kastor spends another hour arguing that the firm can and should take risks, and what’s riskier than the Garnier case?

Damen glances at his wristwatch just when Makedon starts talking about the difference between taking risks and sinking into a swamp of shit. It’s seven-thirty, which means Damen has been at the office for exactly ten hours.

“I have to go,” Damen says, cutting through Makedon’s second monologue of the day. He feels rather than sees Kastor’s eyes on him. “But I think Makedon’s right about this. We should let Torveld handle this case.”

Makedon lets out a happy sigh. “This,” he says, waving his hand in Damen’s direction, “is why you’re my favorite nephew.”

Kastor doesn’t look offended. Yoga seems to be working fine for him these days. “It’s early. Where are you going?”

Damen gets up from the Swedish-style office chair he’s been lounging on for the past four hours and stretches, grimacing when he hears a loud pop coming from his lower back. As he tugs on his tie, he ponders on what the appropriate response to Kastor’s passive-aggressive comment should be. 

I got here at nine is redundant. Kastor already knows this anyway; he was there when Damen arrived. I’m going home would be a lie. I need to buy Nicaise a present is definitely not acceptable either.

“I have a headache,” Damen settles for saying. His temples throb as if eager to confirm his statement. “We can discuss this again in the morning, but you already know what I think.”

Kastor’s gaze is still accusatory as Damen makes his way into the hall, but it’s been such a long day Damen can’t bring himself to care. At last, freedom.

*

The sweatshirt is a bubble-gum pink color, its cuffs a silver mess of sequins. It’s expensive enough to make Damen frown, which doesn’t happen very often. Usually, when he’s shopping for clothes he barely glances at the tags—a nasty habit he picked up from Hypermenestra—but even when he does look, prices never surprise him. This time he pauses, staring at the red BUY NOW button for what feels like an hour. 

He remembers the argument they had over this sweatshirt because it was one of the last ones. It’s too much, Damen had said, standing in the kitchen where he was sure Nicaise could not hear him. Laurent had put the dirty dishes in the sink, turned to him, and said something vicious. Damen doesn’t remember Laurent’s exact words, but he remembers how they made him feel like a punching bag.

Laurent’s words often made him feel like that. 

In the end, Damen had won that battle. The pink sweatshirt became something Nicaise stopped asking about, something Laurent did not mention. Damen bought Nicaise the latest iPhone, gave him an extension to his credit card, and that had settled the matter. For a while, at least.

Damen buys the sweatshirt, pays the extra money it costs to have it delivered within the next twenty-four hours, and then hides his phone under one of the sofa cushions. 

He tries to imagine what Laurent’s face will look like when Nicaise takes the sweatshirt out of the gift bag. It shouldn’t matter to him, and it doesn’t—most of the time anyway—because this is Nicaise’s gift. Damen is buying this for Nicaise. Damen is buying this because he doesn’t care that it’s pink, that it’s girly, that it’s too much. Damen is buying this because he knows it’s what Nicaise wants. 

It’s a nice gift. It’s also a fuck you note to Laurent, which is always a bonus.

*

“You can’t be serious,” Nikandros says from the doorway, watching Damen fumble with the buttons of his shirt. “Damen, this isn’t—people don’t do this. They really don’t.”

“I’m not staying,” Damen says. “I’ll drop his gift off and then leave. It won’t take me more than ten minutes.”

“You could send an Uber. You could even mail it, for fuck’s sake.”

“I could.”

“But you won’t,” Nikandros says, “because you think you owe it to Nicaise to show up.”

Damen checks his pockets for the third time, trying to locate his car keys and wallet. It’s a fifteen-minute drive. Maybe on the way back he can stop by the gym. He keeps a duffel bag there with a change of clothes, and he knows the place will be deserted on a Friday night. It’s exactly what Damen needs to feel centered again.

Nikandros is still talking. “But you don’t. You don’t owe either of them anything.”

“I know I don’t,” Damen says. When he goes to check his hair in the hall mirror, Nikandros follows him. “I might hit the gym afterward, so don’t wait up for me.”

“Yeah, right,” Nikandros says. “The gym.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not an idiot, Damen.”

Damen doesn’t know what to say to that. He stands in the hallway for another minute, staring at himself in the mirror. He’s not wearing anything Laurent may recognize. Even his watch is new, a fancy replacement to the Rolex Makedon convinced him to buy for the office party. Damen looks fine. A little stiff, maybe. A little too much like himself.

“Whatever,” Nikandros says, slipping back into his room.

Later, in the car, Damen stares at the gift bag through the rearview mirror. It’s a subtle shade of baby pink, the name of the brand written in cursive, elegant letters. It looks out of place against the black leather seats, too-obviously there, too hard to ignore. 

It’s too much, Damen thinks, and wishes he’d bought Nicaise the Balenciaga baseball cap instead.

*

Berenger and Ancel live in Privé, a neighborhood that consists of preppy houses, white picket fences, and an alarming number of Audis. It’s the sort of place Laurent used to make fun of, partly because it’s exactly like the neighborhood Damen grew up in, and partly because making fun of rich people had always been Laurent’s favorite pastime. Maybe it still is, but Damen doesn't want to make any assumptions.

Laurent always hated that about him. You should be a writer, he’d told Damen once, since you’re so good at making up stories in your head.

Damen had driven them around in circles the first time they came here, under Laurent’s orders. He had laughed as Laurent pointed out what was wrong with each front yard and why, his fingers hidden away in cozy red mittens. 

Now Damen drives straight to Berenger’s house, not letting himself be distracted by the ridiculous decorations or the bizarre flower arrangements. It’s easy, mechanical. He parks the car in their driveway, grabs Nicaise’s present from the back seat, steps out of the car, and walks to the front door. All on autopilot.

Standing on their sparkly Welcome! rug, Damen doesn’t let himself hesitate as he rings the doorbell. He knows if he does, if he so much as stops to think about what he’s doing, he’ll turn around and escape.

Berenger opens the door. By the look on his face, it’s clear Nicaise hasn’t told anyone he invited Damen. Despite it all, Damen is ridiculously glad to see Berenger and not Ancel. The last time Damen saw Ancel, things got sour really fast. 

“Is Nicaise here?”

“He is,” Berenger says. He doesn’t move away from the door or invite Damen inside, which doesn’t really surprise Damen. Berenger is Laurent’s friend, not his. “Is that for him?”

Damen looks down at the bag he’s holding. The back of his neck burns. “Yes.” 

“I’ll give it to him then.”

Nicaise appears behind Berenger as if magically summoned. He’s still too short for his age, too skinny. His hair is the longest Damen has ever seen it, curls bouncing around his face like chocolate springs. Fancy, his green t-shirt reads. 

“Hi,” Nicaise says. Then, to Berenger, “Ancel’s looking for you.”

“Is he?” Berenger asks dryly. He doesn’t move an inch from the door, blocking the way so Nicaise can’t get closer to Damen. “You should go and tell him you’ve found me.”

“Aren’t you going to let Damen in? He’s my guest.”

“It’s my house.”

“It’s my party.”

“Nicaise,” Berenger says. He sounds weary. Everyone always sounds like that after talking to Nicaise for more than ten minutes.“He can’t be here.”

Nicaise shrugs. “Fine. He’ll go after giving me my present.” He ducks under Berenger’s arm, sneaking out of the house and advancing towards Damen. When Berenger tries to grab him, Nicaise moves away. “Fuck off, Ber. This will only take five minutes.”

“Don’t—”

“Five minutes.”

Berenger sighs and closes the door. The last thing Damen hears from him is a loud Ancel.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Nicaise says, not unkindly. It makes Damen’s chest ache anyway. “Did you really buy me something or were you—” He stops talking, something that does not happen often. His eyes are on the bag, on Damen’s face, on the bag again. “Oh.”

“I can take it back if you don’t want it. Or if it doesn’t fit.”

Nicaise takes the bag from Damen. He dumps the tissue paper on the ground and steps on it to keep the wind from taking it away. Once the sweatshirt is out, Nicaise drops the bag as well.

Damen looks away, suddenly terrified of Nicaise’s expression.

After a moment, Nicaise bends over to pick up the mess on the ground, stuffing the sweatshirt into the bag once more. He doesn’t say thank you or you shouldn’t have bothered. He doesn’t even tell Damen that he likes it. 

“There’s angel cake,” Nicaise says. “It's from Aimeric’s shop, but it’s edible.”

Damen feels his throat closing, growing tighter. “I can’t stay.”

“It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you don’t want to.”

“You know that’s not true.” 

“Do I?” Nicaise's face blanks out for a second. He’s back to scowling in the blink of an eye, but Damen has caught the stutter in his expression. “You’re such an asshole. Are you really not going to come in?”

Language, Damen wants to say but doesn’t, because he doesn’t think he’ll be able to take Nicaise’s reply. He feels exhausted and it hasn’t even been five minutes since he stepped out of his car.

“You heard Berenger,” Damen says. “It’s his house and he doesn’t want me in it.”

Nicaise rolls his eyes. “This is Berenger we’re talking about. What is he going to do? Call you a fucking pillock?”

“Ancel knows karate.”

“First of all, it’s kung fu, not karate. Secondly, he fucking sucks at it.”

Like a throb, Damen thinks again: language. “I have to go,” he says. “Call me if—”

Nicaise shoves the bag into Damen’s chest, hard enough to make him take a step back. He holds it there as if daring Damen to complain.

“It’s too small,” Nicaise says, unblinking.

“You haven’t even put it on, Nicaise. How can you possibly know that it doesn’t fit?”

“I just do.”

Damen takes the bag. He’s about to open his mouth to congratulate Nicaise on getting his driver’s license when Nicaise turns around and walks back into the house, making sure to slam the door behind him.

Damen stands there for a while, in the middle of the driveway, and stares at the two-story house with a white picket fence, flower-covered window sills, and perfectly trimmed green grass. Even the sparkly rug a few meters away seems to be mocking him.

His phone pings in his pocket, vibrating softly against his thigh. Damen takes it out, heart beating in his throat because he knows that sound, knows what it means.

Congratulations! You have a new match!

Damen waits until he’s in his car to open the app. Slowly, he puts Nicaise’s present on the back seat, lets the car start purring. Only when he’s done with his seatbelt does he allow himself to look at his phone.

It’s a girl named Kyra. Blonde, pretty, twenty-seven years old. 

They text for a while. Damen’s replies are slow because he’s driving and there are only so many red lights to stop at. Ten messages later he has Kyra’s phone number and Instagram handle. He follows her without giving it too much thought, already bored of her eagerness by the time he’s made it to the gym.

Three sets of abs later, Damen pauses the song he’s had on repeat for twenty minutes and texts Nikandros. I have a date tomorrow. Are you going to be at your place?

Nikandros’ reply is emoji-less, as usual. Depends on whom you’re planning to come over with

It’s a euphemism for no, as long as it’s not Laurent.

*

Kyra is a nice girl. She shows up at the restaurant on time, looking prettier than she did in all the pictures Damen saw of her online, and orders the most expensive bottle of red wine available in the restaurant. 

It’s nice, drinking with someone again, not having to worry about his breath smelling like alcohol afterward or his limbs being slightly uncoordinated. Damen has missed how electric sex feels after a few drinks, how easy it is to laugh and flush and thrust with the added layer of fuzziness alcohol provides. 

Damen fucks Kyra on Nikandros’ couch, both of them too impatient to make it to the guest room. He tries and barely manages not to feel like a twenty-year-old that’s still living in his parents’ house.

The sex is good. A little sloppy, thanks to the wine, but good nevertheless. Kyra is unexpectedly wet, but she doesn’t moan loudly or writhe too much under him, which Damen appreciates. He’s never liked histrionics. When they’re done, she gets up from the couch and slips her black dress back on, already wearing heels. Apparently, she never got around to taking those off.

“This was fun,” she says. She’s not smiling, and so Damen doesn’t know exactly how fun it was for her. “I have a pilates class in the morning.”

Damen thinks that is supposed to mean something. “Okay,” he says.

“I’ll text you.”

She’s gone before Damen can offer her a glass of water.

*

It takes Damen a week to send the sweatshirt back to the deposit and get a new one. A woman at the store demands to see it, inspecting the sleeves through thick glasses to make sure there are no stains, no holes. Damen thinks of telling her that there ought to be an alternative online option to this—driving all the way to the store, standing in line, being interrogated—but decides not to at the last second. It’s not as if he has anywhere else to be.

On Wednesday, he uses his lunch break to deliver the gift a second time. Nicaise hasn’t answered his texts, but when Damen pulls over at their usual parking spot, Nicaise is already there, waiting. 

Nicaise gets into the car, drops his bag under the glove compartment, and twists around to close the door before Damen can even say hello. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the office?” Nicaise says, staring at his phone. “It’s, like, three p.m.”

“It’s my lunch break.”

“Oh, that’s great. I want sushi.”

Damen frowns, watching Nicaise push all the buttons of the stereo at once. “We’re not—”

The loud music cuts him off. Damen winces, touching his ear to make sure it’s not bleeding, and then mouths at Nicaise to turn it down. The song is outrageous— I sent her back to her boyfriend with my handprint on her ass cheek —and it makes Damen feel very old. It doesn’t even have a melody.

“Alaska rolls for me,” Nicaise says as soon as the music isn’t deafening anymore.

“You don’t even like cucumber,” Damen says. Then, a second too late, “And we’re not getting sushi. I have to be back to work in thirty minutes.”

“You’re your own boss. You can do whatever you want.”

“That’s not how jobs work, Nicaise.”

Instead of getting angry, Nicaise shrugs. “Fine,” he says, eyes glued to his phone. The brightness of the screen is blinding. “Where’s my present?”

Damen reaches for the bag in the backseat and hands it over to Nicaise, who doesn’t even bother looking at the sweatshirt inside. Just two seconds later the bag is in Damen’s hands again. 

“Doesn’t fit,” Nicaise says.

“Try it on.”

“Here? In your car?”

“You don’t even have to take your shirt off,” Damen says. “And the windows are tinted. There’s no one watching.”

“No,” Nicaise says. “But I’ll definitely do it for twelve Alaska rolls. Without cucumber.”

“I can’t just ask them not to put—” Damen stops himself. He’s the adult here, not Nicaise. He needs to control the situation, get Nicaise to put the sweatshirt on, and then go back to work. Kastor was in a shitty mood this morning, and Damen doesn’t want to add fuel to that particular fire. “Okay. I’ll give you money for sushi. Please, try it on.”

Nicaise pretends to think about it. He strokes his chin with his thumb, clicks his tongue against his teeth, and says, “No.”

“I’ll drive you there,” Damen tries.

“It’s a twenty-minute drive. You might as well stay and eat with me.”

It’s moments like this when Damen wishes he’d listened to Nikandros when he told Damen to run after meeting Nicaise for the first time. It’s a bittersweet feeling because no matter how annoyed Damen is right now, it feels good knowing that Nicaise wants to hang out with him. A tiny scoreboard lights up in Damen’s head: D-1, L-0.

“I also want spicy shrimp,” Nicaise says. “Or maybe some mackerel, I don’t know.”

“Do you promise to try the shirt on after lunch?”

“Yes,” Nicaise says. 

It does not sound very convincing, but Damen starts the car anyway. The ride to Sakae is quiet, the car filled with awful music Damen doesn’t even know the genre of. Nicaise plays Candy Crush and huffs every time he levels up.

The restaurant is deserted because it’s a Wednesday and, apparently, no one goes out of their way to eat sushi on Wednesdays at three-thirty p.m. Their waitress is a girl named Madeleine who smiles a lot and nods at everything Nicaise asks from her. It’s a relief to see her instead of Nina, their usual waitress.

This has always been one of Nicaise’s favorite restaurants. Damen and Laurent used to bring him here at least twice a month when they were still together, even more often if he was doing well in school. The last time Damen was here, Nina had asked Damen if she should set another plate for Laurent or if it was just going to be him and Nikandros that day.

Damen had not had the heart to tell her they’d broken up. Nikandros had laughed at him for it.

Nicaise ends up ordering seventeen Alaska rolls and enough wasabi to land himself in the hospital. Damen doesn’t comment on it, sipping his water in silence as he watches Nicaise dissolve a huge ball of spicy green paste in a tiny puddle of soy sauce. 

“Buy your own,” Nicaise says when Damen reaches out with his chopsticks to steal a piece of sushi from his plate. His mouth is full and the tip of his nose is red, the wasabi most likely burning his nostrils to cinders. “Don’t be stingy, Damen.”

“I’m not being stingy, I just know for a fact that you’re not going to eat all that sushi in one sitting.”

“I’ll stand up after the first six, don’t worry.”

Damen laughs. He’s tried not to think of Nicaise over the last few months, but now that he’s sitting in front of Damen it’s hard not to want to ask him how he’s doing, what his classes are like. It’s hard not to feel as though he’s been missing out on important things.

Nicaise shoves another sushi piece in his mouth, chews it for exactly three seconds, and says, “There’s still a box of your shit at home.”

“There isn’t,” Damen says. He hands Nicaise a paper napkin and gestures for him to wipe the soy sauce off his chin. “I’m not missing any clothes.”

“I never said they were clothes. I said it was shit, which is an umbrella term for clothes, souvenirs, books, a nail clipper—”

“I didn’t leave my nail clipper at home.”

Nicaise is polite enough not to point out that the apartment he and Laurent live in isn’t Damen’s home anymore. “He’ll throw it out if you don’t come to get it.”

A big part of him thinks Nicaise is lying, but Damen hasn’t checked his boxes since he put them into Nikandros’ storage unit, and so he has no way of knowing if anything valuable is missing. It’s not the nail clipper that worries him, but rather all those photo albums with pictures of his parents’ wedding day and fifteen-year-old Kastor with temporary tattoos on his face. 

He wonders if Laurent will go through his things before throwing them out. He wonders, too, if Laurent will be cruel enough to throw them away knowing what those photos mean to Damen. Doubt begins to creep in.

“Okay. When—”

“This Friday,” Nicaise says. “He’s going out, I think.”

Damen frowns. “You think?”

“Ancel has been pestering him to go out more. He said he would, but you know how he gets.” Nicaise rolls his eyes. The gesture looks annoyed, but Damen sees right through it. There’s a warmth there that is absent when Nicaise talks about other people. “I’ll text you when he leaves.”

Damen pushes away the first half of Nicaise’s answer. He knows Ancel, knows what going out with him means. It’s easy to see Laurent at a bar, all blonde hair and tight clothes, coldly flirting his way through every interaction with strangers. Something tugs at Damen’s chest.

“I don’t want to drop by if he doesn’t know about it,” Damen says eventually. “It’s his place.”

“It was your place too.”

Damen feels fifty-eight years old instead of twenty-nine. “It’s not anymore, which is why I can’t drop by unannounced. Ask him if he’s okay with it first.”

“Fine.”

The question hangs between them, heavy and unasked. Damen tries to ignore it, watches Nicaise try to ignore it too, but eventually it feels like there’s nothing else to talk about but this.

“How is he?”

“Good,” Nicaise says. Damen hates how careful he sounds. “He’s doing fine.”

“That’s good. It’s good that he’s—you said he’s going out with Ancel. That’s… nice.”

It’s, evidently, the wrong thing to say. Nicaise grows tense by stages: his hand turns into a fist around his chopsticks, his back straightens, his eyes narrow. He looks like a panther preparing to pounce.

“He’s taking them,” Nicaise says. “That’s what you really want to know, isn’t it?”

“No, I—”

“Did you think he’d just stop because you two broke up? He wouldn’t put his life on pause for anyone, not even you.”

Damen thinks about those days he’d come home from the office and find their room exactly as he’d left it, curtains drawn, door closed. He thinks about Laurent, in bed, not having moved all day. He thinks about that emergency visit to Herode’s office because Laurent had run out of medication.

“I’m glad he’s fine,” Damen says, awkward and sincere at the same time. “I wasn’t implying anything, Nicaise.” Then, more hesitantly, “But if you ever need—”

“Don’t fucking say it.”

Damen doesn’t. He swallows his words back down, along with the scolding that was about to make it past his lips. Nicaise can swear if he wants to. It’s not Damen’s job to correct him anymore. 

“Are you done eating?” 

Nicaise stares at the last piece of sushi on his plate. Instead of answering, he stabs it with one of his chopsticks and brings it to his mouth so slowly Damen wants to snap at him. 

“Okay,” Damen says once Nicaise has swallowed. He takes his wallet out, puts his card on the table, and stands. “Let’s go to the restroom.”

“I don’t have to use the—”

Damen all but shoves the pink bag into Nicaise’s hands. “You do. Come on.”

The restroom is as empty as the eating area. Damen counts tiles—black and white, with weird pink flowers on them—while Nicaise changes into the sweatshirt. The wall mirror shows him that it fits perfectly, something Damen had not been expecting. He’d thought it was too small, but then again wrist cuffs have always been hard for Damen to understand. They always look too tight.

Nicaise doesn’t look excited. He stares at himself in the mirror, studying the sweatshirt from all angles, tugging at it, stretching the neckline. 

Pink looks good on him. The sequins too. Damen swallows past the newly formed lump in his throat, which he imagines is his solidified pride. You look nice, he thinks of saying. 

Instead: “It fits.”

“It does,” Nicaise says, still scowling. 

“Come on,” Damen says. “I’ll buy you ice cream if you stop sulking.”

Nicaise doesn’t look away from the mirror. “I can’t eat ice cream, it’s got dairy in it.”

“Since when are you lactose intolerant?”

“I’m not lactose—” Nicaise stops. He’s irritated, huffing as he takes off the sweatshirt. His hair is a mess afterward. “I’m going vegan.”

Damen frowns. Lately, it feels like that’s the only expression he can manage. “You just ate fish,” he says, slowly, afraid that the world has changed and now Alaska rolls are vegan. “And I’m sure I can find you dairy-free ice cream if you want it.”

“I just want,” Nicaise says, and pauses. He mutters something under his breath Damen doesn’t catch and stuffs the sweatshirt into the bag again, uncaring of the wrinkles it’ll show later. “You need to get back to work.”

Damen does. “I don’t. Let me drive you home.”

“I’m going to a friend’s.”

“Which friend?”

Nicaise stares up at him. This annoyance isn’t cute or feigned, and any moment now he’ll snap at Damen, or storm out. Or both. “You don’t know them.”

“Then you’re not going to their house,” Damen says easily. Too easily, perhaps. 

This is one of the only rules concerning Nicaise he and Laurent never fought about. The memory of those early days when Nicaise would disappear for hours taught them both that some battles couldn’t be avoided for the sake of a moment of peace and quiet.

Nicaise relaxes at Damen’s words. If it was all a test, it seems Damen has passed it. “Fine. I want to try the Patran brownie flavored ice cream at Boules.”

“That’s not vegan.”

Nicaise rolls his eyes at him as they exit the restroom. “I said I’m going vegan, not that I’m already vegan. It’s a transition, Damen.”

On the ride to Boules, Nicaise forces Damen to listen to his new favorite song. Damen can’t prove it, but he’s certain Nicaise snaps a picture of him reacting to the lyrics. 

*

Halvik is coming out of the building just when Damen is about to ask Nicaise to buzz him in. She’s somehow more in shape than the last time Damen saw her. Her arms and thighs are so bulky and toned that staring at them makes Damen uncomfortable. She looks less like a woman than the last time they saw each other, despite the red lipstick and fur coat she’s wearing. That, above everything else, is what has Damen averting his eyes.

“Kid,” she says, holding the door open for him. She does not move an inch to let him through, and so Damen has to awkwardly hover. “Haven’t seen you in a while. You in trouble?”

“I...”

Halvik narrows her eyes. “Is it drugs? I know a good lawyer if you—”

“I’m a lawyer,” Damen says stupidly. Then, when he remembers what they’re talking about, he adds, “And no, no drugs. I’m fine.”

“Ah,” Halvik says. Her smile is knowing, conspiratory. “Debt it is then.”

“No, I’m not in trouble. I’m just stopping by. Getting some stuff.”

Halvik coughs into her gloved fist. It sounds a lot like cock, but Damen lets it slide. 

They shift, Damen holding the door for her as she walks out after giving him a little wave. The lobby is warm, and empty, and so, so familiar. 

He’s not strong enough to ride the elevator today. It’s too cramped, too known. He’s irrationally scared that he’ll look into the mirrors and see all the times he kissed Laurent in there.

The five-floor hike leaves Damen breathless. He’s been slacking lately—going to the gym only once a week, drinking too much beer, not eating enough protein—and by the time he’s made it to Laurent’s door, he feels like his heart is in his throat, pounding. 

I’m outside, he texts Nicaise, who reads the message three seconds later. The reply is a bunch of emojis Damen has never seen. Then, at last, ring ring!!!!

Damen, being Damen, doesn’t think anything of it until it’s already too late. He touches the doorbell twice, gently, and waits, phone in hand, making a show of going through his Instagram feed. 

He’s about to like Kyra’s latest bikini pic when the door opens.

Laurent says, without looking, “Did you forget your—”

Their eyes meet. It’s so painfully awkward Damen doesn’t know what to do, and so he does nothing but stare at Laurent. Laurent, who’s wearing the fluffy yellow robe with bunnies that Erasmus gifted him for his last birthday. Laurent, who has his hair in a blue scrunchie that matches his eyes.

Laurent, whom Damen has not seen in almost four months but somehow looks just as casually pretty as the day they met.

“What are you doing here?” Laurent says, and he sounds both angry and indifferent. A second later his face starts to turn a pasty shade of yellow that matches his robe. “Is Nicaise okay? Did something happen?”

“I think,” Damen says, slowly, “that he set this up.”

They stand there for a long minute, pretending that they aren’t openly staring at each other. Eventually, Laurent opens the door wider and disappears inside, which could be read as an invitation, but Damen doesn’t know anything anymore. He has a vague feeling that asking will only make things worse.

Gingerly, Damen steps into the place he called home for four years and closes the door behind him. Laurent hates air drafts.

The living room looks exactly the same, except for the new throw blanket on the couch. It’s mint-green and draws Damen’s eye like a beacon. No furniture has been rearranged, no walls repainted. It’s a relief, although Damen can’t explain to himself why.

Even the papers scattered all over the coffee table look familiar, Laurent’s handwriting in blood-red ink. You enjoy this too much, Damen had told him once as he watched Laurent mark a poor soul’s paper. Telling people they’re wrong should not be so rewarding.

But it is, Laurent had replied, laughing. 

Real, present Laurent is in the kitchen, whispering vague ultimatums into his phone that quickly escalate into precise and detailed threats. When those do not seem to work, Laurent starts to say Nicaise’s name with such intensity Damen’s skin crawls.

“—here now,” Laurent says. His eyes flicker to Damen for a second and then fix, resolutely, on the stove. “No, Nicaise. Now means now. Not when the movie is over, not when you feel like coming home. Now .”

Damen waits until Laurent has ended the call to speak. “I’m only here for my things. Nicaise told me I forgot a box full of…” Shit, his brain supplies. “Stuff.”

Laurent is standing against the counter. His knuckles go white around the marble edge. “Did he call you?”

“No,” Damen says. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he shoves them deep into the pockets of his jeans. “He told me the other day when I picked him up from school.”

“You picked him up from school.”

“I didn’t plan it,” Damen says. “I was just going to drop off his present, but then he refused to try it on, and, well, we ended up at Sakae.”

Laurent rubs at his eyes until they’re red. “You can’t do that, Damianos.”

The absence of a nickname makes Damen itch for something. It doesn’t hurt, not really, but it leaves him feeling annoyed. You’re not being very grown-up about this, he thinks of saying and doesn’t. 

“He’s sixteen. Don’t you think he should get a say in who he hangs out with?”

Laurent laughs. It’s all sharp edges. “Right, because hanging out with you is so normal. You know how he gets about—”

“I thought you didn’t like that word.”

“What word?”

“Normal,” Damen says. He sounds bitter even to his own ears. The look that flashes across Laurent’s face makes him feel good for only a second. “Don’t worry, I won’t do it again. As I said, I’m here for my stuff.”

“What stuff? There’s nothing here that’s yours.”

“I just thought,” Damen says, and pauses.

Laurent, who has never in his life let anything go, says, “You thought what? That I was trying to keep your things?”

“I don’t know, Laurent. It was just a mistake, there’s no need to bite my head off.”

Walking out of the kitchen with Laurent on his heels feels like a rehearsal of all the fights they have ever had. The kitchen was the only place they fought in at first. After a while, their arguments filled the entire room and leaked into the hallway, the living room, their bed. Towards the end, they fought in front of strangers and friends alike, on the street, at birthday parties. With Nicaise watching.

Fighting with Laurent is one of the many things Damen doesn’t miss. 

He has almost reached the door when Laurent says, “I saw what you bought him.”

“Oh.” Damen stops walking. He turns around and finds Laurent staring at him, close enough to touch. “It fits him fine.”

Laurent’s eyes do not get any warmer. “It wasn’t necessary. He’s not your kid. You don’t owe him child support or gifts or—”

“Right,” Damen says dully. “Of course he isn’t. It’s not like I drove him to school for years, made him lunch, helped him with his math homework.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I think it is.”

Laurent presses his mouth into a thin, pale line. It looks like a scar. “He needs to understand you’re not coming back. If you take him out for lunch and buy him gifts he’s never going to get it.”

“I won’t do it again.”

Damen’s hand finds the door handle and closes tightly around it. He considers saying something hurtful or sarcastic, just because he knows Laurent will say something worse back. In the end, he pries the door open and slips outside without saying another word, the way he did last time. 

The stairs are waiting for him.

*

That night Damen does something he hasn’t in months: he checks Laurent’s Instagram profile. 

The bed in Nikandros’ guest room feels infinitely big and empty. Damen stretches on it, starfishing, and finds that the mattress has no end. He remembers the first thing he thought of when Nikandros showed him the room, back when Damen’s bag had been small and temporary. Just for a day or two, he had told Nikandros. 

Damen had thought of Laurent and his hatred of baroque decoration, of Rococo furniture and paintings. Laurent would have liked this room, its bare white walls and grey blankets. I was a child of sumptuosity, Laurent had once told Damen. He’d grown up surrounded by fifty-year-old family portraits, doorknobs made of pure gold, and toys that were updated before he could get used to them. Damen had grown up that way too, except he hadn’t hated it.

Now Damen opens the app under the covers like a child hiding a game console from his parents. He types in Laurent’s username, so familiar the pads of his fingers move on autopilot, and pretends like the letters staring back at him don’t make his stomach cower inside his body. 

Laurent only ever posted one picture with him. Their second anniversary, the happiest one, where Damen took him to Karthas and they drank alcohol-free cider on the sand. The picture is still up—their intertwined fingers on the hotel’s sheets, sunlight, and a fruit platter. It’s sandwiched between one of twelve-year-old Nicaise staring cross-eyed at the camera and another of a bouquet of flowers, all different shades of yellow. 

Damen stares at the most recent one, posted six months ago. There’s Laurent, smiling with his arm around Ancel, who’s wearing a green facemask. Sleepover fun, the caption reads. 

Damen remembers that day because they had a fight right before Laurent left for Berenger’s house, something about how food was supposed to go into one’s body instead of being left to rot in the fridge. Laurent had called him a fucking asshole.

“Fuck you,” Damen says out loud. In this empty bed, it feels both liberating and alienating. There’s no one asking him to be quiet anymore.

It’s not supposed to be this way, he thinks. It’s been four months. Surely by now, he should have stopped caring.

*

Nikandros comes out of the shower earlier today, already dressed and with his short braids tied back by an elastic leather band. He informs Damen that he’ll be gone the whole day, because, apparently, that’s what people do during the weekend. They disappear to have wild sex, hit the gym, and eat lemony oysters with expensive white wine. Damen wouldn’t know; his weekends before Laurent are nothing but a hazy, blurred memory.

Once Nikandros has left, Damen sits for a long time on the couch, debating whether or not he should turn on his laptop. He wants to do this properly. He wants to do it without anyone watching. The thought is ridiculous enough to startle a laugh out of him. He sounds, to himself, like a teen who’s about to look up porn and jerk off without having to be quiet for the first time. 

Despite what Nicaise may think and say, Damen is not a baby boomer. His father was definitely one. Maybe Kastor can fit into that category as well, considering he’s nine years older than Damen but acts like a sixty-year-old man most of the time. Damen, on the other hand, has an Instagram account. He doesn’t post blurry selfies in dubious, badly lit restaurants. He doesn’t update his Facebook status every week like Hypermenestra, who likes to inform everyone with eyes and a decent internet connection that her grandson is the most intelligent baby in the country. If not the world. He’s had over thirty matches on Tinder too. 

Looking something up online should be easy enough for him.

In the end, Damen gives in. He shifts closer to the coffee table and turns on his laptop, trying to keep from fidgeting. Three clicks later he’s staring at the new Google logo: a penguin with a funny hat. It hides behind the yellow O when the white cursor tries to touch it. 

It’s national penguin day, Google informs him.

The search box remains empty for another five minutes. Damen doesn’t know what to type in—he already looked up how to get over ur ex quick two months ago—and so he finds himself dithering, fingers hovering over the keys like they’re simply there to caress them. 

Simple is better. He types am i an asshole and hits enter before he can talk himself out of it. The first search result is an article about a man who ran a lady over with his car in Patras and drove off, which thankfully does not apply to Damen. The second search result takes him to Reddit.

It seems there’s a lot of people in the world undecided about their asshole-ness. 

The page description reads: A catharsis for the frustrated moral philosopher in all of us, and a place to finally find out if you were wrong in an argument that's been bothering you. It’s the second part of the sentence that catches Damen’s attention. He has never cared about philosophy—remembers vaguely a time when he tried to understand Plato’s cavern story because Laurent was into it—but the itch to know if he’s right is a different matter altogether. 

And this seems like the perfect place to get that itch scratched. By multiple strangers.

Damen creates an account. He knows what Reddit is because Nicaise used to read funny stories from the site out loud to them on Fridays, the three of them sprawled on the couch waiting for the pizza to arrive. Laurent would pretend not to find them funny, but the twitching of his nose always gave him away.

AITA for , he types and stops. For not wanting to buy his not-kid a pink sweatshirt with sequins? For speaking his mind around his ex-boyfriend’s friends? For sometimes wishing his ex-boyfriend drank wine and didn’t keep everything about his life a secret?

The title of his post ends up being misleading— AITA for this breakup ? —but Damen doesn’t care enough to change it before uploading it to the page. It’s long, but not long enough that no one will want to read it.

He keeps it basic: four years together, a kid that wasn’t their kid living with them, a sad and pitiful past Damen wasn’t aware of for a long time, their fights, and, lastly, how it seems like when asked to describe Damen, everyone’s first choice is ‘asshole’.

It’s not poetic or even articulate; Damen has never liked writing. But it does make him feel better to have it out of his system, his throat less tight already. He leans back on the couch and waits.

Eleven minutes later Damen’s phone buzzes with a new email. Feeling stupidly giddy, Damen taps on the link to read the first comment.

CaptainNoodles says nta but go to therapy dude lol

Chapter Text

Two

“What?” Kastor says without looking up from his phone. He’s not working. Damen can hear Galen’s giggles from the doorway, coming from Kastor’s phone. “If this is about lunch, the answer’s no. I’m skipping it today.”

“It’s not about lunch.”

Kastor’s eyes meet his. “Did something happen with the Nicholson case?”

“No.”

“The Black Widow case.”

“No,” Damen says. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

Kastor’s eyebrows rise and rise and rise. “Close the door then.”

Kastor’s office is all muted colors, perfectly placed plants, and black screens. There’s a framed picture of Galen by his coffee mug. In it, Galen is covered in sauce and slurping noodles. Damen has always found it gross, but it’s been there for two years. Kastor must obviously like it.

Damen sits down. “No lunch?”

“No,” Kastor says very slowly, drawing the word out. “I’m too busy.”

Watching videos of one’s kid does not count as working. “I can see that.”

“What do you want, Damianos?”

Damen tries not to feel like a nuisance. Tries and fails. “Well, nothing. Just thought I’d stop by and have a chat with you.”

Kastor stares at him.

“How’s Jokaste?”

“What,” Kastor says, “is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. I—”

“Why are you spending your lunch break here, asking me about my wife?”

Damen’s hands twitch on his lap. “Am I not allowed to? I know you weren’t busy when I came in. I heard—”

“I know you heard. That’s not the point.”

“What’s the point then?”

“I just don’t get why you’re here,” Kastor says. He’s pulling at his tie, loosening it. He always does that when he’s nervous. “You can’t resign.”

“I don’t want to resign.”

“And I’m not firing you.”

“That’s not—I’m just here to talk.” Then, a beat too late, “And you can’t fire me. I don’t work for you.”

Kastor gives him another strange look. “Talk about what?”

“Things,” Damen says. He makes a vague gesture with his hand. “Your home life. The global economy? Just… anything.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. It’s unnerving, but it’s also familiar. Damen’s used to Kastor’s silence. 

“I read Argentina’s on the brink of a fresh default,” Kastor says. “Apparently, it’s a cyclical thing for them. Every ten years or so, their economy collapses and—”

“Do you still talk to Laurent?”

Kastor does not look surprised. If anything, he seems relieved. “Ah,” he says, because Kastor’s always been one to gloat. “Yes. Sometimes.”

Sometimes. Damen hasn’t talked to Laurent in weeks, not since Nicaise staged their little reunion, and before that months had gone by without a single text or call or voicemail. But Kastor and Laurent talk sometimes. That’s good to know.

“Why?” 

“We’re not friends,” Kastor says, which only makes Damen feel more out of place. Does he think Damen doesn’t want them to be friends? Does Damen not want them to be friends? “Or anything, really. We text once in a while, mostly about Galen.”

Damen frowns. “Galen?”

“Nicaise asks for pictures of him. He refuses to accept my mom’s friendship request on Facebook, so I send Laurent photos of Galen that he can show Nicaise. On occasion. It’s not a thing.”

“Why not text Nicaise directly?”

Kastor snorts. When he runs a hand through his hair, messing it up, he looks too much like their father. Damen ends up looking away. “I’ve blocked his number. The little shit kept spamming me with that photoshopped picture of—”

“The rabid beaver,” Damen says, smiling despite it all. A bitter hurt starts to spread in his chest, suddenly unleashed. “That’s nice of you.”

“You sound surprised.”

I am, Damen thinks. Instead, he says, “I need to ask you something.”

Kastor leans forward, elbows on the desk, the heels of his hands digging into his eyes. “God, Damianos. What did you do?”

He reminds Damen of Halvik. Is it drugs? she’d asked. “It’s just a question, Kastor. I’m not asking you to bail me out of jail.”

“Well, obviously, since you’re sitting here and not in a cell. If you didn’t get a deal in the Dassant case, then I’m not going to be the one who tells Makedon.”

Damen did get the deal, but he’s not like Kastor. He can go without gloating. “Just be honest. And neutral. Neutrality is… important.”

“Damianos.”

“Do you think I was bad for Laurent?”

Kastor doesn’t answer right away, which should feel like a bad sign but doesn’t. He’s thinking about it, Damen tells himself, and that has to be good. Damen asked for honesty and neutrality after all, and those two don’t come without reflecting. 

“Not all the time,” Kastor finally says. He won’t meet Damen’s eyes. “Why the sudden interest in my opinion?”

“What is that supposed to mean? ‘Not all the time’?”

“If it makes you feel better, I don’t think he was good for you either. There, it’s a tie.”

“Kastor.”

Kastor lets out a sigh, long and dramatic. He’s probably annoyed that Damen interrupted his not-lunch time. He’s probably wishing Damen had broken his neck that time they went sailing at Marlas Beach and Damen slipped off the boat. “I’m not a fucking marriage counselor. You’re just too different, Damianos, and when you mix water and oil the pan is going to spit at you.”

Damen swallows. There’s something stuck in his throat, trying to choke him. “Your metaphors are so shitty.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the one asking philosophical questions.”

“How was my question philosophical?”

“He’s a snarky bastard,” Kastor says, pretending Damen hasn’t said anything, “and from the outside, it looked like he was more than you could swallow. No pun intended,” he adds at Damen’s expression. “But I—what do you want me to say? It was good until it wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t good last Christmas Eve.”

Damen remembers that fight, too. They argued for almost twenty-five minutes, locked in one of the billion bathrooms at Berenger’s house. Damen is ashamed to realize they were not as quiet as he thought they’d been.

Prompted by Damen’s silence, Kastor goes on talking. “I honestly didn’t expect you to go this long without bringing him up. It’s been what? Three months?”

“Four.”

Kastor’s phone starts ringing. He gives Damen the look—the kind that says he’ll stab Damen in the stomach if he laughs at the song he uses as a ringtone—and picks up. Galen’s voice is loud enough that Damen can hear him perfectly even though Kastor has not put him on speaker.

“Daddy, did you see the—the firetruck?”

“What firetruck?” Kastor says and pauses to listen. There’s a muffled voice that does not belong to Galen coming from the other side. “Hi, Rhea. It’s fine that you called.”

The peace doesn’t last long. Galen’s voice raises. “ Daddy, my red firetruck. You said mommy—she put it— ”

Kastor rubs at his temples, eyes closed. “All firetrucks are red, sweetheart.”

Damen stands up in silence. He’s tortured Kastor enough for the day.

*

The replies to Damen’s Reddit post end up flooding his inbox in a matter of days. It’s an average number of comments—nothing that signals the post has gone viral and should definitely be taken down before it reaches Laurent—but there are enough of them that Damen starts to skip lunch just to scroll through them during his break. 

NTA, RellerSkeller says. Your ex sounds like a nightmare. Damen agrees but doesn’t upvote it. He’s not sure how he feels about strangers talking about Laurent like this. All of the people who comment to say Damen is not the asshole do not seem particularly interested in explaining their reasoning. Laurent sounds like a dick, like a bore, like a drag, like a nightmare. In comparison, they say, Damen sounds like a normal guy trying to meet too high expectations.

But then there are other replies to his post, of people telling him he should have tried harder to communicate what he was feeling, that he’s probably not mature enough to be in a relationship, that he is, in fact, an asshole. ArsaCes89 says: maybe there’s a reason none of his friends liked you. Someone replies to that reply with friends always know who the real dicks are.

Damen ignores most of the interactions. He reads and rereads his post, and every time he does he finds so many holes, so many time skips. It’s not surprising when people ask him to clarify, to expand on what their fights were about or why they didn’t try counseling. These are questions for which Damen has no answers. He sits at his desk during lunch break and tries to think of something to say, but he doesn’t know where to begin. 

don’t get why the kid was such a problem??, rmayuscula says. Like… what’s the issue there lol

And how is Damen supposed to explain the pink sweatshirt, and the fake nails, and the eyeliner? How is he supposed to explain the hushed discussions he had with Laurent in bed about phases and being firmer and sitting Nicaise down for a talk?

A two hundred word text isn’t enough, Damen realizes. Strangers on the internet don’t know him, or Laurent, or what happened between them during the four years they were together. They don’t know, and Damen can’t explain it to them. Not even Kastor understood what Damen was trying to ask. 

The only other person Damen can think of asking is Nikandros, but whenever they see each other at Nikandros’ apartment it’s like Damen can’t get the words out. He knows what Nikandros will say because it’s the stuff he’s been saying since the day he met Laurent. For once, Damen doesn’t want to hear it.

try this, TroiazForever says. The link takes Damen to an hour-long YouTube video on chalis therapy.

*

Aktis turns to him once they’re both done with the treadmills. There’s a drop of sweat making its way down his temple, past his cheekbone. It looks like a tear. “Dude,” he says, barely out of breath. “You look like shit.”

“So do you.”

“For real though. You look like your dick has shriveled up and died.”

Damen finishes his water, then says, “Thank you. It’s such a compliment to know I look like your mom.”

Elon howls with laughter, faltering in his jumping jacks. 

“We need to get you laid,” Aktis says. “If you go on like this you’ll end up humping Nikandros in your sleep.”

“We don’t share a bed, dumbass.”

“So is that the only reason why you haven’t tried to hump him?” Elon says. 

Aktis doesn’t give Damen time to reply. He shoves his phone into Damen’s face, showing him a picture of a girl that looks like she could be on the cover of a porn magazine. The thought makes Damen pause. Do porn magazines still exist?

“This is Aline,” Aktis says. He swipes left, and the picture changes. There are fewer clothes on the girl. “Yes or no?”

“To what?” Damen says.

Aktis rolls his eyes. “Fucking her. She’s my sister’s friend.”

“Good for your sister.”

“I have her number,” Aktis says. 

“Your sister’s?” Damen says. “I reckon you should have it, yeah.”

“If you don’t fuck her,” Elon says, in between jumps, “I will.”

Damen cranes his neck, trying to make it pop. He wishes they’d both shut up, wishes Nikandros hadn’t decided to skip today’s gym session. Things are always calmer when Nikandros is around.

Damen turns the treadmill back on. “Dude,” he says, “Elon’s trying to fuck your sister.”

*

The process of finding himself a therapist is a fairly easy one. It would have been even easier if Damen had asked his secretary to make the appointment, but the thought of people at work knowing he’s seeing a shrink makes him not want to see said shrink. He doesn’t want to be asked questions, doesn’t want the weird glances and the office gossip that would come with it. 

He does his research in Nikandros’ guestroom, as far away from prying eyes as he can get. He knows what he wants. He wants someone close to him in age, preferably an Akielon man, but he doesn’t like the results that come out of that search. One of them is a psychiatrist, which Damen doesn’t need. The rest make themselves sound too smart for his liking. He’s trying to find a therapist for a few sessions, maybe only one; he doesn’t need to know who Lacan is for that. 

Neo’s is the last profile he checks. He was born in a small town just outside of Ios and moved to Vere when he was still a teenager. He doesn’t include any information about his Ph.D. research, or why he started doing this job. He’s succinct, to the point. Damen likes him instantly.

Damen’s insurance plan covers everything, which may be why it’s so easy to get Neo’s contact information and send him an email. It’s quick, almost impersonal. It’s surprisingly easy, something Damen can’t stop thinking about, even long after he’s finished his lunch and Neo has answered his email. 

He thought it’d be harder than this, a huge maze of bureaucratic halls and traps. When Laurent started seeing Paschal, he had to wait two months for the first appointment, and four for a referral to Herode. 

It bothers Damen, the swiftness of this transaction, the eagerness to accommodate him. But he can’t figure out why.

*

Kyra shares an apartment with three other people on the nicer side of Charonne. They make themselves heard from the other room, as Damen gets dressed once he and Kyra are done having sex. At first, the banging noises against the wall make him flush. He thinks he is being mocked.

“They’re fucking,” Kyra says, still in bed. There’s come on her stomach, drying. Damen decidedly does not compare her after-sex habits to Laurent’s. “Sorry that they’re so loud.”

“All three of them?”

Kyra stops playing with her hair. “Well, yes. It’s a threesome.”

“I thought threesomes were supposed to be casual.”

“Maybe in porn,” Kyra says. “Do you watch a lot of porn, Damen?”

Kyra is a life coach. She encourages people to stick to their diets, and drink water, and practice Mindfulness, whatever the fuck that may be. Personally, Damen thinks she must have been too stupid to get a psychology degree. 

“Since when is porn bad for you?” Damen says. He needs to find his socks. 

“All things are bad in excess. Even sex.”

“Good to know.”

“I mean it,” Kyra says, as she goes back to braiding her hair. “If you need help with your porn addiction, I know a great coach that can help you out. It’s cheaper than therapy.”

Damen looks at her. He’s about to reply when the banging on the wall cuts him off, the sound now accompanied by long, stretched-out moans. If anything, that works as an incentive for Damen to get dressed faster and leave.

“I don’t have a porn addiction,” he says to no one, later in the elevator. The only reply he gets is a shrill beeping sound, signaling that he’s reached the right floor.

*

Neo’s office faces a park, and the far left side consists of only windows. Light trickles in and spills over the floor, turning already pale wood into something almost white, tile-like. The disposition of the space is simple but elegant. Someone was hired to design this, or at least to buy the decorations. Two of the three remaining walls have been turned into impossibly high bookshelves. The chairs look less like chairs and more like small, comfortable couches. There are four of them.

“So,” Neo says when the silence has begun to feel awkward. “What brings you here, Damianos?”

Damen tries to get comfortable in his chosen chair. It squeaks under him, like the one in his office always does. Despite the familiarity of the sound, Damen can’t find it in him to relax. He also doesn’t think an acceptable answer to Neo’s first question is ‘ Thirty strangers on the internet told me to come here ’. 

“I want to talk to someone who’s neutral,” he says. “About… things.”

“What sort of things?”

Damen doesn’t know what to say. He settles for the beginning. “I had a bad breakup earlier this year. I haven’t been—” He stops. He has been doing fine. “There are just parts of it I don’t—” He stops again. 

Neo looks at him. “How long were you with this person?” 

Damen fights the urge to close his eyes in relief. It’s always been easier to answer questions than it is to volunteer information about himself. Life as an endless interview, that’s something Damen could work with.

“Four years,” Damen says. “It’s been four months since we called it quits.”

Neo clicks his tongue against his teeth. He has very nice teeth. “Do you mind telling me a bit about the breakup?”

Damen shifts in the chair again, folds and unfolds his legs, draws in a breath. “We got along,” he says, “until we just… didn’t. Nothing dramatic happened. I didn’t cheat, and neither did he.”

It’s the truth, as far as Damen knows. He remembers Laurent’s pinched face that morning, their argument in the kitchen as Damen got ready to leave for work. I can’t do this anymore, one of them had said. Damen likes to think it was him and not Laurent, but the truth is he can’t remember. Nicaise hadn’t been home, which now that Damen thinks about it might have played a role in the whole thing. Had Laurent planned it? Had he waited until that Friday because he knew Nicaise would spend the night at a friend’s? Had he pretended—

“—or arguments?” Neo is saying. “It sounds like it was a serious relationship. Four years is a long time.”

“I bought us a house,” Damen says. “We were supposed to move in sometime next month. It’s—a new house.”

“New?”

“We went over the construction plans together. My friend Nikandros is an architect. He designed it for us.” 

Neo nods. “Are you moving in despite the breakup?”

“As soon as it’s ready. I’ve been staying at my friend’s, but it’s not… ideal.” Damen stops. He feels stupidly open and ashamed, despite not having said much. He feels like he’s overshared, said something he shouldn’t have. His eyes flicker to the clock on the wall, which informs him there are still thirty minutes left. Pathetically, he adds, “So, yeah.”

Neo is silent for a moment. He tilts his head to the side as he watches Damen, his smile creepily nice. “What about your family?”

“What about them?”

“Did they like him? Do you get along with them?” Neo makes a vague gesture with his hand. “Anything you want to tell me about them is fine, really.”

“I have a brother,” Damen says. It feels like a better place to start than both my parents are dead. It’s one of the only things he and Laurent have in common. “He’s fine.”

Neo just looks at him.

“He’s fine,” Damen says, more defensively this time. “He’s almost a decade older than me, from my dad’s previous marriage, but he’s still family.”

“Of course.”

Silence, uncomfortable and itchy. 

Damen says, “And he liked Laurent, which never failed to amaze me.” A snort gets caught in his throat. “I mean, it’s not like they were friends or anything like that. But…”

“But?”

“They’re both very sarcastic people,” Damen says stiffly. “They have a weird sense of humor.”

“Does that bother you?”

“What?”

“That they’re sarcastic. Is that something you don’t like about them?” 

Damen looks at the clock again. Twenty minutes left. “I’m sarcastic too.”

“I see,” Neo says, although Damen doesn’t know how that’s possible. How can he see anything about any of the things Damen has been talking about? “Did anyone else like Laurent?”

Laurent’s name coming out of Neo’s mouth startles Damen. People around him never mention him, haven’t in a long time. 

“I don’t know,” Damen says. “I thought Nikandros did, but maybe he was just good at pretending.”

“What makes you say that?”

Damen rubs his face with his hand. He doesn’t want to be here, but he also doesn’t want to be at Nikandros’ place, or at work, or at the gym. He wants things to be different. He says, “Because the last time Nikandros told me how he felt about Laurent, we didn’t talk for two months. So I think he simply… He didn’t want to lose a friend, and so he kept his opinions to himself.”

Neo gives him a small, encouraging smile. “Did that happen recently? This falling out, I mean.”

“No, it was at the beginning of the relationship. It wasn’t even—Laurent wasn’t the problem. I think.”

“Oh?”

Damen is very tired. How can he explain the last four years of his life in the fifteen minutes of the session he has left? It seems like an impossible task, no matter how reassuring Neo is. How can he explain Nicaise to anyone who hasn’t met him?

“There’s a kid,” Damen starts, and stops. He knows what Nicaise would say if he was here, listening to this conversation. I’m not a fucking kid, you fucking boomer. “He’s not a kid. He’s a teenager now, but he was a kid back then. Eleven or so.”

“Laurent’s son?”

Damen laughs. He can’t stop himself. “It seems like it sometimes, but no. It’s complicated. Laurent is his guardian.”

“And Nikandros didn’t like him.”

Suddenly, Damen realizes how he’s made it all sound. He’s ashamed of his oversharing again, wants to take it all back. “Nikandros had his reasons,” he says. “Even if he was wrong. He doesn’t... hate children.”

You’re wasting your twenties babysitting a kid that isn’t even yours. Those had been Nikandros’ exact words. And now, when Damen thinks about that day, he feels just as angry as he did back then. It’s stupid because Damen had been struggling back then, Nicaise still a snarling boy that hated everything Damen did for him, and yet…

Neo says, “It won’t always be like this, all these questions. The first session is always the hardest, Damianos.”

Damen frowns. “I don’t mind questions.”

“I can tell. You mentioned in your email that this is your first time trying therapy, which can be a daunting experience. I’m just trying to make sure you feel comfortable here.”

Isn’t that what I’m paying you for? “Okay.”

“Good,” Neo says. “I’m thinking we could start with weekly sessions, and if they prove to be too much we can switch to meeting up twice a month. Does that sound good?”

“Er, it’s— weekly? Isn’t that a lot?”

“It’s your call. I offer all my clients the same pacing at first, but if you really don’t want to—”

“No,” Damen says. He rubs his face with his hands, digging his knuckles into his eyes until they hurt. “I mean yes, it’s fine. Once a week is fine. Same time, same place. Right?”

Five minutes left. Neo gets up from his seat and stretches discreetly, offering Damen his hand once Damen is on his feet as well. 

“I’ll see you next Thursday, Damianos.”

Damen nods. There are definitely worse ways to spend a Thursday evening than this, sitting around talking about his feelings. Except today wasn’t about his feelings, was it? What did they even talk about?

In the doorway, just before Neo’s secretary comes to fetch him, he turns around and says, on impulse, “Damen. That’s what everyone calls me, not Damianos.”

Neo nods. 

*

Damen is in the middle of making himself a protein shake when Nikandros walks into the kitchen. Damen knows Nikandros is going to lecture him on something before he even opens his mouth, because Nikandros usually avoids using the kitchen at the same time as Damen.

“Ask me how I slept last night,” Nikandros says. 

Damen adds another banana to the blender. “How did you sleep last night?”

“Like absolute shit, thanks for asking.”

“You told me—”

“Now ask me why,” Nikandros says.

“Why did you sleep like absolute shit?”

Nikandros leans back against the counter. “Let’s review. You slammed the front door, which woke me up. It took me twenty minutes to go back to sleep, and then— no, I’m not done yet. The slamming door was just the beginning.”

“Okay,” Damen says, ignoring the temptation to start the blender. “Go on.”

“When I was finally about to doze off again, I started to hear this crazy, repetitive sound. I wonder if you know what sound I’m talking about.” Nikandros pauses, but Damen knows he doesn’t really want Damen to answer. Nikandros knocks on the counter a few times, picking up a rhythm. “Sounds familiar?”

“Not particularly.”

“If you’re going to fuck your new girlfriend in my house,” Nikandros says, “then at least have the decency to not bang the bed into my bedroom wall.” 

Damen starts the blender, stops it after a moment. It needs more water. “You’re the architect though. Shouldn’t you have designed your guestroom with soundproof walls if you’re so bothered by noise? And she’s not my girlfriend.”

“Great. That makes such a difference. Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart, for clearing that up for me.”

“It won’t happen again,” Damen says, both because he’s moving out soon and because yesterday Kyra told him she’s getting back together with her ex-boyfriend. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know we were being that loud.”

Nikandros rubs his eyes, the perfect picture of annoyance. “Only a few more days,” he says. “I only have to do this for a few more days, and then I’ll be free of your ass.”

“Exactly. You’ll get a full night’s sleep, and no one will fuck in your apartment.”

“Except for me,” Nikandros says.

Damen makes a face. “When’s the last time you fucked something other than your hand?”

Nikandros grabs an apple from the fruit bowl and tosses it at him, missing by more than a few inches. The apple cracks open against the cupboard and, surprisingly, leaves a trail of juice behind. 

“I’m not cleaning that,” Damen says, and starts the blender again.

*

it’s free sushi night at sakae tomorrow

for 3 year old members

like 3 years of being a member

not 3-year-olds

Damen doesn’t reply, thinking of Laurent’s orders. He figures Nicaise will give up at some point. It’s only a matter of time.

*

“How did you and Laurent meet?” Neo asks him, ten minutes into their second session.

They met in the cereal aisle at Arle’s. Damen had gotten lost five minutes into entering the supermarket, not used to doing his own grocery shopping, and Laurent was the first person he asked for directions. 

Laurent was wearing the softest-looking sweater Damen had ever seen—bright red, with a hole near the right cuff Laurent liked to stick his thumb into—and he was frowning at the cereal boxes like they’d called him a bastard. He kept checking his phone, tapping it frustratedly, and when Damen approached him he saw that Laurent was using the calculator app.

“Hey,” Damen said. “I was wondering if you knew where the wine—”

“No,” Laurent replied, not looking up from the box of Starbursts he had in his right hand. “I don’t work here.”

“I can tell.” 

Laurent ignored him. He put the Starbursts back on the shelf and grabbed another box, a brand Damen had never heard of before, typing its price into his phone. Then deleted it. Then grabbed another box.

The words came out of Damen’s mouth like a flood: “I’ll buy everything in your cart if you help me find a bottle of red wine.”

A blush so red it looked like a rash spread across Laurent’s whole face, not just his cheeks or the tip of his nose, but also his ears and chin and forehead. It would take Damen over half a year to realize the meaning behind that blush. At the time, he’d thought Laurent liked playing coy, that it had been about attraction. In reality, it had been about shame.

Laurent stilled. Damen watched him freeze, every part of him become so rigid it looked like it hurt to breathe. As if a switch had been flicked, Laurent relaxed the next second. His shoulders slouched as he threw three cereal boxes—vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry flavored—into his half-empty cart. 

He turned to Damen, eyes so sharp it hurt to hold his gaze, and said, “What kind of wine?”

“Red,” Damen said. After a moment’s thought, he added, “The good kind.”

Laurent stuffed his phone in the pocket of his jeans and started pushing his cart down the aisle. Damen followed in silence, shamelessly staring at his legs and the soft curve of his ass, barely covered by the red sweater.

Standing in front of a hundred rows of bottles, Damen felt the need to explain himself. “My friend is having a lunch party and asked me to bring the wine. I forgot—”

“I really,” Laurent said, eyes on the labels, “don’t care.”

No one had ever spoken to Damen like that. He was too surprised to feel offended. 

Laurent picked a bottle of Pinot Noir Grosses Gewächs and held it up for Damen to see. “Red wine, good,” he said, mocking Damen’s words from earlier. He made them sound stupid, the sort of thing a caveman would say. “It’s ninety euros.”

Damen frowned. Was that supposed to be expensive? “Thank you.”

They were waiting in the self check out line when Damen dared to speak again. “You really like cereal,” he said, taking a look into Laurent’s cart. Its only contents were five colorful packets of ramen noodles, a lonely can of peas, and the three cereal boxes Damen had seen Laurent agonizing over earlier.

Laurent’s eyes flickered from the boxes to Damen’s face. His own face was blank. “They’re not for me.”

Damen rubbed the back of his neck. He was about to say he did not like cereal either—too sugary and full of empty calories—when the line advanced and Laurent moved away from him to scan the items.

Laurent thumbed the hole in his sweater. Very, very tightly, as if it hurt him to speak the words, he said, “I need you to put your credit card information.”

Damen complied. The total was less than twenty euros, only a fraction of what the wine had cost him. When he was done, Damen turned to help Laurent put his things in a bag but found that the only thing still out was the can of peas.

He held it up for Laurent to take. 

“Thank you,” Laurent said. He did not sound grateful.

They walked together to the exit. Damen liked the way Laurent’s wrists looked when he moved to adjust the strap of his bag. They were dainty, milky white. They’d look good under Damen’s hand.

Through the first mouthful of fresh air, Damen said, “I’d really like to have your number.”

“And I’d really like to win a million euros,” Laurent said. His flush was back, but this time there was anger in his voice too. It would take Damen months to learn to hear the resignation there, a quiet hum underneath Laurent’s usual fury. “So, no.”

Damen slipped one of his recently printed cards out of his pocket—the one he was supposed to show Nikandros over lunch that day—and gave it to Laurent. “Then take mine.”

Laurent took it, crushed it in his fist, and walked away. There’d been hope in Damen, even then. At least Laurent hadn’t torn the card into pieces.

But Damen can’t say this to Neo, not only because it’d take more time than what the fifty-minute session allows, but also because he doesn’t have the words. He doesn’t know where to start, despite this being the very beginning. He doesn’t know if it really happened like that or if he’s twisting things again, trying to make it all fit into the cookie-cutter version of Laurent he has always used to make him palatable to those who do not know him. 

“It’s complicated,” Damen says instead. “We met at the supermarket.”

Neo blinks, then frowns. “What’s complicated about that?”

*

Kastor opens the door. He’s wearing a blue cone hat that reads Happy b-day! complete with glitter and a white ribbon. He grimaces when he sees Damen standing on his doorstep.

“Don’t,” Kastor says as he steps back to let Damen into the house. “You’ll have to wear one too, so don’t even fucking say it.”

“Fine,” Damen says. “But just so you know, it doesn’t look bad on you.”

Kastor rolls his eyes and heads towards the living room, not bothering to wait for him. It’s part of their dynamic, Damen thinks to himself. It makes sense that things are this way. Kastor is older, much older, and if he had waited around for Damen as the two of them were growing up then…

Damen pauses in the middle of taking off his left shoe. He doesn’t know how to complete that thought. What’s so terrible about waiting on your younger brother to catch up?

The house is quiet except for the distant sounds coming from the kitchen and the living room, that infernal song from Galen’s favorite TV show playing just loud enough that Damen can make out the lyrics without straining his ears. No job’s too big, no pup’s too small.

Damen wonders how on earth Erasmus puts up with this on a daily basis.

Jokaste has done some redecorating. The pictures on the walls are different, or at least Damen thinks they are. It’s been a while since he’s dropped by, but he’s sure the photo of Galen playing in the bathtub wasn’t there when he and Laurent came over for Jokaste’s birthday. 

Or maybe back then Damen had been too busy staring at Laurent to notice.

Several things happen at the same time the moment he sets a foot in the kitchen. The first thing he sees is the not at all small pile of wrapped gifs, which reminds him that he forgot to bring his own nephew a present, and isn’t that pathetic? 

The second thing that happens is that he almost knocks the lemonade tray out of Jokaste’s hands. She gives him the iciest glare she’s capable of, steadying the drinks with her free hand effortlessly, and tells him with a colorful euphemism to get lost. It’s like she knows Damen didn’t bring a gift. 

Stumbling like a fool, Damen leaves the kitchen and goes where the real party is being held: the living room.

There are two dozen balloons attached to the walls, all white and light blue, some of them with special designs. There’s a dog wearing a police uniform on at least ninety percent of them, the remaining tenth percent reserved for Galen’s name.

Kastor is sitting on the ground, cross-legged, clapping along unenthusiastically to the beat of that dreadful song. Galen is standing in front of him, pointing at the TV and babbling.

“Hey there,” Damen says as he sits down next to Kastor. He makes his eyes go as wide as possible. “Is that Paw Patrol?”

“Chase,” Galen says. 

As an explanation, Kastor says, “He means the dog.”

“They’re all dogs.”

“Yes, but Chase is—”

Galen crawls on Kastor’s lap, one of his hands accidentally slapping Kastor on the chin. “Uncle Damien, did you see the sode where Chase goes—where he goes to the zoo?”

“He means episode. And Damen.”

“I think I got that,” Damen says. Then, looking at the child, “Er, no, birthday buddy.”

“ Birthday buddy ?”

“Uncle Damien,” Galen says, but then the TV catches his attention again, so he brings his finger to his lips and tries to shush them. Spit flies everywhere. “Daddy, are you watching?”

Kastor looks like he’s in pain. “Yes, I’m watching.”

“Good.”

Damen tries to watch the show too. Ten minutes into it he feels like his brain is melting inside his skull, so he turns to Kastor and whispers, “Why hasn’t anyone arrived yet?”

Kastor mouths back, “Jokaste’s friends are in the garden already. I didn’t invite anyone else—”

“Not even Pallas?”

“—from the office.”

“Daddy,” Galen says, affronted. He squishes Kastor’s bearded cheeks with his hands, making his mouth turn into a pout. “Watch.”

“Erasmus and Kallias are coming over,” Kastor says. Or at least that’s what Damen thinks he’s said. It’s hard to tell exactly, given that Galen is now pressing his palm to his father’s mouth to keep him quiet. “Soon.”

Damen considers his options. He can go out to the garden and try to flirt with one or two of Jokaste’s friends. Then again, if Jokaste’s friends are anything like her, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll be interested in Damen. He can stay here and watch another twenty-minute episode of Paw Patrol. It’s a kid’s show, not a medieval torture device. Didn’t Nicaise watch this sort of thing, at eleven? He liked comics better, Damen remembers. And videogames, the kind that Laurent would confiscate every week because they were not at all appropriate for a kid to play. Damen still doesn’t know where Nicaise got them.

Shoplifting, probably.

The dog dressed in a fireman uniform is talking about the power of friendship when the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it,” Damen says as he makes a beeline for the door. It’s not even about being courteous. He can’t take another second of that fucking show. 

Erasmus and Kallias are holding hands. Damen looks away from their interlocked fingers as he takes a step back to let them into the house, wondering when was the last time he did that with someone other than a partner. Kyra had definitely not been interested in holding his hand. Nikandros held his hand once, in kindergarten. 

They step inside while Damen hovers awkwardly. Kallias offers him a nod and a smile, while Erasmus goes in for the hug. He holds Damen tightly, or as tightly as his two wiry arms allow him. Damen imagines he’s trying to be comforting. 

“I’m glad you came,” Erasmus says as he pulls away. “We haven’t hung out in months.”

Damen knows this. The last time he saw Erasmus was at the surprise party he organized for Kallias’ promotion. Damen had thought the party was a stupid idea—Kallias went from Assistant Nurse to Nurse at a daycare center—and Laurent got mad at him for saying so. They had a fight about it in the restaurant’s parking lot. 

“Yeah,” is all Damen says. He wonders if they’re remembering that party too.

Kallias kisses Erasmus’ cheek and says, “I’ll get you something to drink. Jo said there’d be lemonade.”

“Right,” Erasmus says. He’s on the brink of laughing, as usual. “Try not to gossip too much.”

After Kallias has slipped away into the kitchen, Damen and Erasmus stand in the foyer, in absolute silence. Neither of them comments on Kallias’ rushed departure. Damen has been aware for some time that out of the two of them, Erasmus is the one who actually likes him. Kallias simply puts up with Damen when forced to, and even then he’s not exactly friendly.

“So.” Erasmus holds onto Damen’s arm to slip off his shoes. “What’s been going on with you?”

I’m single for the first time in four years, I haven’t had a Tinder match in three days, MisterSlave called me an asshole on Reddit, and I’m going to therapy once a week.

“Nothing much,” Damen says. 

Erasmus gives him a look. His smile is very sad. “Are you still staying at Nikandros’?”

“Yes, but the house will be ready next week. I—it’ll be nice to be…”

“Home?”

The word makes Damen feel a little sick. Home. That’s why he bought the house in the first place, so that he and Laurent would finally have a place of their own, somewhere Nicaise could throw pool parties in, somewhere they could even have—

“And you?” Damen asks, fed up with talking about himself even though it’s only been five minutes. “How are the kids?”

Erasmus lights up. It’s instant, like a switch being flicked. “They’re all so cute. Last month we had a dress-up party and this kid, his name is Caleb, showed up with little fangs and a—wait, let me show you.” He fishes out his phone from his back pocket and dives right into the image gallery. Swiping, he holds the phone up for Damen to see. “That’s Lila, the one with the crown. Caleb was a vampire and this is Julian, who—”

The phone screen goes dark. Erasmus lowers his phone.

Damen blinks at him. “What?”

“Nothing. Caleb’s costume was the best, don’t you think?”

Erasmus looks worried. He’s also even worse at lying than Damen, which should not be possible considering Damen is terrifyingly bad at it.

“I didn’t get to see Julian’s,” Damen says, testing the waters. The blush that spreads across Erasmus’ face confirms his theory: he did it on purpose. “Was it something outrageous?”

“Not really. He looked nice.”

“Can I see?”

Some hand wringing. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I’m sure it was…” Damen hesitates. Is it uncool to use the word cool these days? He hasn’t hung out around Nicaise in a while, so he can’t be sure. “Nice.”

Kallias reappears, one lemonade glass in each hand. He offers neither to Damen.

“Oh!” Erasmus says, one sip later. “We forgot Galen’s present in the car.”

“Presents,” Kallias says. He’s already on his way out, car keys in hand, glass almost empty. “I could use some help carrying them inside.”

Damen doesn’t volunteer. He thinks he might do something stupid, like drop the gift on purpose just to see if it’ll shatter. 

*

Jokaste puts down another present in front of Galen. Unlike all the other ones, this gift is perfectly wrapped, with no tape on sight, no wrinkles, or weirdly placed bows. The wrapping paper is a deep blue color, and there are stickers on each face of it, dogs from Paw Patrol. The shiny bow on top is beautiful, turquoise.

There’s only one person Damen has met who’s this meticulous about gifts.

“This is Uncle Laurent’s,” Kastor says. When his eyes meet Damen’s across the table, he doesn’t wince. He looks unrepentant. “And Nicaise’s, too.”

Galen is adamant that the stickers don’t get torn apart. He bounces on Kastor’s lap, full of energy and sugar, and tugs Kastor’s hands away when he thinks he’s unwrapping the present too roughly. “Careful, daddy,” he scolds. “Careful.”

Kastor continues extra slowly after that.

Of course, Laurent remembered to send a gift. Of course, Damen did not. 

There’s a part of Damen—bitter and angry and resentful—that wants to scorn at the gesture. Payback, he thinks, for the pink sweatshirt Damen bought Nicaise a few weeks back. Laurent never does anything without intention or motive, and so this isn’t casual. This isn’t Laurent being nice, or Laurent caring about Galen. This is just another way of telling Damen that he’s an asshole, that he’s forgetful, that he doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of sorts. The more Damen thinks about it the less sense it makes, but it’s obvious to him right there and then that Laurent knew Damen wouldn’t bring a gift, and so Damen didn’t. 

Galen hugs the police cruiser to his chest. It’s an exact replica of the one Chase has in the show. He’s babbling about it to Kastor, and when he shifts in his father’s arms he must accidentally press a button, for the dreadful, brain-killing song starts playing.

Kastor and Erasmus speak up at the same time.

“Oh, God, no.”

“It’s musical!”

Quietly, Damen excuses himself to the bathroom. He plans on staying there until he’s sure the gift unwrapping part of the party is finished. Accidentally, he catches a glimpse of Erasmus’ lock screen as he stands up. It’s barely a flash, a group of kids dressed in costumes, some of which Damen has already seen. Vampire, queen, princess, monster. 

It’s not until he’s washing his hands in Kastor’s upstairs bathroom that he makes the connection. The kid wearing the princess dress is Julian. A boy.

Chapter Text

Three

“He’s a kid,” Neo says. “He won’t hold a grudge against you because your present arrived a few days later.”

Damen wants to scratch at the leather arms of the chair he’s sitting in. “It’s not about that. At all. I know he doesn’t care. He’s, like, three. He won’t remember any of it.”

“Then what is it about? Do you think Laurent overstepped?”

“No. It’s—he’s just—” Damen wants to scream. Instead, he runs a hand through his hair, barely resisting the urge to pull at the locks. “He always does this.”

“This?”

“He makes me look like an asshole on purpose.”

“I see.”

But Damen doesn’t think Neo does, at all. “I’m bad at remembering dates and details and—birthday stuff. And he knows that. He could have reminded me, is what I’m saying. If he didn’t want to talk to me he could have told Nicaise to send me a text.”

Neo stares at him.

“How is it fucking fair,” Damen says, “that he’s allowed to buy my nephew a birthday gift but then throws a fit when I buy Nicaise a sweatshirt?”

“Was that something he did a lot when you were together?”

Damen blinks. “What? Buy gifts?”

“No. You said you aren’t good at remembering things, and so I wondered if maybe Laurent is. Perhaps he was the one who reminded you to show up places, buy gifts, or call people on their birthdays.”

Laurent’s memory is razor blade sharp. He’s never forgotten a single event, not even the ones Damen knows Laurent wishes he could kill and bury. Unlike Damen, he never had to check the calendar to know that the anniversary of his parents’ deaths was approaching. 

Yearly, around September, Laurent would grow quiet. Nicaise would lash out more, too, and their apartment would turn into a silent, tense tomb for a week or two. It’d pass, eventually, and Laurent would go back to waking up early and smiling and wanting to make love. 

Damen never managed to understand that quiet mourning. They’d won the trial after all.

“He was the one obsessed with planners and to-do lists and—” Damen swallows thickly. He remembers liking that about Laurent, his prissiness, his memory. Laurent is the sort of person who always calls people on their birthdays, never a day or two later after lazily checking Facebook. “A heads-up would have been nice, that’s all.”

The room starts to feel too hot. Damen shrugs off his jacket and slowly rolls up the sleeves of his work shirt. He came here straight from the office, without having a chance to change out of his two-piece suit, and now he’s suffering the consequences. The AC in Neo’s office isn’t as low as Damen would like it to be.

Neo hasn’t looked away from him. “Have you had any contact with him since the breakup?”

“I accidentally saw him in person once.”

“Because of Nicaise.”

Right. Damen has told him about that. “Yes. Other than that we haven’t talked or texted. He said he wanted a clean break.”

“Would you have found it weird if he’d texted you out of the blue? To give you a heads-up, I mean.”

Damen tenses. He doesn’t really like where this conversation is headed. “Maybe. But I wouldn’t have minded.”

“Do you think he would have minded if the roles had been reversed? Say he came up to you and told you that you should have reminded him of Nicaise’s birthday.”

“Laurent would never forget Nicaise’s—”

“I know,” Neo says with a smile. “You’ve made that very clear, but let’s pretend for a second.”

Damen wants to snort. He’s paying for therapy, not fucking improv classes. Still, he lets himself think about it. Really think about it. The realization that he would have told Laurent to buy himself a calendar doesn’t come to him like a slap to the face or a kick to the stomach. It feels like burying his fingers in the sand and finding something hidden there, something that’s always been waiting to be discovered. 

“I get it,” Damen says. It comes out gruff like he needs to learn how to unclench his jaw. “I’m being stupid.”

“It’s not stupid to have expectations of people.”

“Yeah, except my expectations of people are always too high, apparently.”

Neo is quiet for a few minutes. Damen is staring at the clock, watching the seconds tick by, when Neo says, “Tell me a bit about that. What other people do you have expectations of?”

“I don’t think this is working.”

“What exactly isn’t working?”

“This,” Damen says, his hand gesturing between them. “Therapy. Talking about these things. It’s not—this isn’t why I came here.”

“Well, what did you come here for?”

“To get an outsider’s opinion.”

“Well,” Neo says. “That’s not how therapy is supposed to work. You don’t need my opinion on things.”

Damen wants to rip his own face off. “What do I need then?” 

“Introspection.”

You’re as introspective as an amoeba, Laurent had told him.  “I don’t—”

“I’m going to ask you a question,” Neo goes on, “and I want you to really think about it before you give me an answer. What are you honestly angry about? Is it that Laurent got your nephew a present and you didn’t? Or is it that he’s still on good terms with your brother and his family? Or is it because you feel guilty?”

Damen watches the seconds tick by on the clock. Once enough time has passed, he says, “I don’t know.”

“That is what therapy is for,” Neo says. “So you know what you’re feeling and why. So you don’t have to go around guessing.”

“I don’t have to guess how I feel about Laurent.”

Neo watches Damen cross his legs. “And how do you feel about him?”

“Neutral. I don’t care what he does with his life.”

“All right.”

“I mean it,” Damen says. “This isn’t really about Laurent. It’s—I should start using the calendar on my phone.”

“So you’ve said.” Neo tilts his head. “It’s okay to be angry at him. Or frustrated.”

“I’m not.”

“Absolute neutrality is something hard to obtain, Damen. Do you often find yourself thinking about him? About what he’s doing or whom he is with?”

Laurent’s Instagram profile comes to mind. Damen banishes the thought because he knows what Neo will think if he brings that up. Instead, Damen says, “I’m moving out tomorrow.”

If Neo notices the sudden, jerky change of subject he does not comment on it. His face remains as open as Damen has ever seen it. “That’s very exciting. You mentioned you had your friend design it for you?”

“Yes,” Damen says, surprised Neo remembers that. 

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you have it built instead of buying one that already existed?”

Damen takes his time, honing his answer, reshaping it. It feels trite to say he and Laurent wanted a place of their own, a house no one had ever lived in before. It feels like a lie to say he simply wanted to give Nikandros a new, challenging project.

“We…” He stops. They’re not a unit anymore. “I grew up in a big house in Ios. When my father moved his company to Delfeur, I moved into an even bigger place. I guess it’s just what I’m used to.”

Neo nods, nothing short of polite. “Is that something you had in common with Laurent?”

“Laurent has always lived in Vere,” Damen says. A small, white lie. He doubts the time Laurent spent in Kempt, most likely locked up, can be of any interest at the moment.

“In a big house?”

Damen doesn’t know how to dodge the question, so he ignores it entirely. He feels enough shame as it is, speaking about people in his life, about his own family, with a stranger that is being paid to listen to him. There is nothing natural about these interactions, no spontaneity or casualness. He and Neo are not friends. 

It’d be a betrayal of some sort, he reasons, to talk about Laurent’s apartment in Bastia. Its threadbare carpets, second-hand furniture, and hyperactive roaches belong to the past in a way that is almost solemn. Damen has not quite forgotten how to feel Laurent’s shame; he does not want Neo to feel it too.

Neo clears his throat against the silence. He says, “All right, what are you getting your nephew for his birthday? Any ideas?”

A leash, Damen thinks. “Paw Patrol merch,” he says.

*

By the time Damen makes it to the house, the truck full of furniture is already there, and so are the movers. It’s a small team of four, and they move through the motions quickly and efficiently. They ask Damen to sign some papers, then have him check the number of boxes and furniture pieces and rolled up rugs. Seeing his whole life packed and bagged away in the back of a medium-sized truck makes Damen pause. The truck is not even close to being full. 

Damen tries to keep out of everyone’s way. Even though he’s imagined this moment a hundred times, he never quite pictured it like this—him standing on the sidelines, with no one to talk to, no one to celebrate with once the whole thing is over. He barely has to direct the team, the furniture he’s bought obviously self-explanatory: kitchen table in the kitchen, couch in the living room, bed in the main bedroom.

“It’s a great place,” one of the movers tells him after putting together one of the kitchen chairs. Damen thinks his name might be Pierre, but he doesn’t care enough to ask. “That garden… Do you have any dogs?”

“No,” Damen says. It’s one of the first things he’s said since he got here. 

“Kids?”

Damen thinks of Nicaise, which is stupid. Nicaise isn’t here, will never set foot in this house. He isn’t a kid. It’s such an idiotic thought Damen feels a flash of hot anger go through him, quick and sharp as lightning.

“No,” he says. “It’s just me.”

*

Nicaise’s texts continue to flood Damen’s inbox throughout the week. It’s as if he’s set a timer to remind himself to text Damen at least once a day at random times, even though Damen has not replied once. 

Some of the messages are links Damen doesn’t open, glowing bright blue in the chat bubbles. Some of them are random pictures, which Nicaise provides commentary on, while others are memes Damen can only understand after he spends an awfully long time studying the images or googling them. On Friday, he texts Damen a video compilation of dogs doing funny things—swimming in a kid pool, barking at their reflection in the mirror, eating things out of the pantry. This type of humor is unusual for Nicaise, who thinks himself above dumb jokes and boomer Facebook posts. The thought that Nicaise has searched and found and sent this to Damen specifically because he thought Damen would like it leaves Damen feeling nauseous.

The video, although not particularly funny, gives Damen an idea.

*

If dating Laurent for four years taught Damen anything, it’s that buying dogs is wrong. Adopt, you cunt, read the bumper sticker Laurent had on his car. And so Damen decides to contact Erasmus. 

He knows the one he should be talking to is Kallias, partly because Kallias worked as a volunteer at the shelter a few years ago, and partly because Damen is pretty sure Erasmus doesn’t know anything about dogs. But Damen knows Kallias doesn’t like him, and so Erasmus it is.

Over the course of ten minutes, Erasmus texts Damen fifty hundred times.

are you getting a dog?! i’ll send you the link to the shelter’s website give me a sec

foreverfriends.com/adoption

omg i’m so excited for you!

send pics!

soon!

Damen checks out their website. It’s full of pictures of kids hugging weird-looking dogs and videos of hesitant cats letting themselves be petted. Without giving it too much thought, he fills out the online questionnaire in between bites of his caesar salad. Next to ‘Preferences’, Damen simply writes ‘a dog’. 

He stops by the shelter on his way back from work. It’s cute, the way he imagines a modern orphanage would be: forcefully happy.

A girl named Elaine shows him around, her red mouth never still. She babbles on and on about what a coincidence it is that they both know Kallias, and isn’t Erasmus just adorable, and did Damen have any kind of dog in mind because she just happened to notice that his application was a bit vague, and wouldn’t Damen want to check out the cats, too?

“No,” Damen says firmly. Perhaps a little too firmly. “Thank you, but I don’t like cats.”

Elaine shakes her head. “These are so well behaved. If you’re worried about ruined couches or furniture you should know that—”

Damen decides to interrupt. “I have a big yard, so I was thinking maybe a husky? Big dogs like big gardens.” It’s not rocket science, and Damen definitely doesn’t want to get stuck with a barking chihuahua. “Just no purse dogs.”

“There’s nothing wrong with purse dogs.”

Damen shifts, awkward. “I never said there was.”

“All dogs need love,” Elaine says, and after that, she doesn’t seem nearly as talkative as she was when Damen first walked in. Which is good. “Here, I’ll leave you to it. The cages are unlocked in case you want to hold or pet them.”

There are no huskies waiting to be adopted. In fact, Damen isn’t sure he knows what kind of dogs these are. He remembers a scene from Lilo and Stitch—one of the only movies Nicaise liked to watch as a kid—and feels strangely lonely. Maybe this one used to be a collie too before he got run over, Damen thinks as he crouches down in front of a cage. The dog inside gives him an uninterested look.

Damen moves along. 

The dog in the last cage is a corgi. Or at least that’s what Damen reasons. His fur is a washed-out shade of orange, paws tiny and legs shorter than they have any right to be. The first thought that comes to Damen is that there’s something very wrong with this dog.

It looks at Damen cross-eyed, for starters, and it keeps running into the bars of his cage like they’ll disappear if he tries hard enough to strut past them. Damen reaches out and fits his hand inside, trying to pet him. The dog’s tongue is warm and scratchy against his skin, but Damen allows it. 

“That’s a great option, Damianos,” Elaine says. How long has she been standing there? “I’ll get started on the paperwork if you’d like.”

Damen retrieves his hand. “I’m not taking him home.”

“Oh? Why not? You two were getting along.”

“He was licking my hand, that’s all.”

Elaine gives him a look. Damen doesn’t know what to do with it.

“He’s a corgi .”

“Corgis aren’t purse dogs,” Elaine says. She bends over to open the cage and let the dog out. It looks well behaved, sitting on his haunches and looking up at Damen. Cross-eyed. “He’s such a good boy. Aren’t you, baby?”

Damen watches her pet the dog for a moment. Then he says, “I’ll wait until you have a husky available. Or a rottweiler.”

Elaine picks the dog up so he’s eye-level with Damen. “Are you sure? This one’s been waiting for so long to get adopted… His bark is scary, too. If you’re into that sort of thing.”

“What makes you think—”

“Big dogs have big barks,” Elaine says. It sounds like she’s mocking him. The dog wiggles in her hands. “Go on, let Damianos hear you bark.”

The dog smiles. Sort of. 

After taking a closer look at him, Damen says, “What’s wrong with him?”

“He was in a car accident and that’s why this paw is a bit messed up. He limps, but he’s still fast. But if you don’t want him...”

Damen doesn’t want him. Growing up, Damen always owned big dogs. His father had only gotten rid of their German Shepard, Ios, after he bit Kastor hard enough to land him in the ER. Sixteen stitches later, Kastor declared he was not a dog person anymore. 

This dog isn’t intimidating. Damen tries to picture it—walking him around his new neighborhood, buying him treats, letting Nikandros meet him—and it looks too much like a nightmare. He doesn’t want a limping, funny-looking, short-legged dog. He doesn’t.

“Fine,” he says.

Elaine’s enthusiasm returns. She babbles on and on, talking so vigorously the dog stares at her with a weird expression. She gestures a lot too, and Damen finds that way more distracting than anything else. In fact, he stares at her flailing hand so hard he stops listening to her and is startled when she touches his elbow.

“What?”

Pen in hand, Elaine says, “Do you know what you want to name him?”

The dog sneezes then proceed to choke on his own spit. Damen stares helplessly at him, already regretting the whole thing.

“Leave it blank,” Damen says.

*

He decides on his drive back to the house that he’s not going to tell anyone about the dog. He’ll text Erasmus later to tell him they didn’t have any dogs he liked, and that will settle the matter. It’s not like anyone ever comes over, unannounced or not. 

He’ll give the dog a one-month trial, that’s all. It’s not permanent. Damen is living proof that nothing ever is.

*

“How’s the house?” Nikandros says, fifteen abs in. 

Damen takes a deep breath through his nose as he pushes himself into a sitting position. “It’s in a great mood.”

“Oh, fuck off, you know what I mean.”

“It’s—” Damen’s back touches the floor, then it’s time to sit up again. “Big. The garden’s cool.”

“Have you had the gardener over yet? That grass needs to be cut with the special—”

“Nik,” Aktis says. He’s a few steps away, knuckles wrapped so he doesn’t hurt himself as he punches Elon’s gloved hands. “Shut the fuck up about grass, man. What are you, a florist?”

“Florists sell flowers, imbecile. They don’t plant them.”

“Grass is not a flower,” Elon points out. He whines when Aktis punches him especially hard.

After a while, Damen tunes them out, too busy feeling the ache in all his muscles to care about what his friends are saying. When Nikandros and Aktis start sparring, Damen thumbs his phone and turns the volume all the way up. He knows how stupidly loud Aktis can get when he’s too worked up.

*

“Can you walk me through one of the fights you had with Laurent?”

“Why?” Damen says. He should have started today’s session by telling Neo about the dog, or about how annoying Kastor was at work this week, or anything but Laurent. “You said last week it was obvious why we broke up, and that it had nothing to do with—”

Neo’s hand is up. “That’s not what I said, Damen. What I said was that it seems like the number of your arguments mattered more than their quality. It’s about endurance, not content.”

“Then why does it matter what we argued about?”

“It doesn’t. Or maybe it does. I don’t know.”

Damen knows he can simply not answer. He usually doesn’t, when he doesn’t like the question or when he can’t understand where it’s headed. 

There are so many fights to choose from, is the thing. Should he talk about the bathroom fight they had at Nikandros’? The one over Nicaise’s sparkly nails? Or maybe the argument that led to Damen sleeping on the living-room couch for a week? Another question presents itself then: does Damen even remember what was said, word for word? 

One memory stands out, equal parts vibrant and confusing. Damen holds onto it.

“Some of my friends were at our apartment. It was a Saturday night, and I remember because—” Damen licks dry lips. Because he and Laurent had spent the whole day in bed, kissing and fucking and dozing off. Nicaise had been at a friend’s. “We were watching a game. Hockey, I think.”

Neo nods and doesn’t interrupt.

“Laurent had gone to bed early. He said he had a headache or something, but I think he just wanted to let us be. And we were talking, all of us, and Aktis said something stupid. About one of the players.”

The memory twists a bit in his head. Was it Aktis? Maybe it was Pallas who said it. Damen starts to doubt Aktis was even there in the first place, and one thought leads to another, one question to the next, and soon he doesn’t even know who said what or why or if they were joking at all. 

Words come back to him, echoing inside his skull like it’s a giant cave and there’s a tiny man screaming somewhere. It doesn’t surprise me that he likes it up the ass, Aktis had said. With an ass like that it’d be a waste if he didn’t.

“They all had girlfriends,” Damen says, hearing the excuse in his own voice far too clearly. The room starts to feel hot again. “And it was the first time I wasn’t dating a girl since college. Nikandros made a joke about—about me.”

When the silence goes on for too long, Neo intervenes. “Was it a homophobic joke?”

“No.” At least, Damen doesn’t think it was. Frustration swells inside him, and so does anger. “It was a comment, that’s all. He implied I was the one who—in the relationship, that I—”

“That you bottomed for Laurent.”

Damen relaxes a bit. It’s out there, he won’t have to say it. “Yes. Laurent must have heard me correct him. The walls were thin enough.”

“So Laurent confronted you about it later?”

Laurent hadn’t. After everyone had left and he had tidied up as best as he could in his beer-fogged state, Damen crawled into bed, reaching out for Laurent, to pull him closer, to hold him. He had always wanted Laurent closer back then.

But Laurent had stayed out of reach, stubbornly so. 

The next morning, Laurent got up before him. It was Sunday and Nicaise would return around midday, which meant they should have been enjoying what little time alone they had left. In bed. Together. Instead, Laurent sat down in the living room and started working on his laptop, promptly ignoring all of Damen’s attempts at starting a conversation.

“I don’t know if that’s what upset him,” Damen says. “It was the only time we mentioned him, so that must have been it. But I just don’t get why he was so angry. It’s not like I lied.”

Neo lets out a tiny hum. “Maybe he didn’t want you discussing your sex life with your friends.”

“That’d be hypocritical of him, all things considered. What do you think he talked about with his friends? Ancel knew more about my sex life than I did.”

“Well, what exactly did you tell Nikandros? Although I’m sure that was not your intention, Laurent might have found it offensive.”

Damen frowns. “Why would telling the truth be offensive?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you said, either.”

“I asked Nikandros if I looked like the type to like it up the ass,” Damen says, not looking at Neo. He feels like a young boy again, sitting at the principal’s office. Seconds away from being told off. “And then I said that it was pretty obvious what happened in our bedroom.”

Neo’s expression doesn’t change. “All right. Well, can you see why Laurent might have found it insulting? Even if the basic truth was there.”

“No. I don’t see it.”

Damen is being stubborn, but he doesn’t care. He’s well past the point of caring about what he sounds like in this office. If he starts thinking about it too much he won’t be able to come back. His most recent mantra is that he’s the one paying for this, and so it’s not as if he’s forcing Neo to listen to him. If anything, he’s doing Neo a favor.

“All right,” Neo says slowly. He must sense Damen’s annoyance. “Let’s try something different. Why didn’t you find Nikandros’ joke funny? You said it yourself: it was meant to be a joke, not an insult. What about it made you feel like you needed to explain yourself to your friends?”

Damen doesn’t like where this is going. “Because it wasn’t the truth. I never…” He looks away again. “Did that. With Laurent.”

“But why did it upset you that your friends thought you had? Would you have reacted as strongly if Nikandros had joked about your eating habits?”

“Sex is different.”

“Why?”

“It just is,” Damen says. “I’ve never done that with anyone. Why would I want people I’m close with thinking I have?”

“Why does it matter if they think you—”

“Because it’s not fucking true.”

Neo looks at him for a moment. “Do you think it’s shameful?”

“Lying?”

“Bottoming,” Neo says. He makes it sound casual, as though they’re talking about the latest case Damen is working on or the weather or both. “Do you think it’s something people should be ashamed of?”

Damen’s hands turn to fists where they’re resting on the chair. “No. I’m not a homophobe.”

“And I’m not saying you are. I’m simply asking you a question, Damen, because from what you’ve told me it seems like being a bottom is something you don’t wish to be associated with. So I was only wondering why that is.”

“Is not wanting to do things differently in bed a crime now? Why should I bottom if I don’t want to?”

“It’s not a crime,” Neo says. “Preferences, even outside the bedroom, should always be respected. I’m not asking you to do anything you find unpleasant. Let’s go back to what you said to Nikandros for a moment.”

Damen rubs his hand over his face, feels how clammy his skin is. “Why is any of that important? I’ve already told you what I said to him.”

“You implied that there’s a correlation between looks and the role people play in bed.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Neo leans forward a bit, just enough to make the leather of his chair squeak. “This isn’t me chastising you. I’m only trying to understand you better so that I can help you understand yourself.” He offers Damen a smile. “I’m in your corner. The sooner you realize that, the better.”

It doesn’t feel like Neo is in his corner though. It doesn’t feel like he’s listening to Damen at all. 

They’ve been going at it for almost forty minutes. Damen is tired. He’s tired because he had a long day at the office, because he knows tomorrow will only be busier, because he knows there’s no one waiting for him at his new, fancy, perfect house. Because he knows, deep down, that the hot flashes of shame he’s experiencing will only grow more frequent the more they speak about this. 

It’s because he’s tired of it all that he starts talking again. Talking makes time go faster.

“Laurent is smaller than me,” Damen says, and already winces at his own words. “He has a very distinct style. I only meant that sometimes… If one were to think about stereotypes, then it should be obvious which one of us…” His voice dies down. Clearing his throat is awfully hard, for the muscles feel tight to the point of pain. Helplessly: “Sometimes stereotypes are true.”

“Like in your case,” Neo offers.

“Yes.”

“And you wanted to make that clear to Nikandros because you didn’t want him to get the wrong impression of you.”

Damen gives a hesitant nod.

“And you felt like your friends thinking you bottomed for Laurent would somehow change their views on you as a person.”

“I—” Damen frowns, so deeply his face hurts. “No.”

“Okay. Then why were you so interested in explaining yourself?”

The session is over. Neo is kind enough not to point it out, but Damen’s eyes are on the clock. He should have left two minutes ago.

“I don’t know,” Damen says at last. “I... don’t know.”

Neo stands when he does, as usual. He gives Damen a long look as if trying to pry the right answers from his brain just by staring. 

“Think about it,” Neo says, and pats Damen on the shoulder. “We can talk about it more next week.”

*

Dog comes rushing at him as soon as Damen opens the door. He stares up at Damen, pink tongue lolling out of his mouth, saliva everywhere. Hesitantly, Damen pats him on the head as he steps out of his shoes.

“Are you hungry?”

Dog barks twice. Damen doesn’t know what that means, but he decides it sounds like a yes. He flicks on the lights as he walks deeper into the house—the hallway, the dining room, the kitchen—and only stops when he’s reached Dog’s corner. 

Damen grabs his bowl and an open package of dog food. It’s supposed to be meat-flavored, but it mostly smells of chemicals. Dog seems to like it, tail wagging happily at the sound of those pebbles hitting his bowl. He even licks Damen’s hand as Damen lowers it to the floor.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Damen says. 

Dog barks and resumes his chewing. Damen thinks it means good to know, owner.

Under the shower spray, with steam curling around him like smoke, Damen thinks back on what Neo said today. He tries not to at first, trying to trick his brain into thinking that shampooing his hair is a fun activity, but it’s a losing battle. By the time Damen steps out of the shower and towels himself down, there’s a throbbing ache in his head. 

Well, man, you never know who does what behind closed doors, Aktis had said. Damen remembers, very vaguely, Elon’s expression. Nikandros had laughed. 

He combs his hair without looking in the mirror, steps into his clean clothes, throws the towel in the laundry basket.

His own words come back to him the moment he steps out of the steaming bathroom. The marble tiles have been cut off, and now he’s standing on the clear wooden boards of the hallway, hair dripping down the back of his sleeping shirt.

You dare ask me that? Have you seen Laurent? 

*

Damen goes into the cellar for the first time that night. It’s mostly an empty room, except for the three boxes full of photo albums and childhood costumes Damen has had with him since he moved out of his father’s house at eighteen. He hasn’t opened them in years, only touching them when he had to take them from Laurent’s apartment to Nikandros’ storage unit. 

Boxes and a wine stack, that’s all there is to the room Damen had thought would be filled with mismatching furniture and Nicaise’s ever-growing piles of old clothes. Invisible hands are trying to wring his stomach dry as Damen pulls out one of the most expensive bottles of red wine he owns. It’s a malbec, a two-year-old present from Makedon. Limited edition.

He drinks it on the living room couch, straight from the bottle. After the fourth gulp, he starts to feel very warm and decides to take off his shirt. Midnight finds him half-naked, the bottle dangling from his hand in a way that hasn’t happened in years. 

The last time he got drunk was the day he and Laurent broke up. Nikandros had called it a celebration.

Damen climbs the stairs very carefully, making sure all the wine stays inside the bottle, not a single drop staining the perfect wood he and Laurent spent weeks choosing. There are no photos on the wall he leans against, none on the hallways or at the desk of his massive home office. Even Airbnbs are more personalized than this house.

His phone is right where he left it to charge on his nightstand. No one’s texted him all day, and suddenly he finds himself opening his conversation with Laurent. The last text Laurent sent him is three months old, before they decided to cut all contact.

Damen sets the bottle on the floor, crawls into his unnecessarily big bed, and types:

thinkign about redvelvet cake

He doesn’t think Laurent will reply, and when the familiar ping comes through he’s pleasantly confused for a couple of seconds. 

This isn’t Aimeric’s number.

The reply is dry. It should make Damen retreat, coil into himself, want to hide. It doesn’t. It’s so Laurent, even the little period in the end. Damen aches for it.

I know

Is it better now ?

BC of the curse

course**

A full minute later, Laurent’s text comes through. 

He dropped out .

Damen’s thumb hovers. He doesn’t know what to say to that, his brain not quite catching up to the words. It doesn’t surprise him, considering Aimeric has always been the worst of Laurent’s friends. Shitty kid, bad family, weird dating habits. Damen used to worry Nicaise would grow up to be like him.

Laurent replies before Damen can make a fool out of himself. It still sucks, the new message reads, but that’s not all. There’s a blue link that leads Damen to a Google review someone left on Aimeric’s shop. 

1 star. I GOT FOOD POISONING FROM EATING THIS LITTLE SHIT’S RED VELVET CUPCAKES. DONT EAT THERE!!!!! 

It’s three weeks old, and Aimeric’s reply is right under it, clear and succinct: suck my fat dick.

It’s one in the morning and Damen has to be up by five-thirty, but he can’t bring himself to not text Laurent back. The replies come surprisingly fast, for a Thursday. Damen knows Laurent has work in the morning.

miss the lemon custard

s

He still makes those.

overpriced

Like everything else he sells.

galens cake was angel cake

not from peche though

I hate angel cake. It tastes like rubber.

i know

not always

only aimerics

You’re drunk.

not drunk

You’ll regret this in the morning.

Damen smiles against his pillow. It smells nothing like the one he and Laurent shared at the other apartment—back then Laurent had exclusively bought coconut-scented shampoo—and he’s thinking about how horrible it is that his bed smells this unused as he types his last message for the night before collapsing.

i miss you

*

The first thing Damen does in the morning after groaning in pain—he’s definitely getting too old for workday hangovers—is check his phone. He wants to retch as he remembers what he did last night, what he said. His last text sits there, and under it, there are two blue ticks.

Laurent never bothered with a reply.

Chapter Text

Four

Dog spits out the neon green ball by Damen’s right foot. It’s very wet.

“Fetch,” Damen says, barely nudging the ball away. And again when Dog brings it back. “I’m not taking you out for a walk. You have a whole garden right here.”

Dog stares at him. 

The gardener has just left after spending the morning under the sun, checking empty flower beds and newly planted seeds, trimming bushes, and talking. Damen doesn’t mind people talking a lot, he’s discovered. It’s easy to nod along to what they’re saying. It’s even easier to tune them out.

Red or white? Nikandros texts the group chat. Damen moves away from his empty pool, and Dog follows him. He follows Damen everywhere, all the time. Surprisingly, it doesn’t irritate Damen as much as he thought it would. At least there’s someone around him that thinks he’s worth heaving after.

Red, Damen texts back. Then, Bring beer too. 

Aktis leaves him on read. Pallas sends a selfie at the supermarket, a scruffy-looking guy standing too close to him for it to be accidental. The rows of beers behind them are the confirmation Damen has been looking for: Pallas will bring the beer, and that’s all that matters. Elon is in Italy for his brother’s wedding, so there’s no point in waiting for his reply.

Dog barks, annoyed because Damen won’t throw the ball at him again.

Damen’s thumb hovers over Laurent’s name on his phone. It’s been a week, which has been more than enough time for Damen to snap out of his drunken state and realize that texting Laurent in the middle of the night was the worst thing he could have ever done. A week since Damen woke up, sweaty and with a headache, to Laurent’s silence. Five days since Damen started obsessively checking his phone for a notification that refuses to appear. Three days since Damen tried and failed to delete his and Laurent’s conversation. 

His own message stares back at him, and the weight of his confession makes his skin prickle like it’s shrinking. He doesn’t miss Laurent when he’s sober, or when he’s in the right company. He doesn’t miss Laurent at all.

Damen locks his phone and picks up Dog’s gross wet ball for the tenth time.

*

“Nice crib,” Nikandros says, three steps into the house. The bottles of wine clink in his bag as he moves. “Have you thought of, I don’t know, buying some furniture?”

Damen rolls his eyes. “There’s furniture. Aren’t you into minimalism these days?”

“This isn’t minimalism. This is borderline poor.”

“You’re a fucking dick,” Damen says. He takes the bags from Nikandros and walks into the kitchen. “A couch, a table, chairs. How much more stuff do you want me to buy?”

Nikandros leans against the doorway that separates the kitchen from the hall. “Well, considering you asked me to design you a twelve-room house I’d say a lot more stuff. Get some plants, man. This place is giving me the creeps. It’s eerie.”

I’ve got a dog, Damen almost says. Dog is locked in Damen’s room, sleeping, and there’s no reason why Nikandros should know about him. Not when Damen has been thinking of taking Dog back to the shelter for days now.

Damen pours them both a glass of wine. It’s red and rich and Damen wastes no time gulping it down, which earns him a raised eyebrow from Nikandros. 

The doorbell rings, saving Damen from whatever Nikandros had been about to say. Aktis is at the door, three boxes of pizza ready to be torn open. Just as Damen is closing the door, Pallas sneaks an arm in, two six-packs of beer dangling from it. 

“Hello,” Pallas says. There’s a red mark on his jaw. It looks like a leech took a nap there. “Already drank one, sorry.”

Damen looks down at the six-packs. “More like three.”

“No, that was my—someone I’m seeing.”

The dude in the selfie, maybe. Damen figures if Pallas wanted him to know more, he’d tell him. And so Damen doesn’t ask.

In the living room, Nikandros and Aktis are already sprawled on Damen’s couch, feet on the coffee table. The TV is on, a bald man saying this year’s Okton will be unforgettable. It makes Damen feel weird, the way Nikandros rolls his eyes when the man says the ice-skating event, which is only the opening act, is about to start.

Aktis whistles when he sees Pallas’ face. “Cute lovebite. Who’re you dating? Buffy?”

“Buffy wasn’t a vampire,” Pallas says. He sits down very slowly, which makes them all laugh. “That’s common knowledge. The title of the show was literally Buffy the vampire slayer.”

Aktis shrugs. “Never watched it, dude.”

“Our boy is more of a Twilight fan,” Nikandros says. He’s poured himself another glass of wine. White, this time. “Aren’t you, Aktis? Bet you went to see all the movies when they came out.”

“Yeah, to watch underage girls squeal,” Pallas says. “Only way he could hear that sound other than in porn.”

Aktis scowls, fingers busy opening his first can of beer. “I’ve never fucked around with underage girls.”

“Hear that, Europol?” Nikandros says loudly. “No underage girls were harmed in the making of this joke.”

It’s only when the room goes quiet that Damen realizes he hasn’t spoken in a while. He’s still standing by the couch, probably looking as awkward as he feels, and his friends are all subtly staring at him. 

Nikandros pats the empty spot on the couch. “Let’s watch some ice-skating, Damen. Come on.”

Damen sits. The first couple is out on the ice rink—a girl in a blood-red leotard, a guy in a leotard-looking suit—and the beer is flowing. So is the wine, in Nikandros’ case. It’s quiet and not quiet at the same time, none of them really talking to each other but making random comments every once in a while. Pallas snaps a pic of the TV and then starts typing, a smile on his face. Aktis is munching on a slice of pizza.

Damen turns to Nikandros, the one closest to him. “Are you still seeing Kashel?” 

“Sometimes,” Nikandros says, not sounding bothered about it. “Why? Do you need help decorating your mansion?”

“Kashel,” Aktis says. “Wasn’t she the one with the hot sister?”

“If by hot sister you mean a fifty-two-year-old with three kids then yes.”

“This skater looks so familiar,” Pallas says. “Isn’t he the kid from The Walking Dead?”

Aktis licks grease off his fingers. “Fifty-two isn’t that old, first of all. And I’m pretty sure it was her. Jokaste doesn’t have any sisters, does she?”

“You should tell Jokaste to help you decorate,” Nikandros says to Damen. “Didn’t Kastor pay for that expensive french decoration course?”

Damen doesn’t remember Kastor ever mentioning a french decoration course. Kastor never mentions Jokaste, least of all to Damen. “I don’t know.”

“I was wrong, but not completely wrong. Turns out the kid’s an extra in two scenes. Season four.”

“What,” Nikandros says, “are you even talking about?”

Pallas blinks. “Connor Deraski. The skater.”

“Jokaste doesn’t have a sister,” Damen tells Aktis, who’s watching them all expectantly. “And she works in marketing, not interior design.”

“Kashel is the one in interior design,” Nikandros says. “Is that why you asked about her?”

Damen rubs at his temples. He hasn’t even had a sip of beer yet.

“Kashel,” Pallas says. “Are you still dating her, Nik?”

Aktis throws a pillow at Pallas, almost knocking the beer out of his hand. “He just said no, dumbass.”

“I’ll text you her number,” Nikandros says. “Buy her dinner before trying anything though. She’ll say she doesn’t want to, but trust me, she does.”

“They all say that,” Aktis says. He laughs a little at his own joke, and so does Nikandros. When he turns to Damen, his eyes are not fully open. “So what? Are you back into pussy now?”

Damen stands up. A paper napkin falls to the floor, almost in slow motion. “I need to—check something. Be right back.” Nikandros starts to stand too, but Damen stops him with a hand gesture. Again, more forcefully, he says, “I’ll be right back.”

His room is waiting for him exactly as he left it—the bed made, the curtains drawn, the TV on to mask the sound of Dog’s barks. Damen locks himself in there for a good ten minutes, letting Dog sniff his ankles, and tries to remember how much he likes his friends.

A knock on the door has Damen turning the TV volume up to the max, trying to mask Dog’s happy barks at being visited.

“Damen?” Nikandros says through the door. Another knock. “Are you crying in there, man?”

I like my friends, Damen thinks, forcefully, manically. I love my friends. “I’ll be right out,” he says, and doesn’t turn the volume down until he hears Nikandros’ footsteps fading.

*

By the time Friday rolls around again, Damen has no interest in going out with Nikandros to the new wine bar owned by Pallas’ cousin, or joining Elon at a club in Varenne, or texting Kashel about carpets and chairs. He doesn’t feel like doing anything, not even hitting the gym. This week was slow and gritty and awful, so awful the muscles in Damen’s neck scream every time he tries to turn his head to the side. 

I should get an office chair like Kastor’s, he thinks as he pours Dog a bowl of pebble-like food. He bought a new chair for his desk less than two months ago, but Kastor’s is objectively better. Swedish design, no springs. It’s the sort of chair obnoxious kids buy to play computer games all day without ruining their backs.

Ice cold beer and remote in hand, Damen settles on the couch to try and find something to watch. There’s no game tonight, not even an ice-skating tournament, and he doesn’t think he can stomach anything that resembles a documentary. Laurent is a big fan of the crazy ones, where people with PhDs would sit and say, straight-faced, that they believe aliens are responsible for things like butter. He’d force Damen to watch them with him, arguing that some of the things being said made sense. 

Damen had drawn the line at the Mermen Conspiracy. 

The doorbell rings just when Damen has decided watching a rerun of an old hockey match isn’t as depressing as it sounds. He hasn’t ordered anything—was planning on not getting takeout like he’s done for the last three weekends in a row—and he hasn’t invited anyone over either. Maybe it’s one of his neighbors, dropping by to introduce themselves. That’d be weird, Damen thinks, considering Veretians don’t do that sort of thing.

“Nicaise?” Damen says, fingers tightening around the door handle. He can see it’s NIcaise standing there in front of him, in sweatpants and one of Laurent’s sweaters. He can see it, and yet he can’t believe Nicaise is there. “How did you know—”

“I came with you when you bought the lot,” Nicaise says. There’s bewilderment in his voice, on his face. “Of course I know where this house is. I thought for months I was going to live in it, asshole.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Nicaise doesn’t falter at the scolding. If anything, he seems angrier than before. “Can I come in or are you dating again too?”

Damen opens the door wider. Before he can get another word out, Nicaise is slipping past him and into the living room, his footsteps echoing like Damen’s house is a silent museum. Or a tomb. 

Damen closes the door. “What are you doing here?”

Nicaise is standing by the TV, his body not quite touching any piece of furniture in the room. He holds himself very still, the way he always did as a kid when Laurent was taking away his video games for an hour or two, but he meets Damen’s gaze without hesitation. A challenge, then.

“We had an argument,” Nicaise says. 

Damen doesn’t need to ask who ‘we’ stands for. “So you ran away?”

“I didn’t run away.”

Damen gives him a long look. "So Laurent knows you're here then? You told him before you left?"

Nicaise opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. No sound comes out.

“Do you even have money on you?” Damen says. A bad thought starts to unfurl in Damen’s head, the only fear he has when it comes to Nicaise. “Who drove you here?”

“I walked.”

Damen feels like he’s twenty-six again, naive and too stern and not patient enough. Except back then he had had Laurent, who always took care of things for better or for worse. There is no team now, no one to play good cop, bad cop with. It’s just Damen.

“Okay,” Damen says, because even though it isn’t okay, he’s selfish enough to feel happy that Nicaise is here, with him, rather than on the streets. Damen’s learned to take what he can get. “Come on, I’ll get you something to drink while you tell me what happened.”

“I want beer.” 

Damen doesn’t even glance at the half-empty can he left on the coffee table. “Are you eighteen?”

“No, but—”

“Then tough luck,” Damen says. “You’re not getting a beer. Water or coffee, your choice.”

Nicaise’s frown slips for a second. “Don’t you have juice or something? God, when did you become so stingy?”

“You don’t even like juice.”

“I don’t,” Nicaise says, already trailing after Damen and into the kitchen. With all the lights on, the room looks remarkably unused. “But if I did, you’d have none to give me. Just gross tap water.”

Damen opens the fridge. “It’s not tap water.”

“Ellosean?” Nicaise says, hope in his voice. He’s never liked the brand Laurent buys, which is exactly the one Damen keeps in his house. Surprisingly, when Damen hands him the bottle, he says nothing of it.

“Come on,” Damen says. “Start talking.”

Nicaise fiddles with the cap, eyes on the white cupboards around him. He’s all hunched shoulders now, thumb trying to poke a hole into the cuff of his sweater— Laurent’s sweater—and he doesn’t seem to have heard Damen at all. He’s good at ignoring people, Damen knows. He’s good at a lot of things he shouldn’t be.

“Nicaise.”

“Are you going to call him?” 

“Yes,” Damen says without hesitation. “If he doesn’t know you’re here, then I have to call him.”

Nicaise gives the bottle a squeeze, the plastic whining under his fingers. “He’s busy. I bet he won’t pick up the phone.”

It’s a stupid thing to say, but Damen doesn’t bother correcting Nicaise. Laurent always answers when it’s Nicaise calling. The first year they all lived together, Nicaise would call at any hour, making them cut their dates short, waking them both up at the crack of dawn, forcing Laurent to pick him up from school just because he didn’t feel like having biology that day. 

“What was the fight about?”

“Dirty laundry,” Nicaise says. A lie, obvious and vibrant. Laurent likes doing laundry. “Can I stay the night?”

Damen is opening his mouth to explain that Nicaise can’t spend the night because Laurent will never allow it when Dog comes toddling into the room. He was probably out in the garden, munching on the new flowers Damen got planted. 

Nicaise and Dog stare at each other. Dog barks, as if happy to be stared at.

“A corgi,” Nicaise says, going to his knees. His hand is steady when he reaches out to pet Dog’s head, scratching behind his ears. “You got a fucking corgi.”

“I’m taking him back.”

Nicaise hums. It sounds disbelieving. “What’s his name?” he asks. Another minute goes by with him poking Dog on the belly, making him bark and pant and wag his almost non-existent tail. Nicaise looks up at Damen when the silence has gone on for too long. “Please tell me you don’t just call him Corgi.”

“Of course I don’t call him that.”

“Then what’s—”

“Dog,” Damen says firmly. He refuses to feel ashamed. “That’s his name. Dog.”

Nicaise retrieves his hand. His face is doing something complicated, a smile that’s not quite a smile tugging at his lips, then a blank expression, then the wobbly smile again. Instead of saying anything about the name, he pulls out his phone and starts snapping pictures of Dog.

It takes Damen a minute to realize what’s going on. “Hey. Don’t post them.”

Nicaise is on his feet, tapping away at his phone. “Huh?”

“Nicaise—”

“Dog the dog,” Nicaise reads as he types. “He’s cute enough to not need any filters, don’t you think? Wait until Ancel hears you got a corgi.”

“I’m calling Laurent,” Damen says because it’s the right thing to say and not because he wants to take Nicaise’s attention away from Instagram.

It works. Nicaise pockets his phone and stops nudging Dog with his foot. His eyes are on Damen, widening, close to pleading. He knows the trick never works on Damen, but he’s desperate enough to try. That makes Damen pause.

“What was the fight really about?”

Nicaise goes back to staring at Dog. “He’s dating a guy. Sort of. And they— he wanted me to have dinner with them tonight and got mad when I said no.”

Laurent is dating again. Damen repeats the words in his head, trying to make sense of them. Laurent is dating someone else, right now. 

It’s been four months—closer to five—and why wouldn’t Laurent date other people? Why shouldn’t he? With a face like Laurent’s, it hardly matters what one’s personality is like. And Damen had liked Laurent’s personality at one point, hadn’t he? He’d liked everything there was to like about Laurent, and then some. 

Damen’s fucked other people since they broke up: Kyra, and Aline, and a gym buddy of Nikandros whose name Damen can’t remember. Damen wonders if Laurent has slept with this new guy he’s sort of dating, wonders if Laurent has told him about the things he doesn’t like to do in bed. He wonders if Laurent has slept with anyone since Damen, or if he’s been holding out all this time. The thought of someone else in their bed makes Damen want to punch a hole in the wall of his perfect, new kitchen. 

Except it’s not their bed anymore. It’s just Laurent’s. They’ve both moved on, apparently. 

Damen says, “That’s—”

“It’s not good,” Nicaise says and lifts his chin as though daring Damen to contradict him. “He’s an asshole.”

“Don’t call Laurent—”

“I’m not talking about Laurent. I’m talking about Maxime.”

Damen blinks. “Who’s that?”

“The dude Laurent’s dating. Are you even listening to me? God, it’s no wonder you two—” Nicaise clamps his mouth shut. He won’t look at Damen, his eyes glued to Dog instead. “Whatever. Call him if you want to.”

Damen should call Laurent. Being an adult means having conversations you don’t want to have with people you don’t like, Kastor had once told him, probably paraphrasing their father. That was an actual phase Kastor went through—quoting Theomedes.

“Has he said anything to you?” Damen says. “The new guy, I mean.”

Nicaise snorts. “You got time? It’s a pretty long list of shit he’s said and done.”

Damen is not sure what his own face is doing anymore. “Has he—”

“It’s nothing bad,” Nicaise says quickly. Like he can read Damen’s thoughts. “But he’s…” Nicaise’s face falls a little, mouth puckering small. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“You could always explain it to me.”

“It won’t change anything, will it? Go on, call Laurent and get it over with. Maybe if he yells at you now he won’t yell at me later.”

Dog barks happily when Nicaise sits down on the floor to give him his full attention. He bares his belly, pawing at Nicaise’s knee to be stroked. He’s a demanding little shit if Damen’s ever met one. Ios hadn’t been like that. 

But Ios had been a real dog, unlike Dog.

In the end, Damen doesn’t call Laurent. He types out a text, deletes it, types it out again. By the third try, he sends it without checking for spelling errors, knowing Laurent will find something wrong with the message even if it’d been written by Shakespeare himself. Nicaise is with me, it reads. Pretty self-explanatory.

Laurent calls him exactly three seconds later.

“Hey,” Damen says once he’s out in the hall. He doesn’t want Nicaise listening in on their conversation, at least not openly. “He’s—”

“Damen,” Laurent says. It’s a bit wobbly and unguarded, enough to make Damen pause. “He’s okay, isn’t he? I tried calling but he's not picking up, and the—hello?”

Damen leans back against the wall. “I’m here.”

“Is he at your house? ”

Whenever they used to talk about it, Laurent had always called it the house, as though that was the last place they’d ever live in, as though it did not need a pronoun for anyone to know it was theirs. Maybe Damen was wrong all those weeks ago to think there were no assets to be distributed between them: Laurent got their bed, Damen got their house. Now they get to share those with whomever they please.

“Yes,” Damen says. “He’s here. Listen, he asked me if he could stay—”

“No.”

“Can I talk or are you just going to keep interrupting me?”

“I’m coming to get him.”

“Laurent.”

“He’s not staying with you,” Laurent says. The wobbliness and surprise from the beginning of the conversation have quickly faded. “Do me a favor and tell him so yourself, so I don’t have to be the asshole one last time.”

“You—”

“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“No,” Damen says, tired. “I’ll drive him.”

Nicaise darts out of the kitchen as Damen is trying to process the conversation. Like every interaction he’s had with Laurent since the break-up, it leaves him both strangely giddy and hollow. Damen always feels as though he should have said more, or maybe less. More of this, less of that, it’s all the same. He can’t ever win.

“So,” Nicaise says. He’s exchanged the water bottle for Dog, carrying him in his arms. “What did he say?”

*

Damen parks the car a block away from Laurent’s building. It’s a quiet neighborhood, not as preppy as Privé, not as gritty as Bastia. Damen misses the coffee shop around the corner, the friendly face behind the counter that always got his order right even when it was busy and crowded and loud. Dion always gave Nicaise extra pastries.

“Hold on,” Damen says when Nicaise reaches to open the car door. “We need to talk about some stuff.”

“He’s already going to yell at me,” Nicaise says. “I don’t need a sermon from you too.”

Damen doesn’t think Laurent’s even capable of yelling. He’s all quiet fury, icy and distant. Whenever he got mad at Damen, Laurent would just coil into himself like a snake, and each word he spoke was like a hot dart thrown at Damen, both painfully personal and carefully distant. It was as though Laurent thought himself above screams, as though they’d soil him somehow.

Damen never had any trouble knowing right from wrong, white from black, acceptable from unacceptable, until Laurent. Right now, Damen knows what he’s supposed to do—tell Nicaise, sternly, that they’re not to keep contacting each other, tell Laurent that he needs to find a way to keep his life from colliding into Damen’s, move the fuck on—but he can’t bring himself to do it. He can’t bring himself to tell Nicaise to stop texting him, to never show up at the house again. He can’t.

Nicaise is staring at him. Waiting. 

“I’ll talk to him,” Damen says. “Maybe you can come over every once in a while. Do some homework, use the pool.”

“He’s going to say no.”

Damen knows that. “You don’t know that,” he says.

“Tell him you need someone to watch Dog,” Nicaise says, rushedly, like he’s been cradling this hot thought for too long. He probably has, ever since they left Damen’s driveway. “Or I could walk him a few times a week. Sundays? I can even charge you for it if that’s what he wants.”

“What’d be the point of charging me?”

“It’d keep things professional,” Nicaise says. “Transactional. I’d be your employee.”

Damen doesn’t bring up the fact that Nicaise got kicked out of Mello’s last year for spitting in people’s drinks. He’s never been a good employee. “You should focus on school.”

“Fuck off.”

“Okay,” Damen says. “But if he says no, then it’s—”

Nicaise is out of the car before Damen can finish his sentence.

They walk together, closer than a pair of strangers would. Damen thinks of putting his arm around Nicaise’s shoulders more than once, and his hand twitches by his side with the force of the idea, but that’s something they don’t really do. They’ve never done it before, and now’s certainly not the time to start.

Nicaise has only ever held Laurent’s hand. When he slept in their bed, Laurent would make sure Nicaise was never in the middle, between them, but rather on the side closest to the door. Damen had come home from the office a hundred times to the two of them on the couch, Nicaise’s head on Laurent’s shoulder or lap, like two surly cats that only sometimes liked each other.

Damen stutters in his walk when he sees Laurent is waiting for them already. Next to Damen, Nicaise snickers.

Laurent is wearing clothes Damen can’t quite place: a white shirt with maroon buttons, jeans so dark they make his legs look spindly even though Damen knows they’re far from thin. The sight scares Damen more than it should. At least with the bunny robe, there’d been memories, Erasmus’ name written all over the garment. Now Damen stares at Laurent’s perfectly ironed cuffs and wonders if the new guy bought that shirt for him. Or worse, if Laurent bought it because he thought the new guy would like it.

Maxime, Damen’s mind supplies, unhelpful as ever. That’s the new guy’s name.

“Damen has something to ask you,” Nicaise says before Laurent can open his mouth. Nicaise doesn’t cower under their combined stares, but he picks up quickly on what they want. “And sorry for storming out.”

“Get inside,” Laurent says, handing him the apartment keys. “No phone until we’ve talked.”

Nicaise knows better than to complain. With one last glance at Damen, he ducks behind Laurent and disappears into the building. He takes the buffer with him, whatever thin veil had kept Laurent and Damen separated. Without Nicaise around, Laurent’s gaze seems to sharpen painfully.

Damen has one foot on the first stone step. He has to tilt his head a bit to look at Laurent’s face, and the whole thing feels so unnatural he wastes a few seconds getting used to it. He’s always been taller than Laurent.

“Before you say no,” Damen says, “just hear me out.” 

Laurent tilts his head to the side, golden hair spilling over his face. It’s his only response.

“He’s not going to stop, Laurent. And I—we can be adults about this.” Not friends, Damen thinks desperately. He doesn’t think he can stomach that. “He’s offered to walk my dog a few times a week, and while he’s there we could do some studying. I bet he’s still failing maths.”

“Your dog,” Laurent says.

“Nicaise likes him.”

“Nicaise likes everything that can’t talk.”

Damen tries to stop himself from smiling and fails. “Not babies, though,” he says, and for a second he thinks Laurent might smile too. Laurent doesn’t. 

A stranger walks past Damen, talking into his phone. His shoulder brushes Damen’s back, and it’s embarrassing how much Damen’s body wants to lean into that touch. Anything to get away from Laurent, to keep from reaching out and doing something stupid. The text message he sent was stupid enough— I miss you, I miss you —and Damen doesn’t need a repeat of that.

“I’ll think about it,” Laurent says. Then, stiffly, like it pains him to get the words out: “Thank you for driving him back.”

It’s the stiffness that does it for Damen. He’s never expected Laurent to call him and ask about his day after the break-up, but he can’t stomach the way Laurent pretends that they don’t know each other. Damen knows Laurent, knows how much he likes Sundays, what he likes to eat for dinner, what he hates about spring. He knows what Laurent looks like when he comes, when he throws up, when he is close to cracking open. They know each other so well, too well even, and for Laurent to turn to this charade, this stiffness… 

Something mean coils inside Damen, very, very tightly, and then uncoils, unleashed. He doesn’t know what to do with it, what to say. Laurent’s always been better than him at cruelty.

“Enjoy your date,” Damen says. “Nicaise was sure ready for it.”

Laurent’s self-imposed distance falters just for a moment—a second really, maybe even less—and Damen sees the surprise on his face. Then the moment is gone, and Laurent is slamming the door closed with enough force to make the glass panels rattle.

The jab doesn’t make Damen feel better. He wonders if it ever made Laurent feel better, or if he just did it out of habit, to prove to himself that he still could. Damen stands there, watching Laurent move through the foyer and into the elevator, no once stopping to look back.

*

Back home, Damen throws out the beer he’d been drinking and uncorks a bottle of wine that’s supposedly ten years old. He finds himself a nice glass—the big ones Nicaise used to say looked like bowls for soup—and doesn’t stop pouring wine until almost a third of the bottle is gone.

This time he turns his phone off, not willing to take any chances.

*

“Hello,” Neo says, amused. It’s five minutes too early, but he’s let Damen in without asking questions. “How—”

“Laurent’s seeing someone,” Damen says. His hands close involuntarily around the armrests. “He wants the guy to meet Nicaise. So that’s—it must be serious.” I only got to meet Nicaise a year into dating Laurent, Damen thinks, but it sounds too petty and so he doesn’t say it, swatting the words away in his head. “Nicaise doesn’t like the guy.”

“Nicaise didn’t like you either at the beginning.”

Damen tenses, awkward. “Yeah, well.”

Neo crosses his legs. “Do you think it’s too soon for Laurent to be dating seriously again?”

“No,” Damen says quickly. “This is not about that. Five months is… And I’ve been with other people too.”

“Not seriously. From what you’re telling me, it sounds like Laurent is in a committed relationship, and unless things have changed since the last time we talked, you’re single.”

Damen doesn’t reply. He presses his thumb to the meaty part of his thigh instead. The muscle there should be harder, tighter, more defined. 

“It’s perfectly normal to feel hurt when our exes start dating again,” Neo says, ”even when we don’t want to go back to that relationship. Human beings are complicated. Or rather, we’re very simple: we want things back when someone takes them from us.”

Laurent is not a thing, Damen thinks. He says, “I’m not hurt.”

“Okay. What are you feeling then?”

“Nothing,” Damen says. “I don’t care.”

Neo gives him a look. “If you don’t care, why did you bring it up? We could be talking about literally anything else, Damen. Don’t you think it’s—”

“Laurent’s moved on and so have I. What I care about is Nicaise feeling comfortable in his own house, that’s all. He doesn’t do well with change.”

“I understand that,” Neo says, “but Laurent is Nicaise’s guardian. You’ve said multiple times you think Laurent understands Nicaise better than anyone. I’m sure he’ll know how to help Nicaise through this transition.”

It’s a transition, Nicaise had told him when they went out for sushi. Maybe Damen is the one that doesn’t do well with change. His life is stagnantly quiet now, without arguments or future plans, which is new to him. With Laurent and Nicaise, there had always been something that needed doing, or saying, or arranging. 

“How did you feel when you found out that Laurent was dating again? Don’t hurry. Think about it.”

Damen wants it over with. He says, “I felt surprised.”

“Why?”

“Laurent is not the easiest person to date. He’s—and we dated for years. It was surprising, that’s all.”

“How does the fact that you dated for years relate to your surprise?”

“I thought it would take him a long time to get over it,” Damen says, and pauses. He tries to read Neo’s face, but there’s nothing there. Does Damen sound self-righteous? If Laurent was here, that’s the word he’d use. Probably. “Four years is a long time. We really—we knew each other very well. We thought we’d be…”

“Yes?”

Damen shifts again, awkward. He wishes he hadn’t brought this up. “Together,” he says. “That’s why I bought the house. I don’t think either of us believed we’d break up, even when things were… bad. I didn’t think…”

Neo grabs his coffee. It’s a weird time to have coffee, late enough that it can mess up one’s sleeping schedule. Damen says nothing of this, watching Neo take a long sip.

“So, when did you think about ending things with Laurent?” Neo says. “Walk me a bit through that process.”

“I didn’t think about it.”

“All right. Did Laurent break things off? I thought you’d said you’d reached the agreement together.”

"We—it's complicated."

Neo takes another sip of his coffee. "How so?"

"We'd had a fight the night before," Damen says. "About… I don't even know about what. Nicaise, probably."

"Did you argue a lot about him?"

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Damen feels like he’s on Reddit again, being asked to specify, to clarify, to give examples. When he told Neo he’d bought Nicaise a sweatshirt, he didn’t mention the color, or why it was so imperative that it was that shirt and not any other. He thinks it’d be stupid to try and explain that now.

Neo puts down his coffee, clearly waiting.

“One time,” Damen says, “Nicaise wanted to paint his nails. He was twelve, I think.”

“And?”

“And it was a Sunday. He had school the next day, so I said no, and Laurent wasn’t—he didn’t say anything to me. But when I came back from the grocery store or wherever it was I’d gone to, Nicaise’s nails were painted.”

Neo hums. “It seems like Laurent didn’t respect your authority in that situation. Schools can be very strict when it comes to their dress code.”

Damen rubs his palms on his sweats. “Nicaise goes to public school. They don’t care about anyone’s nails there.”

“Oh. I just assumed because you said—”

“Twelve is old enough to understand that dressing up and—and those sorts of games, they’re just games. You can’t let a kid wear purple nail polish to school and expect him to not get any shit for it.” Damen shifts in his chair. The armrests bother him, the leather sticking to his back too. “Laurent kept going on about self-expression. It was… And that wasn’t the only time either.”

“The only time Nicaise painted his nails without permission?”

Without permission. It makes nail polish sound dangerous, Damen thinks, which is bizarre. As a kid himself, Damen had only needed permission for important things, like taking his dad’s car to a party, or going out on a Thursday, or staying over at Nikandros’ for more than two nights in a row. But then again, Damen hadn’t walked around with his nails painted as a kid.

“He’s always dressed weird,” Damen says. “Even when he wasn’t painting his nails, he was wearing things that weren’t…”

“Age-appropriate?”

“For him.”

Neo’s face passes no judgment. “What kind of things are you talking about?”

“Girly things,” Damen says, and hates how the words sound coming out of his mouth. He doesn’t even dare look at Neo’s face again, knowing Neo is most likely sporting one of Laurent’s usual frowns. Laurent was always frowning when they argued about Nicaise. “It wasn’t about the colors. I don’t—anyone can wear pink, all right? I’m not an extremist.”

“Okay, then what was the problem? What made the things Nicaise wore girly?”

“They were covered in glitter and sequins. He had this pair of shorts he loved, and they had this… pink patch sewn into one of the pockets.” Damen rubs his hands on his thighs again, not liking how damp they are, how tight his skin feels. “To school, he wore normal clothes, but only because I insisted. On the weekends, he’d just play dress-up. At fourteen.”

“Let’s go back for a second,” Neo says. “You keep mentioning school, Damen. Was that your main concern? The fact that Nicaise would be teased by his classmates for wearing certain things?”

“Yes.”

Neo nods. “So you thought you were helping Nicaise prevent bullying of some sort.”

Bullying. Damen tries not to roll his eyes. “Yes,” he says again, because it’s true.

“Then what was the issue with Nicaise wearing those types of clothes at home during the weekend? No one was going to bully him there.”

“Are you honestly going to tell me that’s normal?” 

An awkward silence settles over them. Damen thinks he shouldn’t have used that word. Laurent had practically banned him from saying it at home, wouldn’t even hear Damen out if ‘normal’ was part of the argument, but this isn’t home. This is Neo’s office, and so Damen should get to say whatever he wants. 

“What do you think would have been the normal thing to do?” Neo says. The confusion Damen is feeling must show on his face, because Neo adds, “What I mean is… What sorts of clothes should Nicaise have been wearing at fourteen?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can’t think of anything?”

“Er,” Damen says. “Jeans?”

“Good, jeans. What else?”

“I don’t know what kids wear these days. A t-shirt? Sneakers?”

“Okay. Now, what did you wear as a kid?”

That was over a decade ago, Damen wants to say. What does that matter? Why can’t they talk about what’s actually important here, which is Laurent dating a fucking stranger? 

“I guess the same things. Jeans, t-shirts. Gym shorts.”

“Could it be that maybe what you think is normal for a fourteen-year-old to wear is just what you used to wear at fourteen?”

Damen blinks at him.

“I have nieces,” Neo says, “and they dress horribly, in my opinion. Fashion is very fast-paced. Most of the time it doesn’t survive the passage from one generation to the next.”

“This isn’t about fashion.”

“What is it about then?”

“Nicaise is confused,” Damen says. “He needs stability. Rules. A schedule. Playing dress-up is fine when you’re six and a girl, but not when you’re… At fourteen, shouldn’t his main concern be finding a girl he can ask out on a date?”

Neo picks his coffee up again. Three short sips this time. “You used the word ‘confused’. What do you think Nicaise is confused about?”

“What he wants.”

They’re running out of time to reach a conclusion. Damen feels wrung out, like something that’s been squeezed far too tightly and then left alone to decompress. 

“What should he want then?” Neo says.

The question hangs heavy between them, not accusatory but prodding. It feels like there are fingers scratching at Damen for answers, trying to slip under his skin and examine there too. All Damen has ever wanted is for Nicaise—

“To be happy,” Damen says. “It’s like he keeps picking misery over being okay. He should just… make the easy choice, you know. Being a teenager is hard enough, why make things even more complicated by trying to stand out like that?”

“Maybe that’s what makes him happy.”

Damen snorts. “Right. Because being picked on at school is awesome.”

“Damen,” Neo says, slow and careful. “Has he ever complained to you about being harassed?”

“No, but it’s not—It’s about functionality. Being functional.”

“Do you think he isn’t?”

The phone on Neo’s desk rings. It’s an old thing, a device Damen didn’t think worked, and its cry is shrill and annoying. A true ring, like a doorbell. When Damen looks at the clock he discovers the session ended ten minutes ago.

Neo picks up the phone. It’s must be his next client, for he soon gives Damen a vague hand gesture, apologetic, and motions to the door. 

Damen has never been happier to leave this office.

*

Laurent texts him at seven-thirty, just as Damen is getting into his car to go to work. It’s a Monday like any other, silent and lonely. It’s peaceful, Damen reminds himself, and peace is something he used to miss. 

He remembers now how he used to stretch his workday until it thinned, threatening to break, just to avoid coming home to Laurent’s nagging, to Laurent’s unpredictable moods and angry silences. It was a relief to leave in the mornings, and a pain to return in the evenings.

Nicaise is free on Tuesdays. 

Damen stares at the notification for almost ten whole minutes before finally opening the conversation. It’s very Laurent, the period at the end of the sentence, the lack of greeting. It’s been over a week since Damen saw Nicaise and Laurent, but it feels like it happened months ago. He hadn’t dared hope that Laurent would say yes, and so Damen had tried to think of Nicaise as little as possible. Thursday sessions with Neo were the only exception.

What time? Damen texts back, feeling strangely rude. They’re both being as polite as their circumstances allow, and Damen has a feeling Laurent wouldn’t take kindly to Damen asking about his weekend or how he’s doing. They’re not friends, after all.

Damen waits five minutes for Laurent’s reply to come through before finally deciding he can’t be late to work. The ride to the office is perfectly quiet, and Damen doesn’t realize he’s forgotten to put on music until he’s parking the car in his designated spot. He checks his phone three times—before climbing out of the car, in the elevator, at his desk—but Laurent remains elusive.

Three hours later, just when Damen is close to being done with checking his emails, Kastor knocks on his door.

Kastor doesn’t come in. He stands in the doorway, leaning against it, and doesn’t speak until Damen asks him why he’s there. 

“It’s Jo’s birthday next week,” Kastor says. 

“Okay,” Damen says. He’d forgotten, but he doesn’t want Kastor to know that. “Any plans?”

“We’re having dinner at her mother’s house on Friday. She told me to ask you if you can drive Erasmus there since you’ll be going on your own.”

“Did something happen to Kallias’ car?”

“He has a very early shift Saturday morning, so he’s not coming.” Kastor discreetly unbuttons the first button of his shirt, which is hidden by his tie. “I told Jo that Erasmus could catch a cab or something, but she’d rather you drove him.”

“No, of course. I’ll—” Damen’s phone pings loudly. He reads Laurent’s text out of the corner of his eye. 4 pm. “By the way, I’m getting off early tomorrow. There’s—I have some things to do.”

“Define early.”

Damen swallows his annoyance back down. Sometimes Kastor likes to pretend he’s the only partner of the firm and Damen is his lackey. 

“Three-thirty. I’ll catch up on work from home, maybe even coordinate a meeting with Adastrus.”

“Don’t forget about Erasmus,” Kastor says, already retreating. He points his papers menacingly at Damen, like a metaphorical accusatory finger. “Seriously, Damen. Set up an alarm or something.”

“It’s more than one week away,” Damen replies, but Kastor’s already gone. “Dickhead.”

By the time he looks down at his phone again, Laurent’s texted him twice. 

He can go there at six.

Or whenever you’re out of work.

It’s the first time in months Damen will get to hang out with Nicaise for more than twenty minutes. He knows it can’t be a thing—Damen can’t leave work at three-thirty every Tuesday—but he wants to be prepared for it this time. Tell him to come over at four, Damen types out and sends. That should give him enough time to pick up some groceries on the way home, unwind a little, mentally prepare.

Laurent doesn’t text him back. 

Damen buries himself on worksheets and emails and Zoom calls for the rest of the day. He doesn’t check his phone once.

Chapter Text

Five

“Hey,” Damen says, awkwardly.

Nicaise slips inside the house, immediately going to his knees so he can pet Dog. His fingers move fast over the orange fur, tickling and scratching. Dog begins to drool after a moment, belly exposed and tongue out. 

Damen closes the front door and watches them. He’s once again thankful that he didn’t get a cat, even if Dog is bizarre-looking. He bought Nicaise a cat, Laurent had told him, quiet and far away. He hadn’t explained more, and Damen hadn’t dared ask. After the trial and the move, Damen thought maybe Nicaise would ask Laurent about the animal, would demand they brought it home—back then, Nicaise had not quite understood what no meant—but Nicaise never did.  

“I’m hungry,” Nicaise says, on his feet. He peeks into the kitchen. “No private chef?”

Damen rolls his eyes. “I’m not that rich.”

“You should be. You work what? Forty hours a week?”

They leave the foyer, Dog trying to make Nicaise trip and fall. The hallway looks eerie, as Nikandros pointed out, but Damen doesn’t know what to do to make it better. Hanging up pictures of all his dead relatives would just be more depressing.

“Forty-three,” Damen says once they’ve reached the kitchen. “What do you want to eat? There’s—”

Nicaise snatches a red apple from the bowl on the counter. It’s in his mouth before Damen can tell him to wash it. “So, how did you convince him to let me come over?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nicaise gives him a long look. “You obviously said something to him. He was all moody when we—when you saw him last week.”

“He was moody because you ran away,” Damen says. And because I made a petty comment. He tries to hold in the question, tries to bite his tongue, but he just can’t. “How was dinner that night?”

“I skipped it. Didn’t feel like listening to Maxime’s explanation of how awesome his job is.” Nicaise laughs through a mouthful of the apple. “At least I know what the D in his Ph.D. stands for. Fucking dickhead.”

“Nicaise.”

Nicaise takes another enormous bite and shrugs.

A scholar, then. It makes sense, what with Laurent being academically accomplished and in love with reading. Laurent is the sort of person who gets one degree and immediately signs up for another course, another class, another anything. He likes being challenged, likes revising students’ essays in the late afternoons, especially during winter. That was their thing, Damen remembers. Laurent on the couch with his feet on Damen’s lap, his toes always freezing cold even after Damen spent entire minutes rubbing warmth into them. He’d laugh as he read out loud to Damen, and Damen would pretend to know where the student had messed up. Durkheim, and Jung, and Habermas—Damen would nod along to whatever Laurent was saying, and then go on Google to check that these were real people. 

It makes sense that Laurent’s new boyfriend is more like him. Damen supposes that’s what dating in your twenties is about: making mistakes and finding out what you don’t like in a partner. Maxime is a scholar who likes to read classics—the real ones, thick and dusty, not the children's adaptations—and can stand his ground in a discussion about social justice. Maxime is the I know better now part of Laurent’s dating history.

“—told him that’s idiotic, because it is. Ice cream is the worst food choice. It fucking melts and has no nutritional—”

Damen blinks himself back into the present. “It’s a good dessert,” he says lamely, hoping Nicaise won’t notice he wasn’t listening.

“Not for the apocalypse,” Nicaise says. “Imagine being chased around by a bunch of aliens. You’d have to be like, ‘Sorry, Mr. Alien. Let me grab my cooler where all my ice cream is’. And then you’d get eaten alive. Or turned into ice cream.”

It’s a good point. 

Damen says, “How’s school?”

“Fine.”

“He said you were failing maths.”

Nicaise starts to look around for a bin to throw the apple core in. He finds it before Damen can even remember where it is himself. “I failed one test, that’s all. Did you really promise him I’d do my homework here?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have any today,” Nicaise says, a bit too quietly. 

Damen should push, but he doesn’t want to argue with Nicaise. He’s here, they’re getting along, and Damen doesn’t want him storming out in a rage or calling Laurent to come to pick him up. If anything goes wrong today, Laurent won’t allow Nicaise to come over again, which is fair. Laurent doesn’t owe Damen anything, not even his time. He certainly doesn’t owe him visitation rights.

Shrugging, Damen says, “Then we’ll do homework next week.”

“I don’t need you to help me with my homework. I’m not stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” Damen agrees. “But you are failing maths. If you don’t want my help I’m sure Laurent can get you a—”

“Fine,” Nicaise says. He’s close to smiling, which Damen doesn’t really understand. It’s reassuring, in a way, that even after all this time Nicaise’s sudden mood swings have not changed. “Should I walk Dog now?”

Dog barks like he’s sentient. 

“You don’t actually have to walk him,” Damen says. “I have a garden. He can just… walk himself.”

Nicaise’s smile falters a bit. 

Damen clears his throat. It’s ridiculous how nervous he is, considering he’s known Nicaise since he was eleven. Damen has changed piss drenched sheets for this kid. Why is he so worried about fucking things up? 

Because you’ve fucked things up before, a little voice tells him. It sounds a lot like Laurent.

“Er.” Damen pushes through the foreign panic. “I bought you something. In case you got bored.”

Nicaise looks at him. He’s not wearing eyeliner today, not even a fake blush. His freckles stand out more like this, a hundred specks of brown over his nose and cheeks, and Damen remembers a time when Nicaise would rub at them, trying to wipe them off. 

Damen braces himself for Nicaise’s inevitably sharp reply. He’ll tell Damen he’s not a kid that needs to be bought presents, that he can entertain himself, that Damen’s not his dad. The words will come, and when they do Damen will be ready for them.

“Well?” Nicaise says, pretending to be impatient and annoyed. “Show me.”

Instead of saying something embarrassing, Damen walks with Nicaise into the living room. The first thing he did when he got home from work was sit down and get the thing out of the package, try and plug it in. Unfortunately, Damen’s never been good with this sort of stuff.

On a stool right under the TV, there’s a game console. It’s supposed to be popular, the sort of thing all kids want for Christmas or their birthdays, but looking at it Damen doesn’t really know why. It’s a mess of tangled wires with an awkward-looking joystick. When Nikandros and he were teenagers, they’d had a PlayStation neither liked that much.

Nicaise stares at it for so long Damen’s neck starts to burn. “You got me an Xbox?” he says.

“Er,” Damen says. He tries to remember what the package label was. “Yes? It’s a game thing.” At least, that’s what the guy who sold it to Damen said. “I already bought you some games. The Sims or something? That’s a thing you used to play at home.”

Laurent was the one who bought that game for Nicaise, but Damen doesn’t mention it. He also doesn’t mention that he remembers Nicaise always ignoring the car race games and Mortal Kombat things Damen got him in favor of playing this thing, which is… 

Like playing with dolls, basically.

Nicaise doesn’t thank him. He crouches in front of the console and starts rearranging wires, touching things, turning on the TV. Damen watches him work in silence, trying to understand why there’s something bitter in him at the sight. Damen’s happy. He’s glad Nicaise is here. He’s glad he hasn’t lost absolutely everything.

After a while, Damen sits down on the couch and stares at the TV screen, already lit up with the home screen of the game. A giant rotating green crystal stares back at him. When everything’s done and to his taste, Nicaise comes over to the couch and sits down too,  clutching the remote like he’s scared Damen will take it away. There’s a cushion between them, but Damen refuses to look at that empty space. Refuses to acknowledge who could be sitting there if things were different.

They don’t talk. The only sound in Damen’s sterile living room is the one coming from the TV, that high-pitched garbled noise Sims make. It reminds Damen of Galen’s first words.

Nicaise picks a Sim and starts customizing its appearance. It’s a man, middle-aged, with dark hair and dark eyes. Nicaise spends an agonizingly long time picking out his clothes, which all come in a muted palette. Browns and greys and blues. It’s not until Nicaise selects a pair of thin wired glasses that Damen starts to frown.

“Is that Berenger?”

“Obviously,” Nicaise says. He makes Sim-Berenger do a twirl. “I’m going to build him a house without doors and lock him inside.”

Damen laughs. He shouldn’t, but he does. And when Nicaise looks at him, he’s sort of laughing too.

*

Erasmus is already outside when Damen parks the car in his driveway. It’s started to go dark earlier, and the streetlamp Erasmus is sitting under makes his hair look the wrong shade of blonde. Despite being related and looking similar in other ways—their hands, their overall lack of wrinkles or skin pouches—Jokaste and Erasmus don’t share the same hair color. Jokaste’s looks dyed-slash-bleached, whereas Erasmus’ is the sort of dirty blonde one could confuse with brown. 

Kyra’s, if Damen remembers correctly, is too yellow.

Once in the passenger seat, Erasmus wastes no time putting on his seatbelt and asking Damen about his day at the office. Damen deflects, drifts off mid-sentence. He doesn’t know what to tell Erasmus, how to make the monotony of his Friday seem less concerning.

“Oh, wait,” Erasmus says just as Damen is about to take a right turn. “We need to pick up Jo’s cake! I was meant to go after work, but I got held up and couldn’t make it. A kid twisted his ankle and there was so much paper—”

“Where’s the store?”

Erasmus flushes a little, enough that Damen notices despite how dark it is inside the car. “It’s, well. You can stay in the car. It won’t be a problem, I’m sure I can carry the box myself.”

Damen wants to close his eyes. “Pêche.”

“Yes,” Erasmus says. He sounds apologetic when he adds, “She really likes their blue cupcakes.”

Aimeric’s blue cupcakes taste like they were made for and by a six-year-old who’s just discovered what sugar is. The only cavity Damen ever had in his life came from them, back when Laurent would pester Aimeric into giving them free pastries at least once a week. Damen can only imagine what sort of monstrosity Aimeric has come up with if Jokaste’s request was a cake that tastes like blue cupcakes. 

“Is it a big cake?”

Erasmus plays with his fingers. “Er… It’s a three-tier cake. I think?”

Damen will have to get out of the car. He’s not going to be the asshole that makes Erasmus carry around a huge box using the two wire-like arms his parents have given him. And besides, there’s no reason for Damen to be nervous: Pêche is a bakery, people buy baked goods there, and Damen is a person. Damen can be a customer.

Aimeric isn’t Ancel, Damen reminds himself. Most days, it was hard to tell if Aimeric even liked being Laurent’s friend, and so there is no reason to think Aimeric’s hatred for Damen was personal. It probably wasn’t.

“How was work?” Damen asks at the first red light. “That kid that broke his arm, how is he?”

“Julian twisted his ankle.”

Julian, the boy princess.

“Well, that.”

Erasmus smiles. “He’s good. We kept it iced until his mom picked him up and took him to the ER. That kid is so sweet, he didn’t even complain.”

Usually, Damen would let it rest. He isn’t Laurent, who enjoys prodding and scratching and digging for filth, but today Damen wonders. To Erasmus, what happened at Galen’s party was nothing, just another mindless conversation, just an awkward moment to let go of as soon as it was over. To Damen, it’s like a pebble in his shoe.

“Can kids be gay?” Damen says.

Erasmus tenses. His leg, the jittery one, goes painfully still.

Damen wants to inhale the words back. “I mean,” he says, already close to stammering. “Not that they’d do anything about it. Kids don’t—I’m not asking about kids having sex. But can they… know? That they’re gay?”

“Why are you asking?”

There’s a honk, loud and startling, and Damen realizes the light’s green, probably has been for a while. He decides to take the long way to the shop, six more blocks than necessary, and tells himself it’s not because he’s buying time.

“I saw the picture on your phone,” Damen says after a while, once the car behind him has stopped honking and he’s going at a decent speed. “The kid was wearing a dress, wasn’t he? Julian.”

Erasmus is looking straight ahead. His profile is a mockery of seriousness, but it’s serious enough for Erasmus. If Kallias was here, he’d have another reason to dislike Damen. Anyone who wipes the smile off Erasmus’ face is worse than a war criminal, in Kallias’ opinion.

“I don’t see how those two things are related,” Erasmus says quietly. “He’s a kid. Kids play dress-up all the time.”

Like Nicaise, Damen thinks. Except Nicaise isn’t a kid, hasn’t been for a while. With him, it seems the dressing up never stopped. 

“I just thought maybe that’s why he chose that costume.” Damen presses his thumbs into the soft leather of the steering wheel as though trying to leave a dent in it. “Boys usually like superheroes. Or robots.”

Erasmus looks at him. “Damen,” he says, and pauses.

“I wasn’t trying to be—”

“I know.”

Maybe the kid is transgender. As he drives, Damen tries to think of what Laurent would say to that comment. It’s fucked up that Damen relies on an inner voice that sounds like his ex-boyfriend, but Damen can’t trust his other thoughts. Common sense is treacherous, another lesson Laurent had tried to drill into his skull. Zygmunt Bauman. Ever heard of him, Damen?  

Damen had not.

They’d fought over so many things concerning Nicaise—his wardrobe, his schedule, his neurosis—and yet Damen had never dared ask Laurent if he thought Nicaise was trying to stop being a boy. He hadn’t wanted to know.

“There’s this podcast I really like,” Erasmus says. “It’s called Dissecting the Rainbow, which sounds stupid but it’s… I think you should give it a try.” He starts playing with his fingers again, rubbing his knuckles together. “It really helped me when Kallias came out.”

Right. Kallias. Damen and Laurent had a fight about that, too. No one can live without sex, Damen had said. It’s unnatural. And Laurent had been so, so quiet, the way he always was when he was coiling into himself, getting ready to sting Damen. But there’d been no reply, nothing at all, and Laurent had slept on the couch that night.

“Thanks,” Damen says. It comes out awkward, the way Damen is feeling. “That’s… interesting.”

“I don’t know if kids can tell.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s—well, just because he’s wearing a dress doesn’t mean he…” Erasmus’ face is flushed. Damen sees the red in his cheeks when they stop under another streetlamp. “It’s just not something you should assume about people. Least of all kids.”

It sort of sounds like a reprimand, but Damen can’t be sure. Erasmus has always been terrible at scolding people.

And so Damen nods. It’s the safest answer.

Four minutes later, Damen is parking the car and trying to conjure up the will to walk Erasmus inside the shop. From his seat, Damen sees that despite the late hour Pêche is still open, a young couple drinking coffee near the front window. It looks exactly the same as the last time Damen was here—the black cursive letters of the sign, the dark green door, the fairy lights placed close to the ceiling. 

“You don’t have to come with me,” Erasmus says, and for a second Damen considers the possibility that Erasmus really doesn’t want him to. 

“It’s fine.” Damen smiles. “Let’s go before Jokaste sends Kastor after us.”

Inside, Pêche smells the way any other bakery does. There’s a touch of something sweet in the air, always cinnamon, and then a waft of citrus. The combination of scents should be cloying, and yet it isn’t. Damen holds the door open for Erasmus and catches a glimpse of what a man at a table close by is eating—a chocolate scone with a creamy cup of coffee. Damen’s stomach clenches at the sight, almost yearning.

Erasmus leads the way to the counter. This light suits his hair better, makes his locks look more bronze than brown. 

There’s no one behind the bar, which fills Damen with hope. Maybe Aimeric isn’t working today. Maybe a random girl will come out the back now, a complete stranger Damen has never seen, and she’ll be the one to give them Jokaste’s cake. Maybe for once in his life, Damen will have some luck.

The door that connects the store to the kitchen slams open. Aimeric walks out, and his gaze lands inevitably on Damen, who’s trying not to feel as though he’s hiding behind Erasmus’ petite form.

Aimeric doesn’t have a comical reaction. He squints a bit, the way one would at a stubborn spot before scrubbing it away, and then frowns. The expression makes Damen think of that time Aimeric was recovering in the hospital and he saw the flowers Damen had bought for him, despite Laurent’s orders not to bring anything to the visit. Damen had thought it was the sensible thing to do back then. When one was sick, one got flowers. And one had to be sort of sick to cut open one’s wrists with a kitchen knife at three am on a Monday.

“Hi,” Erasmus says. He slides a note to Aimeric. “How have you been? It looks like you’ve got a busy night.”

Aimeric and Erasmus have seen each other many times in the four years Laurent and Damen were together. They’ve been to all of Nicaise’s birthday parties, and Laurent’s, and Damen’s. It’s weird seeing them interact now, after everything. When the separation happened, the tentative friend group that had started to form over the years split evenly: Laurent got his friends back, and so did Damen.

“This is nothing. You should see what it’s like on Sundays,” Aimeric says, finally tearing his eyes off Damen to read Erasmus’ receipt. “The order isn’t packed yet. It’ll take fifteen minutes.”

Erasmus smiles, calm and patient. “Of course. Do you mind if we sit over there while we wait?”

Aimeric shakes his head, curls bouncing around his face like worn-out strings. The apron he’s wearing is dirty on the front, flour fingerprints offensively visible. It’s too much of a cliché, as though Aimeric knew Damen would be here tonight and decided to wear the apron just to spite him, to say ‘look, I’m a real baker, I’m what you said I’d never be’. 

Damen stares back at Aimeric, knowing he’s being rude by not greeting him and yet not caring enough to do anything about it. He should move along, follow Erasmus across the room to the little table where they can wait comfortably for Jokaste’s cake to be ready, but Damen can’t quite get his legs to react. 

Aimeric seems to take Damen’s presence as a challenge. He leans over the counter, both hands on the wood, and says, “Move along. You’re holding up the line.”

Damen looks over his shoulder. “There’s no line.”

“Just fucking move,” Aimeric says. “God, don’t act so surprised. I don’t have to be nice to you anymore, asshole.”

“What—”

“Go. I’m not going to tell him I saw you, and you’re not going to mention you saw me.” Aimeric’s voice is rising. Damen feels people’s stares like daggers on his back. “And if you were thinking of asking me how he’s doing, you can just eat my—”

“Aimeric,” Jord says. Damen doesn’t know where he came from.  “There’s a cake that needs packing.”

Aimeric scowl reaches never before seen levels of sourness. “Then pack it.”

“You’re better at it than I am.”

“Yeah, well,” Aimeric says, and moves away from the counter. It’s like he can’t resist a compliment. “Maybe it’s because I pack all the fucking cakes in this shop. I’m always packing, and when I’m not packing I’m baking. And—”

Jord holds the door to the kitchen open for him. “You should give yourself a raise.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Go on,” Jord says in a low voice, once Aimeric is close enough. He leaves a kiss on Aimeric’s cheek, and Damen takes it as his queue to look away. “The sooner you get it done, the sooner he’ll leave.”

Aimeric’s reply is garbled, probably an insult. The slam of the kitchen door sounds like a period.

Out of all of Laurent’s friends, Jord is the only one Damen liked. He’d been Auguste’s friend before he was Laurent’s, and he had that quiet semblance that made Damen think of Nikandros. He hasn’t changed much since the last time Damen saw him. Like the shop itself, like Aimeric, Jord stands before Damen thoroughly known. 

“Hello, Damen,” Jord says. “You look good.”

The compliment startles Damen. He’s never been one to read too much into people’s words, but with Laurent’s friends, it’s always hard to tell what they mean from what they don’t. “Thanks,” he says. “So do you.”

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

He’s being dismissed, Damen realizes. Jord is treating him the way he would a customer. The same bitter feeling he experienced at Laurent’s stiffness the other day comes back to him now, irrational and unbidden. Jord doesn’t owe Damen anything, they’re not even friends, and yet it makes Damen angry that the one person he’s never had issues with seems so eager to get rid of him. 

“No,” Damen says. “I’m going now. Have a good night.”

Jord nods. A moment later he disappears into the kitchen, calling Aimeric’s name softly, and Damen is left standing in front of the prepackaged cookies like a fool. 

The shop feels too small, too crowded. The smell of cinnamon and citrus makes him want to throw up, both too sweet and acidic. He doesn’t know why he ever thought things would go by smoothly, that Aimeric would be—that he’d get to—

Damen feels too hot. He’s outside in the blink of an eye, breathing the night air in through his mouth and trying to forget the stench of freshly baked bread. Nausea rolls over him like a wave, enveloping him completely, and Damen shudders in it.

His eyes meet Erasmus’ through the glass. It’s fine, Damen tries to convey, which is stupid because Erasmus can’t read his thoughts. It is fine. Damen would just rather wait out here.

*

Aretha’s kitchen is bigger than Damen’s, her countertops made of real, pearly marble, the drawer handles gleaming gold where light touches them. There are people buzzing around the room—young girls in maid-like uniforms, older men in white, fashionable aprons. They’re plating things, cutting up mint leaves, pouring drinks and putting them on large, silver trays. 

Damen is lowering the cake box on the nearest table, under a chef’s instruction, when Kastor and Jokaste enter the kitchen. They don’t see him, half-obscured as he is by the gigantic box and the wall of twitching girls eager to start doing something to the cake, and Damen doesn’t announce his presence. He’d rather have a few more minutes to himself before their inevitable greeting.

They don’t stay around long enough for any comment to be overheard, but Damen catches them kissing in the doorway, briefly and embarrassingly sweet, after Jokaste snatches a glass of white wine from one of the trays. She sips it first, then hands it to Kastor with a smile. 

Go away, he wants to say and doesn’t know why. This is Jokaste’s birthday party, at her mother’s house. If anything, the one that shouldn’t be here is Damen. If anything, Damen should be happy that his brother is content, that his brother is hiding in the kitchen with his wife so they can share a drink without anyone but the cooks watching. 

The last time Damen hid in a kitchen with Laurent was disastrous. Ancel’s fist had been involved.

“Sir,” a brown-eyed girl says, barely loud enough for Damen to hear her over the sounds of busy knives and sizzling stoves. “Would you mind waiting in the dining room? The guests are gathered there.”

Damen goes. It surprises him how much he wishes he could stay there, poorly hidden behind a box and kitchen supplies, not having to talk to anyone at all.

*

“What about you, Damen?” Aretha asks him, thirty-seven minutes into the dinner party. 

Erasmus relaxes in his seat, next to Damen. It must be nice to finally be left alone, to have his aunt and mother stop tantalizing him, asking him questions they don’t want the answers to. But have you really thought about it? You could be doing so much better. You could be a babysitter to the Prime Minister’s children. You should get a master’s degree in education. Have you thought about it? Have you thought of quitting public school?

Aretha is sitting right in front of Damen, sandwiched between Hypermenestra and one of Jokaste and Erasmus’ aunts. Just glancing at her makes Damen feel as though he’s staring at a future version of Jokaste, her perfect blonde hair, her ironed skin. Hypermenestra and Kastor share many things, but Jokaste and Aretha look like the same person, mere years apart. 

“What about me?” Damen says. He stops pushing his arugula salad around; he knows it’s rude to play with one’s food, knows his father would tell him off if he was here. 

“You just moved into a new house, didn’t you?”

Damen shifts, feeling awkward. He can’t tell if he’s being praised or not. “I did.”

“Are you dating anyone?” Aretha says. “You know, you’re almost thirty years old. I married when I was half your age.”

The thought of a fifteen-year-old child getting married makes Damen almost lurch. Nicaise is only sixteen.

“Damen’s working through some things,” Hypermenestra says. A sip of wine, red like her nails. “Breakups can be rough.”

Jokaste’s aunt hums in agreement.

“Yes,” Aretha says. It doesn’t sound empathetic. “But you should lighten up. I won’t believe you’re having trouble finding a lady, not with a face like that.”

“And those curls.”

Damen pushes the discomfort away. He’s dealt with worse, still remembers the look on Hypermenestra’s face when she met Laurent. Are you sure? she’d told him. I don’t think your father would have been happy. And then had come her sister’s words, like a hand twisting an invisible knife: A Veretian, really?

“I have a niece,” Aretha says, feigning casualness. “She’s single, and she’s only thirty-three.”

“Bathroom,” Damen says. It’s a little too loud, that single word cutting through every other conversation around the table. He shoves his chair back and it makes a shrieking sound, drawing even more attention. “Excuse me.”

Even though he tries not to, he still hears the hushed comment behind his back. What a shame.

*

“I looked you up,” Damen says. It’s not as smooth as it had sounded in his head. “You wrote a book.”

Neo nods, unfazed, as though Damen saying that is the most normal thing in the world. “And now I’m working on another.”

“Healing Childhood: the psychology of trauma’. Is that why you’re always asking me about my childhood?”

“We’ve never talked about your childhood,” Neo says.

“Well, but you’ve asked me about it. Is that—do you ask everyone what they were like growing up, or just me?”

“Not everyone.” Neo smiles. “Only clients. It’d be weird to ask the grocery clerk if they’re still upset their mother left when they were five. I also wouldn’t know she left them, to begin with. So.”

Damen relaxes into the chair. It feels good, for once, to have the upper hand. He’s asked his question, gotten a reply, and now he knows there’s little to be worried about. Damen had fretted that maybe Neo was always probing at his childhood because he imagined it to be awful. A drunk father, a violent brother, a too involved football coach. Now Damen gets to reassure him that that was not the case.

“You don’t have to,” Damen says. “Keep asking, I mean. Nothing bad happened to me. I was a happy kid.”

Neo hums. “Were you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. If you had to describe your family using only three words, which ones would you choose?”

Damen frowns. He’s surprised to find that he feels offended. “I’m not lying.”

“I never said you were.”

“Then why—”

“Indulge me,” Neo says. “Please?”

Three words. It’s not hard, Damen thinks. One word for each member: Theomedes, Kastor, and Hypermenestra. He can’t really be expected to talk about his mother, not when he didn’t even meet her. Hypermenestra was always nice enough to him growing up, whenever they saw each other at birthday parties or when she’d drive Kastor to Theomedes’ house for the weekend. You’re taller than your mother. Did you know that? She was taller than your father, too, she’d told him at Kastor’s graduation party. Damen had not known what to say to that, and so he’d said nothing. He knew, even then, that Hypermenestra wouldn't have said that to him if she hadn't had one too many glasses of chardonnay.

“Happy, nice, and…” Damen struggles for a second, trying to choose between normal and disciplined. He thinks the second one might be truer, but the first one sounds better. “Normal.”

“Okay,” Neo says.

Today Damen is not wearing work clothes. He changed into his gym shorts and lycra shirt before coming here, and he’s glad he did because now he gets to tug on the sleeves every once in a while, busying his restless fingers. The fabric is tight around his wrists, the cuffs a size too small. He tugs at them as he waits for Neo to go on, but Neo doesn’t.

“Come on,” Damen says. He feels tight, like something that might snap. “Are those not—what should I have said?”

Neo shrugs. “There’s no should have here. What matters is what you actually said, and why you said it.” He holds his hands up, a small smile on his face. “But that’d mean talking about your childhood, so I don’t know if you—”

“Fine.”

“They were very positive words,” Neo says. “Happy, nice, normal. But all families have problems, even small ones, so I’m curious why you say there’s nothing wrong with your family.”

“Because there is nothing wrong with them. Us, I mean.”

“Wrong doesn’t mean evil, Damen. It just means… unbalanced. Off. Complicated.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not what wrong means,” Damen says, not really trying to be contrary. He doesn’t get where this is going. “Should I tell you what annoys me about them?”

“If you want.”

Damen wants to punch Neo in the face. Instead, he takes a breath and says, “Kastor likes to gloat. It’s annoying.”

“What does he gloat about?”

“I don’t know. Everything. He’s—sometimes it feels like he turns everything into a competition.” Damen pauses, tugging at his shirt again. He can’t remember where he bought it, which is a bad sign. Maybe Laurent bought it for him. God, there’s little he’d hate more than to be walking around in one of Laurent’s gifts. “How many hours we work, the people we date, the time we spent with our dad at the hospital… It’s stupid.”

“Was he close to your dad?”

“Yes,” Damen says. “Kastor was the one who took care of things when our dad was…" Dying. Under Neo’s attentive gaze, Damen tries not to feel as though he’s betraying someone by saying these things. “Before that, he would have lunch with our dad every Sunday."

Neo offers a nod. “You were at university, right? And you were also close to your father.”

As close as one could be, Damen thinks. Damen skipped Kastor’s rebellious phases, the temporary tattoos, the heavy metal musicalized tantrums. He never had any big arguments with his father that he can think of, never raised his voice at him, or ran away from home. At sixteen, Kastor got an eyebrow piercing and three weekends stuck at home as punishment. When Damen reached that age he was too busy playing sports to think about butchering his own face.

But there is something Damen hasn’t told anyone, not even Laurent. He thinks maybe he should tell Neo now, that maybe that’s the point of this whole thing since they’re talking about closeness, and his dad, and Kastor.

The first night of winter break, when Damen was in his third year of university, Theomedes insisted both Kastor and Damen stayed with him in his room. Damen had been home for the first time in months, just in time for the holidays, and he’d been sleep deprived enough from the exam season not to think anything of his father’s request. Kastor hadn’t liked it, but he’d agreed anyway, and two hours after dinner he was asleep in one of the armchairs that surrounded the bed. 

Theomedes had shrunk a lot since the last time Damen had seen him. He’d always been a big, burly man, nothing like the frail thing that shivered and cowered under Damen’s exhausted gaze. At one point during the night, Theomedes managed to free himself of the blankets and shifted close enough to Kastor to grab his arm.

Kastor’s eyes opened instantly, as though he hadn’t been sleeping. He put his hand on top of their father’s, and the difference between the two made Damen feel sick—one yellowed and wrinkled, the other taut with youth and tanned by the sun. 

“Damianos,” Theomedes said, looking at Kastor. He lifted a trembling hand to Kastor’s cheek, almost cupping it, and then said the name again, and again. A few other words followed, slurred and gurgled and too quiet for Damen to make out, but Damen knew Kastor could understand what their father was saying. 

Kastor had tucked the blankets tighter around Theomedes, nodding along to what he was saying. He’d nodded and nodded and nodded, and when Theomedes had fallen back asleep, he’d left the room without meeting Damen’s eyes. 

Theomedes had died three hours later.

“Damen?” Neo says. “Did you hear my question?”

Fifteen minutes left. Damen can do this. “Yes,” he replies, slowly. “We were close. He was a good dad. Very… involved.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“Oh.”

“I asked you about your mother.”

Damen can’t do that today. It feels as though this conversation is a mountain, ever-growing, and Damen is wearing the worst possible footwear. One cannot climb Mount Everest with flip-flops, and so Damen doesn’t even bother trying. 

He stands up. “Sorry, I have to go. There’s a friend waiting for me at the gym.”

“Damen—”

“Next time,” Damen says firmly. “Have a good weekend.”

Neo’s secretary eyes him suspiciously when he storms out of the room and makes a beeline for the stairs. Damen ignores her little wave, ignores the way his palms are sweating. Ignores how much he never wants to come back to this place again.

*

Up for drinks tonight ? 

Pallas already said yes

Damen stares at the texts in the car. It’s been an hour since Nikandros sent them, yet Damen has kept himself from replying because he doesn’t know what to say. It’s Monday, six-thirty, the second day of spring. He’s never felt less like going to a bar to drink an overpriced beer or a glass of red wine. 

The last time Damen replied to Nikandros’ texts was five days ago, which is a record for them. They’ve never gone very long without talking. Except now Damen doesn’t want to be around anyone, and that includes Nikandros.

He’s got wine at home, after all. And he has to feed Dog or risk coming back home to the dumb dog eating a roll of toilet paper.

Pass, Damen texts back. He’s left on read.

*

Next Tuesday, Nicaise shows up at five-thirty without his backpack and wearing a pair of jeans with far too many holes. He gets there three minutes after Damen, a close call. Maybe Damen should give him a set of keys, just to be safe. It’s a good neighborhood, preppy and full of cameras, but Damen still worries. Experience has shown him it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to Nicaise.

They repeat the little routine they’ve established: Nicaise pets Dog for a while, plays with him, then asks Damen for something to eat. Damen pretends he hasn’t stacked up on all of Nicaise’s favorites snacks—every box of Starbursts available, dried and crunchy apple slices that taste like cardboard, honey-glazed crackers—and Nicaise pretends not to notice how painfully hard Damen is trying to keep him comfortable. 

After the eating part is done, they settle on the living room couch for another gaming session. This time, Nicaise decides he’s bored of torturing Sim-Berenger. He monologues a bit about how he’d like to do Ancel next but won’t because it’d take too much effort.

“His hair is that weird shade of red,” Nicaise says, socked feet on the coffee table. “Like, it’s sort of orange but not, like, natural redhead orange, you know? It’s so annoying. And the length always confuses me. It’s longer when he braids it for some reason.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“I bet it’s a wig.”

Damen tries not to laugh. “Really?”

“Yes,” Nicaise says, very seriously. “Did you know sometimes wigs are made out of dead people’s hair? I read somewhere that your nails and hair grow after you die.”

“Er,” Damen says.

“And I wouldn’t put it past Ancel to steal from a dead person, especially if they’ve got good hair.”

Nicaise goes back to his game—Assassin’s Crowd or something—and Damen goes back to watching him. His profile looks a lot like Laurent’s, which makes Damen feel a bit nauseous. Nicaise and Laurent aren’t related, not by blood, and so there’s only one reason why they look alike. 

“You can sell some of your hair if you ever need the money,” Damen says jokingly, staring at Nicaise’s curls. “How long has it been since you had it cut? A decade?”

Nicaise keeps his eyes on the screen. It feels deliberate. “I’m growing it out. It’s a new thing.”

“Oh,” Damen says. “Won’t it get on your eyes?”

“No, I usually wear—” Nicaise cuts himself off. His gaze flickers to Damen, then back to the screen. “I wear it up. Sometimes.”

“Up.”

“Like in a bun.”

Damen doesn’t know what to say to that. The violent blush that has taken over Nicaise’s face is hard to ignore, but Damen forces himself to do it. It’s just hair. Laurent wears it long, too. 

Nicaise is twitchy. He taps his thigh with the control, then scratches behind his ear, then rubs his eyebrow. He used to get like this when it was time to do homework, always finding an excuse to escape equations and fractions. When Nicaise starts cracking his knuckles Damen looks down at his hands, already opening his mouth to tell him to stop— you’ll run out of knuckle juice —but pauses instead.

There are specks of purple on one of Nicaise’s nails, glittery and glossy. The more Damen stares, the more details he picks up on, like the fact that all of Nicaise’s fingers are pink. They’re the kind of shade that suggests there’s been some form of rubbing and scratching involved. Under closer inspection, Damen sees that there are tiny dots of glitter on other nails, small and randomly placed.

It’s scraped off nail polish.

“—men?”

Damen blinks. “Yes?”

“You didn’t ask me if I have homework to do.”

“Do you have homework to do?” Damen asks automatically.

“No,” Nicaise says. “But you should have asked anyway. We don’t want him to think we do nothing all day.”

Him. It should be funny how hesitant Nicaise is to say Laurent’s name, how stereotypical. He’s truly a child of divorce, Damen thinks, even though he’s not their child, even though they weren’t married. It should be funny, but it isn’t.

“We could take Dog out on a walk,” Damen says. “There’s a park ten minutes away.”

Nicaise pauses the game. “I thought you didn’t want to walk him.”

“Did I say that?”

“You said he could walk himself,” Nicaise says, careful. Damen wonders if he’s trying not to show his excitement or if he truly doesn’t care. It’s hard to know with Nicaise. “Since you have a gigantic backyard and all.”

“Have you seen it?” Damen says. He’s been awful about house tours, he didn’t even show Nikandros around once the move was done. “There’s a pool. You—it’s climatized.”

Nicaise is fussy about water, always has been. He likes showers but not baths, likes pools but only when they’re not public. He hates hot tubs. 

The pool Damen had built is shaped like an oval, its bottom a design of turquoise and green tiles Laurent picked out by himself. They’d wanted to keep it a secret from Nicaise just to see his face when they revealed the surprise. Pool parties are still cool, Laurent had assured Damen. Apparently, teenagers haven’t changed that much in the last ten years.

“Can I see my room?”

Damen’s chest feels too tight, shrunken. “Your room?”

“The one I…” Nicaise picks at his thumb, scraping off the remaining nail polish. “You know, the one that was supposed to be mine. Before.”

“Yes, yeah. Of course.” Damen’s on his feet, the words he’s not saying a tight ball in his throat. It’s still yours, it’s still yours, it’ll always be yours. He swallows them back down, compels them to stay there, right under his sternum. They beat like a second heart. “It’s upstairs. I haven’t—it’s empty.”

The stairs are spotlessly new. They don’t creak under the combined weight of their bodies, and Damen finds himself wishing they would. He can’t stand the silence, the eerie air that surrounds the house, that seems to blanket each room. He wishes Nicaise would say something, anything, but instead he’s completely quiet as they cross the upstairs hall.

Nicaise’s room is between one of the bathrooms and Damen’s office, the one he doesn’t even use. The house is quiet enough that he can get work done anywhere, even in the living room, and so his office has stayed dusty and unused throughout the weeks Damen’s lived here. 

Damen pushes the door open and waits.

“You had the walls painted,” Nicaise says. He’s still standing in the doorway, his socked toes barely touching the wooden floor of the room. His room. 

The walls are a washed-out shade of green, a color Damen hates. It makes him feel nauseous for some reason, but it’s what Nicaise picked. Damen has a dozen other rooms, all painted a sterile white. He can’t even imagine what to reconvert this one into, what to make of it now that it’ll never be a bedroom.

Nicaise steps inside. The window he walks up to doesn’t have curtains or blinds, and the sunlight coming through it paints the whole floor golden. Nicaise stands next to it with his eyes on the street down below, looking almost bored. Damen watches him and knows better. Knows that blank look on Nicaise’s face far too well.

“Do you like it?” Damen says.

“There’s dust everywhere.” Nicaise scrunches up his nose. “And you have no furniture. You should…”

“I should?”

“Nothing,” Nicaise says, and effectively turns towards the window once more, offering Damen his back.

Damen takes a step inside the room. What Nicaise has said is true: it’s empty and dusty and still smells of fresh paint, most likely because Damen has kept the door closed since he moved in. He hasn’t been here before.

“I could get furniture,” Damen says without thinking. It’s a stupid thing to say, and the sudden stiffness in Nicaise’s shoulders proves it. He knows it’s stupid, and yet now that he’s started talking he can’t stop. He can’t stop. “A couch or something. And a TV. You could bring the Xbox here and—”

“Sure,” Nicaise says. The word is sharp, cutting through whatever Damen was thinking. “I’ll even bring a sleeping bag with me next time so we can have a fucking sleepover. Will that make you feel better? Appease your conscience or some shit.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

Nicaise moves away from the window. He’s very careful about having no part of his body touch Damen on his way out.

“Nicaise.”

“I need to use the bathroom,” Nicaise says, and slips into the room next to his. He slams the door loud enough that the sound bounces off the empty hall walls without any consequences. 

If this were a real home, Damen thinks, there’d be pictures with expensive frames on the walls. Maybe paintings or a clock. But there’s nothing to hang up, nothing for a moody teenager to break in a fit of rage.

I want it to be green. All four walls, Nicaise had said over breakfast, defiant, his chin very high as though expecting one of them to tell him no. All right, Laurent had told him. Puke-green or what?

Damen leaves the memory in the room and closes the door.

Chapter Text

Six

“Maybe he painted his nails in the morning and decided halfway through the day that he didn’t like the color,” Neo says.

There’s a new clock on the wall. Black, with a glossy white frame. Damen doesn’t like it. He thinks maybe he should get one for the house—something brown and wooden, perhaps—but the thought of going to a store to get it is draining. Even ordering it online feels like a task Damen is not energetically qualified for.

“No,” Damen says. “He’s never done that before. When he doesn’t like the color he still waits until he’s home and… Scraping it off damages your nail beds or something. I don’t know.”

“And how does that make you feel? Knowing he removed the nail polish before going to see you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do,” Neo says. “Is it possible that he did it because he anticipated you’d have a negative reaction?”

Damen closes his eyes. He’d like to stand outside his body for this, to be someone else. “I wouldn’t have said anything bad to him.”

“Let’s use a different word. Nothing is inherently good or bad, Damen. Let’s go with ‘hurtful’.”

“Hurting people is always bad.”

Neo nods. “Yes, but sometimes it’s unintentional. Motive doesn’t justify actions, it explains them. So, do you think you’ve said hurtful things to Nicaise in the past?”

“I,” Damen says, and pauses. No, he thinks. He’s never tried to hurt Nicaise. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, you have commented on his appearance.”

“That’s not hurtful,” Damen says. “I was—it’s not like that.”

Neo taps his knee with two fingers. “Teenagers can be quite sensitive to criticism. Maybe you thought you were being helpful, whereas Nicaise found it demeaning.”

“Nicaise knows the difference between someone trying to hurt him and someone looking out for him.”

“What makes you so sure about that?”

Damen wants to close his eyes again and drift away. On the way here from work he’d thought they’d discuss a bit of Nicaise’s attitude, maybe what a shit show Jokaste’s birthday party was, but not this. Damen’s never told anyone this, has never thought that giving people the full story mattered. You don’t even know the full story yourself, the bitter part of him says. Damen smothers the thought; he’s never quite wanted to know more.

“Nicaise had a fucked up childhood,” Damen says. “Laurent’s uncle adopted him from an orphanage in Arran.”

“I thought Laurent was Nicaise’s guardian.”

“He is now. There was a trial when Nicaise was eleven.”

Neo raises an eyebrow in question.

“Laurent’s uncle wasn’t…” Good, Damen thinks. Normal. Decent. Worthy of oxygen. “He was abusing Nicaise, so Laurent had him put away. But they—it didn’t happen overnight, obviously.”

“What kind of abuse are we talking about?”

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t know,” Neo says. “Do you think it’s important for me to know?”

Damen thinks he might throw up, which would be both disgusting and embarrassing. He feels the same way he did when he found out, and it’s a relief to realize that his anger and repulsion have not faded over the years. If anything, they’ve festered. So you can make an informed decision, Laurent had told him as an introduction. Uncomfortable, Damen had tried to laugh Laurent’s solemnity off. An informed decision about what, exactly? 

About me, had been Laurent’s reply.

“It was sexual.”

“Okay,” Neo says, calm as usual. “Has he gotten treatment?”

“Yes,” Damen says. “It was mandatory at first, but he liked Agnes enough to keep going to the sessions. I…” He drifts off, looking inside his mouth for a different set of words. “Laurent had to attend mandated meetings, too.”

“Meetings?”

The ugly clock on the wall ticks the seconds away. Suddenly, the idea that countless strangers pay Neo to sit in this very same chair, to stare at this clock, at this wall, makes Damen’s skin crawl. What kind of people does Neo even treat? What hands have touched these armrests?

“Damen?”

“Sorry,” Damen says, and clears his throat. “It was group therapy. That’s where he met Aimeric.” 

Neo hums, reaching into the front pocket of his shirt for his pen. “Aimeric… He owns that bakery you told me about, right?” He waits for Damen to nod, then says, “Do you happen to know what kind of therapy—”

“Like AA.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Alcoholics Anonymous? Isn’t that—I thought that’s what AA stands for.”

“Is Laurent an alcoholic?” Neo says. He’s stopped writing.

“No.”

“Was it a support group or mandated group therapy? They’re not quite the same thing, Damen.”

Damen says, “It was a support group for incest survivors.”

Neo is looking at him now, intently, and Damen wishes he would stop. Damen shouldn’t have told him about this, about Nicaise. He shouldn’t have used that word, which is one Laurent has never said out loud. Incest conjures up weird imagery in Damen’s head—funny-looking babies, Patran jokes, that stupid book about attics he and Nikandros read on a dare—but when he tries to tie that word back to Laurent his mind goes carefully blank. He can’t even begin to wonder.

“All right,” Neo says after a while. “Is this something you want to discuss right now?”

“No.”

“Shall we go back to Nicaise then?” Neo looks down at his notes. “What does this have to do with Nicaise’s awareness of people’s intentions?”

“Nicaise has met some fucked up people,” Damen says. He tries to keep his frustration from leaking into his words. “It’s safe to say he knows how to spot them.”

“And you’re not one of them.”

Something in Damen cracks open. “I—are you asking me if I’m a fucking child molester?”

Neo doesn’t flinch at Damen’s tone. He doesn’t even blink. “Obviously not, Damen. What I’m trying to say is that there is a big difference between actively hurting a child versus doing or saying things that are indirectly harmful to a child’s development. I’m saying that it is quite obvious that abusers are bad people, but not being an abuser doesn’t make one perfect.”

“I’ve never hurt Nicaise.”

“Would you be willing to ask him that next time you see him?”

Damen snorts. “What for? So he can laugh and say that I haven’t?”

Neo doesn’t say anything for a while. He looks like he’s thinking—he always looks that way when he’s about to ask Damen something complicated, all furrowed brow and scrunched up mouth—and Damen doesn’t want to worry but does anyways. Maybe he should stop talking so much about Nicaise, should bring up other people, like Kastor and Pallas and Kyra, and how the house is always so silent, how he can’t seem to find anything to decorate it with. Maybe Damen should talk about how he’s been ignoring Nikandros’ texts for the first time in years, how he can’t get enough hours in the gym to feel as good as he used to. 

“I don’t know Nicaise,” Neo says at last. “You talk about him a lot, but that’s not the same as me knowing him as a person. What I do know is that sometimes children who have been abused find comfort in taking back control, in any shape or form that may be. Do you think it’s possible that Nicaise’s… stylistic choices boil down to him trying to find new ways to express himself?”

“I don’t think it’s that complex. He’s sixteen.”

Neo gives a smile. It doesn’t look particularly encouraging.

“I just mean,” Damen says, and stops. What does he mean? “What if it really is just him playing dress-up? Like, him recreating…”

“Recreating his abuse?”

Damen nods. He feels gross enough already without those words in his mouth.

“Do you have any clues to think that might be the case?” Neo says. “More importantly, do you think Laurent could have missed that?”

“No. It’s—Laurent would have noticed. It was dumb to suggest he…” Damen swallows. He doesn’t know how they got here, what Neo is trying to suggest. He doesn’t know anything anymore, and it’s a bit terrifying. “I just don’t understand what you meant by Nicaise expressing himself. He goes to therapy, he can talk to Laurent. Why would he need clothes to—to—”

The pause stretches. Neo isn’t talking, which means he wants Damen to talk. But Damen doesn’t know what to say. Sometimes an hour here makes him feel worse than three at the gym. At least at the gym, Damen knows what to do, everything perfectly mechanical the way he likes it. There aren’t surprises or questions to be answered, just the ache of muscles being challenged, of limbs moving. The rewards are clearer, too—more definition, more strength. Endorphins.

“Children aren’t often allowed to dress themselves,” Neo says. He uncrossed his legs when Damen wasn’t looking. “I don’t know if that was the case with Nicaise, but if it was… Well, you can understand how important it is to him that he’s now allowed to make his own choices when it comes to outfits and styles and… Clothes are one of the many things we use to express ourselves.”

Damen’s head throbs. Erasmus’ words are still bouncing around his skull, like a rubber ball that refuses to be still. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to make assumptions about people based on what they wore.”

“This isn’t really about making assumptions. Perhaps you should ask Nicaise about it.”

“How?”

“Start with the nail polish,” Neo suggests. “What he likes about it, for example. Or why you haven’t seen it on him in a while.”

It sounds easy, Damen thinks. There are worse things he could ask, worse answers he could get. And if Nicaise’s answer doesn’t make sense, which Damen is already expecting to happen, then he’ll come back next week and tell Neo about it. Damen will say ‘you were wrong, not even Nicaise knows’, and maybe the satisfaction of being right will finally make him feel better. 

Not good, but better. 

*

On his way home from the session, Damen stops by Canelle, a bakery three blocks away from Neo’s office, to grab a quick dinner. Lately, he’s been thinking about Aimeric’s toasted sandwiches, the ones with baby spinach and supposedly organic cherry tomatoes—Damen is willing to bet his own dick that they aren't, in fact, organic—but stopping by Pêche to buy one isn’t an option. He’d rather starve to death than deal with Aimeric again. Or worse, risk running into Laurent.

Or worst, he thinks. Running into Laurent and Maxime.

Damen buys a spring salad sandwich, all wheat bread and fancy cheese, and the last three chocolate chip cookies available. It’s Thursday, which means the weekend is just twenty-four hours away. Damen can indulge a bit. He’s earned it, after today's shitty session.

As he parks the car and stretches a bit, Damen thinks of what he’s going to do the minute he walks through the door. He’ll get his shoes off and feed Dog, then take a shower. Then, when he’s in sweatpants and one of his ex-gym t-shirts, he’ll have dinner on the couch and veg out in front of the TV for a while. He may even try to play one of Nicaise’s games, the one where you have to run people over with a car in order to win. 

He’s not expecting to find Nikandros standing on his doorstep, still dressed from work.

Damen almost drops the paper bag with his dinner and cookies inside. “Did something happen? What—”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Nikandros says. He’s leaning against the front door. “Maybe you’d know if you answered your fucking phone, Damen.”

“I always—” It’s Thursday. Damen turns his phone off during sessions. “Sorry, I was in a meeting. Did something happen?”

“So you were at the office?”

“Yes,” Damen says quickly. “There was a client… Kastor was being a dick and he made me stay late. So.”

Nikandros’ face is pinched tight. “Damen.”

“Stop fucking around, Nik. Did something—”

“Nothing happened,” Nikandros says, far too sharply for Damen’s liking. 

He’s mad, and Damen can’t think of a single thing he’s done to anger him, which is confusing. Nikandros isn’t Laurent, who was all mind fuckery and triggers. Nikandros is simpler, common sense personified. The fact that Damen can’t figure out what’s wrong...

“I came to see if you were still alive,” Nikandros says. “You haven’t texted me back in a week, so I thought maybe you were rotting away in your bathtub or something.”

“The neighbors would have complained about the smell if that were the case. And I see Pallas every day at the office.”

“Pallas says he rarely gets to talk to you, so.” Nikandros glances at his Rolex, then back at Damen. “I’ve been here for twenty minutes.”

Damen tries to shrug. Only one of his shoulders obeys him, the one that’s connected to the hand that isn’t holding his dinner. “Told you, man. Late meeting.”

“I called Kastor,” Nikandros says flatly. “He said you’d left early today. Apparently, you always leave before five on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“I—”

Nikandros rubs a hand over his face. “I swear to God if you say you were at the gym I’m going to kick you in the balls.”

Damen fumbles for a second, trying to find his keys, and says, “Let’s talk inside.”

The house is quiet, and Damen is so worried about trying to come up with an explanation that doesn’t involve telling Nikandros he’s seeing a therapist that he completely forgets about Dog. He only remembers him when they’ve made it to the kitchen, as he lowers the bakery bag on the counter and turns to face Nikandros. 

Dog is right behind Nikandros, drooling in the kitchen doorway. Damen can do nothing but helplessly stare back at him.

Nikandros crosses his arms. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you?”

Don’t bark, don’t fucking bark, don’t— “There’s nothing wrong.”

“Right,” Nikandros says. “Because it’s so like you to ignore everyone and lie like a—what are you looking at?”

Damen’s eyes move from Dog to Nikandros so fast he’s left with a headache. “Nothing. There’s… I haven’t been ignoring you.”

“We haven’t talked in weeks.”

“We talked the other day,” Damen argues. “When you asked me to go out with you and Pallas.”

“Which you didn’t do.”

“Yeah, but I told you I wouldn’t. But we did talk.”

“Damen,” Nikandros says, and he sounds too much like Neo. “You—”

Dog barks. The sequence that follows would be funny if Damen could let himself enjoy it, but there’s a pounding in his head that makes it hard to focus on why Nikandros literally jumping like a startled kid at the sight of a corgi is hilarious. 

“Is that a dog?”

Damen gives him a look.

“Your dog,” Nikandros says, a question. “As in, you went and bought it and brought it here. To live with you. That dog.”

“Yes.”

“When did you get it?”

“Er,” Damen says. He sort of wishes Nikandros wasn’t here, which makes him feel like garbage. He’s never felt that way before, not even when they had to share bunk beds as kids and Nikandros would poke him through the mattress for hours on end. “A few weeks ago.”

Dog is sniffing Nikandros’ ankles. He doesn’t seem to like the smell, and soon enough he’s rubbing his snout against Damen’s shoes. Resignedly, Damen scratches him behind the ears, right where Nicaise always goes to rub first.

“Listen,” Nikandros starts, and pauses. He’s frowning when Damen looks up at him, but Damen can’t tell if he’s lost his train of thought or if he’s petty enough to need Damen’s eyes on him before continuing. “Is this Laurent’s dog?”

The question makes Damen want to sputter. “Why would you— no. It’s mine. Why would I have Laurent’s dog?”

“I don’t know. Where do you disappear to twice a week after work?”

“How does that have anything to do with Laurent? Or my dog?”

Nikandros shrugs. He still has his arms crossed over his chest, knuckles a shade lighter than the rest of his fingers. “You’re only secretive when you’re up to something stupid. I thought maybe you two had...” 

Nikandros doesn’t finish his sentence, but Damen doesn’t need him to. What could be stupider than getting back together with Laurent? Being friends with him and agreeing to watch Laurent’s dog for him, maybe. Damen doesn’t want to know what Nikandros’ assumptions are.

“I wasn’t aware you and I were conjoined twins,” Damen says flatly. “Wanna download Life360 right now so you can watch my every move or what?”

“You’re being an asshole.”

“You just called me stupid and I’m the asshole?”

Nikandros huffs. “Just… maybe start replying to people’s texts, man. You freak us out, okay?”

“Us?” Damen says, unable to help himself. He doesn’t like the scorn in his own voice, but he can’t seem to tone it down. They—a shapeless entity Damen can’t quite imagine, can’t assign faces to—have been talking about him. They have been saying things behind his back. The hurt that spreads through Damen is clear, one sharp stab. Before Nikandros can answer, he adds, “And what do you even mean I freak you out? I’m not doing anything.”

“Exactly,” Nikandros says slowly. “You weren’t doing anything when you were staying with me, and I thought it was because you were moping or something. But it’s been four months, dude. This isn’t normal.”

Damen frowns. “What?”

“You don’t go out, you don’t text back, you don’t even go to the gym with us that much anymore. I know it’s been a while since you were single, but—”

“I do things,” Damen says, forcefully. There’s shame in him, swelling, and he doesn’t know why. “I go to work.”

“What else?”

I hang out with Nicaise. I go to therapy. I get drunk. “Whatever. I’ll make sure to text you back more often. God, Nik. I don’t need a fucking intervention, okay?”

“Then stop acting like a thirteen-year-old girl who just got dumped and likes to slit her wrists,” Nikandros says. “What do you even do on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Just go to the park and sit on a bench like an old man?”

“How can I be a thirteen-year-old girl and an old man at the same time?”

“Why are you deflecting so much? Are you doing drugs?”

Is it drugs? Halvik had asked him all those weeks ago. Damen’s starting to think getting high is not as hard as he’s been led to believe all his life. Maybe there are random people on street corners just offering strangers the chance to get high. Otherwise, Damen doesn’t know why everyone around him arrives at the same conclusion.

If this were anyone but Nikandros, Damen would lie. It’s not that Damen doesn’t want to do it now—he does, he wants to tell Nikandros some bullshit story about helping out at an orphanage or doing CrossFit at a different gym—but Nikandros knows him too well. He’s got the annoying ability to tell when Damen’s lying, especially about stupid things like these. 

And they are stupid things, Damen realizes. Why should he lie about how he spends his time? He’s an adult. He’s free to do as he pleases.

“Nicaise comes over on Tuesdays,” Damen says. “I help him out with school stuff and then drive him back to Laurent’s. It’s not a big deal.”

Nikandros laughs, and the sound startles Dog, who barks and disappears into the hallway, clearly done with their bullshit.

“Why would you do that?” Nikandros says. “No, seriously, why? Laurent has money, I’m sure he can afford a tutor for the kid. And no offense, but you’re not exactly Bill Nye.” He covers his face with his hands, rubbing up and down. Then, muffled: “He has a fucking driver’s license. Why do you need to drive him back?”

“He doesn’t have a car yet.”

“Damen.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Damen says, a little too loud. He hears Dog whine in the other room. “He asked me and I said yes. Is it that hard to understand? I’m not—Laurent’s seeing someone, okay? You don’t have to worry about us getting back together just because I spend time with Nicaise once a week.”

Nikandros is unfazed by Damen’s yelling. “Are you going to tell me seeing him once a week doesn’t fuck you up?”

Damen shakes his head. “It doesn’t.”

“Okay, I’m done,” Nikandros says, getting his car keys out of his pocket. He starts walking to the door. “Let’s have this conversation again when you’re not balls deep in denial.”

“Fuck off.”

“I am fucking off,” Nikandros yells from the hallway. The house is still so empty his voice bounces off the walls and echoes, and echoes, and echoes. So does the slam of the front door.

Feeling too much like a child, Damen rips open the paper bag he left on the counter and takes a too-large bite off a cookie. There’s no one to reprimand him for it, no one to tell him to eat real dinner first because dessert comes last, and Damen rebels in it. 

He leaves a trail of crumbs on his way to the couch on purpose. If he had a marker, he’d draw on the walls too, just to prove he can do whatever he wants in here. He could call Nicaise right now and ask him if he wants to spend the night playing video games. He could text Aline to come over for dinner. He could buy another dog, or two, or three, or a dozen. 

Dog is already on the couch, curled into a weird-looking ball. He’s drooling on one of the cushions.

On a whim, Damen says, “Bark once if Nikandros is an asshole.”

Dog yawns and licks his teeth. His right eye drifts a bit to the left, but other than that he doesn’t move again.

“I should have waited for the husky,” Damen says, and still gets no reply.

*

Laurent posts a new picture on Instagram at nine forty-two on Friday. 

Damen’s phone buzzes with the incoming notification, and he stares at it for a while as he brushes his teeth, not quite understanding why his phone is telling him stuff about Laurent. He spits and rinses his mouth and then remembers he never changed his Instagram settings, which means the app is obligated to tell him about every single little thing Laurent does. 

It’s been a rather shitty day: too much work at the office, no lunch break, an overheard argument between Makedon and Kastor, the fucking weather. Why make it shittier by giving in to temptation and looking at whatever Laurent has posted? Nikandros is an asshole, but he’s also right about Damen’s situation—to a degree. Damen’s not a thirteen-year-old, sad and pining and depressed. He can deal with a picture.

Damen washes his face with lukewarm water and closes the tap. Before he can talk himself out of it, he opens the app and half-heartedly dries his mouth and chin with a clean towel.

The picture shows a fragment of Laurent, an expanse of milky white skin interrupted only by a single brown mole. Damen doesn’t need to ponder which part of Laurent’s body that is; he knows with just a single, uninterested glance. It’s a shoulder, which Damen has kissed countless times. If he wanted to, Damen could draw a map of Laurent’s body based on all the places Damen has kissed him over the years. The right shoulder, the left knee, the highs and lows of his ribcage, the center of his small back, the back of his neck, the deep purple marks where he’s grown and stretched and then shrunk again. Damen knows that body as well as his own.

He’s wondering why Laurent would post a picture of his shoulder when he realizes there’s more than one photo to look at. He swipes right and blinks.

And blinks, and blinks, and blinks.

There’s a thin, black circle around Laurent’s small mole. It looks like a sun, Damen thinks, with short and long lines coming out of it. Rays, perhaps. The edges of the tattoo are red and irritated, Laurent’s skin angry at being prickled.

before / after, the caption reads. Below, there’s only one comment. Ancel’s. shouldave gone with the cock

Damen locks his phone and leaves it on the bathroom counter. He turns off all the lights, not bumping into anything because there’s nothing to bump into, his bedroom so empty and boring there’s only a bed and the shelves by its sides. 

Under the covers, Damen starts to plan for tomorrow. The first thing he’ll do in the morning is try to get an appointment with a gastroenterologist or whatever gut doctors are called because there’s no way, there’s no fucking way he doesn’t have an ulcer. It’s not normal to feel like he’s about to throw up all the time, and it’s definitely not normal that his stomach is one tight knot, impossible to unclench. So he’ll wake up and call a doctor, and after that, he’ll go to the gym and not think about anything, and maybe he’ll text Pallas in the evening to ask him if he wants to go out. Maybe he’ll text Kyra and ask her if she’s still with her boyfriend.

Maybe he’ll text her right now. He should, shouldn’t he? It’s been a while since they’ve talked. Maybe he should try Tinder again. Maybe he should call Jokaste’s mom and ask her to introduce him to that niece she mentioned. Maybe he should go on a trip to Vask and—

But why a sun? Out of all the things he could get tattooed, why would Laurent choose a stupid sun? It’s probably symbolism, the sort of detail Laurent likes in books and movies. Damen doesn’t get it, doesn’t know why art should be complicated, why they can’t just tell one what they want one to understand. But Laurent likes a puzzle, a game. He likes the struggle and the satisfaction that comes from it. He likes to feel like he’s earned the reward.

What, Damen wonders, does a sun even mean? Light and happy things seem overly simplistic, especially for Laurent. Is it supposed to represent the dawning of a new era? Laurent’s life changing, evolving, without Damen in it. 

Damen thinks of Laurent’s shoulder and doesn’t even have to look at the picture because it already exists behind his eyelids. It’s the same shoulder he’s pressed his mouth to a billion times, the one he’s nuzzled his face into, the one he’s let his fingers curl around. And yet it isn’t. 

The realization that Laurent’s body isn’t immutable goes through Damen like a single sharp arrow. Laurent’s body will keep changing, will age and contort and become something Damen won’t be able to recognize with a simple glance. Laurent will get new scars, will get another tattoo, will cut his hair. And there will come a time when the Laurent that Damen spent four years of his life with will be gone. Laurent won’t change out of spite, he’ll do so because that’s what people do, what people want and need. Laurent won’t always be twenty-six and perfectly blonde, won’t always drink his coffee the same way or listen to the same music. 

And the change won’t happen in ten years, Damen realizes with growing horror. Laurent’s already changing. He’s got a new boyfriend, a new tattoo, a new hideous throw blanket for his couch. Maybe Laurent likes different things now, things he hated when he was with Damen, and Damen will never know.

Damen is still the same person he was five months ago. He sees himself like he is right now, lying in this new empty bed and completely covered in dust. With every day that passes, Laurent will continue to change and move on, and Damen will be here, will still—

It’s just a little panic, Damen thinks wildly, gasping for air. He’s freaking himself out for no reason. 

Letting out a shaky breath, Damen rolls over and buries his head under his pillow, nose to the sheets. They smell like laundry detergent and fabric softener, the scent calming because it holds no memories at all. This house is like a giant hospital, completely antiseptic, rubbed clean of anything that can resemble a happy remembrance.

At one point he dozes off, his face still hidden away. He dreams of Laurent’s shoulder and a sun the size of a pupil that burns it all to cinders.

*

“You didn’t tell me you saw Aimeric,” Nicaise says after taking away the pool ladder so Sim-Mrs. Saylor, named after Nicaise’s maths teacher, can’t get out of the pool. 

Damen tenses under Nicaise’s vigilant stare. He’s been trying to convince himself for days now that Aimeric would stay true to his word and not mention their little encounter to Laurent, but if Nicaise is bringing it up now then that’s obviously not the case. It’s a bit surprising if Damen’s being honest. Ancel is the gossipy one, not Aimeric.

“I didn’t think it was important,” Damen says. “You probably see him more than I do.”

“Why were you at the shop?”

Damen raises an eyebrow. “Is this an interrogation?”

At least Nicaise has the decency to blush. “I’m just making conversation. Chill out.”

“I am chilled out,” Damen says. “I’m the chillest person you’ve ever met.”

Sim-Mrs. Saylor starts complaining about being stuck in the pool. She’s hungry and exhausted, but Nicaise still forces her to swim around. There are surely healthier ways to deal with frustration than this—something that doesn’t involve torturing an animated version of a real person—but Damen keeps that thought to himself. It’s been a good day, better than Damen expected based on Nicaise’s attitude last week. They still haven’t gotten any homework done, but they’ll get there. One day.

“Did you want to get food poisoning?” Nicaise asks, eyes on the screen. His thumb rubs one of the buttons of the joystick insistently. “Like, why would you go to Pêche?”

“Didn’t Aimeric tell you?”

Nicaise stays silent. Suspiciously so.

“Who told you I was there if it wasn’t Aimeric?” Damen says. 

Jord was there as well, but Jord knows better than to gossip with a sixteen-year-old kid. Erasmus doesn’t even have Nicaise’s phone number, not that Damen knows at least. Maybe Ancel was at the shop and Damen simply missed him.

The thought makes Damen snort. As if one could miss Ancel when he’s out in public.

“Nicaise.”

“I overheard Aimeric telling Laurent, okay?” Nicaise huffs, irritated, and tucks a particularly stubborn curl behind his too-small ear. “But they were talking over the phone so it’s not like I could listen to both sides. It was just Laurent’s monosyllabic responses.”

“Monosyllabic,” Damen says. “That’s a big word.”

“For you, maybe. Should I have said ‘one-syllable replies’?”

Damen uses the pause in their conversation to take a hard look at Nicaise’s hands. He’s not wearing nail polish today either, and this time all his fingers are a normal pearly color, knuckles flushed pink. No weird rings or necklaces either, which isn’t strange for him. Nicaise doesn’t like jewelry too much.

Neither does Laurent.

“Maybe you shouldn’t eavesdrop on Laurent’s calls,” Damen says after a while. “There’s this thing called privacy, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. It’s why you have a lock on your bedroom door.”

“Not anymore.”

Damen frowns at that. Laurent had insisted every room in the apartment had a door that could be locked from the inside. He’d been so adamant about it Damen had teased him—instead of getting so many locks we just need to teach Nicaise how to knock—and Laurent’s reply had been… It had been…

Damen can’t remember.

“What happened?” Damen says. “Did you do something?”

Nicaise rolls his eyes. “Why are you assuming I’m the one that fucked up? Maybe he’s turned into a dictator and won’t let me do anything anymore.”

“Has he?”

“No,” Nicaise says begrudgingly. He’s picking at a hole in his jeans, right above his knee. “We had a fight and he had the lock removed. Whatever, it’s not a big deal.”

“What sort of—”

“Can we not talk about him anymore?”

Damen knows he should let Nicaise change the subject, knows it’s none of his business what happens in Laurent’s home anymore. “You’ve had fights before,” he says, “and he’s never done anything like that.”

“He was mad I told you about getting my driver’s license,” Nicaise says. About the party, then. “So I… We were arguing, but I got bored of it and locked myself in my room.” He tugs and tugs at the gray threads of his jeans. The hole seems to widen. “I wouldn’t come out and he—I guess I was too quiet for too long or something. He freaked out and almost called Jord to come and kick the door open. There, that’s the story. Are you satisfied?”

Damen doesn’t reply. He’s too busy feeling like there’s a brick on his chest, pushing everything down. It’s as though the pressure has moved from his stomach to his lungs. can you have an ulcer in your lungs, is the last thing he looked up online before Nicaise arrived today. 

The answer’s no, according to Google.

Next to him, Nicaise has deflated. He’s got his feet tucked under him, green socks this time, and he’s slouching uncharacteristically. Even though he hasn’t paused the game, he doesn’t look very interested in it, eyes flickering away from the screen every two seconds. 

It’s a new stance, the saggy way Nicaise is sitting. Damen is surprised Nicaise hasn’t curled up into a ball already and attempted to nap his way out of this conversation. That was something he used to do, especially in the beginning, when he’d lie down on whatever surface was available and just close his eyes until sleep came for him. He once fell asleep sprawled on Nikandros’ bathroom floor because he wanted to avoid having to eat asparagus. They’re good for you, Damen had tried to tell him. Eat my ass, Nicaise had replied, cheek to the tiles.

“Don’t antagonize him,” Damen says softly. He feels like he’s talking to himself. “I mean it, Nicaise. You can’t just listen in on him like that.”

“Then I would never know shit. He doesn’t tell me anything.”

He told you about Maxime, Damen almost says. The first word of that sentence wants to slip past his teeth, but Damen holds it back using all his strength. “Maybe because there’s nothing to tell. Aimeric runs a bakery. I went there to pick up Jokaste’s birthday cake. That’s hardly a story.”

“But I…”

Damen waits, but Nicaise doesn’t seem inclined to finish the phrase. “But you…?”

“Nothing. I just thought you’d—” Nicaise flushes, hard. He looks more like Laurent with his cheeks this red. “Was the cake okay?”

“It was edible.”

They sit in silence for a while after that. Nicaise switches games eventually, claiming he’s in the mood to slice some throats. Damen likes this setting better—there’s a clear quest, people to help, instructions to follow—and soon enough they’re leaning against each other as Nicaise tries to teach Damen how to make the assassin jump.

“You really suck at this,” Nicaise says as he takes the joystick from Damen. “He’s drowned five times already and it’s only been three minutes.”

“It’s been considerably more than three minutes.”

Nicaise’s phone starts buzzing on the coffee table, the screen lit up and showing Laurent’s name. It’s barely six, and Nicaise doesn’t usually leave until seven-thirty, yet Nicaise doesn’t seem worried as he picks up the phone and presses it to his ear. Most of it disappears into his curls.

“No,” Nicaise says, not even bothering with a greeting. He doesn’t look upset as he pauses the game and stretches, his toes slipping under Damen’s thigh. “Then you shouldn’t have told him that. It’s not like you asked me what I—no, I’m going to Evie’s after school tomorrow.” A pause, during which Damen pretends that he’s not trying to hear Laurent’s voice. It’d be inappropriate to ask Nicaise to put him on speaker. “Because we’re busy doing revision right now. Algorithms and, like, really hard stuff. So unless you want me to fail…”

They’re not doing anything of the sort. Damen doesn’t know if he should laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation or feel guilty.

“It’s okay, I can have dinner here.” Nicaise scratches the tip of his nose. “Probably rabbit food. I don’t know. Here, ask him.” 

Damen gets slapped in the face by Nicaise’s phone. He tries to give the phone back but Nicaise ignores him, turning his face the other way and acting like the couch armrest is amazingly interesting. 

“Hey,” Damen says, unable to come up with anything else.

Laurent’s voice is very calm. “Hello, Damianos. Can you give the phone back to Nicaise?”

“Er, yeah, sure.”

“I have to pee,” Nicaise says loudly. The next second he’s gone, bolting up the stairs even though there’s a bathroom three doors away. 

Laurent groans on the other side of the line. It’s a quiet sound, muffled like he didn’t mean Damen to hear it. “Tell him to call me back.”

“I will,” Damen says. He’s surprised Laurent hasn’t hung up already. “If this is about dinner, I don’t mind—”

“It’s not about dinner.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Laurent says. It looks like he’s still a fan of echoing back every stupid thing Damen says.

“Then what’s the issue?”

“It doesn’t concern you.”

Damen should bite his tongue and hang up. He should go upstairs and hunt Nicaise down, knock on the bathroom door until he has no choice but to come out. Laurent is absolutely right for once—this stopped being Damen’s problem five months ago. And yet…

“We’re not actually studying,” Damen says, feeling too much like a child confessing to his parents. “Just… if something’s happened and it’s urgent, I can drive him back right now.”

“If something had happened,” Laurent says slowly, “don’t you think I’d be there to pick him up?”

“Maybe something happened to you and you can’t drive here.”

“Obviously nothing’s happened to me or else I wouldn’t be calling Nicaise.”

“I never said you were unconscious or dead,” Damen says. “For example, if you fell down and broke your leg, you’d be able to call Nicaise but not drive a car.”

There’s a beat of silence on the other end, unnaturally long. Damen wonders if Laurent’s pressing the mic to his clothes so Damen won’t hear him laughing. Maybe he’s rolling his eyes. Maybe he’s telling Maxime all about how stupidly pathetic Damen is for trying to make Laurent laugh, despite everything.

Damen looks up at the ceiling. He likes this one the most because it isn’t white. There are specks of grey all over it, subtle enough to be noticeable but not overwhelming. He wonders if it’s a thing people do, paint their ceilings funny colors so they can look at them when they’re lying down.

Did the tattoo hurt? he wants to ask. What does it mean? Did he help you pick it out? Why now?

Laurent’s reply, when it comes, sounds out of breath. “Do I sound like I broke my leg?” 

“So,” Damen says. He’s never quite known what to answer when Laurent asks a sarcastic question. “Can he stay for dinner or…?”

“I…” An exhale of air, tinny. “He’s playing you. You know that, right?”

“I think he just needs more time to adjust to—” Our breakup, Damen’s brain supplies. Even in his head, it sounds too awkward. “How things are now.”

“Really?” Laurent says, dryly. “He’s adjusting?”

“Yes.”

“Check out his lockscreen.”

Damen frowns. “What—”

“He can stay for dinner,” Laurent says. “Try and get him to eat something healthy for once. And tell him to call me back in fifteen minutes.”

The call ends the same way it started: suddenly and confusingly. Damen swallows a couple of times, feeling too much like he’s got a bunch of unsaid words in his mouth. It’s a strange feeling, having Laurent hang up on him like that, and Damen can’t say he likes it. They’ve never argued over the phone, not even through text messages. That last month before Damen left there’d been nothing but radio silence from Laurent, no morning texts when he woke up earlier than Damen to go to class, no hey, just checking in over lunch break either. Damen thinks he’d much rather keep the silence than have this, whatever this is.

With Laurent’s words still in his head, Damen presses his thumb to the home button and waits for the screen to light up again. 

The picture Nicaise has saved as his lockscreen is from over a year ago, the three of them having lunch at a fancy restaurant for Laurent’s birthday. Damen has one arm around Nicaise’s shoulders and the other around Laurent’s waist, and Laurent’s mouth is a smile against Damen’s cheek, soft and happy. Even Nicaise looks relaxed, his fingers holding onto one of the belt loops of Damen’s jeans.

They hadn’t had a fight that day, or the day before. The weather was nice and warm and Damen had taken the day off, just because he didn’t want to wait until dinner to celebrate. Now, staring at the picture, Damen struggles to recognize his own face. Logically, he knows which of the three he is, knows the man in the stained shirt is him—Nicaise had flicked a ketchup-drenched fry at him—and yet there’s a humming discomfort at the unfamiliarity of the man’s expression. He’s not just smiling, Damen sees. He’s loose with it, with his own limbs, with his happiness. Picture-Damen is happy. Happier than Damen is right now.

Laurent’s right. This isn’t adjusting.

“I can stay,” Nicaise says from the stairs. “Right? He said yes.”

Damen puts the phone down on the coffee table, making sure he can’t see the screen anymore. “Yeah, you can stay for dinner. But you—”

“No sleepover. I know.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

Nicaise makes his way back to the couch in silence. He sits cross-legged next to Damen, and his knee brushes against Damen’s thigh, boney and sharp. “What is it then?”

“Nicaise,” Damen says slowly, carefully, and hates himself for it. He doesn’t want to talk to Nicaise like this, the way he used to when Nicaise was just eleven and angry at him all the time. He doesn’t want to treat Nicaise like they don’t know each other. “Why don’t you want to go back home?”

“Do you want me to go back home?”

“I want to know what you want,” Damen says, “and why.”

Nicaise looks at him. “I want…” He pauses, thoughtful. “I want to have pizza for dinner, and then I want to go back home and watch Tik Toks until I fall asleep. And then—”

“Nicaise.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Is this about Maxime?” Damen says. He has to ask, he has to. “Is he staying over for dinner again, and you don’t want to see him?”

Nicaise rolls his eyes. “I’ve had dinner with Maxime before. He’s boring, not evil.”

Boring. Damen wonders what Nicaise thinks of him, not really wanting to know. At least boring is neutral, safe. It’s a blessing. “Oh,” Damen says. “That’s… good.” 

“I also have a test next week. Maths.”

“And you’re telling me now? Nicaise, I asked you the second you walked through the door if—”

“Well, now you know. It’s early and I’m staying for dinner, so we still have time to practice some stuff.” Nicaise checks his nails, rubbing his thumb over them. The gesture looks absent-minded. “And if I don’t get it, I’ll come over tomorrow so you can explain it again. If you’re free.”

He’s really playing me, Damen thinks. It should make him angry, the fact that a sixteen-year-old is trying to control his schedule, but it doesn’t. It means Nicaise wants to be here, wants to spend time with Damen. Why else would he act like this? He’s not adjusting, not at all, and the truth is it makes Damen breathe a bit easier. It’s unfair and selfish, and yet it makes Damen feel guiltily good. 

“Okay,” Damen says. “Come on, get your book out. I’ll order the pizza.”

“I want mushrooms on mine. And vegan cheese.”

Damen frowns. “Are you still going vegan? You ate honey today.”

“So?”

“Honey isn’t vegan,” Damen says, smiling. He shouldn’t tease Nicaise, but it’s always been too funny. “But hey, it’s a transition, right?”

Nicaise flips him off. 

*

Dissecting the Rainbow is not exactly what Damen thought it would be. 

The host of the podcast is a Vaskian woman named Etek, and she always has a different guest over. Damen doesn’t actually listen to any of the episodes, just browses through the list and reads the titles, feeling awkwardly out of place even though no one knows what he’s doing. It’s not an explosion of rainbows and confetti, as Damen had been expecting. It’s not even run by a person whose sexual orientation Damen can’t pronounce. The cover is surprisingly muted, the design sober. 

He checks the list when he’s in bed, already showered and ready to sleep, but he can’t bring himself to press play on anything. Why we’re here is the title of the first episode, followed by Are we better? and Sex versus Gender in an hour or less. 

Damen steers clear of the last one. Just reading the words makes him dizzy and sort of ashamed, the way a child would after being called on in class and not knowing an obvious answer. He can’t remember those things—sex and sexuality and gender and identity and a billion other names—being important when he was growing up, and he can’t say he finds them especially useful nowadays. How confused can someone actually be over what they are? 

Damen has had friends everywhere he’s been—in kindergarten, in high school, and then at college and work. Every time he’s wanted to go out and do something with someone he’s had a list of people to choose from, and not once has he met anyone that struggled so hard with such confusing concepts. Because that’s what they are, Damen thinks. Just concepts.

It’s the same deal with Nicaise, in a way. Why make one’s life so complicated? Damen realized he liked men as well as women at twenty-something, and the discovery didn’t change anything about his life. It never changed him. Who he sleeps with isn’t that important, shouldn’t be important, to anyone but himself. And yet there are people out there who make it their entire life, this search for a definition of exactly what they are. And for what? Nicaise has a roof over his head, food and money and love. He’s only looking for an excuse to make himself miserable, to single himself out.

But then Damen remembers Erasmus’ face on the ride to Pêche. Erasmus’ discomfort had made Damen uncomfortable, even though he couldn’t explain why. All Damen did was ask a question, but apparently, that’s the wrong approach. Apparently, asking is wrong, but so is assuming. Like it was with Laurent, Damen can’t ever win.

He doesn’t understand anything, and yet everyone around him seems to not only understand but also know things he doesn’t. They know what’s appropriate, what’s not harmful. And Damen… 

Damen doesn’t want to be told what to think. He doesn’t want to be treated like a child—a stupid, half-feral child that never learned civility—but he thinks being a child definitely has its advantages. No one expects anything from you. No one is mad when you don’t know things. When someone gets hurt because of you, you get put in time out. The world is awfully fair for children.

The fourth episode is titled Getting Bi. Damen thinks the joke’s funny enough to press play.

“I thought we could open today’s episode with a Twitter thread,” Etek says, once the introduction is done. Her voice is strong, her accent thick. It reminds Damen of the way Halvik would pronounce certain store names. “LadyLesbanese tweeted, ‘If I read about one more bi girl getting married to a dude I will scream. Just admit you need the opposite of conversion therapy.’”

Otto, the guest, says, “And I thought I knew biphobic people. Damn.”

“There’s more. ‘Like imagine dating a guy that claims to be bi for years only for him to come out as gay and start dating your brother’.” Etek laughs. “Okay, I really wasn’t expecting the brother bit.”

“Oh, God. Let me read the next one. It’s just… ‘I’m starting to think bisexual is just the label gay people use when they’re too scared to tell their parents they won’t be giving them grandkids.’”

Damen pauses the podcast, feeling nauseous. If you’re gay, just say it, Kastor had told him. Make me the favorite nephew at last. He rolls over on the bed, telling himself he’s simply trying to get comfortable, that he’ll press play when he’s found a position that doesn’t make his stomach feel like a balloon that’s about to burst. 

In the end, he switches to watching the dog compilation video Nicaise sent him weeks ago.

*

“So,” Neo says. “I’m guessing you didn’t ask Nicaise about the nail polish.”

“No, and that’s not what I want to talk about today.”

“All right.”

“I want to talk about Nikandros,” Damen says. He’s angry enough not to feel like he’s betraying his friendship by saying these things, by narrating the fight to Neo with all the details he’s capable of remembering. “And I mean, I know he’s right,” Damen says, slightly out of breath after his exposition. “I know it’s unusual for people to stay in touch with their ex’s family, but Nicaise isn’t just—he’s—”

“Different?” Neo offers.

Damen relaxes into his seat, relieved that the word is out there, that he doesn't have to keep looking for it. “Yes.”

“Do you think it was right of Nikandros to confront you about it?”

“He was worried, that’s all. He doesn’t usually do that.”

“He was worried,” Neo says, “because you had been ignoring him. Is that right?”

“Not on purpose. Just… I didn’t feel like talking to him as much.”

Neo nods. “What about your other friends? Do you also not feel like talking to them?”

Damen doesn’t have any other friends like Nikandros. 

Pallas, Aktis, Elon… they’re just people Damen likes, people he talks to sometimes. It’s not the same as it is with Nikandros, and Damen doesn’t want it to be. I wish you were my real brother, he’d told Nikandros only once, at eight years old. 

They were camping with Nikandros’ family, something they always did when summer started, but that time was different from every other trip they’d taken so far. It was the first time they had a tent all to themselves, none of Nikandros’ annoying sisters around, no adults to tell them it was past their bedtime. 

Even now Damen remembers the sounds outside, of bugs and owls, and the plastic smell of his new sleeping bag, a present from Makedon. He remembers Nikandros’ hand around the flashlight, turning it on and off, and on and off, then putting his hand in front of the stream of light to draw shapes on the wall of their tent. 

“An eagle,” Damen said. 

Nikandros wiggled his fingers insistently. “Nope. Try again.”

“A worm.”

“No.”

“A snake?”

“It eats…” Nikandros frowned. “I don’t know what it eats, but it lives in the sea.”

Damen stared at the shape on the wall, which was starting to look too much like Nikandros’ hand simply twisted in a weird angle. “I don’t know,” he said after a while, and braced himself for the laughter that would follow.

But the laughter never came. 

“Okay,” Nikandros said. He handed the flashlight to Damen. “It was a fish, but whatever. Your turn. Make it hard but, like, with clues.”

Damen turned off the flashlight, the way Nikandros had done when he was thinking of what animal to pick. In the darkness of the tent, the thought he’d been trying not to think started to grow, swelling, and after a moment Damen forgot why it was a bad idea to say it out loud.

“I wish you lived with me,” Damen said, “in my house.”

“Why can’t you live in my house?”

“Because…” And he did not want to say it, he realized then, but he was going to anyway. He’d never been taught to bite his tongue. “My dad would be all alone.”

Nikandros shifted, his sleeping bag rustling. “Not all alone. He can live with Kastor and his mom.”

“I don’t think so,” Damen said, lowly, like he was telling a secret. “Kastor doesn’t like my house very much. I wish…”

“You wish…?” And then, when Damen refused to answer: “Did you fall asleep? Daaaaamen?”

“I wish you were my brother instead of him.”

It didn’t feel wrong to say that; it was the truth. Nikandros was funnier than Kastor, and he was Damen’s age, and he didn’t laugh when Damen got things mixed up. Nikandros only shoved him around when they were practicing wrestling moves, and he shared his comic books and basketballs with Damen without making him beg. Nikandros was just better than Kastor.

“Me too,” Nikandros said after a while. “I’m done with having sisters. They smell bad.”

And Damen didn’t know what to say to that. He never knew what to do or say when he got that weird feeling at the base of his throat, like it was being squeezed a bit, and so he did the only thing he could think of—turn on the flashlight and bend his fingers into a rabbit-like shape.

“Guess,” he said, once the feeling had passed.

“A lion,” Nikandros replied.

“Damen?”

It’s not eight-year-old Nikandros saying his name. It’s Neo.

“I guess not,” Damen says after a beat, trying to remember the question. Do you also not feel like talking to your friends? “But that’s normal. We’re all… We have a lot of stuff going on.”

“Well, Nikandros didn’t seem to think so.”

Damen tenses. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He said you’re behaving like a teenager,” Neo says in his posh, neutral voice, the one that makes Damen feel like he’s talking to the principal. “He said, and I quote, that you were ‘moping’. It doesn’t sound as though he thinks you have too much going on to text him back.”

“He didn’t mean it like that.”

“What did he mean then?”

“He was pissed off about Nicaise,” Damen says. “That’s all. It’s… He doesn’t get it. I already told you about that.”

Neo checks the notes on his lap. He never used to write anything, but lately he’s started scribbling without explaining much. Damen’s bitterly glad to be worth the ink.

“I do not know Nikandros,” Neo says, “but is it possible that he was implying you are depressed?”

Damen blinks. “Er, yeah. Isn’t that what moping means?”

“No, Damen. I’m asking you if it’s possible that your friend believes you are experiencing a depressive episode.” A pause, during which Neo checks his notes again. “He said he was stopping by your house ‘in case you had offed yourself in your bathtub’.”

“That wasn’t—he wasn’t talking literally.”

“All right, let’s try a different question. Do you feel depressed?”

“No,” Damen says easily.

“Depression doesn’t always manifest as sadness.” Neo gives him a careful look, one Damen doesn’t like at all. “Sometimes it feels like... guilt or helplessness. Or irritation. Have you experienced any of these emotions lately?”

“Hasn’t everyone? I work forty-three hours a week, of course I’m irritable sometimes.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not crazy,” Damen says. “And I’m not going to kill myself.”

Neo’s mouth is pursed. “Do you think being depressed means you’re crazy?”

Maybe. “No.”

“So you haven’t felt sad at all since you started coming to see me?”

“You just said being sad doesn’t necessarily mean you’re depressed.” Damen stretches his legs, hating the way the cinched waist of his pants is cutting off his circulation. “I’m not… sad. It’s different from when I was with Laurent.”

“Were you sadder with Laurent around?”

“No,” Damen says. “I was never sad.”

Neo rubs his eyes. Damen thinks he may be frustrated. “So you have never felt sad? Ever?”

“I was frustrated towards the end. Like, it felt… it felt like I’d made a terrible investment.”

“An investment,” Neo says.

“I gave it four years of my life,” Damen says slowly. “And it didn’t work out. It’s normal to grieve that, right?”

“Well, yes. A normal part of the grieving process is also sadness.” Neo taps his pen—a fancy, silver pen—against his knee twice. “I’d like us to focus on that word though. Investment. Do you think how the relationship ended strips it of its worth?”

This is something that used to happen to Damen whenever he had a fight with Laurent. He’d use one wrong word, one shitty synonym, and Laurent would be all over it. Right now though, Damen knows he never saw being with Laurent as a means to an end. Being with Laurent was the end, the whole point. 

“It’s annoying that we keep talking about Laurent,” Damen says. “I want to talk about Nikandros, who’s still a part of my life. Laurent isn’t.”

Neo nods. “We can talk about Nikandros then. He was surprised you got a dog.”

That’s not what Damen meant when he said he wanted to go back to the Nikandros thing. He wants to talk about Nikandros’s reaction to Damen still seeing Nicaise. He wants to talk about how everyone in his life—Laurent, Nicaise, Aimeric, Erasmus, even fucking Nikandros—has called him an asshole at some point, even when he’s not trying to be one. 

“I didn’t tell him about the dog,” Damen says, exhausted. He wishes the chair he’s sitting in was more comfortable, more like a bed he could nap on. When he was looking for therapists, he saw some of them had sofas instead of chairs in their offices. “I didn’t tell anyone about him. It’s… I was going to take him back to the shelter, but then Nicaise met him and it seemed like a bad move.”

“A bad move?”

“Nicaise likes animals. Sometimes.”

“But Nicaise doesn't live with you,” Neo says. “He only comes to your house on Tuesdays so you can help him with his homework, which means he’ll likely stop coming over when school lets out for summer.”

“Me helping him with his homework is just an excuse. He misses…” Damen pauses, thinking of that picture in Nicaise’s phone. If he focuses hard enough he can almost feel Laurent’s mouth against his cheek, the ghost of a kiss. “He misses how things used to be. A clean break clearly didn’t work for him.”

“Why did you want to return your dog?”

The question feels out of topic, but Damen doesn’t point that out. Anything is better than talking about Laurent. “He’s not what I had in mind. Er, he’s a corgi. You know, small and with a weird limp. And he’s got a lazy eye.” Damen rubs the back of his neck, trying to make the heat dissipate. “I wanted something bigger.”

“Bigger,” Neo says, “and more masculine?”

Damen frowns. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. “Dogs are just dogs.”

“Not to some people.”

“They are to me,” Damen says. Maybe he should have listened to the episode about gender after all. “They’re pets. I don’t dress him up in a tuxedo just because he’s male.”

Neo jots something down, distracted. “There are studies that show some people think certain dog breeds are better suited for women than for men. Same with cars. Do you know what toxic masculinity is, Damen?”

“Being sexist?”

“Sort of,” Neo says. “It’s like a mindset. Men sometimes think they must perform a certain way, like certain things, have sex in very specific situations.”

“Is it a mental disorder?”

Neo blinks. “What? No. It’s not a diagnosis.”

“I don’t think I have to do things a certain way,” Damen says. “And I’m not sexist, okay? I don’t hate women. Or men.” 

Or dogs.

“Of course not. I wasn’t implying you do. This isn’t about hating groups of people, it’s more about… Self-censorship. Sometimes even censoring others around us.”

“So I’m sexist because I prefer big dogs to corgis?”

Neo coughs. It sounds like a laugh. “All right, let me ask you something different. Maybe you’ll see what I mean. You have repeatedly shown concern over Nicaise’s style: the clothes he wears, his fixation with painting his nails, etcetera. When I asked you why you were concerned you said it was because it may bring him unnecessary problems with people in general. Is that correct?”

Damen says, “Yes?”

“Okay, good. Do you think Nicaise’s style reflects his gender? As in, do you think Nicaise dresses as a boy should?”

“We’ve already talked about this.”

“I know, but I’m trying to show you something.”

“I guess he doesn’t,” Damen says slowly. He can’t imagine Nicaise wearing the pink sweatshirt to a football game, or to a date with a girl, or to any place ever.

“Well, that’s what toxic masculinity is. It’s your belief that as a boy, Nicaise should dress and act a certain way. For example, he should wear sports clothes and not paint his nails because that’s an activity reserved for the opposite gender.” Neo leans forward in his seat. “Except it doesn’t just affect your relationship with Nicaise and other men and women in your life. It also affects you directly.”

Damen ignores the first half of that monologue. With Laurent, he learned it’s better to shut up than to say there is, in fact, a difference between what’s acceptable for boys and girls to wear. It’s not as though Damen is asking Nicaise to wear Nike shorts and baseball caps. He’s asking for normalcy. Less fucking glitter, maybe.

“I don’t feel affected,” Damen says.

“Why do you like bigger dogs?”

“I just fucking do.”

Neo nods, perfunctory. “Why did it matter so much to you that your friends did not see you as a bottom?”

Damen’s shame turns corporeal, a wave of nausea inside his own body that is growing taller and taller by the second, preparing to sweep him under and drown him. He can’t believe he ever discussed his sex life with this man. 

“It wasn’t like—you’re twisting my words.”

“Damen,” Neo says. There’s pity in that single word, softening his name until it’s nearly unrecognizable. “I’m not attacking you. I’m not saying you’re a bad person.”

“It sure feels like you are.”

“You said Laurent was the first man you were in a committed relationship with. Don’t you think perhaps some of the issues you encountered over the course of said relationship have to do with the fact that, for the first time in your life, you weren’t conforming to the societal ideals of what a man should be? Or that rather you were sort of forcing the situation to be something it simply wasn’t?”

“What does that even mean? Societal—what? I never forced anyone to do anything.”

Ridiculously, Neo puts one hand up. “It means many things, but they’re theories. I’m asking you to think about these things, not saying they all apply or are correct. Maybe when you were with Laurent you still felt as though your relationship needed to fit a certain mold, most likely a straight one. Maybe not. What do you think?”

“A straight mold,” Damen says. The words taste terribly bitter, and for a second Damen thinks he might have thrown up in his mouth. “I’m not even straight.”

“I’m aware of that.”

It doesn’t seem like Neo is aware of it at all. Head throbbing, Damen considers his options. He can stay here and argue with Neo for another twenty minutes, maybe pretend like he understands half of what Neo is trying to hint at, maybe pretend that he agrees. He can refuse to say another word until the session ends. Or he can just leave.

There is no real obligation to be here, Damen realizes. He started coming to therapy because he wanted an outside party to tell him exactly what had gone wrong between him and Laurent, but from the start, Neo made it clear it was more complicated than that. If there isn’t an answer—a clear, concise, true answer—then why is Damen still here, listening and trying to keep up with imaginary concepts? 

“I’m not doing this,” Damen says, and refuses to feel anything when Neo’s face falls. “It’s not working.”

“Damen—”

But Damen doesn’t stay to hear the rest. It’s his second time storming out of the office, but his first leaving so rudely. He soon finds he doesn’t care. There won’t be a third strike, Damen thinks as he shrugs on his jacket and crosses the door, because he’s not coming back. 

Neo’s secretary frowns at him, as understanding and warm as always. 

*

He checks Laurent’s Instagram profile on Friday night, just because he wants to see the tattoo again, to make sure he didn’t make it up. The picture is still up, the caption unedited. There’s a new comment from Laurent, in response to Ancel’s eloquent critique: Fuck off. 

Feeling too much like an idiot, Damen searches through the likes to find a username that starts with an M. 

But of course Maxime doesn’t have an Instagram account. Maxime most likely doesn’t do social media, because it’s time-consuming, because it’s for wannabe models and beefy guys trying to sell you protein powders, because he’s a scholar. Maxime is above human interaction, Damen thinks, which is why he can stand Laurent. Maxime has obviously forgotten what it’s like to be with another person so intimately, and so he takes whatever Laurent dishes out because he doesn’t know any better. Maybe he’s a virgin. 

On Saturday, after feeding Dog, Damen crawls back into bed and turns on the TV, trying to convince himself that he’s excited about the hockey tournament in Arles. He used to play hockey, and football, and every team sport available, back when he was still in high school. Kastor always told him it was because he relied too much on other people, that he’d never be good at things like tennis or chess, which Damen thinks is stupid. Chess is obviously not a sport.

Halfway through the game, Damen grabs his phone, goes to Laurent’s Instagram page, and swipes down, forcing the page to update itself, to show him something. Not even the Followers/Following numbers change.

Dog comes looking for him when the game is almost over. He jumps—or rather, attempts to—and lands on his back on the floor, Damen’s bed too high for him to get to on his own. Ios could have made that jump in a second. 

Dog barks, as if annoyed.

“You’re not sleeping here,” Damen says. “Go away.”

Dog barks again, then sits. His brown eyes follow Damen’s every move, like he’s waiting for instructions. When he realizes there won’t be any, Dog tries to jump onto the bed again. And fails.

“I hope you know you make me miserable,” Damen says, and picks Dog up with only one hand. He’ll wash and change the sheets before it’s time to go to sleep tonight. “There, have at it. Are you happy?”

Dog barks, and barks, and barks. He’s so excited over Damen’s pillow being so close to his snout that he moves too quickly and, losing his balance, topples off the bed and onto the floor once more. 

Damen doesn’t say anything. He thinks he may be having a stroke.

Chapter Text

Seven

Dr. Arnaud puts his right hand on Damen’s stomach, pressing down. It tickles, but Damen refuses to laugh. 

“Does this hurt?” Dr. Arnaud says. His hand is higher up now, closer to Damen’s sternum. “Take a deep breath and tell me if it burns when I apply pressure.”

“It doesn’t.”

“All right. You can put your shirt back on, Damianos.” 

Damen ignores the urge to protest, to say call me Damen. He slips his shirt back on and makes sure the front of it isn’t showing any wrinkles. The stretcher he’s sitting on is covered in a type of paper that’s like the one Aimeric would use at the bakery to keep cookies from sticking to the tray. When Damen moves, the paper gives him away, an awkward crinkling noise filling the room.

Dr. Arnaud is once again behind his desk, writing something down. The pen he’s using is silver, and its tip gleams as his hand moves across the page. “I have some good news for you. You don’t have an ulcer.”

“But I…” Damen stops. He doesn’t think it’s appropriate to bring up the diagnosis he got from Google. “What’s wrong with my stomach, then?”

“Let’s go over the symptoms together,” Dr. Arnaud says. “Just in case I’ve missed something. Frequent cramps?”

“Yes.”

“Nausea?”

“Yes.”

“Is it worse in the mornings?”

“Er,” Damen says. “Not particularly. It’s—random.”

“Okay. Is it especially bad after you’ve eaten gluten?”

“No.”

“Bowel movements?”

Damen’s face burns. He keeps perfectly still, so the paper under him won’t make a sound. “Good,” he says. “I mean, normal.”

“You don’t have any food allergies. You don’t break out in hives after eating nuts or dairy. You haven’t made any significant changes to your diet in the last three months.” Dr. Arnaud hums as he ticks symptoms off the list. “Tell me, Damianos, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Well,” Dr. Arnaud says. “I think it’s safe to say there’s nothing wrong with your stomach specifically. What we’re dealing with is most likely linked to high levels of stress, which are pretty common among lawyers.”

Damen blinks. “What?”

“I’m going to give you a prescription for gastric protectors, but other than that I don’t think I’m the sort of doctor you should be seeing. When was the last time you took time off of work?”

“I’m not stressed,” Damen says. “I’ve been a lawyer for years, and I’ve never… There’s clearly something wrong with my stomach.”

Dr. Arnaud stares at him. He’s an old man, older than Neo by at least twenty years, and for some reason, he reminds Damen of Herode. They have the same eye color, the same crooked nose. “You should try yoga,” Dr. Arnaud says. “And lavender tea, too.”

“Sure,” Damen says out loud, once he’s alone in his car. The street is deserted except for a couple jogging around and an old woman walking her dog. “I’ll just call Kastor right now and ask him if I can do tantric yoga with him. Of course, doc, I’ll just—” He starts the car, twisting the key hard enough that his fingertips are left tingling. “—start drinking lavender tea. What about rose tea? Oh, yes. What a wonderful—”

He stops talking as suddenly as he began. I’m crazy, he thinks, because this is the sort of thing crazy people do. They talk to themselves, loudly, and have conversations with people that aren’t there. They monologue in their cars about types of tea. 

Without thinking, he grabs his phone and goes directly to Spotify. He just wants something that’s loud, a song that fills every inch of the car and barely lets him think. He dithers for a second, Dissecting the Rainbow just one tap away, and then settles for the song he caught Nicaise listening to last week. The singer yodels and screams— extending beyond our sky, a land of infinite wonders —and then does that thing with his voice Damen doesn’t really have a word for. 

You’re late, Kastor texts him when Damen is four blocks away from the office. Damen stares at his phone for as long as the red light allows him to, and then again at the next stop. He can see that Kastor is typing something, the three grey dots under his name wavering. Today you leave at eight. If you’re sick, figure out what to do about the Zoom meeting with Reviere.

It’s a struggle to not feel disappointed, although Damen doesn’t know why. Kastor has always been like this. It’d be a sure sign of brain cancer if Kastor suddenly started to show interest in him, or anyone that isn’t his nuclear family. 

Out of pure and petty spite, Damen gets his morning coffee at an overcrowded café that has him standing in line for twenty-five minutes. He might as well be actually late.

*

The kitchen counter is a mess of half-squeezed lemons, basil leaves, and bits of crushed blackberries. Damen has tried to keep things as clean and tidy as possible, but soon one dirty knife turned into two, and then he needed another glass to pour the water into, and then a jug to prepare the lemonade, and suddenly there were a dozen scattered dishes laying around. 

He dumps five ice cubes into the jug, watching them clink and float around. He knows he should add more sugar—Nicaise’s taste buds work on a glucose salary—but there is none left and the original recipe doesn’t include Stevia. We don’t want rotten teeth with our lemonade, do we? a voice sings to him. It doesn’t sound like anyone Damen knows, but he thinks it might have been Hypermenestra that made this for him when he was a child. 

I can cook, Damen thinks as he stands in the middle of his mess. Obviously, someone suffering from toxic masculinity would not do this, would need a woman to handle everything in the kitchen. He gets by just fine.

Carrying the tray outside without spilling lemonade everywhere is harder than it seems. Only half of the backyard is covered in lukewarm sunlight, and of course, Nicaise has chosen the sunniest spot to sprawl on and play fetch with Dog. 

“—job,” Nicaise is saying. After some head rubbing, Dog gives him the ball back. “You’re very smart, aren’t you?”

Damen grunts as he sits down on the grass. He should get some chairs, the ones you can stretch and nap on, maybe a table, too. When it gets warmer, Nicaise will want to spend more time outside or in the pool rather than cooped up in the living room. Summer is still far away, but Damen sometimes likes to think of it, to imagine that Nicaise will continue to come to the house after the school year is over.

When Nicaise throws the ball, Dog doesn’t instantly run after it. Instead, he stares at Nicaise and pants.

“Now you’re making me look bad,” Nicaise says. “Go. Get the ball. Damen’s watching.”

Dog only pants harder.

“I think that’s enough dog training for today,” Damen says as he hands Nicaise a glass of lemonade. The blackberries have tinged it a weird burgundy color. “And before you ask, the answer’s no. I ran out of sugar.”

Nicaise takes a sip and makes a face, as Damen knew he would. “This tastes like—”

“Language.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“Yet,” Damen says. “You were about to say ass.”

“Since when is ass a bad word?” Nicaise shifts, rubbing the soles of his bare feet on the grass. Green blades stick to his toes. He looks very pleased, but Damen can’t figure out why. “I was going to say balls, by the way.”

“It doesn’t taste so bad.” Damen takes a sip of his drink. He should have added more basil. 

Dog is on his back now, staring at the sky and letting Nicaise rub his belly from time to time. He looks content, and Damen catches himself entering the dangerous minefield that is being jealous of an animal. It’s nothing short of pathetic.

“So,” Damen says, awkwardly. “How was school today?”

“Boring.”

“Just boring?”

Nicaise purses his mouth like he always does when he’s thinking hard about something. He says, “A guy slammed his head against his desk for five euros and got a nosebleed so bad they had to call an ambulance.”

“And you call that boring?”

“Blood is just not that cool.” Nicaise sips his lemonade again, eyes flickering to Dog and then to the pool. Anywhere but Damen’s face. “Do you do stuff on Saturdays?”

Damen puts his glass down. “Why are you asking?”

“No reason.”

“Nicaise.”

“I mean, it’s your only day off,” Nicaise says, still avoiding Damen’s eyes. “You probably do things you can’t do the rest of the week, right? Like go hiking or hang out with your friends.”

When they all lived together, Damen’s Saturdays were divided into three clear slots. Mornings were for grocery shopping with Laurent and maybe a quick coffee at Le Quai. After lunch, he and Laurent would spend a few hours either napping or watching a movie on the couch, two activities that often ended the same way—Laurent sitting on him, his cold hands under Damen’s shirt, down Damen’s pants. At night, they’d go out, either with Nicaise or by themselves, to see their friends. 

Not that Damen’s friends were Laurent’s, or Laurent’s his.

Damen starts, hesitantly, “If you want to come over—”

“You haven’t answered.”

“It’s not my only day off,” Damen says. “I don’t work on Sundays either. And I don’t like hiking.”

“So are Sundays better?” 

“For what?”

Nicaise twirls his glass, ice cubes clinking inside. He’s never been good at subtlety, but Damen doubts anyone has pointed that out to him. Greece is really nice in the summer, he’d said at thirteen, and then promptly filled the apartment with pamphlets of cheap, weekend-long trips to Crete. Laurent had pretended the idea had been his all along, Damen remembers, and so who can blame Nicaise for being too confident in his manipulation skills?

“My birthday is coming up,” Nicaise says. “I’m trying to choose a date for the party. Not that I want a party, but Laurent is—” He stops, suddenly, and makes a face very similar to the one he pulled at the lemonade. “Anyway, Berenger said I could host it at his country house, so I thought maybe Saturday is the best option because the drive back to the city is brutal. You’d have Sunday to recover from it.”

You could throw it here, Damen thinks. Under different circumstances, Nicaise would already be living in this house, would pester Damen into buying outrageous pool floats for him and his friends, would have been in charge of choosing what flowers to plant. The fact that he hasn’t asked Damen if he can celebrate here—a request that is not above Nicaise, who doesn’t know what imposing even means—makes Damen’s stomach clench past what is uncomfortable, bordering on painful. 

“That’s nice of Berenger,” Damen says, barely repressing the urge to remind Nicaise that Berenger doesn’t own a pool. “I’m sure it’ll be fun. You’re inviting your friends, right? From school?”

Nicaise’s eyes on him. “So you’ll come?”

Damen does not know what his own face is doing. “I—”

“It doesn’t have to be on Saturday. Sunday’s fine, too.”

“Nicaise.”

“It’s, like, two weeks away,” Nicaise says. “You probably don’t have any plans yet, so you should be free for a couple of hours towards the end of the month. Berenger said Friday is not a good time because he gets home late from work, but if I ask Ancel to convince him—”

“I can’t go,” Damen says. Like a coward, he looks away from Nicaise’s face as he speaks, too scared to see the disappointment there. “We can have another party here if you want, but I can’t just… It’s not appropriate.”

Dog makes a sound like a snort. Damen turns to him and finds him still asleep, belly soaking up the sunlight.

“Why not?” 

It’s a hassle to choose his words so carefully. The easiest answer would be that Laurent will be there, and Damen doesn’t want to see him. Another option would be to remind Nicaise that, in case he doesn’t already know, most of Laurent’s friends dislike Damen. Strongly loathe, in Ancel’s case. But those replies hold too much pettiness, and so Damen keeps them to himself. He’s not going to be the one that talks shit about Laurent to Nicaise.

“I don’t think Laurent wants me there,” Damen says, slowly. “I’d be intruding.”

Nicaise’s neck is turning red, a bad sign. He’s prone to getting rashes when he’s angry. “Well, it’s my birthday party, so I don’t care what he wants because it’s not his fucking birthday.”

“Listen, we can just do our own thing. You throw your party at Berenger’s, and the weekend after that I’ll take you to the movies or something. Maybe we can go to the beach for the day.” If Laurent allows it.

“Do you want to come?”

“This isn’t about what I want,” Damen says. “You know that I—”

Nicaise turns his face away, giving Damen a perfect view of the back of his head. The movement is quick, and even though he can’t see it, Damen knows Nicaise is grinding his teeth. A moment passes, and then Nicaise slowly turns towards Damen, his face still flushed but less so than before. 

“If I ask him and he says yes, will you come?”

Arguing with Nicaise is exhausting. Damen knows Laurent will never agree to this, and neither will Berenger, who always does as Ancel says. He also knows he should discourage Nicaise from even asking, but it’s a losing battle. Nicaise tends to do as he pleases—it’s always been that way. Arguing for hours won’t change anything.

“Yes,” Damen says at last. He doesn’t miss the quick smile spreading across Nicaise’s face. “But you can only ask him once, all right? If he says no, then we’ll celebrate your birthday in a different way. You can’t pester him until he gives in.”

“I don’t pester people.”

“If you say so.”

“I don’t,” Nicaise says, loud enough to startle Dog out of his nap. “And he’s going to say yes, so don’t make any plans for that weekend.”

Damen only nods. His stomach and lungs feel like they’re shrinking when he thinks of Laurent breaking the obvious news to Nicaise— no, my ex is not going to attend our family brunch at Berenger’s —but the whole thing is so out of Damen’s control he has no choice but to let it go. He’ll take Nicaise somewhere nice instead, buy him a present, let him spend an entire afternoon playing video games on the couch. It’s no rival to a birthday party like the one Laurent is most likely organizing, but it’ll have to do. It’s the only thing Damen has to offer.

Dog got the ball and brought it back to Nicaise when Damen wasn’t watching. He barks and barks as Nicaise teases him, pretending to throw the ball but keeping it in his hand the whole time. By the time Nicaise actually throws it, Dog looks like he’s having a seizure.

“You can bring someone with you if you want to,” Nicaise says. Then, like a question, “Maybe Nikandros.”

Nikandros would rather cut off his own dick and eat it than hang out with Laurent and his friends. Damen says, “He’s a bit busy. There’s a big project going on in Chasteigne… A building or something.

“What about Pallas?”

The issue with Pallas is that he can’t keep his mouth shut. Damen knows what will happen if he asks Pallas to go with him: Pallas will tell Elon, who in turn will tell Aktis, and the whole thing will reach Nikandros’ ears before an hour has passed. There’s literally nothing Damen wants less than for Nikandros to find out he’s even considering showing up at Nicaise’s party, let alone going there with Pallas as his plus one. 

It’d be pathetic, too. Showing up with Pallas would be like announcing to the whole world—a weird, annoying, small world composed by Laurent’s circle—that he’s single. 

“I’ll ask him,” Damen says, knowing that he won’t. This whole conversation is stupid, because Damen is not, and will not be, invited to the party. “Tell me about the kid with the nosebleed.”

“What about him?”

“Who dared him to hit himself?”

Nicaise plucks a few blades of grass. He doesn’t reply.

“Nicaise,” Damen says, a groan. “You can’t pull shit like that. The school is going to call—”

“He didn’t tell anyone it was a dare, okay? God, you turn everything into a lecture.”

“You dared someone to smack themselves so hard they got hurt. How can that not turn into a lecture?”

“It was for scientific purposes,” Nicaise says. “I was measuring his… speed. Or something.”

Damen laughs. It bursts out of him, uncontrollable and unexpected, and he coughs a few times to cover it up. You can’t even tell the difference between centripetal acceleration and centrifugal force, let alone calculate anything’s speed. Damen swallows the words down with a gulp of lemonade, not wanting to embarrass Nicaise. 

“You’re making,” Nicaise says, finger one inch away from Damen’s cheek, “the same face I made when I drank it.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. It tastes like balls, admit it.”

Damen takes another sip, willing his face to not betray him. “I don’t know what you mean. This is great. You’re just an inconsiderate brat.”

“Do you remember…”

“Yes?”

Nicaise is looking at his own feet, pressing his thumbs to the bones of his ankle. “That time we went to Marches and I had a smoothie bowl?”

“A smoothie bowl,” Damen says. “Could you be a little more specific?”

“It was huge and had, like, three mutant strawberries on top.”

Damen tries to remember, if only for Nicaise’s sake. It shouldn’t be hard, considering they only went to Marches once, but the things that come back to him now are scattered, fragmented. He remembers Laurent’s hand in his, the annoying traffic, the hotel room. The smoothie bowl stays away, just out of reach.

“What about it?” Damen says after a while.

“It tasted foul, but your lemonade is worse. Also—”

“Another compliment?” Damen says dryly. “Please don’t, you’ll give me a God complex.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to crush the berries, not just throw them whole into the jug.”

“That’s what I did. They’re crushed.” Damen fishes one out of his glass and holds it up, mangled and dripping, to Nicaise’s face. “Look at this and tell me it’s not crushed.”

Nicaise blinks. “That looks like a literal hemorrhoid.”

Dog jumps as high as he can, which is not high at all, and eats the berry right out of Damen’s hand. It’s disgusting, the way he chews and then licks into his snout.

“Good boy,” Nicaise says, patting Dog on the head. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy that likes the taste of balls?”

“Language.”

Nicaise rolls his eyes. “I meant tennis balls, Damen.”

Somehow, the next sip Damen takes of his lemonade is even worse than the previous ones. Nicaise is right—there’s a tangy taste to it, something like musk lingering in his mouth long after he’s swallowed. It, quite literally, tastes like ass.

He smiles as he drinks, just for the sake of his dignity.

*

The next day at the office is chaotic. 

Someone—Damen is pretty sure it was Pallas—forgot to inform everyone that Mr. Charleston has finally made up his mind about whether or not he should sue his former employer. It’s a big case, big enough that Kastor doesn’t feel comfortable navigating it on his own, which has a series of unfortunate consequences. Since Makedon has to get involved, Kastor’s mood plummets under all the stress and the added layer of annoyance at having Makedon breathing down his neck. Makedon, on his part, decides Kastor is being ‘an enlarged dickhead’ and, as such, should be excluded from the celebratory lunch party for two he’s arranged between himself and Damen.

“I still have a lot of work,” Damen says, not meeting Makedon’s eyes. There are fifteen emails he hasn’t opened yet, and only three of them are spam. “And I don’t eat lunch this early either, so—”

“Boy,” Makedon says. “Let’s go.”

Damen isn’t a boy; he’s a few months away from turning thirty. But it’s hard to say no to Makedon for some reason, especially when Damen isn’t agreeing to do something unpleasant in the first place. It’s just lunch—if Damen’s lucky, just an entrée—and then back to the office to try and get Mr. Charleston what he wants. 

When Makedon puts his hand on Damen’s shoulder and squeezes, the way Theomedes used to do, Damen wills himself to not think about it too hard. He’s not in Neo’s office, after all.

The restaurant Makedon has picked out is called Le Taillevent. It’s ridiculously fancy, and yet they fit in just fine with their stiff suits and shiny, imported shoes. One of the perks of being a lawyer, Damen thinks, is that one can walk out of the office and head straight to a wedding. Or a funeral.

“—be educated,” Makedon is saying. He’s already ogled the waitress’s behind, not too subtly. “You know, I keep telling him he needs to find himself a hobby. Like golfing or skiing. Something to take his mind off of work and The Wife.”

The Wife, Damen knows, is Jokaste. She used to be The Nagging Bitch when she was still Kastor’s girlfriend, but she got promoted after the wedding. 

“Kastor’s never had a lot of hobbies.”

“Which is why he’s so uptight. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t had a heart attack yet.”

“Well,” Damen says, not really wanting to think about his brother having heart failure. “He does eat pretty healthy. A lot of homemade meals and… stuff.”

Makedon hums. It’s a low, guttural sound, the kind that screams of thirty years of smoking. “Maybe poker would cheer him up.”

“I don’t think—”

The waitress cuts him off gently, pouring red wine into Makedon’s glass. When she goes to pour Damen some, he puts his hand over the glass and almost ends up with his fingers coated in the sticky liquid. 

“Just water for me,” Damen says. “Thanks.”

“Oh, come on. I take you out for lunch and you’re having what, a kale salad and water?” Makedon sighs. “Fine. Be a dear and bring him a water bottle.”

The waitress doesn’t need to be told twice. She’s gone and back again with one of the pricey water bottles Nicaise likes to collect under his bed. It’s made of glass and is peculiarly heavy, and Damen takes it from her with a smile before she can start pouring.

She’s not wearing a nametag, which doesn’t surprise Damen given the new, strange aversion restaurants seem to have towards them. Nicaise used to complain about it when he worked at Mello’s, how not wearing a tag had everyone calling him Curly or Kid. Damen never got around to asking Laurent if he’d been forced to wear his name on display when he was working as a waiter, but it’s highly unlikely Laurent would have used his real name for something so mundane. He probably changed his name twice a week, to spice things up. He probably picked something short and quirky, unrepentantly ironic. Something—

“Damianos?” 

Damen blinks. “Yeah. For sure.”

Makedon picks up his fork. “Who are you bringing to the company function?” 

Last year, Damen went with Laurent. And the year before. And the one before that.

“I don’t know,” Damen says. I’m single, I’m single, I’m single, he thinks but doesn’t say. Makedon knows Damen is single, as does everyone on Earth. “Maybe I’ll go alone for once. Or bring Nikandros along.”

“Nonsense. Just ask a girl from the office.”

Damen sips his water instead of offering a reply.

“I mean it,” Makedon says idly. He’s busy stabbing the spinach on his plate. “Kastor’s secretary sure looks good in a skirt.”

“Marianne? She’s married.”

“Ask her if she has a sister then.”

Damen stares at Makedon, hoping the look he’s giving him will be enough to end this bizarre conversation. But Makedon doesn’t look up from his plate, doesn’t even notice Damen’s discomfort at his suggestion. If anything, he looks happy that he’s finally managed to take a bite of his salad.

A comfortable silence settles between them. Makedon is busy eating, and Damen is busy pretending to enjoy this lunch escapade. It’s a kind gesture, Theomedes would have said. The kind thing to do in return is sit down, shut up, and go along with it.

The soft noises around their table are relaxing enough. Someone clinks two glasses together in a toast, someone laughs, someone excuses themselves to go out for a smoke. Voices curl and twirl around Damen, soft and loud and foreign. There’s even a man speaking Vaskian three tables away.

“You know,” Makedon says, his glass of wine raised to his mouth, “I’m glad you decided enough was enough and moved past that phase. Laurent was…” He shakes his head and laughs-slash-snorts-slash-whistles. He twirls an invisible strand of hair near his temple. “Veretians are truly a handful.”

Damen grips his fork so tightly he’s afraid he might snap it in half. 

“And listen, I know what it’s like being twenty, but you’re almost at the end of that era, boy. At thirty your father was already married and had a kid on the way, and you’re what? Less than one year away from that. Not that the times haven’t changed, but—”

“Which phase?”

Makedon glances at him, frowning. “Excuse me?”

“Which phase have I moved past?” Damen says. “Dating Veretians?”

“Damen.”

“Tell me.”

“That’s what youth is for,” Makedon says, more hesitant than before. “Experimenting and… Well, you already know what I’m talking about.”

Damen forces himself to put the fork down before he does something too stupid. Like stab the table. “I really don’t.”

“Come on. Don’t be daft. It’s—I’m just happy for you, okay?”

I had five shots, Damen hears Laurent say inside his head, his voice far away and ghost-like. The first company function they attended together was four years ago, when everything had still been fresh and beautiful and exciting. They’d shared a table with Kastor and Jokaste, who promptly ignored them both the entire night. Makedon had come over at some point, bringing Meniados and a bottle of griva he’d borrowed from the bar with him. 

Laurent was nervous, his thigh jittery under Damen’s hand. He nodded at everything Makedon was saying, which was so unlike him Damen couldn’t help but smile. 

“Which one of you is driving tonight?” Makedon asked. 

“I am,” Damen said. He didn’t realize what the point of the question was until he saw Makedon pour a shot of griva and slide it towards Laurent. “Thank you, but he doesn’t—”

Laurent squeezed his hand under the table, silencing him. He was smiling when he turned to Makedon, the challenge clear on his face. “Want to make a bet?”

The first shot was downed quickly, the second one too. By the third, Meniados backed out, claiming his wife was calling him from the other table, but Makedon and Laurent kept at it with a rhythm that surprised Damen into silence. He’d never seen Laurent drink anything but water, and hadn’t missed the sour expressions Laurent would make when Damen opened a bottle of wine to have with dinner. 

And yet Laurent could hold his liquor impressively, not even swaying as they walked to the car after the function was over. He was flushed and quiet, and Damen thought he looked lovely like that, thought of telling him he should drink more often, thought of booking a wine tasting trip for the upcoming weekend.

It wasn’t until they’d made it back to Damen’s that everything started to fall apart. Laurent had spent the night sitting on the cold tiles of Damen’s bathroom with a wet rag in hand and everything he’d eaten that day making its way up his throat and out of his mouth.

The back of Laurent’s neck was wet with cold sweat, his eyes so red it probably hurt him to blink. It was a testament to how bad he felt that he didn’t argue when Damen fed him two aspirins and an entire glass of water.

“Next time we’ll stick to water,” Damen said, his mouth to Laurent’s clammy temple. “Unless you’re trying to build up a tolerance?”

Laurent didn’t reply right away, like he was taking his time picking his words carefully. It was out of character for him, and Damen remembers thinking perhaps Laurent had fallen asleep on him. And then, quietly, Laurent said, “I wanted Makedon to like me.”

“So you had ten shots of griva?”

“Only five,” Laurent said, and then leaned forward to vomit again.

Damen presses his closed fist to his stomach, willing it to stop clenching. “I thought you liked Laurent.”

“Liked him?” Makedon says, like a snort. “He was—”

“Is everything all right?” the nameless waitress says. She has a breathy voice, meek like Erasmus’. “Should I—”

“You can get us the tab,” Damen says. “That’ll be all. Thank you.”

Makedon’s frown is incredulous. “But we haven’t finished eating.”

“I’m done.”

“Damen, you can’t be serious. Are you really so delicate that you’d get offended by—”

On his feet, Damen is three heads taller than the waitress, who takes a step back and away from him as soon as he raises his hand to throw the cloth napkin on his plate. “I have work to do.”

Makedon laughs, obviously startled, and Damen leaves him to it. He’s the one who invited Damen to tag along, he might as well be the one to pay the stupid tab. He can go fuck himself for all Damen cares. 

Outside the restaurant, the streets are full of people buzzing by. An elbow grazes Damen’s back, and that touch alone is almost enough to send him into a full rage episode. He can feel his own anger inside him, leaking out of him like sweat. He’s too hot, too prickly, too much of everything. He wants to sink his knuckles into something hard.

Instead, Damen walks the three blocks that separate the restaurant from the office and fights off the urge to scream. When Kastor gives him a look as Damen walks out of the elevator, Damen simply flips him off, uncaring of who’s watching.

Kastor smiles, says, “Did you enjoy lunch with Uncle Mak?” 

Damen slams the door of his office so hard everyone in the building must hear it. He stands there, in the middle of the room, fighting the urge to open the door and slam it shut again. That’d be excessive, he thinks, and so he sits down to work instead.

*

“I can’t tonight,” Pallas says, three hours later. He’s got ink on his right cheek, a long red scribble. “You should ask Nik though. He said—”

“Come on. What else do you have to do?”

Pallas goes on typing and clicking, as though to prove a point. “Paperwork. And tonight is a weeknight.”

Damen bends over Pallas’ desk. He puts his elbows on the only empty spot in the crammed table full of papers and post-it notes. He needs to go out, needs to not think for a minute, and he’s not above bribery. “You can come into work two hours late tomorrow.”

“Yeah, and I’ll have to stay two hours more.”

“No. I’ll tell Kastor I let you go early.”

Pallas pauses his furious typing to give Damen a funny look. “I thought Kastor wasn’t your boss?”

“He’s your boss,” Damen says, and feels a rush of self-consciousness. There’s little he dislikes more than having people think there’s any difference between him and his brother. “It’s been a shit day, dude. Don’t tell me you don’t want to get drunk.”

“I can get drunk at home.”

“Is that an invitation?”

Pallas presses a fist to his temple. “I have a date, okay? That’s why I can’t go with you. Sorry, man.”

“Oh,” Damen says. He tries to remember the last date he was on, thinks it might have been with Kyra. Awkwardly, “So, who’s the girl?”

Pallas doesn’t answer.

“Is it a dude?”

“Er,” Pallas says. “Maybe.”

Damen gives his own tongue a good bite to keep himself from saying it. He doesn’t need a repetition of what happened with Erasmus the other night. “Okay, cool. I’ll… go out tomorrow or something. Maybe.”

“Just ask Nik.”

“We’re—” Damen pulls away from the desk. What should he say? They aren’t technically fighting. They had a fight, after which they’ve both been ignoring each other. “He’s busy tonight.”

“No, he isn’t. He just told me he’s home watching some shitty house show.”

“Billion Dollar Houses,” Damen says. When he lived with Nikandros, that show was always on during dinner. “Enjoy your date then. I’ll figure something out.”

By that, Damen means he’ll stop by the bakery on his way home and get something sweet. He has beer at home, and wine, and the good kind of pasta in his pantry. He doesn’t need anything else.

“All right,” Pallas says, just as Damen has started to cross the door.  He’s checking his phone. “All right. You can come. Just… I like this guy.”

Damen doesn’t see how that has anything to do with him. “Okay?”

“Never say that I’m a bad friend.”

“Look, if you don’t want me there, I don’t have to go.” 

“When’s the last time you went out?” Pallas waits for Damen to say something, but Damen doesn’t remember the last time he went to a bar. The restaurant date he had with Kyra, he realizes, was the last time he didn’t go home straight from the office. Pallas says, “Exactly. Nik’s right, Damen. You really need to start doing shit again.”

Damen frowns. Does that mean Nikandros and Pallas have been discussing him? Well , he thinks bitterly, who’s the fucking thirteen-year-old girl now, Nik? Gossiping is the sort of thing Jokaste and her friends do. 

Laurent and Ancel, too.

Pallas and Damen leave together. It’s a five-block walk, which means they’ll both have to come back to the office for their cars, but it’s still worth not having to spend a trillion minutes figuring out where to park. The walk to the bar is awkwardly quiet, but Damen doesn’t think much of it. Pallas has a date tonight and, if it’s true that he likes this guy as much as he says he does, then Damen can understand him being nervous.

It doesn’t occur to Damen that he should ask Pallas about this new boyfriend of his until it’s already too late to do so. The moment they get to the bar—Brouilly, which is not a word Damen can pronounce—Pallas’ dashing date is already there.

And he’s definitely not what Damen had been expecting. 

The man has a gold earring dangling from his left lobe, a thick hoop that glimmers as though it’s made of real gold, something that seems very unlikely considering the clothes he is wearing. A black t-shirt and tight, brandless jeans aren’t exactly what Damen would wear to a date. Let alone a nose ring that matches the earring.

“Hey,” Pallas says as he shrugs off his blazer. The booth looks cramped already with just the two of them in it, and Damen feels the intrusiveness of his own presence like a kick to the stomach. “Er, this is Damen. Damen, this is—”

“Lazar.”

“Yes, Lazar. That’s what I was going to say.”

Lazar takes one of Pallas’ hands in his, giving it a squeeze. “I’d certainly be sad if you’d already forgotten my name. Hey, Damen.”

Damen should not have come here. “I…”

“Sit down, dude,” Lazar says. The normal Veretian drawl somehow sounds more pronounced coming from him. “I already ordered us drinks, so you don’t have to worry your pretty little mind. Not that you have a little mind. It’s actually quite a thick head you’ve got there.”

Pallas lets out the most pitiful sound Damen has ever heard in his life. “Lazar.”

Damen sits down, not really wanting to find out where Lazar was going next with that sentence. The fake leather of the seats is nice, and there’s enough room under the table for Damen to stretch his legs. Lazar is sitting right in front of Pallas, and so Damen has an empty seat to look at.

“What did you order?”

“Mimosas for us,” Lazar says, “and a beer for Damen. Hope you like them blond.”

Damen tenses. “What?”

“Your beer,” Pallas says. The snort that follows makes Damen feel even more stupid. “So…”

Lazar smiles. Something about the gesture tells Damen the dude has a tongue ring. “So.”

“Where did you guys meet?” Damen says, because it’s the polite thing to ask. He wonders if Lazar’s the guy that showed up on Pallas’ picture all those weeks ago, the one at the grocery aisle. 

“The park.”

“Grindr.”

Pallas groans. “Lazar.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m not a good liar.”

“An app’s an app,” Damen says slowly, trying not to think of Tinder, of whom he saw there. “That’s—cool.”

A man with bright blue eyebrows appears out of nowhere, sets their drinks on the table, and walks away, so carelessly one of the mimosas almost spills over. Both Lazar and Pallas seem unsurprised by this, which makes Damen wonder if this is their first time hanging out at this bar.

“This one’s mine,” Lazar says, taking a sip of the shaken-up mimosa. He slides the other one towards Pallas. “Here, darling.”

Damen can’t help himself; he side-eyes Pallas. Darling?

“Thanks,” Pallas says, decidedly not looking at Damen. 

The beer is mediocre. Damen sips it slowly, not because he wants to savor it but because he enjoys the escape it provides him with. He doesn’t have to talk as long as he’s drinking. When the looks Lazar start giving Pallas turn the wrong kind of heady, Damen clears his throat and steps, begrudgingly, into the conversation. 

“Were you born here in Delfeur or…?”

“Barbin,” Lazar says. “I’m a northerner through and through.”

Pallas is smiling. “You sure curse like one.”

“That’s a long way from here,” Damen says.

Neither Lazar nor Pallas point out how obvious that statement is. Damen is glad; he’s definitely nowhere near drunk enough to be entertaining.

“Today was brutal,” Pallas says after a while. “I still have over ten emails I need to reply to, and I didn’t even get started on the spreadsheet for that widow thing I was telling you about.” Then, to Damen: “Mrs. Willows.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

Lazar pats Pallas’ hand twice. “There, there, loverboy. That sucks ass. A day spent at the office with AC blowing on your face…”

Damen bristles at the comment, but Pallas laughs. It’s not even a forced sound, the kind of breathed-out snort Laurent’s laugh would sometimes turn into, but rather a raucous, bubbly noise. An inside joke, then.

“Fuck off,” Pallas says, and obviously does not mean it. “You have an AC unit too.”

“Yeah, in my shared office that I only spend two hours of my day in.”

Damen says, “What do you do?”

Surprisingly, Pallas tenses next to Damen. The only reason why Damen notices it is that Pallas’ thigh is pressed against his—booths are getting smaller, he swears—and the muscles tense abruptly enough to draw Damen’s attention. 

Lazar smiles lazily, a stark contrast to Pallas’ sudden nervousness. “I co-own a Death Care company.”

“I…” Damen looks to Pallas for help, receives nothing. “As in, funeral services?”

“Yes. It’s a blooming business, really.”

“No shit,” Damen says, on the brink of laughing. This is ridiculous. “Veretian funerals cost a fortune. All those fucking flowers and—”

Lazar’s smile looks tighter now. “It’s tradition. You know, cultural differences and all. Akielons have their extravagances as well.”

Pallas clears his throat, loud enough that the lady having a pink cocktail three booths away turns to stare at him. “Yeah, well. Being a lawyer is…”

“Inherently crappy?” Lazar says, head tilted. “That’s why you’ve never met a lawyer who’s happy?”

Damen feels himself flush with secondhand embarrassment for Pallas. It’s obvious Lazar doesn’t understand what their job entails, how important it is to the community as a whole. Doctors and lawyers are the only reason the world hasn’t gone up in flames yet, Theomedes used to say.

Pallas laughs. “Stop quoting that stupid song.”

“It’s a guaranteed soul destroyer.”

“Stop.”

Lazar adds jazz hands. “Don’t be a lawyer.”

“So,” Damen says, because someone must. Musicals are Nicaise’s thing, not his. “Where did you go to college for… that?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then how—”

“I’m resourceful,” Lazar says. His eyes land on Pallas, glimmering with the bar's shitty lights. “Have to be when you’re piss poor. Right, darling?” The hand that isn’t holding Pallas’ sneaks into his pocket to retrieve a card, which he slides towards Damen. “Classy, isn’t it?”

Damen picks up the card. It’s small and white, with a sober font. It smells faintly of leather.

LAZARUS

Funeral services

Will you be our next client? Remains to be seen.

“And clever,” Damen says, although he doesn’t really think this is appropriate. When his father died, Kastor was the one to organize the funeral. If Kastor had seen a card like this, there’s no doubt in Damen’s head that he would have tossed it into the trash, maybe even sued the guy who printed it. “It’s very—what’s this?”

Lazar leans forward to see what Damen is pointing at. “That’s our Tik Tok account. Here, let me show you the video Huet posted this morning.”

“Laz,” Pallas says. “I don’t think—”

“I’ll show him the funny one, promise.” Lazar taps his phone, then turns it around for Damen to see. The screen, like Nicaise’s, is blindingly bright. 

“Er, am I supposed to press play?”

In the video, a man with a bowl cut—Huet, perhaps?—is staring straight ahead, Lazar poking him and messing with his bangs. Even though the bar is not exactly quiet, Damen can still hear the tune of the song being played in the video, can make out a few words— and cream, a little lad, mommy. In basic white font, right at the top of the screen, Damen reads, When you ask Orlant for a little trim and suddenly it’s the 17th century. Twenty seconds or so after it began, the video restarts itself.

Damen doesn’t get the joke. There’s panic in not knowing what the punchline is, what the video even means, because it reminds him too much of the way Hypermenestra would scroll mindlessly through Facebook and only laugh at the worst, most obvious jokes. Is that what Damen has turned into? He’s not even thirty yet. He’s supposed to be in on the joke.

Lazar lowers his phone.

“Did you see the one I sent you at lunch?” Pallas says, trying to help ease the awkwardness. “The one where the little girl—”

“—is feeding her cat cake,” Lazar finishes. “I showed it to Huet and he said cake gives cats stomach cancer or something.”

“How does he know that? He’s not a veterinarian.”

“He’s an avid Buzzfeed reader.”

Pallas sips his mimosa, smiling. “Ten bad things about cake.”

“Ten types of cancer you can get from eating cake frosting.”

Damen stops listening after a while. His beer is cold and slightly bitter, and he entertains himself by watching the mark his thumb has left in the condensation of the glass. Time passes as he slowly downs his beer, one of the waitresses fluttering around as she takes orders and brings out plates of steaming food. All of it is cheap and stereotypical of a place like this: fries, and onion rings, and a million other carbs in their best oily, fried form.

“—under the desk,” Lazar is saying. “You should have seen his underwear. I didn’t think they made boxer shorts so small.”

Pallas laughs, and it strikes Damen how weird he looks like this. Out of all his friends, Pallas has always been the quietest one, the sort of person to back out of a situation when it gets too rowdy, too fun. He never really told them he liked men, the way Damen did, simply making out with a first-year guy in one of those college parties Nikandros used to drag them to. They had all thought it was a one-time thing, that it was the alcohol and the excitement of having passed his exams. Apparently, they were wrong.

Lazar, as welcoming as he’s been, is not what Damen thought Pallas was looking for. He doesn’t really look like anyone’s type.

“It was nice meeting you,” Damen says when the conversation stops for a second. He smiles that polite smile he uses on clients. “I’ll be out of your hair now. Thanks for giving me an excuse to drink.”

Pallas shifts in his seat. “Hey, you don’t have to leave. We were thinking of getting something to eat.”

“Yeah, man. It’s still early.”

“It’s all right.” Damen stands, stretching his legs, and leaves a bill on the table. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Pallas.”

Damen leaves then, a bit abruptly, not wanting to hear Pallas’ subdued attempt at getting him to stay. He shouldn’t have come, and the prickling shame that he’s spent almost an hour imposing on someone else’s date follows him to the car, pressing closer and closer to him over the five-block walk.

*

We need to talk, Laurent texts him, dryly and out of the blue, that very same night. 

Damen finds his surroundings—Dog’s barks, the voices coming from the TV, the feel of the couch under him—dimming until a complete silence has settled over him, interrupted only by the high-pitched sound in his ears, a buzz that feels like a stab. He reads the text once, twice. He cannot bring himself to type out a reply.

Laurent has had enough of their agreement, obviously. He wants to cut all contact with Damen, wants Damen to maybe sell the house and move to another province. He wants Damen to live in Chasteigne, in one of those shitty, poorly built villas Nikandros is always complaining about. Or maybe, Damen thinks as panic rises in him, Laurent is the one who’s moving away. Maybe Laurent has found a house in the capital and he’s planning on living there with Maxime and Nicaise. Maybe Maxime owns the house. Maybe Maxime is not only a scholar but a real estate—

Damen’s phone buzzes in his hand, Laurent’s name on the screen. It doesn’t occur to him until later that he could just not answer, that he could postpone this talk Laurent wants them to have. 

“Hey,” he says, his mouth suddenly very dry. 

“Hello,” Laurent says. He doesn’t sound nervous or particularly angry, but Damen can’t relax. “Are you busy?”

“I—no. Is Nicaise okay?”

“Yes. He’s at a friend’s.”

On a school night? Damen swallows the question. He doesn’t get to demand that Laurent follows the same rules they did before. Things are obviously different now. “All right. Then what’s—”

“His birthday is this weekend,” Laurent says, in a way that suggests he did not expect Damen to remember the date. “There’ll be a party at Berenger’s, which I’m sure he’s told you about already.”

You can’t come, Laurent will say any minute. No one wants you there. Damen feels each beat of his own heart, as though his blood has somehow turned viscous and thick and is putting strain on the organ. He doesn’t say anything. 

“It starts at seven.”

“What?”

Laurent pauses. Is he annoyed? Does he think Damen is an idiot? “The party I was just telling you about, Damianos.”

“I,” Damen starts, and stops. I don’t understand has never been the right thing to say around Laurent. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Nicaise insisted.”

Damen can only imagine. Nicaise’s tantrums never really went away. He says, “You don’t have to do this. I’ll talk to him.”

“You’ll talk to him.”

“I will.”

Laurent hums. “I’m sure that will fix everything. You’re both great at conversing.”

Damen’s discomfort quickens into anger. Fuck you, he thinks. If Laurent was any better than Damen at getting Nicaise to listen, they wouldn’t be stuck in this call. 

“Anyway,” Laurent goes on. “If you don’t want to go, I’m sure Nicaise will understand.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You don’t exactly sound thrilled at the idea either.”

Because you’ll be there. “Maybe I could take him somewhere next weekend. A road trip to—”

“No,” Laurent says, sharply. He does not elaborate.

Damen doesn’t want to go to the party, doesn’t want to be anywhere near Laurent and his friends, doesn’t want to be having this conversation. He’s about to tell Laurent exactly that when he remembers Nicaise’s face in the backyard, how he’d wanted to throw the party on a day that would suit Damen’s schedule. How big, Damen wonders, was Nicaise’s tantrum this time? This isn’t something Laurent would agree to lightly. This is, in fact, something Damen never thought Laurent would ever agree to. 

Perhaps Laurent’s secret weapon is Damen’s reluctance to go in the first place. If Damen refuses, then he’s the only one that bears the burden of disappointing Nicaise. The idea that Laurent is being purposefully aggravating to get Damen to say no makes something in him curdle like spoiled milk.

“Count me in,” Damen says. “Saturday at seven, right?”

There is a pause, and Damen wonders if Laurent is trying not to sound surprised, if he’s trying not to fumble with his words. “I’ll text you the address then.”

Meanly, like a child sticking out his tongue, Damen says: “This whole conversation could have been a text, you know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Laurent says, and hangs up.

Damen doesn’t scream into one of the sofa cushions, doesn’t throttle Dog to death, doesn’t throw his phone across the room just to watch it shatter. He doesn’t, but it’s a close call.

*

Damen, 

I understand how frustrated you must have felt last session to leave the way you did, but I am asking you to please consider moving forward with your treatment. It’s too late for me to schedule a new session for you this week since you missed today’s appointment. However, if you’d be willing, I have a free slot next Monday at six-thirty. Please let me know what you decide. 

Wishing you the best, 

Neo.

Damen marks the email as spam, then deletes it.

*

Berenger’s country house is exactly as Damen remembers it. The dirt road that leads to it is perfectly delimited, lined with small stones that separate the sandy dust from the green grass, and Damen spends the last minutes of the drive wondering if it would all look like this if Berenger had never met Ancel. 

Berenger is a neat man, sober and serious, perhaps even more so than Jord. Damen has a hard time picturing him bent over and worried about each blade of grass being the same height. No one with a real job can afford to waste the day thinking about such matters, which is why Ancel must be the one behind the whole thing. 

Uphill, the road widens and then stops, as though there’s no other place anyone could wish to go to but Berenger’s house. It’s a three-story mansion, the sort of house that’s made of real wood and bricks and stones, the sort with a fireplace and a chimney and a ballroom. Damen’s been here before only once—Berenger and Ancel’s engagement party, two and a half years after he met Laurent in the grocery store—and he remembers the museum-like style the foyer had, all chandeliers and family portraits. Old, old money.

I had a house like this, Laurent had said, offhandedly, the way he said everything about himself. Damen hadn’t asked, and now he almost wishes he had. It’s funny, in a way, how hungry for details the present has made him.

Damen parks as far away from the house as possible. Even though there’s no one outside to see him, he wants this last moment of privacy before he walks into the lion’s den. Or whatever animal Ancel is supposed to be.

A rabid peacock, perhaps.

He checks himself out in the rearview mirror, fussing over the collar of his shirt and how his tie is too tight. Why is he even wearing a tie? Nicaise is turning seventeen, not seventy. Damen tugs at the knot until it gives and throws the striped tie in the backseat, hoping it will burst into flames and cease to exist. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that this isn’t going to be awkward because Laurent will probably not even glance at him. Damen will walk in, have a drink, eat some cake—only if it’s not that cashew flavored monstrosity Aimeric baked for Jord’s birthday once—and leave. 

Nicaise’s present is in a black bag this time, inconspicuous and easy to miss. Damen scribbled his name on a corner with a silver Sharpie he stole from Pallas, wanting to avoid the awkward process of writing a Happy Birthday card. 

Nicaise will like it, Damen tells himself as he gets out of the car. Like a mantra, he repeats it all the way to the door, and barely manages to repress the urge to not do the Akielon sign against bad luck before lifting the knocker.

“—with the cupcakes,” Ancel is half-saying, half-yelling as he opens the door. He wrinkles his nose when his gaze meets Damen’s. “Ah. It’s just you.”

Damen tries to keep his face blank. “Hey.”

Ancel is wearing a purple outfit that resembles a glittery jumpsuit too much for Damen’s liking. Damen isn’t even sure where his pants end and his shirt begins, but it still looks good on Ancel’s long body. By far, this isn’t the most outrageous thing Ancel has worn to a party. His eyes are greener than Damen remembers them—contacts, maybe—and as he moves the gold bracelets he’s wearing make annoying sounds, like little bells.

Ancel tsks. “No plus one?”

“I,” Damen says, and stops. Telling Ancel to go fuck himself isn’t a pleasant start to this evening. “Should I call Nicaise so he can tell you I’m on the guestlist or can I come in?”

Ancel’s only reply is to open the door wider.

The foyer is both old and luxurious, a wooden floor with a thick and exotic carpet that muffles Damen’s footsteps. Inside, the house smells like any other country house Damen has ever been to: wet grass, old paper, expensive perfume. 

Ancel slams the door shut. “The gift pile is on a table in the ballroom,” he says. “Are you staying this time?”

Unfortunately. “Nicaise invited me, so.”

“He also invited you to his other party.”

“How many birthday parties has he had this year?”

“I’m talking about his ‘I got my license’ party,” Ancel says, annoyed. His hand goes to play with his hair, but halfway through he pauses and lowers it again. It won’t do to mess up his perfectly styled french braid, Damen thinks. “Anyways, whatever. That was definitely not the first time you were a disappointment.”

Damen counts to thirty in his head. “If it doesn’t matter, why are you bringing it up now?”

“God, I’d almost forgotten how annoying you are.”

“Just tell me where the ballroom is.”

“To your right,” Ancel says dryly. He perks up a little by the time Damen has taken three steps away from him. “Oh, and make sure to knock on the door before going in. You wouldn’t want to accidentally catch a glimpse of any of the lovely couples in there. The sight will depress you.” Another three steps. “Since, you know, you’re all alone.”

Damen ignores him. He knows how bad things can get when Ancel stops throwing words and starts throwing punches. He certainly doesn’t need a repeat of that random Thursday night when Ancel almost broke his jaw.

This time, there’d be no reason to not hit him back.

The ballroom is less of a ballroom and more of an indignantly pompous living room. It’s half-empty, less than four people lingering by the long table that holds all the snacks and beverages. Without looking, Damen can tell it’s the sort of food neither Laurent nor Nicaise likes. There’s nothing too fried or too salty or too sweet. The table is but one huge charcuterie board: grapes, cheese, sweetmeats, honey pots. 

He should have bought Nicaise a bag of Doritos.

No one Damen knows is here. The three women arranging the wine bottles and polished glasses are not, as Damen had thought, guests; they’re wearing name tags. Stupidly, he relaxes, sighing out some of the tension he’s been carrying. He won’t have to face Laurent just yet, still has a few more minutes left. 

After leaving his gift on the pile of colorful, flashy presents—he makes sure to hide his own behind a particularly big red box, just so it won’t be the first thing Nicaise tries to open—Damen heads outside through one of the twelve glass doors. 

The garden isn’t a garden but rather a park, surrounded by tall and full trees, fairy lights wrapped around the trunks and hanging from every single branch. The sun isn’t completely gone yet, but Damen can still appreciate the twinkling details, a hundred frozen fireflies. There’s music, loud and unknown, coming from somewhere. There’s the distant chatter Damen’s always liked at parties. 

Grass crunches under his shoes as Damen makes his way to Nicaise, who is sitting on Ancel’s Patran hammock with his friends. Damen doesn’t think the encounter might be potentially embarrassing for Nicaise until it’s too late to retreat.

“Hello,” Damen says. The girl standing closest to him—Evie? Elyn? Laurent is the one who remembers all their names—openly gapes. “Happy—”

Nicaise looks up at him, and the world stops for a second. Damen had been so focused on the decorations, on the stupid lights, that he didn’t notice what Nicaise is wearing. The pink sweatshirt looks good on him, even better than it did in Sakae’s poorly lit bathroom. Nicaise’s nails are cut short and painted silver. They look like tiny blades resting on equally sharp fingers. His hair is in a half-bun, a few curls strategically left loose to frame his face, which is… 

Painted. There’s eyeliner on it.

Damen coughs, startling himself. God, he’d forgotten what it’s like to hang around teenagers. “Happy birthday,” he says, clearing his throat.

Nicaise doesn’t say anything. Damen sees him picking at his thumb, the nail polish already coming off at the base.

Evie-Elyn says, “It’s nice to meet you, Mr…”

“Damianos,” Damen says.

“Mr. Damianos.”

Nicaise rolls his eyes. “No, idiot. Damianos is his first name. It’s Akielon, means ‘slaver’ or something.”

It means tamer. Damen lets it pass. “All right, I’m going. Just wanted to say hi.”

The two boys sitting on the grass look like twins, but then everyone Nicaise’s age looks like they come from the same family. A weird, spiky, lipgloss-obsessed family. Damen doesn’t know their names, wonders what happened to that boy Nicaise was friends with last year—Louis, maybe Lucien—and if Laurent has done a background check on this new company Nicaise keeps. Knowing Laurent, he probably has.

“Wait,” Nicaise says, standing up. The hammock doesn’t show a single crease. “I’m thirsty. Let’s get something to drink.”

“You should ask your friends if they want anything.”

“I’m not their maid.”

Damen tries not to laugh, he really does. “Nicaise.”

“Fine,” Nicaise says. Up close, he smells like peaches. “Do you want something to drink, losers?”

One of the boys shakes his head no. The other one says, “Beer?”

“Right,” Damen says, dryly. He tries not to enjoy the way the boy cowers away from his stare.

“I want a Coke,” Evie-Elyn says, “and Joachim wants one too. Unless there’s really beer. Thank you, Mr—”

Nicaise drags Damen away by the hand. He looks annoyed, but that’s a constant with Nicaise. He likes to complain about things, about everything, and Damen wonders for the first time if maybe it’s to make up for all the times he wasn’t allowed to speak up about what he didn’t like. The thought leaves Damen’s ribcage feeling a little too tight.

He watches Nicaise carefully as they make their way back into the house. Nicaise doesn’t look seventeen, Damen thinks. He looks younger, like a stretched-out version of his eleven-year-old self. Next year he’ll be of age, the next one he’ll leave high school and start college. In three years he probably won’t even reply to Damen’s texts.

Damen’s hand twitches by his side. I could hug him , he thinks, not for the first time. He thinks of telling Nicaise this silver nail polish looks good on him, that pink suits him, that he didn’t want to come to this party but that he’s glad he did. He’s glad he gets to have this now, even if they’re mere scraps, because soon—three years, he thinks, three years—he won’t have anything at all. But the words barricade themselves behind Damen’s teeth. His hand twitches again.

They’re in the ballroom when Damen finally works up the courage to put his arm around Nicaise’s shoulders. The movement is quick, awkward in its spontaneity, and it seems to catch them both by surprise. Nicaise is bony, but broader and warmer than he looks. He stiffens slightly as Damen squeezes him.

“Are you having fun?” Damen says, as naturally as he can.

Nicaise plays with one of the Coke cans he just picked up from the table. His voice comes out weird, off-key. “I guess. It’s still early.”

“Right. Did you invite your whole class or…?”

“No one does that anymore.” Nicaise grabs another can. Against the red label, his nails look even shinier. “Are you staying until we cut the cake?”

“Yes, unless it’s Genoise cake. But I have a feeling Aimeric doesn’t even know how to make that.”

“Aimeric doesn’t know how to make any type of cake,” Nicaise says, huddling closer. He sneaks a glance at Damen’s face, as though trying to see if he’s noticed. “Doesn’t keep him from trying though.”

“The one he baked for Jokaste’s party turned out fine.”

“I bet if it’d been for you he would have put laxatives in the frosting.”

Damen smiles. “Just laxatives?”

Nicaise doesn’t reply right away. Instead, he tilts his head slowly, discreetly. His cheek is about to touch Damen’s shoulder when the door that connects the hallway and the ballroom opens, startling them both. 

The sound of heels against wood fills the room. Thinking it’s Ancel—Damen didn’t check to see what sort of shoes Ancel was wearing when he opened the door, but he wouldn’t put it past Ancel to wear fucking stilettos—Damen doesn’t bother turning around. Until he hears a stranger’s laugh, piercingly loud.

Laurent is the one Damen looks at first: his expensive black jeans, his dark green jumper, his fingers curled around the thin stem of a glass. He’s cut his hair since the last time they saw each other, and now the gold strands barely reach his chin. His face is flushed, not pointy, not… miserable. He looks like he’s been laughing.

There’s a man in the room, Damen realizes belatedly, and he’s got one arm around Laurent’s waist, fingers half-hidden in Laurent’s front pocket. His hair is brown, unremarkable, and the beard that covers his cheeks matches it perfectly. The clothes he’s wearing fit him accurately, in the careful way that can only mean a tailor was involved in making them. He’s drinking wine. He’s—

Nicaise steps away from Damen. “Can’t you fucking knock?”

“Sorry,” the man says with a big smile. It’s too big. It makes him look like an idiot. When he notices Damen standing by the table, he adds, “Hey. Are you one of Ancel’s—”

“He’s Damianos,” Nicaise says, petulantly. The way he used to talk to Damen at eleven. “You know, the ex-boyfriend.”

Well, Damen thinks, at least he gets the defining article. It’d be worse to be called one of Laurent’s exes.

“Nicaise,” Laurent says. “Be nice.”

“It’s my birthday. I can be not nice if I want to.”

Damen doesn’t know where to go, what to do. He knew Laurent would be here, of course he did, but he never expected him to show up with his new boyfriend. He’d thought Laurent would like to keep things separate, the way he did with Damen, until he was absolutely sure that it was safe. Just because the guy has had dinner with Nicaise a few times doesn’t mean he should get invited to his birthday party.

But then, what is Damen doing here? Damen shouldn’t have been invited either.

“Hello,” Damen says. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Maxime,” Maxime says. “The boyfriend.”

Nicaise hides a hand behind his back, turns it into a fist. He clenches and unclenches his fingers like he’s trying to decide if Maxime is worth punching or not. Just to make sure the night doesn’t end in a bloodbath, Damen presses the discarded Coke can from earlier into Nicaise’s hand.

“Your friends must be thirsty,” Damen says. “Do you need help carrying all the drinks outside?”

Nicaise turns his back on Laurent and Maxime and starts neatly piling up the cans. “No, I’m not a toddler. Where the fuck did Ancel put the chips?”

There’s a loud thud in the hallway. 

“A little help would be really nice,” a deep voice says. Jord’s. “Unless you want to eat cake with carpet hairs you should come here now, Laurent.”

Maxime pats Laurent’s hip once. “I’ll go, baby.”

Baby. That’s… Damen looks away, not wanting to see Laurent’s face. He doesn’t think he’d be able to stomach a softening of his expression, a blush. It’s easier to focus on the armful of Coke cans and grapes Nicaise is trying to carry outside than to watch Maxime leave the room.

“Nicaise,” Laurent says, the start of a reprimand.

“That,” Nicaise says, “was disgusting.”

Laurent makes an unimpressed sound. “Was it really?”

“I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“You talked to me first.”

Usually, this is around the time Damen would interrupt them, would try to get them to stop snapping at each other. Right now he feels like the one that’s snapping is him, like a twig under too much pressure. If he opens his mouth, something bad will come spilling out.

“He still smells weird, just so you know. Like old man and fucking hospital soap,” Nicaise says. He steps outside and slams the glass door behind him. The glass panel rattles, then settles. Muffled: “Joachim, do you have a lighter?”

The ballroom feels both enormous and pocket-sized with only Damen and Laurent in it. Damen runs a hand over the tablecloth Nicaise wrinkled, ironing it out. He hears Laurent move, but keeps his eyes on the sweetmeats before him. He can’t think, can’t—

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Laurent says.

Damen tenses. He doesn’t have it left in him to argue. You invited me. You didn’t want me to come. “Nicaise asked me to.”

Unlike Ancel, Laurent doesn’t answer that with an accusation. He doesn’t answer at all, too busy taking a sip from his glass of alcohol-free cider or juice or whatever it is that he’s drinking. It smells faintly of pineapple.

“Lucien isn’t here,” Damen says suddenly. It’s so much easier to speak when he hyper focuses on one thing, like the splatter of freckles on Laurent’s ear. It’s easier to breathe, too. “Did he and Nicaise have a fight?”

“Lucien?”

Of course Damen got the name wrong. “The black-haired kid. With glasses.”

“Leandre,” Laurent says. “He’s in Vask for the weekend. His parents were attending an art function and didn’t want him to stay home alone.” Laurent pauses, watching Damen. It feels both horrible and wonderful to have Laurent’s attention on him, for once undivided. “To answer your question: yes, I did offer to watch him but his dad said no.”

“I didn’t—”

“You were thinking about it.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were,” Laurent says. “Leandre’s dad originally said yes because he thought you were still—” He clears his throat. “But he’s never met me, so he ended up canceling.”

“I met him?”

For once, Laurent doesn’t mock him for his question. “It was at that school play I couldn’t go to. The one Nicaise got that huge part in.”

The memory begins to thaw, and Damen laughs. It starts out as a little snort, but the moment he glances up and sees Laurent’s expression it’s impossible to keep in the laughter. “Huge part? He played a tree.”

“A talking tree,” Laurent says. “How many talking trees have you met, Damianos? I’d say it was pretty special.”

“Thibault. That’s Leandre’s dad.”

“So you can remember Thibault but not Leandre?”

“How many Thibaults have you met?” Damen says. “I’d say it’s a pretty special name.”

Laurent sips his drink. “Exceptional, really.”

A trigger goes off in Damen’s head, mechanical. He says, “Particular.”

“Distinct.”

“Noteworthy.”

“How—” Laurent cuts himself off, averts his eyes. It’s unprecedented enough to startle Damen. “How are things at the firm?”

“Good,” Damen says. He doesn’t think of Makedon as he says it. Then, just because: “You cut your hair.”

A shrug, nothing casual about it. “It was getting out of hand.”

I like it, Damen almost says.

When he comes back to reality—this reality where he doesn’t have Laurent anymore, where he’s not allowed to flirt with him, or fake-argue, or call him baby—it feels as though there’s an anvil on his chest, crushing him. He takes a single step back, still reeling from the feeling, and that one movement is enough to break the bubble they’ve been in for the last couple of minutes.

Laurent sets his glass on the table. Pineapple juice sloshes over the rim and drips down to the white tablecloth. “I should go help Aimeric set everything up.”

Do you need help? Damen swallows the words. That’s the sort of thing Maxime gets to say now, jokingly flirty, stealing a kiss while Laurent complains about him not helping at all. 

“I’m going to try and find a bathroom,” Damen says instead. 

They sidestep each other carefully, like two dancers who aren’t allowed to touch. Laurent disappears into the hallway, his voice loud enough that Damen can hear it from where he’s standing: Coming, Jord.

Damen stares at the half-empty glass left behind on the table. Without thinking, he reaches out and traces the stem with his thumb, feeling the warmth that Laurent’s fingers have left behind. 

He grabs another glass and pours it full of wine, uncaring that it’s improper to uncork a bottle as a guest at someone else’s party. He gloats about being able to drink wine, wants to call Laurent back and show him how much better life is now that he can have alcohol and opinions and all the things Laurent didn’t like about him. 

Baby, he thinks, four sips in. I never called him baby.

*

Jord comes out to the garden for a cigarette break after a while. He’s the only one of Laurent’s friends that smokes, which is not something Damen used to like about him. It’s hard, however, for Damen to dredge up his old disdain when Jord pats him on the back as he walks by. It's the first time anyone but Nicaise has come to talk to him.

“It’s good to see you,” Jord says, half-mumbled because of the cigarette dangling from his mouth. He’s careful about not blowing smoke near Damen’s face. “Nicaise was getting on everyone’s nerves before you agreed to come.”

Damen nods, his eyes easily finding Nicaise in the ever-growing crowd of people that’s gathered in the garden. Nicaise stands out, as usual. He’s taking a girl’s picture, laughing at something a tall boy is saying, wrinkles by his eyes.

Does Jord like Maxime? Maybe he’s the one that introduced him to Laurent. There’s no reason to think this is Maxime’s first time meeting any of Laurent’s friends. Maybe—

“All right, duty calls,” Jord says as he throws his cigarette butt on the grass and stomps on it. “Don’t tell Berenger I did that, by the way.”

“I won’t.”

“Thanks, man.”

Damen stays where he is, and tries not to look at Nicaise and his friends for too long, too often. He drinks, and waits for this to end.

*

The ballroom gradually fills with people Damen doesn’t know. He keeps to a corner, overly aware of how stupid he looks on his phone, pretending to text someone. There’s no one he wants to talk to, and apparently, no one wants to talk to him either, because not one single message has reached him in almost two hours. In his corner, leaning against the two-hundred-year wallpaper, Damen discreetly watches the party unfold.

The right section of the room is full of teenagers. Nicaise has never had many friends, but here there are at least twenty-something kids on their phones, laughing and shoving each other from time to time. Damen spends a long time staring at their clothes, trying to understand the new style. One of the girls is wearing a dress, one of the guys, a flannel shirt. None of them are dressed like Nicaise, and eventually, Damen stops staring. 

The left section is Laurent’s. For the first half an hour since this thing started, Damen was careful not to look in that direction. But there’s little else to do—he refuses to be the kind of guy that is caught playing Candy Crush in public—and so he finds himself glancing at the tight group of adults by the table. Ancel is all over Berenger, as usual, and Aimeric is sitting with Jord, both keeping their hands to each other and a considerable distance. That sight, although better than the one Damen probably makes, has Damen feeling something other than contempt. He knows that’s only the first stage of drifting apart from one’s partner, all the occasional touching gone and replaced by tense awkwardness. He’s always known Aimeric was hard to handle, and so it doesn’t surprise him that Jord has grown sick of him.

And then there’s Laurent. When he was with Damen, Laurent didn’t have a problem with being touched in public. He wasn’t like Ancel, who got looser and clingier three drinks in, but Damen remembers how he liked to sit on Damen’s leg, one arm around Damen’s neck while the other held a cup they could both drink out of. Now Laurent sits so close to Maxime they might as well be glued together, one of his thighs under Maxime’s hand. He smiles as the whole table laughs at something Maxime has said, and when he intertwines their fingers it doesn’t look forced or fake or awkward. 

Damen knows he should look away, knows he should mind his own business, but then Maxime is leaning to the side, pressing his bearded mouth to Laurent’s, and suddenly there’s nothing else in the whole world to look at but this: Laurent, flushed and happy, being kissed by someone who isn’t Damen.

Is that what they looked like? Were they happier? Damen can’t bear to think of the opposite explanation—that he and Laurent were, in fact, nowhere near as good as Laurent is with Maxime now—and so he doesn’t. He shoves the thought away, swallows enough times that the knot in his throat dissolves, goes back to staring at his overly refreshed Instagram feed. 

When the time comes to cut the cake, Damen leaves his lonely corner and slowly approaches the table Aimeric is setting the cupcakes and pastries and cake on. He’s alone, piercing Nicaise’s cake with colorful candles as he mutters under his breath. 

“Fuck off,” Aimeric says without turning. “I told you I don’t need—”

“I’m not Jord.”

Aimeric’s hold on the candles tightens. “What do you want? Because if you’re here to ask for a cupcake the answer is obviously no.”

Damen dithers, watching Aimeric’s hands as they prod and move things around until everything is perfectly set. “What flavor is the cake?”

“Seriously? It’s angel cake. You can tell just by looking at it.”

“Okay,” Damen says. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

“Then go away.”

Damen is about to do that when the sleeve of Aimeric’s sweater grazes a pastry and ends up covered in frosting. It’s a white smear that goes from wrist to elbow, and Damen doesn’t even think before reaching out to stop Aimeric from making an even bigger mess. 

Aimeric tugs his hand free a second too late, his sleeve rolling up enough to let Damen see the milky white skin underneath. It’s a flash, less than that, but Damen manages to catch a glimpse of the angry red lines that most positively should not be on Aimeric’s wrist. One of the cuts looks like a sleepy eye, struggling to open. 

Aimeric’s face is paler than usual. “Did you—”

“I,” Damen says. For a long second, he can’t get any words out, can’t think past the terror in Aimeric’s face.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Aimeric says, and he doesn’t sound scared anymore. He sounds like he’s considering stabbing Damen with the candles in his hand. “I mean it, asswipe. If you even think about telling Jord, I’ll—”

Ancel slides an arm over Aimeric’s shaking shoulders. He’s taller by more than a head and longer everywhere. Damen is momentarily distracted, wondering exactly how it works between Ancel and Berenger, what with Berenger being—

“Something wrong?” Ancel says, and it sounds sweet but Damen knows it’s not. “Do I need to kick you out, Damianos?”

Damen’s neck burns viciously. He’s not five years old, misbehaving in class. Why is he allowing Ancel to talk to him like this?

“No,” Aimeric says. “He was asking me about the cake, that’s all.”

Ancel is still looking at Damen like he’s waiting for a reason—an excuse—to kick his teeth in. 

Whatever, Damen thinks as he starts to make his way back to his corner. It’s not as though he wanted to talk to Aimeric in the first place, he just wanted to know if the cake cutting was going to take another two hours or not. Despite having promised that he would stay until the very end, Damen isn’t sure how much more of this he can take. 

Aimeric’s wrist refuses to leave his mind—it’s making him queasy, it’s making him want to stitch the wound closed himself—but Damen has had enough practice today with shoving unwanted thoughts away. He doesn’t even like Aimeric. He doesn’t have to—

Nicaise steps in front of him. “Are you leaving?”

“No,” Damen says slowly. He can feel everyone’s gaze on the two of them, especially Laurent’s. “Not yet.”

“Let’s cut the cake then.”

“I’m not leaving right now, Nicaise. You don’t have to rush—”

“Who said I’m doing it for you?” Nicaise gets on his tiptoes to get a better look at the table full of treats behind Damen’s back. “Maybe I’m just hungry.”

Joachim, who’s less than three steps away, snorts. “Dude, you just ate like three chicken sand—”

“Is that the sound of a little bitch I hear?” 

“If you’re talking about your own voice, then yeah,” Joachim says.

Damen’s temples throb. “Nicaise, seriously. It’s okay. I’ll just go outside and get some air. I was getting a bit claustrophobic, that’s all.”

“Don’t,” Nicaise says. The word slices through Damen, so sharp it leaves a real ache behind. Then, louder: “We’re cutting the cake, people.”

The process that follows is just as tedious to Damen as the rest of the party has been. It takes an eternity for everyone to get into place, for Aimeric to find a lighter and light every single fucking candle—there’s at least two dozen of them on the cake—and for Laurent to shove his phone into Ancel’s hands so Ancel can take pictures of the whole ordeal. 

Ancel knows how to work a camera, what with being in front of one all day.

Unconsciously, Damen has backed away from the large group of people surrounding the table. Nicaise stands alone behind the cake, a sight that feels both weird and wrong. Every birthday for almost four years, Damen and Laurent stood behind him as he blew out the candles. To Damen, it always felt strangely performative, ritualistic even, but Laurent would hear no complaints about it. He won’t say it, but he likes it. And maybe Laurent had been wrong, because right now Nicaise doesn’t look particularly sad that there’s no one hugging him as he bends over and blows the candles in one swift sigh. 

“Did you make a wish?” Ancel says. “Or did you forget? Because if you forgot we can totally—”

Aimeric shakes his head. “I’m not lighting twenty-six candles again, Ancel.”

Nicaise looks up from the cake, his blue eyes on Damen’s. You look like that squirrel from the Ice Age movie, Damen had told him once, after Nicaise had told him he looked like Dave the Barbarian. It’s true—Nicaise’s eyes are so big they make him look deranged when he opens them too wide. 

“I didn’t forget,” Nicaise says. 

Damen’s elbow brushes against something. “Sorry,” he says, pulling away. “I didn’t—”

It’s Maxime. He looks out of place now too, without Laurent to cling to. Laurent, Damen sees, is busy helping a woman cut the cake and distribute slices. 

“It’s okay,” Maxime says. He slides his hands into his pockets, the picture of idleness. “Cool party, huh?”

Damen doesn’t answer. He’s never wanted to punch someone so badly without any reason. He thinks he’ll let his elbow soak in bleach when he gets home.

Unaware, Maxime goes on, “It was supposed to rain this weekend, can you believe it? Not that a little rain would have ruined today's plans. This ballroom is—”

“Is there something you want?” Damen says. 

Maxime laughs. “I was just trying to make conversation, man. Sorry. It’s awkward for me too, you know?”

“I really don’t.”

“The friends are a bit intense,” Maxime says. He makes each word sound confidential, as though he and Damen have secrets to share. “Any tips?”

Damen thinks back on the scene from earlier: all of Laurent’s friends sitting with Maxime, laughing and talking and not batting an eye when Maxime kissed Laurent. “No,” he says. “Looks like you’ve got it covered.”

“The way Nicaise talks about you, I would have thought you were more…”

“More what?”

“Talkative,” Maxime says. “But I get it. It can’t be easy talking to the—hey, kid. Can I get a slice?”

Nicaise barely looks at Maxime. “No, this one’s for Damen. And I’m not a fucking kid.”

“I… thanks.” Damen awkwardly takes the plate from Nicaise. It’s not a plastic one, of course. Ancel would rather die than serve cake in anything but the best tableware. “It’s good,” he adds, even though he hasn’t tasted it yet.

Maxime pats Damen’s shoulder once, so suddenly Damen doesn’t even have time to react before Maxime’s hand is gone. “You got him that sweatshirt, right?”

“Shut up,” Nicaise says. He doesn’t look near as happy as he did ten minutes ago. 

“I’m just saying, Damen has good taste.” Maxime ruffles some of the sequins on Nicaise’s sleeve. “It’s a sick shirt, by the way. I’m not a big fan of that nail color though.”

Damen sees red, nothing but pure hatred in his head. If Maxime so much as says—

“I feel like pink would have looked better, but silver’s still nice. Right, kid?”

“I’m not a fucking kid,” Nicaise says, but he sounds a bit out of breath. There’s not as much hatred or intent behind his words, no sharp edges. Face flushed, he adds, “Fucking idiot.”

Maxime laughs. Again. “Okay. I’m going to get myself some cake then.” He hasn’t even taken five steps before he’s calling for Laurent, a loud baby that has Damen’s ears ringing.

“It’s angel cake.”

Damen looks at Nicaise. “What?”

“The cake,” Nicaise says. “You like this flavor.”

“Is that why you got it?”

Nicaise looks away. It was meant to be a joke, but now the more Damen thinks about it the easier it is to see that it’s true. There’s angel cake, Nicaise had said, standing outside of Berenger’s house at his last party. It’s only now that Damen realizes it was supposed to work as a bribe to go inside.

Ancel makes his way to them eventually and, without offering so much as a glance to Damen, whisks Nicaise away towards the pile of presents. Damen watches them go, holding onto his plate and the untouched slice of cake on it. The smell of it is making him sick—sickly sweet sugar, like a mouthful of honey—and so he leaves the plate on the table, grateful for once that he’s invisible to everyone around him. At least he won’t be scolded for this.

Nicaise picks up a yellow box and shakes it. Ancel tries to tell him not to, but Nicaise only shakes it harder, frowning in concentration. 

“That one’s mine,” Maxime says from somewhere, and Damen is honestly afraid to look up, afraid to lock eyes with Laurent while Laurent is tucked into Maxime’s side. “You’re lucky there’s not a puppy in there or it would be so dead by now.”

Nicaise ignores him. He sets down the unopened box and tries to go for another gift bag, but Ancel stops him, long fingers curled around Nicaise’s small wrist. There are whispers, words Damen can’t hear are exchanged between them before Nicaise finally tugs himself free and goes back to Maxime’s yellow box, tearing it open. 

“Oh,” Ancel says, loud enough that even Damen can hear him all the way from the back of the room. “Is that—I’ve been looking for that.”

Nicaise’s reply is wobbly, very unlike him. “Well, tough luck. This one’s mine. Arle’s makeup looks good on you though.”

Ancel’s face goes red as he half-whispers, half-yells that he’s never put anything on his face that didn’t come from either a man or an expensive brand. If Damen could breathe, he’d laugh.

Maxime’s gift is a makeup palette. It’s golden and it shimmers and gleams when Nicaise flips it over to read the back, to trace the brand’s name with his fingers. Nicaise cracks it open under Ancel’s jealous stare, his mouth pursed in the way that tells Damen he’s trying not to smile.

No one sees Damen leave. 

He slithers out of the ballroom and into the hallway, trying for doors as he looks for the bathroom, which he never quite managed to find earlier. His body is one big, clammy thing, sweating and out of breath. He can’t get air inside his lungs, no matter how many gulps of it he takes, no matter how stupid he knows he’s being. 

In the end, he never finds Berenger’s bathroom. What Damen finds instead is a closet, full of old and expensive fur coats that look—and smell—dusty and forgotten. The lightbulb is broken, but Damen doesn’t care. He steps inside and closes the door behind him, one of the coats tickling his forearm. 

He’s on the floor next, without a real transition. The door is hard and real against his back, and Damen pushes against it only to have the certainty that it’s still there, that it’s not going anywhere. He can’t breathe. He’s going to die here, surrounded by stranger’s clothes, in the darkness of a tiny closet. He’s going to die, and all he can think of is the look on Nicaise’s face when Maxime told him he liked his shirt. The look on Nicaise’s face when he realized he’d been gifted a—a—

Damen laughs against his closed fist. It’s a gross sound, sort of wet, but Damen can’t stop making it. I hurt him, he thinks, manically. He hurt Nicaise, and that’s why Laurent—

The flow of air going into his lungs has stopped. Over the rush of his own blood, which sounds like an angry river in his ears, Damen can barely hear his panicked breathing, the hitching, the choked-off sounds he’s making. They’re very high, the sort of sound a bird would let out as it falls off its nest and forgets it has wings. 

The rhyme, he thinks as he slumps forward. He needs to remember the rhyme, the thing Nicaise used to say when things got—when he got bad. She dreams of streams and petty schemes, she eats her cream and —and—

And then it is over, fresh air rushing into Damen like a blow. He doesn’t dare move, too scared that it’ll start up again, that an invisible hand will squeeze him empty. He stays there, on the floor, pressing his wet face to an old coat that smells faintly of naphthalene. The body that shivers and pants does not feel like his own, and yet it is. It is.

He doesn’t move for a long time, unsure of whether or not he should trust his legs to support him or his stomach not to empty itself. Time passes, and Damen can hear and feel the thrum of music through the wall, coming from the ballroom. It seems to rattle the very foundations of the house, making it tremble. He presses a sweaty hand to the wall, feeling the on-beat vibrations, trying to breathe in time with them. 

No one comes looking for him.

Chapter Text

Eight

“I haven’t been doing this right,” Damen says, which is not what he rehearsed earlier in the car.

Neo blinks. His new glasses give him an owlish appearance, one that doesn’t entirely suit him. He’s been quiet since Damen walked in, and Damen is genuinely grateful for his silence. Damen doesn’t think he could deal with small talk right now, with Neo being overly polite because he doesn’t want to scare Damen away. 

“All right,” Neo says. He doesn’t sound angry. “What do you mean by that? ‘Right’?”

Damen breathes in slowly through his nose, holds it. “I haven’t been trying. I…” The pause stretches. His lungs burn, and so Damen breathes out. “I wasn’t honest. When you asked me things, I thought I was telling you everything. But I wasn’t.”

“Okay.”

“I’d like to try again.”

Neo nods, encouragingly. “That’s good, Damen. A lot of people are too proud to come back here after they’ve had a bad experience, so I’m—”

“It wasn’t bad,” Damen says. “It was just… a lot.”

“Of all the things we talked about, which one was the hardest for you?”

Unlike all the other times Neo has asked him a question, Damen doesn’t say the first thing that comes to mind. He tries to absorb the words, tries to make sense of them. It wasn’t what he talked about that was hard, Damen realizes. It was what he had to hear. “I guess I didn’t want to see that I’ve fucked things up.”

“With Laurent?” 

“No,” Damen says, and it isn’t a lie. Laurent is his own category right now, in his head. A subgenre, an asterisk. “With Nicaise. Everything you said about him was true. I’ve hurt him. I...”

“You…?”

But Damen can’t get the words out. There’s that awful, familiar weight on his chest and the slow closing of his throat. It hurts a bit to breathe. 

“What made you come to this realization?” Neo says. His posture has changed, relaxed, and now his two hands are clasped over one of his kneecaps. “Last time you were here, you were adamant that you hadn’t done anything to harm Nicaise. So, what’s changed since then?”

“There was a party,” Damen says.

“Tell me about it.” 

The rest comes to him easily, perhaps because he’s been thinking about it all weekend, replaying it over and over in his head. He knows each scene and dialogue by heart.

And so he tells Neo about Maxime, about the presents, about Nicaise’s face. He even tells Neo about the closet, which he wasn’t planning to do. The clock ticks, and ticks, and Damen feels his throat grow drier and drier. He tells Neo about how he crawled out of there with the taste of vomit in his mouth, his hands shaking so badly he couldn’t drive even after half an hour of sitting in his car. 

When he’s run out of things to say, Damen takes a deep breath and slumps against his chair. It’s out, he thinks, feeling something like relief for the first time in days. 

“I’m going to ask you a few questions,” Neo says, “about the—about what happened in the closet. Is that okay?”

Questions. Damen can deal with that. “Yes.”

“You mentioned shortness of breath and excessive sweating. What about chest pain?”

“No. It was more like pressure, but there wasn’t any actual pain.”

“Muscle tension? Did you feel like you couldn’t move fluidly? Did anything ache?”

“I don’t think so,” Damen says. “I felt tired after, but not during. It’s… I can’t remember.”

Neo gives him a smile. “That’s okay. Let’s talk about the after for a moment. What did that feel like?”

“Like my blood pressure had dropped.”

“Dizzy, faint. Any nausea?”

Damen swallows. “Yes. All the time.”

The next ten minutes are spent in silence, which is strange. When Damen runs out of things to say, Neo always makes sure to keep asking questions, to give him things to think about. Now he’s just silent, writing on his notepad, his mouth curled in a bad way. Damen watches him and tries not to feel like he’s done something terribly wrong. He probably has.

Then, Neo says, “Do you know what an anxiety attack is, Damen?”

Damen does. He googled all the symptoms after Nicaise’s birthday party, thinking he had cancer in his lungs like his dad. He considers lying, playing dumb, because he knows it’ll buy him some time before Neo suggests the inevitable. 

“I do,” he says, and in the same breath, he adds, “but I don’t want—like, it’s not a real issue for me. It’s only happened once. I don’t need…”

“To talk about it?”

“No. We can talk about it, I just don’t want to take pills.”

Neo frowns. He leans forward slightly, as though to hear Damen better. “Pills? Where did you get that idea from?”

“I don’t want to see a psychiatrist.”

“That’s not the only treatment option.”

Damen blinks, relaxing his hands. His knuckles hurt, and the skin over them feels stretched to its limit. “Good.”

“You’re a very pragmatic person,” Neo says slowly. “I would have thought you’d be the type to take pills first and ask questions later. Is there any particular reason why you’re so against medication?”

“I don’t think it’s a long-term solution.”

“For you, or for everyone?”

“Laurent took pills,” Damen says, unprompted. Here he is again, talking about Laurent. Will it ever stop? “Takes, I suppose. It’s a fucked up cycle, and I don’t want—if you keep a healthy lifestyle, you don’t need—”

“Do you think if Laurent kept a healthy lifestyle, he wouldn’t have to take pills?”

Damen doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t think he’s allowed to say that isn’t fair when he himself brought it up in the first place. He hates that now Neo is probably thinking Damen is a weird, kale-loving hippie. 

“I’m not an anti-vaxxer,” Damen says.

Neo laughs. “What does that—”

“I’m not against medicine, all right? I think it’s great. I do annual checkups, I think people should be vaccinated. But I don’t want to be a fucking zombie, and I’ve seen what these pills do to people. I don’t want that.”

“And that’s very valid,” Neo says. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Damen. I won’t pretend to know what kind of pills Laurent is taking, but I’m sure his therapist and psychiatrist only have his best interest in mind. With medicine… Sometimes it takes us a while to figure out the perfect dosage, the perfect combination. Maybe what you witnessed with Laurent was—”

“Horrible?”

“—part of the adjustment period.” Neo puts the cap on his pen. “And horrible, yes.”

Except it hadn’t been horrible, Damen thinks. It had been worse than that. They’d been together for a while when Herode started prescribing Lexapro to Laurent, and although Damen didn’t think Laurent really needed to be medicated in the first place—what Laurent needed was to get a new friend group, a gym membership, and a couple of hobbies—he hadn’t said anything to Laurent about the pills. 

Those pills were supposed to make Laurent better, and yet all they did was make everything worse. Laurent would be up all night, then sleep during the day. He’d miss work, meetings, classes. He’d sleep through any alarm, any reminder, any school play of Nicaise’s. Damen would sometimes come home from the office to find the entire kitchen a mess of dirty bowls and flour-covered spoons because Laurent had baked and eaten three entire cakes that day. Other times, however, the kitchen would be deserted and smell faintly of bleach, not a single dish out of place. Laurent wouldn’t eat, and the food in their pantry and fridge would go bad, no matter how many times Damen reminded Laurent that human beings need, in fact, more than Gatorade to keep going. 

Laurent’s body changed as well, as fluctuating as his mood. He gained weight, then lost it. Then gained it all back. And with the weight came other things, which Damen had never particularly liked in a lover: long and deep purple marks in places where before there had only been taut skin, a shyness that prompted irritability, the insistence that clothes should stay on during sex.

There came long periods of time when Laurent did not want to have sex. He was always in bed by the time Damen came back from work, either asleep or pretending to be, and Damen learned quickly that it was best not to disturb him. If Damen tried to touch him, to hold him, Laurent would remove himself from their bedroom altogether.

Damen remembers every single time they fucked during those first two months—can count them on one hand, if that—not because the sex was particularly good or memorable, but because Laurent hadn’t gotten hard once.

And so Damen will gladly pass on the pills.

“What else is there?” he says. “Besides drugs.”

Neo shifts in his chair, pointing at the bookcase behind him, brimming with books and papers and funny-looking sculptures. “You got time?”

For the first time in days, Damen laughs. It comes out a bit stilted, but it’s a laugh nevertheless. 

“I think we should come up with a plan for you,” Neo says. “You like structure, right? Therapy can be very organized, very methodical. To tell you the truth, I usually introduce a treatment plan earlier on, but…”

But Damen made it too hard. I want this, he thinks. I need this. It doesn’t have to mean I’m sick. It doesn’t have to mean anything at all.

“It seems to me that these past few weeks, if not months, you’ve spent a lot of time inside your head,” Neo says. “What happened at Nicaise’s party is not very different from other situations you’ve told me about. It’s like you’ve become a spectator of your own life. Do you agree with that idea?”

Damen doesn’t know if he does. He nods anyway.

“All right,” Neo says, smiling. “Here’s what we could try: you make a list of people that you feel like you should have a conversation with, and—”

“What kind of conversation?”

“An honest one. Think of people whose attitudes and words may have impacted you negatively, then think of people whom you may have hurt, intentionally or not.”

“Right now?” Damen says. “Should I write—”

“If you want to, then yes. It’s more of a mental list, but we’ll definitely go over it together in the next sessions.”

“And what’s the point of this list?”

“The point,” Neo says, “is to make amends with those you wish to make amends with. To understand those you don’t understand. To apologize, but also to ask for apologies where they’re due. You’re not the villain here, Damen.”

Nicaise, Damen thinks instantly, ignoring everything else Neo has said. He needs to apologize to Nicaise. “I—okay. How should I do that? The apologizing part, not the rest.”

“I love your enthusiasm right now, but I think we should take things slow. You have until next week to really think of the people you want to include in your list. Use that time wisely, think of what things you want to tell them or ask them.” Neo stands, and Damen hates him a little for it. The session is clearly over. “You can email me the list any day you want, or you can bring it with you next Thursday. We’ll go over it then, okay?”

Today is Monday, not their usual day. Thursday feels a lifetime away, and the threat of tomorrow is too real, too close. 

“Nicaise comes over on Tuesdays. I…” Damen swallows, overly aware of how pathetically needy he sounds. “What should I…”

Neo doesn’t tell him to get out, doesn’t shove him out the door. He walks up to Damen’s chair and puts his hand on Damen’s shoulder. “I don’t think you’re ready to face Nicaise yet. Maybe it’s for the best if you cancel tomorrow’s visit.”

“I can’t cancel.”

“Do you feel ready to talk to Nicaise about what happened over the weekend?”

“No,” Damen says. “But he always comes over on Tuesdays. I can’t just—”

Neo gives his shoulder a squeeze. “You can, Damen. Take some time off. Tell Nicaise you’re not feeling your best, that you’ll see him next week. He’ll understand.”

Damen stands. His back feels sweaty, the same as his hands. He hasn’t stopped feeling damp since Saturday, two days ago. “Okay,” he says, more to himself than to Neo. “I can do that.”

*

Damen stares at his typed-out text for far too long before sending it. 

I’ll have a busy Tuesday. Tell Nicaise not to come over this week.

Dog is on the floor, sprawled so close to the couch that he gets a few accidental pets whenever Damen lets his arm dangle over the armrest. His fur, although short and not very thick, is very soft. A few minutes pass like that, as Damen stares at the ceiling and traces circles on Dog’s back with his fingertips. 

Nicaise will understand once Damen explains things to him. He’s been texting Damen since Saturday, non-stop, but every time Damen gets a notification from Nicaise something stops him from opening the messages. Damen wants to do this face to face; he owes Nicaise that much. And even if Damen did want to call Nicaise right now, what exactly would he say? 

Okay, Laurent texts back. He doesn’t ask Damen what he’s busy with, doesn’t scold him for blowing off Nicaise. Damen wishes he would.

Like this, with Dog licking his hand and the ceiling as scenery to look at, the names begin to come. Nicaise is one of the obvious options, the one Damen doesn’t even have to think about. And yet there are others—Makedon, Kastor, Ancel—that surprise him. 

Laurent should be on the list, too. Obviously. He’s the reason Damen keeps arguing with people he loves, the reason nothing seems to work out the way it’s supposed to. Laurent is the reason the list exists in the first place.

For the first time since Saturday, Damen thinks of Aimeric. Without the loud party chatter and Ancel’s evil stare distracting him, something like worry begins to unfold inside of Damen. Aimeric is annoying, entitled, and oftentimes stupid. There’s little he hasn’t completely fucked up in his life, and if Jord is truly done with him then that means there is no one who’ll notice that he has gone off the rails again. If that had been Nicaise’s wrist—

Damen turns on the TV. There’s a cooking show on Channel Ten, Vaskian cuisine, and he tries to pay attention to it until he catches himself staring too intently at the knife the cook is holding. Surely Aimeric hadn’t used a kitchen knife again. Surely— 

Nicaise, Damen thinks, trying to distract himself. Laurent. Makedon. Kastor. Ancel. Erasmus. Kallias. Jokaste? 

Eventually, the show moves on to pastries. There are no knives in sight, just flour-covered hands kneading yellow dough. He stops counting then, feeling too much like an overgrown, overstuffed version of Arya Stark. 

He now has a list, of sorts.

*

When Nikandros texts him on Wednesday to come out and have a drink after work, Damen doesn’t ignore him the way he’s been doing for the past month. He says yes, not even bothering to check if Pallas, Aktis, or Elon are going. This isn’t Nicaise, whom Damen owes one, if not several, apologies. This is Nikandros. They’ll work this out the way they’ve worked out everything else in life: quickly and without melodrama.

The moment Damen walks into the pub and finds Nikandros on the terrace, sitting alone, he wonders if maybe he should have forced Pallas to tag along. It’s stupid, the way Damen’s stomach tries to sink inside his body, because he’s known Nikandros since they were kids. Nikandros is his best friend, and a fight like the one they had—stupid, pointless, irrelevant—will not change that. 

Damen is grateful they’re doing this out in the open, where there’s fresh air and the option to walk away at any time. He can’t stomach the idea of Nikandros seeing him how he was in Berenger’s closet, panting and choking on nothing. Close to crying.

There’s an empty glass by Nikandros’ elbow. He has another one in his hand, half-full with honey-colored liquid. As Damen sits down, he subtly checks his watch and frowns when he sees he’s only ten minutes late. Has Nikandros downed a whole drink already, in under then minutes?

“Hey,” Damen says, because Nikandros won’t. He smiles, hoping it looks natural. “Are you drinking my beer?”

Nikandros takes another sip. “You don’t like blonde ale.”

“I don’t. It tastes like piss.”

“Didn’t know you’d had piss before,” Nikandros says, but neither laughs. The joke is stale, forced.

The silence turns awkward quickly. Damen looks away, pretending to study the chalkboard on the far end of the terrace where the menu has been scribbled on. Names like Grasshopper and Juicy Lucy make Damen frown, and if things were different he’d turn to Nikandros and make a joke out of them. But things are what they are, and Damen’s throat tightens painfully when he thinks of speaking up.

He’s about to go and order a Guinness when Nikandros’ foot bumps his under the table.

“What are we doing?” Nikandros says.

Damen frowns. “Having a beer after work. How much have you had to drink?”

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Nikandros says, and he sounds strangely bitter. “That was the last time I try to understand what you have going on with Laurent. I’m not interested in being your shrink. So if we could just move on—”

“I thought we had moved on.”

Nikandros rolls his eyes. He looks younger like this, flushed from his drink and with his work shirt unbuttoned. “Yeah, which is why you haven’t texted me back in fucking weeks.”

“I didn’t know you were my new girlfriend,” Damen says.

“Fuck you.”

Damen steals Nikandros’ beer from him and takes a sip. It’s not cold enough and definitely tastes like piss. “I’m not mad at you,” he says, even though he was. Maybe still is.

“Good to know.”

The thing about Nikandros is that Damen doesn’t know how to stay angry at him. It’s not effortless to ignore him, to not want him around. Nikandros is a good friend, always has been. He’s the first person Damen called when his father died, the first one Damen told about passing the Bar Exam. Nikandros has only ever wanted the best for him. 

“I get it,” Damen says slowly. He wants to get this right. “You don’t like Laurent, you never have. And I know you’re just looking out for me, but I’m—Nik, I’m almost thirty. I don’t need you doing that.” Damen slides the drink back to him. “Plus, it’s not what you think.”

Nikandros looks to the left, where the street below widens and the lights turn into small suns cluttering the sidewalks. “It’s not what I think,” he says, flatly. “Okay.”

“I don’t want to be with Laurent.”

“You don’t want to be with Laurent,” Nikandros says, “but you won’t stop seeing him or Nicaise. Help me understand.”

“It’s—”

Nikandros puts a hand up. “Actually, don’t. I don’t want to know, because the more I hear the more I feel like you don’t have a functioning brain.”

Damen decides to let the insult slip. “It’s not like I have dinner with them every week, dude. Besides, he’s dating someone else.”

“Is it serious?”

He calls Laurent ‘baby’. He’s met all of Laurent’s friends. He’s in Nicaise’s life. “I guess,” Damen says.

“I’m going to say something, and when I’m done I want us to not mention either of them again,” Nikandros says. “Especially Laurent.”

Damen stares at him. 

“If you look at the pros and cons of dating Laurent,” Nikandros goes on, “what do you get? Pros are that he’s hot and you’re comfortable with him. Too comfortable, maybe. Cons? Literally everything else, Damen.”

“That’s not true,” Damen says, even though he does not want to date Laurent again. He swallows, trying to check if his throat is still closing up, if he should abort this whole thing. “There are good things about him.”

“I’m not saying there aren’t good things about him as a person. I’m saying there are not many good things about him as your partner.”

“He’s not—”

“He’s mentally unstable,” Nikandros says, “and emotionally immature. You know that. He has a kid he has to raise, who by the way is not exactly what I’d call a perfectly normal teenager. I’ve seen and heard the way Laurent talks to you. Don’t you think you deserve better than someone who’s constantly belittling you? Calling you names?”

Damen presses his fists to his thighs, knuckles digging in. He’s about to tell Nikandros not to mention Nicaise, but what comes out instead is: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe you have some fucked up degradation kink that I never knew about, but I’m pretty sure it’s not fine to date someone that treats you like you’re shit they just stepped on.”

Damen thinks of Nicaise’s lockscreen, of Laurent’s mouth against his cheek. “He’s never treated me like that.”

“Let’s drop it then. Never talk about him again.”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“Perfect,” Damen says. And then, “He’s not mentally unstable. Just because he has to see a therapist, it doesn’t mean—”

“We said we were going to drop it,” Nikandros says.

“You can’t just make things up and expect me not to correct you.”

“Damen, you were the one that kept going on and on about his medication and fucking shrink appointments last year. Not me, you . So can you just be honest with yourself for once?”

Damen thinks about leaving. He sees himself standing up and making his way downstairs, exiting the pub and getting into his car, then driving away. He sees himself ignoring Nikandros’ texts tomorrow. He sees them not speaking for another month or so.

But then Damen also thinks about what Nikandros has said, about how it’s true. He should come to the gym with me, Damen had said last year, instead of just chugging down three pills a day. It can’t be healthy . And, Yoga could help. You know, the stuff Jokaste and her friends do. And, I wish he’d stop shit-talking me to his shrink. He’s so fucking crazy sometimes I —

“You’re right,” Damen says. “We should just drop it.”

Nikandros’ shoulders sag a little. Damen can’t tell if he’s relieved or exhausted, and he soon finds he doesn’t care to find out. Damen should have asked Pallas if he was going to come. He should have texted Nikandros back weeks ago, just to save them both from this.

Damen stands. “I’m going to get myself a drink. Do you want anything?”

Nikandros shakes his head, but as Damen moves away he hears the faintest of whispers, like a word coughed into a fist. A gun.

*

????

i see u online 

why arent u picking up?

hellooooooo

arent u supposed to b the adult here?

he said something to u didnt he

?

your gift was stupid

i want you to return it, that’s how stupid it is

damen?

and btw i was busy on tuesday too so it worked out fine

are you there?

damen?

fine. fuck you

*

Neo frowns. “Are you sure? You seemed pretty eager last session to start working on the list.”

“I haven’t finished it yet,” Damen says, which is true. “This is more important. It’s already been a few days since Saturday, and I... don’t know what to do.”

“All right. What do you think you should do?”

Call the cops. “I don’t know.”

Neo picks up his cup, takes a sip. He’s having tea today. “How well do you know him?” 

“He’s Laurent’s friend,” Damen says. “We’re not exactly close. Er, I don’t think he likes me very much.”

Neo does not point out the obvious, which is that none of Laurent’s friends like Damen very much. Or at all. “You don’t sound surprised though,” he says. “Did you already know he self-harmed?”

Damen tugs at his own sleeve, thinking of Aimeric, and Nicaise’s birthday party, and the tiny, cramped closet full of old furs. His palms feel sticky. “He tried to kill himself once, a few years back. I’d been dating Laurent for a while, so I went to the hospital with him. It was…” 

“It was...?”

“Quite an experience.”

Neo makes a sound. “Well, you’re clearly concerned for him. Do you want to try and help?”

It’s the right thing to do, Damen knows. If anything, he owes it to Jord to try and fix this. Out of all of Laurent’s friends, Jord was the only one who came up to him at the party, the only one that always treated Damen with respect. Even if Jord isn’t with Aimeric anymore, surely he still cares about him enough to not want Aimeric dead. And yet...

Laurent’s voice rings in his ears, so loud and clear for a second Damen thinks he might be in the room. You always have to have the moral high ground, because you’re nothing without it. Does it make you feel good, being the fucking savior? 

“I don’t want to overstep,” Damen says. 

“Can this be considered overstepping though?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you think Aimeric is a danger to himself or others,” Neo says, “then the only person that can get mad at you for overstepping is him. When I have a client that exhibits certain behaviors, sometimes I’m obliged to contact their families.”

“Or the looney bin.”

Neo doesn’t laugh. “This is up to you, Damen. Not all people who self-harm are suicidal, and not all people who end up committing suicide are self-harmers. The two aren’t always correlated.”

“Not always,” Damen says, “but often?”

“In my experience, yes.”

“I just don’t know—” Damen cuts himself off. He feels as though he’s been tiptoeing on thin ice since the looney bin comment. “Like, what kind of person does that? It’s not even a one-time thing, it’s…”

“A one-time thing?” 

Damen looks at the clock for help, but time doesn’t move any faster just because he wants it to. The session has just started, and the pile of minutes ahead is still too big. “He’s obviously not trying to kill himself. What’s the point then?”

“I don’t know,” Neo says, far too easily. “I don’t know him personally, and he’s not my client. You mentioned he and Laurent met at group therapy?”

“So what? Suddenly everyone who goes to therapy wants to cut their wrists?”

Neo shifts, leaning forward. It’s his scolding pose, the one he used when he was telling Damen all about how toxically masculine he is, how much he’s ruined Nicaise’s life just by being in it. “You seem defensive,” he says. “Why is that?”

“I’m not defensive,” Damen says, defensively. “I just don’t think you should compare Aimeric to Laurent. Aimeric’s way more fucked up.”

“I wasn’t comparing them. What makes Aimeric more…” Neo pauses, as if struggling with his words. “ Unstable than Laurent?”

“Laurent doesn’t cut himself like a maniac. He can hold down a job, he has a career. He went to college.”

“Do you think not going to college means one is mentally disturbed?”

“No,” Damen says. Suddenly, he can’t get the words out fast enough. “That’s not what I meant. I didn’t even mention the word disturbed.”

“What did you mean then?”

Damen licks dry lips. His whole mouth is dry, his throat is as well. It’s strange to think his body can produce so much sweat—his palms feel wet with it, dripping—but not enough saliva to allow him to speak. 

“All right,” Neo says when it’s clear Damen has nothing more to add. “Let’s go back to the beginning. We’ve established that Aimeric is struggling with something and that you feel somehow responsible for him because, so far, you’re the only one who knows about Aimeric’s situation. We’ve also established that you’re afraid you might be overstepping if you alert someone about what’s going on.”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t do anything.”

Damen blinks. “What?”

“If you don’t want to intervene,” Neo says, “then don’t.”

“I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”

“Fine. Intervene.”

Damen thinks of walking out again. “I don’t want—”

“To overstep,” Neo says. “This is turning into a circular conversation, Damen. You have two options, both with their own set of consequences. You can choose to act or not act, but no matter how much time we spend discussing Aimeric and the morality of sticking your nose into other people’s businesses, those two options will remain the same.”

There’s a part of Damen that wants to shrug this off of his shoulders, let it run its natural course. Aimeric has been a mess since the day Damen met him. It’s surprising, in a way, that he hasn’t managed to kill himself already.

Even as these thoughts swirl in his head, Damen knows he won’t stand by and ignore it. He can’t. He’s been thinking of Aimeric since Saturday, maybe even more frequently than he’s thought of Nicaise. It’s simply not right.

“I’ll find a way to talk to Jord,” Damen says, like an exhale of air. “Unless you have other suggestions?”

“If possible,” Neo says, “try to avoid suggesting they lock Aimeric up.”

“I wouldn’t—”

Neo looks down at his notes. “Looney bin, was it?”

Damen’s face burns. Thankfully, they only have four minutes left.

*

Nicaise picks at his food, stabbing and un-stabbing a piece of chicken with his fork. He hasn’t spoken a single word since he walked through the door three hours ago, but he hasn’t called Laurent to come pick him up either. Coming from Nicaise, that’s a victory.

Sitting down to eat at the living room table feels strange. Performative, even. Damen usually eats standing up in the middle of his kitchen, leaving crumbs all over the counters, or sprawled on the couch with the TV remote in hand. Now that he thinks about it, this is the first time since he moved in that he’s set the table properly. The last time Nicaise stayed for dinner, they were too busy going over his math homework to move from the coffee table to this one.

The stabbing of the chicken breast continues.  

After another minute of silence, Damen says, “I know you’re angry with me, but I don’t know why. So if you could tell me what’s been bothering you, we could talk about it instead of—”

“I’m ignoring you.”

“I can tell.”

“Does it annoy you?” Nicaise slices a pea in half, then smashes it with his fork. “It’s only been a few hours.”

Damen doesn’t snap. He doesn’t. “What do you think, Nicaise?” 

“Well,” Nicaise says, very calmly. "You ignored me for ten days and I didn’t whine about it like a little bitch.”

The hundreds of text messages in Damen’s phone prove otherwise, but Damen doesn’t mention them. It’d be a low blow, something that would most likely embarrass Nicaise into never texting Damen again. 

Having Nicaise around after almost two weeks of no contact feels both good and terrifying. Damen hasn’t talked to Neo about this, hasn’t planned for this. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say or how he’s supposed to say it. If it hadn’t been for Laurent’s text last night—Nicaise wants to know if he’s allowed to see you tomorrow—then Damen would have canceled again. Considering how things are going, maybe he should have.

“I wasn’t ignoring you,” Damen says, even though he was. Sort of. “I was working through some stuff. I asked Laurent to tell you that I wouldn’t be using my phone much. Did he not tell you?”

“He did.”

“Then why—”

Nicaise puts down his cutlery with a clatter. “Why did you leave my party like that?”

Suddenly, like a shiver going through him, Damen realizes he’s not ready to do this. He doesn’t know exactly when the invisible anvil crushing his chest made a reappearance, but now that it’s there Damen can’t focus on anything else. As discreetly as he can, Damen puts his hand over his sternum and presses down until the feeling begins to dissipate.

“You said you’d stay until we cut the cake,” Nicaise goes on. The words come out one after the other, like tiny knives, all recently honed. He sounds like he’s been practicing. “But you didn’t even have a fucking bite of it. You disappeared and then wouldn’t pick up your stupid phone, which is just—why do you have a phone if you’re not going to use it? What if my appendix ruptured and I was dying and I needed you to drive me to the ER and—”

“There were a lot of people at the party,” Damen says slowly. He focuses on his breathing, the way Neo told him to. In, out. Repeat. “I’m sure one of them would have driven you. Or called you an Uber.”

Nicaise is red in the face. “That’s not the point.”

“Okay. What’s the point then?”

“When I said you had to stay until we cut the cake, I didn’t mean you could literally disappear the second it was cut. That’s—you’re—it was fucking rude.”

Damen thinks back on it, how he’d crawled out of the closet so sweaty and exhausted he hadn’t even thought about anything else other than getting to his car and being away from that place. He wonders for the first time what his sudden and unexplained absence must have meant to Nicaise. 

To Laurent.

“You couldn’t wait to leave, could you?” Nicaise says. “Whatever. I don’t care. Nobody noticed you were gone because nobody cared that you were there in the first place. So.”

You certainly did, Damen thinks, and yet the knowledge that Nicaise wanted him at the party isn’t enough to keep the words from stinging. Nicaise is right. Other than him, no one wanted Damen to be there. Damen himself didn’t want to be there. 

“Something came up,” Damen says. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“Okay.”

Nicaise picks up his fork and starts stabbing his chicken again. “So now I’m ignoring you.”

“Because I left your party without saying goodbye,” Damen says. “Is that it?”

“No,” Nicaise says, exasperated. The base of his throat is blushed, a rash forming around it. “Because you’ve been ignoring me.”

Damen’s compassion for Laurent grows exponentially. He doesn’t know how Laurent does this, every single day, and doesn’t have to ask for time off of work due to his brain melting inside his skull. Dealing with Nicaise’s outbursts was easier when he was younger, partly because all Damen had to do back then was take away his TV privileges, and partly because Laurent was always there to fix whatever needed fixing. 

Whenever Nicaise and Laurent argued, Damen would stay quiet, would try to let the two of them work it out on their own. Sometimes they did, and sometimes Damen had to step between them, sending Nicaise to his room and dragging Laurent into theirs. Nicaise, when provoked, was even crueler than Laurent. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t text back,” Damen says. It’s the closest thing to the real apology he can do right now.

Nicaise’s mouth twists at his words, an unhappy pinch to it. He doesn’t reply.

Damen tries again. “It was rude of me.”

“Yes, it fucking was.”

There’s nothing Damen can say to that, and so he stays quiet. The food on his plate has gone cold already, and even if it hadn’t Damen can’t think of any universe in which he’d want to eat it. Frustration has been simmering inside him all night, from the moment he laid out the ingredients to now, with the finished product already on the table. How hard can it be to get chicken breast to taste the way it used to at his father’s house? 

Damen remembers those Sunday roasts, the table crammed with perfectly polished plates, unlit candles at the center of it all. He remembers how fish always tasted like lemons and salt and the most subtle of herbs. He remembers the chicken Chryses used to cook, how the meat would practically melt away from the bone with a simple nudge of his fork. It tasted sweeter than honey.

When he looks up, he finds that Nicaise is already staring at him. “Also,” Nicaise says, “I failed my test.”

“What?”

“The math test. I failed it.”

Damen frowns. Maybe he ought to say something encouraging, shrug the whole thing off with an inspirational quote. “What did you get?” he says instead.

“A zero percent,” Nicaise says. “Which I think is unfair. I wrote my name, no spelling errors, and that should count for something.”

“But you knew how to solve the problems. We went over all the material.”

“I got confused.”

“Nicaise,” Damen says. A fucking zero. Laurent won’t like that. “That’s… You did okay when we practiced.”

“I just told you I got confused.”

“Confused with what?”

“I don’t know,” Nicaise says. “Maybe you’re just a shitty teacher.”

“Maybe that’s because I’m not an actual teacher?” Damen says, snappy and tired. The way Nicaise straightens at his tone has him struggling to get a full breath in. “Laurent needs to find you a real tutor, because clearly I’m not qualified. I really thought you got it.”

Nicaise’s eyes flicker down to his plate. “Whatever.”

“It’s not whatever. You need to pass this class unless you want to be stuck going to school over the—”

“You just said all I need to do is get a tutor,” Nicaise says loudly. Now the tips of his ears red, too. “What do you want me to do? Go back in time and re-take the stupid test? I can’t, so there’s no use in berating me about it.”

Berating. That’s one of Laurent’s words. “I’m not berating you. I’m trying to understand what happened.”

“Nothing happened. It was a hard test, all right?”

“No, it wasn’t.” Damen tries to keep his voice in check. “Not for you, anyways. You passed all the mock tests, Nicaise. Obviously, something happened.”

Nicaise pushes his plate away. He’s barely eaten anything, and he refused the snacks Damen offered him when he got home from school. The sight of him looking to the side, ignoring the meal before him, has Damen’s stomach clenching and unclenching, every argument they’ve ever had around dinner time coming back to him as if lured. It’s too salty, Nicaise would say. And then, It’s too hot. I don’t like the texture. I want scallops. I want cake. It’s too slimy. I liked it better at home.

Laurent usually gave him fifteen minutes to whine about it before he sent Nicaise to his room without dinner.

Damen swallows. He doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to hear the answer if it’s going to be bad, but he can’t not ask. “Is everything okay at school?”

Nicaise nods once. It isn’t exactly relieving.

“If something’s wrong with—” 

“I’m going home,” Nicaise says, pushing his chair away from the table. It makes a horrible sound, like a screech. When Damen tries to stand, Nicaise adds, “Don’t. I’ll call him to pick me up.”

The phone call lasts less than three minutes. Nicaise talks to Laurent in tight, dismissive sentences while he pretends Damen doesn’t exist. Laurent’s voice is but a soft hum, far too low for Damen to make out the words or be able to tell what his tone is. Is Laurent annoyed that Nicaise interrupted him? Is he considering never allowing Nicaise to set foot in this house again? Is he angry at Damen?

Damen discards that last thought. It’s not like Laurent needs an excuse to be mad at him.

Nicaise leaves the table and heads for the couch, shoving things inside his bag as he goes—his water bottle, his History textbook, his keys—and Damen can only watch him, thinking back on the closet at Berenger’s house, on how horrible it is to be left alone.

“Nicaise,” Damen says, and doesn’t go on until Nicaise has stopped putting his things away. “We need to talk.”

“He’ll be here in fifteen.”

“Then we’ll talk for fifteen minutes.” 

The walk to the couch where Nicaise is waiting feels too much like a walk of shame. This isn’t what Damen wanted. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

“I don’t have all day,” Nicaise half-says, half-snaps. 

There is no way Damen can explain himself in fifteen minutes.

“I know I’m not…” Damen stops, closes his mouth, opens it again. Nothing comes out for a long time. Finally, “It’s not the test I care about. I’m trying to understand why you’re acting like this, but I’m not Laurent.” He flushes, suddenly, at his own confession. “I need you to tell me things directly, or else I just…”

Silence settles over them both, heavy and sad. Damen wishes Laurent would get here already. If Nicaise is simply going to let him soak in this shame, then Damen would rather do so by himself.

Dog comes stumbling down the stairs, clearly up from his nap. He stumbles on the last steps and ends up falling face-first onto the ground, his short tail spasming. The fall doesn’t faze him, and he barks happily as he goes to Nicaise first, licking his exposed ankles. For once, Damen is happy to see him. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Nicaise says. For a second, Damen thinks he’s talking to Dog. “You’ll have Tuesdays free from now on, so… Make sure to walk him or something. You’re, like, the worst dog owner.”

“Are you not coming over next week?” Damen says, and hates how tight his chest feels. The anvil’s back, and this time Damen doesn’t have the patience to breathe in, to rub himself free of its weight.

“Obviously not. You said I need a real tutor.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t still come here and hang out. With me.”

Nicaise stops petting Dog with his foot to look at Damen. “What?”

Damen rubs the back of his neck, the spot already too warm. “If you want to, you can still come here after school and do your homework. And play—” He looks over to the black screen, unmercifully turned off. He tries to remember the name of the game. “The Sin.”

“The Sims,” Nicaise says. 

“That. Only if you want to.”

Nicaise tilts his head. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you didn’t want—” Nicaise cuts himself off. He goes back to ignoring Damen’s eyes in favor of giving Dog some belly rubs. “Yeah, I guess I can do that. We can walk Dog together around your fancy neighborhood, just to make sure you’re doing it right.”

“To make sure I’m doing it right.”

“Yes. You walk very fast and Dog has short legs. Did you know corgis have heart problems? You’d probably give him a heart attack and not notice.”

Damen smiles. The corners of his mouth feel wobbly, like something that might drop if he’s not careful. “I think I’d notice if my dog had a heart attack, Nicaise. Give me some credit.”

“What do the symptoms of a heart attack look like on a dog?”

“Er.”

“Exactly,” Nicaise says, crouching down so the petting comes easier. “Hear that, Dog? No walks until I’m back. If he tries to give you heart failure, bite him.”

“I don’t think he understands—”

“Bite him hard, Dog.”

I’m sorry, Damen wants to say. He wants to say it so badly he almost chokes trying to force the words back down. I liked your nails at the party. I like your hair long. He holds his breath until he thinks his lungs might burst, and then lets it out. I’m so sorry.

Nicaise’s phone goes off. He frowns at it for a second like he’s forgotten that he called Laurent minutes ago to come pick him up. If he regrets his decision, he doesn’t show it, accepting the call and slinging his bag over his shoulder at the same time.

“Yeah, I’m coming out. No.” A pause. Damen can hear Laurent talking on the other end, his replies always longer than Nicaise’s. “Maybe. It’s pretty late. Okay. Bye.”

“Do you want me to walk you to the car?”

Nicaise shakes his head, curls bouncing wildly. “He’s in a bad mood.”

“Because you called him?”

“Because he thinks you were being an asshole,” Nicaise says, and offers Damen a shrug. “Which you sort of were, by the way.”

“I,” Damen pauses. It’s not the right time. “Text me when you get into the car. And tell him I need— want to talk to him about something.”

Nicaise’s face undergoes a comical transformation. “You want to talk to him?”

“Yes.”

“About what?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Damen says, already moving towards the front door. “Come on, don’t keep him waiting.”

Speechless for once, Nicaise does as he’s told. He stops on Damen’s front steps, looking for Laurent’s car, and once he spots it he turns around to give Damen one long, analyzing look. And then he’s trotting off.

Damen stands in his doorway for a long time, watching Laurent’s car not move. The windows are tinted and up, so there’s nothing to see. Then, without much warning, Laurent drives away.

*

The next morning, as he’s reviewing the contract Kastor wrote for Pharmaka, Damen gets a text.

32 rue Coubertin at six tomorrow. Don’t be late.

It’s not exactly what Damen was expecting. He had thought Laurent wouldn’t want to talk in person without knowing exactly what Damen wants. He had also thought Laurent would use their last interaction before Nicaise’s birthday against him, something along the lines ‘This whole thing could have been a text, too. No need to get Nicaise involved’.

Maybe this is something about Laurent that has also changed. Maybe Maxime is making him want to be less petty, less vindictive. Baby, Maxime would say, don’t be like that. And Laurent would listen.

There are wrinkles forming on the left margin of the contract, right where Damen’s fingers are holding it too tightly. He lets go of it at once, not wanting Kastor to bitch at him for being anything short of prissy.

I’m never late, Damen texts back.

*

The café Laurent picked out isn’t Le Quai, which is where they used to go whenever they wanted to talk without Nicaise breathing down their necks. This café is smaller, more minimalist than cozy, and as soon as he walks in Damen knows Laurent chose this place because it looks like the sort of shop one would hold a work meeting at. There are no couples in the booths, no silly art on the walls, no loud teenagers throwing food at each other.

Le Quai has all of Damen’s favorite things—those perfectly roasted coffee beans from Colombia and Ecuador, the comfortable chairs, the cinnamon rolls with the perfect amount of sugar—but he supposes this will have to do. It would feel weird, desecrating even, to go to Le Quai with Laurent again. 

It’s better, Damen’s learned, to leave warm memories untouched. Or else one risks ruining them completely.

Despite Damen being ten minutes early, Laurent is already seated when Damen walks through the door. He’s got his reading glasses on his head and a journal on the table, which he keeps tapping with his pen. It isn’t fair, Damen thinks, that a person can look as effortlessly good as Laurent does. He doesn’t go to the gym, he doesn’t diet, he doesn’t even spend half the money Ancel spends on things like skincare and face creams. And yet he’s hard to look away from. Maybe things would be easier if he was hideous. For Damen, at least.

Damen pulls back the empty chair at Laurent’s table. “Hello,” he says, stiff. He doesn’t know where to look, all of the sudden, and so he focuses on finding a waitress. “Have you already—”

“Here’s yours,” Laurent says. “Unless you don’t drink it like this anymore.”

Damen stares at the steaming cup of coffee, the perfect blend of black and brown. It smells like hazelnut. “I—yeah. I do. Thank you.”

Laurent takes a sip from his cup, which doesn’t look nearly as warm or as full as Damen’s. It is like something out of a dream, their combined presence in this small shop, and Damen finds himself not quite struggling to breathe, but definitely out of breath.

“So? What are we doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Damen says slowly, “about something that happened at Nicaise’s party.”

Laurent carefully rolls up the sleeves of his sweater, which is black this time. “If it’s about the smoking thing, I’ve got it handled.”

“What smoking thing?”

“Nothing. You were saying?”

Damen frowns. He knows he should stick to the original plan here—which is to tell Laurent what he saw and maybe, just maybe, be an adult and ask Laurent how he’s been—but it’s hard to be rational when he’s worried. “Is Nicaise smoking?”

“No,” Laurent says. He pushes a lock of hair behind his ear. It’s even shorter than it was at the party, the ends of it sharper, messier. “That’s not what we’re here to discuss, is it?”

“When did he start?”

Laurent rolls his eyes. “When do you think?”

That question isn’t helpful, and so Damen ignores it altogether. “He didn’t smell like cigarettes when he came to my house.”

“That solves it then,” Laurent says, dryly. “Congratulations. If you don’t notice something, it simply isn’t happening.”

“Why are you letting him—”

“I’m not letting him do anything. As I said, I have it handled.”

Damen decidedly does not think about his father’s study, how the smoke would rise in tight curls until it reached the ceiling, and then disappear. He also does not think about his father at the hospital, breathing through a mask.

“You’re right,” Damen says, soaking up the flicker of surprise on Laurent’s face. D-2, L-0. “We’re not here to talk about Nicaise. I’m here because… Well, it’s Aimeric.”

Laurent just stares. 

“We talked at Berenger’s,” Damen goes on. “He didn’t look fine.”

“How kind of you to be concerned.”

“I—”

“I’m sure Jord has it under control,” Laurent says. “Is that all you had to say or is there more to this exciting tale?”

It doesn’t hurt, exactly, to be dismissed like this. Damen is used to Laurent’s disinterest, to Laurent’s condescension. Like with Kastor, it isn’t even disappointing because nothing was expected.

Damen says, “He’s been cutting himself.”

The change in Laurent is apparent, although subdued. Damen wonders, briefly, if Maxime would be able to spot it. 

“He bent over the cake,” Damen says, “and his sweater rod up. He’s got—I mean I knew he had scars, but these weren’t—”

“Does he know you know?”

Damen blinks. “What?”

“Did Aimeric see you looking? Does he know that you know he’s cutting?”

“Yes.”

Laurent leans back on his chair. For a moment, he doesn’t move at all, not even blinking. And then, “Start from the beginning. What did he tell you?”

“Nothing. He just told me not to tell Jord, then Ancel showed up and—we all went our separate ways.”

“Did he have bandages? Stitches?”

“No,” Damen says. He feels a wave of nausea when he thinks of the angry lines, deep and spiteful, crisscrossing Aimeric’s wrist. “He wasn’t bleeding, but they looked…”

“Fresh.”

Damen nods. 

They’re both silent for a long time after that. Damen doesn’t know what to say, and Laurent is too busy staring at the table with a furrowed brow to notice things have turned painfully awkward between them. It feels good, however, to finally get this off his chest, to not be the only one carrying this secret around. Now it’s someone else’s problem.

“Why are you doing this?” 

Damen’s response is automatic: “Because it’s fucked up.” 

“Yes,” Laurent says, “but he’s Aimeric.” 

That’s what Damen tried to tell himself days ago—it’s Aimeric, there’s nothing to be done, he’s doing this for attention—and yet hearing the words from Laurent makes him feel sick. He remembers Aimeric’s pasty face all those years ago in the hospital, how sullen and upset he’d seemed despite having all his friends gathered around his bed. His parents had not shown up, had not even sent him flowers. Damen remembers his own thoughts, clear as water: He won’t be happy until the entire world is rushing to him, babying him. And now the thoughts shift, melting into something new. How can a parent care so little?

“So what?” Damen says. He breathes in through his mouth. “Should I not have said anything? He’s annoying, but it doesn’t mean I want him dead.” 

“Right.” 

“Is that so hard to believe?” 

Laurent sips his coffee. “I don’t know, Damianos.” 

It’s a blow. Damen can’t decide if it’s a low one or not, if he deserves it or not, if Laurent is being cruel or just honest. Neo isn’t here to tell him the difference. He slumps back in his chair, the way Laurent did just moments ago. “What are you going to do?” 

“I’ll talk to Jord,” Laurent says, slowly, like the plan is forming in his head as he speaks, “schedule an intervention or… He’s an adult.” 

“Barely.” 

“He won’t be committed anywhere unless he attempts again. There’s no use in pretending otherwise.” Laurent tears at his wrinkled paper napkin, ripping a corner off. 

Damen focuses on how warm his cup is, how different from the ones at Le Quai. He doesn’t know what to say. Again. If it were possible, he’d like to drain himself of this feeling, to stuff into a vial of sorts. He’d show it to Nikandros to prove how being around Laurent truly makes him feel, how he doesn’t want it back.

“You know,” Laurent says, suddenly, as if the conversation never stopped, “when Nicaise told me you wanted to talk I thought…”

Damen’s hand turns into a fist under the table, where no one can see it. “You thought?”

“That you wanted to talk about Nicaise.” 

“Do we need to talk about him?” 

Laurent gives him a long look. 

“Use your words, Laurent,” Damen snaps. 

“You know he’s been failing on purpose.” 

“He’s what?”

“His math test,” Laurent says. “It was on purpose.”

I got confused, Nicaise had said. 

“Why would he do that?”

Laurent looks away. “He’s going through a bit of a phase at the moment.”

“A phase.” 

“He’s not listening to me.” 

Damen snorts without thinking. “Has he ever?”

“No,” Laurent says. The word comes out slowly. “It’s different now.”

Damen doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s never been the best at handling Nicaise’s tantrums, has never been the one Nicaise’s therapist wanted to talk to, has never read books on raising children the way Laurent has. Maybe he should have. Maybe Damen’s problem is that he’s never tried hard enough at anything.

Maybe this is another thing he should apologize for.

“He’s a teenager,” Damen ends up saying, because there’s little that doesn’t fall under the umbrella of teen angst. “He’ll come around. I’ll have a talk with him about the test if you want me to. I had no idea he was doing it on purpose.”

“He won’t be doing it again.” There’s Laurent’s wry smile, small and without teeth. The sight makes Damen ache for the real thing: Laurent’s open-mouthed cackles, his face smeared with blush. “He’s got what he wanted from you already.”

The man eating alone three tables away from them twists to get something from his bag and accidentally knocks over his coffee. Steam rises from the floor as a waitress smiles reassurances, throwing a damp rag on the whole brown mess. Damen wishes, childishly, that every fifteen minutes someone would spill something on the floor, or break a plate, or burst into tears. It’d give him a spectacle. A thing to focus on instead of Laurent.

“I don’t know what he wants,” Damen says. Then, lamely, “I went to his party.”

Laurent rips off another corner of his napkin. 

“Maybe there’s something going on at school.”

“It’s not that, Damianos.”

“He’s mentioned…” Damen clears his throat, a necessary pause. Will this make him sound like an asshole? “He doesn’t seem to like Maxime much.”

Surprisingly, Laurent doesn’t reply the moment Damen’s mouth closes. They used to play this silly game sometimes—when they were both too tired to watch a movie or talk about their days, lying in bed or on the couch—and they would try to say the same word at the same time. Damen had always thought it was stupid and excessively hard, unlike other games they played. It’s always been easier to find an obscure synonym than try to understand how Laurent’s mind works.

The Maxime comment was, evidently, too much. Laurent is probably so furious he doesn’t know what to say, a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

Damen starts, “I didn’t mean—”

“I think that given the chance to choose who he wanted to live with,” Laurent says, calmly, “he wouldn’t have picked me.” 

The confession feels almost too personal, too honest, for what they’ve become. What lurks on the edges of Laurent’s words is somehow worse, the reality that they each have their own lives, their own routines, their own homes. 

“Laurent,” he says, and hates how quiet the name comes out.

“It’s true.” 

“It’s not.” 

“Doesn’t matter anyway.” A third corner of the napkin gets torn off. “He’s stuck with me, at least until he turns eighteen.” 

“I’ll talk to him.” 

Laurent’s wry smile returns. “Man to man?” 

“Don’t do that.” 

“What? Speak honestly?”

Don't play games. Damen says, “So he failed on purpose to spite you. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Do you really not know?”

Irritation swells in Damen, hot and demanding of attention. “Obviously not. I wouldn’t be asking you if I did.”

“He failed,” Laurent says, “so you wouldn’t stop tutoring him. He wants to keep seeing you.”

“I,” Damen starts, and pauses upon finding he has nothing to say to that. Laurent’s comment plucks out a laugh from him. “That doesn’t make any sense. We went through months of no contact. Why would he care about that now?”

“Ah, yes. But he thought—I believe he was hoping it was just a hurdle.” 

“A hurdle?” 

Laurent traces the University logo on his pen with his thumb. “He was under the impression that we would work things out on our own.” 

“Oh.” 

“And then, when he realized we wouldn’t, he contacted you behind my back. Which brings us here.” 

Here—at this weird coffee shop Damen’s never been to before and doesn’t particularly like, sitting across from Laurent for the first time without holding his hand or bumping their knees together under the table. Damen hadn’t expected it to feel so weird, and yet it does. His hand twitches, his muscle memory as treacherous as always. I could hold his hand, he thinks, and then wants to laugh. Of course he can’t.

He doesn’t want to.

Laurent sips his coffee, his throat moving as he swallows. When he sets the cup down, Damen can’t help but stare intently at it as if mentally willing it to refill itself, to help him stretch out this moment. There will be no next time after this. And what if it’s not enough? What if Nicaise goes on smoking and Aimeric kills himself and Damen—

“I told him we could keep seeing each other,” Damen says. “I should have asked you first but…” I didn’t want you to say no. “Is that okay with you?”

“Does it matter? You’ve already told him he could.”

“What does Agnes think?”

Laurent stops moving. 

“I mean, he’s probably talked to his therapist about it,” Damen says, awkwardly. “If seeing me so often is causing problems, we could cut back to twice a month. But I’m not an expert in... attachment issues.” Or in Nicaise issues. Or in issues in general.

“Let’s keep it weekly,” Laurent says. He’s yet to move or blink. “Unless you’d rather…”

“Weekly is fine.”

“Good.”

“Okay.”

“Fantastic.”

“Marvelous,” Damen says, glad they’re not doing this via text. He’s never been the best at spelling. 

Laurent is opening his mouth—most likely to say a four-syllable synonym for good—when his phone starts buzzing on the table. The screen lights up, and Damen looks at it before he remembers why it’s a bad idea to do so. 

Max is calling. Damen is pathetically relieved. At least it’s not baby.

“Hey,” Laurent says, the phone already pressed to his ear. The volume’s too low for Damen to hear anything, and even if it weren’t the coffee shop has been steadily growing louder and louder, a group of four women laughing surreptitiously two tables away. “Yes, it’s been a—oh, all right.” A pause follows. Damen watches Laurent’s right cheek sink. “Can you tell him to text me which friend? And the address.”

Damen takes one last sip of his coffee. It’s already gone cold and tastes vaguely of plastic. If they’re ever forced to interact again, which Damen sincerely hopes does not happen, he won’t let Laurent pick the location. This is the worst coffee Damen has ever had, even worse than the shit-tasting black liquid Aimeric serves at Pêche.

When he puts the cup down he realizes Laurent’s already ended the call and is looking at him rather intently, the way one would if one wanted the other person to ask for the tab. 

Damen starts, “Should I ask for the—”

“I paid for it already,” Laurent says. Evidently, time has slipped from Damen again; the table between them is missing both Laurent’s notebook and pen. “It was…” Here Laurent hesitates, which makes Damen nervous. Laurent doesn’t usually trail off. What follows then is a stiff, half-rehearsed sentence: “I’m thankful you told me about Aimeric.”

“You’re welcome.”

They stare at each other for a moment, both of them pretending not to notice the other is doing it. Damen hates Laurent’s sweater, wishes it was warmer this time of the year so Laurent would have shown up wearing a sleeveless shirt, something that would have let Damen get a glimpse of his new tattoo. They would have talked about it. Laurent would have told him the story behind the whole thing, Damen would have told him about Kastor’s punk phase in high school. They’ve never talked about that, Damen realizes. 

There’s so much they haven’t said to each other.

“—go,” Laurent is saying. He’s on his feet, by the table. “I still have things to do at home.”

Damen doesn’t get up, doesn’t think he has the strength to. “Okay,” he says, dumbly. “Call me if you need anything. Regarding Aimeric, I mean.”

“Jord probably will.”

“Okay.”

Laurent goes to take his first step, and stops. “I’d rather you didn’t tell Nicaise about this.”

This. 

“Of course,” Damen says, and for once he thinks he knows why. “Wouldn’t want to give him the wrong impression.”

To that, Laurent says nothing. He’s there one second, standing by the crooked, too-small table, and the next he’s making his way across the shop and outside, the door closing the second Laurent lets go of it.

Damen stays in his chair for a long time. He keeps looking at Laurent’s discarded napkin, cornerless. The thought of taking it home with him brings on a shame so big Damen physically recoils from it, forcing himself to leave as well.

Chapter Text

Nine

Marianne’s mother dies on Saturday. It’s inconvenient, and awkward, and forces Damen to cancel his gym session with Aktis because he now has a funeral to attend on Monday after work. 

“You don’t have to come,” Kastor says, drinking his second coffee of the day. 

Kastor’s office isn’t as tidy as Damen’s, but its chaos doesn’t seem accidental. It looks thoroughly lived in, like a room one would come in to relax and avoid work. There are pictures on the walls and the desk, a lemon-scented candle by the door. The setup makes Damen think, strangely, of Kastor’s bedroom in their father’s house. It was the smallest one on the second floor, and it didn’t have an ensuite bathroom or a balcony like Damen’s. Kastor always left clothes on the floor, crumpled under the bed, stuffed messily into closets and drawers. They’re marinating, he’d said whenever the housekeeper told him off for it. He hadn’t liked candles or pictures back then.  

Maybe marriage does change people.

“She’s your secretary,” Damen says. He tries to keep still in Kastor’s annoyingly comfortable chair. “It’d be weird of me not to go. Besides, you’re going.”

Kastor shrugs. He’s so unbothered by this sudden tragedy that Damen begins to think he simply didn’t have any plans today. This idea dredges up an old, unasked question in Damen: what does Kastor do when he’s not in the office? It’s like an echo from a different time, the sort of thing he might have asked his dad over dinner as a child. What does Kas do when he’s not here? Then comes his father’s reply—He’s with his mom, Damianos—and his own budding, childish curiosity at the whole matter. A mom.

“It’ll be quick,” Kastor says. Another sip of coffee, longer this time. “Did you buy her flowers?”

Damen stares at him. “No.”

“Good. I heard she’s allergic.”

“She’s dead. What does it matter if she was allergic or not?”

“I meant Marianne,” Kastor says. He laughs, hard, as Damen’s face burns. “Fucking idiot.”

As it turns out, Damen doesn’t have to do anything but drive to the location Kastor texted him. Kastor has everything else under control: the synthetic bouquet of flowers, the card with condolences signed by everyone at the office, the not so discreet offer to give her some money should Marianne need it to pay for the funeral bills. And so Damen relaxes.

The funeral home stands between a yogurt shop and a pharmacy. Its front is sober, its sign under construction. Damen frowns as he stares at it from the car, the letters barely hidden by a white plastic sheet. The lobby is empty, and so Damen simply walks in, pretending to know where he’s going. Down a long corridor, there are two rooms open to the public: one where the coffin is in, which Damen promptly stays away from, and another one where cheap-smelling coffee and humble-looking pastries have been laid out on a table. There are a few plastic plates with cut-up fruit on them, pineapples and grapes. Each piece has been stabbed with a little flag made out of Dole stickers.

It takes Damen an embarrassingly long time to get the joke—con-Dole-nces—and when he does it feels like he’s done something horribly wrong, like stealing a cookie or shoving a stranger. He moves away from the table, trying to put as much distance between himself and the flags as possible.

The wallpaper is thoroughly Veretian—small silver stars, blue flowers, black ivy. Everywhere his eyes land there is a detail, a gilt, a carving. Despite Veretians loving flowers in their ceremonies, Damen can’t spot a single bouquet or arrangement, which makes him think maybe Kastor wasn’t joking about Marianne being allergic. Which, in turn, makes him wonder how Kastor even knew about that.

Kastor walks in a minute after Damen, his shirt without wrinkles, his tie different from the one he wore to work. He hunts down a red-eyed, sniffling Marianne and talks to her in a low voice, not shoving his gifts into her hands but rather waiting for her to take them from him. Eventually, people from Marianne’s life outside of the firm gather around them, talking to Kastor as well, and Damen hears their voices like they’re coming from inside his own head, too loud and too close. 

The door to the patio is slightly ajar, a cool breeze coming in and wrapping itself around Damen’s arm. He turns his whole body towards it, trying to absorb the wind, but it soon proves to not be enough. His tie is too tight, the cuffs of his shirt too itchy. Sweat is dripping down his back, a gross, uncomfortable feeling that only makes him feel increasingly nauseous. 

There are no closets to hide in this time, but that door to the patio offers the perfect solution. Being out in the open will help. He’ll trick his brain into believing there’s no way he’s suffocating when he’s outside, swallowing gust after gust of wind. Getting away from all these strangers is simply a bonus.

It’s colder than he expected. When the first draft of air hits him, Damen shivers, the sweat on the back of his neck instantly cooling. He forces himself to focus on the less than impressive view the patio has to offer: a set of boring, grey buildings in the distance, twinkling apartment lights, dying plants stuck inside deformed clay pots.

It feels as though there is no other place on earth right now but this one. Marianne’s wet face has followed him outside, her red, leaking nose something from a horror movie. Damen wishes he’d let Kastor come on his own, wishes he was at the gym with Aktis. Wishes everything was different. 

He’s only been to three funerals that he can remember, none of them Veretian. There was his grandfather’s, back when Damen was five and death wasn’t quite as real or horrifying. It was the sort of thing that happened to other people, other families. He remembers playing with toy cars at the temple, their wheels making squeaky noises on the marble benches. Then came Aunt Ida’s, who’d been sixty-seven and funny-smelling, like prune juice and cough drops and the sort of soap he’d later come to associate with hospitals. Damen was twelve and had seen her twice in his life. 

And then, of course, his father’s.

Damen looks up at the sky. It’s late enough that a few stars are out already, none of them particularly bright. A random thought, burning through all others, crosses his mind. Did he attend his mother’s funeral? Surely someone had taken him, had held him and fed him a bottle or two, and yet Damen cannot think of whom that might have been. Perhaps Hypermenestra—

No. Of course not. Even if she had been invited, Hypermenestra wouldn’t have attended.

Damen watches the wind play with some of the brittle, greying plants. Had his mother had many friends? Had it been a small funeral, like this one? Had people cried when they received the news? They used to, when Damen was a kid and he and his dad would run into old family friends. They’d touch his curls and sniffle as if to prove to someone that they were close to breaking down. 

“Hello, stranger,” a voice to his left says.

Damen turns around, aiming for normalcy and faltering when he sees Lazar standing in front of him. 

Of fucking course, Damen thinks, and hates himself for being surprised. He should have known Lazar would be here, behind this whole thing. Who else would be unpleasant enough to come up with the fruit joke? 

“If you’re looking for Pallas, he’s not here,” Damen says. It takes him a second to process what he’s just said, and another one to realize that isn’t exactly a kind greeting.  

Lazar’s boots make a funny sound when he walks. Click, clack, click. Like tap shoes. “I know. He’s at home puking his guts out. Salmonella is no joke.”

“Right.”

Damen turns back around, hoping Lazar will take the hint. The last thing he wants to do right now is talk, let alone talk to Lazar . The wilting flowers hold Damen’s attention for another moment, and then an elbow grazes his.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Lazar says. He’s trying to get his lighter to work, but the wind keeps stubbornly putting out the flame. If he doesn’t hurry, he’ll get the filter of his cigarette all soggy. “That’s why I always leave the doors unlocked. Who am I to keep a man from sobbing?”

“I wasn’t crying.”

Lazar takes a drag as he pockets his lighter. “Sure you weren’t.”

“I didn’t even know her,” Damen says. The words seem to be coated in something bitter, like vomit. “I just needed some fresh air.”

“She hasn’t started to smell, has she?”

Damen opens his mouth, then closes it. 

Lazar shrugs under Damen’s stare. “It’s been a long two days. I told Marlene—”

“Marianne.”

“—that she ought to have her cremated, but you know how it is.” Lazar smiles. The smoke of his cigarette gives him a strange, hazy halo. St. Lazarus, Damen thinks. “Veretians are most particular about their funerals.”

It’s weird, hearing his own words thrown back at him so carelessly. Damen wishes he could go back in time and hear himself say them, if only to know what his exact tone had been. Surely he hadn’t been this mocking. 

“I don’t know how you do it,” Damen says. It comes out of him, blurted out. “Not that it’s a bad job,” he adds. 

Lazar goes on smoking, and his cigarette gets shorter by the minute. The wind tears through his hair like an unkind comb. 

“Any job is a good job,” Damen goes on. “I didn’t mean—”

“Any job?”

“As long as it’s not stealing, yes.” 

Lazar laughs. The whistling sound that comes out of him has Damen on the verge of laughing, too. 

“Thievery has its own merits,” Lazar says. “Besides, without robbers, you wouldn’t have a job, would you? I imagine most lawyers would starve to death if unemployment rates dropped to zero.”

“I don’t really do criminal defense.”

The air around them is thick with the stench of cigarettes. This brand is nothing like the one his father used to smoke—that one was cleaner, fancier, sweeter—and yet it evokes the same reaction in him. Damen scrunches up his nose, turning his face away to escape the smoke. 

“It’s an honest job,” Lazar says suddenly. “It’s… humbling. But also fun.”

Damen looks at the flowers again. They seem to get uglier with every new glance. “If you say so.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t see what can be fun about dead people,” Damen says. “Funerals aren’t parties.”

Lazar shrugs. “Maybe they should be. Dead people were just people once. I’m sure they liked having fun.”

“You don’t do a lot of kids’ funerals, do you?”

“Once or twice a month,” Lazar says. “Parents love me.”

Damen snorts. There’s a faint, bubbling annoyance in him now that wasn’t there before. He knows Veretians have a weird sense of humor—dry, and twisted, and offensive—but this is crossing some invisible moral line. Even Laurent would agree.

The thought makes Damen pause. Why does he care what Laurent agrees with? 

“People love to bring up the children thing,” Lazar says. He drops his cigarette and steps on it, putting the little amber circle out with the heel of his shoe. “But I didn’t really expect it from you. Quite funny to think about, actually.”

“You think children dying is fucking funny?”

Lazar doesn’t flinch away from Damen’s tone. “I think death is ridiculous and should be treated accordingly. But go ahead and tell me about your big annual donation to children’s hospitals, Damen. Do you also build orphanages in your free time?”

He’s dating Pallas. Pallas is my friend. I’m at Marianne’s mother’s funeral. I can’t hit Pallas’ boyfriend at Marianne’s mother’s funeral. Damen clenches and unclenches his fists. “If you have a problem—”

“Not really,” Lazar says, fixing the ring on his nose. “I mean, I have a few problems with you, but I don’t think Pallas would be happy if I told you about them. So. It’s best to just—” He makes a zipping gesture over his mouth.

Damen stares. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know what Pallas has told me about you and your friends.”

The mere idea of Pallas gossipping behind his back paints a bizarre picture. Pallas is quiet, agreeable. What could he possibly get out of talking shit behind Damen’s back? And, most importantly, what does he even have to say about Damen? I’m certainly not the worst of them, Damen thinks, and carefully moves away from the thought. That would mean he believes Aktis, Elon, and Nikandros are somehow bad. Which isn’t true.

“Anyway,” Lazar says, “it’s a bit funny, isn’t it? Ironic.”

“What?”

“You can’t cry about your secretary’s dead mother, but you can cry about hypothetical dead children.”

Damen makes two fists out of his hands, then half hides them behind his back. Pallas’ boyfriend , he thinks, over and over again. “She’s my brother’s secretary.”

“A crucial distinction.”

“And I’m not crying,” Damen says, a little louder than he meant to.

Lazar laughs his out of breath, whistle-like laugh, and slips back inside, taking the smell of smoke with him. Damen watches him flutter around the room through the open door, tapping strangers on the shoulder and asking them things. Are you enjoying the party, sir? Damen imagines him saying. Would you like another treat? My con-Dole-nces on your loss, Marlene.

Pallas is dating a fucking sociopath.

*

Damen is running on the treadmill when Etek’s voice comes back into focus. They’ve been playing a game with songs for a while now, but Damen hasn’t been paying attention. It feels strange not knowing any of the artists they’re talking about, or the names of the songs, or why they all sound exactly the same. He wonders if Nicaise likes this kind of music, wonders if maybe this is something he ought to know about Nicaise.

Nicaise likes musicals. Damen thinks so, at least.

“Last month we asked our aro listeners to send us some answers,” Etek says. “The question was: What advice would you give your younger self? And your replies did not disappoint.”

Damen’s right calf is on fire. The muscles that connect his foot and knee feel like a rubber band stretched to its full capacity, quivering, but he can’t bring himself to stop.

“Charlotte says, ‘I would tell myself bitch, you are aro-ace’.” Etek laughs, and so does Terg. “Regra has some great advice. ‘Stop worrying about being normal. No one is normal, because normal doesn’t exist. You are special and will be loved by the right people, so love yourself too.’”

Terg says, “We should talk more about that, shouldn’t we? I feel like some aromantics don’t want to replace romantic relationships with platonic ones, which is valid.”

“A lot of others do.”

“Yeah, we should invite María Luna to talk about this sometime. They had this whole—okay, okay, I’m going off-topic. Go on.”

“‘No one is entitled to your attraction or affection’ says Lara. And, all right, listen to this: ‘You don't have to be romantic to make up for your asexuality.’ This is exactly what I used to deal with when I was… Sixteen?”

Terg huffs. “Worst days.”

“I feel like people are more informed these days. They don’t really get aromantic and asexual confused as much. Or is that just me?”

Damen, who has no idea what the difference is, snorts.

“Especially Gen Z,” Etek goes on. “And, like, it’s sort of liberating? Both because I don’t have to explain myself as much, but also because—well, you know how it used to be. Now you can just tell them to google it if they don’t get it.”

“There are so many cool debates going on these days about sex, too. It makes me feel a bit sad for older people, you know? Like, my mom probably can’t imagine what it’s like for sex to not be expected from her in a relationship.”

Etek hums. It sounds like she agrees. “Especially in a marriage, right? It’s been so normalized that in order to keep people interested in you, you have to be open to having sex.”

“Not just sex as this broad category,” Terg says. “It’s almost like you have to be kinky and spicy and whatever the opposite of boring is. Like in a ‘who doesn’t like double anal?’ sort of way.”

“Exactly. I’ve sort of noticed the shift in small things, too. Like the other day I was talking to a friend who uses Tinder, and she told me she has ‘I’m ace’ in her bio. That’s quite the change, isn’t it?”

“I think… before, ace and aros were just expected to like, suppress things? Like, well, no one will want to be in a relationship with them if they don’t basically get rid of their boundaries. Like what’s a relationship without sex or—”

Aktis is mouthing at him. Damen slows down, takes one earbud out. “—tomorrow?”

“What?”

“Are we going to Nik’s for dinner tomorrow or not?” Aktis says. He looks at the little screen on Damen’s treadmill. “Also, dude, what the fuck? You’ve been running for, like, an hour.”

“Yeah,” Damen says. He ignores the way his legs feel like they’re eighty percent gelatine. “Tell Nik I’ll be there after work.”

Later, in the gym showers, Damen leans against the damp, leaking wall of his stall and opens Google on his phone. His thumb hovers over the empty search bar, then over the letters of the keyboard. He doesn’t even know where to start. 

The bathroom door opens and the gym’s loud music leaks in, something upbeat and forcefully energetic, and it cuts off as soon as the door is slammed shut again. There are voices, too, and the sound of someone laughing.

whats the dif bet

whats aromantic and

difference aromantic asex

Damen breathes in as deeply as he can, holds it. It’s not until his lungs burn that he lets it out. what is asexuality? He clicks on the Wikipedia page before he can talk himself out of it, but doesn’t make it past the first paragraph before wanting to throw his phone down the drain. This article is about humans who lack sexual attraction or interest in sexual activity. For the lack of romantic attraction, see Aromanticism. 

It makes no sense. What’s the point of being in a relationship with someone if one isn’t going to sleep with them? What’s the difference between a close friendship and whatever Kallias and Erasmus have going on? How can any of that be considered a relationship? Asexuality is distinct from abstention from sexual activity and celibacy, Damen reads. Then what the fuck is it? 

There’s a knock on his door, so loud and unexpected Damen almost drops his phone. “Let’s go, dude,” Aktis says. “You’ve been in there forever.”

Right. He promised Aktis they’d grab one of those protein smoothies he likes so much on their way out. 

“Sorry,” Damen says. He hasn’t even stepped under the shower. “Give me a second.”

The banging of the stall door continues. “Are you watching porn, Damen?”

“No.”

Aktis sneaks a hand in through the crack at the bottom. He’s making a loose fist, moving it so quickly his fingers are nothing but a blur. 

“I’m not jerking off,” Damen says. I’m looking up the subtle yet obvious to everyone else difference between being asexual and aromantic. “I lost your mom’s nudes, so.”

“You have five minutes,” Aktis says, “or I’m calling a staff member to tell him you’re trying to clog the drain with your come.”

Damen rinses the sweat off in three minutes, dries his hair in two. By the time he opens the door, Aktis has moved on to less annoying activities, leaning against one of the sinks and swiping through Tinder at a thumb-breaking speed.

Aktis looks up after a moment. “So? Was it a good one?”

“Yes,” Damen says, exhausted. He doesn’t want to argue anymore. “It was fucking great.”

A pat on his shoulder. “Cool. I’m thinking blueberries and mint for the smoothie.”

“Okay.”

They leave the bathroom side by side, Aktis still going through a dozen Tinder profiles a minute, his eyes anywhere but on his screen. The gym smells like rubber and disinfectant, with a touch of sweat. They pass a group of girls jumping up and down to a familiar remixed song, all of them sweaty and sporting the highest of ponytails. Hot pilates or something.

“—to get the white chocolate one,” Aktis is saying. “Trust me, don’t do it. It tastes like fucking ass.”

Damen nods, because he’s never tried any of those smoothies. Aktis seems to know what he’s talking about.

“Fuck.”

“What?”

Aktis has stopped walking. He’s looking at the jumping girls, completely unbothered by the fact that they can see him staring. “The one in the red top is hot.”

Damen doesn’t look at her. “Okay.”

“Kinda reminds me of Nik’s sister, except this one’s chubbier.” Aktis swipes right thrice, girls’ pictures a blur on the screen of his phone. “Why do the fat ones always have good faces?”

Good karma, Damen almost says. He hears the words inside his head so clearly for a second he believes he has spoken them out loud. The girl in the red top is pink in the face, sweaty bangs clinging to her forehead, and she’s laughing at something the girl next to her is saying. Aktis is right, Damen thinks. She does look like Nikandros’ sister, Lea, whom Damen likes, has always liked.  

This time, the nausea isn’t gradual, something that’s been building up inside him, getting ready to break like a wave. This time it’s so sudden Damen feels his body sway under its force, its anger. He covers his mouth.

“Shit, man,” Aktis says. “Are you going to throw up? She’s not that ugly.”

He’s my friend, he’s my friend, he’s my— “I’m going home,” Damen says, once he’s sure his stomach won’t betray him.

“Wait, what about the smoothies?”

Damen’s already several steps away. He’s so close to the doors. “Next week,” he calls over his shoulder. Then, to himself, “Maybe.”

*

Where are you?

bro you were supposed to bring the beer

Damen?

hes probsbly fucjking

*fucking

*probably

Sorry. Something came up

so ure not coming

?

No

wtf man

Nikandros starts to type something, then stops. The group chat is awfully quiet after that, but Damen can’t say it bothers him. It’s barely seven and he’s already in bed, something his twenty-year-old self would have found sad and pathetic. He feels old in a way that is new, in a way that is not fun. 

He should go to sleep now. Isn’t that why he ditched dinner with his friends? Hasn’t he been yawning ever since he walked through the front door two hours ago? He should set his alarm, turn off the lights, and try to doze off. He really should.

Laurent hasn’t posted any new pictures on Instagram since his tattoo reveal, and Damen is glad. Maybe if things were different they would have unfollowed each other everywhere. He’s thought about it, of silencing Laurent’s stories, of unfollowing him, of pressing the grey block button. Somehow being the one to cut this metaphorical string between them feels too much like letting Laurent win. 

The transition from staring at Laurent’s Instagram profile to googling porn is unclear, and Damen decides to leave it that way. Small, frozen scenes fill out his screen, all of them bizarre in that way only porn be—everything is too much, too big, too colorful. The video he clicks on is of a girl with dyed black hair and brown eyes, her injected lips stretched around a cock that doesn’t look like it belongs to a real person. It’s always awkward at first, the balancing of his phone in his left hand, the fondling of his own cock under the sheets with his right one, but he manages. 

“Can you fit it all in your mouth, baby?” the offscreen man asks. He has a hand in her hair, knuckles white and half-hidden by the black locks. “Come on, come on—”

This is fine, Damen thinks. He’s not hard yet, but he’ll get there. He just needs to focus, needs to stop fixating on the wrong things. On the wrong words. Baby is a common pet name. Everyone gets called that at some point. It’s—

He strokes himself, softly, lazily. He’s had dozens of people suck him off, knows exactly what it feels like, the wet heat of it, the playful nick of teeth. 

“You’re such a slut.” The man grunts, once, twice. There’s a lot of spit, dribbling down his cock. “Yeah, baby, like that.”

Damen pauses the video when she begins to gag. He feels a little like gagging himself, balancing on the edge of nausea. He’s not hard, and the covers are making him sweat, and he can hear Dog barking on the other side of the door, and the girl in the video isn’t blonde, and why did he ditch his friends tonight? Why isn’t he out, with people, having fun? Why does he feel like this? Why does he always feel like this?

In a minute, he’ll get up from the bed and let Dog into the room. He’ll put on a movie. He’ll slip his phone under his pillow and leave it there until it goes off in the morning. Thinking of this helps, because it’s mechanical, because it gives his body a clear purpose, and so he clings to it. In a minute, he’ll be able to breathe again.

*

“It was fine,” Damen says, because it was. Having coffee with Laurent wasn’t nearly as torturous as he thought it would be. “We talked a bit about Nicaise.”

“What about him?”

He’s going through a bit of a phase at the moment, Laurent had said. Damen has been thinking about it—has done little but think about it, actually—and he’s decided that he doesn’t see Nicaise often enough to be able to spot the changes in his behavior. He’s as rude as usual, as stubborn. The smoking is new, if it’s even true that he’s been doing that. 

“Laurent thinks he failed his test on purpose,” Damen says. “So he could, you know…”

Neo frowns. “I don’t know.”

“Apparently, he wants to keep seeing me? It’s—he thought I’d tell him to stop coming over if I wasn’t tutoring him anymore.”

“I see,” Neo says. “Are you going to talk to him about it?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to tell him?”

“I don’t know,” Damen says. “He already knows he can keep coming over on Tuesdays, even if we don’t revise for school. Maybe I should just tell him to not do it again.”

Neo tilts his head. He’s trying a new style, letting his beard grow. So far, it’s shown up in patches, which makes him look slightly deranged. “Not to do what again?”

“Fail his test on purpose.”

“That’s a very specific reprimand,” Neo says. “You already said he knows he can keep seeing you, so why would he purposefully fail another test? He got what he wanted.”

Neo is starting to sound a lot like Laurent. Damen tries to think that when it comes to understanding Nicaise that’s not such a bad thing. “So what? Should I not tell him off?”

“That’s not what I said. I just think scolding Nicaise for failing the test isn’t what you should be focusing on. Can you think of something else you should tackle first?”

Damen stares.

“How about you ask Nicaise why he felt the need to do that?” Neo says. “In a healthy relationship of any kind, people don’t turn to manipulation or lies to get what they want from one another. Why do you think Nicaise didn’t feel comfortable telling you what he wanted from the very beginning?”

“Maybe he,” Damen starts. He doesn’t know how to go on, and so he doesn’t. What he really wants to say is that this is the way Nicaise is, the way he’s always behaved. He wants to say that Nicaise doesn’t like being told no. But Damen also knows where those statements would inevitably lead, which is to Neo asking things Damen doesn’t want to think about. Why is Nicaise like this? Why do you think he struggles so much with rejection? “I don’t know.”

“Not at all?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Neo says. “This issue is deeper than it seems, I think. Maybe we shouldn’t focus so much on this particular transgression, but rather work our way through other things first.”

“What things?” 

“I’d like us to go over your list.”

The muscles on Damen’s nape and back lock in a cramp. His chest doesn’t feel too tight, but breathing has turned into a tentative activity. 

“First of all,” Neo says, “it’s a good list.”

Damen relaxes, the chair swallowing him up. “Yeah?”

“Yes, Damen. You have a lot of names here, which I was worried wouldn’t be the case. It seems to me you even figured out a priority system? I see Nicaise is at the top.”

“I don’t know how to… talk to him.”

“What do you usually talk about when he’s with you?”

“School,” Damen says. “Videogames. Er, Laurent, sometimes.”

Neo nods. It’s annoying how much relief that single gesture brings Damen. “That makes sense. Do you have any specific things you want to discuss with Nicaise throughout this process?”

“Process?”

“Well,” Neo says, slowly. “Every conversation is a process, but the ones where apologies are involved are especially gradual. Just because you’ll say sorry to Nicaise, it doesn’t mean he’ll be ready to hear it or even accept it. That’s usually the case the first time around.”

Damen hasn’t thought of Nicaise not accepting his apology, at all. He hasn’t thought beyond the blurry, muted scene in his head: they’re somewhere neutral, Damen says he’s sorry, Nicaise absolves him. He doesn’t have a script for any other sort of outcome; he didn’t think he’d need one.

“I want to tell him I’m sorry for being…” Damen looks up, not at the clock but at the ceiling. It’s beige, spotless. He finds he doesn’t like it. “I’m sorry I hurt him.”

“That’s great, Damen, but… As I said before, perhaps you should try to be a bit more specific.”

“I’m sorry I said things that hurt him.”

Neo hums. “What things?”

“He knows already,” Damen says, trying not to sound defensive and yet feeling like he’s failing. “I said them to him. He knows.”

“Yes, but what matters here isn’t what you think Nicaise knows or doesn’t know. What matters is taking accountability. That’s what real apologies are about.”

Damen snorts. “Should I make a list of my offenses?” 

“If you think it’ll help, go ahead.”

“I’m sorry I tried to stop him from painting his nails,” Damen says. He tries not to summon it, but the image of Nicaise holding the makeup palette at his party comes to him unbidden, like something being pushed in his direction by an invisible force. His own guilt, perhaps. “I’m sorry I didn’t—that I wasn’t supportive of the makeup thing. Or his clothes.”

“I’m going to ask you a few questions now, since you like them so much.” Neo smiles. “Is that okay?”

“Er, yes.”

“Why are you sorry that you did or didn’t do these things?”

Damen tugs at one of the sleeves of his shirt. “Because I hurt Nicaise.”

“Painting one’s nails, wearing girly clothes and makeup… Do you think these things are, at their core, wrong for a boy to do?”

“Not wrong,” Damen says. “Just… I…”

Neo doesn’t let him wallow in his misery for long. “Do you think those things make Nicaise happy?”

“Yes.”

“Are they harmful to him?”

Harmful. Damen runs his tongue over the word, tasting it. He doesn’t like it. “No.”

“Is he hurting anyone by indulging in them?”

“No.”

“If the person doing and enjoying these things wasn’t Nicaise,” Neo says, “would you still feel the way you do about them? Would you feel sorry?”

“Maybe.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t go around telling strangers—”

Neo laughs. It’s a short sound, followed by a cough. “Sorry, that was unprofessional. You’re just very literal.”

“Okay,” Damen says. Is that a bad thing?

“Let me rephrase my question. Why do you think you felt so strongly about Nicaise not painting his nails, but you wouldn’t have said anything to a random man on the street wearing nail polish?”

Nausea grips Damen tightly. He leans forward a little, hoping that will make his stomach settle. If he throws up here… “It’s—” His whole body is hot, sweating. There’s a ball of fire in his chest, dropping lower and lower. He blurts out, “You got it wrong.”

“What did I get wrong, Damen?”

Good karma, he thinks. Good karma, good karma, good— “Maybe I wouldn’t have said it, but I would have thought about it. I would have.”

Neo nods, opening his arms. His palms are very pale. “Good. That’s great work right there, being so honest. I know this is hard. Can you think of another difference between the stranger and Nicaise?”

“I don’t care about the stranger.”

“But you care about Nicaise.”

Damen looks at Neo then in a sudden burst of indignation. Isn’t that obvious? Hasn’t Damen been clear about how much he—

“What else?” Neo says. “What other things do you want to apologize to him for?”

Before, Damen would have said there was nothing more, that this was it. He would have told Neo he didn’t need to assume the worst, that Damen didn’t have a hundred things he needed to atone for. He would have kept quiet. 

Aren’t you supposed to be the adult here? Adults should apologize, Damen reasons. 

“I’m sorry for how things turned out,” Damen says. “For arguing with Laurent so much in front of him. For not asking if—for not asking more questions.”

Neo writes something down. “And how do you think Nicaise will reply to all this?”

“He’ll laugh it off.”

“Because it’s funny?” Neo says, in a tone that implies he himself doesn’t think it is.

“No,” Damen says. “But maybe he’ll think I’m being overdramatic. I don’t know.”

“How will you feel if he laughs?”

“Like I made a big deal out of nothing.”

“And if he doesn’t accept your apologies? If he says, ‘I really don’t want to talk about this with you’ or ‘You don’t get to apologize for that’?”

Damen doesn’t know. “That’s…”

“Yes?”

“It’s not fair,” Damen says. The ball of heat inside him is back, turned on as if by a switch. “I mean it is, but it’s… What else am I supposed to do? I can’t take it back.”

“You can’t,” Neo says, “and that’s the problem. Damen, you can’t force another person to forgive you. In any case, that isn’t the real goal of an apology.”

“If I don’t want to be forgiven, why am I apologizing?”

Neo doesn’t tell him off for snapping. He doesn’t even frown. “When you say you’re sorry to Nicaise for your comments on his appearance, you’re owning up to a past action. You’re saying ‘I did this, and it was wrong, and I feel sorry I did it’. It’s not up to you to decide how Nicaise deals with that. An apology doesn’t erase what happened. It’s just you letting Nicaise know that you’ve grown since then and that it won’t happen again, hopefully.”

“Then why wouldn’t he forgive me?” Damen says. “He can be difficult, but it’s—what should I—”

“Okay, let’s think of this from a different angle.” Neo looks down at the printed-out list on his lap. “Out of everyone here, who do you think owes you an apology the most?”

The answer to that is easy. It’s so easy Damen doesn’t even have to think about it. “Laurent,” he says.

“So if Laurent walked in right now and said he was sorry for the worst thing he has ever said or done to you, would you forgive him on the spot?”

He doesn’t know what the worst thing Laurent has ever done to him is. Their fights weren’t always loud or foreseeable, and they didn’t always revolve around Nicaise. Once, Damen made the mistake of making a bad joke to him around the second week of September. He had come home to Laurent wearing clothes that didn’t fit him, and Damen hadn’t thought before kissing him and tugging on the too-long sleeves of his cardigan. Been busy at the thrift shop, huh? Trying to audition for Oedipus in Nicaise’s play? 

He hadn’t known it was Auguste’s, or why it looked the way it did, or why Laurent had chosen that day in particular to wear it. Laurent’s reply had involved Kastor, and his father, and other things time has mercifully erased from Damen’s memory. Laurent’s reply had left Damen locked in the bathroom, taking deep breaths in front of the mirror. He doesn’t really remember crying, doesn’t think he did, and yet… 

“I,” Damen starts, and stops.

“Exactly.”

Damen rubs damp palms on his thighs. “I think I would.”

“You think,” Neo says, “but you can’t be sure. Laurent being sorry doesn’t take the hurt he caused you away.”

Laurent didn’t hurt me.

Neo looks up at Damen. “Actually, who else on this list would you like to get an apology from? I noticed you wrote a lot of names, but you didn’t specify what kind of conversation you wanted to have with each person.”

“I don’t know.”

“What about Kastor?”

Today is Thursday. The last time Damen talked to Kastor about anything that wasn’t work-related was Saturday, at the funeral. He feels as though he’s done something wrong by including his brother on the list, but he cannot figure out what. The idea of Kastor apologizing to him is ludicrous. Apologize for what, exactly? What happened to Ios was an accident. It’s been over ten years.

Damen says, “Maybe he shouldn’t be on the list.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Most of our fights happened when I was a kid. I don’t think it matters anymore.” Then, because Neo is still staring at him: “Siblings argue all the time. It’s fine.”

“Of course,” Neo says. “But does your brother ever make you feel miserable?”

“Miserable?”

“Perhaps it’s not his presence, but rather things he says or does. You’ve mentioned quite a few times that Kastor can be very competitive.”

“I don’t think competitive is the right word,” Damen says. “And I don’t think he does it on purpose either. Like, is he supposed to be bad at things to make me feel better?”

Neo is writing, but his eyes are on Damen. It’s an eerie sight. “What’s something Kastor is good at and you aren’t?”

Having a family. Being a good partner at the firm. “Funerals.”

“Funerals,” Neo echoes. “How come?”

It’s easy to talk about what happened last weekend, about Marianne and her mother. He sidesteps his bizarre conversation with Lazar, telling himself there’ll be time for that later, and recounts how it felt to see Kastor holding the bouquet of flowers, his face open in a way that has never been reserved for Damen.

“—and he just,” Damen pauses, swallowing. “He just knew what to do, what to say. It was like our dad’s funeral all over again.”

“In what way?”

“Kastor, taking care of everything, micromanaging every detail. He did it all by himself.”

At his father’s funeral, Damen had looked around and thought everything boiled down to that one small room, to that party of thirty-something people. Kastor had chosen everything, from the flowers to the coffin, even the type of coffee that was being served. It was like a bubble, so thick Damen couldn’t see outside of it, and yet its rupture was inevitable. Life was already piercing it. Had Kastor known that, back then? Had it been like that for him too, the feeling that things wouldn’t go back to how they used to be, but that something else was coming, unstoppable? 

People had come up to Damen—Makedon, Hera, Brios, even Chryses—with kind words to say, with a soft hand to place on his shoulder, and one by one they had slipped away and towards Kastor, who clearly had the right words to say back, whose eyes were very focused. Damen had felt out of place, like a piece of furniture left behind after a move. Never before had he been so aware of the differences between them, of how much older than him Kastor was.  

Neo is talking. “—make you feel not included? Like you could not really be part of the process of giving your father’s life closure?”

“No,” Damen says slowly. “I don’t think I wanted to be a part of it.”

Neo stares, waiting.

“It made me think…” Damen shifts in his seat, hating how the leather sticks to him despite the layers he’s wearing. “We never talked about it, when it happened. I thought we would, once things had settled. But we didn’t.”

“Talk about what?”

“Our father.”

“What was there to talk about?” Neo says. “Was Kastor upset with your father when he passed?”

No. Yes. “It’s complicated.”

The corners of Neo’s mouth curl upwards. “Like meeting Laurent?”

“Our father left Kastor’s mother for mine,” Damen says. This is fine, he thinks. These are the facts, literal truths. Who is he betraying by stating them? “I don’t know the details, but I think he only started seeing Kastor again once my mother was dead.” Damen touches his knees, feels the bones there. “Kastor was always so angry at him, over the stupidest things.”

“Always?”

Damen shakes his head. “Things were okay when Kastor stopped being forced to come over every weekend, and they got even better when he met Jokaste.”

“That makes sense,” Neo says. “Sometimes our relationship with our parents improves once we leave their house. It’s a natural part of growing up.”

“Yes,” Damen says slowly. “But then, when our father got sick, it was Kastor who moved in with him to help and make sure the nurses were taking good care of him.”

“And their relationship deteriorated again.”

Damen nods. He remembers, vaguely, how he’d avoid calling Kastor from college, just so he wouldn’t have to hear about the latest issue, the latest fight. “I came home one weekend to surprise them both. Mostly our dad. It was like…” He swallows again, hating that his mouth is both dry and flooded. “Like a switch, you know? Whenever I’d walk into the room, our dad would be telling jokes and wanting to know about my college experience . He wanted to watch hockey matches with me, wrestling events. But when it was Kastor…”

“Sometimes chronically ill people can become…” Neo makes a gesture with his hand, slow and deliberate. Damen does not know what he means by it. “It can lead to a very toxic environment, especially for their caregivers.”

Damen stays silent. Caregiver. He’d never thought of Kastor like that.

“You told me the two of you were with him when he passed.”

“I don’t—I’d like to talk about Kastor. Not my father.”

Neo says, “Don’t you think the two subjects are connected?”

I should tell him. The clock on the wall seems to mock Damen, daring him to fit an entire life, an entire relationship, into the last fourteen minutes of the session he has left. “That last night,” he says, “he confused him for me. He called Kastor by my name, held his hand…” 

“Because he thought Kastor was you?”

“Yes.”

Neo writes something down. It looks like a short word, underlined. “Do you think that’s put a strain on your relationship with your brother?”

“Why would it?”

“I don’t know,” Neo says carefully, “but you brought it up when we were talking about Kastor being… contemptuous. Maybe it’s something he holds against you.”

Damen lets out a coughed, strained laugh. “I know Kastor is more rational than that.”

“Feelings aren’t always rational.”

“So what then? Should I just ask him? ‘Hey, it’s been years, but can we talk about the night dad died and he showed favoritism towards me?’”

Neo shrugs. “More or less, yes.”

“Okay,” Damen says. “When I’m done with Kastor, I’ll call up my uncle Makedon and ask him if he meant to call me a faggot last time we had lunch together.”

“I… did not know about that. Is that why he’s on the list?”

“I’m joking,” Damen says, suddenly uncomfortable. He doesn’t like the way he made things sound just now, as though he’s the victim of a family feud. Kastor is a good brother, and Makedon is the closest thing Damen has had to a father in years. They’re not cardboard villains. He adds, “He didn’t call me a faggot. I was being sarcastic.”

Neo blinks, staring at Damen while his hand moves on the paper. “But he implied…?”

“That it was a phase. Me liking men.”

“And how did that—”

“I swear if you ask me how that made me feel,” Damen says, and does not finish his threat. He doesn’t know what he’d do. Walk out again? “He’s old, all right? I don’t expect him to be all trendy and open-minded. Whatever.”

“You sound upset.”

“I’m not. He’s free to think whatever he wants. I just…”

“You just…”

“I wish he wasn’t so vocal about some things,” Damen says eventually. He avoids Neo’s eyes altogether. “He doesn’t have to like Veretians, but is it really necessary to say it out loud? Same with the ‘it’s a phase’ comment. It’s just so pointless.”

“I take it he didn’t like Laurent either,” Neo says. “Did your father know that you’re bisexual?”

The muscle spasm that goes through Damen’s body has little to do with the time he’s been spending at the gym recently. “What?”

“I’m just curious. Is that a conversation you feel like you could have had safely with your father?”

“Why would I talk to him about that? Do you talk to your dad about what you do in the bedroom?”

Neo laughs. It ends as abruptly as it began, like Damen startled it out of him. “God, no . But I mean, it seems like your family holds on to very traditional values. Akielos is…” He drifts off, silence swallowing the end of his sentence.

“Gay marriage is legal in Akielos,” Damen says sharply.

“I know. I’m from Akielos too, remember?”

“If you’re asking if my father would have beaten me to death for being half a faggot,” Damen says, “then the answer’s no.”

Neo nods. He seems unfazed by Damen’s anger, ignoring it completely as he goes on prodding. “You keep using that word. Faggot. Half of that. Is that what you think you are?”

“You’re taking things out of context again.”

“All right. Let’s try again.” Neo taps his pen against his notepad twice. “Just because your father wouldn’t have used corporal punishment on you doesn’t mean he would have approved, and sometimes our parents’ approval means a lot to us.”

“I want to go back to talking about Kastor,” Damen says, even though he doesn’t want that. He’s never wanted to speak of Kastor so little. He’s never seen Kastor so clearly, either. A father’s approval, isn’t that what he was after? It’s uncomfortable, and Damen doesn’t like it. “So if we could go back to that, which is what we were discussing in the beginning, then I’d be grateful. We can leave my dad for another day.”

Neo smiles. “And your mother?” he says, without poison or heat or anger. It’s just another question for him. “When do you think we’ll get to talk about her?”

I don’t have a mother. I didn’t even know her. “I’ll talk to Kastor.” 

*

can we get lunch next week at sakaes

i dont have school

I have work though

what about ur lunch break

?

How come you don’t have school? It’s not a holiday

Are you skipping class?

Nicaise?

pest control issues

can we go yes or no?

Damen dithers. There’s no way they’ll make it to Sakae and back in less than an hour, which is the time Damen has to eat his lunch. Kastor has been annoyingly efficient this week—skipping his breaks altogether, coming to the office earlier than the secretaries, sending emails that reach Damen when he’s having his morning shower. It isn’t hard to imagine what he’ll say if Damen announces he’ll be leaving early next Tuesday. Or worse, taking the entire day off. 

I can take you on Sat

its not open on the weekends anymore

The small grey bubbles that show Nicaise is typing wobble for a long time on Damen’s screen. They disappear, then come back, then disappear again. He puts his phone down after a while because he has a meeting with Mrs. Willows in fifteen minutes and he hasn’t gone over her list of new concerns. When he comes back to the chat two hours later Nicaise still hasn’t replied.

What Neo suggested was a calm, neutral environment. A place they were both familiar with, a place Nicaise felt like he could have an honest conversation in. Maybe they can grab lunch first, and talk later. Maybe it won’t be such a horrible talk, if Damen eases them into it.

If you’re free on Saturday I’ll take you to a cool place 

For lunch

In between answering emails, Damen looks up the restaurant’s location and menu, hoarding them until Nicaise texts him back. He texts Laurent too, begrudgingly, to ask him if Nicaise is telling the truth about not having school next Tuesday (he isn't) and if he’s allowed to take Nicaise out for lunch on Saturday (he is). 

ok pick me up at 12

and STOP ratting me out to him

Then don’t try to skip school

Damen waits a minute, then two, then three, for Nicaise to ask for the menu, the restaurant’s name, anything. 

Nicaise sends him a meme instead.

*

It’s not Jord that ends up calling him, but Ancel.

Damen almost doesn’t pick up, too comfortable where he’s lying on the couch with Dog on his stomach. He tried to play one of Nicaise’s games when he got home from work—the one with the race cars—but his fingers kept slipping and the buttons were too weird for him to remember what each of them did. Watching movies is easier, even if they’re bloody and the high-pitched screams of the protagonist make Dog jump every once in a while. 

The Arsaces Killer is about to stab his fourth victim when Damen decides to pause the movie and, finally, see who’s calling him on a Friday night. He makes a silent bet with Dog before looking at his phone, thinking it’s probably Kastor (to tell Damen off for breathing too loudly in the office) and is surprised to see that it’s a private number.

“He—”

“Hello,” Ancel says. His voice isn’t breathy or tinny at all, coming through so clearly Damen shudders. “Is now a good time?”

“For what?”

“For talking.”

“I,” Damen says. Dog is staring at him. “Yes.”

“Good.”

“Did something happen?”

There’s a rustling sound. “Today? Well, the sun rose, I had breakfast, took Hermès for a fly, heard something about the war in—”

“I meant, did something happen to Nicaise ,” Damen says. He can’t really think of any other reason why Ancel would be on the phone with him right now. “Or Laurent.”

“Oh, no. Not really.”

Damen leans back into the couch. He’s too relieved to feel ashamed that he asked about Laurent, even though he knows he’s not high on the list of people any of Laurent’s friends would call if something had happened to him. They all like Maxime, probably have him on speed dial, probably invite him over for dinner once a week. If Laurent’s apartment was on fire, they’d call Maxime and not Damen. Maxime is probably friends with everyone in the fire department. He’s probably a volunteer—

“I was calling,” Ancel says, dramatically drawing out the words, “because of what happened with Aimeric.”

He’s killed himself. He’s finally done it. “Is he okay?”

“Not really, but he’s going to be. You…”

The pause does not have an end. Damen waits for it, pushing Dog away when he decides he wants his next nap to be on Damen’s neck, but Ancel stays quiet. Damen can’t even hear him breathing.

“Are you there?”

“Yes,” Ancel says, sounding unhappy about it. “Ugh, I’m just—I’m trying to—”

“Trying to…?”

Ancel sneezes.

“Er,” Damen says. “Bless you.”

“What?”

“I thought you sneezed?”

“I can’t believe you’re going to make me say it again.”

Damen frowns. “Say what?”

“I said thank you,” Ancel says, very slowly as though he’s talking to a three-year-old child. Another rustling sound. “It’s done, Ber. I did it.”

Berenger’s reply is too muffled for Damen to hear, but it sounds a lot like good job. Damen wonders if he’s on speaker.

“Okay, well, goodbye.”

Damen sits up again. “Wait.”

“What? I’m literally not going to say it a third time.”

“Could you maybe explain a bit? I thought Jord was going to call me.”

“Jord’s busy.”

“Okay,” Damen says, because it is. He’ll ask Laurent what happened with Aimeric if he ever sees Laurent again. “Let me know if you—if there’s anything I can help with.”

Ancel clicks his tongue. “Like what?”

“Excuse me?”

“What would you be willing to help out with?” 

“I don’t know,” Damen says. Don’t say money, his own brain screams at him. Don’t say it, don’t— “If Aimeric needs medical care, I know a client that owns a hospital in Arran. Although I don’t know if they specialize in—”

“Okay, Damianos. What’s your angle?”

“My angle?”

“Laurent is very happy with Maxwell,” Ancel says, “and he’s not going to take you back just because you’re suddenly interested in Aimeric’s health. Or lack therefore.” A pause. “Thereof.”

Damen frowns. “Who’s Maxwell? I thought his name was Maxime.”

“Maxwell, Maxime—it’s the same thing. If he was a dog, we’d call him Max.”

“What does that have to do with anything? You can still call him Max even though he’s not a dog.”

“Ber,” Ancel says, muffled. Damen imagines him pressing the phone to his chest, pouting. “I really can’t do this a second longer. No, it’s—he’s being fucking weird.”

Damen stares at Dog, mouths, “Am I being weird?”

There’s more whining on the other side of the phone. At last, Ancel’s voice returns to its normal volume and Berenger’s fades, decidedly, into the background. “You can’t help, but it was… nice of you to offer. Goodbye.”

“Wait.”

“What?”

“I don’t have an angle,” Damen says firmly. “I did what was right, that’s all.”

Ancel hums.

“I mean it, Ancel. I’m not trying to get back with—”

“All right,” Ancel says. “Goodbye.”

“Wait,” Damen says, a third time, but Ancel’s already ended the call. 

Dog settles on his stomach again, eyes on the TV. There’s a blurred knife there, its tip a fake-red color. When Damen doesn’t un-pause it, Dog turns to look at him and barks.

“You’re three. It was on the adoption papers.” 

Another bark.

“Nicaise didn’t get to watch horror films until he was fourteen,” Damen says as he goes back to the Home section. A hundred movie posters appear, and Dog starts barking at them. “He had nightmares after, that’s why. It was—oh, fuck off, I just washed this shirt.”

Dog laps at the drool spot on Damen’s shirt, as if to fix it. It only makes things worse.

*

The menu at Virtus consists of ten options, all of them vegan. Damen already knows what he’s going to order—the carrot risotto is the only thing that sounds mildly appealing—but Nicaise has been staring at the list of dishes for fifteen minutes. If Damen hadn’t done his research, he would be scared that Nicaise is taking so long because he can’t find a meatless option.

“I want the fake bacon-wrapped scallops,” Nicaise says, “with white truffle sauce. And a Coke.”

Damen tries not to frown. He can’t picture Nicaise willingly eating scallops. “Okay.”

“Everything else is decadent.”

Decadent. Another one of Laurent’s.

“The carrot risotto sounds good,” Damen says, slightly offended. This place has one Michelin star. 

“Have you seen the prices?” Nicaise unsubtly pushes his menu towards Damen, pointing at the neat numbers next to each dish. He taps the same spot twice. “This is the dish I’m getting.”

“All right?” 

Nicaise frowns. “You’re not even looking.”

“I wouldn’t have brought you here if I couldn’t afford it.”

“What if I order two of these?” Another tap on the glossy paper. “And, like, three Cokes.”

Damen says, “I don’t think you can eat that much, but if you really want—”

“No, I think I’ve changed my mind.” 

“Nicaise.”

“What? Am I not allowed to?”

“You are,” Damen says. “Just try not to take another twenty minutes.”

When the waitress comes by their table—her name is Claire, and Nicaise makes sure to call her by it—she’s nice enough not to comment on how long it’s taken them to decide what to have. Nicaise doesn’t even blink as he orders carrot risottos for both of them. 

It’d be nice, Damen thinks, to know what Nicaise’s thought process is.

The patio they’re in is in the back of the restaurant, and it only has two other tables besides theirs. There’s a Reserved note on all of them, folded fancily like the silk cloth napkins Damen remembers from his childhood. Tiled, the floor has a gleam to it wherever sunlight touches it. It looks as though someone’s spilled water over it, a hundred minuscule diamonds in the grout. The wall to their right is covered in mossy green ivy with a sprinkle of blue flowers in the corner. Above them, there is the thinnest awning Damen has ever seen, so thin it’s almost see-through, a baby blue color that looks like the sky. 

“Are you reading reviews on the food?” Damen says, watching Nicaise scroll through his phone.

“No. Instagram.”

“Anything cool?”

Nicaise rolls up his sleeves, his red sweater worn and thin at the cuffs. The watch Damen bought him is on his right wrist, glistening under the midday sun. “Evie dyed her hair blue. Like, decomposing body kind of blue. Look.” He turns the phone around and shoves it into Damen’s face, but Damen is too busy staring at his wrist. “Anyways, it looks so bad her mom is making her dye it black again.”

“Do you like it?”

“Her blue hair? No. I told her to go for green, but it washes out into an even uglier yellow—”

“The watch,” Damen says. The question he wants to ask sits heavy inside of him, like a rock tied to his stomach, dropping. “I can change it for something else.”

Nicaise looks surprised, as though he forgot he’s wearing the watch. He recovers quickly enough, tugging down his sleeves. “It’s okay.”

You said it was stupid. “Can I show you something?”

“What?”

Damen reaches out slowly, so Nicaise can pull away if he wants to. He finds the buckle easily, maybe because he’s worn a wristwatch himself since he was fourteen years old. A man always ought to know what time it is, his father had always said. “It goes on the other wrist,” Damen says, taking it off. “Do you know why?”

Nicaise shakes his head, watching Damen strap the watch to his left wrist. 

“It’s to protect it from damage because you use your right hand more.”

“What if I was left-handed?”

“Then you’d wear it on your right,” Damen says. He pulls his hands away after a moment. “Did you see—”

“It’s engraved,” Nicaise says. There’s a scowl on his face, but Damen knows it’s not a real one. His cheeks are bright red. “Took me a while to get the translation right. You should have chosen Veretian.”

Streams and petty schemes. “We’re in Delfeur. Everyone speaks Akielon.”

“Not me.”

Damen tries not to smile. “I know you take it at school,” he says, in Akielon.

“It,” Nicaise says back, and pauses. His accent is horrendous. “Suck.”

“Sucks.”

“Whatever.”

“My dad liked watches,” Damen says. He doesn’t realize he’s said it until he sees Nicaise’s reaction, the slow way he blinks at Damen. “I mean, that’s not why I bought you this one. Obviously. I just—” He wraps his hand around one of the table legs, just to have something to hold onto, to keep him from drifting away. “What else did you get for your birthday? Did Laurent buy you those brass knuckles you wanted last year?”

“No, he got me a journal. Ancel bought me the knuckles, but I’m not supposed to take them to school.” Nicaise scrunches up his nose. “I thought your dad was a lawyer?”

“He was. Can’t lawyers like watches?”

“Yes, it’s just…”

Damen’s grip on the table leg tightens. “Yeah?”

Claire comes back. The two steaming plates of orange risotto on the table force Nicaise to finally put his phone away, but not before Damen hears it buzzing insistently. It makes Damen pause, how easily Nicaise ignores the phone call. Damen has never had any issue contacting him.

“This is gross,” Nicaise says, pushing a bay leaf around with his fork. “Okay, it’s not that gross,” he adds after swallowing the first forkful of rice. “But it could use some ketchup.”

Damen can’t think of a possible worst combination. “I’m sure the chef would love that suggestion.” He tries his risotto. “It’s very…”

“Gross?”

“No,” Damen says. “Creamy. I thought this place was vegan.”

Nicaise rolls his eyes, one of his cheeks puffed up with risotto. “Did you even read the list of ingredients? It’s got coconut milk.”

The risotto is better than they’re both willing to admit. They eat slowly, Nicaise more so than Damen. He pushes some green onion around on his plate, clearly unwilling to eat it, and Damen is suddenly reminded of all the dinners he ate with Nicaise in Laurent’s kitchen, of Nicaise’s knobby knees digging into his because Nicaise insisted on sitting too close to Laurent.

Do you remember, Damen almost says but doesn’t, because he knows those memories aren’t the sort of thing Nicaise would hold onto. They’re mundane, forgettable. Just another Wednesday night. 

Damen can’t be the only one who remembers them. Laurent probably remembers those nights too, especially the bad ones when Nicaise would refuse to eat dinner and ask for expensive things, foreign dishes and desserts, and Laurent’s face would crumble whenever Damen suggested they give in and get them for him so he’d stop complaining. A lot of Damen’s suggestions at the time had had to do with getting Nicaise to stop, even for just one second. 

Laurent must remember those dinners from hell, and the good ones, too. But now… Now Laurent has had other tense meals with Nicaise, Maxime sitting at their table. And in a few months from now, when Maxime has become a more permanent addition, when Nicaise has finally warmed up to him, Laurent’s memories of his dinners with Damen will start to lose their importance, turning vague and hazy. He’ll have something to replace them with.

Damen can only hope the same will be true for himself.

Nicaise pushes his empty plate away, a cross made out of cutlery over it. “Okay,” he says, even though they haven’t been having a conversation. “You can give me The Talk now.”

Damen coughs, first into his fist and then into his napkin, the sticky risotto threatening to choke him to death. If anyone has to give Nicaise The Talk, it should not be Damen. “I don’t—”

“Not that talk,” Nicaise says. “Just… you know, because of the maths test.”

Damen sips his water. We shouldn't focus on this transgression, Neo had said. Too late. “Laurent told me you failed on purpose.”

“Is that what you wanted to talk to him about?”

“I,” Damen starts, and stops. Laurent asked him not to tell Nicaise about Aimeric. “It doesn’t matter what he and I talked about. What matters is that you can’t do that again.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You knew how to solve that test, Nicaise.”

Nicaise shrugs. “It was a mental block.” He traces the embroidered napkin with his pinky, his eyes only briefly meeting Damen’s. No nail polish today either. “Why would I fail on purpose? That’s just stupid.”

Damen doesn’t say anything. Because you want to spend time with me sounds embarrassingly self-centered.

“What else did he say?”

“Nothing,” Damen says. “What we discussed doesn’t concern you, all right? It wasn’t about you.”

Far from being offended, Nicaise leans into the challenge. “Well, you obviously talked about something. You had coffee, and you talked, and—”

“How do you know we had coffee?”

“I saw that he texted you,” Nicaise says as though it’s not of importance, “and then I saw the receipt in his bag. So.”

“Maybe he went there with Maxime.”

Nicaise gives him a look. “Maxime doesn’t drink coffee.”

That’s—interesting. Laurent loves coffee.

Finally, Damen says, “You can’t go through people’s things, Nicaise.”

“I didn’t. It was just a piece of paper peeking out from one of the pockets of his bag. I was recycling.”

“Since when do you care about recycling?”

“Since when do you eat at vegan restaurants?”

Damen frowns; he’d thought it was obvious why they came here. “Aren’t you vegan?”

“I’m transitioning into veganism,” Nicaise says, but he sounds pleased. He sounds so very pleased, in fact, that Damen forgets what they were talking about for a second. “You think it’s stupid.”

“Recycling?”

“Being vegan. You think it’s dumb but you still…” Nicaise wavers on the last part, drifting off. “I can still walk Dog next Tuesday, right?”

“What does that have to do with being vegan?”

Nicaise doesn’t reply, and is saved from being questioned by Claire coming over to take their plates away. Under Nicaise’s instruction, she hands them both the dessert menu and leaves with the promise of another bottle of Coke.

“So can I?”

“Yes,” Damen says. “But you’re still getting a tutor.”

“Why can’t you tutor me?”

“Because apparently, my teaching method gives you temporary amnesia,” Damen says, dryly. 

Nicaise’s eyes scan the menu. “I want the raspberry cheesecake,” he says. “Did you know the café you went to with Laurent has the best cheesecake selection in the whole district? They won an award for it last year, according to Google. Next time you go there, you should—”

“Nicaise.”

“—try the lemon one.” Nicaise scrunches up his nose, eyes still on the menu. “Hmm, maybe I want a brownie after all.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Damen says. “We’re not—it was a one-time thing. We talked about a specific issue, and now that it’s been resolved…”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“If you say so.”

Damen is about to let it go—it’s no use arguing with Nicaise when he gets like this—but the image of Nicaise going through Laurent’s things, taking the time to read a discarded receipt and then googling the coffee shop, collecting all this data so he can… Here Damen comes to a halt. He doesn’t know what Nicaise gets out of it, but the fact that he’s going through all this trouble in the first place is unnerving.

“Nicaise,” Damen says, a third time. At last, his tone catches Nicaise’s attention, and so Damen makes a conscious effort to keep it firm. “Laurent and I aren’t friends. We don’t—”

“I never said you were friends.”

There’s a pit opening inside Damen, bottomless. His stomach is falling into it, dragging his lungs along. “It’s over, all right? We’re not getting back together. Not now, not ever.”

Nicaise puts the menu down. He’s deliberate about it, slow. His face blanks out, the way an actor’s would when the cameras stop rolling, and Damen is reminded once more of the lack of normalcy Nicaise carries around with him. A normal child would have understood by now—by seventeen, he’s seventeen —what happens when two people break up. A normal child wouldn’t have held onto this silly illusion for as long as Nicaise has.

It’s obvious now to Damen that Laurent had been wrong at the coffee shop, wrong to assume Nicaise was on a crusade to spend more time with Damen. Nicaise has been inviting Damen places—Berenger’s houses, Laurent’s own apartment—because he knows Laurent will be there. Because he wants Damen and Laurent to be together again.

Damen ignores the prickling sensation in his chest. It doesn’t exist, he tells himself, because why would he be upset to find out that a teenager doesn’t actually want to spend time with him? Nothing about what they’ve been doing has been normal. Nicaise isn’t normal. 

Nikandros’ words, years old, come back to him now. That kid doesn’t care. He’s not going to call you in five years on Father’s Day. Like a parent’s scolding, the memory has come far too late to be useful.

Nicaise isn’t looking at him. There’s not a single crease on his face, not a line by his mouth or a wrinkle on his brow. He’s far away already, even though he hasn’t moved from his seat.

“Have you decided on your desserts?” Claire says, coming up behind Damen. “The chocolate cake is—”

“We won’t be having dessert,” Nicaise says. He gives her a smile, and Damen can almost hear Laurent’s words, repeated at a trillion restaurants over the course of four years. Don’t be rude to the waiter. “Thank you though. It’s been a really nice lunch. Can we have the check now?”

Claire smiles back, radiantly, and slips away. Nicaise has that effect on people when he’s purposefully good. When he’s acting. Damen struggles to find Nicaise’s politeness endearing, knowing what hides behind it. He supposes some things are best enjoyed when one doesn’t know how they’re made.

“We don’t have to leave yet,” Damen says, but he’s weary just thinking about the potential arguments dessert could bring. “You don’t have to be home for another two hours, and the chocolate cake looks good.”

Nicaise folds and unfolds his napkin. “Get it to go then. I want to leave now.”

It’s not worth it. Damen will keep his mouth shut. He will not say a word, and pay the check, and then they’ll leave silently and peacefully. He will apologize another day. Their talk can wait, as it’s waited for months, if not years.

The thing that’s spreading across his chest isn’t hurt, because Damen isn’t offended. He’s not. Nicaise is allowed to look out for Laurent, to miss what’s familiar, he’s allowed to not want Damen as a—as a—

A friend? What did Damen think Nicaise wanted from him?

“You’re acting like a child,” Damen says.

Nicaise stops playing with his napkin. His mouth twists unpleasantly, the prelude to something nasty, but before he can get a word out Claire is by their table once more.

Not wanting to stretch this more than he has to, Damen hands her the bills directly, just so she won’t have to come and go again with his credit card. He’s putting down her tip when Nicaise leaves his seat and starts moving through the tables, heading inside. 

Damen has no choice but to go after him, which does nothing to dilute his annoyance. Nicaise’s legs aren’t as short as they used to be before his growth spurt at fourteen, and so now it takes Damen some effort to catch up to him. He makes his way through the restaurant as fast as he can, avoiding people’s elbows and purses, dodging tables and chairs.

Nicaise stops when he reaches Damen’s car, his hand on the door handle, rattling it. He turns to Damen when it won’t budge. “Open the door.”

Damen doesn’t. He’s glad he parked where he did, glad no one is witnessing the scene they’re making. They’re on a side street, away from shops and rushed crowds.

“Fine,” Nicaise says. “I’ll walk back then.”

“Can you stop acting out for a second? I’m trying to have a conversation with you, and you keep—” Irritation bursts, at last. Loudly, Damen says, “Don’t fucking walk away when I’m talking to you.”

“Or what?” Nicaise snaps. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I know you’re upset—”

“I’m not fucking upset.”

Damen moves forward, watches Nicaise move even further away. “It’s been half a year, Nicaise. You can’t honestly be this surprised.”

Nicaise doesn’t reply.

Damen doesn’t mean to, but he snorts. He feels too full of something hot, teeming and leaking and— “I thought you were smarter than this. He’s dating someone else.”

“He is,” Nicaise says, viciously. Damen braces himself for what’s to come, knowing it’s all useless anyway. Knowing he’ll never be ready. “He’s nowhere near as pathetic as you, moping around your stupid house with your ugly dog. I can hear them through the wall sometimes, so I know exactly how little he misses you. At least now he’s—”

Damen aches. “Nicaise.”

“—getting fucked properly. Have you gotten your dick wet since he broke up with you or does everyone you try taking to bed know what a fucking loser you are?”

The street tilts, lamps swaying. I won’t throw up, Damen thinks. There’s a thrumming sound coming from inside his own skull. It’s the same feeling he used to get whenever he sparred for too long with Aktis at the gym, the throb of blood in his ears, the heart pirouettes.

“He sucks Maxime’s cock,” Nicaise says. “Every fucking night. I bet he didn’t even let you fuck him while you were together. Bet you had to force—”

“That’s enough.”

“Is it? You wanted to have a conversation, so now we’re having one.” 

Damen closes his eyes. It hurts so much it takes the breath out of his throat, whatever he’d been about to reply withering in him. They’ve had fights like this before, he tells himself as firmly as he can. This isn’t anything new, and it seems like Laurent’s been dealing with a similar treatment for months. Damen knows better than to get roped into Nicaise’s game; he is the adult.

“Get in the car,” Damen says. “Now.”

Nicaise stands there, defiant. The only part of him that moves is his hair, curls swaying when the wind runs through them. “Fuck you.”

“If you don’t get in I’m going to call him. Is that what you want?”

“I don’t care,” Nicaise says. His voice doesn’t tremble. “I’m not getting in that car with you, asshole.”

Damen wants to scream. “Five seconds ago you were asking me to open the door and now you don’t—”

“I’ll walk.”

“It’s a thirty-block walk, Nicaise.”

Nicaise’s hands disappear into the pockets of his hoodie. “So?” he says. “If you make me get in the car, I’m going to scream so fucking loud the cops will be all over your ass in less than ten minutes.”

Nicaise is seventeen. He’s old enough to do what he wants, to leave when he wants, to never see Damen again if that’s what makes him happy. He walks away then, his back to Damen like he doesn’t owe him anything, like they don’t know each other. Damen knows he could go after Nicaise if he wanted to, knows that he should. He’s the adult, he’s supposed to take care of Nicaise when Laurent is not around to do it. 

He knows these things, and yet he stays right where he is, leaning against the closest street lamp, feeling himself breathe a bit easier when Nicaise turns a corner and disappears. He’s never been more relieved to be left alone.

A draft of cold wind comes his way eventually, hitting him straight in the face. Damen breathes in, then bends over at the waist and throws up everything he’s just eaten.

*

Dog is licking his ankles. His tongue is warm and cold at the same time, and Damen can’t say he likes the feeling of it. Still, he lets Dog sniff his socks and lick his toes through them, lets him nibble at the cuffs of his sweatpants. 

Damen studies him. His lazy eye is noticeable from all angles, but it’s not as bad as Damen had thought when he first saw Dog at the shelter. It suits him in a weird way, like his limp and his too-short tail. Ios, Damen remembers, had never been one for licking ankles. He’d gone straight for the face, so roughly sometimes he’d nicked Damen’s cheek. 

He’d gone for Kastor’s face, too, that last time.

“You’re not ugly,” Damen says suddenly.

Dog tilts his head to the side, his right ear twitching. 

“I mean, you’re not—it’s not that awful. I don’t think Nicaise meant to say that.” Damen swallows. I’ve done it, he thinks. I’ve gone off the fucking handle, talking to my stupid dog. “He doesn’t think about what he says sometimes.”

But even as he’s saying it, Damen knows that isn’t true. The problem isn’t that Nicaise doesn’t think before he speaks, but rather that he thinks too much. Like Laurent, he knows how to look for the most tender parts, how to dig his fingers into them just to watch one squirm. 

It used to be easier, before. When they didn’t know each other so well, when Nicaise was yet to learn what made Damen tick. In a way, it was easier because nothing Nicaise threw at him made much sense, because none of it was true. 

Damen’s been thinking about this all day, ever since he drove back from Virtus, and so it isn’t surprising that the memory rises in him now, taking up so much space inside his mind it feels like it’s about to burst out of his skull.

Laurent’s organic chamomile tea had worked, for once. He’d gone to bed early and fallen asleep while Damen was still brushing his teeth in the bathroom, but he’d still kissed him back groggily when Damen crawled under the covers. 

The footsteps in the hallway woke Damen up three hours later. Then came the familiar creak of the laundry room door, slow and hesitant. Damen didn’t suspect burglars or killers; he saw Nicaise’s lights were all on as he crossed the hallway.

"Hey," Damen said, and watched Nicaise freeze in front of the dryer. "What are you doing? Is that—"

Nicaise turned around, both hands behind his back. He was too skinny to properly cover the white bundle he was trying to hide. "Fuck off," he said.

One of those nights, then. Damen briefly considered going back to bed.

"Let me get the washing started," he said instead. "Throw the sheets in there and I'll—do you want to take a shower?"

Nicaise didn't move. Even in the dark of the laundry room, Damen could see him starting to tremble. 

"Do you want me to wake him up?"

"No," Nicaise said quickly, the word half-digested. 

"Okay," Damen said. "Can I have the sheets?"

"I— no."

Damen closed his eyes. He had work in three hours. "I'm going to make your bed," he said after a moment, "while you finish up here.”

Nicaise didn't reply. The room smelled of soap and bleach and—well, piss. Damen didn't comment on it.

He wasn't the best at making beds, had never had much practice, but he managed. The sheets he picked from the closet had cartoons on them, childish enough that any day now Nicaise would start complaining about them, the way he had about his backpack and lunchbox and clothes. Damen was slipping the pillow into one of the covers when Nicaise walked in.

"There," Damen said, awkwardly fluffing the pillow. "Do you want some water?"

Nicaise's expression soured. "So I can fucking piss myself again?"

"Language."

Without another word, Nicaise crawled into bed. The moment his knees touched the mattress it dipped, the plastic it was wrapped in crinkling loudly. Nicaise's cheeks looked like they hurt, red as they were. "Go away," he said into his pillow.

Damen started to leave, then paused in the doorway. He’s just a kid. "If you're scared again—"

Nicaise made a sound. "I'm not scared."

"Good. But if you are, our room is always open."

"You snore."

"I can sleep on the couch," Damen said softly. "You can share the bed with Laurent."

Nicaise bit his lip. He ran a hand over his quilt. "But you just made my bed."

"It needed making."

There was only silence. Damen's head hurt, his eyes prickling. He could only begin to imagine how they’d hurt in the office after only getting three hours of sleep. Suddenly, sleeping on the couch sounded heavenly.

"Bring your pillow," Damen said. 

Nicaise didn't move. "I didn't say yes."

"Okay." Damen turned to go.

There was the sound of bare feet on wood, of sheets being rustled. This was the youngest Nicaise had ever looked to Damen—pillow to chest, bare feet, face blotchy red. His voice was very calm when he spoke. "Are you sleeping on the couch?"

"Yes."

Nicaise leered. "Why? Won't be able to keep your hands to yourself?"

Damen's brain did not process the words. "What?"

"Can't you sleep next to kids and not molest them?"

Anger came and went. Damen was too tired for this. In his head, a big red clock was ticking: less than two hours before he had to go to work. 

"Try not to wake him up," Damen said, and crossed the hall to the living room.

The couch was as good as any bed Damen had ever slept in. He and Laurent had chosen it together, while Laurent was on the phone with Ancel, getting his approval on color palettes. Damen had only wanted it to be a pullout. So I can get away from you from time to time, he’d told Laurent, and they’d both laughed at the bad joke.

Nicaise followed him. He stood by the couch as Damen got things ready, improvising a pillow out of one of the stiff cushions. There was nothing but a thin sheet, but it would have to do. Damen was too tired to go looking for a blanket.

He lay down, said, “Go to sleep, Nicaise.”

“Your mattress doesn’t have a waterproof cover.”

“And?”

“I…” Nicaise shifted. Damen could see him fidgeting even in the darkness of the room. “What—if I—what if I—”

Damen wanted to snort. So you can accuse me of being a pedophile but you can’t admit you’re afraid of wetting Laurent’s bed. “We’ll wash the sheets,” he said. “Go.”

Still, Nicaise didn’t move. “But what about the mattress?”

“We’ll let it air dry in the balcony.”

“We don’t have a balcony,” Nicaise said. He was closer now, sitting on the edge of the couch. Everything was quiet for a moment, long enough for Damen to almost sink back into sleep. And then, a small hand in his, tugging. “Damen?”

“Yes?”

Silence again. Damen rolled over so he was on his side, his back thanking him by letting out several pops. 

“Can I,” Nicaise started, and stopped. Damen could hear him breathing, slow and steady the way he’d learned in therapy. Could hear the low whisper of that rhyme Laurent had printed out and hung on the fridge. 

A few minutes later, Nicaise was walking down the hall and into Laurent’s room. He never finished his sentence.

He’s home in case you were wondering, Laurent texts him. 

Damen ignores it, focuses on washing his face and brushing his teeth and checking to see if Dog has water in his bowl. When there’s nothing left to do, Damen gets into bed and grabs his phone from the bedside table with the intention of setting up an alarm. New texts from Laurent come through.

Care to tell me why you didn’t drive him back?

This wasn’t what we agreed on.

We had a fight

He wouldnt get in the car

So you let him walk fifty blocks alone? 

Damen rubs a hand over his face. It was thirty blocks, not fifty, but he already knows what Laurent will say to that. His chest is getting tighter, like he’s wearing a corset and some sadistic asshole is pulling on the laces just to watch him pant. He can’t think of what Nicaise said, he can’t. If he does, he’s going to—to—

Hes seventeen, old enough to walk by himself if he wants to

Next time Ill remember to force him into my car

I’m sure it will look normal

Not at all like I’m kidnapping a fucking teenager

Max was ten blocks away. He could have picked him up if you had texted me.

You’re delusional if you think you’re taking him out again.

“Fuck you,” Damen says. He throws the nearest pillow against the dresser, watches it slide to the floor without making a sound. He wants to get up, wants to slam the door, wants to kick something into pieces. “Fucking fuck you.”

He doesn’t text Laurent back. Instead, he goes directly to Nicaise, managing to type out an entire paragraph before realizing he’s been blocked.

Chapter Text

Ten

Tuesday comes, and Nicaise stays away.

Damen tries not to think of anything as he takes his work clothes off, hangs his blazer and pants in his closet, throws his shirt in the hamper for the housekeeper to deal with in the morning. Sweatpants await him, a soft cotton shirt, sneakers. He wishes he could go for a run barefoot, as he used to when his father took him down to Isthima for the summer. He’d kick off his sandals as soon as he caught a glimpse of the sea, and then would run down the sandhills, trying to keep the soles of his feet from sprouting blisters. Back then, every summer was warmer than the one before, and the ocean was always waiting for him, ready to bathe him in salt.

I’ll wait until four-thirty, he thinks as he sits down on the couch. Dog is running leaps around the coffee table, occasionally bumping into its legs. He made a fuss when Damen slipped his new collar on but has now apparently decided he likes it. He barks and barks, runs a leap, barks at the table legs that get in his way. Four-thirty comes and goes, but Damen doesn’t move. Five, he thinks. Then, Five thirty. 

Dog’s collar makes a clicking sound when Damen attaches the leash to it. It’s like a mouth closing shut, top teeth smacking bottom ones. 

“Okay,” Damen says. It’s almost six. “We’re going for a walk.”

Dog sits, stubbornly staring at the door. 

“He’s not coming.”

A bark. Dog’s lazy eye meets his. 

“He’s not,” Damen says again. He isn’t annoyed. “Come on.”

The park is four blocks away. Damen walks slowly, trying not to tug on Dog’s leash unless it’s necessary, trying to slow down so Dog won’t get tired before they reach their destination. It’s a beautiful day, the breeze perfectly cold, the sun lukewarm enough to feel pleasant. Damen tries his best to enjoy it.

Dog likes the park. He barks at everything—flowers, and passing cars, and other dogs. From the bench he’s sitting on, Damen watches him jump around and bring him sticks, little rocks. They all end up by Damen’s feet, slimy and wet with Dog’s saliva, blades of grass still stuck to them. 

“I’m not picking that up,” Damen says. He thinks, distantly, that Nicaise would have remembered to bring Dog’s ball. Nicaise would have picked up the sticks, too.

Dog brings him a chewed-up mouthful of dirt next.

Hey, Damen types out. Nicaise’s picture is still gone, replaced by a grey icon. Generic, barely a silhouette. If he decides to unblock Damen, all the messages Damen has sent these last few days will be lost, never delivered. According to Google, at least. In a way, it makes sending them a lot easier. 

I took Dog to the park today

Note: bring his ball next time

There’s not a lot of dogs around 

Which is good 

I don’t think they’d like him much

A chihuahua has been staring at him for a while

Damen snaps a picture of Dog playing with the dirt he dug up, his face already black and sticky. It’s the sort of thing Nicaise would find funny. I think he misses you, Damen types, but he’s not brave enough to press send.

*

“You’re a bit quiet today,” Neo says. “Is everything okay?”

It’s been ten minutes since Damen sat down. On the way here, he thought they could talk about Nikandros. Maybe discuss what happened with Aktis at the gym the other day, how uncomfortable Damen had felt, how annoyed. Then Neo would ask a few questions, the way he always did, and Damen would tell him about Lazar. It’d be easy, easier than other things. But Damen can’t get the words out.

“Damen?”

“I,” Damen says. He feels flushed. Too hot, too sweaty. There’s a mark on the floor, a little grey stain on the wood. He forces himself to stare at it until the sudden heat suffocating him dims a bit. 

Neo is frowning. It doesn’t suit him. “Does your chest hurt right now? Can you breathe?”

“Yes,” Damen says. “I mean, no. I can breathe.”

“I’m going to get you a glass of water.”

“I don’t—”

Neo doesn’t stick around to listen to the rest. He comes back from the waiting room with a tall glass of water, a lonely ice cube clinking inside. His fingers leave a wet mark behind.

Damen takes a sip, feels it reach the empty bottom of his stomach. It’s like a sharp, icy needle. “Thank you.”

“So,” Neo says, sitting down. “I was going to ask you how things had gone with Nicaise, but maybe you’d like to start somewhere else?”

Aktis at the gym. Lazar at the funeral. Nikandros and his radio silence. “It didn’t go well,” Damen says. “The talk with Nicaise. It didn’t—work out.”

“All right. What happened?”

It’s like retelling a story, Damen thinks. If he focuses on that, on how what he’s telling Neo is simply a chain of events, everything gets easier. On some level, as he’s recounting them, he realizes these things have happened to someone else. They aren’t happening to him, right now, right here. Restaurant-Damen feels like a different person already, like someone who has never taken his dog for a walk at the park. It’s comforting.

“And then he threw a tantrum,” Damen says.

“Why do you think he was upset?”

“I just told you.”

Neo blinks. “Tell me again.”

And, even though he’s tried not to, this is all Damen has been able to think about over the week. Not the words themselves, not the accusations Nicaise threw at him, but the why. You shouldn’t come in here with a script in your head, Neo had told him the other week. This, Damen thinks, is not what he’d call a script. It’s just bullet points.

“He was obviously hoping Laurent and I would get back together. That’s why he invited me to his birthday party, why he tricked me into going to Laurent’s apartment. It’s—” Fucking idiotic. Damen doesn’t want to go back to Laurent, he doesn’t. He wouldn’t, given the chance. “It’s so stupid, that’s what I don’t understand. He’s always had issues, but Nicaise isn’t this naive. How could he not know…?”

“Sometimes we know things on an intellectual level, but we still refuse to process them emotionally. Remember what we talked about last week?”

“Kastor.”

“Yes,” Neo says, smiling. “It’s like… The way we feel often doesn’t correlate with rational ideas. In fact, a lot of my clients tell me that they know they’re being irrational at times, and yet they can’t help themselves. Can you explain to me what exactly bothers you so much about this conversation with Nicaise?”

It wasn’t a conversation, Damen thinks. They didn’t talk to each other, they didn’t listen. It was just Nicaise being Nicaise. Or rather, Nicaise being Laurent. “Are you saying it shouldn’t have bothered me?”

“No,” Neo says slowly. “I’m saying I don’t quite understand why you reacted the way you did during the first half of the argument. Something I’ve noticed about you is that you try not to make fun of Nicaise.” He flips back a few pages on his notepad. “You talk a lot about not wanting to embarrass him. It’s a bit of a pattern.”

“I didn’t embarrass him. I was—you told me to talk to him.”

“I did, yes.”

“He’s been going through Laurent’s things,” Damen says. “He looked up the fucking café we went to. Someone had to tell him to stop.”

Neo scribbles something down. As usual, Damen can’t read what it is. “Let’s go back to how you felt for a second. If you had to use one word to describe the emotion you experienced when Nicaise—when you realized Nicaise wants you to be with Laurent again, what word would that be?”

Three come to mind, effortlessly. Nauseous, angry, and— “I felt used.”

It hangs between them, that lonely word. Damen tries to tell himself it’s fine, that he made the right choice, that he’s being honest. Honesty is good. Maybe if he’d been more honest, if he’d tried harder, things would not be the way they are now. Maybe he wouldn’t be here, paying someone to listen to him whine.

“Used how?” 

“Nicaise hasn’t been coming over to my house because he misses having me around,” Damen says, past the tightness of his throat. He imagines the muscles there like a closed fist. “He’s been doing it because he wants to corner me into meeting up with Laurent again and again until we… I don’t know. I don’t know what he was thinking.”

“And how did you get to that conclusion—that he doesn’t particularly like you and just wants you to get back together with Laurent?”

Damen stares.

“Because it seems to me that’s not what Nicaise was saying,” Neo says. “If he wants you back together with Laurent, it means he wants you in his life as well. You’ve said it before, Damen. They’re a package deal. So to me, it sounds like he was… hurt. Not because his evil plan wasn’t working, but rather because you not being in a relationship with Laurent means that, eventually, you might not want a relationship with him either.”

“I don’t…” Damen trails off. It’s too much, this small, budding hope. It’s more than he can bear. He wills it to wither away. “Maybe he just doesn’t like Maxime. Or maybe he misses not being the only person Laurent is mad at all the time.”

“Or, as I said, maybe he misses you, as a person, and the only way he knows he can keep you is by pairing you up with Laurent. Tell me, why is it so hard to believe that Nicaise misses you? That he wants to spend time with you?”

Moping around your stupid house with your ugly dog. “He doesn’t.”

“You sound very sure about that.”

“He thinks I’m pathetic,” Damen says. It slips out, and his face flames when he realizes he’s said it out loud. After a cough: “The moment he realized he was not going to get his way, he bolted. He blocked me everywhere, even on Instagram. It’s—you’re wrong. I know him.”

Neo purses his mouth. “He’s seventeen. Teenagers think everything is the end of the world. They say things they don’t mean when they’re upset, they don’t know how much what they say can hurt.”

“Nicaise isn’t like most teenagers.”

“In what way?”

Damen doesn’t reply. Nicaise does what he does and says what he says because he knows exactly what will come out of it.

“I’d like to ask you something,” Neo says. It’s hard for Damen not to tense at the words, and it’s even harder not to feel ashamed that Neo has noticed. “There is no right or wrong explanation, Damen. I just want to know what your thoughts are.”

“Okay.”

Neo scratches his cheek. His beard looks better now than it did last week, less patchy. It’s less distracting like this. “When you said Nicaise has always had issues, what did you mean?”

“I’ve told you about him.” About Laurent’s uncle. Damen pauses, trying to find the right words to say. There’s a small part of him that knows no matter what he says, it won’t be what Neo wants to hear. “He’s had—an abnormal childhood. I guess the more time you spend with him the more you pick up on those things.”

“What things?”

The list is never-ending. Damen sees it inside his head like an infinite scroll of paper being unfolded. He imagines in Laurent’s head it must be longer, because Laurent notices everything. Laurent knows everything. 

Damen says, “He gets rashes when he’s upset, really bad ones. And he has these temper tantrums.”

“Tantrums. You keep using that word.”

“He used to stomp his feet when he was younger.”

Neo nods. “Yes, I imagine he’s outgrown that. What does he do now? Yell?”

“Mostly. He used to throw things at us. Pillows and—well, anything he could get his hands on, really. One time he…”

“He…?”

“He threw a fork at me once. It stabbed the wall.”

“Would you say he has anger issues?” Neo says. “That he experiences mood swings? It sounds like he struggles to control himself sometimes.”

It’s hard to hear someone say these things about Nicaise. Damen feels that familiar prickle of anger inside him, the need to snap back and say no . Except Damen has thought all these things himself, too. He’s even said them to Laurent, late at night, while Nicaise was locked in his room or away with friends or sleeping on Laurent’s side of the bed. He’s doing better , Laurent would say. 

Better than what?

“I guess so,” Damen says at last. His heart beats a bit faster, like he’s doing something dangerous. Or wrong. “He also has a thing with food?”

Neo leans forward. “An eating disorder?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. It’s not about how he looks, I think. It’s… One second he’ll eat the cheapest junk food available, but the next he’ll ask for caviar.” A pause. Should he mention— “Whenever Laurent and I took him out for lunch or something, he always had to check the menu beforehand. He’s weird about prices, too.”

“Weird how?”

“He likes expensive things, but it’s not… It’s complicated.”

Neo waits, not asking the obvious question. Complicated how? It seems Damen always picks the same word, always gets stuck on the same observation.

“I don’t think he actually wants that kind of stuff,” Damen says. He thinks of Nicaise, pointing at the most expensive dish on Virtus’s menu. “And yet he asks for it. I don’t understand him.”

“That could mean many things,” Neo says, but offers no explanations. “Have you ever talked about this with Laurent?”

“No.”

“Do you think Laurent knows what that’s about?”

“Yes,” Damen says. It’s not easy to imagine a universe in which Laurent doesn’t know everything about Nicaise.

More scribbling. The sound the pen makes as it moves across the paper is very loud, scratching. After a moment, Neo says, “How does that make you feel, not knowing?”

“Confused.”

Neo’s mouth twists into a tiny smile. “Yes, of course. That’d make anyone feel confused, but I was thinking more about the fact that you believe Laurent knew what was wrong and didn’t explain it to you. Don’t you think you had a right to know, given that you also acted as a guardian to Nicaise?”

“I was never Nicaise’s guardian,” Damen says automatically. Maybe he hasn’t mentioned it already, maybe he gave Neo the wrong impression.

“Yes, perhaps I should have used a different word. But you did take him to school, spent time with him, lived in the same apartment. I imagine sometimes you cooked for him, or otherwise provided him with food, medical attention… I could go on.”

Damen doesn’t want him to go on. If anything, he wants Neo to stop talking. “I’m not Laurent,” he says. He tries to say something else, something more, but there are no words in his mouth. It feels like he’s said this before.

A moment passes, and then another. Eventually, Damen’s eyes flicker back to the spot on the wood. It looks like a paint splatter.

“Do you know why I asked you about Nicaise’s issues?” 

“No,” Damen says. 

“While you were telling me what happened at the restaurant, you said ‘not normal’ twice. I wondered if that’s how you think about Nicaise, in terms of normalcy.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Damen, this isn’t me attacking you. There aren't any sides to this.”

“I don’t think one can be normal after—” Damen picks at arm cushion fabric, his pinky curled around a loose thread. “He was a kid. You’ve written a book on rough childhoods, right?”

“I have.”

“So what do you think?”

Neo uncrosses his legs, stretching them a little. “I think kids are more resilient than we give them credit for,” he says. “But there’s a difference—a big one—between a person struggling and them not being normal. Is being neurotypical normal?”

“Neuro—what?”

“What I’m trying to say is that just because Nicaise has behavioral problems, it doesn’t mean he’s behind his age group or below average. Or abnormal.”

“I never said he was.”

Neo tilts his head. “But can you imagine how he’d feel if you said something like that to him?”

“But I didn’t say it,” Damen says, startlingly firm. “It was a passing thought, nothing else.”

“All right. Either way, can you think about it?”

Damen does. He thinks of a younger Nicaise, close to thirteen, slamming his bedroom door shut again and again and again. He thinks of Nicaise at fourteen, crawling into their bed as soon as Damen got up to go to work. He blinks and Nicaise is fifteen, asking to be picked up from school because he feels sick, and then confessing in Damen’s car that he just didn’t want to sit through his Biology class. He thinks of Nicaise at sixteen, two weeks before he and Laurent called things off, watching muted TV shows in the living room, unblinking. You’re not normal , Damen pictures himself saying to all those versions of Nicaise. 

Nicaise would—he would—

“As you said, we all have mean thoughts sometimes. Rude thoughts. Intrusive thoughts. They don’t define us,” Neo says, “but what does is whether or not we choose to vocalize them. However, if you find yourself thinking about Nicaise like that, perhaps it’d be best if we worked on changing that pattern of thought.”

“I,” Damen says. He swallows, once, twice. “Yes. That’d be—yes.”

Neo is looking at him now, a careful tilt to his head. Almost as though he knows Damen is one second away from bolting out of the room. “One more question,” he says, and waits for Damen to nod. “Is that how you think of Laurent as well? As someone who isn’t normal, who has issues?”

They had the same childhood, Damen thinks of saying and doesn’t. It’s not true, for the most part. “I don’t think much about Laurent,” he says instead. 

Neo writes, and writes, and writes.

*

How is he?

Ask him yourself.

Of course Laurent is still mad. He blocked me, Damen texts back, even though it feels like the biggest degradation, like showing Laurent he’s right. It should count for something, that Damen is willing to do this for Nicaise, to check on him, and yet he knows no one is keeping score. No one except for Damen. 

Laurent’s reply comes through the next day, as Damen is driving to the office. 

He’s fine.

Just fine?

Yes.

Can I, Damen starts typing, and stops. Can he what? Ambush Nicaise? Pick him up from school? He knows Laurent will say no, knows Nicaise will try to bolt the second he sees Damen. Okay, he sends instead. And then, after a long pause: Thanks.

Laurent leaves him on read.

*

There’s a knock, short and meek. Damen looks up, expecting Marianne or Gera, his secretary, and instead finds Pallas awkwardly standing under the doorway.

“I didn’t know you were back already,” Damen says. He clicks on the red button that will take him out of his boring Zoom meeting, then leans back in his chair to give Pallas his full attention. “You look pale.”

Pallas tugs on his sleeves. His shirt is a deep blue color, which makes him look pasty. “I’m…” He steps into Damen’s office, closes the door behind him. It looks practiced. “I was hoping we could talk a bit?”

Damen points at the empty chair on the other side of his desk. “If you need more time off,” he says, “I’ll talk to Kastor about it, but you do know he’d never say no to something like this, right?”

“No, I’m good. Salmonella’s gone.”

“Okay.”

Pallas rubs the back of his neck, something Damen hasn’t seen him do in a while. It’s his talking to a professor pose, as Aktis used to call it in college. “So. Lazar told me what happened at the funeral.”

Of course. Damen should have seen it coming. “He’s—”

“I know,” Pallas says miserably. “He shouldn’t have said what he said to you. It’s—I had a talk with him already. Won’t happen again, Damen.”

“What?”

“He misunderstood things.”

I know what Pallas has told me about you and your friends. That did not sound like a misunderstanding. Tentatively, like an experiment, Damen says, “I don’t think he likes me very much. Or the other guys.”

Pallas looks down at his lap. “I might have complained a bit too often about Aktis to him.”

“Oh.”

“So yeah,” Pallas says, “I just wanted to apologize. It wasn’t appropriate, what he did. And I don’t want you to think that I…”

“That you don’t like Aktis?”

There’s a moment of silence. Damen feels on the very edge of something, balancing on thin, wobbly wire, ready to fall. He thinks there is something he should ask Pallas, but he can’t think of what.

“Of course I like Aktis.” Pallas laughs. It sounds— “He’s, like, our best friend, dude. Of course I like him. Did Lazar say otherwise?”

“I don’t.”

“Sorry, what?”

“I don’t like him sometimes,” Damen says. Are you back into pussy now? Why do the fat ones always have good faces? His heart is beating so loud he can feel it slamming around his ribcage. It’s true, he realizes. It’s true that he doesn’t like his friend sometimes. “The way he says things isn’t…”

Pallas’ eyes are very wide. There’s a thread of gold suspended in his brown irises, like honey. Something he can’t blink away.

“He’s funny,” Damen says, defensive. He doesn’t know who he’s defending Aktis from, since Pallas hasn’t said a single word. “Yeah, he can get rowdy sometimes, but he’s not a bad person. Right?”

Silence, a beat of it. Then, slowly, Pallas says, “Right.”

“Has he said something to you?”

“I… Not really.”

Damen glances at his screen. They both should get back to work before Kastor catches them slacking and stabs them to death with his limited edition Le Boeuf pen. 

“What about Nikandros?” Pallas says. He won’t meet Damen’s eyes. “Do you… not like him sometimes?”

Months back, Damen would have said of course I do. Nikandros is different, always has been. He is the oldest, truest friend Damen has ever had. Even now, sitting across from Pallas, it’s hard for Damen to read him, to know exactly what Pallas wants. With Nikandros, everything is easier. There is no guessing, no lying. Or there didn’t use to be.

“I don’t know,” Damen says, and tenses.

Pallas doesn’t laugh. “I don’t like him sometimes.”

It feels like a betrayal, to talk of their friends like this. Damen wants to cower away, to shrink back into formalities. They get along, the five of them. They’ve always gotten along. Everything Damen has said is true: Aktis can be a lot to handle, but he isn’t evil. Aktis isn’t evil at all, because if he were, if the things he’s said over the years were to be measured and used against him… 

Damen has said bad things, too. He doesn’t want them measured, remembered. He’s not one to judge.

“Nik’s wrong,” Pallas says, and Damen wants to cringe. “Dude, you were with Laurent for years. Of course you’re grieving that. Just because he never liked them it doesn’t give him the right to invalidate your feelings.”

Damen keeps very still. His feelings. Right. “Okay.”

“And I know you don’t care, you never have, but it’s—we shouldn’t have to put up with their comments, you know?”

“What comments?”

Pallas’ cheeks are flushed. He starts to get up. “Nothing.”

“Pallas,” Damen says. “Sit down.”

“I have to give some papers to Kastor. It’s important. Let’s just—” 

“What did he say to you?”

“Kastor? He said I have to give him the green folder in ten seconds or he’s going to fire me.”

“Nikandros,” Damen says. “What did Nikandros say?”

Pallas tries to stall. He pretends to examine the papers on Damen’s desk, the little silver clips. He runs his hand over the back of the chair he was just sitting in, murmuring something about leather. With every second that passes, he’s inching closer to the door.

“What the fuck did he say?”

“Nothing,” Pallas says, both hands up. “It’s not always Nikandros. I only meant that they all think you’re going to fuck them if they’re not careful. Like you’re some—” He cuts himself off. “It’s really nothing. Now, I really have to go, dude. Kastor will have my head if I don’t—”

“Go.”

Pallas doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s out of the office in under a minute, the door not quite slamming shut behind him. Through the crack, Damen sees him flee in the opposite direction of Kastor’s office.

Call Nik, a little voice says. Call him and say what, exactly? They have talked things through already, and Nikandros hasn’t brought up Laurent again. There’s nothing left to be said.

Kastor is the one Damen should call. It’s only fifteen minutes to their lunch break, which Kastor always spends alone in his office. Damen knows what foods he likes—no red meat, no sushi—and it’d be easy to show up with a meal in his hands, knock on Kastor’s door, ask—

Damen picks his phone from the desk, goes to his conversation with Nicaise. Grey, pictureless, still blocked. He pockets the phone.

Two more Zoom meetings, then a Skype call. There’s a spreadsheet Damen has to check, because Kastor has asked him to do so ten times already. Folders and papers have been stacking up steadily on his desk for a while now, but Damen doesn’t find it hard to ignore them. He comes to work when he’s supposed to, leaves when the interns do. Colorful post-it notes adorn the pile next to his keyboard, little beacons trying to get his attention. Damen runs a finger through the pages, just to feel the bumps of them, the exhale of air at his ruffling. 

There’ll be time tomorrow. 

*

The website for St George’s Bookstore is easy to navigate, titles in small caps, every link color-coded. It’s also familiar, because this is the bookstore where Laurent used to buy all his books. Their Sociology selection is one of the most varied in Vere, and even though the physical shop is in Arles, they still ship books to Deleur and Chasteigne if the order is big enough. Laurent’s orders were always too big. Five, ten, fifteen books. Damen couldn’t even tell him off for it, because Laurent would read them all. One by one they’d go from Laurent’s bedside table to the bookcase in the living room, where almost all the shelves were packed full. 

Damen’s cursor hovers over the genre selection, drawing circles over the Sociology link. He needs to buy at least five books if he wants to meet the shipping criteria, but he won’t waste money on Selek or Burawoy. Baudrillard or Weber. Names Laurent spoon-fed to him over the years, names Damen can’t even spell.

Psychology, then. 

Dog barks, his snout wet against Damen’s ankle. He whines, in that new way he’s been doing lately. Each time it happens is more annoying than the last.

“No park today,” Damen says without looking at him. “Go to the backyard or something. And don’t fall in the pool.”

Something warm covers Damen’s right foot. When he glances at it, he finds Dog curled up around it, only one of his eyes open. Is he asking for something? Is he having a stroke? Can dogs even have strokes?

You’re, like, the worst dog owner , Nicaise said. He wasn’t wrong.

The search tool is easy to use. He types in Neo’s full name, followed by the word trauma , and hits enter. The first book that comes up has a green cover, the title in big white letters. Healing Childhood. Damen adds it to his cart.

Below Neo’s there are similar books being recommended. Damen looks through the list, trying not to snort at the titles. The Missing Puzzle Piece Inside You, and Forgive the Forgotten, and CPTSD: The Lonely Journey. At the very end, a red cover catches his attention. There’s a drawing on the front, a little fish in a too-big bowl. It looks like the sort of thing a child would draw. The lines are wobbly, thick, made with crayons. The fish is almost too small to see, comically so. It makes something in Damen ache.

He adds it to the cart, too, without reason. He probably won’t read it—in fact, he’s not even sure he’ll get around to reading Neo’s—but compulsion is stronger than his common sense. It’s not like it’s expensive. He’ll use them for decoration if nothing else, the way Nikandros has been pestering him to do for months. 

Two in, three more to go. 

He got me a journal, Nicaise had said. The selection of notebooks St. George’s has to offer is pretty limited: leather-bound, ring-binded, hardcover. Damen has never seen Nicaise write anything down, or draw, or even doodle. But if Laurent got him a journal, then it probably means Nicaise is into this kind of stuff. Maybe Damen never noticed. 

He picks a black journal first, then a bright yellow one with a flower sewn into the front. Nicaise likes flowers, probably. Damen adds a third one, wrapped in glossy pink plastic. It’s not like he’s going to give them to Nicaise any time soon, if ever. It’s not like Nicaise will even care.

Dog is barking again, more insistent than before. Check it, Damen hears, checkcheckcheck.

Still blocked.

*

“Anything else?” 

Damen examines the counter. They have packages of savory biscuits on display, but also a box of cookies Damen’s been eyeing since he walked through the door. Blueberries and almonds. It’s Friday, and Fridays warrant a little indulgence. He’ll burn it off at the gym tomorrow morning.

“I’d like—”

A voice, high and drawly, cuts him off. “Are you following me around?” 

It’s Ancel, of course. Damen knows it’s Ancel before he even turns to stare at him. He would have known it was Ancel even without seeing his red hair or shiny, designer sunglasses. It’s been raining since nine in the morning, and it’s now seven-thirty in the afternoon. The sun has been gone for over an hour now. What’s the point of wearing sunglasses? 

“No,” Damen says, and turns back to the employee. “Those cookies, please. Here’s my card.”

The girl behind the register takes it but not before giving Ancel, who’s still standing too close to Damen, a funny look. She’s probably wondering about the glasses, too.

Ancel says, “What are you doing here?”

Damen takes his card back, along with the bag full of food, and smiles at the girl. “I’m buying stuff,” he says. “It’s what one does at a shop.”

Ancel takes off his glasses, resting them on his head. He looks like a Vaskian actress, his coat too thick and the heels of his boots too high. He’s done something weird to his eyes, something that makes them look bigger. Damen thinks it might be botox. 

“This shop isn’t near your house,” Ancel says. He leaves whatever he’s holding on the counter and follows Damen to the door. “Or did you move again?”

“It’s close to the office.”

“Ah. The law thing.”

“Firm.”

Ancel makes a vague gesture with his hand. It looks dismissive. “That. I hope, for your safety, that you’re not being a crazy stalker. It could end badly for you. Ber has connections.”

Damen pushes the front door of the shop open. “I have no interest in stalking you, Ancel. Maybe I should be the one asking you why you’re here. Shouldn’t you be supporting Aimeric’s business?”

Even though Damen has one foot outside and is ready to go, he pauses when he sees Ancel’s face. It’s sagging, sort of, into what looks like a grimace. 

Fuck, Damen thinks. Aimeric.

“Is Aimeric okay?” 

A short woman huffs her way into the shop, barely fitting through the narrow space between Damen’s body and the doorway. Awkwardly, Damen realizes he and Ancel are standing in everyone’s way.

Ancel steps outside before Damen can suggest they sit down at a table. He shoves Damen in the process, making him hit his elbow on one of the door hinges. A shock of electricity rushes through Damen’s arm and into his fingertips, leaving all the muscles unpleasantly tingly.

There aren’t any people around. Damen wonders, again, what Ancel is doing here. It’s quiet for a Friday night, only one or two cars driving by every couple of minutes. This isn’t exactly Ancel’s scene.

“Pêche is closed,” Ancel says. “Temporarily.”

Damen doesn’t know what to say. As usual, he thinks, bitterly. 

“Anyway, Ber’s still at the office, but he’d come if I called him. Like, if you were really stalking me and planning to use your caveman’s hands to strangle—”

“I don’t want to strangle you,” Damen says. It’s only half true. “I bought my dinner, and now I’m going back to my place. Not everything on this earth revolves around you, Ancel.”

Ancel blinks. His eyelashes are unnaturally long. This, for some reason, annoys Damen more than everything else. Is there anything about Ancel that isn’t fake? 

“If this is part of your master plan, it won’t work. I’m not going to tell Laurent I ran into you.”

Damen stares. “What fucking part of I did not know you’d be here don’t you understand?”

“The part where you actually mean it.”

It’s the sort of thing Nicaise would say. You had coffee, and you talked. If you say so. I never said you were friends. The idea that people around Damen can see something he himself can’t makes him feel strangely small. Is he walking around with a red sign on his head, an arrow that points down at his face and tells everyone he wants to get back with his ex? Is he so openly pathetic?

“It’s good that you’re here though,” Damen says. Something in him is beating angrily, just below his sternum. Building up. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Ancel frowns. It doesn’t last long, because as soon as he notices the wrinkles on his own brow he relaxes his whole face, massaging the area with his thumb. “Yes?”

“Stop putting stupid ideas in Nicaise’s head.” 

“What?”

“You’re getting a bit too old to gossip with a teenager.”

“Old? I’m not old . You’re old. You’re, like, fucking forty.” Ancel starts frowning again, but quickly stops himself before his red eyebrows can touch. “What stupid ideas have I been putting in the brat’s head? That you suck? He probably figured that one out on his own. Fucking finally.” 

Damen’s hold on his paper bag tightens. He’ll crush the cookies if he’s not careful. “Don’t make him think I’m after Laurent. Maybe you find it funny, but it’s just fucked up. Nicaise isn’t—”

“When Nicaise and I have our boy talk,” Ancel says slowly, “we don’t mention you. At all.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

Ancel rolls his eyes, green and sparkly and annoyingly big. “You think you can just stalk me and order me around? You don’t get to decide who talks to Nicaise about shit.”

“I do actually,” Damen says. He’s angrier than he thought he was, and now it’s too late to go back, to stop. “Especially when it’s about me. Keep your speculation to yourself.”

“Or what?”

“He’s a fucking kid. Find someone your own age to talk to.”

Ancel’s face spasms. Again, it looks like he’s trying not to frown. “We don’t talk about you. Do you want me to say it in Patran? Talking not you about us too. Got it, dumbass?”

“Your Patran is absolute—” 

“I mean, why would we talk about you?” Ancel says. “What’s there to say, huh? Trust me, Laurent doesn’t mention you. At all. I’m surprised Nicaise even remembers your name.”

Maybe Nicaise won’t, in a few years. Maybe he’ll spell it wrong, if he ever writes it down. Damen pushes past the hurt, tries to dodge it. “Fuck you.”

“Fuck you right back, baby. You know, when you told Laurent about Aimeric, I thought, ‘will you look at that? He’s finally developed a brain!’ Obviously not.”

“Can you,” a woman twice as tall as Ancel says, “move away from the goddamn door? I’m trying to do my shopping.”

Ancel turns to look at her. “You’re at the wrong place.”

“I’m—”

“This is a bakery. You’re probably looking for the dumpster? A place to throw that coat you’re wearing in the trash?”

Damen has seldom felt more ashamed than he does now, standing in the middle of the street arguing with Ancel and this stranger. He hates that Laurent’s friends—and Laurent himself—have always brought out the worst in him, hates that he’s been reduced to making a spectacle of himself for everyone to see. The middle of the street is not the place to make a scene, his dad would have said.

While he watches the woman tell Ancel that he looks like an overdressed giraffe, Damen realizes he doesn’t have to be here at all. He doesn’t owe Ancel anything, not even a proper goodbye. 

“—crazy asshole,” the woman says.

Damen doesn’t stick around to hear Ancel’s reply. He walks away, not too fast or too briskly, so as to not look like he’s trying to escape. On the drive home, he keeps all the windows down, wind stabbing him in the face. It’s better than being nauseous.

*

Child abuse may not look exactly the way we have been conditioned to think. For the sake of simplicity, in this book I will not be differentiating between abuse and maltreatment, as many of my colleagues often do, but rather focusing on a typology-oriented distinction. Chapters two to six will aim to explore some of the basic signs a child might exhibit, as well as references to research on the long-term effects each kind of abuse has on children. 

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Understanding Complex Trauma

Chapter 2: Physical Abuse

Chapter 3: Emotional and Psychological Abuse

Chapter 4: Neglect

Chapter 5: Sexual Abuse

Chapter 6: Sexual Exploitation

Chapter 7: Dysregulation, Avoidance, Depression, and Shame: Secondary Symptoms    

Damen takes the cap off the highlighter he stole from Pallas’ desk. It’s neon orange, bright enough that his eyes hurt if he stares at it for too long. As he drags the tip across the page—abuse and maltreatment, he’ll have to google that difference—he remembers all those hours he spent with Nikandros at their college library, highlighting notes, writing on little cards. It feels like it’s been more than a decade since then, more than two.

He opens the book on page thirty, Chapter One, even though something in him wants to skip the beginning, wants to reach number five. 

Neo’s opening line stares at him. What is trauma?   

*

“Maybe you should ask him to meet up with you,” Neo says. “Have coffee, talk a bit. He’s on your list, isn’t he?”

Like everything else, Neo makes this whole thing sound disturbingly easy. Damen knows better than to believe him at this point. Nothing Neo has suggested so far has gone smoothly.

“Right. I’ll just call Ancel, out of the blue, and tell him, ‘hey, we should get lunch sometime this week so we can talk about that thing you said the other day’. It’s a great idea.”

Neo bites his lip, like he’s trying not to laugh. “Well…”

“He’s Laurent’s friend. Even if I wanted to talk to him, which I don’t, he’d never agree to it.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Neo says. “He approached you at the bakery. He chose to talk to you. Admittedly, he insulted you, but he could have easily… gone on with his day instead. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

Now it’s Damen’s turn to laugh. “That he’s Ancel? You don’t know him, but that’s—I don’t think he’s physiologically capable of keeping his mouth shut.”

“He also called you to thank you for speaking up about Aimeric.”

“Berenger probably made him.”

“Berenger is his boyfriend, I assume.”

“Yes,” Damen says. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“They have a… weird relationship. If one could call it that.”

Neo tilts his head. A bad sign.

“Berenger is an old family friend of Laurent’s,” Damen says, repeating the words Laurent once said to him. Now that he thinks about it, Damen doesn’t know whom Berenger was friends with. Auguste seems the most likely candidate, but if that were the case surely Laurent would have mentioned it. Perhaps Laurent’s father? “He’s an accountant. Owns several properties in Vere and Vask.”

“He’s wealthy,” Neo says, sensibly. 

“Yes, and Ancel…”

“Isn’t.”

Damen relaxes, his shoulders drooping. “They’re very different. Ancel spends Berenger’s money like it’s his own. It’s almost—obscene.”

“What does Ancel do for a living?”

“He was a stripper before he met Berenger,” Damen says. Oh, just a performer, Ancel had told him once. A bit of a dancer, a bit of a showman. I’m multi-talented. “Now he does shows online. It’s… I don’t know. They have a weird relationship.”

“Are they monogamous?”

Two years ago, Ancel celebrated his birthday at a fancy nightclub near Privé. Damen remembers, even now, the heat of Laurent’s body pressed against his own in the damp, too loud club, remembers not being able to keep his hands off Laurent’s waist, remembers how in love he was. How in love they both were. 

It had been fun, until Ancel threatened to cut a very drunk girl’s face with a broken bottle of champagne for kissing Berenger on the cheek. 

But maybe Berenger doesn’t mind sharing. He mustn't, or else why would stand by and let Ancel strip for money? 

“I think so,” Damen says at last. “Isn’t that fucked up?”

Neo, as usual, passes no judgment. “What is?”

“The fact that they’re together, even though it’s so obvious Ancel’s in it for the money. Those shows…” Damen tries to keep the disgust off his face. He’s not sure he’s successful. 

“Maybe that’s not how Berenger sees it.”

“How can he not see it? He’s not an idiot. Ancel spends more money on himself than anyone I’ve ever met. One would think that he’d be cautious, but instead, he’s just—greedy.”

“Why would one think that?”

Damen frowns. “Squandering makes him look bad. Makes Berenger look bad, too. If Ancel came from nothing, shouldn’t he have more moderate tastes?”

Neo stops writing. In fact, he stopped a while ago. “Have you thought about what those purchases might mean to someone like Ancel? What kind of security they could offer him?”

“No,” Damen says. “Why not use Berenger’s money to go to college, and get a good job, and not have to sell his ass on the internet? He could do anything he wanted, and yet he’s doing this.”

Neo tilts his head to the other side. “Let’s take a little break. You said the way Ancel spends Berenger’s money makes them both look bad. Explain that to me.”

“It makes Berenger look like a creep. Like he’s paying Ancel to be with him.”

“And Ancel?”

It makes him look like a whore. The thought is there, at the front of Damen’s mind, ready to be turned into sound. Something stops him at the very last second. “It makes him look like a sugar baby.”

“Which is bad,” Neo says, “in your opinion.”

“It’s not a real job.”

Neo writes a word down. It looks a lot like real, two fat quotation marks guarding it. “If it’s something he enjoys doing, there’s no amount of money that will make him stop. Maybe he considers those shows you mentioned a profession.”

“I don’t get it,” Damen says. “What’s there to enjoy about letting strangers see you naked?”

“I don’t know. Have you ever asked him?”

“We don’t talk.”

“You don’t talk now . What about when you were still with Laurent?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Damen’s jaw throbs. Our bones remember things, his high school coach had told him after Damen had gone away to Marlas for the weekend and come back with a broken arm. His elbow continued to ache for months, especially when it was about to rain. 

“We’ve had some disagreements,” Damen says. 

“It seems to me you’ve had several disagreements with several of Laurent’s friends. What makes Ancel different?”

It was a Thursday, the last week of spring break. Nicaise was at Leandre’s house, and Laurent had invited Ancel and Berenger over for dinner. The wine Berenger had brought was a Patran kind, white and sweet and good with any dessert. Damen remembers thinking Laurent would like it, if he’d simply try it. 

Things were fine, until they weren’t. 

“Which one do you like more?” Ancel said, turning his phone around so Laurent could look at the pictures. The screen was so bright it caught Damen’s attention and pulled him out of his conversation with Berenger. “Personally, I think the blue panties work better than the white socks.”

Laurent hummed. He looked focused. “You’re too pale for white,” he said. “Maybe you should try lace. There’s this boutique in Ternes that specializes in stockings.”  

The picture showed Ancel on a perfectly made bed, wearing the most revealing set of lingerie Damen had ever seen. He had a blue bralette on, each cup missing a circle of fabric where Ancel’s nipples were, pink and pointy. The pose was obscene, like something one would find on a porn site: Ancel, on his hands and knees, sucking on a lollipop an anonymous hand was holding.

“—this,” Ancel was saying. With a swipe of his thumb, the picture changed. Now he was bent over the edge of the bed, his ass barely covered by a green skirt. He looked like a girl. “Like, they sent me some cool pieces and I agreed to collab with them, but I just can’t make up my mind. Ber says he likes all of them.”

“It’s hard to tell which one is darker with that lightning,” Laurent said. “Do you have other pictures?”

“No.” Ancel started to pout, then stopped. A smile came through instead. “Oh, but you’re free tomorrow! You have to come over and see them in person. Maybe you can even take some pictures with—”

“Damen?” Berenger said. His voice was very calm. “Is something wrong?”

Three pairs of eyes landed on him. Damen stretched, letting his arm fall over Laurent’s tense shoulders. “No,” he said, then turned to Ancel. “Laurent’s busy tomorrow.”

“Damen,” Laurent said. A warning.

Ancel lowered his phone. “Oh, really? Doing what?” 

“Christmas shopping.”

“Christmas is months away.”

Damen shrugged. “We like to stay on top of things.”

“Obviously,” Ancel said, and his smile was like poison. “You love being on top, don’t you? Can’t have it any other way.”

“Do you need help with dessert?” Berenger said, looking at Laurent. “I bet the brownies have cooled down by now.”

Laurent stood. “Yes. The plates are in the second—”

“Since we’re talking about Christmas shopping,” Ancel said, “what size are you, Laurent? Maybe when I go to Ternes I can get you something. You know, as a present.”

Berenger’s hand disappeared under the table. Ancel stayed very still.

“I’ll text you about that later,” Laurent said. His fingers brushed over Damen’s hand, tapping. “Come help me in the kitchen. I can’t carry everything by myself.”

Damen complied. He wasn’t surprised when Laurent closed the kitchen door the second they were both inside. For once, Damen had seen this coming.

“What the fuck,” Laurent said, “was that?”

“He started it,” Damen said, leaning back against the counter. The tray of brownies was mere inches away. “What kind of person goes around showing their nudes?”

“Those weren’t nudes.”

“Right, my mistake. They were just half-naked pictures he sells to horny idiots on the internet. Is that better?”

“Since when do you care about what he does? It’s his life.”

“I don’t care about him,” Damen said, “but I don’t want you doing that.”

Laurent’s eyes were duller than usual. “That?”

“Come on, Laurent. How many times has he said he wants to do shoots with you? He literally just said—”

“You didn’t let him finish,” Laurent said. He took a step forward. “And so what if he’s asked me to do that? How is it your problem? He’s not asking you to put on a skirt and spread your cheeks.”

Damen’s face burned. Don’t be crass, he thought of saying but didn’t. He knew Laurent would laugh. “So you want to do it?” 

“Maybe.”

A snort left Damen’s mouth, then a laugh. He turned around to start plating the brownies, his right hand reaching out for the spatula to pick them up. 

“What?” Laurent snapped. 

The first brownie crumbled into pieces as Damen tried to take it out of the tray. “You should do it,” Damen said, aiming for dismissiveness. “I mean, it’s obviously about the money, isn’t it? You can’t afford food or clothes, can’t pay the bills. Go for it.” He picked up another brownie. “Maybe next time you can ask me for money instead of whoring yourself out. Just a thought.” 

The kitchen turned eerily quiet. Damen focused on the task at hand—get the plates out, put the brownies on them, get the ice cream out of the fridge, get a spoon. It all smelled delicious, a mix of chocolate and hazelnut and vanilla, and yet Damen’s appetite was dwindling already. Arguing with Laurent often had that effect.

Damen held onto the counter, closed his eyes. “What is it?”

Laurent did not reply.

“I was being sarcastic,” Damen said. Still, silence. He tried again: “I know you wouldn’t do that.”

“Of course,” Laurent said, and left the kitchen.

It was going to be one of those nights, Damen thought. He’d sleep on the couch, or maybe Laurent would, and they’d both try to pretend like nothing had happened when Nicaise came back home in the morning. That was one of Laurent’s rules—don’t let Nicaise see them fighting. 

Damen dropped the spoon he was holding in the sink and went after him.

He stopped at the end of the hallway. “What’s going on?”

“They’re leaving,” Laurent said without looking at him. He was holding Ancel’s coat. “Text me when you get home, okay?”

Ancel slipped on his right boot. “Maybe you should come with us. Like, we can have a sleepover in the guest room. No Bers allowed.”

“Why would he leave with you?” Damen said. He suddenly wished he’d invited Nikandros over, just so he’d have someone on his side. The idea abandoned him as fast as it had come; Nikandros and Laurent in the same room never worked out fine.

“Ancel,” Berenger said.

Ancel ignored him. “Because you’re being an asshole.”

“What?”

“Don’t what me,” Ancel said. He was taller now, with his boots on. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Damen looked at Laurent, whose face was turned away. Anger came, and stayed. “If not wanting my boyfriend to shoot porn with you makes me an asshole, then I guess I am one.”

“It’s ridiculous how insecure you are. You just ruined dinner.”

“Ancel,” Berenger said. Two strikes.

“Oh, I ruined dinner,” Damen said with a snort. “Have you ever stopped to think not everyone wants to see you naked while they’re having a meal? Not everyone wants to—”

“You should leave,” Laurent said. His voice was strange.

Ancel stepped forward. He smelled like he’d bathed in perfume, something expensive and very sweet. Up close, he almost managed to tower over Damen. “Go ahead. Not everyone wants what, exactly? To hear about other people’s jobs? You talk about yours all the fucking time.”

“I wasn’t aware that you had a job,” Damen said. A big part of him thought Ancel didn’t even know how to read. 

“Fuck you. I make more in a day than you make in two months, asshole.”

“Taking off your clothes? I doubt it." Damen looked at Laurent, and once again he found Laurent looking the other way. The words he’d been holding back broke loose. “Unless you offer other services?”

“You wish,” Ancel said. “I wouldn’t fuck you for a million euros.”

Damen laughed. “Right. Only because I wouldn’t move you into my house and pay you to be my little—” 

The fist that connected with his jaw was cold, as though Ancel had spent the last minutes with his hand buried in snow. The pain, however, wasn’t cold; it was hot, infection-like. Damen stumbled backward until he found the hallway wall, which he slumped against. There was a pounding in his head, inside his mouth. He touched his chin.

The urge to hit back was so strong he could barely breathe through it. 

“—now.” Laurent’s voice, coming from far away. “I got it, Berenger.”

The door slammed shut, and they were gone. 

Everything was silent, and then Laurent was walking up to him, his face like Nicaise’s when he got too upset. He dragged Damen into the kitchen by the elbow, and Damen went, tasting blood in his mouth. It dripped down his front.

“I didn’t—”

Laurent set the icepack on the counter, next to the half-plated brownies. The ice cream had already melted into pathetic yellow puddles. “Shut up,” he said. “For once, just fucking shut up, Damen.”

And Damen had. He’d stayed quiet as Laurent pressed the ice pack to his jaw, then lowered it to his chin. He hadn’t said a word when Laurent changed into his sleeping shirt in the living room, or when he lay down on the couch. There had been nothing to say anyway.

“It’s just different,” Damen says. 

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Neo says, “but I think you brought up the conversation you and Ancel had the other day at the bakery because it clearly bothered you. It’s still bothering you.” 

“It isn’t.”

“Not at all?”

“It bothers me that he’s putting these ideas in Nicaise’s head,” Damen says. “Other than that, I don’t care about him.”

“Then why is he on the list? Is there something you want to apologize to him for?”

Any job is a good job, he’d told Lazar. Had he meant it? “No.”

“Maybe you want an apology from him,” Neo says. “He called you to thank you for telling on Aimeric, which shows you it’s not impossible to have a conversation with him.” 

“Why would I want to have a conversation with him?”

“I’m not suggesting you befriend him, but he is on your list. Same as Kastor or Laurent. And you seem…”

“What?” Damen says. “I seem what ?”

“Angry.” Neo shrugs. “This is simply a suggestion, Damen. I won’t force you to text him, or call him, or meet up with him. But the way I see it, the sooner you resolve this issue with Ancel, the sooner Nicaise will stop hearing that there’s a chance you and Laurent will be in a relationship again. Have you asked yourself why Ancel thinks that’s a possibility in the first place?”

Damen’s jaw throbs again, warningly. “Because he’s a fucking idiot.”

*

The third picture is the best. He likes the spine of the yellow notebook, despite the ivy and flowers drawn all over it. In the photo, the pile of notebooks looks bigger than it really is, and more colorful. To turn this into a real gift, Damen thinks, he should have bought coloring pencils, watercolors. Sparkly gel pens, maybe. Nicaise would like those.

I think they’re cool, he types and sends. No blue tick appears.

*

“Helena,” Damen says, struggling to keep his phone from slipping. He has Dog’s bowl in one hand and a bag of food in the other. “So she’s Akielon?”

“Half-Akielon,” Nikandros says. “Her dad is from Germany, but her mom was born in Sicyon. Or Aegina.”

“You can’t remember?”

“Dude, we’ve been on two dates. Do you have any idea how much a girl can talk in one day?”

Dog barks, impatient. Damen’s been pouring his food too slowly. When he’s finally done, Dog shoves Damen’s hand out of the way and starts munching on the edible pebbles.

It’s annoying, this routine Nikandros has set up for the two of them. The first time he called, on Monday, Damen thought it was to tell him off for missing dinner at his house. Instead, they’d talked about a clinic Nikandros is designing in Arles, about the weather, about how a kid they went to middle school with just posted his awkward engagement pictures on Facebook. Damen hadn’t expected Nikandros to call him again the next day, and the one after that. 

It’s annoying, but it’s not as though Damen has anything else going on.

“If you’ve only been on two dates,” Damen says, “why are we talking about her?”

“Because she has friends.”

“Good for her.”

“Damen.”

“I don’t want to date your new girlfriend’s friend.”

Nikandros huffs on the other side of the line. “How long have you been single? Wait, don’t answer that. Answer this: how long has it been since you fucked someone?”

Aline was the last one, months ago. “I like being single,” Damen says, a half-truth. He likes not being with Laurent. “Besides, I’m busy with other things right now, man. Like work.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. You’re trying to get that promotion, right?”

Damen frowns as he stands up. Dog doesn’t even notice him leaving for the living room. “What promotion? I own the firm.”

“Exactly, Damen. You own the fucking firm. You can’t go any higher.”

“So?”

“So you need to relax,” Nikandros says. “Download Tinder again if you don’t want to date Helena’s friend. Go to a club with Pallas and Aktis. Do something.”

“Pallas is dating someone,” Damianos says. He doesn’t know how much Nikandros knows about Lazar, and he doesn’t want to be the one who tells him. I don’t like him sometimes, Pallas had said. “And Aktis… You know how he gets.”

Nikandros ignores the comment altogether. “What about the gym?”

“What about it?”

“There’s this salsa instructor you could—”

The doorbell rings, loud and shrill and unstopping. Damen almost drops his phone. “I’ll call you back, Nik.”

“Oh, come—”

Damen ends the call but doesn’t leave his phone in the kitchen. His thumb hovers over the 9 , just in case. It’s not late enough for him to be worried—it’s a nice neighborhood, he has a great alarm system, it’s a Thursday night—but the doorbell goes on ringing as he approaches the front door. The noise stops abruptly, only to be replaced by three sharp, strong knocks.

He opens the door as soon as he catches a glimpse of blonde hair through the peephole.

“Laurent?”

It’s not Laurent’s presence that startles Damen, but his appearance. For the first time since they ended things, Laurent looks horrible. The porch light isn’t the most flattering by any means, but the state Laurent’s in goes beyond patchy, yellowed skin. He’s wearing the weirdest combination of clothes Damen has ever seen on him: a cotton shirt and a too-big jacket and pants that are too fancy to go well with denim. His hair is in a short, low ponytail, unlike his usual carefully crafted hairstyles. There’s a crack on his bottom lip, red and dry, like he’s been biting down hard on it.

“Is Nicaise here?” Laurent says. He’s on his tiptoes, trying to look inside the house over Damen’s shoulder. “Did he come by earlier?”

Damen opens the door wider, as if to prove he has nothing to hide. “No, he’s not here. I haven’t seen him since last week. What happened? You look—” Damen stops just in time. Perhaps now isn’t the time to comment on that. “What’s wrong?”

Laurent slumps against the doorway. There’s no time for Damen to panic that maybe he won’t answer, that he’ll just walk away, because not a second has passed before Laurent is talking again. “He’s been gone all day, and he’s not picking up his phone. I thought he might be here.”

A strange, sluggish panic begins to set in. “He’s missing?”

“We had a fight this morning.” Laurent presses his closed fist to his forehead. “No one knows where he is.”

“What about Leandre?”

Laurent looks up at him, his blue eyes so cold they make Damen’s panic recede for just a second. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid? I’ve asked all his friends already. I drove to all their houses, spoke to their parents—”

“Okay,” Damen says. He can’t seem to get a full breath of air. “Did you call the police?”

“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet.”

They stare at each other. Don’t worry, Damen wants to say but can’t, because he’s worried too. Nicaise’s disappearing acts had been frequent in the beginning, but they had ended when he realized Laurent would always come looking, and so there was no point in hiding behind garbage bins or getting lost in the grocery store on purpose. 

The last time Nicaise ran away, he came to Damen’s house. With a sinking stomach, Damen realizes if he hadn’t upset him, hadn’t argued with him the way he did at Virtus, then Nicaise would have come here tonight.

Damen grabs his keys from the bowl by the door. “Come on, I’ll help you look for him.”

“You—”

“I’ll take my car if you’re with Maxime,” Damen says, suddenly feeling very awkward. He’s in his front yard, wearing the clothes he sleeps in, and his ex’s new boyfriend might be around. “We can split.”

Laurent stares at him. His side is still pressed to the wall. “We can drive together,” he says after a while, thawing as he starts to walk. “I’ve looked everywhere I can think of already.”

So Maxime isn’t here.

It should be awkward, the two of them in Laurent’s car without any music playing, without Nicaise in the backseat, acting as a buffer, and yet it isn’t. Damen slides into the passenger seat effortlessly, the way he would whenever Laurent wanted to be the one driving—you’re too slow, it’s annoying, everything’s faster in Vere. 

Laurent starts the car. “Where to?” he says. His profile makes Damen’s head hurt.

Damen closes his eyes, trying to remember if Nicaise mentioned anyplace, anyone, anything. “Have you checked the school parking lot?”

“It’s probably closed.”

“Won’t hurt to check,” Damen says, and makes sure to keep his tone soft. The last thing he needs is to piss Laurent off. “Either that or Sakae’s.”

“He didn’t take any money with him,” Laurent says. He starts driving anyway.

Stiffness creeps on Damen slowly, like ivy growing on a wall. He doesn’t want to look at Laurent, but there’s nothing else to look at. At the speed Laurent’s driving, the streets and lights are but a technicolor blur. 

The car smells of cleaning supplies and Laurent’s preferred fabric softener. Damen thought he’d forgotten what that smelled like—the weird, flowery scent that clung to Laurent at all times—but just one breath is enough to remind him. And make him feel sick.

Nicaise can’t have gone far, and yet this knowledge brings Damen little comfort. It used to be a game for Nicaise before, this hide and seek only he’d agreed to play, but now things are different. Nicaise is angry, maybe enough to do something stupid, and he’s older in a way that is dangerous. Some people won’t take chances on an eleven-year-old kid. A teenage runaway is a different thing altogether.

He knows, without asking, that Laurent’s thinking about it too.

“Closed,” Laurent says, pointing at the parking lot ahead. The lights are off, and there are only two empty cars parked near the entrance. 

Damen rubs his face with the heels of his hands. “Did he take his phone with him? Maybe we can track him down using the GPS thing.”

“What GPS thing?”

“That app. Life 360.”

Laurent snorts. His hands turn paler around the steering wheel. “He uninstalled months ago.”

And you let him? Damen swallows it back down, along with all his other questions. Now’s not the time. “Let’s go to Sakae’s,” he says. “Maybe he’s hanging out there. He knows that if Nina’s working, she’ll let him in.”

“It closes at nine and it’s almost eleven.”

“Well, any suggestions?”

Laurent leans forward until his forehead is pressed to the leather. “No.”

“What about Le Quai?”

“It’s closed too.”

Damen stares at the two lonely cars parked in front of Nicaise’s school, and tries to think. It’s late enough that most shops, if not all, are closed. Nicaise isn’t with his friends. He isn’t with any of Laurent’s friends. He isn’t with Damen. He has to be out in the streets.

There’s a loud sound, making the inside of the car vibrate, and then Laurent is pressing a button on the steering wheel and saying, “Yes?”

“Hey,” a voice responds, wrapping itself around both of them, filling up the entire car. Damen closes his eyes, trying to fight off his nausea, as Maxime says, “Did you find him?”

“Obviously not,” Laurent says, acridly.

“Maybe he’s already at home, waiting for you.”

“He isn’t. Ancel’s there and he hasn’t called me.”

Maxime hums. “I could call the local hospitals if you want, ask if anyone’s seen him.”

Damen feels ashamed for a second, wondering why he didn’t think of that first, only to remember that this is Nicaise they’re talking about. There’s nothing Nicaise hates more than hospitals. He’d rather bleed out on the street than go anywhere near a doctor.

But maybe Maxime is right. Maybe it should have occurred to Damen to call, because maybe something’s happened and Nicaise has been wheeled in, unconscious, unable to complain about the stench of hospital soap and bleach. Maybe Maxime knows people, is friends with the police, has connections to Missing Children. Maybe the one sitting in this car should not be Damen.

When Laurent doesn’t answer, Maxime adds, "I bet he just ran away to spite you, baby. You know what he’s like."

Laurent looks at Damen. “I really don’t know. What is he like?”

“He’s—” There's a pause, an awkward silence. "I'm sure he's just throwing a tantrum. He'll be back home in the morning."

Damen presses his fist to his stomach to keep from speaking. Maxime doesn’t know he’s there, and Laurent doesn’t seem eager to tell him. It’d be crossing a limit, telling Maxime to go fuck himself and die.

“It’s only been a few hours,” Maxime says, oblivious to Laurent’s ire. Has he been on the receiving end of it, ever? Does he know what will come after this silence? “You should come here, relax—”

“Relax.”

“Yes. I know you’re worried about him, but this is how teens are. He’s seventeen, baby. What were you up to when you were his age?”

“I have to go.” 

“All right,” Maxime says. His voice is normal, not at all defeated. Does he not know— “Call me when you—”

Laurent ends the call. He blinks, slowly. "Don't say anything." 

"I wasn't going to,” Damen says. He’s too worried to feel smug. 

The ride to Sakae is pointless, but it gives them something to do other than sitting in Laurent’s car, worrying. Thinking about Maxime right now is also pointless, not to mention tasteless, but Damen can’t stop. It’s either that, he reasons, or let his mind come up with a hundred different scenarios, Nicaise hurt in all of them.

Laurent takes a left turn.

"Does he know?" Damen says.

"If you could speak in complete sentences, I'd be grateful."

He's stressed out, Damen reminds himself. It won’t do to snap back. "Does Maxime know about Nicaise?"

Laurent doesn’t reply until they’ve reached a red light, two blocks later. He doesn’t ask what Damen’s referring to, and Damen wishes they’d talked more about it when they were together, wishes they’d named it, wishes he’d—

“How is that relevant?” Laurent says. His eyes are on the streetlight. “This isn’t about Max. I was alone with Nicaise this morning.”

The answer’s no, then. Does he even know about you? It’s too much, too out of line. Damen bites his tongue.

Sakae is closed, as they knew it would be. Instead of aimlessly driving around, Laurent parks the car right in front of the restaurant and sinks back into his seat. Damen watches him breathe, watches him tuck some hair behind his ear. It’s too short, shorter than it was when they had coffee, and it keeps getting on his face. His ponytail is pointless.

"What was the fight about?"

Laurent closes his eyes, head tilted up. "It's none of your business."

"You do realize I'm here looking for him too, right?”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that small detail, Damianos. It’s a bit hard to forget with you opening your mouth every ten seconds.”

Damen’s fingers tighten around his phone. He thinks of all the undelivered messages he’s sent Nicaise over the last few days, of checking to see if he’s been unblocked every night, of logging out of his Instagram account to see if maybe Nicaise has turned his public. “Was it about me?”

“No.”

“Laurent.”

“I said no. Do you want me to say it in Akielon, too? Fucking no .”

They’ve had arguments in this car. In Damen’s car, as well. Bitterly, Damen can’t help but think there are maybe two or three spots in the whole city where they haven’t snapped or cursed at each other. On instinct, he turns to stare at the backseat, half-expecting Nicaise to be there, staring out the window and pretending he can’t hear them bickering. 

The seat, of course, is empty.

“Tell me what happened today,” Damen says. Neo’s voice rises in his head, phantom-like: Don’t you think you deserved to know? “You owe me that much.”

Laurent laughs. It’s a cruel little sound. “I don’t owe you shit. I didn’t even force you to come with me now, did I? Your fucking hero complex made you volunteer.”

“I don’t have a—”

“You probably thought you’d find him in no time,” Laurent says. His voice turns higher, mocking: “I’ll bring him home safe, Laurent, don’t you worry. Have you talked to Leandre’s dad yet? We’ll just use the tracking app.”

Something hot climbs up Damen’s throat. “We could have used the app if you hadn’t let him uninstall it.”

“How was I supposed to stop him? The app’s useless anyways. He keeps his phone off all day.”

“It was never off when he was at my house,” Damen says. The clock on the dashboard glares at him, an angry and bright red neon sign. 11:30. “How long did it take you to realize he was gone?”

Laurent’s eyes are on him again. “Fuck you.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Really? Because it sounded—”

“I want to know when the twenty-four hours are up,” Damen says, loudly, too loudly, “so we can go to the police station and report him missing. For fuck’s sake, Laurent, will you stop ? He could be seriously hurt, and you’re sitting here, berating me about the way I phrased a question. Do you even give a shit about him? Do you even—”

He cuts himself off when he sees Laurent’s expression. Like he did last time with Nicaise, Damen braces himself for what’s to come, goes over the list of things Laurent can hurl at him, tries to minimize the inevitable damage. The comment will be about Nikandros, about his soft childhood in Ios, about the time he tried to discipline Nicaise by himself and ended up covered in vomit. 

Nothing happens.

There’s only Laurent, turning his face to the side so Damen can’t stare at it any longer. In the silence of the car, Laurent’s breathing shakes.

Someone else is in charge of Damen’s body for a moment, all its movements mechanically simple: get out of the car and circle it, ignore how cold it is outside tonight, avoid thinking of Nicaise in said cold, open Laurent’s door. He keeps his mind blank as he stands there and reaches out to touch Laurent’s arm. 

It’s just his elbow, Damen tells himself. This is how strangers would touch.

Laurent leans forward, like something made out of soft dough, something malleable, and presses his face to Damen’s shoulder, his warm breath hitting Damen’s shirt and heating the skin underneath. He’s in a weird position, half-turned to face Damen, one hand still on the steering wheel while the other is a fist to Damen’s stomach. Damen doesn’t dare jostle him in any way, not even to prevent him from fucking up his neck. 

He smells the same way he’s always smelled—coconut shampoo and expensive fabric softener and that hand cream Ancel keeps buying for him every year without fail.  

This is the first time they’ve touched in months, and it’s a struggle for Damen to not move his fingers up, up, up, until they reach Laurent’s hair. To not put his mouth anywhere. Under his hand, Laurent’s arm is warm, the jacket he’s wearing soft like flannel even though it’s denim. It’s the blue one Nicaise likes to steal.

Laurent breathes in again, shakier than before. The fluttering of his eyelashes is rapid enough that Damen can feel it through his shirt.

"We're going to find him,” Damen says. He feels dizzy with fear, like he’s blurring around the edges. “He's not a kid anymore, he knows how to take care of himself. He knows how to keep himself safe, Laurent. He'll make the right choices."

Let him make the right choices , Damen says inside his head, prayer-like. It’s cold, colder than it ought to be this time of the year, and Nicaise didn’t take any money with him, so it’s not as though Damen can imagine him in some gritty, barely heated motel room. If he’s in a room tonight, it’s because someone else has paid for it. Damen pushes the idea away, keeps it wrapped in wire, duct-taped into silence. He can’t think of it.

Laurent presses closer, impossibly so, and then pulls back a bit. His eyes are dry.

"You shouldn't be here,” Laurent says. It takes a moment for Damen to feel the sting of the words. But then: “I shouldn't have dragged you here. It's... I just can't think. I can't... I know I can find him, but I need..."

"I'm not going anywhere."

“You are. You have work in the morning.”

Damen goes to answer, and pauses. It’s not an accusation, he thinks. The tone is off, not as biting, not a taunt. Laurent is scared, too. “I’ll call in sick,” he hears himself say. “We’ll find him tonight. Delfeur’s not that big.”

They stay like that for a while, Laurent still on his seat, half-leaning on Damen while Damen stands in the street, hoping no cars come their way. Without thinking, Damen lets his hand curl around the side of Laurent’s throat, his thumb rubbing warm circles on the skin there. It’s Laurent’s softest spot, other than his thighs. Damen used to nap with his face pressed to the crease of Laurent’s thighs, on the couch, on their bed, while Laurent rested whatever book he was reading on Damen’s head. You gonna stay there all day?   

Yeah, Damen would mumble. As long as you let me.

Laurent pulls back all the way.

“I’ll drive,” Damen says, clearing his throat. He doesn’t know, suddenly, what to do with his hands. “Come on, you can try calling him again while we figure out where to go next.”

“I can drive,” Laurent says, but doesn’t push it. He gets out of the car too, and they trade seats.

Nicaise, as expected, doesn’t pick up. Laurent’s first call goes straight to voicemail. And the second, and the third. Laurent doesn’t try a fourth time.

“There’s a bridge near the school,” Damen says, thinking of all the times he drove under it in the mornings. “I know some kids hang out there on the weekends.”

“Some kids,” Laurent says. 

“Nicaise mentioned it. Said they’re a year ahead of him or so.”

Laurent’s holding his phone too tightly. “Okay. Let’s—maybe he’s there.” 

Damen starts the drive. He clutches the steering wheel with both hands and harder than is necessary, partly because it brings him some sense of security, and partly because his right hand keeps twitching, itching to hold Laurent’s over the handbrake. They’d hold hands and Nicaise would make gagging noises, which would grow louder whenever Damen ran his thumb over Laurent’s knuckles, again and again, and again. 

Laurent would certainly not like that now.

The streets are quiet around them, mostly empty. The clock keeps ticking—00:23, 00:24—and Damen catches Laurent staring at it more than once as he drives. Three green lights, then two reds. 

“School.”

Damen almost steps on the brake. “What?”

“The fight,” Laurent says, eyes on the road. “It was about school. He skipped class on Monday, then again yesterday. He had tests both days.”

See? Damen wants to say. That wasn’t so hard. “So he’s been pretending to go to school and then coming back to the apartment once you’ve gone to work. Is that it?”

“No.” 

A left turn. “No what ?”

“He doesn’t come back home,” Laurent says. The words are soft, and Damen thinks it might be shame dulling them. Out of all of Laurent’s emotions, shame is the only easy one to spot. “I came back from work earlier on Monday and he wasn’t there. I just assumed he was at school.”

“Maybe he knew you were coming back early,” Damen says. “Maybe—”

“He didn’t.”

Laurent’s words crack the dam in Damen’s mind, and it all comes pouring out. The grubby motel room, then. An alley, dark and wet from last night’s rain. Someone’s car, parked on a random street, windows tinted. Nicaise’s voice, which always sounds higher in Damen’s memory, always too young, saying—well, nothing. Nicaise is not one to ask for help.

Damen breathes in, holds it. He can’t throw up now. 

“He hasn’t mentioned any new friends,” Damen says. “It’s always Elyn and Leandre. He told me Joachim’s parents are sending him to a private school next year, so they don’t hang out as much.”

Laurent is trying not to look at him. His eyes flicker—the street, Damen, the clock, Damen. “It’s Evie, not Elyn.”

Shame is a little needle to Damen’s neck. It fades quickly. “Any idea who he could be staying with when he’s skipping class?”

“No. I asked Agnes already if she knew anything about it. She said Nicaise hasn't been talking to her.”

The motel room, the alley, the car. Damen breathes in again. “I thought he liked Agnes.”

“Most of the time,” Laurent says, thumbing the cuff of his jacket. He can’t poke a hole through this one, thick as it is. “He’s very erratic with his alliances, as you know.”

It feels like a jab. “What happened today?”

“I already told you.”

“You told me what the fight was about,” Damen says, “but not what happened. Did he storm out mid-fight? Did he go to school for first period and then leave?”

“Neither. I drove him to school, made sure he went in. Then I got a call around midday from the principal, saying he’d never made it to his first class and that we should have a meeting about it this week.”

The bridge comes into view. It’s dark under it, empty-looking boxes piled on the right side, a few bags full of trash on the left. As he drives by, Damen makes sure the headlights are as bright as they can be, that he’s going as slowly as possible. There’s no one there.

“Try calling him again,” Damen says when the car gets too quiet. 

It’s fifteen minutes after midnight. Laurent calls and calls and calls, and eventually Damen parks the car again, unsure of what they’re supposed to do next. Kastor has a friend in the Arles Police Department, Damen thinks. Maybe that friend has a friend here in Delfeur, someone who can get them to skip the twenty-four-hour rule. Maybe this friend’s friend does private work on the side, little investigations here and there. Damen can pay cash.

When Laurent’s phone rings, still connected to the car, they both jump. Damen’s elbow hits the honk on accident, and that only startles them again, harder.

“Ancel?” Laurent says, exactly one second after picking up. “Is he there?”

Ancel’s voice is quiet, his tone one Damen has never heard. He almost sounds like a real adult. “No. I just wanted to know if you had any updates. What did Damianos say? Did he see Nicaise today or not?”

Damen speaks up before he can remember not to. “I haven’t seen him since last week.”

Silence. It spreads and grows and swells. Finally, Ancel breaks it. “Am I crazy or was that Damianos?”

“Not now, Ancel,” Laurent says. “Just—don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Ancel,” Damen forces himself to say. “Can you check the local hospitals? There’s this website that launched in the spring—Crossing Red. It lets you check who’s been admitted and where.”

“He left his ID at home,” Laurent says, not quite an argument. “How would they know his name?”

“They’ll list him as John Doe, but his age and description will probably be there. Teen, brown hair, the clothes he’s wearing. It can’t hurt to try.”

“Where did you—”

“One of the designers was Kastor’s client. Copyright stuff.” Damen tries to breathe out, and is ashamed that it comes a little stuttered. “I just remembered.”

There’s the vaguely familiar sound of Ancel’s long, acrylic nails hitting a keyboard. “I’ll call you back.”

The call ends with a popping sound. Damen finds himself wishing Ancel had stayed on the phone, if only to know exactly what he’d found the moment he’d found it. It’s strange, wanting Ancel around. 

“I could check it too,” Laurent says. His phone is in his hand already, and he’s thumbing through the apps to get to Google. “Ancel’s not the—he doesn’t always know how to—”

Slowly, Damen reaches out and lowers Laurent’s phone. The blueish shine of the screen dies down after a while. “Don’t. Let’s wait for Ancel to call back.”

“We’re wasting time.”

We’ve wasted a full day already. “The site tells you why they’ve been admitted,” Damen says. He knows when Laurent is close to his tipping point, when he’s ready to crack. The trembling hands are just the start and, if Damen’s being honest, the nicest part of his breakdowns. It’s only downhill from there. “I think it’s better if we just… wait. We don’t need to know the details until we’re there.”

“Speak for yourself,” Laurent snaps. “I want to know if he’s hurt, if he’s—and I’m not sitting here with you, twiddling my fucking thumbs while he’s out there waiting—”

Damen gives Laurent’s hand a squeeze. Baby, he thinks, and almost shudders. “Calm down.”

“I am calm. Don’t you fucking dare tell me to—”

“Let’s think of where else he could be,” Damen says. He waits a second, thinking Laurent will snap at him again, but there is only silence. “He didn’t take any money with him. He didn’t take his ID. It’s late enough that most shops are closed, so he must be somewhere that is open twenty-four hours and has free admission.”

Laurent looks down at their joined hands. He doesn’t move away. “The public library in Bastia closes at midnight. There’s the train station, the shelter in Rivoile.” 

The shelter. Damen decidedly does not ask what kind it is, or why Laurent knows its location. “He wouldn’t go to a shelter.”

“No,” Laurent says, blinking. “He wouldn’t.”

“Let’s try the library first.”

It’s as though the spell has broken, some invisible bubble shattering. Laurent pulls away, leaning against his door, and Damen’s hand is once again free to curl around the steering wheel. No questions have been asked, and yet Damen feels words building up in his mouth, piling. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, only that he wants to say something. Anything.

Laurent beats him to it. “Let’s try the parks,” he says, firmer than before. 

“Are you sure?”

“He wouldn’t go back to Bastia.”

Damen nods. He wouldn’t go back there, if he were Nicaise. As he starts the car and waits for Laurent to pick one of the nearby parks, Damen tries to remember how many times he went to Laurent’s apartment in Bastia. The Building of Horrors , they used to call it, only half-joking.

There was the first time when he’d insisted on walking Laurent home from the car after their date. Laurent hadn’t let him in. The second time, Damen had bought him groceries and carried them up seven flights of stairs. The building didn’t have an elevator, and the hike had left Damen breathless, his fingers aching where the plastic handles of the bags had tried to cut through his skin. Laurent had not appreciated the gesture. I’m not a charity project, he’d said, shoving him back. And then, when Damen had argued, he’d only snapped harder. You think I’ll let you fuck me because you bought me cereal?

The third time they had both sat on Laurent’s rug-thin mattress, the springs digging into Damen’s ass like they were trying to stab him. It had been a bad day for Laurent, but Damen did not know why. He only knew it was bad because Laurent had asked him to come over, something he’d never done before. The mattress was on the floor, because Laurent didn’t have any furniture except for the two second-hand chairs in the kitchen and the wooden box he had repurposed as a bedside table. It was full of books, their spines cracked and soft, their edges colored by little post-it notes. Damen had politely ignored the spiders living in the corner, as well as the roach walking the edge of the counter.

Damen had asked about other things, like the little drawing of a fish hanging on the fridge door and the extra toothbrush in the bathroom, childishly purple and green. Laurent had given him vague answers, half-true clues. I have someone over sometimes, when he’s allowed to come. A single parent, Damen had thought. The kid probably came over on the weekends, when his mom felt like it, when Laurent could afford to feed him. Except Laurent spent most weekends at Damen’s place. Except Laurent did not seem like the type to only see his kid once a month, to not mention him at all.

The fourth time had also found them on that cheap mattress, but under better covers. It was icy cold in the apartment, and Laurent was sick. He’d been sick the whole week, his voice growing raspier over the phone, his coughs coming through more often. He took longer to text back, because he was often sleeping during his twenty-minute lunch break at the restaurant. 

“More groceries?” Laurent said as soon as he opened the door. His nose was too red, his eyelashes sticky. It was hard to take his contempt seriously.

Damen stepped in. “No. It’s a present.”

“A present.”

It was a blanket. Maroon, like red wine. The thickest, most expensive one Damen had found online. It was imported from Ver-Vassel, lined with fur, so heavy it had been a bit of a struggle to get it up the stairs. Laurent’s face stayed blank as Damen put it over the mattress, trying to figure out how to tuck the corners in. Years later, it’d be Nicaise’s. 

“It’s not my birthday,” Laurent said. His hand was already on the blanket, fingers being swallowed by the plush of it. “And it’s not Christmas.”

“It’s an Akielon holiday. Sort of.”

It wasn’t. Damen waited for Laurent to argue, to maybe rip the blanket off the mattress and throw it at his head. He’d done that before, with one of the boxes of Starbursts Damen had bought for him last week. 

Laurent sat down on the floor instead. He had both hands buried under the blanket, and Damen thought maybe it was because he was so cold. It was always so cold there, even with the shitty heater on. 

“I bought you soup,” Damen said, standing by the mattress. He knew Laurent didn’t like him going through his kitchen drawers, touching his things. “It’s still warm. All you need is a bowl or some—or, yeah. You can nap first.” Laurent’s shoes came off, then his weird, full of holes sweater. “I’ll just—”

But Laurent hadn’t let him leave. He’d tugged Damen down, told him to be quiet for a moment. There was only one pillow, lumpy and too hard, but Laurent didn’t seem to want it that night. He slept for hours with his face pressed to Damen’s shoulder, burning up, on and off, sweating and then shivering. He ate three spoonfuls of soup after midnight. He drooled on Damen, just a bit.

The fifth time, they had—

The beeping sound of an incoming call cuts through his thoughts. It’s Ancel.

“He’s not on the list,” is the first thing Ancel says. “I checked the hospitals in Arran too, just to be safe. Nothing.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Damen sees Laurent sag into his seat. 

“Ber said he’ll be back in four hours. It’s the only flight he could get.”

“Berenger is on a business trip,” Laurent says, even though Damen hasn’t asked. “He was supposed to come back tomorrow from Vask.”

And Ancel’s here, in Vere. That would have been unimaginable to Damen before, and now it surprises him more than he’s comfortable showing. It was a bit of a running joke between him and Laurent, how Berenger refused to let Ancel out of his sight. Ancel would join him everywhere, for everything, even when it was inconvenient or rude or expensive. 

Maybe it was just a phase, as most things are. Damen stares at Laurent, the soft curve of his eyelashes, his smaller upper lip. He thinks, Everything’s nicer in the beginning.

“I’ll text you after we search the first park,” Laurent says. “Call me again if he—if something happens.”

“Okay. Is Damianos still there?”

“Yes,” Damen says, on auto-pilot. “What do you—”

“Okay,” Ancel says again, and hangs up.

It takes everything in Damen not to go back to staring at Laurent, not to demand an answer to the unasked question hanging between them. Ancel doesn’t matter right now, he reminds himself. What matters is finding Nicaise. 

“Where to?” Damen says.

“Drive to rue Margarite, then it’s a right turn and three more blocks.” The screen light makes Laurent’s eyes shine bluer. “This one’s probably the closest park to his school. If he stayed in the area, that’s the one he must have picked.”

He’s not in the hospital, Damen thinks, six blocks in. He should feel happy about it, and yet all the news has done is widen the pit his stomach has turned into. Dehydration, low blood pressure, cold exposure—these are easy problems with easy solutions. They require a patient, for starters. 

As the park comes into view, the murmurs in Damen’s head grow louder. If not the hospital, then the motel, the alley, the car. 

Laurent takes off his seat belt before Damen has even stepped on the brake. The alarm fills the car, and Damen parks through it. He doesn’t even bother telling Laurent off for it, knows if it was him in the passenger seat he probably would have done the same thing. 

The park is fenced, but still open. It’s almost completely dark despite the many street lamps around them, and it only seems darker inside, past the first tree line. It’s such a grim sight, the empty playground, the swaying branches. As they get closer, all Damen can think is that there is no way Nicaise is here. Nicaise, who slept with a nightlight in his room until he was fourteen. Nicaise, who gets nervous when the lights get dim at the movie theater. Another thought follows, and Damen isn’t quick enough to nip it before it takes root—a body pinned down behind the foliage, where it’s dark enough to not be seen, where the struggle isn’t as obvious.

“We should split,” Laurent says, already moving right.

“We should definitely not split. It’s one in the morning.”

Laurent doesn’t stop walking. “If you’re scared, go wait in the car.”

“Laurent,” Damen says. His voice carries. “Don’t—”

“Call me if you see him.”

The trees swallow Laurent up, and then Damen is alone, standing at the entrance of the park. His first step forward is the hardest, but the rest follow automatically, as though he never stopped walking. Insects buzz in the night, raspy, scratchy sounds that seem to rise from every single blade of grass. Damen follows the trail as quietly as he can; he won’t call Nicaise’s name.

The playground is empty, but Damenl checks it anyway, scanning swings and slides with the flash of his phone. The little pond at the center of the park is still, deserted. As a child, Damen had been taken to the park on Saturday mornings, his pockets brimming with pieces of bread he’d stolen from Chryses’ oven tray. He’d fed them to the slow ducks, the treacherous pigeons. He can’t remember whose hand he’d been holding.

Now Damen circles the water, finds no one. He chooses a new trail to follow and checks each bench as he walks past. The first one is empty, as is the second, and the third, and the fourth. 

Nicaise is on the ninth one.

Damen stops. Call Laurent, a tiny voice yells. He ignores it.

Nicaise has his eyes closed, lids fluttering like he’s dreaming. Knees to his chest, cheek to his knees. The closer to him Damen gets, the more details he notices—his backpack is on the ground, his fingers are tangled in his shoelaces, his nose is a cherry red color.

Damen crouches in front of the bench, reaching out to touch Nicaise's shoulder. He doesn’t think about anything in particular, doesn’t try to talk himself out of doing it. He doesn’t care if Nicaise calls him an idiot, and a rapist, and the most pathetic human being he’s ever met. There’s only relief, warm and pleasant. It’s like a summer day.

"Hey," Damen says softly. He waits, but Nicaise does not stir. "Nicaise."

A hum is all he gets as a reply. 

Damen squeezes his shoulder, shaking him again. Nicaise trembles like a rag doll, legs sliding down until his feet touch the ground. He blinks and blink and blinks, and his eyes are as red as they are blue, popped blood vessels everywhere. He doesn’t try to bolt, as Damen thought he would, but instead stays seated right there, pacified with sleep.

“Hmm?”

“Come on,” Damen says as he grabs Nicaise’s hand. It’s ice cold. “Can you stand up?”

Nicaise blinks again. “I’m standing.”

It's true, sort of. Nicaise is on his feet now, but there's a slight swaying to him Damen doesn't like. He looks like one gust of wind will sweep him away. 

Damen could carry him. Nicaise doesn't weigh that much, and the car is parked less than two blocks away. Damen considers his options. He should call Laurent, should ask Nicaise if he’s hurt, should know what to do. But then Nicaise is leaning into him, face first. He's breathing through his mouth, leaving a wet trail on Damen's shirt. He looks like a zombie, and feels like one too, all dead weight.

A sweet, cloying scent hits Damen, like clove and sage and something else he can’t quite place. It smells like every college party he ever attended, like post-final weekends at Aktis' apartment. It smells like chalis.

It’s in Nicaise’s hair, Damen realizes. It’s stuck to his clothes. 

“I’m tired,” Nicaise says, half a yawn. Still, he clings a little when Damen tries to pull away. “I said—”

“Yes, I heard you. Come on.” 

Damen picks Nicaise’s bag off the ground, dusts it off with his free hand. Three brown leaves land on the bench. Something cold curls around his fingers, startling him; he almost drops the bag again. It’s Nicaise’s hand.

“That’s my bag,” Nicaise says, rather stupidly. 

Damen gives it to him. Met me in th car rn, he texts Laurent. It’s hard to get the words right, with Nicaise tugging on his arm while shrugging his backpack on, but he manages. Considering the circumstances, maybe Laurent will give him a pass this time. He doesn’t even bother questioning Nicaise, knows nothing will come out of it tonight.  

Nicaise’s knuckles stay cold, no matter how hard Damen rubs them. Mittens, he thinks deliriously. Gel pens, and mittens.

They start walking. It shouldn’t take them more than five minutes, except Nicaise keeps stopping to point at this or that, a funny-looking tree or an upside-down bug. Damen holds his hand the way he would hold a leash, scared that if he lets go Nicaise will try to run.

“—see it, like, inside,” Nicaise is saying. When they reach a puddle, Damen tries to tug him away from it, but Nicaise steps into the water, almost like a challenge. He stares up at Damen, the cuffs of his jeans soaked. “It’s cold.”

“No shit,” Damen says. “Wanna know what you look like right now?”

“Yes.”

They start walking again, Nicaise leaving a trail of wet footprints behind. “Sylvester the Cat,” Damen says. “If you lose your nose to frostbite, Laurent will kill you.”

Nicaise touches the tip of his nose, then frowns. “Who the fuck is Sylver the Cat?”

“Sylvester. He’s a cartoon character. Have you never—” Damen stops. God, he feels so old, like something that’s growing moss in the back of some shelf. “Ever heard of Tweety? The Looney Tunes?”

“No.”

“It was popular when I was a kid. The cat was always trying to eat the bird, I think.”

Nicaise yawns into Damen’s shoulder. His face is cold enough to make Damen shiver. “Like Tom and Jerry. There’s one episode where he eats the rat.”

“I thought you didn’t like that show,” Damen says. He remembers, vaguely, the kind of cartoons Nicaise liked to watch. Some 3D ones, some about pirates and a talking whale. Tom and Jerry was never high on the list. “And Jerry’s not a rat.”

“Jerry’s the cat.”

Damen doesn’t bother arguing.

The entrance comes into view, and so does Laurent’s car. If Nicaise sees it, he doesn’t comment on it, too busy craning his neck to look at the treetops above them. Moonlight shines through the branches, the trail dappled white with it. 

Laurent is standing by the car. He deflates when he sees Nicaise, shoulders drooping visibly, and leans back against the car door.

"Hey," Damen says once they’re close enough. 

Laurent is still looking at Nicaise. “Get in the car.”

“I’m cold,” Nicaise says. He’s hiding behind Damen, still holding his hand. Every time he breathes, Damen can feel it against his arm, warm and wet. “Like, cold-cold.”

“It’s warm in the car,” Damen says. Warmer, at least.

The blue jacket comes off. Laurent is wearing a thin shirt under it, washed-out grey. It reads University of Delfeur across his chest. Damen does not look at Laurent’s nipples.

Nicaise takes the jacket without arguing, but he hesitates before letting go of Damen’s hand. He shrugs it on easily, then opens the car door and drapes himself across the backseat, face first. Laurent slams the door shut the second Nicaise’s feet make it inside.

It’s quiet. Damen doesn’t know what to look at, what to do. He knows he’s not exactly needed anymore.

“He’s high,” Damen says. It seems like an important thing to announce. “I think it’s chalis. Maybe something else, too. He was pretty out of—”

“You found him,” Laurent says. 

It’s neither an accusation nor a compliment. It’s soft, the way Laurent says it, but he doesn’t look happy. Damen knows what Laurent’s happiness looks like. Or at least, what it used to look like. A loose smile, not too big, and darting eyes. He was happier in the mornings, happiest over winter break. He’d purse his mouth when Nicaise made a good joke, like he didn’t want to laugh too loudly. Now he just stands there, underdressed for the cold weather, looking at Damen with intent. 

I’d always find him, Damen thinks. It’s mortifyingly corny; it’s like asking Laurent to laugh at him. And so he doesn’t say it. He opens the passenger door instead. “Get in. I’ll drive you home so you can get at least two hours of sleep tonight.”

“You didn’t bring your car.”

Damen shakes his head. “It’s fine. I’ll get an Uber from your place.”

“We should keep the windows down,” Laurent says, not looking at him. A twitch of his nose. “He reeks.”

In the end, they only keep one window rolled down, and it’s Laurent’s. Nicaise is sitting upright now, plastered to one of the doors, and he still looks flushed from the cold. The redness has spread from his nose to his cheeks and chin. He’s asleep three green lights in.

02:06. Things could be much worse.

“Was he alone?” Laurent says. 

“Yeah. He was asleep on a bench.”

“Did he.”

Damen waits. He knows the rest of the question will come, eventually. In the meantime, he keeps his eyes on the road ahead, on the street signs. Pêche is only five blocks away, if Damen were to turn left. 

“Did he,” Laurent starts again, “say anything?”

“About what?”

“About me.”

Damen looks at Nicaise in the rearview mirror. There’s drool in the corner of his mouth. “No. We talked about cartoons for a minute. He seemed very interested in bugs.”

Laurent turns his face away. The wind coming in through the open window ruffles his hair, ruining what’s left of his ponytail. His hair is too short for it anyways. 

Damen’s hand twitches around the steering wheel—touch touch touch. He feels like something stupid and overly trained. Like a dog.

Nicaise is still asleep in the backseat when Damen stops the car and gets out, already looking for his phone so he can get a ride back to his place. He’s not stupid enough to think Laurent will offer to let him sleep on the couch. Ancel’s probably still at the apartment, waiting. 

Laurent would never offer, with or without Ancel around.

Fifteen minutes for an Uber. Damen can wait.

"Thank you," Laurent says. Damen did not hear him get out of the car, or get as close as he is now. They’re both leaning against the trunk, not quite touching. "For everything."

"No problem,” Damen says, mechanically. 

Laurent gives him a little nod, and everything is quiet again. Too quiet. Damen misses Nicaise’s little snores, misses the whistling sound of the wind as he drives, misses not having to listen to Laurent’s breathing.

They stare and pretend not to, the way they have every time they’ve seen each other since Damen left. Damen should ask something, make small talk as he waits for his ride to arrive, but he can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t sound vaguely incriminating. What could they even talk about? In order to talk about Laurent’s tattoo, first Damen would have to admit to having seen the picture on Instagram. It could give Laurent the wrong idea, like he’s been online stalking him, and Damen doesn’t want that. They could talk about Nicaise, but Damen is too tired. Laurent looks too tired for it, too. Only then does it occur to Damen that there is one important conversation to be had about Nicaise, with Nicaise. If not several. There’s the running away, the class-skipping, the smoking, the things he said last time Damen—

Nausea, strong like a giant hand picking him off the ground. Damen won’t think about it, not yet. 

Laurent hasn’t moved an inch, hasn’t left. Maybe—

"Maybe we can get coffee again," Damen says. It just comes out of him, no thoughts attached to the words. "To talk. About things."

Laurent’s lips are dry and chapped. It’s a painful sight when he purses his mouth. “Why?”

Because we keep bumping into each other. Because of Nicaise. Because I want to talk to you. Because you’re on my list. “It was just a thought,” Damen says. He forces himself to say the rest. “Just because we aren’t together anymore doesn’t mean we can’t be civil.”

“Since when does civility involve unnecessary coffee dates?”

“They wouldn’t be dates.” Damen looks away, praying his Uber will run him over with his car. Repeatedly. “Forget about it.”

But Laurent, being Laurent, does not let it go. He steps away from the car just a little, enough so to get a better look at Damen’s face, and says, “So just one date then.”

“I said forget about it.”

“Once a month?” 

“Yeah,” Damen says, defeated. He’s too tired to feel pathetic. “Maybe twice a month if Nicaise keeps getting into trouble.”

Laurent isn’t breathing, stiff as he is. “So this is about Nicaise.”

Yes. No. “Of course it’s about Nicaise.”

“Of course.”

Damen closes his eyes. He’s said the wrong thing again, as always. At least this time Nicaise isn’t around to hear him, which— “Want me to carry him upstairs?”

“There’s an elevator,” Laurent says, “and he’s not eleven anymore.”

“So?”

“So he can walk on his own.”

Damen’s phone buzzes. His Uber is here. “I could do it,” he says, not really thinking it through, already looking around to find the car that matches his phone’s description. “He’s, what? Half your weight?”

“I’ll manage on my own.”

It feels like there are only so many words they can say to each other before the snapping and snarling and biting come back. An hourglass with only a few grains of sand left. Soon the name-calling will begin.

Damen finds the right car. Dark blue, funny plate number.

“Not at Fleurir though,” Laurent says, the second Damen takes his first step forward. “I don’t like their coffee.”

“What?”

“The café we went to last time. It wasn’t good.”

Childishly petty, Damen says, “You picked it.”

“Le Quai is closer, and it’s—the coffee is—we’ve been—” Laurent stops talking. It might be because of the way Damen is staring, like he’s never heard Laurent stammer like this. He hasn’t. “It’s better.”

Damen’s phone buzzes again, insistently. Can I sleep on your couch? It’s a stupid thought. Asinine, Laurent would say. Damen hates sleeping on that couch, hates that they always forget to leave a blanket out of the closet, hates that the cushions are hard as rocks and Laurent always hoards all the fucking pillows in bed, even when they’re fighting. Damen never wants to sleep on that couch again.

He’d sleep on it again, if he got to put Nicaise to bed. Maybe. Maybe if he asked—

“Okay,” Damen says. “Text me the—”

“You know the address.”

“The day .”

Laurent blinks. He’s not quick enough to hide his surprise. “Yes. ”

Another buzz. Damen opens his mouth—Is your couch free, and Nicaise isn’t that heavy, and I think I need to have a word with Ancel anyways—and closes it. Slowly, he walks away.

*

Tonight he dreams of a pond, rippled water. He’s not as tall as he should be, or as loud, or as fast. There’s a hand wrapped around his, flushed and soft, but when he looks up he can’t make out the person’s face. 

A duck appears, dripping water, and stares at him. 

Damen reaches into his pocket. He thinks, like something obvious, like a pattern, Tomorrow  Chryses will bake more bread. The hand holding his tugs, and tugs, and Damen looks up, squints, tries to make out the nose, the hair, the lips. It’s a blur, at first, but then the haziness recedes, pushed away, and Damen squints harder, sees—

His ceiling, white and boring. 6.15. It’s time to go to work and talk to his brother.

Chapter Text

Eleven

“I didn’t know you liked Thai food,” Damen says from the doorway. His voice is steady, his tone casual. He’s not nervous.

Kastor, who has a piece of chicken two inches away from his mouth, looks up. “What happened?”

“Nothing’s happened.”

“You weren’t bad for Laurent,” Kastor says. “Not at all. Can you go now so I can have my lunch in peace?”

Damen doesn’t move. If anything, he presses closer to the hinges of the door. “I’m not here to talk about that. I… thought we could eat lunch together.” He shows Kastor the salad bowl Gera picked for him today. “Like old times.”

“You mean when I was nine and you were sucking milk from a bottle in front of me? I wasn’t a willing participant back then.”

Damen ignores him. It’s easy, after all the years he’s spent telling himself that Kastor doesn’t mean half the things he says, that Kastor’s jokes are sometimes too heavy, that Kastor’s temperament is more Veretian than Akielon. Damen sits down in front of the desk and opens the salad container. 

Baby spinach, brown rice, yellow tomatoes. There are bite-sized pieces of chicken with crisp grill marks, and a scoop of edamame, green and shiny like little jewels. Damen mixes it all with his plastic fork, and his thoughts wander away, back to a bowl made out of rich dark wood, back to a salad that tasted like lemon zest and honey. Back to Chryses’ perfectly toasted croutons.

Eventually, Kastor starts eating again. They don’t look at each other, and when Damen’s foot grazes Kastor’s calf, Kastor wheels away, far back enough that he can barely reach the desk they’re both using as a table. It doesn’t sting, that sudden distance Kastor has put between them. They’ve never been the type to touch.

Damen is trying to think of what to say when Kastor’s phone starts buzzing. The whole desk rattles with it, and so does the water bottle on it. Kastor, however, doesn’t move at all.

“Are you ignoring your wife?” Damen says after a while. 

“Makedon,” Kastor says, wiping his chin with a cheap paper napkin. His phone goes quiet and then starts buzzing again. “You’re ignoring him too, so don’t even try to scold me.”

Damen doesn’t think he’s ever scolded Kastor in his life. If anything, he’s the one that’s always gotten the worst of Kastor’s temper. It takes him a moment to think of what to say. “How do you know I’ve been ignoring him?”

“Because he’s been whining to me about it. ‘ Is Damen at the office today? Is he doing well? He doesn’t look healthy, Kastor. You need to keep an eye on the boy.’” Kastor snorts. “Not that it’s out of character for him.”

“What?”

“He thinks the sun shines out of your asshole. It doesn’t surprise me he’s asking about you.” A pause. Kastor is trying to scoop up his rice. “Do me a favor and return his fucking calls. He’s driving me insane.”

Damen pushes his spinach around with his fork, wills himself to take a bite. He knows Kastor doesn’t expect a reply.

Siblings aren’t friends. They can be sometimes, the way Pallas is friends with his sister or Elon with his twin, but it’s not mandatory. He and Kastor are civil to each other, which is more than many people can say. They have a mutual agreement to keep things peaceful, to keep their father’s firm going, and really, that’s all that should matter. All that does matter.

This was a stupid idea.

“So,” Kastor says. “What happened with good old Uncle Mak?”

Questions are good. Damen can deal with questions. “We had lunch together a few weeks back,” he says. “He took me to that fancy restaurant. The one with the oysters.”

Kastor makes a noncommittal sound. “Never been. I don’t like oysters.”

“That’s not all they serve.”

“Good to know.”

Damen rolls his eyes, rolls his shoulders. There’s a knot in his back he can’t get rid of. “He said some things. About Vere.”

“He always does that when he’s having white wine,” Kastor says. “When he’s really drunk, he starts shitting on Vaskians and their tailors.”

“Yeah, well. He’d never said anything like that to me before.”

“How noble of you, getting mad at him over Veretian culture. Was that all?”

There’s sarcasm there, the start of a joke. Damen doesn’t want to hear it. “No,” he says. “He made it clear how happy he was for me, because now I’m not… I honestly don’t even remember what he said. It was just—”

“The phase thing.”

Damen almost drops his fork. “What?”

“He’s talked to me about it at least seven hundred times in the last five years.” Kastor pops another piece of chicken in his mouth. “Maybe more.”

And what can Damen say to that? He never thought Makedon and Kastor were the types of people who’d gossip about him, who’d have something to say the moment his back was turned. Kastor, who’s never shied away from insulting him to his face. Kastor, who has never had any sort of camaraderie with Makedon.

It’s a struggle not to sulk; he’d always thought he was Makedon’s favorite.

“So you agree with him?” Damen says. His fork is bending awkwardly, on the verge of snapping in two.

“Not particularly. I don’t really listen to what he says. If I did, I would have killed myself by now.” Kastor takes a sip of water. The bottle looks comically small in his hand, like it’s been designed for a kid. When he sees Damen’s face, he puts it down. “What is it now?”

“Do you think it was a phase?”

“You liking men?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know,” Kastor says, “and I don’t care.”

Damen stares at the wall behind Kastor. There’s a painting on it—thick and soft strokes, pastel colors, no distinguishable shapes. It looks like something Galen might have painted. Damen’s eyes flicker to the framed pictures on the desk, the souvenirs by the door. Nothing in this room has his fingerprints, his good intentions. Nothing here is about him.

It’s not exactly hard to believe Kastor doesn’t care. He never has.  

Kastor puts his chopsticks down. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about. Makedon has always hated Vere. He was the one that threw the biggest fucking fit when he found out dad wanted to move to Delfeur, and back then it was still Delpha. There’s no way you didn’t know that.”

“I knew, but he—”

“And anyway, why do you care what some old fart thinks of you?”

Damen closes his mouth, opens it. “He’s our uncle.”

“He was our father’s best friend,” Kastor says, managing to make even the simplest statement sound like a lecture. At least he’s used the right pronoun this time. “We’re not related by blood, and even if we were I’d still think he’s an idiot. Maybe even more, actually.”

They only have fifteen minutes left of their lunch break. Any moment now, Marianne will knock on the door and ask him or Kastor or both to sign some papers, to send an email, to make a call. Damen wishes she’d come in right now, before he says something he’ll regret.

“You sound so,” Damen starts, and stops. He’s so tired of feeling stupid; he’s so tired of not knowing what to say. “I didn’t know that’s how you saw things.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Dad’s words sneak out of him: “Family is family.”

“According to whom?” Kastor says. He doesn’t sound playful anymore, or sarcastic. He hasn’t moved, and yet Damen feels as though Kastor has gone away, replaced by a stranger that looks like him. “Daddy dearest? Was being nice to Uncle Mak on the will? I must have missed it.”

Damen clenches his jaw so hard his molars ache. “Don’t.”

“Okay, well, maybe don’t come into my office and force your presence on me, and then try to control where the conversation goes. How about you have lunch in your own office, Damianos?”

“What’s your fucking problem?”

Kastor throws his chopsticks in the trash. “I don’t have one. I’m not going to sit here and pretend dad was perfect. Or that I can stand your uncle. Mainly because it’s not true, but also because I didn’t spend a fucking fortune on therapy to tell myself—”

“Wait, what?”

“—that I’m making things up after all. So fuck off.”

“You went to therapy,” Damen says, expecting Kastor to laugh and call him deaf. When Kastor stays quiet, a new question builds up in Damen’s throat, hot like vomit. And you didn’t tell me?

There’s a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Kastor says. He tilts his head to the side, a pop, tilts it again, nothing. “Where did I put the napkins?”

Marianne sets a folder next to Damen’s elbow. “They’re in the drawer,” she says. “No, the other one.”

“Has Reviere called?”

“Not yet. His assistant sent me an email. Apparently, his kid has a bad case of—”

“Marianne?”

She turns to Damen, blinking. “Yes?”

“Can you give us a moment, please? Close the door on your way out.”

Marianne does as she’s told. The simple way she obeys has Damen wishing, not for the first time, that Theomedes were alive. Damen would be just like her, taking orders, following rules. Everything would be so much easier if his dad were here. Damen would know his place, and there’d be no fumbling, no pushing and pulling. He’d know his place, and Kastor would it too.

“When?” Damen says, when he’s able to.

Kastor says, “A couple of years ago. Sixteen sessions or something. Now, will you leave so I can have the video conference I’ve been postponing all day?”

“I can’t believe you went to therapy.”

“Well, somebody had to. What else was I supposed to do? Stab you to death to inherit the family company? Have a mid-life crisis?”

“You’re not middle-aged.”

“You’re so fucking—” Kastor groans, his knuckles to his eyes. “ The point is I’ve worked through this stuff. If you’re having mental issues just ask Laurent for a shrink recommendation.”

Damen’s nails dig into the armrests. He feels his face spasm, doing something, something he can’t quite control—

Kastor puts both hands up, looking like a mime. There’s soy sauce all over his thumb. “Because he got me the guy’s number, okay? God, Damianos, you’re giving me a fucking headache.”

It’s not like they were friends, Damen had said to Neo. Maybe he’d been wrong. He’s been wrong before, about Laurent, and maybe about Kastor, too. Laurent recommended a therapist to Kastor. Laurent knew Kastor was going to therapy. Laurent lied—

“Was it Paschal?”

“What?”

“Your therapist,” Damen says, numb. He can’t quite feel his fingers. “Was his name Paschal?”

Kastor stares at him like he’s grown a second head. And maybe Damen has. He wouldn’t know, not with the way he’s gone numb all over. “His name was Mark.”

“What kind of name is Mark?”

“Er,” Kastor says. “American? I don’t know. He had an accent.”

“You went to see an American therapist?”

Kastor laughs. It’s different from the way he laughs at Jokaste’s dry comments, or Galen’s brutish tickles, or Marianne’s soft jokes. It’s barbed, biting. It’s all teeth. “Now who’s being racist?”

“Laurent didn’t tell me,” Damen says. The realization that this must be obvious to Kastor hits him a moment too late, but his body is too confused to react properly. His face barely heats up. “I mean, he could have—he should have mentioned it.”

“I asked him not to.”

Damen stares. 

“Is there something you want?” Kastor says, pulling a drawer open. A little red pen drive disappears into his hand. “Because if the answer’s no, I think your lunch break has been over for ten minutes now. Some of us have work to do.”

Was it you? On Saturdays, was it you at the park? Damen stands, throws his salad in the trash. The door handle feels ice cold in his hand. He twists it, pulls the door open. Do you remember that last night with dad? Do you remember Ios? He pauses.

Kastor is signing a paper, writing a little note on the margin. 

“Do you remember,” Damen says, “that drink your mom used to make for us? It was—like lemonade. With fruit.”

Kastor looks up, frowning. “What?”

“And mint.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Damianos?”

The handle is slipping out of his hand. A part of him thinks he ought to feel nauseous now, out of breath. But there is no panic. There is nothing at all. “Your mom would make lemonade sometimes,” Damen says again, calmly. The words are simply there for him to use. “When it was really hot in the summer. Crushed blackberries, mint leaves… I’d like to know the recipe if she still has it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Marianne?”

Click, clack, click. Marianne’s heels on the hallway tiles, footsteps getting closer.

Damen says, “You didn’t like it. Said it was like drinking cold soup.”

Something flickers across Kastor’s face, a flash of doubt. And then it’s gone.

“You stole the ice cubes out of the jug once and threw them in the pool.”

Marianne is at the door now, phone and papers in hand. “Yes? What do you need?”

It’s Damen’s cue to leave. No one tries to stop him.

The rest of the day passes strangely, both too fast and too slow. Damen tries to keep up with his clients, tries to open and reply to as many emails as possible. Tries to not think of anything other than the task at hand. 

For the first time since he and Kastor started working together, Damen is the last to leave. He stays cooped up in his office, listening to people’s footsteps on the hallway, to Kastor’s door opening and closing, the familiar jangle of his keys. He thinks, for a second, that Kastor will stop at his door, will knock on it, will say—something.

Kastor’s footsteps are different from everyone else’s. When he was a kid, Damen could tell Kastor was home from the moment he opened his eyes in the morning. Kastor liked to stomp around the house, barefoot or wearing boots, and the sounds he made always found Damen, no matter where Damen was. He’s gonna walk a hole in my fucking hallway, their dad always said. 

Now Kastor walks down their shared hallway, stops for a moment. From where he’s sitting, Damen can see the shadow of feet, two thin black lines under the crack of the door. He’ll knock any moment now, any second. He will. Damen knows he will, holds his breath, and—

Kastor starts walking again.

*

Ancel’s reply comes through ten seconds after Dog has pissed on Damen’s bedsheets. The spot is a wide circle, right next to one of the pillows. It’s drying, Damen realizes with disgust, a creamy yellow color.

whose this

????

Dog barks, trying to tug the sheet out of Damen’s hand. Damen lets it go and sits on the bare mattress, phone in hand. This is so humiliating, texting Ancel first and getting this kind of reply, and yet Damen knows nothing will ever come close to how he felt in Kastor’s office today. 

The list exists. He wrote it into existence, then handed it to Neo. If not Kastor and Ancel, then Makedon. Laurent. All in all, there are much worse conversations Damen could be having.

He needs to be upfront, next time. It’s not about winning them over or pretending to like them. It’s about getting information from them so that he can report back to Neo. So that he has something to work with, something to use. It’s a transaction, of sorts. On Thursday, he’ll tell Neo, in great detail, how the list has failed. And Neo won’t have any other choice but to come up with a different plan. A doable one, this time.

Damianos. Don’t you have me as a contact?

deleted you bc you weer annoying

were*

Dog is lapping at the piss stain. He looks happy.

Damen thinks of replying to that text with the truth, which is that he hasn’t contacted Ancel once, has not posted on social media in months, so there is no chance he’s annoyed Ancel in any way, shape, or form. He takes a deep breath instead.

Let me know when you have a free afternoon. Like I said, I’d like to talk to you.

monday at the red bulevard

reservation is under bers name

It’s not what Damen was expecting Ancel to say. He’d thought he would have to threaten, to beg. To maybe ask Laurent to intervene. Ancel’s eagerness to meet is not, as Neo would probably read it, a good sign. It’s weird and potentially dangerous, and yet Damen can only go along with it.

What time?

two pm

Damen snorts. Of course, Ancel thinks two in the afternoon on a weekday is a perfectly normal time to get together with a friend—not that they’re friends, at all —and have lunch. Why wouldn’t he, when Berenger is paying for it all, working while Ancel spends his days at the mall, shopping for fucking lingerie?

I get off work at five.

“You already pissed on it once,” Damen tells Dog when he sees him lifting one of his legs. Dog stares back, unfazed. “There are no other dogs here. Why would you even feel the need to mark your territory on my sheets? Do you need to go to dog therapy now? Are you seeing invisible dogs?”

Dog barks, revealing nothing.

so?? figure it out

Making the bed takes him fifteen minutes. He doesn’t do that thing with the duvet Laurent used to do in the winter, that weird double tuck that kept their feet so warm Damen would have to let his legs dangle off the bed to get some air. It’s nice, he thinks, not having to share a room with anyone. He can do whatever he likes, and so he leaves the sheets loose, the pillows barely fluffed. It’s really, really nice.

Later, he sits on the very edge of the mattress and checks his phone. Nicaise hasn’t unblocked him yet, but Damen is hopeful. It’s more than likely that Laurent has taken his phone away, as punishment.

Hey, he texts Laurent. He doesn’t let himself think about it, knows if he does he won’t be able to press send. How is he doing?

Dog is lapping at the floorboards now. Damen stares at him, trying to tell him off with just a look, but it doesn’t work. He’s not expecting his phone to buzz so quickly, and he almost drops it in his haste to unblock it.

I let him stay home today. He wasn’t feeling great.

Is he sick?

Just a cold.

No fever.

Do you need — Damen stops typing; he knows the answer will be no. Delete, start again. He’s about to press send when Laurent’s new text comes.

He wants to know if he’s allowed to see you this Tuesday.

Something about your dog.

Something about my dog?

He needs to be walked, apparently.

“See?” Damen says. Dog pays him no mind. “You’re not that ugly.”

I’m free so yeah

Tell Nicaise to come over

After four

He waits, until he’s certain Laurent has seen his messages, then sends:

When does he get his phone back?

After the weekend.

Two more days then. Maybe by Monday Nicaise will have reconsidered things, will want to unblock Damen. Maybe. 

Are we going to talk about the chalis thing?

Not now.

Are you available next week?

Damen stares at his phone. Available. Of course. Laurent wouldn’t simply type Want to have a coffee?

Yeah

Any day after seven

It’s exam season for me.

Saturday?

At Le Quai, right?

Yes.

“I’ve got a busy week,” Damen says, to no one.

*

A child that has experienced situations similar to 1-5 in the first ten years of their life will sometimes struggle with the idea of opening up to potential caregivers, especially foster parents. In How To Talk To: Children, Suzanne Ertres focuses on a system she has named the Three Bs. 

• Be present in the conversation: It isn’t enough to simply listen. Show the child you are interested in what they have to say, circle back to certain topics after some time has passed, learn to read their body language to understand where certain invisible boundaries may be. 

• Be a source of validation: When is a reaction unwarranted? Copy their enthusiasm, understand their rage. Of course you’re upset! It makes sense that you feel this emotion! However, if said emotion is irrational anger, try to redirect and repurpose the conversation. You’re throwing toys at me because you are angry. Let’s find something else to throw together. 

• Be genuine: Establish eye contact, try not to react with strong emotions (see: the Horror Predicament, page 176), and do not make assumptions. Speak only of your own feelings and reactions, then ask the child what it is they might be feeling. Start with I-sentences. I feel, I want, I would like. Avoid you-sentences, such as: You are doing this wrong, you hurt me, you shouldn’t say/do that.

Irrational anger , Damen scribbles down on the top left margin. Nicaise? He lifts the pen a little, then puts it down to the paper once more. Laurent .

There’s a worksheet on the next page, lines left empty so one can write on them. It looks like the sort of stuff that belongs in a journal, some self-help book. The title to that section reads Testing Conversational Bias. 

What is something you wish you could tell your child/inner child?

Damen doesn’t know what an inner child is. He resists the urge to google it, to waste time, and instead presses the pen harder to the page. Some ink comes out, a drop of it. What does he want to tell Nicaise? Don’t run away again, maybe. Damen re-reads the question, eyes flickering back to the second verb. Wish. 

What is something he’d say to Nicaise if everything was ideal? If he knew Nicaise wouldn’t use it against him, wouldn’t hone it like a knife and try to carve Damen’s insides out with it?

I, Damen writes. The L that follows is shaky, the O not very round. Kastor always said his handwriting looked like an animal’s. V. 

His phone buzzes on the coffee table. It’s Nikandros.

Come over for dinner

It’s calix’s first game since the accident

Are you gonna miss it?

Yes, Damen types, then stops. A game’s always a good excuse to get drunk, and he’s read enough for the weekend anyway. 

Be there in 15

*

Nikandros’ living room looks different. It is different, Damen thinks as he steps into the apartment. New curtains, the beige wallpaper gone from the east wall. He tries not to compare it to his own house, framed pictures everywhere versus empty walls, decorative vases and books versus—well, nothing. Next weekend, Damen tells himself. He’ll go through the boxes in his cellar and find something worth hanging on the walls.

Argyros passes the ball to Nephus, too slow, too predictable, and they lose it to Leurier. Nikandros tsks at the whole thing.

“Maybe he shouldn’t have come back,” Damen says. It’s hard not to feel bad for the guy, half-limping as he is, sweaty and red-faced on TV. He cried on camera last year, during his last interview. Football is my life, my whole life. “Not that Gagnon was much better.”

“I swear Veretians don’t get ball sports.” Another beer is poured, the foam cream-colored, thick. Damen stares at it as Nikandros shakes his head. “Like, of all the fucking transfers they could have picked, they went with Gagnon. The guy’s from Arles, for fuck’s sake. He should be playing hockey.”

“Or sledding.” 

Nikandros blinks at him.

Laurent had a sled as a kid. It’s hard to picture him rolling down hills of snow, laughing, being pushed around and getting back up, more flushed than Argyros is now. Damen doesn’t know how old Laurent was, or where this happened, or whom he was with. Maybe Laurent was seven, the same age Damen was when he saw snow for the first time. Maybe Laurent was older, eleven, and the sled was a present from his brother, a distraction. It could have been in Arles, or at their summer house in Chastillion. There’s snow in Chastillion, towards the end of winter. Damen isn’t really sure.

“—not gonna score,” Nikandros is saying under his breath. There’s a rhythm to his words, something prayer-like. “No, no. He’s not going to—no.” One of the Vaskians aims left, kicks. Drakos, the goalie, is too slow. “Fucking hell, no. How are you so fucking stupid? You—”

The Vaskians are cheering, both on TV and off it. Through the open window, the yells from one of Nikandros’ neighbors waft in. “1-0, you fuckers! Thanks, Drakos, you cocksucker!”

“Fuck you,” Nikandros yells, and gets laughter as a reply.

Cocksucker. That’s—fine. It’s sports talk. It’s funny.

Pallas wouldn’t find it funny. Probably. But Damen does, of course, he does. It’s funny because it’s not like people picture someone sucking a cock every time they use that word. It’s not like they mean it in a bad way, that they don’t like—well, maybe there are people who don’t like the idea of sucking cock. There are all sorts of people in the world. 

The game gets interesting again, at least to Nikandros. Damen watches the screen without really paying much attention, enjoying the low buzzing sound the commentator’s voice creates. Some passes are good, some goals are scored. Nikandros tenses next to him on the couch when halftime is approaching then relaxes when the whistle is blown. 

Argyros is being screamed at by the referee when Nikandros drops a bowl of chips on Damen’s lap. “You should eat something. I don’t want you puking all over my bathroom.”

“I’m not a—” Damen cuts himself off, hearing Etek’s voice in his head. Pussy as a derogatory term is so 2009. “Hungry.”

Nikandros takes three chips from the bowl and makes them disappear into his mouth. Through cracks and crunches, he says, “Are you doing anything for Labor Day?”

It’s been years since Damen celebrated any Akielon holidays. He knows Kastor likes to go camping when the Ninth of September rolls around, but he’s never invited Damen to come along. In fact, now that Damen thinks about it, they haven’t spent Labor Day together, as a family, since Damen went away for college. 

But that’s irrelevant, and so Damen doesn’t mention it. “I don’t know. Why are you asking?”

“If you’re going to spend it alone in your big, sad house with your crippled dog,” Nikandros says, “you should maybe consider coming to Sicyon with me for the weekend. Mom’s been asking about you.”

Mrs. Kyros, Damen remembers saying to her, milk still in his teeth. Idalia , she’d correct him, every single time. She built buildings, bridges, skyscrapers. She helped them both with their geometry homework, whacking Nikandros’ fingers with her pencil when he stopped paying attention. She used the word pleasure a lot when talking to Damen’s dad. Oh, he’s been a pleasure. It’s a pleasure to have him over. My pleasure.

Slowly, Damen puts the bowl on the coffee table. His hands feel like they’re made out of wet clay, slippery, slippery, slippery. “I’m good.”

“So I’ve told her, but you know how she gets.”

No, I don’t. “Trying to hook me up with one of your ugly cousins?”

Nikandros laughs. “You wish. For real, Damen. She’s been asking about you, and I know you’re not doing anything that weekend. You’ll get to eat homemade souvlaki, go to the beach… Say yes, man. She’ll drive me crazy if I don’t take you with me.”

Damen swallows. Or tries to. He doesn’t like the way his throat feels. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why does she want me to go so badly?”

Nikandros shrugs, a careful gesture. “I guess that’s just how mothers are. I don’t know. Will she ever stop pestering me? Probably not.”

The game is on again. Damen shifts a bit on the couch, his eyes flickering to the screen, to the green grass with perfectly straight white lines. He focuses on it, on breathing, on how the players are stretching on the margins of the field. I don’t know either, he thinks and is aware that the thought is bovine. Stupid. He obviously doesn’t know; he’s never had a mother.

“She’s just worried, says you haven’t been picking up the phone,” Nikandros goes on. “Elon’s mom stopped by her house last month and ended up telling her we’re all overworking ourselves, even though Elon just came back from the fucking Maldives. She’s been trying to figure out a way to send us both some of that homecooked—”

He’s never had a mother.

He can hear Nikandros talking to him, but his voice seems to be coming from far away, like there’s a thick glass wall separating them, muffling it all. The noise from the TV, moments before so comforting, is now completely gone.

Something is buzzing, somewhere. Maybe there’s a bee caught in his ear.

“Damen,” Nikandros says, and his hands are on Damen’s face. He has pushed the coffee table away and is crouched on the floor instead of sitting to Damen’s right. “Are you listening to me? Are you having a fucking seizure?”

And why would Nikandros ask him that? It’s such a strange question, Damen thinks, until he hears his own breathing. It sounds ragged, ugly, like there is something stuck inside him that won’t get out without a fight. Like he’s going to heave up one of his lungs. Maybe I will. Maybe this is how I die. His dad had sounded like that, towards the end. Kastor probably remembers that rattling sound, which got wetter and thicker, like gurgling—

With Nikandros’ guidance, Damen bends over the rest of the way and puts his head between his knees, feeling Nikandros’ hot hand on the back of his neck. He’s aware of the stupidity of this moment, of how senseless and pathetic it is to crave the lonely privacy the closet at Berenger’s house had provided him with, and yet he can’t stop wishing for it. The old coats, the vibrating wall. His whole body aches, missing them.

Damen wonders how many people have died in this same position, with their heads stuck between their legs, without enough air. He thinks of plane crashes, and allergic reactions, and how there is no one waiting for him, anywhere, worried that he hasn’t been eating properly, proud that he’s doing things, angry that he hasn’t stopped by to visit in a long time.

He wheezes, coughs. There is no one at all, and he’s going to die. He is, he really is this time, he can feel it. The pressure, the desperation to draw in a breath, the need to throw up. He’s going to die and ruin Kastor’s weekend because Kastor will have to plan the wake because he’s the only family Damen has. Because Kastor is good at funerals, at knowing what to say. 

It goes away the same way it came, suddenly and quickly. One second Damen is heaving, choking, and the next he’s sitting upright, leaning against the couch cushions.

Nikandros is on the phone. “—okay now,” he says, eyes on Damen. “Yes. I can drive him myself. Thank you.”

Neither of them moves. Damen can’t—his whole body feels as though it’s made out of gelatin, something viscous and shapeless, that will crumble under its own weight if he so much as tries to stand—and Nikandros is still frozen as if expecting something terrible to happen.

Damen’s face is wet when he touches it. Spit, not tears, and if he wasn’t so exhausted maybe he’d remember to be relieved. To freak out like this, over nothing, with Nikandros watching, is... His hands shake as he turns them into fists, but they keep shaking no matter how hard he clenches his fingers. After a moment, he sits on them.

“What,” Nikandros says, “the fuck did just happen?”

“Water,” Damen says.

“You weren’t drinking—oh, you want water. Wait. No, don’t move.”

A glass of water later, Damen still feels ten percent less dead. The chills have gone away, but his nausea remains, twisting his stomach this way and that as if trying to get him to throw up the water and beer he’s just had. The human body is truly so, so stupid.

“Did you call an ambulance?” Damen says once it feels like he can open and close his mouth on command.

Nikandros sits on the arm of the couch. “Yes, but I told them not to come once you stopped…” He pauses to rub his temples, right where his hairline ends. “We need to go to the ER.”

“We don’t.”

“You had a heart attack, Damen.”

“That wasn’t a heart attack. My arm didn’t hurt.”

Nikandros looks wild. “But your chest did?”

“No,” Damen says, slowly. It feels like a lie, but he doesn’t know how to explain that his chest didn’t exactly hurt, it just felt as though it was being crushed by a boulder. A familiar boulder. “I just need to rest for a bit.”

“In the hospital.”

“I’m not going to the hospital for this.”

Nikandros picks up the bag of chips and brings it close to his own face. His eyes flicker this way and that as he reads. “Potato, edible vegetable oil, sugar, salt, tomato powder—that’s the one, isn’t it? You’re allergic to that.”

“It wasn’t an allergic reaction,” Damen says. “You need to calm the fuck down.”

“That’s easy for you to say. If you die right now, I could go to jail for not giving you proper medical care.” Nikandros stands up, then sits down. “Is that what you want for me, man? Want me to go to jail and eat chips once a year?”

Damen tilts his head back. It’s easier to breathe like that. “I’ll be dead,” he says, “so I won’t give a shit.”

“Which is why I’m asking you now that you’re not dead. Yet.”

A moment passes, and then another. Damen focuses on the little things, like Nikandros’ thigh against his on the couch, or how the game is still going on the TV, or the salty taste in his mouth. By the time Damen’s able to draw in deep, measured breaths, everything seems more manageable. 

“Has this happened before?”

Damen closes his eyes, and the truth slips right out. He’s too tired to deflect. “Not this bad, but yes.”

“I’m not trying to act like I’m your bitchy girlfriend,” Nikandros says, “but you should get it checked out. By a professional.”

“Get what checked out?”

“Your neurons. They’re obviously going through something.”

Damen smacks him. It’s weak and almost sad, and neither of the comments on it. “Asshole.”

“Asswipe.”

“Assface.”

“I’ve been going to therapy,” Damen says, still not opening his eyes. He might as well get it over with, give Nikandros something to actually laugh at. “Just so you—know. It’s not a big deal.”

It’s too quiet for too long. Nikandros’ neighbor yells again, a litany of insults, none particularly innovative. When Damen looks at the TV, he finds that the two teams are equally fucked—2-2, Orderas sitting on the bench with his ankle wrapped in ice. Damen missed the whole thing.

“Therapy,” Nikandros says, not quite a question. He sounds the way he does when talking to clients about possible renovations, polite but distant. “Was this a panic attack?”

“Sort of.”

“What does that mean, ‘sort of’? It’s a yes or no question.”

“I think it was an anxiety attack,” Damen says. That’s what Neo called it, that one time. “I don’t fucking know, okay?”

“Okay.”

It’s quiet again. Damen’s mouth is dry, pasty, and somehow itchy. He grabs the bowl of chips and munches on one, focusing on how good the salt feels entering his body. His beer has gone warm on the coffee table, but Damen gulps it down anyways, making a face when he’s done. 

“That’s—good,” Nikandros says, watching him. “You’re seeing a shrink. Is she helping you with—things?”

If Laurent was here, he’d laugh and laugh and laugh. Does eloquence run in your family? “It’s a he. Neo.”

“Akielon?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you…”

“What?”

“Should you be drinking?” Nikandros says, not looking at Damen anymore. “Like, isn’t alcohol bad for—like, pills.”

Damen blinks. Nikandros has always made fun of people who say like a lot, which is why Nicaise was always quiet around him. “I’m not on pills,” he says, because that’s the important part. “It’s just talking. I go there, to his office, and we talk.”

“You talk.”

“Yes.”

Nikandros is doing the mouth thing, that soured-up expression he can’t hide when he wants to say something but knows he shouldn’t. Aktis calls it his bitch face.

Damen breathes in. “Just say it.”

“Do you talk about Laurent?”

He does, sometimes. But it’s not a thing, it’s not often. It’s always in passing. Still, saying no outright feels like cheating. “I mostly talk about Nicaise.”

The mouth thing worsens. Nikandros gets up. “I’m gonna get you more water.”

“Don’t bother. I’m not thirsty.”

“I am,” Nikandros says, and disappears into the kitchen.

The sound of rushing water travels from the kitchen to Damen’s ears, but it’s not loud enough to drown out Nikandros’ voice. Damen doesn’t know what he’s muttering about, the words low and cut off, and he doesn’t care enough to ask. It’s not hard to picture Nikandros, standing in front of the sink, glass of water in hand, saying—well, what he’s always said. That kid doesn’t care. That kid’s fucking trouble.

“Here,” Nikandros says, and hands him a plate. Damen grabs it without thinking and almost drops it. The ceramic is scalding. “You need the salt. The dough is gluten-free, so don’t even bitch about it.” 

Damen’s pretty sure panic attacks and blood pressure aren’t related. He takes a bite of the pizza just in case, waits for Nikandros to sit down. “What about Helena?” 

“What about her?”

“Why don’t you take her back home for Labor Day? She can meet your mom, and Lea, and—”

“Calista is still in Thailand,” Nikandros says. He hasn’t touched his slice of pizza yet. “It’s too soon to introduce Helena to my mom, dude. We’ve been on, like, seven dates.”

“Seven dates is a lot,” Damen says. For their seventh date, Laurent had dragged him to the Delfeur Museum of Classical Art, talked his ear off about this dead artist from Vask. Alkash, or something. Araskt? “Have you met her friends?”

“No.”

Arkast. Maybe. “Do you want to?”

“No,” Nikandros says. “I’m telling my mom you’re coming with me, by the way. Whine about it to your shrink or something, I don’t care. You’re coming.”

Are you a curator or something? Damen had said, fifty minutes into their walk through the museum. Laurent stood in front of a painting for twenty-five minutes, which ought to have been annoying but wasn’t. It was nice, Laurent being still. It made looking at him easier, like pinning down a butterfly to study its colors, the shape of its wings. This is my, Laurent had said, then stopped. He’d never finished. 

Damen picks up the remote, sets it free from its cushion-made prison, and tosses it in Nikandros’ direction. “Turn the volume up. The game’s not over yet.”

“You’re also texting Iris about dinner next weekend.”

“Who’s Iris?”

“Helena’s friend. The one I told you about last week,” Nikandros says. He’s trying to get the TV unmuted, and failing. “She’s a respiratory therapist. I swear today was a sign, dude.”

“Okay,” Damen says, and closes his eyes. He’s too tired to argue.

*

Ancel arrives at two-thirty, wearing a sequin-covered blazer and black biker shorts. His shirt looks like it’s made out of cotton, whiter than his skin. The waitress knows him by name, smiles when Ancel gives her his credit card, gives him a little nod. 

Berenger ’s card, Damen self-corrects.

“I’m starving,” Ancel says as he slides into his seat. “Do you like tiramisu? Not that I care, I’m not sharing mine with you, but in case you like it you should—”

“You’re late.”

Ancel frowns, shaking his right arm until his blazer sleeve recedes and lets him see his watch. It’s golden, with a bright green rhinestone on the crown. The hands are the same color, glittery. “Ah, yes. Twenty minutes.” He shrugs. “You’re still here, so.”

“Did you expect me to leave?”

“There’s my tiramisu,” Ancel says, beaming. 

The waitress is carrying two trays, four plates on each. There are cakes, and desserts, and a cup of tea, steaming and smelling of lavender. So far, Damen’s only ordered a cup of coffee, and he knows for a fact Ancel is not going to eat all of this by himself. Knowing Ancel—

“I brought you the new mango cake,” the waitress says. “We’re out of strawberry cheesecake, so I thought you’d like to try this one.”

“You thought right,” Ancel says. “Thank you.”

The girl turns to Damen then, still smiling. “And you, sir? Is there anything you’d like?”

“I—”

“No,” Ancel says. “He’s fine. Oh, and tell Amma I’ll text her later.” He lowers his voice a bit, something Damen has never seen him do. “The baby’s fucking hideous.”

Damen’s face flames, even though he doesn’t know who Amma is, or what baby Ancel is talking about. The waitress laughs, however, and shakes her head as she walks away from their table and towards the back of the shop. Damen sort of wishes she’d take him with her.

“Okay,” Ancel says, his spoon making a clicking sound when he drops it in his cup. “Should I try the tiramisu first or the golfeado?”

“The what ?”

Ancel points at the smallest plate, right by Damen’s left elbow. The pastry on it looks like a cinnamon roll. “It’s from Venezuela.” He frowns. “Not this one, obviously. They made it here, but it’s a Venezuelan dessert.”

Damen tries not to snort. “Do you even know where Venezuela is?”

“Northern end of South America. It’s, like, next to Colombia.”

“I—”

“It’s going through a political crisis,” Ancel says. His spoon is full of cream and coffee powder and whatever else goes into tiramisu. “Well, Ber says it’s more complicated than that, but we’re not here to talk about Venezuela, are we?”

“No,” Damen says after a second. “We’re not.”

In the end, Ancel tries the golfeado first. The moment the spoon leaves his mouth he’s moaning, eyelids fluttering closed like he’s having an orgasm. The sight makes Damen want to gag.

“This is so good. It’s the best—ugh, it’s—”

“The other day,” Damen says, “at the bakery, you said you didn’t—that you and Nicaise don’t talk about me. Is it true?”

Ancel waves his spoon around. “Define talk.”

“Have you told him there’s any chance Laurent and I will get back—”

“Oh, that,” Ancel says. “No, of course not. Sometimes the spawn mentions you, but that’s it. I wasn’t lying about that. I’m not a very good liar.”

Damen stares.

“Okay, well, I’m not a bad liar. I just don’t like lying.” In the silence that follows, Ancel sips his tea, tries another cake. Then, “Fine. I’m a fucking kleptomaniac. Happy?”

“Kleptomaniac?”

“I lie a lot.”

“That’s not what kleptomania is,” Damen says. “If anything, you’re a compulsive liar, but you don’t shoplift on—”

Ancel’s spoon clinks in his teacup. “I’d honestly forgotten how annoying you are. I told Ber this morning, ‘He sounds okay over text’, but my God, you’re just—” He massages his temples, smoothing out the wrinkles.

Damen can feel his brain melting inside his skull. Soon, if he’s not careful, it’ll start dripping out of his nose. “Ancel—”

Ancel, of course, cuts him off. “So you made me come here for that? To ask me a question?”

“There’s more.”

“More of what? More questions?”

“I’m,” Damen starts, then changes routes. “There’s some stuff I’d like to ask you about.”

“Stuff?” 

“You get Nicaise. The things he likes.”

“I’m not following.” Ancel swallows his third spoonful of cake, cranberry cheesecake this time. “Why do you want to know more about what Nicaise likes? He likes annoying people and wearing ugly jeans. There.”

“Because I’m working through some things,” Damen says, annoyed that he has worded it this way, annoyed that Ancel’s probably laughing at him inside his head. Working through some things. God, it’s pathetic. “Are you going to talk to me or did I come here to watch you eat cake?”

Surprisingly, Ancel drops his spoon. His unnaturally pink mouth is a perfect circle. “No way. Are you doing the Twelve Step program? Is that it?”

“No.”

“One of Ber’s cousins tried that. His name’s Fabio, by the way, and he’s from Portugal. You know, that place next to Spain.”

Damen blinks. “I fucking know where Portugal—”

“But it didn’t work. I think he gave up on the fifth step or something.” 

“I’m not an alcoholic.”

Ancel picks up his spoon. “It applies to drug addicts as well. I always told Laurent your muscles had to come from steroids.”

“I don’t—what the fuck?”

“Not saying you don’t work out or have a strict diet,” Ancel says. “I mean, your diet is nowhere near as strict as mine, but whatever. At least I can eat cake. Sometimes.” He frowns, then tries not to. Fingers to temples again, massaging away. “Why can’t you eat cakes? Don’t steroids take care of—”

“I don’t use steroids,” Damen says, loudly. Loud enough that the old woman three tables away turns around to look at them.

Ancel flips her off. 

“You’re such a fucking—” Damen looks away. She dreams of streams, she dreams of streams, she dreams of streams. 

"Go on," Ancel says. "Tell me what you think of me."

Damen shifts, awkward. The woman is still staring. "I don't think this is—"

"I want to hear it. Let’s clear the air since we’re already here."

As Laurent’s boyfriend, Damen would have chosen his words carefully. He would have saved his contempt for their bedroom, where he’d tell Laurent exactly what he thought of Ancel after his last dinner party, the two of them in the process of undressing. He didn’t hit back that Thursday night when Ancel threw a fit. As Laurent’s boyfriend, there had been lines not meant to be crossed.

But now Laurent doesn’t stand between them. There’s no net, no real repercussions. It feels like a freefall.

Ancel’s green eyes are on him, heavy and sharp. “Oh, come on, Damianos. Be honest for once in your life.” 

“I am honest.”

Ancel tilts his head, the same way Neo does. “You’re also a fucking coward, from the looks of it.”

“I didn’t come here to argue.”

“Maybe I did.”

“That’s not my problem, is it?”

“Coward,” Ancel says, practically singing the word. “You’re such a little co—”

“Ancel.”

“Wow, your balls have really shrunken since the last time we talked.”

"I think you're lazy," Damen says because it's the truth. 

That's what he thinks, that's what he's always thought of Ancel. And Ancel is here, asking for this, so why can’t Damen just say what he thinks? It’s not like he was expecting this to work. Nicaise, Kastor, now Ancel. Talking has never been Damen’s thing.

“And?”

Words tingle his tongue, begging to be let out. Damen bites down.

“Come on,” Ancel says, rolling his eyes. “Are you suddenly scared of hurting my feelings? I don’t give three shits what some steroid junkie thinks of me.”

Well, then. Damen says, "Your job isn't a real job, but you refuse to quit it because—because quitting would mean that you're Berenger's kept boy. And you'd rather get fucked in front of old creeps than admit that."

Ancel blinks. "Go on."

"That's it."

"That's definitely not it. Go on ."

"You're bad at spending money. You're a bad influence. I... don't like how you talk to Nicaise." Damen shifts again. It's surprisingly easy to keep talking. "I think you wouldn't be with Berenger if he didn't have money, and that’s disgusting."

Ancel doesn't look offended. He doesn't even look angry. "Okay. Anything else?"

"Er," Damen says, really thinking about it. "No?"

"Then it's my turn." Ancel puts both hands up and spreads his fingers, long but not quite bony. He puts one finger down as he says, "I think you're an asshole."

How original.

"A bigot. You think I'm a bad influence on Nicaise? You're awful to him. You probably call him a faggot in your head. No," Ancel says, loudly, when Damen goes to protest. More of his fingers are down. "Shut up until I'm done. Number four, you think you're better than everyone around you just because your daddy had money to send you to law school. You're classist, and boring, and I never believed Laurent when he said you know how to suck dick."

"I—"

"You liked that Laurent is discreet, like the hypocrite you are. I bet your Grindr bio is ‘no fats, no fems’. You're—"

"That's not—"

"—very aggravating." Ancel puts his last finger down, his two hands now closed fists. "And I’m going to stop there, not because I don’t have more to say but because you’re such a shitty listener you’ve probably stopped hearing what I’m saying already.”

"I don't use Grindr." Damen pauses. That’s beside the point. "I would never call Nicaise—"

"A sissy then. Same thing."

"No."

"Laurent wouldn't tell me, but I've seen your face when Nicaise wears makeup. You think he's a freak."

Damen stays silent. He's sitting so still it hurts, every single muscle tight and taut and pulling, and he wants to leave but can't, wants Ancel to shut up but can't make him. 

“So yes, I'm a whore," Ancel says, "and I probably wouldn't have met Berenger if he didn’t have money. And I spend the money I make on things I like, which you think is stupid because... We should all just save up to buy a ten-bedroom home we don't need, right?"

"Berenger's house has ten bedrooms."

“Eleven, actually. I had Hermès’ playroom redesigned.”

Damen waits for the pressure on his chest to come, for the sweaty palms and useless lungs, but it all stays away. He stares at the only untouched cake on the table, a beige carrot cake with white icing, and tries to think of something to say.

Ancel sips his tea. “Now that we’ve both said what we wanted to, we should either leave or find something else to talk about. I have somewhere to be at five.”

“It’s barely three.”

“So we should leave.” A question.

Yes. “No,” Damen says. “I don’t think any of that about Nicaise. Or Laurent. You can’t just say shit like that without any evidence and—”

“All right,” Ancel says. “Here’s my evidence: last Christmas party you went to with Laurent, you spent forty minutes arguing over what I’d bought Nicaise.”

They hadn’t fought about that, not really. It was about the whole party, about Laurent dragging Damen to Berenger’s even though that year they were supposed to spend Christmas with Damen’s friends. It was about Ancel buying Nicaise a gift card for a tattoo shop, and Laurent talking about the importance of body autonomy, and Damen feeling like his head was going to explode. It was about how Laurent didn’t plan on actually letting Nicaise use the card to get a piercing, but he wanted to have something to bicker about, something to later use against Damen. He’s fucking sixteen . Laurent and his ever-rolling eyes, saying, Fuck you. I know exactly how old he is. 

Shame makes Damen’s stomach curl into itself as if trying to hide. “Whatever Laurent has told you—”

“He hasn’t told me anything. I heard you. It was hard not to, what with how fucking loud you were.”

“It wasn’t forty minutes.”

“Thirty-five, then.” Ancel leans forward, putting his elbow on the table for the first time. He rests his chin on his hand, still managing to look tall even though he’s sitting down and half bent over. “Why are you asking questions if you don’t want to know the answers? I thought the First Step was surrendering and admitting you have a problem.”

“I’m not doing that program.”

“But you do have a problem.”

Damen has a million problems. Being the hateful monster Ancel is painting him to be isn’t one of them. “I know I hurt them,” he says. He doesn’t know why he’s including Laurent in this, doesn’t know if he means it at all. He never hurt Laurent. “I said things—did things I’m not proud of, but I didn’t do them on purpose.”

“Intent doesn’t change shit,” Ancel says. “If I stab you right now with this fork, it’s still considered assault. Doesn’t matter why I did it.”

“That’s not how—”

Ancel goes on, “You’re lucky Nicaise’s brain is all scrambled and he worships the ground you walk on because anyone with better self-esteem wouldn’t have put up with your bullshit.”

“There’s nothing wrong with his brain.”

Ancel stares at him. 

“There isn’t,” Damen says again. He’s not normal, Damen had said last week. He’s suddenly glad he hasn’t had any cake, because he’s certain it’d be coming out of his mouth right now. “I… should go. You’ve told me what I wanted to know already.”

“You wanted me to tell you that you’re an asshole? Or did you want me to tell you what you can do to stop being one?”

“I don’t think you’re the most suitable person for that job,” Damen says. “But thank you. Truly. This was enlightening.”

Ancel frowns. “Are you being sarcastic? I can’t quite tell.”

“Goodbye, Ancel.” 

“Goodbye, Mr. Repression.”

It’s bait. Damen bites the hook, hungry for it. “I’m not repressed.”

“Honey,” Ancel says. “I’ve seen dudes with literal cans up their asses more relaxed than you are right now. Or ever been, for that matter.” He taps the table with his short, manicured nails. “Besides, I owe you. Maybe this can be my ticket to heaven.”

“You owe me?”

Ancel’s eyes flicker down to the cutlery. One of the corners of his mouth is sagging, an unhappy pull to it. “For Aimeric”, he says. “And Nicaise, I guess. You did go looking for him. I have to pay it backward, or whatever Ber always says.”

“It’s pay it forward,” Damen says. He feels like he just lost a boxing match. 

Ancel waves at the waitress instead. The gesture isn’t patronizing or demanding, but rather affectionate. He’s not calling her over, Damen realizes, but saying goodbye. “I have to go now. I’ll need more spa time after this conversation. My pores literally clog up when I’m upset. You get…” He pauses, tilting his head back a bit so he can stare at the ceiling. It’s a nice ceiling, made out of wood. “Five lessons.”

“Lessons?”

“On how to stop being an—the way you are. I’ll text you the details.”

Damen doesn’t know what to say. This whole thing is probably a joke, he concludes. Ancel’s sense of humor has always been rather weird. 

The table is full of cakes, all of them only missing a spoonful or two. Damen waits, thinking Ancel will ask his waitress friend to pack them all to go, but Ancel doesn’t do that. He stands and fixes his clothes instead, checking his phone.

“Er,” Damen says. “Are you just going to leave these here?”

Ancel doesn’t look up from his phone. “Obviously. They’re Célia’s. We have a little agreement.”

“Who the fuck is Célia?”

“The waitress,” Ancel says, irritated. “She was wearing a name tag. God, can’t you fucking read?”

*

The doorbell rings for a second, then stops. Dog is a blur on the floor, running from the backyard through the living room to get to the foyer. When Damen doesn’t walk fast enough, Dog comes looking into the kitchen for him, barking. He sounds annoyed. 

Damen takes a deep breath before opening the door and, for once, his lungs cooperate. Everything is fine.

“Hey,” he says, and steps back.

Nicaise doesn’t move. He’s in the blue jacket from the other night, Laurent’s, and jeans Damen has seen before, washed-out black. His sneakers look different, the rubber midsole scribbled with black marker. cute pussy kick.

Dog squeezes his head through Damen’s ankles, trying to get out so he can lick Nicaise, but Damen holds him back. It’s not fair, he thinks, to crowd Nicaise the second he sets foot in the house. Or the front porch.

When a full minute of silence has passed, Damen leans against the doorway, ignoring the way Dog is still struggling to break free of his calf-prison. Nicaise isn’t looking at either of them, too busy staring at the welcome mat like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. Unlike Ancel’s, this one is dark brown, without any glittery letters. Damen doesn’t even know where he got it from.

Another minute passes.

“Do you want to come in?” Damen says. 

Nicaise makes a face, scrunched up nose, thin mouth. “Agnes says I have to apologize first. For yelling at you at the restaurant. And stuff.”

And stuff. That’s—more than what Damen usually gets from Nicaise. He thought it’d be the same as before, that Nicaise would try to pretend nothing happened. Nicaise used to do that, sometimes, post-particularly vicious arguments. He once cooked Laurent breakfast after a night of screaming himself hoarse.

Damen says, “Are you sorry for yelling at me?”

“Not really.” Nicaise looks up. “You were aggravating me.”

Of course.

“Then you don’t have to apologize. You can hang out with Dog regardless of whether or not you say sorry to me.”

Nicaise’s eyes flicker to Dog. “I called him ugly.”

“He’s kind of ugly.”

“No, he isn’t.”

Damen shrugs. His chest feels sore, but he doesn’t want to rub it with Nicaise watching. “Okay.”

“Why are you being so chill about this?” Nicaise makes a fist out of his right hand, then relaxes his fingers again. “I’m not going to run away again just because you’re angry at me. I don’t care if you are.”

“I’m not angry.”

“Then what? Do you just not care?”

“About you?”

Nicaise flushes, says, “About being yelled at and insulted and having someone call your dog ugly.”

Damen spreads his legs enough for Dog to break free and collide into Nicaise’s sneakers. Dog chews on the laces, pulling at them, and Nicaise lets him.

“Come in,” Damen says. “I really don’t feel like having this conversation out here.”

The kitchen feels like the safest place in the house to talk in, despite its sharp knives and hot burners. Dog follows them excitedly, probably thinking he’s about to get a treat, and Damen thinks maybe he should get one, just for not eating Nicaise’s sneakers.

Damen leans against the counter, hipbone to the cold marble. It won’t do to reprimand, to pry. He needs to talk to Laurent first, before making any moves. Where did you get drugs? sounds too confrontational, even in Damen’s head. It’s not his place to scold Nicaise anymore. Focus on emotions. 

“Wanna tell me why you got so angry at Virtus?”

“I told you already,” Nicaise says, petting Dog. “You were aggravating me.”

“Because I told you I’m not getting back together with Laurent?”

Nicaise flicks one of Dog’s ears. He won’t look at Damen. “I knew that already. I don’t care if you never talk to him again because you’re incompatible anyways.” 

Incompatible. “That’s—”

“Also, I’m going to move out soon, so it’s not like it matters to me who he’s with.”

Damen hears each lie distinctly, but knows there’s no use in drawing attention to them, not if he wants to keep things peaceful. “Moving out,” he says, feigning interest. Show the child you are interested in what they have to say, circle back to certain topics. “Where to?”

“I’m going to college in Vask.”

Damen blinks. “Did you get into VVU?”

“Not yet, but I will. I’m not going to fail any more math tests now that I have a tutor.”

Ver-Vassel University is a long way from Delfeur. There are mountains and valleys stretching along the Veretian-Vaskian border, and the trip is hours long by plane. Damen can’t imagine Laurent likes the idea of Nicaise living so far away. He’s not sure he likes it himself.

“I thought you hated Vask,” Damen says. “No beaches, the weather’s too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter…”

“Akielos is the same.”

“Then maybe you should stay in Vere. Where’s Leandre going to college?”

Nicaise frowns. “Why are you asking me about Leandre?”

“He’s your friend,” Damen says. Between them, Dog moves his head as if nodding. “I went to college with my friends, so I thought maybe that’s what you’d like to do.”

Nicaise sits on the countertop with a little hop. He has long legs, even though he’s shorter than Laurent. “That’s only because you all studied law.”

“Nikandros and Aktis didn’t.”

“Well, but you were rich. That’s why you got paired up together.”

Damen doesn’t really have a strong counterargument for that. You’re also rich , he thinks but doesn’t say. He knows better than to mention Laurent’s money. “You can study whatever you want, anywhere. Why leave Vere?”

“Leandre’s going to the University of Marches,” Nicaise says, instead of answering the question. “Their psychology program sucks though.”

“Is that what you want to study? Psychology?”

Nicaise’s reaction is easier to read, this time. The tips of his ears go bright red, beacon-like. Even his voice sounds mortified. “Fuck off, it’s—I’m not bad at listening. To people. Sometimes.”

“You’re not bad,” Damen says. He doesn’t quite know how to go on.

“And besides,” Nicaise says, “I don’t want to be a therapist. I just like the course material, and there’s a lot of stuff you can do with that degree.”

Damen doubts it, but he’s not going to say so to Nicaise. He has to say something, anything, and so he thinks back on his college days. He took an introductory psychology course once, mandatory, remembers— “Freud and Lacan are interesting.”

“You’re so old.”

“Is that…” Damen pauses. “Do kids not study that anymore?”

“Yes, but no one likes it. What’s interesting about some old asshole that thought women wanted to have dicks?” 

Language. “What are you interested in?”

“Cross-cultural stuff,” Nicaise says, swinging his legs a bit. “CBT.”

Damen’s stomach contracts as if being squeezed. Slowly, expecting Nicaise to snap, he says, “I don’t think weed is that interesting.”

Nicaise’s laughter takes him by surprise. It’s a good sound, a good sight. Nicaise bends over, forehead touching his own knees, and cackles so loudly Dog hides behind Damen’s leg. Once he’s done, flushed and glassy-eyed, he says, “That’s CBD. I was talking about CBT. And the first one isn’t even a form of therapy, it’s just oil.”

“Weed oil?”

Nicaise starts laughing again, breathless.

“Okay,” Damen says after a moment, “so what is CBT?”

“Cognitive behavioral therapy.”

“And…?”

“I don’t know,” Nicaise says. A shrug follows. “I think it sounds cool. They low-key train you like a dog. Or, like, they teach you to train yourself. Or something.”

“Arran University has a good psychology program.”

Nicaise presses his thumb to the specks of black on the marble counter. There are many of them. “Arran’s boring.”

“And Vask isn’t?”

“That’s racist.”

Damen opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. Does he sound like Makedon? “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Nicaise only rolls his eyes. 

Vask, Damen thinks. Seven hundred kilometers.  

Laurent will probably move. He doesn’t need an apartment that big or that close to the school district without Nicaise around. He’ll probably get something smaller, just for himself. Except there’s Maxime to think about, and the possibility that Laurent might move in with him. It makes sense, at the pace they’re going. Maxime met Nicaise four months in; he’ll move in with Laurent sooner than Damen did, too.

The apartment will have new owners if Laurent decides to sell it, which he obviously will. Landlord-ing is not my style, he’d told Damen once. It’s Berenger’s. Whoever comes after Laurent will make changes to the place, replace the floorings or paint over Nicaise’s annoying drawings on the walls. Without furniture or decoration, it’ll be as good as new. It’ll be as though no one’s ever lived there before.

“—the application,” Nicaise is saying. “Like, do I think Tik Tok is a cool app? Yes. Do I think she’s going to get into the Bazal Institute of Technology just because she made a twenty-second video dancing to that song? No.”

Damen doesn’t even pretend to know who or what Nicaise is talking about. “Do you have a Tik Tok?”

“A Tik Tok account.”

“That.”

Nicaise takes his phone out, and three taps later he’s showing Damen a profile that looks like every other social media profile Damen has ever seen. Followers, Following, Likes. Squares of videos pop up, the people in them frozen still.

“I know a guy that uses this app,” Damen says. It feels so good to say it, like finally getting a sentence right in a foreign language. “Makes dumb videos with his co-workers.”

“What’s his handle?”

“His what?”

“His account. What is it called?”

Damen frowns. “I don’t know.”

“What sort of videos does he make? Funny ones?”

“He does funeral—”

“Lazarus Services?” Nicaise blinks, his eyelashes moving so fast he looks like a cartoon character. “You know Huet ?”

“Er, no.”

Nicaise sags a bit. “Oh.”

“I know Lazar,” Damen says quickly. It’s true, sort of. “Isn’t he the owner?”

“I don’t know,” Nicaise says, but he sounds excited again. “Huet’s the funny one though. Here, look at this video.”

Jumping off the counter, Nicaise advances towards Damen and shoves the phone in front of his face, thumb swiping once to show a video with the volume concerningly loud. The screen reads pov: u r ashes, as the phone used to record the whole thing is put into a Ziploc bag and then lowered into an urn.

“I don’t get it,” Damen says.

“Watch this one. Orlant’s in it,” Nicaise says, as he swipes down to play another video. “I don’t like historical stuff, but this one’s funny.”

pov u r 14th century orlant during the black plague and lazar is ur boss. Lazar is talking to an exhausted-looking man—Orlant, obviously—while clapping to the beat of the audio. They’re wearing weird costumes, long dark robes.

“Bus, club,” Nicaise says, perfectly timed. “'nother club, 'nother club, plane, next place. No sleep.”

Damen doesn’t laugh. “There weren’t planes in the fourteenth century.”

Nicaise stares at him. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” Nicaise says, pocketing his phone. “How do you know Lazar?”

Damen leans against the counter one more time, for support. Not getting the joke always leaves him feeling a bit unbalanced. “Lazar is dating Pallas,” he says. “I met him once when we went out for drinks. He’s… interesting.” Damen opens a drawer, trying not to think of Lazar’s words, or Marianne’s mother, or Kastor. “Are you hungry? I bought those sugar cookies you like.”

Nicaise is staring at him, more intently than before. Like Laurent would.

“What?” Damen says.

“What kind of crazy person keeps cookies in the top drawer?”

“Where else am I supposed to keep them?”

“The pantry,” Nicaise says. He takes a cookie out of the package and examines it carefully, his thumb coming away white. “Powdered sugar? You don’t even like these ones. Why—”

“They were out of chocolate ones.”

Nicaise eats the entire thing in one bite but doesn’t reach into the drawer for another. His eyes flicker to the pantry, then the fridge, then the pantry again, like he can’t decide where to head over next.

“Do you want something to drink?” Damen says. 

“No.”

“Are you sure? I’ve got coffee, tea, juice—”

“I don’t like juice,” Nicaise says, annoyed.

“And water.” Damen opens the fridge, points at the top shelf. “I bought a six-pack of those sparkling lemon—”

“Do you have milk?”

Damen takes the carton out, places it on the counter. Mond, the sunglasses-wearing almond, stares back at him. He waits a second, then two, for Nicaise to ask about it, to point out that Damen has never drank anything but regular milk, but Nicaise stays quiet.

“Do you want it in a glass?” Damen says after a moment. He itches for something to do, something to keep his hands busy and his eyes off Nicaise. “Or a mug? I don’t—I’ve got Starbursts if you want them. In a bowl.”

Nicaise presses his thumb to Mond’s glasses, traces their rim. “What flavor?”

“All of them.”

Dog barks, chewing on Nicaise’s shoelaces. “That’s right,” Nicaise says, petting his head, fingers trembling a bit. “Strawberry sucks ass.”

A cereal bowl is assembled—too much cereal, in Damen’s opinion, and not enough milk—and then brought over to the living room. Nicaise sits on the couch with Dog on his lap, bowl and spoon waiting for him on the coffee table. The green crystal is spinning on the TV, upbeat music playing. Damen feels himself relax, involuntarily, limb by limb.

Sim-Berenger has lost his job, and Nicaise has removed all the doors from his house so he can’t get into any of the rooms. Damen watches Nicaise half-hold Dog and half-pay attention to the game. Once in a while, he’ll lean forward to get a dripping spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

His pinky nail is painted a light blue color, whereas the rest are their usual flushed pink, reddened from scrubbing or scratching or whatever it is Nicaise does to get the nail polish off. The sight dampens whatever relief had been settling over Damen.

They haven’t talked about Virtus, not really, or about what happened last week. They might as well talk about this.

“Nicaise,” he says. 

Nicaise doesn’t pause the game, doesn’t even turn to look at him. “What?”

There is no right approach to this, Damen thinks. Whatever he chooses to say will ultimately cost him this peace, this quiet contentment. He feels as though he’s at the very edge of something, at a start and at an end. He says, “Do you—not paint your nails anymore?”

Sim-Berenger stops running circles around the house. He’s writhing on his feet, bladder on fire. 

“It’s the new dress code at school,” Nicaise says, very calmly. He’s yet to look at Damen. “They don’t let anyone wear dark nail polish, so I have to remove it before class.”

“Really.”

“Really. You can ask Laurent.”

Damen takes his phone out, or tries to. Nicaise’s hand shoots up and wraps around his wrist, tugging down. They sit in silence like that, unmoving until Nicaise lets go. The room’s suddenly warmer, too warm. Damen tries not to pant.

“He’ll get mad,” Nicaise says, quietly.

“Mad?”

“At you.”

Laurent will get angry, if he isn’t already. He must have noticed it by now, how Nicaise leaves home wearing nail polish and then returns with clean, nude fingernails. Damen knows how Laurent’s mind works, sometimes. How it will fill in the blanks. You made him take it off , he’ll say, and Damen won’t know how to reply. It’s true, in a way.

“He blows things out of proportion,” Nicaise says. He’s getting worked up again, left foot tapping the air. “It’s stupid. I know why you—like, you don’t have to like it. You can have your own opinions, and that doesn’t make you bad. He’s the one that’s in the wrong.” Sim-Berenger has fallen asleep on the grass. “And this is your house, not his. So. You make the rules.”

This is Damen’s house. This is also the house he planned and sketched and designed with Laurent, the house Nicaise was supposed to live in. The rules should be the same, Damen thinks, as they were in the apartment. No sleepovers during the week, no sneaking out without leaving a note. You don’t get to fucking pick and choose, Laurent says in his head. 

And it’s true. There were other rules back then, rules Damen put into place. No pink clothes outside, no sequins if people are looking. No eyeliner or blush to school.

Damen says, “Why is Laurent wrong?” 

Nicaise blinks at him like he can’t believe Damen hasn’t agreed with him already. “Because he was always forcing you to not speak your mind. Nail polish is stupid anyway. I’m not going to go to college and be—like, it’s for girls. I was only…” The fractured little speech finally breaks off, giving Nicaise a second to breathe. Then, with renewed confidence: “It was a pha—”

“Stop,” Damen snaps. 

For once, Nicaise obeys. His mouth shuts closed with a little click.

Silence doesn’t make Damen feel any better. If anything, it makes him hyper-aware of every second that passes, of how he doesn’t want to keep looking at Nicaise. A phase. Makedon would be proud. 

“I was wrong,” Damen says. The words are so small, in comparison to what he’s trying to say. He can’t remember a single quote from the book. “You should wear whatever you want to. Always. And I know—this isn’t what you want. I know it’s not. Laurent knows it too.”

Nicaise moves away from him, as far away as the couch allows him to. Dog jumps off his lap then, annoyed at the jostling, and disappears into the kitchen. 

“You don’t know what I want,” Nicaise says. He’s red all over, throat blushing like he’s having an allergic reaction. Maybe he is. Maybe Damen shouldn’t have said anything. “Why are you defending him? He kicked you out just because you wouldn’t say yes to every stupid thing he wanted.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Yes, it fucking is. You’d say something you didn’t even mean, and he would take it out of context, and twist it—and—and—he was always calling you names, and—”

Damen leans forward a bit, tries to breathe. “I meant those things, Nicaise.”

“That’s even worse,” Nicaise says, loudly. “Were you supposed to agree with him on everything? It’s so fucked up. He’s fucking fucked in the head.”

An old, familiar feeling creeps on Damen. It grows over him like ivy, takes root. He hasn’t been truly angry at Nicaise in so, so long. Even at Virtus, he realizes, all he experienced was petty hurt. “That’s fucking enough, Nicaise. You don’t—” Talk about him like that. The words get stuck somewhere, lathered in rage. Damen has talked about Laurent like that before, to Nikandros.

“Why not? It’s the truth. He’s literally—”

“He’s looking out for you.”

Nicaise shoves the coffee table away with his foot. Milk sloshes over the edge of his cereal bowl, dripping to the floor with a rhythmic sound. “I don’t need him to do that. I’m not a fucking kid anymore.”

Then stop acting like one. “I was wrong,” Damen says again. It’s all that comes to mind.

“No.”

“What—”

“It was him ,” Nicaise says, and he sounds so sure it’s hard not to believe him. The urge is there, to agree, to appease. To not take any blame. “He always does that. He goes and opens his stupid fucking mouth and just ruins everything, and it’s not fucking fair. It’s not fair .”

Damen’s hand moves on its own, like it did in Laurent’s car the week before. Nicaise moves away before Damen can touch his knee.

“Is your new boyfriend into painting his nails?” Nicaise says, a snap. Damen figures he deserves it; he was the one who snapped first. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re fucking a sissy, and now you feel all liberal about things.”

“Don’t use that word.”

Nicaise pouts, playing dumb. “Why? Does it bother you?” 

“Yes,” Damen says, trying not to think of Ancel. “It does.”

“Does he look like a sissy all the time,” Nicaise goes on, voice higher, “or does he only put on a show when it’s the two of you? Is that what you like now? Fucking little twinks in skirts? Do you make him tuck his fucking—”

Damen stands and goes into the kitchen, Nicaise’s voice trailing after him like a ghost. A new set of insults and slurs follows, but Damen ignores it all. He grabs things as he walks—Dog’s leash, a coat, the house keys—and stops once he’s in the foyer, abruptly enough that Nicaise almost slams into his back.

“Where are you going?” Nicaise says. “Off to see your—”

“I’m going for a walk.” Damen locks the leash to Dog’s collar and gives it a tentative tug. It’s not too short. “You can either calm down or leave. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

“What?”

“I’m going for a walk.”

Nicaise’s brow spasms once. “You can’t just leave .”

“I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

“It’s not about the fucking door.”

Dog whines, paw to said door. Damen silences him with an ear rub. “You’ve got three options, Nicaise. One, you stay here while I take Dog for a walk. Two, you go back home. Three, you take Dog for a walk.” He lifts his hand, leash dangling from his fingers. “What is it going to be?”

A beat, then two.

In slow motion, Nicaise takes the leash and wraps it once around his wrist. He’s eyeing Damen, maybe waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Damen to snatch the leash away. Damen does nothing but open the door and hold it like that. 

“Twenty minutes,” Damen says. “I’ll go looking for you if you’re not back by then.”

Nicaise doesn’t reply and, after a minute, lets himself be tugged away by Dog, down the street, past the nice garden with the orchids. He doesn’t look back once.

While they’re gone Damen focuses on little tasks, one at a time. He cleans up the spilled milk on the coffee table, goes upstairs to check something in Neo’s book—page 46, now underlined, speak only of your own emotions —and then refills Dog’s water bowl in the kitchen. He’s going through the pantry to find an unopened bag of food for Dog when Nicaise’s knocks come, two of them, just a bit shy of quiet. It’s only been fifteen minutes.

“Here,” Damen says and tosses Nicaise one of the silver packets he keeps in the pantry. He doesn’t mention how red Nicaise’s eyes are, how the tip of his nose looks rubbed raw. “Give him a treat.”

Nicaise does as he’s told, tearing the thing open and giving the cookie-like treat to Dog. He pets him through the whole thing, Dog munching and swallowing and licking up the crumbs, which Damen doesn’t like. Don’t touch an animal when it’s putting food in its mouth, his dad had said probably a billion times. Ios always snarled when Damen got too close to his bowl.

“I would like,” Damen says, slowly, tasting the words, “for you not to talk like that again.”

Nicaise’s fingers twitch behind Dog’s ear. “Like what?”

“Don’t play dumb, Nicaise.”

“Maybe I’m not playing,” Nicaise says. It’s worryingly self-deprecating, and Damen wishes he’d get up and off his knees, wishes he’d look at Damen even for just a moment.

“No slurs at my house,” Damen says. “No throwing things either.”

“I didn’t throw anything.”

“You threw the table.”

Nicaise looks up then. “No, I didn’t. I shoved it. A bit. It doesn’t count.”

“It counts to me,” Damen says. “When you don’t want to talk about something anymore, you just have to tell me. There’s no need to put on a show like that.”

“A show.”

That’s Laurent’s way, quoting one back. It’s annoying enough to make Damen close his eyes. “And,” he goes on, “if you have a question, you ask it.”

Nicaise’s lips go pale, pinched between teeth. “I don’t have any fucking questions.”

“Stop swearing.”

“Whatever.”

“Nicaise.”

“I did ask,” Nicaise says. “You just wouldn’t answer, so. How’s that my fault?”

Damen stares at him. “Do you think you were polite about it?”

“ Whatever .”

“Well, if you ever want an answer to your question, you know what you have to do.” Damen waits, thinking maybe Nicaise will ask, that curiosity will get the best of him— are you dating someone? —but Nicaise starts playing with Dog again. “Another thing. The nail polish stays on. If you wear it to school, you—”

“Can we not talk about it anymore?”

Damen tries not to scream. He did tell Nicaise he could say that. “Okay,” he says. “Want another cereal bowl?”

“I didn’t finish the other one,” Nicaise says. It’s not exactly a no.

“I bet it’s gone soggy.” And you hate soggy cereal.  

Nicaise gets up then, slow like he’s waiting for something to happen. He sidesteps Damen almost carefully to get to the kitchen. “I can make it myself. Where are the—”

“Bowl’s are on the bottom shelf, spoons in the second drawer.”

Pots and pans are moved, a bowl is placed on the counter. Damen doesn’t see these things, because he leaves the kitchen entirely to Nicaise. There was something in Neo’s book about not crowding people, giving them time to cool off. Maybe the walk wasn’t enough.

Nicaise sits down on the couch, exits the game. He leaves the remote on the middle cushion and starts eating.

“What do you want to watch?” Damen says. 

Nicaise chews, doesn’t answer.

A movie, then. Damen puts on the first option on the For You row. There’s a girl, named Merise, and her boyfriend, Ernese. They’re spending their last summer before graduating from college in the south of Patras, doing something. Research, Merise tells her mom on the phone. 

Damen sneaks a glance at Nicaise, catches him staring. “Something wrong?”

“Are you.”

“Am I,” Damen says, “what?”

Nicaise rubs his nose, sniffling. “Dating someone.”

“Not really, no.”

“Okay,” Nicaise says, turning his head towards the screen. “I bet she’s going to die.”

“She’s the main character.”

“Main characters die. Ned Stark died in the first season of Game of Thrones.”

“You’ve never watched Game of Thrones,” Damen says. “What was it? Too boring?”

“I didn’t like the characters, and there was—she’s fucking dead.”

Damen glances at the TV. Merise is lying on the road, sprawled out like a ragdoll. Blood is coming out of her mouth like she has tuberculosis. “Have you watched this already?” he says.

Nicaise rolls his eyes. He looks just like Laurent.

*

By the time Damen is done explaining what’s happened since the last session, it feels as though he’s been talking for hours. He understands it now, how some people have to come in twice a week, sometimes more. There are quiet fortnights where nothing happens, where life moves sluggishly, and then there are days when everything happens all at once. One hour a week is simply not enough to cover everything that needs covering. 

Neo seems to agree. “We have quite the selection today,” he says. “Where do you want to start?”

Not Kastor, not Kastor, not— “I don’t know.”

“Perhaps we should address the most urgent stuff first. The panic attack you had at Nikandros worries me a bit, Damen.”

Damen wasn’t worried, until now. “You said it was—that it was normal. That I wouldn’t need medication.”

“I’m not saying you do.” Neo drums his fingers on his armrest. “What worries me isn’t the intensity or frequency with which you’ve been experiencing these attacks, but the fact that this one seems to have occurred without a trigger. You said you were watching a game?”

“Yes,” Damen says. Then, “A trigger?”

“The attack you had at Berenger’s house had a very specific source, I feel like. Do you remember what it was that made you feel so out of control?”

“Nicaise. I mean, just…”

Neo nods. “Knowing you had hurt Nicaise, amongst other things, made you extremely anxious. Yes. Now, what do you think happened at Nikandros’? Was watching your team lose that stressful? Did you and Nikandros have another fight?”

“No,” Damen says. “We were just talking.”

“Go on.”

“He kept telling me how his mom is worried about me, how she wants me to go over for Labor Day.”

“Sounds like a typical Akielon mom,” Neo says, lightly. It makes Damen feel sick. “Labor Day is quite the family holiday. Why do you think she’s worried about you? Are you two close?”

She used to ruffle my hair a lot as a kid, took me to get it cut. It’s a stupid thing to say, and so Damen doesn’t say it. “I just don’t get why she’d care about stuff like that.”

“Stuff like that?”

“I’d understand her worrying about Nikandros. But why—I mean I’m not—” Damen takes a deep breath. It’s pathetic, how he has to coach himself through using his own lungs. “She’s not my mom, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Neo says, writing. 

“Nikandros said—something. About moms being like that.”

“How did that make you feel?” When Damen rolls his eyes, Neo backtracks. “Okay, fair enough. Do you feel like Nikandros was being condescending?”

Condescending. Laurent would have said contemptuous. “No. It wasn’t that.”

“What about your brother’s mother?”

Damen frowns. “Hypermenestra? What about her?”

“You said Nikandros’ mom is obviously not your mom.” Neo glances at him, then down at the notepad. “Do you feel like your brother’s mother plays that role in your life?”

“That’s not how I think of her.”

“How do you think of her?”

“As Kastor’s mother. She’s not—” Mine.

“Okay,” Neo says. “So Nikandros kept talking about his mom, and you felt a little lost. Like you couldn’t relate. In turn, that made you anxious. Is that right?”

“Yes, but…”

“But…?”

Damen can feel it now, too, the same horrible pressure he felt on Nikandros’ couch. He can’t help but wonder if maybe this feeling was inside him all along, dormant, but coming to see Neo uncorked it somehow. Would it have stayed locked still, neutral and silent, if Damen had never come here? Would it have started leaking?

“It wasn’t just that I couldn’t relate at that moment,” Damen says, slowly. “It was that I never will. I’ll never—get it.”

“And what is there to get, exactly?”

“How moms do things.”

Neo is looking at him again.

“I just mean,” Damen starts, and stops. He doesn’t try again for a long time. “I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot, which is… sad? Sometimes. But when I think of a mom, I can’t really—picture anything.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not that I’m wallowing in sad things or—people die all the time. I’m not the only one who lost his dad to cancer, you know? And some people have it worse.”

“Worse how?”

“They’re sick themselves,” Damen says, unsure now. “Or they also lost a sibling. Or they’re poor.”

“And why does it matter if other people have it worse than you?” Neo says. “If I break my leg right now and it hurts, am I not allowed to complain because someone else broke both their legs?”

Damen rolls his eyes. “That’s not the same thing.”

“How come it’s not?”

“Let’s just go back to the other stuff. Nikandros.”

“What do you think of when you hear the word mother?” Neo says. “You said you sort of come up blank, but I know that’s not true. There has to be some sort of word-concept association in your head, Damen.”

“I. Mostly Hypermenestra. Or Idalia.”

“Idalia is Nikandros’ mom? Okay. So the issue isn’t that you can’t think of a mom, it’s that you can’t think of your mom.”

“I don’t have a mom though,” Damen says, blinking. He feels off again. “Isn’t that the whole thing?”

“But you did,” Neo says, and his voice is almost soft, “at some point. We all have parents, whether we like them or not, whether we know them or not. It’s simple biology.”

“All right.”

Neo’s mouth is pursed tight. “Maybe if we talked a bit about your mom, it could help you reconnect with who she was as a person. Even outside of her role as your mother. Do you have any pictures of—”

“It’s not the same. It’s not—about that. Talking about her won’t…” Bring her back. 

Pity has softened Neo’ face, and Damen finds it unbearable to watch. “Of course not, Damen. How do you think it’s changed you? Not having her around, I mean. Do you think you’d be the same person you are now?”

It’s such a stupid, complicated question. It doesn’t even have a real answer. “I don’t know, so.” He clears his throat, tries to clear the air. “Er, I also had a talk with Kastor. I don’t think this system is working.”

“The list system.”

“Yes. I’m not good at talking to people, I think.”

“Did you ask him to apologize for something? Did you apologize?”

“No,” Damen says. “We’re not there yet. Honestly, I should take him off the list.”

Neo tilts his head to the side. “Why’s that? We’ve had lengthy conversations about him.”

“Because he’s—we’re just very different, okay? He has this idea of what family is, and it’s not similar to mine. So maybe it’s better if I don’t force things with him.” Damen shrugs, or tries to. He feels stiff all over. “Plenty of siblings don’t like each other.”

“Do you like your brother?”

“Yes,” Damen says. “I just don’t think he likes me.”

Neo writes something down. “Do you remember what the first thing you said when you came here was? One of the first things, I suppose. Kastor is fine, he’s family . Can you see the change between these two moments?”

“He’s still family.”

“Yes,” Neo says, “but you don’t sound nearly as defensive about it. You’ve admitted to thinking he doesn’t like you, which we don’t know for certain, but—”

“What do you mean, ‘we don’t know’?”

“Did you ask him? If he didn’t say it, you’re simply making an assumption based on his behavior. Could be right, could be wrong. We don’t know.”

Damen rubs his eyes. There’s a headache blooming behind them. “I just want to do something, okay? Talking didn’t help.”

“From what you’ve told me, you didn’t exactly talk to him about what’s been bothering you.”

“Nothing has been bothering me.”

“Okay,” Neo says, and tilts his head.

“Fine,” Damen snaps. “I’ll try again, is that what you want me to say? I’ll sit him down for lunch and ask him about our fucking dad and why he acts like he hates me.”

“That’s not what I want.”

“He clearly doesn’t want to talk to me,” Damen says, “and his therapist never made him. So I don’t get why I have to keep doing this when it clearly doesn’t work.”

Neo frowns. “Whose therapist?”

“Kastor’s. Apparently, he went to see one a few years back or something, I don’t know.” Damen presses his nails to the stitching on the chair, feeling them sink into the leather. “Laurent knew about it though. Turns out he recommended the guy to Kastor.”

“And you’re upset about it.”

“Of course I’m fucking upset about it.”

“Why?”

“Laurent did that behind my back,” Damen says. He’s aware, vaguely, that he’s raising his voice, and yet he can’t stop it from happening. “Yeah, sure, Kastor told him not to tell anyone, but I was his—I was their—”

Neo tilts his head a third time. It’s starting to be annoying. “Have you told anyone about me?”

It’s a silly way to put it, as though Neo is some kind of lover that needs an introduction. For once, Damen feels smug with the power of surprise. “I have, yeah. Nikandros.”

“Because you had a panic attack at his place.”

Damen frowns. “No.”

“Would you have told Nikandros if you hadn’t had that episode?” Neo says. “I feel like we’re getting a bit off track here. You’re upset that Kastor did not tell you he was going to therapy, yet you haven’t told him you’re going to therapy.”

“That’s different,” Damen says. “I wouldn’t have said anything bad to him.”

“So the reason you don’t want to tell Kastor you’re here is that he might say something rude?”

The back of the chair is getting damp, and so Damen moves away from it. “Not rude. Just… sarcastic. He makes jokes.”

“Yes, so you’ve said. Don’t you think that out of everyone in your circle right now, maybe Kastor is the person least likely to mock you for seeking treatment? He’s been through therapy himself. I think it’ll surprise you how open-minded to therapy some people can become after just a few sessions.”

“It’s not about therapy itself,” Damen says. He doesn’t even know what they’re talking about anymore. It’s like they’ve been circling something, pointlessly drawing closer and then backing away. “I don’t think he thinks therapy is stupid.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

He thinks I’m stupid. Damen swallows. “I don’t know. It’s like you want me to talk to him about things, like our dad or how he—makes me feel. But I can’t.”

“You’ve talked about it,” Neo says. “Here, with me.”

“It’s different when I’m with Kastor.”

“Why?”

“It just is.”

“You talked about your uncle though. Isn’t that a step closer to talking about your father? Sometimes progress doesn’t look like getting exactly what we want.”

Damen looks away. The paint splatter is gone, so he stares at his shoes. “Let’s say I try again, that I… talk to him. What if it doesn’t work?”

“Well,” Neo says. “That’s up to you, don’t you think? It’s about how many strikes you’re willing to give him.”

Strikes. It reminds Damen of something, some comment Neo made… “I thought keeping score in relationships was wrong.”

Neo smiles. “See? You have been paying attention.”

One more chance. Damen can do that, can try to corner Kastor again. And if it doesn’t work out, then he’ll pick someone else on the list to work with. There were enough names in there to last him a lifetime.

“About what happened with Nicaise,” Neo says. “It was very mature, how you handled things with Laurent. That’s great progress right there, Damen. I’m proud.”

Damen’s face feels hot. “Er, thanks.”

“Co-parenting is hard. You’d be surprised by how many clients I have whose parents really suck at it.”

“Wait,” Damen says. It’s hard to focus. “What?”

“Yes?”

“What do you mean, co-parenting? I’m not his parent.”

Neo touches the side of his head, not quite a scratch. “What are you then? His legal guardian’s ex-boyfriend?”

Yes, Damen thinks, but doesn’t say. There’s a reason Neo is using that tone. 

“A parent doesn’t have to be a dad,” Neo says. “Adoptive or biological. It’s just a role people play.”

“He doesn’t call me dad.”

“So?”

“I don’t…”

Neo taps his notepad with his pen. “I didn’t mean to imply he should, or that you have to see yourself as his dad. It was simply an observation. You behaved the way a parent would, Damen. That’s all.”

It’s—too much. Damen’s brain jumps to the next important thing. “What he said at my house threw me off a bit. I thought he’d be happy?”

“But instead he had an,” Neo says, “episode?”

It sounds better than tantrum. Damen nods.

“Why do you think that happened? Like, what was the thought process behind Nicaise saying those things about Laurent?”

“He was angry.”

“Evidently,” Neo says. “Maybe we should talk about narratives.”

Damen frowns. His face hurts, like he’s been tensing it too often. “As in writing stuff?”

“No. I mean, sort of. You don’t necessarily have to write it down for it to be a narrative, but in a way, it is like a story.”

“Okay.”

“Sometimes,” Neo says, using his patient voice, “we come up with theories or explanations for things and we make them a reality. We explain behaviors, we attribute guilt. Personally, I think it's because not knowing why a person did something is unbearable to some people, so they come up with narratives surrounding that action. Or that trauma.” 

“I don’t understand what this has to do with Nicaise being upset.”

“Do you think you and Laurent breaking up had a negative effect on Nicaise? Do you think it might have made him sad at first?”

“I… Maybe.”

“Let’s go with yes,” Neo says. “He had a pretty stable home life, despite whatever problems you and Laurent had. When you two broke up, that stability was—disturbed. I think he needed to come up with an explanation for why that happened. For why things didn’t work out between you two.”

“A narrative,” Damen says, slowly.

“Exactly.”

“And,” Damen tries, not quite thawed, “that narrative is that Laurent is to blame?”

Neo shrugs, not with his shoulders but with his hands. “It looks like it, yeah. To be honest, things like this are usually about control. Do you think Nicaise has control issues?”

“Does the food stuff I told you about count?”

“Maybe. Have you been thinking about it?”

“A bit. I think… the whole googling thing could have been anxiety?” 

Neo frowns, then tries not to. “Remind me what you mean by the googling thing.”

“He wouldn’t go out to eat with us if he hadn’t googled the place beforehand,” Damen says. “Looked at the menu, read the reviews. Er, we couldn’t just—walk into a place randomly, you know?”

“So he disliked spontaneity. You mentioned anxiety though. Did he ever have any sort of episode when being forced—”

“We never forced him,” Damen says, feeling a bit sick, “to go in. Or anything. But when you were talking about control issues, I thought maybe that’s why. Like maybe he wanted to control something small about dinner or lunch. Does that… make sense?”

“Yes,” Neo says, and does not go on. He’s staring.

They’ve overdone it today. The session’s been over for ten minutes. Damen stands up, feeling strange. Like there’s something left, something he’s not quite remembering. It’s not until he gets to his car that he realizes he forgot to mention Ancel.

*

iris.strav started following you!

She’s easily pretty. That’s Damen’s first thought, staring at her profile picture. Brown eyes, brown hair, brown freckles, too. Her last post is of her cat, her first of her and a friend at the beach, wearing tiny swimsuits and posing in overly flattering ways. Not that she needs to pose, Damen thinks. She has great tits.

Sporty—three pictures of her at the gym, one playing volleyball—and social—at least seventy-eight pictures out in bars, concerts, parties, cafés. Her story shows her with wet, dripping hair, fresh out of the shower. it’s gonna be a great day!!!

Positive, too.

Damen follows her back.

*

The sugar cookies have disappeared. Damen looks for them in the fridge, in the other drawers. Maybe Nicaise took the packet home. Maybe he ate them when Damen wasn’t paying attention.

The bag of coffee beans he bought the other day is gone too, but they prove easier to find. He goes directly to the pantry, opens the door, reaches out for the—

Something tumbles to the floor, a snowstorm of powdered sugar on the shelves. Damen picks it up without annoyance, his heart beating unsteadily in his chest. When he looks up, he finds the tiny space Nicaise had forced the cookies into, a neat line between a bag of brown rice and a carton of beef broth.  

Control issues, Neo had said. Double-check.

*

Laurent is ten minutes early, again. 

Le Quai hasn’t changed much since the last time Damen was there. The tables are the same dark brown color that makes one think of old, sturdy wood, and the chairs have those details on the back Nicaise always traced with his fingers in between bites. Even Laurent doesn’t look that much different, sitting in their usual corner, menu in hand. The only newness to him is the colors he’s wearing—maroon sweater, dark blue jeans. Laurent always saves colors for summer, but Damen refuses to find it strange. It’s warm today, warmer than it ought to be. 

“Do you want the usual?” Laurent says. Up close, Damen sees they’ve re-designed the menu; gone is the vibrant green Nicaise had liked so much before. “I’m getting a café miel.”

Damen drapes his jacket over the chair, sits down. “What’s that?”

“Espresso and honey.”

“No milk?”

“And milk,” Laurent says. “I’m mostly ordering it for the honey. My throat is—hello, Dion.”

Dion takes Laurent’s menu and, swiftly, makes it disappear behind his back. He’s wearing an apron very similar to Aimeric’s, but different in color, the hems of it embroidered in red. When he smiles at them, his chipped tooth makes an appearance. “Hey, guys. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Damen. I hope things are—”

“They’re great,” Laurent says. Then, just as politely, “How’s your sister? Is she still on leave?”

“Yes, but we’re hoping she’ll be back to work by Monday.” Dion smiles again. “Thank you for the mint leaves tip. It really worked.”

Damen pretends to be interested in one of the table legs. There’s a spot where the varnish has come off, a little patch of pale splinters, and Damen counts them carefully until Laurent and Dion’s voices die down and the small talk is over.

“Are you ready to order or should I come back in a minute?”

“It’s okay,” Laurent says. “I’d like a café miel, please. And Damen will have—do you want an americano?”

“A café miel as well,” Damen says, without thinking. “Please.”

Dion nods, not bothering to write it down. Damen has never seen him mess up an order before, not even when Ancel joined them for brunch and kept pestering him about the scone options and their fat content. 

“Anything to eat?” Dion asks. “We have new cookies you could try. Walnuts and blueberries.”

Laurent looks at Damen, and Damen shrugs. He turns to Dion again. “Do you think four will do? All right, then four of those cookies. Thank you, Dion.”

“No problem,” Dion says, smiling, always smiling, and leaves.

A moment passes, the first awkward one, but they both try their best to ignore it. Laurent rearranges the sugar packets, then the napkins. Damen watches him—the twitching of his fingers, the red hangnail by his pinkie, the wrist mole that peeks from under his sweater sleeve. It’s all soothingly familiar.

Once all the packets and napkins have been stacked, de-stacked, and re-stacked, Damen says, “What’s wrong with his sister?”

“A bad case of IBS,” Laurent says. He frowns, golden eyebrows touching. “It runs in the family, apparently.”

“Isn’t that what Jokaste’s mom—”

“Aretha has Celiac Disease, which means she can’t have gluten. IBS is a different thing.”

“I think she has both,” Damen says. Is he being stubborn? “Where did you learn about mint leaves helping with that?”

Laurent leans back on his seat, sitting up straighter. “Max told me.”

“Does he have IBS?”

“No.”

“Gluten intolerance?”

A line appears by Laurent’s mouth, small and perfectly straight. Damen remembers pressing his thumb to that smile line once, forever ago. His mouth, too. “No. He’s just into that kind of stuff. Homeopathy.”

“Okay,” Damen says, and pointedly doesn’t ask about whether or not Maxime knows that Laurent takes pills like they’re made out of candy. “I was—”

“Here are your cookies,” Dion says, setting a white plate in the middle of the table. Each cookie is as big as one of Damen’s hands. “And your coffee. Here’s more milk in case you want some, Laurent.”

“Thank you.”

Instead of leaving, Dion dithers awkwardly by their table, hands clasped over his stomach like he’s got an ache. Maybe he does, Damen thinks. Maybe IBS is contagious, and he got it from his sister.

Laurent looks at him. “Is there something wrong?”

“No, no,” Dion says, quickly. He’s blushing hard enough that Damen can see it, even though his skin is very tanned. “I just—I wanted to tell you it’s so good seeing you together again. You look better, Laurent.” When his eyes land on Damen, his blush worsens. “And you too, of course. Not that you looked bad before. I mean, you sort of did, for a little while, but—”

“Thank you,” Laurent says, just as Damen goes, “We’re not together.”

Dion makes a sound so mortified it makes Damen look away. “I,” he mumbles, eventually. “Er, my sister’s calling me. On the phone. I can hear it ring from here.”

“You better pick up then,” Laurent says, without any real malice. 

Damen watches Dion go. He avoids Laurent’s gaze when he turns back around, choosing to focus on the cookies instead. They’re warm, and smell of blueberry jam, and even though Damen isn’t hungry he can admit they look amazing. Without knowing he’s going to, Damen says, “Nicaise made fun of me the other day because I keep my cookies in the cupboard drawer.”

“Which drawer?”

“Top one.”

Laurent keeps his face carefully blank, but Damen knows better. It’s the line by his mouth that gives him away, like he’s biting down on the soft part of his cheek. “That’s an interesting choice.”

During the diplomatic silence that follows, Damen sips his coffee, watching Laurent stir his. It’s good, but not as good as an americano. 

“Too sugary?” Laurent says.

“No. It’s different, that’s all.” Damen adds more milk, hoping he won’t be able to taste the honey as much. He forgets, every single time, how much he fucking hates honey in his drinks. “What do you keep in the top drawer?”

“Excuse me?”

“If not cookies, then what?”

“You lived with me,” Laurent says. “Don’t you remember?”

“I think it was cutlery,” Damen says. “Maybe tablecloths. I didn’t know there was a rule for those things.”

“There are rules for everything.”

“You still haven’t answered.”

Laurent takes a sip of his coffee, eyelashes fluttering against the steam. “Cutlery,” he says. “Is that what we’re here to discuss—that Nicaise made fun of you?”

To buy himself a minute, Damen stirs his coffee again, watching the swirl of milk disappear and blend and change colors. He should have come up with a script, maybe bullet points. It’s the sort of thing Laurent would have brought to this encounter, were their roles reversed.

They might as well get straight to it.

“He was high,” Damen says, waiting for Laurent to make fun of him for stating the obvious. There’s only silence. “Did he tell you where he spent the day?”

“You found him at the park.” 

“He doesn’t have the kind of patience to stay in the same spot for over twelve hours.”

Laurent tucks his hair behind his ears. “He told me he spent the day walking around, then went to the park to find a place to sleep.”

“And do we believe him?” Damen says. 

Say yes, say yes, say —

“No,” Laurent says. “I also asked him who he got the chalis from, and he said he bought it from a kid at school. Which is bullshit.”

“Why is it bullshit? Don’t kids deal drugs sometimes?”

Laurent’s eyes twitch, and Damen thinks he might be trying not to roll them. “Nicaise didn’t even know how much a fucking gram cost. Besides, I haven’t been giving him money.”

That’s not how things used to be. I don’t have it anymore, Nicaise had said months back, about the credit card extension Damen got him. Damen thought maybe Laurent had taken it away, replaced it with one of his own. Letting a teenager walk around without any money on him is— 

“That’s a bit stupid,” Damen says. “What if he has an emergency?”

“He calls me.”

“Is he supposed to call you every time he’s hungry and wants to buy a—”

“I don’t need,” Laurent says, very slowly, “parenting lessons from you.”

Damen takes a deep breath, then a sip of his coffee. He can do this, he can get through this thing, whatever this thing is, without having an anger meltdown. “So he owes some dealer kid money then. Is that it?”

Laurent doesn’t reply.

“Maybe it was a gift?” Damen tries. “One of his friends sees him angry, offers him a joint. Does Leandre smoke?”

“Joints are expensive for teenagers,” Laurent says. “It wasn’t a gift.”

“From a teenager?”

“From anyone.”

Damen’s blood is suddenly thicker than usual. He can feel it move through his body, slow and viscous. “He didn’t buy it with money, and it wasn’t a gift. What other options are there?”

Laurent’s fingers find the napkins again. “I don’t know.”

Except he does know, obviously. He must have some idea, some theory. He always does, and when he doesn’t he—makes something up. It’s how his brain works. 

A thought begins to stir in Damen, familiar in the panic and anger it dredges up. It stays nebulous, just a feeling, but… He’d discarded those options once he saw Nicaise on that park bench, but they could have happened. An alley, a room—

“You should have put a tracker in his watch,” Laurent says. “That would have saved us a lot of trouble.”

“What?”

“The watch you gave him for his birthday.”

Damen blinks, blindsided. “He wears it to school?”

“He wears it everywhere,” Laurent says. It’s hard to tell what this new tone he’s using is. “It’s the only birthday present he liked, it seems. Everything else ended up in the trash.”

Even the makeup? It’d be rude to ask, Damen figures. “He said he liked the brass knuckles.”

“Did he? He’s barely touched them.”

“Well,” Damen says. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it? That he hasn’t been walking around hitting people with them?”

Laurent doesn’t smile.

The cookies are good. So good in fact that Damen has already had one without even noticing, which is not ideal. He had a slice of cake on Monday, after Ancel left the café, and then sugar cookies throughout the week. It’s not—balanced. He hasn’t been going to the gym that often either.

“Did he like the journal you bought him?” Damen says, just to keep his mouth busy and away from carbs. 

Laurent turns his head to the side, watching one of the waitresses balance three trays on her arm. Strands of hair make their way back to his face and get all over his right eye, escaping the curve of his ear. They flutter when he breathes out.

“No,” Laurent says, and turns back to Damen. His eyes are very blue under the golden lights, his lashes pale. “As I said, everything ended up in the trash. So.”

I got him one, too. It has a flower on the cover. “I’ve never seen him use one.”

“Agnes thought it might help. Keep him busy, help him get some… thoughts out.” The line by Laurent’s mouth comes back, and Damen doesn’t know how but it looks bitter. Crooked. “Obviously it didn’t.”

“Did he tell you that he’s applying to VVU?” Damen says, trying not to feel like he’s conducting an interview. Or an interrogation. Each question feels slightly more awkward than the one before, more painful, too. Like pulling out teeth. “He’s adamant about leaving Vere.”

“He’s adamant about many things.”

Carefully, as if setting up a bomb, Damen says, “Like the fact that he shouldn’t wear nail polish in my house.”

Whatever careful friendliness had inhabited Laurent disappears, instantly, and what gets left behind is even worse than reproach. It’s absolutely nothing. “I wonder why he feels that way,” Laurent says, dull, dull, dull.

Damen swallows. The honey has turned the walls of his throat velvety, and the words slide right out. “He should do whatever he wants. In and out of my house.”

“Really.”

“You said he was angry with you.”

Laurent is yet to do anything but stare at Damen’s face. “What does that have to do with your newly found progressivism?”

“He said some things the other day,” Damen says. Things Laurent doesn’t need to know about right now. Or ever. “I want you to know I’m not—I haven’t made him take a side.”

“I didn’t know there were any sides to take.”

The sharp needles of frustration start prickling Damen, the back of his neck growing hot with them. “I want to keep seeing him. Once a week, maybe more if he feels like coming over during the summer. The pool is—” Damen stops. Laurent chose the tiles himself, he knows there is a pool at the house, knows that it’s big and is mostly there because of Nicaise. “But I don’t want to do that if it’ll cause problems for you.”

“And whose fault will it be if you stop having him over? Not yours, obviously. He’ll think I’ve told you to turn him away.” Laurent smooths over a wrinkle on his paper napkin. “He’s almost an adult anyway. In a year, he’ll be—away.”

“In Vask.”

“Wherever he chooses to be.”

Damen knows the voice Laurent is using. It’s smooth, and silky, and fake. Damen can’t think of a universe in which Laurent would be fine with Nicaise moving away like that, even for college. The last year of middle school, Nicaise had skipped all the school trips, no matter how local they were, no matter if they were on school days or over the weekends. That Nicaise wouldn’t go to Vask without a safety net, without Laurent’s house fifteen minutes away on foot.

But Nicaise isn’t in middle school anymore, Damen thinks, and so that Nicaise doesn’t technically exist anymore. And things change. Have changed.

“I don’t know why we’re talking about this,” Laurent says, as Damen’s stomach begins to sink. “You’re doing fine if that’s what worries you. He can’t possibly hate you more than he hates me, even if you make him wear basketball shorts for the rest of his life.”

He’s fucked in the head, Nicaise had said. They’ve had fights before, and worse things have been said. Damen has never heard Nicaise say those three words though, doesn’t think he ever would. “He doesn’t hate you.”

Laurent blinks. “Right. Of course not.”

“Laurent.”

“Can you not,” Laurent says, but doesn’t go on. He’s staring at his coffee with unwarranted intensity.

“I don’t want him to resent you,” Damen says, and finds that it is true. 

A woman walks past their table in a hurry, carrying a bag of bread under one arm and a toddler under the other. The kid stares at them, brown eyes very focused on Damen’s cookies. I’m good with kids, he’d told Laurent once, a lifetime ago. Before Nicaise, before the trial and lawyer recommendations, before the apartment with the elevator. 

They were in Bastia, in Laurent’s tiny one-bedroom. Damen came out of the bathroom, mouth still foaming with toothpaste, and said, “We could take him somewhere next weekend.”

Laurent was under the covers, sitting up, back to the wall. There was no headboard. “Somewhere.”

“Like the zoo. Or to watch a movie. Kids like movies.”

“He’s,” Laurent said, tightly, “not like other kids.”

Damen went back into the bathroom, spit, rinsed his mouth, dried his face with a towel. When he came back out he found Laurent looking up at him.

“Does he have a name?” Damen said, half-joking. His side of the mattress was cold. 

“Yes.”

“Good.” A kiss, to Laurent’s cheek. Another to his chin, where there was bone. “Kids should have names.”

Laurent wasn’t moving, the way he normally would. He wasn’t letting Damen lie down on him, nor was he lying down on Damen. 

“The mall?” Damen said, trying to break the tension. “The candy store?”

“No.”

It wasn’t hurtful, being turned down. Not back then. Damen kissed him again, the corner of his mouth, and tried to ignore the springs digging into his back. It’d been a long week, long enough that he could fall asleep anywhere, especially next to Laurent. 

“Why did you ask?”

Damen blinked. It was a struggle to remember what they were talking about. “I don’t know. You never… talk about him. I just—it’d be fun.”

“You want to spend your Saturday,” Laurent said, “babysitting a kid you’ve never met?”

Laurent was so stiff, stubbornly sitting on the bed. Damen found his thigh and rubbed it, thumb pressing into the dip of his knee. “I like kids.”

“He’s not—”

“Like other kids,” Damen said. “You’ve said that ten times already, I think.”

A hand, curling around his. Damen frowned; Laurent usually whacked him when he made a bad joke. 

“I don’t have,” Laurent said, taut, each word a tooth being pulled out of his mouth, “any—for the mall. Any money.”

It took Damen a moment to get it. “Are you sure the mall’s the best choice? He’s, what? Ten? I bet he’s into superheroes and stuff. There’s a Marvel movie—”

“Damen.”

“What?”

“I can’t pay for that either,” Laurent said. His whole face was flushed red.

Damen blinked. “I know. I thought it was clear I was going to give you the money? Just, you know. Movies are cooler than walking around buying clothes.”

Thick, heavy silence. And then, “It’s too soon. For you to meet him.” 

“Okay. Now, are you sure about the mall?”

“Yes,” Laurent said. “But you—”

“I’m not going,” Damen said. It was getting annoying, this circling back and back and back to the same thing. “Honestly, I can just get you an extension of my card. Won’t even take a full week. It’s easier than trying to calculate how much cash you’ll need. At least for me. Malls aren’t my thing.”

Laurent got up then, locked himself in the bathroom. It wasn’t unusual for him to walk out mid-conversation, but the timing that night was especially bizarre. He was very cold when he came back to bed, half an hour later, like he’d sprayed himself with icy water. Maybe he had.

“You like kids,” he said to Damen, who was already half asleep.

Damen shifted, burrowed closer even though Laurent was like an icicle made flesh. He smiled when he felt Laurent’s body give, the softening of his spine, the melting of his knees. It was already warmer like that, Laurent breathing against his throat.  “Yeah, I do. I think I would like to have—”

“It’s a bit late for that,” Laurent says, lips to coffee cup. The lights are too bright, the café too big. It’s nothing like Bastia. “Or haven’t you heard? This whole thing is my fault, apparently.”

Maybe it is, says a small, petty voice inside Damen’s head. He’s quick to shoot it down. It was a mutual agreement, to break things off. They were both unhappy. They’re both to blame. Nicaise’s narrative isn’t reality.

“I feel like,” Damen says, “we should have had a talk with him after we—after it all happened. We sort of let him come up with his own explanation for things.”

Laurent puts his cup down. His cheeks have a peachy color to them, faded. “I did have a talk with him. Who do you think told him you weren’t coming back after work that day? The fucking Easter bunny?”

That day Damen left for work in the morning, spent eight hours at the office, maybe nine, then drove straight to Nikandros’ apartment. He thinks Nicaise might have texted him at some point— where are you? probably—but he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember texting back either, or talking to Nicaise on the phone after that. Not until months later, when Nicaise called him at work to tell him about having passed his driving test. 

Damen stares at the cookies left on the plate, tries to come back to the now, the here, but something keeps dragging him back. Nikandros had ordered take-out, pulled out the good wine. Let’s celebrate, he’d said, and Damen had smiled a little. They’d gotten drunk, drunker than they had in years, ever since college, because it was a Friday night. It was a Friday night and Damen was single after almost half a decade, and Nikandros was excited for him, and Nicaise had come home from school to Laurent’s explanations, and maybe he’d texted Damen, maybe he’d tried to call. 

But no, Damen thinks, mania coming to a halt. That night Nicaise was going to sleep at a friend’s house. He wouldn’t pass on a night out with friends because Damen had left. It was a Friday night for everyone, not just Damen.  

“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Damen says after a long moment.

“Of course not.”

“What did you tell—”

Now Laurent’s cheeks are truly red. “Let’s focus on what’s important. It’s a bit late now to start telling Nicaise he can wear whatever he wants, don’t you think? Especially when he thinks you’re the voice of reason. He’ll do whatever you want him to. Or rather, whatever he thinks you want him to do.”

“I don’t want him to do anything.”

“Tell him that then.”

“I have.”

Laurent’s smile is sardonic. “How many times? Once, vaguely?”

The ache moves from Damen’s chest to his head. “I don’t know what I have to do to make him understand. I fucked up, but when I told him that, he—”

“Didn’t believe you?” Laurent offers. “Called me an overbearing asshole?”

Damen can’t bring himself to reply.

“You know…” 

“What?”

“Nothing,” Laurent says.

“It was clearly something.”

Laurent’s legs shift under the table, probably uncrossing. “You’ve never said that to me before.” 

“I’ve never asked you to finish your sentences?”

“That you fucked up.”

“I didn’t know you needed to hear it,” Damen says, dryly. “If I remember correctly, you were pretty vocal about how often I fucked up.”

“I was,” Laurent says, not really sounding apologetic, “but you always denied it. It’s interesting.” A pause, short and not at all sweet. “Have you joined a cult?”

“What? No .”

“Then why—”

“Am I not allowed to change my mind?” Damen says, sharper than he intended. “I haven’t joined a cult. I’m not doing the Twelve Step program. I’m still the same person I was before. Haven’t been brainwashed. Or anything.”

“Okay,” Laurent says. 

The second cookie has vanished. He adds more milk to his coffee, now lukewarm. He says, “We haven’t really reached a conclusion.”

“The conclusion is that Nicaise won’t listen to you if he doesn’t think you believe what you’re saying.”

Damen wonders how pathetic he’d look if he started writing Laurent’s words down on one of the paper napkins. Advice number one, the first bullet point, be confident in your convictions. 

Laurent grabs his phone for the first time since Damen walked through the door. He taps, and scrolls, and eventually turns the phone around so Damen can look at the screen. “I was going to buy him tickets to this,” Laurent says. The Instagram post is black and white, the lettering tasteful. Charls & Charls: Private Fashion Show. “Maybe you should do it instead.”

Damen leans back once Laurent has pocketed his phone. “Are you going to go with him?”

“Ancel wanted the three of us to go together.”

“Then I’ll buy him three tickets,” Damen says. 

Laurent pops a blueberry into his mouth, chews it slowly. “There’s no need. I’ll be busy that weekend.”

With Maxime? Damen won’t ask, he won’t. He doesn’t even care. “Two tickets, then. One for Nicaise and one for Ancel.”

“You should go with them,” Laurent says. “It’s not like it’ll be your first time hanging out with Ancel on your own.”

It takes a moment for Damen’s brain to catch up. “He told you we met the other day.”

Laurent rolls his eyes. “Of course he did. When has Ancel kept his mouth shut about anything?”

“What did he say? About it?”

“That he’s going to make you less…” Here Laurent pauses, strangely. He’s not one to drift off mid-sentence. Then: “He said he’s helping you because you helped Aimeric.”

Not too revealing. Damen can work with that. “It’s not a thing,” he says, just to be sure.

“Oh, I think it is. Ancel seemed pretty excited about it all.”

“Is that fine,” Damen says, “with you?”

“You hanging out with Ancel? Why wouldn’t it be fine?”

Laurent is looking at him, which makes thinking hard. His eyebrows look lighter than his hair, wheat-like but not bleached, and—Ancel. They were talking about Ancel. “He’s your friend,” Damen says. “I… don’t want to make things weird.”

“Weird?”

“Bizarre.”

“Grotesque,” Laurent says. He looks startled, if only for a second, and then his face is as calm as a dead pond, no rippling emotions on it. “I don’t care. It’ll be good for him, having a project. Berenger is—” He cuts himself off.

Damen does not care about Ancel, or Berenger, or whatever issues they’re dealing with at the moment. It’s probably porn-related anyways. What he cares about is Nicaise. “What about the chalis thing?” he says. “How are we handling that?”

“He’s not using regularly, so there’s no point in tests.”

“Tests?”

“Making him pee in a cup,” Laurent says, each word exaggeratedly slow, like he’s talking to an idiot. “Sending said cup to a lab to check for drugs. That kind of thing.”

It sounds debasing. Nicaise doesn’t even like getting blood work done. “Okay,” Damen says.

“I made him download the tracking app again.”

“What else?”

“He’s grounded,” Laurent says. “No parties, no sleepovers. He comes home straight from school, and if he skips a class he doesn’t get to—go to your place on Tuesdays.”

It should bother him, being used as bribery, and yet it doesn’t. Damen nods, runs his tongue over his teeth. To say it, or not to say it. He shouldn’t; Laurent doesn’t need lessons from him. And yet, “About the sleepovers.”

“What about them?” 

“What happened to the weekend-only rule?”

Laurent’s right cheek sinks in. “It’s still a rule. He just ignores it.”

“He can’t just ignore it.”

“He does.”

“Then it’s not a rule,” Damen says. “You tell him not to do something, and he’s supposed to not do it. If he does, then—”

“Then what?” Laurent is leaning back now, as if trying to pull away from Damen. His chin is going up, up, up. “Do I take his phone away? Hide the TV remote? He’s fucking seventeen, Damianos. Those things don’t work anymore.”

“Why is he suddenly obsessed with sleeping over at other people’s houses? He didn’t even like camping.”

“A tent isn’t a house.”

“No shit.”

There’s a lull in the conversation, which Damen spends thinking about possible answers to his own question and not, as he would have done before, staring at Laurent. He’s barely stared at Laurent this time, which is good. 

A question comes, and Damen mentally holds it up by its mark, examining it. He sometimes wishes Neo would sell pocket-sized versions of himself, so Damen could carry one around, asking it things. Is this bad? Is this offensive?

“Does Maxime” Damen says, tentatively, slowly, “stay over often?”

“Yes,” Laurent says. He doesn’t look mad.

This is why there are lines one shouldn’t cross, Damen thinks. Boundaries, Neo would say. Because now Damen is stuck thinking about it, about Nicaise at his friend’s house because he doesn’t like sleeping at home with Maxime around, or because he doesn’t want to hear—things. Which he’s said he’s heard before. Which makes Damen feel…

Being angry at Laurent is different from being angry at Nicaise. With Nicaise, there’s always this other simmering feeling below the surface, something that keeps Damen from really pushing. He’s just a kid, even now that he’s seventeen. But Laurent isn’t a kid, hasn’t been one in years. Laurent should know better than to bring in some stranger home, to let him—

“Is everything okay, guys?” Thea says. She points at Damen’s empty cup. “Do you want anything else?”

“We’re fine,” Damen says roughly. 

Laurent cranes his neck a little, trying to look behind Thea. The neckline of his sweater stretches, gets tugged down a little, giving Damen a perfect view of red, bruised skin. “Where’s Dion?”

“Hiding.”

“Don’t tell me he’s embarrassed,” Laurent says.

“He’s in the back if you want to talk to him,” Thea says. Then, looking at Damen, she adds, “But really, he meant no offense.”

Damen doesn’t really know what happens next, too busy staring at Laurent’s hickey. It’s a hickey, judging from the shape of it, the placement. That little indent there looks like a bite mark, two little dots where canines fit perfectly. He’s vaguely aware of Laurent getting up and walking away, Dion’s name in his mouth before he’s even reached the counter, and of Thea taking away a plate full of crumbs. 

Nicaise’s words, taunting and cruel, buzz in his ears: At least now he’s getting fucked properly.

Something horrible squirms inside Damen. The cookies were off, probably. Maybe he’s allergic to walnuts and never noticed until now. Discreetly, he touches his own throat, looking for signs of swelling, but there are none. 

It’s fine, everything’s fine. Couples fuck, don’t they? He and Laurent did. Just because Laurent liked things a certain way with Damen doesn’t mean he wants the same from Maxime. Laurent is different now, as is Damen. But…

Slow? Damen would ask, and Laurent would always say yes. That Laurent had never asked for hickeys, for fingers around his throat. That Laurent had liked it best on Saturday mornings, spooning, face still on the pillow. When it was sweet, when there was no rush. 

And Damen had liked it then, too, like that. He’d thought, once, probably drunk, that he’d never like anything as much as he liked having sex with Laurent. Kissing him after, watching him disappear into the kitchen to get water or into the bathroom to clean up. Lying down in the quiet, still sweaty and out of breath.

The table tilts a little. Damen presses his fingers to the splinters.

When Laurent slides back into his seat, Damen forces himself to not look at him at all.

“I’ll go with them,” Damen says, as normally as he can. “It’s just a fashion show, right? A runway and… clothes.”

“Don’t say that to Ancel. He’ll steal someone’s heels and stab your eyes out with them.”

“Why?”

Laurent touches the paper straws, shifts the salt shaker to the left. “He’s obsessed with Charls’ summer collection. Something about the sixty-nine shades of green Charls chose, I don’t know.”

Don’t look, don’t look at him, don’t stare — “Good to know. I…” Damen closes his eyes, trying to focus on the right thing. Which is anything but Laurent. Or Laurent’s neck. “I have plans.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, let me ask for the—”

“I paid for you already,” Laurent says. 

Around them, the café is like a blanket of soft noises, clinking cutlery and laughter and voices. Instead of being comforted by it, Damen finds its weight suffocating. 

The salt shaker returns to its original spot. “You can pay for me,” Laurent says, “next time.”

Next time. “Sure,” Damen says. Next time, he thinks, and pushes the door open, walks to his car. Next time. He’ll get there before Laurent, next time. He will.

*

arkast painter vask 

arkhast vaskian painter expo

arkhast vaskian painter delfeur museum

Damen clicks on Images, tries to find the right one. It was purple, he remembers, the shapes on it weird. He finds it on the second page, under a side-by-side comparison to one of Dalí’s earliest works. The frame is silver, thick as a forearm. The painting is still as indecipherable as the first and last time Damen saw it—cotton-like clouds, purple strokes, something that looks like a wave in deep grey. 

Sunbloom , it’s called. By Arjain Arkhast.

Chapter Text

Twelve

“Who would have thought,” Ancel says as he slams the car door shut, “that you’d become my chauffeur one day?”

Damen starts driving before Ancel has put on his seat belt. There’s no rush, not really, because Damen has planned this very, very carefully. He doesn’t want to be late for the show, so he picked Ancel up thirty minutes before he was supposed to, which means they’ll be early picking up Nicaise, which means there is no way they’ll be late to the first event.

Ancel’s legs are so long they don’t fit comfortably in the car. Damen could show him how to push his seat back, but he doesn’t. Suffering can be good, sometimes.

“Do I look okay?” Damen says as he reaches the first red light. He’s yet to process whatever Ancel’s wearing. Before Ancel can answer, he adds, “Objectively. I don’t care about your personal taste.”

Ancel makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “You sound stressed.”

“I’m not.”

“And you look boring, but that’s nothing new. Do your socks match your pants?”

Damen tenses. “Yes.”

“Okay, that’s good.” Ancel shifts, his knees practically hugged to his chest. “I mean, it’s acceptable. Nothing to write home about.”

“That’s exactly what I was going for.”

As he turns right, Damen checks his wristwatch. Only ten minutes have passed. They’re still twenty minutes ahead of schedule, and there’s not a lot of traffic, to begin with. Maybe today will be a good day, even if he has to put up with Ancel.

“This is a great first lesson for us to work on your issues,” Ancel says. When Damen looks at him, he finds Ancel staring at his nails. They’re long, sturdy, and glaringly green. “Next lesson, I’m taking you to The Tip. I heard Madame Peaches will be there next month.”

“I don’t have issues,” Damen says. They’re only four red lights away from Nicaise’s school. “I just need—exposure. I think. To new stuff.”

“This stuff isn’t new, it’s been around for years. You are new to it.”

“It’s new to me.”

“Yes, well, but—oh my God, what is she wearing?” Ancel rolls down the window before Damen can lock it, and shoves his head out. “Hey, you, in the—not you , the woman in the red skirt. Are those heels from the new Jimmy Choo—”

The lady stops crossing the street to wave at Ancel twice. Damen can’t hear what she’s saying, but her head moves rapidly into a nod, her lipsticked mouth contorting around muted words. When she’s done, Ancel gives her a thumbs up and sticks his head inside the car again.

“I’ve never seen them in teal. I have them in green, yellow, and red, but they cost—”

“I really,” Damen says, “don’t care. Keep all your limbs inside the car from now on.”

Ancel rolls his eyes. He tries to cross his legs, but the glove compartment makes it impossible. “You’re so dry, Damianos. If you were a type of bread, you’d be barley.”

“Barley is healthy.”

“It also tastes like shit.”

Damen parks the car a block away from Nicaise’s school. It’s quiet here, without all the teenagers coming in and out, without all the cars double-parked, horns blaring. He kills the engine and checks his watch again—fifteen minutes ahead.

For the first time since Ancel got into the car, Damen really looks at him. He’s wearing a lime-green blouse and pants that resemble latex. They’re dark, darker than any green Damen has ever seen, but not dark enough that one would mistake them for black leather. Ancel’s shoes have bows on them, pink and ruffled, but the heels are discreet. All in all, it’s not the worst thing Ancel could be wearing.

“It’s such a shame Laurent couldn’t make it,” Ancel says, staring at his nails again. His eyes flicker to Damen from time to time. “But well, I bet he’s having so much fun with Max at the beach. Drinking strawberry Daiquiris.”

Laurent doesn’t drink alcohol. Or strawberry-flavored stuff. He’s also always hated sand, and crowded beaches, and his hair getting fried from the sea salt and sunlight. But maybe he likes those things now, the way he also seems to like having a mouth to his neck, biting marks into it.  

Damen keeps his face blank. “I bet he is.”

“They’re just so in love.”

“Yes.”

“It’s amazing to see, really.” Ancel flexes his fingers. “It’s crazy how we’re all in stable, long-term relationships at the moment. Love is just…” A smacking sound, wet like a kiss. “Isn’t it crazy?”

Damen checks his watch again. Ten minutes. “If you’re trying to ask me if I’m seeing someone, the answer’s no.”

Ancel looks up, alarmed. “I wasn’t—”

“Okay. Then that’s me telling you.”

“Well, but I didn’t ask you.” Then, pleased, “No one at all?”

“No,” Damen says. He thinks he should explain why, even though this is Ancel, whom he doesn’t care about. “I’ve been busy with the house and work. Things have come up.”

Ancel nods. The way his head bounces brings Damen’s attention to his hair, which is up in two buns, held like that by golden pins. “Ah, yes, yes. The house. Of course. Yes, we all have houses. And partners.”

Damen doesn’t reply.

“Max has this beautiful property in Chasteigne,” Ancel says, even though Damen hasn’t asked. “Did you know his family owns the most prestigious equestrian club in Vere? They have stables.”

“Equestrian clubs always have stables.”

Ancel frowns. “No, I meant—his house in Chasteigne. He’s got stables there.”

“Good.”

“Laurent loves horses.”

“I know,” Damen says, tightly. The entire car smells like perfume, and it’s making Damen’s stomach quiver. 

“I wasn’t sure you knew,” Ancel says, “because you never took him riding. Horses, I mean. Not… other things. I know he’s ridden—”

Nicaise opens the door, throws his bag inside, and then slides alongside it. “Hello,” he says, the word punctuated by the slam of the door. “I’m hungry. Do we have time to eat before we go to the show?”

Ancel twists in his seat to look at Nicaise. “Uh, demon spawn, I’m not going to McDonald’s before a Charls & Charls event.”

“I never said it had to be McDonald’s. I want a sandwich.”

“Damianos,” Ancel says, sitting up straight again. Or as straight as he can in the too tiny car. “Tell him no. There’ll be appetizers there.”

Nicaise makes a face. “Yeah, probably salmon and herbs on organic rice cakes. I want bread.”

“Is Subway okay?” Damen says, already starting the car. “You can get a salad if you want to, Ancel.”

Ancel frowns. “Why does he get a sandwich and I get a salad?”

“I…” Damen turns to Nicaise, who offers him no help. Back to Ancel, then. “Aren’t you dieting?”

Nicaise makes a noise. It sounds discouraging.

“You can’t just ask people if they’re dieting,” Ancel says. He sniffs. “It’s so rude. And for your information, I’m not.”

“But the other day you only had a bite of each cake because—”

“We’re going to be late,” Nicaise says. “I also want chips. And a Sprite.”

Damen makes a conscious choice then—he’ll talk when talked to. His job right now is to drive them to a Subway, get them food, and then drive to the building where the fashion event is being held. It’s easy—get to point B and C from point A—and Damen loves easy. He also loves not talking. Ancel and Nicaise barely notice his silence anyways.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” Ancel says.

“No, I have another outfit in my bag.” Nicaise pauses, and when Damen looks at him in the rearview mirror he sees him frowning. “I brought the trousers you got me last year and the white shirt.”

“The one with the blue dots?”

“No. They’re yellow. Kinda.”

Ancel nods in approval. “That’s great.”

“Not just acceptable?” Damen says, thinking of Ancel’s words from before. 

They both ignore him.

The Subway drive-through is nowhere near as empty as Damen was hoping it’d be. He starts to itch in his seat, watching the minutes go by, but after a while, Nicaise puts on music—something new and electric-sounding, words jumbled and the singing off-key—and the line of cars begins to move. Two sandwiches, two bags of chips, a Sprite, and a Sprite Zero— I’m not wasting calories on liquid, Ancel says, even though just ten minutes ago he adamantly said he isn’t dieting—and they’re driving to the show. Finally.

“Don’t wipe your hands on the seats,” Damen says when he hears Nicaise open his bag of chips.

“I’m not an animal.”

“Do animals wipe their hands?” Ancel says. “That’s rather civilized of them. I wish restaurants would hand out gloves so you could eat chips without getting grease and salt all over your fingers.”

“That’d be a lot of plastic,” Nicaise says. A crunching sound separates each word. “You can just use hand sanitizer and be done with it.”

“It makes my skin dry.”

“Then buy hand cream.”

Ancel takes a bite of his sandwich. He’s using the wrapper as a lap napkin, something Damen is extremely grateful for. “Hand cream mixed with sanitizer makes your wrinkles worse,” he says. Swallows. “How’s school?”

“Fine.”

“Any cute people?”

Nicaise meets Damen’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “No,” he says, then licks the salt off a chip. “They all reek of ball sweat and vanilla hairspray.”

“Who wears hairspray to school?”

“Theater kids.”

Ancel twists around, his sandwich almost falling apart. “Aren’t you a theater kid though? You had that big part—”

“I was a tree,” Nicaise says dryly. “And no, I’m not one of those stupid idiots that dream of winning a Tony.”

“What kind of stupid idiot are you then?”

Nicaise flips him off.

“Seriously though,” Ancel says. “What about that kid at your party? The one with bangs.”

“None of my friends have bangs.”

Ancel drapes a hand over his forehead. “Like this. French bangs, not regular ones.”

“Joachim?” Nicaise says, frowning. “He’s literally revolting.”

Revolting. Laurent likes that one.

“And the girl? She had nice shoes.”

“No.”

Ancel takes a slice of cucumber out of his sandwich, leaves it on his napkin. “Well, I know there is someone. You stare at your phone all day, and you go all skittish when Laurent gets close like—”

“Shut up.”

Damen knows that tone. As he steps on the brake, he says, “How was biology?”

“Fine,” Nicaise says. “He gave me extra homework for next week, something about chromosomes.”

“Chromosomes?”

“Yeah, are you good at that? It’s science stuff.”

“I fucking hate science,” Ancel says. “It’s so boring. All those liquids, and the little stupid chart—”

Nicaise rolls his eyes. “That’s chemistry.”

“Isn’t chemistry a type of science?”

Damen doesn’t know what a chromosome is, at least not in a way that can be helpful. “I don’t know. It’s been a while since I’ve sat through a Biology class. Send me a picture of your homework and I’ll see if I get it.”

“Okay,” Nicaise says. “What did you do this week? Other than work.”

There are two pairs of eyes on him. “I,” Damen says, clears his throat. He wasn’t expecting a question, and he knows answering with the truth will make him look pathetic. He wouldn’t mind, normally, with only Nicaise around. But Ancel is staring— “I went out.” With Dog, so it’s technically true. “Er, I had dinner with Nikandros the other night. Hit the gym.”

“That sounds boring as fuck,” Ancel says.

Nicaise is kicking the back of Ancel’s seat before Damen can tell him not to. “Shut the fuck up. What did you do this week, huh? Suck Berenger's wrinkled balls?”

Ancel reaches into the backseat blindly, swatting at Nicaise. Or trying to.

“Watch it,” Damen says, “or I’ll turn the car around and you’ll both miss the show.”

Ancel straightens. Even his bent legs seem to go rigid. “He started it.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did, you little evil—”

Damen’s nails dig into the leather stitching of the wheel. “What did I just say?”

The place where the event is being hosted looks the way all historical buildings do in Vere—high ceilings, arched doorways, columns thin and tiled. There are long posters taped to some of the windows, and they flutter when the wind touches them, a few of them changing colors depending on how the sunlight hits them. Along with the name of the brand, the signs read all sorts of inspirational quotes. Or at least, what Damen thinks are supposed to be inspirational quotes. Living the truth. Free, fast, flirty.

Nicaise changes alone in the car, while Ancel stretches his legs and Damen smooths over his shirt. There are wrinkles on the front because he’s been sitting down for a while, but they disappear after the fourth time Damen flattens the fabric with his hand. 

Around them, people are starting to trail inside, stepping into the red carpet draped over the marble steps. To Damen’s right, people are being photographed—a woman in a red dress with a bored-looking child, a long-haired man wearing a pink suit.

“You’re lucky I brought a hairbrush,” Ancell tells Nicaise as soon as he steps out of the car wearing his new clothes. “Here. Look in my bag for the mousse.”

Surprisingly, Nicaise doesn’t protest when Ancel begins to comb his hair in the middle of the street. “I don’t want mousse,” he says. “It makes my hair sticky.”

“That’s the whole point, Nicaise.”

“You don’t have to,” Damen says, feeling rather unhelpful. “I’m sure it’s just a chill event.”

“Chill,” Ancel says, his knuckles white around the hairbrush. “Did he just call the fashion event of the year chill ?”

Nicaise’s hair looks exactly the same as before, but when Ancel steps away and they both look at Damen, clearly waiting for a reaction, Damen makes sure to smile.

“It looks great,” he says, and pockets his hands so he won’t reach out to ruffle it. “Should we—”

Ancel passes his phone to Nicaise. The case is bright orange. “Take some pics.” He walks up the front steps, fixes his hair, bends one leg slightly. “And make sure they’re not blurry, because the one’s at your party looked—”

“They won’t be blurry,” Nicaise says, phone in front of his face, “if you close your mouth and stop moving.”

Damen dithers on the side, looking at Nicaise snap pictures, at Ancel change poses. He feels like a valet, like some sort of consort. It must be painfully obvious to anyone watching that he’s come here for greater reasons. Not for a paycheck, but to make amends. 

Fifty-six pictures later, they finally go inside where they’re greeted by the prettiest bouncers Damen has ever seen. They don’t look like bouncers at all, lacking muscles and height, but perhaps this is normal in fashion events. Hiring models as security. 

Tickets are exchanged. Ancel leads them inside, his shoes making the most noise as they all walk through the foyer.

The ceiling is high, so high Damen has to throw his head all the way back to properly look at it. Made out of clear glass, it gives the illusion that there is no ceiling at all. The sunlight filters in, distorted, drawing dots and stripes on the walls, on people’s clothes. Everywhere Damen looks he can see strange dresses, too long and too short, the shoulders too padded, and suits that seem like they’ve been designed by children, all the proportions off. But then, hanging in the corners of the room, there are also young people in black uniforms with trays of tall champagne glasses on their hands. Ancel is staring at the first group, his eyes hungry and very wide, and he whispers to Nicaise random and complicated names. Names Damen has never heard in his life.

“I was right,” Nicaise says when a girl in black offers them salmon appetizers. “I swear, these people don’t know what good food tastes like.”

“And you do?” Ancel says. “Your culinary taste is north of Vere meets fast food.”

Despite the insult not being very sharp, Nicaise flushes and turns his eyes back to the crowd, not even bothering with a comeback.

A door to their left opens without making a sound, and people, as though choreographed, line up to go through it and into the next room. 

Ancel puts the glass of champagne he was about to drink back on the tray. “Let’s go, let’s go.”

Nicaise doesn’t hurry. “The seats are numbered, dumbass.”

“I want to watch them all sit down,” Ancel says, touching the pins in his hair as though trying to make sure they’re still there. “What row did we get?”

“Second,” Damen says. “The front one was already sold out when I bought the tickets.”

They sit as the music begins to dim. Somehow, Damen ends up between Ancel and Nicaise, hunching a bit as though to not spill over onto their seats. The chairs are tiny, at least for him. 

“Fas is going to open the show,” Ancel says. “She was on the cover of WY magazine last month. You know, the one with the snakes?”

Damen doesn’t say anything. He figures Ancel is talking to Nicaise, or to himself. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done that.

But then Ancel is leaning forward, eyes on Damen. “Hello? I said Fas—”

“Sorry,” Damen says. “Er, that’s—great. She sounds cool.” He turns to Nicaise, who’s already watching them. “Do you like her?”

Nicaise shrugs. It looks weird, as if he’s too stiff to do it properly, and so only one of his shoulders moves, spasming. 

The whispers die down when the show finally begins. That’s Fas, Ancel squeaks out as the first model walks the golden runway. She’s got white hair, bleached, and is wearing a lime-green jumpsuit. She hasn’t even left the stage before the next model is out, strutting. It’s a man half Damen’s size, and he doesn’t have any eyebrows.

Nicaise is looking at him. Damen tries to ignore it, tells himself he’s imagining it, but then the fourth model steps on the runway, and Nicaise’s face is still turned towards him. 

“You okay?” Damen says, as lowly as he can. Ancel glares at him. 

Nicaise nods. He’s subtler at watching Damen, after that.

More models, more clothes. The palette is greens, apparently, but the accessories range from neon to glittery. Damen tries not to laugh when the thirteenth model comes out wearing a blue rubber cap, the sort one would take to a swimming pool.

Most of the clothes are unwearable. Damen has never seen stuff like this in stores, on racks. But maybe that’s the whole point.

Nicaise’s knee goes up and down, then up again. 

“Oh, God,” Ancel says. The lights are coming back on, strong golden beams on the runway stairs. “He’s coming. Oh my God. I’m—”

“Who?” 

“Charls,” Nicaise says. 

Charls is a tiny man. He stands on the very edge of the stage, all in white, and takes a bow. Damen doesn’t realize he’s supposed to clap until everyone else is on their feet doing it. “Thank you so much,” Charls is saying, distantly. His voice is like a mouse’s. “My babies, I couldn’t have done this without Eklair and Bonnie, and Jimmy. Oh, and—”

The acknowledgments go on and on and on. Damen tunes him out, and soon enough the people around him are on their feet, talking amongst themselves. Next to him, Nicaise gets up, stretches a bit.

“Was it—”

“I need to go to the restroom,” Ancel says, cutting Damen off. He’s got his eyes on some guy in a gray suit. “Right now.”

The restrooms are off to the left, each door so big it might as well be double. Ancel slips into the one titled M, which Damen assumes means Men. People come and go, laughing, pointing at each other’s shoes. A girl shakes glitter out of her hair.

Nicaise is munching on his own cheek, quiet.

“Which one was your favorite?” Damen says. He thinks it’s what Nicaise wants to be asked, the way some people like to discuss a movie after it’s over.

“I don’t know,” Nicaise says. “Maybe the three-piece suit.”

“The one with the fishnet?”

“Yes. But the dresses were…” 

Damen steps left to let a girl through. “They were…?”

“I liked the blue one,” Nicaise says, looking at Damen’s shoulder instead of his face. “It reminded me of those things they wear in Akielos.”

“Chitons.”

Nicaise makes a face. “I know what a chiton is. I mean, like, those flowy dresses girls wear in the summer. In Ios. The ones with knots.”

“And boys,” Damen says. At least he doesn’t have to lie about this, doesn’t have to try to understand. For once, he feels at ease, comfortable because he grew up with it. “It gets too warm in Ios to wear anything but skirts. Kids usually wear them until they’re ten or so.”

“Did you? When you lived there?”

Damen tilts his head to the side as if that will somehow help him remember, maybe tip the right memory out of the shelf. “I don’t know. We moved when I was young. Maybe I did.”

“I bet you were a chubby baby,” Nicaise says. “Like, beefy.”

“Kastor was beefier. I’ve seen pictures.” 

Damen still has them, probably. He kept all the photo albums, even the ones from before he was born. It didn’t feel right, leaving them at his dad’s house for the new owners to throw out. Kastor hadn’t wanted them, hadn’t even looked at them. Damen couldn’t think of anyone else who might have had a claim over them. Most of their family was dead.

Nicaise is looking at him. “Really?”

“His legs were like tree trunks. Our dad used to joke about it.”

“About what?”

“Kastor waddling around,” Damen says. “He always said it was a shame we didn’t have any videos of it. One time he got stuck in his crib because his thighs were so fat. They had to cut him out.”

“Really?”

Damen’s shoulder finds the wall, finally, and he leans against it with a sigh. Stepping left and right to let people through was getting annoying. “Really. They used a saw and all. At least that’s what dad always said.”

“Which one was your favorite?” Nicaise says. He’s closer now, also leaning against the wall, facing Damen. “Did you like the pants?”

Pants. Those were the boring bits, Damen thinks. The bits Nicaise thinks he probably liked, the bits Ancel would call safe choices. Nothing to write home about. 

“I liked the green cloak,” Damen says. The way Nicaise blinks makes Damen want to smile. “I don’t know where you would wear a thing like that, but it was—nice to look at.”

“And the shoes?”

“What about them?”

“Did you like the black ones or…”

“I liked them all,” Damen says. It feels a bit disingenuous. “Not the first ones though. They had that little bow? It was—too much.”

Music is still playing in the main room, wafting lazily over to their corner. It’s jazz, the fancy but boring kind, and it triggers a memory. Being young and bored, wearing expensive clothes. He knew they were expensive because his dad had told him not to dirty them, not to roll around fighting with Kastor, not to go asking for orange juice and let it drip down his front. It couldn’t have been at the house; his dad had never really liked jazz either.

“Why did we come here?” Nicaise says, temple to the wall.

Damen blinks. “To the restroom? We’re waiting for Ancel.”

“The show. You don’t like fashion.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Damen says, slowly. He wishes they could go back to talking about chitons, and Akielon dresses, and Kastor as a child. “I… thought you’d have fun. Was I wrong?”

“No.” Nicaise bites his lip, lets go, bites it again. “Ancel was a weird addition though.”

The comment doesn’t catch Damen off guard; he’s been waiting for this all day. “Laurent mentioned him when I said I was taking you here, so I thought it’d be fine to buy him a ticket too. He was planning on coming already.”

“And where did you hear about it?”

“I saw it on Instagram,” Damen says, because it’s not a complete lie. Don’t tell him it was my idea, Laurent had texted him the other day. “What’s with all the questions?”

Nicaise shifts away from the wall, tugs on his sleeves. “I don’t know. It’s just weird.”

“Weird?”

“Why didn’t you invite Laurent? He likes fashion too.”

“Not as much as Ancel,” Damen says. It’s better than because inviting your ex places is not something people do. “I did invite him, but he had other plans.”

“Plans.” Blue eyes rolling, a little scoff. This is what Laurent must have looked like, at seventeen. Nicaise taps the wall with his sneaker. “More like a weekend trip to the shittiest beach in Vere.”

Not Marlas Beach, then. Nicaise likes Marlas. “He’ll be gone for the whole weekend?” 

“And more. He took Monday off.”

Damen took today off, even though technically Kastor said he couldn’t. He pushes the thought aside, for a moment. “Who’s staying with you at the apartment?” 

“No one,” Nicaise says, nose wrinkled. “I’m staying at Ancel’s today and tomorrow. And Sunday too, I guess.”

“You don’t sound happy about that.”

Nicaise looks up. “Berenger’s in Vask, so it’s just gonna be Ancel and me. He’s going to make me watch all fucking seasons of Vere’s Next Top Model. Or worse, help him clean out his stupid closet.”

Berenger’s in Vask again. That’s—not Damen’s problem. In the slightest. “You could have told me,” he says instead. It makes him feel weird, that Nicaise didn’t even consider it as an option. He’d thought…  “I’m not doing anything this weekend, and I’ve got room to spare.”

“You don’t have any furniture.”

Damen feels his face grow hot. “I, er. I could have gotten some. If you’d told me.”

“Maybe,” Nicaise says, very slowly, “next week?”

The warmth spreads from Damen’s face to the rest of his limbs. It’s almost nice. “Sure. I’ll make sure—wait, no. It’s Labor Day.”

“Labor Day? No, it’s not.”

“In Akielos,” Damen says. “I’m going to Sicyon on Friday. Won’t be back until Sunday night, probably.”

“Oh.” Nicaise is munching on his thumb now. No nail polish today either. “I’ve never been to Sicyon. Is it nice?”

Nice. That’s not a word Damen would use to describe Akielos, let alone Sicyon. Bad traffic, twisting roads, people who hate tourists. But there are also orange trees, their branches so long and thick an entire football team can nap under their shade. Beaches, where the sand is not as white as it is in Ios but soft enough, and pastel, half-buried seashells that make trails along the shore. Milk, so fresh there’s still a layer of fat on it, ready to be licked off. 

“It’s got nice views,” Damen says. He doubts Nicaise wants to hear about orange trees and milk bottles. “There’s a forest in the east, right along the border with Patras, and the trees are—” His arm moves on its own, up and up and up. “Huge. You can’t even try to climb them.”

“Oh,” Nicaise says again. “What do they do for Labor Day there? Fireworks?”

A smile tingles Damen’s mouth. It might look condescending, and so he purses his lips instead. “Like in America?”

“Shut up.”

“People usually… share a meal with their families. Play games.”

Nicaise looks away. “Sounds cool.”

The last time Damen spent Labor Day in Sicyon was over fifteen years ago. His dad was busy, an important client giving him headaches, making him come back home from the office hours after he was supposed to. Kastor was in Kesus with Hypermenestra and her family. You can’t spend Labor Day on your own, Idalia had said. I’ll talk to your dad. Don’t worry.

Damen hadn’t been worried. He’d never cared much about holidays, except for Christmas and his birthday. But it had felt—nice, when his dad sat him down and told him he was going to spend Labor Day with Nikandros’ family in Sicyon. It was up north, higher up than Kesus. Damen had never been to Kesus, but he’d been to Thrace. That’s not even north, dipshit, Kastor always said whenever Damen brought it up. It was north though, just a bit to the right. To the east. It was north.

Nicaise has moved on to his other thumb, the nail chipped and red.

Without thinking, Damen says, “Do you want to go with me?”

The room is not as loud as before. For a second, Damen has the sick feeling that everyone around them is trying to listen in on their conversation, that any moment now someone from the sparkly crowd of models and influencers will tap him on the shoulder to tell him off for—something. For not thinking before he speaks.

“For real?” Nicaise says. He’s doing the eye thing, where he looks like a squirrel. This time is not funny. “It’s—I’m not grounded anymore. After this weekend.”

Damen shoves his hands into his pockets for what feels like the millionth time. “I forgot you’re not eighteen yet.”

“But he’ll say yes if you ask him.”

“There’s… documentation,” Damen says, slowly. “He’d need to sign some stuff. I don’t think he’d be comfortable with that.”

Nicaise makes a face. “So what? He’ll do it. You’re taking me to Akielos, not trafficking me into another continent.”

“I’ll ask him, but if he says no—”

“He won’t say no.”

“If he does,” Damen says, “you can’t hold it against him.”

“I don’t hold things against him. Why? Did he say I do?”

“No. Also, we’d be staying with Nik’s family, and you know how he feels about Nik. I don’t think pressuring him to say yes will do much, all right?”

Nicaise’s excitement disappears like a candle being blown out. It’s there one second, glowing bright and warm, and gone the next. He goes back to pressing the pad of his thumb to one of his canines.

Damen says, “I didn’t mean—maybe he’ll say yes.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it then?”

Nicaise stands on his tiptoes, which gives him an extra inch at most. He tries to look over Damen’s shoulder and into the bathroom behind them. “When do you think Ancel’s coming back? It’s been, like, more than a minute since he went in. I bet he’s taking a shit. Do you think maybe he drowned in the—”

“Nicaise.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nicaise says. A shrug follows. “I won’t even go, so. Whatever. Have fun playing shitty board games.”

“I said I’ll talk to him, and I will.”

“Don’t bother. I don’t wanna go anymore.”

Damen doesn’t snap, or scream, or roll his eyes. Ask the child questions. “Why not?”

Another shrug.

“Nicaise—”

“Nikandros is going,” Nicaise says, as though that explains it all.

Damen frowns. “So what? I don’t need his permission to bring you along.”

“You’re staying with his family.”

It’s Damen’s turn to shrug. “Or I could get us a hotel room. We’re friends, not conjoined twins.”

“He doesn’t like me,” Nicaise says.

No, Damen thinks. That’s not true. Nikandros has never said— 

Ancel comes out of the restroom then, his hair no longer in buns but loose and slightly curled, floating in thick waves behind him. “Nicaise, feel my pulse.”

Nicaise doesn’t move an inch.

“I just took a selfie with Marcher Bonchent,” Ancel says, and is met with silence. “Hello? Bonchent? Marcher?”

“Er,” Damen says. “Who’s that?”

“The fucking designer. Where do you two live? In a hole? He designed Darcey Moulin’s wedding dress. The one with the ruffles.”

Nicaise frowns. “Who’s Darcey Moulin?”

Ancel wobbles but doesn’t fall. “God, you’re—I literally can’t—” He fans his flushed face with both hands. It’s only when the color has subsided a little that he adds, “Anyways, Marcher is Charls’ right hand, and he told me, in the bathroom, that Charls is looking for new models.”

Damen peels himself off the wall. His lower back aches. “So? Can we talk about this in the car?”

“So he gave me his personal card,” Ancel says, following Damen through the sea of strangers. He’s waving something around, small and pink, which might be Bonchent’s card. Or a condom. Condom wrappers are colorful, after all. “He’s going to give me a call because I’m model material. See, spawn? Being tall has its perks.”

Nicaise’s shoulder bumps into Damen’s elbow. “You’re not tall, Ancel. You’re literally a fucking giraffe.”

“Giraffes are tall,” Damen says. They’re so close to the main doors he can almost taste the fresh air. It’s only then that he realizes once they’ve crossed them, the outing will be over. “Hey.”

Ancel slams into his back, swearing. “Fucking—why did you stop walking? Great. Now my highlighter is all—”

“Do you,” Damen says, and stops. One of the boys in black is eyeing them, a question on his face. The champagne glasses on his tray look stale. “Er, do you have plans after this?”

“No,” Nicaise says, quickly. “Why? Do you?”

Ancel steps away from Damen, and his face is like a clenching and unclenching fist. One second he’s frowning, then trying not to, and then the wrinkles reappear between his eyebrows. “Excuse me? I do have plans, thanks for asking. We also have to go pick up your stuff for the weekend, Nicaise.”

“I brought all the stuff I need. It’s in my bag in the car.”

It’s cold outside, and the sun is setting. They’re in the museum neighborhood of Delfeur, where the buildings are split into two categories: classic and post-modern. Four blocks from where they’re standing, there is an antique bookstore with old dolls on display. That’s you, Damen would say, eyes on the bespectacled rabbit. And that’s you, Laurent would say, finger to the donkey.

“—a toothbrush,” Ancel is saying. “What about your pajamas? And your underwear and clothes for Sunday? Do you plan on sleeping in those designer pants? Is that it?”

“Ugh, you’re giving me a headache. Shut up.”

“What’s the problem?” Damen says, even though he doesn’t really want to know. The sun feels nice, fading as it is. He wishes they would both be quiet.

“The problem is that Nicaise doesn’t want to go back to the apartment for a change of clothes because he’s a dirty hooligan.”

“I brought a change of clothes,” Nicaise says. “It’s not my fault you don’t think that’s enough.”

Damen leans against the door of his car. “I can take you to get more clothes and then drop you off at Ancel’s. If you want.”

Ancel turns to him, blinking. “Why are you offering? You literally drove us here, of course, you’re going to drive us back. It’s common courtesy.”

“Why did you ask if we had plans?” Nicaise says. “Do you need someone to watch Dog or something?”

“No, I just… We could get some ice cream if you’re not busy. Dairy-free?”

Now they’re both looking at him. Damen tries not to panic. It’d be easier in the car, he thinks, because he’d have something to do, somewhere to put his hands, a spot ahead to look at. He thumbs the key in his pocket and unlocks the doors.

“Do you think they’ll have tiramisu ice cream?” Ancel says, clicking on his seatbelt. “I could eat some peanut butter though.”

“That’s so fucking gross,” Nicaise says. “What are you getting?”

It takes Damen a moment to realize Nicaise is talking to him. He starts the car. “Chocolate, probably,” he says. “And pistachio?”

Ancel laughs. “Now that’s fucking gross. What’s next, figs and strawberry cream?”

“I’m getting pistachio too,” Nicaise says, firmly, then kicks Ancel’s seat when he thinks Damen isn’t watching.

That’s bird ice cream, Laurent says inside his head. All those nuts and seeds. Are you doing keto again?  

“It’s seven thirty-two,” Ancel says, loudly, “and I just followed Bonchent on Instagram. He will follow me back before seven thirty-two tomorrow. Say it with me, Nicaise.”

Nicaise doesn’t look up from his phone. “No.”

“He will follow me back. He will, yes. He—”

“What,” Damen says, the steering wheel slipping a bit from his hand, “are you doing?”

“He’s manifesting,” Nicaise says. “It’s like praying out loud but for stupid people.”

Ancel does not react right away. Damen’s eyes flicker to him every now and then, worried that he’s gone catatonic. It’s only when they’ve reached a red light that Ancel twists around and tries to yank on Nicaise’s hair.

“—stupid little—” Ancel swats again, missing. “Shit.”

“You’re a shit stain,” Nicaise says, kicking. “Get away from—”

Damen steps on the brakes, so hard Nicaise bumps his forehead on Ancel’s headrest. 

“Don’t even,” Ancel says, eyes on Damen. His hair looks like a bird’s nest, recently built. “I waited until you had stopped the car, okay? He’s the one that doesn’t care about car safety.”

Nicaise leans forward, ready to swing again.

“Hit him,” Damen says, “and you’re done, Nicaise.”

“But he started it.”

“Well, I’m ending it.”

They’re both looking at him now. Damen refuses to feel ashamed; it’s not his fault Laurent’s phrases sometimes work. 

“So,” Ancel says, looking at his nails. “Ice cream, yes or no?”

*

Hey I dropped him off at Ancel's

Just letting you know

Yes, Ancel texted me five seconds ago. 

How did it go?

He said he had fun

Good.

I had fun too

It was cool

Thanks for telling me about it

You’re welcome.

I’ve been thinking, Damen types, stops. Labor Day is coming up and I thought— No, not like that. Not through text. He can stay with me next time. No, too assertive. 

Have a good trip, he sends, hoping Laurent hasn’t watched him type and delete messages for the past ten minutes. Before he can stop himself: Don’t forget to wear sunscreen lol

Never again after Marlas.

Damen’s chest hurts, randomly. He didn’t think Laurent would mention it.

Marlas. By their second day there, Laurent’s sunburn was so bad they’d been forced to spend the rest of their trip in their hotel room, with Damen rubbing aloe vera all over Laurent’s back, arms, and thighs. Laurent hadn’t complained about the pain, not until the seventh day, and Damen remembers now making fun of him for how many fruit cups he ate, holed up in the private bathroom. The tub was nice, big enough to fit three. Cold water had made Laurent feel better. Fruit in Delfeur tastes like shit, Laurent had said through mouthfuls of pineapple and watermelon. Damen ate a cup or two himself, leaving the cherries for Laurent. 

You look like a fucking shrimp, Nicaise had told Laurent over Skype. Damen had laughed. He remembers the belly-deep feeling of it, the roots of the memory. He hadn’t even found it gross when Laurent’s skin began to peel, his nose flakey and even redder underneath the old layers. Cooling gel massages hadn’t annoyed Damen. A canceled excursion to deep dive some coral caves hadn’t either. Nothing Laurent did annoyed Damen, back then.

And nothing Damen did seemed to annoy Laurent either. Or maybe he was just good at pretending. 

“I made you breakfast,” Laurent said, every single morning without fail. It was the first thing Damen saw, lifting his head from the pillow after a yawn. Laurent, standing by the bed with his strawberry-red skin, held a chaotic selection of breakfast items. Eggs—poached, Damen, that’s the only acceptable way to eat them—and fruit cups and hotcakes, thick and steaming with butter and apricot jam. And coffee, always too sweet.

“Really?” Damen said, sitting up. “Did you cook all that for me?”

“Yes. I went into the kitchens and asked the cooks to let me handle your breakfast. I said, ‘hello, workers, I know you’re qualified to do this but my boyfriend has very high standards.’” The tray was suddenly next to Damen’s hip, the mattress dipping as Laurent crawled to Damen’s side. “He needs extra cherries in his fruit cups, and he only likes his eggs a certain way. Or else he implodes.”

“Hmm. What about my coffee?”

“Seven spoonfuls of sugar,” Laurent said, puffed up cheek to Damen’s shoulder. He’d popped a cherry into his mouth when Damen wasn’t looking. “Sometimes more.”

Damen dipped his spoon into the egg cup. “You also baked the bread, right?”

“Of course. Took me thirty seconds.”

“Aimeric would be jealous. Open up.”

Laurent took the cherry pit out of his mouth, licked the spoon clean. “I like Le Quai’s better. This needs more pepper.”

“I thought you’d made it?” Damen said, trying not to laugh. “Are you telling me you just picked these up from the breakfast bar?”

Another spoonful, this time of hotcakes and jam. “You don’t know how to poach eggs either, so. Give me the spoon for a second.”

“You didn’t get two?”

Laurent blushed. It was hard to tell since his face was already so red, but Damen knew just by looking down at him. “They were out of spoons.”

“Okay.”

“It’s a weird combo,” Laurent said, warningly, “but it’s magnificent.”

Damen accepted the spoonful of pineapple, hotcake, and egg. It tasted like shit. “Tastes good.”

“No, it literally doesn’t.”

“It does. It’s got—layers.”

“It’s not a real combination,” Laurent said. “I made it up just now.”

Damen picked up his cup of coffee next. “Where’s your juice?”

“They were out. I didn’t want to wait until they refilled the jug.”

“Want me to go now?”

Laurent pressed closer. He was so hot it was worrying, his skin still sticky from the aloe lotion Damen rubbed all over him the night before. “No,” he said and kissed Damen’s throat once. 

“Come here.”

“Finish your coffee first. You get bitchy when it’s cold.”

Damen moved the tray to the floor, coffee cup and all. He rolled over after, pinning Laurent to the mattress with his legs. “Bitchy?”  

“Cranky,” Laurent said, laughing when Damen huffed into his neck. “Feisty. Is crusty better?”

“Irascible is best.”

Laurent made a little noise when Damen kissed the corner of his mouth, a tease of the real thing. He made another, quieter, when Damen’s hand slipped down to cup the back of his thigh, hitching it up higher. There was no one to interrupt them here, to demand breakfast or a ride to school, to call from the faculty building because some papers needed signing. Damen pushed his hips forward, slightly, just enough to—

Laurent opened his mouth into the kiss, wet and slow. He kissed like that when they were alone, like there was nothing he’d rather be doing. Like the kiss itself was the whole point.

Damen looks to his right, finds the bed empty. Without any clear thoughts, he puts his hand on the mattress, where the shape of a body could be. He’ll have to start sleeping on that side as well, he thinks, or else there’ll be an awkward pit on the foam forever.

You going north or?

Marches.

They went to Marches, too, with Nicaise. These memories are misty, harder to recall. Nicaise trapping slugs in salt circles, complaining about his hotel room’s lack of balcony, demanding they didn’t make him play any stupid games on the drive back. He’d played, in the end. 

The beaches in Marches were cold and windy since it was farther up north than Marlas. You can stay in bed, you know , Damen had said the first morning, watching Laurent put on his wool sweater, then the thick romper, then three pairs of socks. You want to surf , Laurent had replied with a shrug. It hadn’t been an accusation. 

Ancel’s already asked me for a box of soap.

Anything you want?

I’m good

I’ve got soap I mean

Dw

That’s—bad. Damen presses his knuckles to his eyes, hard enough to see shapes and colors. He doesn’t know why he feels so stiff, why it’s so hard to write the right words and send them. It was never hard, talking to Laurent. 

We should talk when you come back 

About nicaise

What happened?

Nothing dw. Just a question

I’ll let u get back to it

Have fun

Laurent probably won’t reply. He often doesn’t, when they’re texting. He’s left Damen on read so many times Damen doesn’t even bother keeping track. And why would he? Keeping track of how many times one’s ex doesn’t text back would be psychotic. 

Thank you, Laurent texts.

*

On Monday, exactly a week after his last attempt, Damen walks into the office with only one goal in mind—get Kastor to go out with him for lunch.

“Does my brother have any meetings after twelve?” Damen says, leaning over Marianne’s desk. He doesn’t look at the framed picture next to the phone, she and her mother in a half hug. He looks straight at her instead. “Any clients coming over?”

Marianne shakes her head. “No. He has his lunch break from twelve-thirty to one.”

“Only thirty minutes?”

“He eats during those thirty minutes,” Marianne says, “then spends another fifteen on the phone with Galen.”

“Could you make a reservation for me? Two seats under my name, for twelve-thirty.”

A line appears by Marianne’s mouth, but Damen doesn’t know her enough to know if it means she’s pleased or upset. “Of course. What’s the name of the—establishment?”

“La Merced. Thank you.”

Damen spends the rest of his morning glancing at the clock and pretending to be productive. When it’s only five minutes till twelve-thirty, Damen clicks out of the email he’s been reading and goes to Kastor’s office.

“Let’s go out for lunch,” Damen says as soon as he’s crossed the door.

Kastor drops a balled paper into the bin. “I—”

“You don’t have meetings right now. I asked Marianne.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“And I know you haven’t brought food from home today,” Damen says, “because on Thursdays you always eat salads. Skip the salad, I made reservations at La Merced. Well, Marianne did, because I asked her to.”

Kastor’s brow rises. “Why? We only have forty-five minutes.”

“We have an hour. I told Pallas to handle it.”

They stare at each other for a moment, Kastor’s overly cramped desk and fancy chairs between them. He’ll say no , Damen thinks, and there is some sort of relief that comes to him with the idea. There won’t be a talk if Kastor refuses to join him. There will only be a crossed-out name on a list.

Kastor grabs his jacket. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes,” Kastor says, sharper. “Are you deaf or what?”

At the restaurant, which is two blocks away from the office, Damen goes through his mental list of possible topics for the day. He could ask Kastor about Jokaste and Galen, talk to him about the hockey match Damen forgot to watch yesterday, laugh at—

“Do you have cancer?” 

Damen knocks over one of the empty wine glasses on the table. “What the fuck, Kastor? Why would you ask me that?”

“You’re off,” Kastor says. “You’ve been off for months, but this whole ‘let’s have lunch together’ thing is a new level. So, cancer?”

“Is it so hard to believe that I want to have lunch with you?”

Kastor is silent for a second. “Well…”

“Well, what?”

“You’ve never wanted to before,” Kastor says. He scratches his bearded cheek with his thumb. “That’s all.”

You’ve never wanted to have lunch with me either. It’s too childish. “I tried last week.”

“Are you sure you’re not sick?”

“No,” Damen says. “I’m not fucking sick. I don’t have cancer. Everything’s—fine.”

Kastor’s mouth turns into a thin, pale line.

They order what the waitress suggests, something with potatoes and smoked paprika, fish on the side. She doesn’t come back for a while, and they spend their time waiting with their glasses to their mouths, staring out the window and trying to act comfortable. Or at least Damen does. 

If their dad was here now, he’d laugh at their stiffness. Their awkwardness. This, Damen thinks as he steals a glance at his brother, is the same Kastor he used to have meals with every weekend as a kid. This is the Kastor that made faces at him over the dinner table, the one that would feed Ios whatever vegetables he didn’t feel like eating at the time. The one that got too sick eating sauerkraut once. 

“What did you do this weekend?” Damen says, trying not to feel like Nicaise. 

“I took Galen to the park.”

“That’s cool. Did Jokaste go too or…?”

Kastor blinks. “Yes. What did you do?”

All Damen did this weekend was read. He couldn’t seem to stop after he’d dropped Nicaise and Ancel off. Chapter three was especially interesting. But it’d be a lame thing to say. “I walked my dog, ran some errands.”

Kastor’s frown only deepens. “A dog.” 

“Yeah, I—”

The waitress comes back with their plates before Damen can finish his sentence. The food is warm and comforting, homemade-looking. Damen squeezes lemon over his plate, shaking his head at how Kastor goes for the spices. Remember when you had that allergic reaction to pepper? He swallows the question down along with the first bite of fish.

“When did you get a dog?” Kastor says. “You didn’t have it when you lived with Laurent.”

Damen shrugs. “The house is too big for just one person. I thought it’d be nice.”

Any normal person would ask for the dog’s name, its breed. Kastor does not, sipping his water and playing with his napkin. He touches his face when he thinks Damen isn’t looking, thumb grazing the edge of his scar. 

The tortilla is good. Three forkfuls later, Damen says, “Are you doing anything for Labor Day?”

Kastor keeps his eyes on his plate. “Maybe.”

“I might go down to Sicyon with Nik,” Damen says. “Have you ever taken Galen? Not to Sicyon, I mean—Akielos, in general.”

“No. I want to wait until he’s older.”

“Older?”

Kastor shrugs, and that’s all he has to say about it. He’s not being purposefully annoying, Damen tells himself. It’s like a mantra at this point. Kastor has always been private about his home life, about how he’s choosing to raise his kid, and Damen hasn’t exactly been knocking on his door every other day, trying to be let in. He doesn’t think he’s ever been around Galen, alone, for more than ten minutes at a time.

“Erasmus’ birthday is coming up,” Damen says, because he doesn’t know what else to talk about. “Do you know if he’s planning on throwing a party or something?”

Kastor is staring at him, quite intently.

“What is it?” Damen says.

“Since when do you remember people’s birthdays weeks in advance?”

“I saw it on Facebook.”

“Facebook lets you know the day of, not fourteen days before.” Kastor sips his water. “Are you going to get him a present too?”

Damen tenses. He’d thought— “You said you didn’t care that I forgot to bring Galen a present this year.”

“And I didn’t. Relax, Damianos. It wasn’t a trick question.”

“It sounded like one.”

“You sound like you’ve lost your fucking mind,” Kastor says. “What’s all this about? Are you trying to impress someone? Have you been diagnosed with—”

“I’m not sick,” Damen says, loud enough that Kastor looks around to see if anyone’s heard him. Damen throws his napkin on the table, the tip of it getting wet with lemon juice. “Forget about it. This was a stupid idea anyway.”

“Like all your ideas.”

Damen stops trying to get up. He thinks he might yell and explode, not necessarily in that order. “Oh, really? I’m the one with the bad ideas? You’re the one that keeps coming up with terminal diseases to diagnose me with, just because I wanted to have lunch with you. You’re the one that’s always fucking—”

“Sit down,” Kastor says. 

“No.”

“I want to have lunch with you.”

Damen tenses, waiting for the punchline, for the insult. Surely Kastor doesn’t mean it. He never does.

“Sit down, Damianos. I’ll stop fucking with you.”

Damen sits. It’d be weird to go back into the office, he tells himself, without Kastor by his side. Marianne knows they are having lunch together.

“I spent Tuesday night gluing ice cream sticks together for a school project,” Kastor says, unprompted. Damen can see the struggle of it, the way Kastor is forcing himself to say each word. “It was supposed to look like the dog version of the Trojan horse, but instead it was like a deformed Bulldog.”

“Still a dog though.” A pause, as Damen turns the words over in his head. “A school project? Galen’s three.”

“It’s a Waldorf preschool with a good daycare program.”

Damen chugs down his water to keep from laughing. That’s the sort of thing Laurent would have made fun of, wealthy people paying for things no one really needs. “At least it was a dog and not the solar system or something.”

Kastor doesn’t laugh. “Galen’s going to ask for a dog this Christmas. I can just feel it in my bones.”

“Just tell him you’re allergic,” Damen says. “I don’t think Jokaste would appreciate a dog running around your house anyway.”

“It’s not that I don’t like dogs.”

Is he going to die? Damen had asked, while Chryses wiped his cheek and chin with a wet towel, trying to get rid of the blood splatter. They were the same height when Chryses pulled away, which means Damen had been hoisted up to one of the kitchen counters. Chryses never let him sit up there, said bums don’t belong where food does. 

“No,” Chryses said. “He’ll be fine. Kastor is—” More wiping, this time across Damen’s forehead. “Strong.”

Damen touched his stomach, felt something twisting under his hand, under his t-shirt. He’d been thinking of Ios, not Kastor. “Oh.” 

“Do you want a sesame bar?” 

Sesame bars were for after school. Today was a Saturday. “No,” Damen said. “Where did Brios take—”

“Are you sure?” Chryses said, his back already turned to Damen. He was rummaging through the pantry, which made little sense because he always kept it so tidy. “I made them with organic honey, but I also have some store-bought ones. They’re really good. They’re—”

“Where’s Ios?”

“—from this place that sells all kinds of imported stuff.”

Damen held onto the counter, feeling faint. “Where’s my dog?”

Chryses closed the pantry doors slowly. His hand on the counter was a brown fist. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “Ios is… going somewhere else. For a while.”

It was his dog, not dad’s or Kastor’s. It had been his birthday present years back, and it was his responsibility. Dad had told him so, had said, you answer for him, Damianos. And Damen had tried to, had yanked him back and away from Kastor, had told him no, sit down, bad boy.  

Ios wasn’t a bad dog though. He was mean, sometimes, when Damen didn’t rush to feed him on Sunday mornings or when dad didn’t give him any bones to chew on after lunch. But he wasn’t evil. He wasn’t even as old as Damen, just too tall for his age. He licked Damen’s hands all the time after Damen had eaten sesame bars. He slept on Damen’s feet when Damen was busy playing video games with Nikandros. He barked when Damen said his name.

He was Damen’s responsibility.

“I don’t want him to live with a different family,” Damen said, a bit too loudly. “And how long is a while? When are we getting him back?”

“You should ask your dad those questions.”

“But dad is with Kastor at the hospital.”

“When he comes back then,” Chryses said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to Ios. Did you—see what Kastor’s face looked like? Was it bad?”

Damen didn’t want to talk about Kastor, or his face, or his stupid blood and how it had gotten on everything. Even the pool. Damen wanted to go where Ios was so that he could say goodbye if dad sent him away. Ios didn’t like toys that much, and so there wasn’t specifically one Damen could send with him to his next home, but that didn’t mean Ios had nothing in this house. He had a pillow he liked. It was in Damen’s room, next to his bed. Damen just had to go upstairs and get it, then find Brios, who had been the one to pin Ios down and drag him—somewhere. That’s all Damen wanted to do.

He jumped off the counter. 

“Where are you going?” Chryses said.

“To my room.”

Damen climbed the stairs, hand on the banister. He didn’t need Hera yelling at him if he slipped and fell. 

The pillow was where he’d last seen it, half-under the bed. He’d made it to the hallway by the time Chryses came to find him.

“Do you know where Brios lives?” Damen said. He shifted the pillow from one hand to the other. “He doesn’t have to come back until Tuesday and today’s Saturday. I can’t wait that long to ask him.”

Chryses leaned against the wall. “Ask him what?”

“About Ios. If you know where his house is, you can give him Ios’ pillow. And some dog food.”

“Damen.”

The phone was ringing downstairs. Neither of them moved.

“Ios won’t be staying with him,” Chryses said. “It’s not like that. Damen, sometimes… when dogs are bad, when they’re really bad, they get sent—”

“Ios isn’t bad,” Damen said. The memory turns viscous here, wobbly. He might have yelled. “It was Kastor. Kastor pushed me and—then he kicked Ios—and—and he’s my dog. He won’t do it again.”

The phone was still ringing. “It might be your dad,” Chryses said, and slipped out the hall.

“I do like them,” Kastor says. It comes out quiet. “They’re—fine. Besides, if Galen asked for one, I wouldn’t get him a fucking rottweiler.”

“What would you get him then?” A German Shepard? No. Damen’s not that bitter.

Kastor doesn’t even pretend to think about it. “What kind of dog do you have?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Damen says. “I’m almost thirty. Your kid still wears pull-ups.”

“He doesn’t.” A line appears by Kastor’s mouth, the beginning of a smile. “It’s a chihuahua, isn’t it? You got a purse dog.”

“It’s not a chihuahua, and even if it was there’s nothing wrong with purse dogs.”

Kastor is laughing now, openly and out of breath. “It’s worse than a chihuahua then,” Kastor says, his voice like a wheeze. “God. Tell me it’s not one of those dogs with dreadlocks that look like walking mops.”

“It’s a corgi.”

Kastor bites his lower lip. “That’s actually not too bad. What is it called?”

“Dog,” Damen says. He has a speech ready, has had it since Nicaise made fun of him that first day. “It’s like a meta—”

Kastor’s laughter cuts him off. His brother is red in the face, eyes closed, and for a brief moment, Damen considers dumping water all over him. Just to help him cool off.

“You named your hamster Puff,” Damen says. He tries to sound annoyed, but he really isn’t. He doesn’t care what Kastor thinks about Dog, because Dog is Damen’s. “So I don’t think you should be laughing right now.”

“He was called Cheese Puff, not Puff. And give me a break, I was literally thirteen.”

“Why a hamster?”

Kastor shrugs. “My mom thought it’d be easy to take care of. Definitely easier than a cat or a dog.”

“Maybe Galen would like a hamster too,” Damen says. He forks down a decorative cherry tomato. “I could buy it for him as a Christmas present.”

Kastor is looking at him.

“Or you could buy him the hamster,” Damen goes on, “and I’ll—you know those maze things? The ones you put inside their cages so they have stuff to do? I could get him one of those.”

“We’ll see.”

“Maybe a rat.”

“No,” Kastor says. “Fuck that.”

“A mouse?” 

Kastor makes a face. “Their red eyes freak me out. No. Let’s just—stick with a hamster for now.”

“They don’t bite,” Damen says. Now he’s the one looking down at his plate. “Unless you bother them and stuff.”

A beat, then two. “Right.”

It’s awkward after that. They eat and stare at strangers through the window, but neither of them tries to make a game out of it. Laurent would have. 

Laurent likes strangers, says they’re more interesting than acquaintances because you get to make lives up for them. People lose their shine once you truly, thoroughly know them. Once there’s no more digging to do.

“I asked around,” Kastor says after they’ve paid the check. “That lemonade recipe you mentioned… Do you still want it?”

Damen stops trying to put on his coat. “You asked your mom about it?”

“No. I asked Hera.”

“Hera,” Damen says. It feels as though he hasn’t said her name in decades. He probably hasn’t. “I didn’t know you two had stayed in touch.”

“She was the one who found Rhea for me. Said she was the best nanny available in Delfeur.”

“I don’t,” Damen starts. He doesn’t manage anything else until they’ve crossed the front door. “What does Hera have to do with anything?”

Kastor’s eyes are on the streetlight, bright red. “Hera was the one who ran your household when you were a kid. She handpicked your nannies, supervised the gardener, the cook… even the produce.”

“I know who Hera is, Kastor.”

“She told me it was one of your nannies.”

Damen frowns. A kid on a skateboard almost bumps into him, at full speed. “What?”

“The lemonade,” Kastor says, slowly. “It wasn’t my mom who made it, but one of your nannies. Hera remembers the recipe though. I…” He scratches his cheek again, avoids his scar. “I’ll email it to you later. If you still want it.”

Here go the berries, the lemon slices... We don’t want rotten teeth with our lemonade, do we? Maybe some honey. Damen can’t remember her face.

“It tastes like shit,” Kastor says, as they cross the street. “All that pulp floating around… fucking gross.”

Damen doesn’t know what to say. It tastes like summer at dad’s is too pathetic, even for him. “I don’t remember her. The nanny, I mean.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. You went through what, fifteen nannies in two years?”

“I,” Damen starts. He wants to say it isn’t true, and yet he knows it is. It must be. “Did they just quit? Was the salary bad?” Was I —

“Dad fired them,” Kastor says.

The elevator is empty when they get in, and it stays that way as they ride up, and up, and up to the office. Kastor keeps to the left, Damen to the right. Out of the corner of his eye, Damen sees Kastor loosening his tie, then tightening the knot. Their dad used to do that, sometimes.

Two floors left. 

“This was fine,” Kastor says, eyes ahead. “We could do it again. Talk about some clients while we’re at it.”

One floor.

Damen feels something inside him give, melt away. He leans against the silver wall. “Okay. Yeah. That’d be—yeah.”

The doors open with a beep, and the office comes into view. Marianne’s desk is only ten steps away.

“Come over for dinner,” Kastor says, “next week. Jo doesn’t work on Wednesdays.”

The doors start to slide closed again, but Damen catches them just in time. Kastor has already stepped out, disappearing down the hall and into his office. 

*

It’s Tuesday at the dog park when Nicaise brings it up for the first time. Damen has been good at ignoring Nicaise’s other attempts at subtlety, dodging his questions and pretending like he hasn’t noticed a pattern in the Tik Toks Nicaise has been showing him— old people should never laugh, turn 30 in 1990, bang! you're dead, what can you do? —but this time it’s harder to deflect.

“Your birthday is in less than a month,” Nicaise says. “Am I going to be invited to the party?”

The bench they’re sitting on is made of wood and cement. It’s the most uncomfortable place Damen has ever sat on, including Laurent’s first air mattress, which was so shitty and old it would sink until Damen’s ass was touching the floor every time he laid down on it.

Dog is sniffing the ground like there’s gold under it. Or a dead body. 

“No, because there’s not going to be a party.”

Nicaise twists to look at him, putting one foot down on the ground. He’s clearly forgotten his earlier monologue about dirt ruining his new white sneakers. “You can’t not have a party. That’s—it’s—”

“My personal choice?” Damen offers.

“Sinful,” Nicaise says. “You’re turning thirty.”

“It’s not a big deal. People turn thirty all the time.”

“Unless they die at twenty-nine.”

Damen frowns. “Yes, well. I don’t plan on dying any time soon.”

Nicaise puts his other foot down on the grass. “Then you have to celebrate. Thirty is an important number in some cultures.”

“Not in mine. Akielos doesn’t—”

“I said some cultures. Not everything revolves around Akielos.”

“Name one other culture then,” Damen says. “I know Vere doesn’t care about the number thirty. Neither does Vask.”

“Patras.”

“I… don’t think that’s true.”

Nicaise squints a bit. The sun is out today, warm and bright and in their faces. When Damen suggested Nicaise wore sunscreen, he got laughed at. Now, in this heat, Damen stares at Nicaise’s flushed, freckle-covered face and prays that it won’t turn beet red later. There’s only so much shit he can take from Laurent.

“We can Google it later,” Nicaise says. “The point is that you should start the new decade with a bang, for good luck. Akielons believe in good luck, don’t they?”

“Not really.”

Nicaise rolls his eyes. “If you don’t have a party and a good time, you’ll be miserable for the next ten years. Just think of all the people that died horribly because they didn’t celebrate their thirtieth birthday.”

Dog is licking the grass. Damen keeps his eyes on him, feeling too much like a first-time parent with a wobbling toddler. Nicaise’s words take a second to register. “Who,” he says, “died horribly—”

“Jesus Christ.”

“He died at thirty-three.”

“Because he didn’t celebrate three years before.” Nicaise picks a leaf off his shoulder, then drops it on the grass. They’re the same color. “I never said it killed you instantly. It’s, like, cumulative.”

“I’m not having a party,” Damen says.

“Okay,” Nicaise says easily. Too easily.

“I mean it, Nicaise. I really don’t want one. Maybe we can go out to eat the week after, but don’t—”

“I said okay. I’m not hard of hearing.”

Damen bites his tongue. Ten minutes ago, Nicaise’s phone started buzzing on the bench; he completely ignored it. 

“Do you still go on Instagram?” Nicaise says, tossing Dog the blue ball. The only one that’s easy to wash. “Like, regularly?”

“Sometimes,” Damen says. He’s not thinking of Kyra. Or Iris. “Why? Is it boogey?”

Nicaise looks at him.

“You know… Old. Basic. You say that word all the time.”

“Cheugy,” Nicaise says, clearly trying not to laugh. “No, it’s not cheugy to use Instagram. You’re safe.”

“Why did you ask then?”

Nicaise swings his legs a bit, dragging his sneakers through the grass. “You haven’t posted anything in a while, but then you said you’d found the Charls show on there. So I wasn’t sure.”

Damen’s last picture is at the gym, thigh by thigh with Nikandros. leg day. Laurent had laughed at the caption. “I lurk,” he says, because he has to. “There’s—well.”

“Well?”

“I liked some of the show’s posts and now I keep getting recommendations for related stuff. It doesn’t help that Ancel keeps spamming me with Bonchant’s pictures.”

Nicaise takes the blue ball from Dog, holds his in his hand as though he can’t hear Dog barking for it. “What kind of stuff? Clothes?”

“Shoes,” Damen says. “High-heels, mostly. Makeup. Do you—”

“I’m thirsty.” The ball bounces away, unenthusiastically. Dog doesn’t even chase it. “Let’s go back to your house.”

Acknowledge feelings, but avoid debating a point or perspective. Damen doesn’t know if thirst is a feeling that should be acknowledged, or if he even understands what Nicaise’s perspective on anything is. He wants to keep pushing. A forced conversation is a lost conversation. That’s from the fish book, not Neo’s. Damen could ignore that one, could make Nicaise sit down on the bench and talk it out. 

Damen stands up. “All right.”

*

How’s Aimeric? Drove past peche today and saw it’s still closed

He’s doing inpatient treatment. 

Jord will take care of the shop for a while, starting next week.

That’s better than being dead, Damen thinks. 

Sorry to hear that

Let me know if there’s anything I can do

Probably stay away from him for some time. 

He’s not pleased with you. 

In fact, he told Jord if he ever saw you again he would 

“bake your dick in an oven and serve it warm”

That sucks 

Guess i'll never get any discounts from him

You don’t like half the things he sells anyway

Why do you want a discount?

His cakepops are okay

Is the firm doing okay?

Yeah why

Can’t afford Starbucks now?

I support small local businesses

Are you sure you haven’t really joined a cult?

I can send you links to some resources.

Resources?

www.getoutnowitsacult.com/faqs

www.scientologyisbadnews.com/tom+cruise

Damen snorts.

Ha ha very funny

I was thinking we could get coffee again?

Right. You need to ask me a question.

And it really can’t wait until the weekend

I’m busy this week

Phonecall?

When his phone starts ringing, Damen almost drops it. “Hey,” he says, mind blank. “I—didn’t mean right now.”

Laurent doesn’t sound nervous or caught off guard. “Are you busy?”

“No.”

“Then let’s talk now. What’s wrong with Nicaise?”

Damen sits up in his bed so that the back of his head is resting on the headboard instead of the pillows. It feels weird, talking to Laurent in bed, half-naked. It feels even weirder thinking about Laurent, sitting up in their old bed, probably dog-earing the book he’s reading so he can focus on the conversation. He’s probably—

“Is Maxime there?” Damen says.

A rustling sound. Sheets, most likely. “No,” Laurent says, tight, tight, tight, “and neither is Nicaise. So if you could end this little thriller movie thing you’ve got going on, I’d be grateful. Nobody’s listening in.”

Damen looks up at his ceiling. “It’s Wednesday.”

“Yes, Damianos. It’s the third day of the week, Wednesday. It’s also the thirteenth of—”

“I mean it’s a weekday. We talked about Nicaise not having sleepovers during the week, didn’t we? Where is he?”

“Joachim’s,” Laurent says. “They have a school project to work on, and it got late so he stayed for dinner.”

Damen checks his watch. 11.23. “Shouldn’t he be home already? It’s late.”

“He’s staying over.”

“But it’s—”

“Wednesday,” Laurent says, like a bone snapping in two. A clean break. “Yes, I fucking know, okay? Joachim’s mom is driving them to school in the morning, so it’s not like he’s going to skip class. I just wanted—” The sound cuts off, completely. Damen can see it in his head, Laurent pressing the phone to one of the pillows while he takes a deep breath. He used to do that, sometimes, when they fought and he didn’t want to yell. When he speaks again, his voice is calm. “Was that your question?”

“No,” Damen says. 

Laurent’s breathing rattles the line. It’s soft but deep. Practiced. “Sorry,” he says, suddenly. “Work’s a nightmare and Nicaise hasn’t been much better, but I shouldn’t have snapped. At you.”

For snapping, Laurent had written on a little card once, the morning after a fight. He’d left it under Damen’s ready-to-go coffee. Love you. Hearing the word sorry come out of Laurent’s mouth this effortlessly is strange. “It’s fine. I, er. I think my question will be helpful if you want a break from Nicaise.”

“I don’t want a break from him.”

Damen closes his eyes. Wrong thing to say, then. “It’s Labor Day next weekend.”

“That’s not a question,” Laurent says. 

“I’m spending it with Nik and his family,” Damen says. It’s word for word what he practiced in the car earlier. “In Sicyon. It’s not even a six-hour drive, not if we don’t stop to eat. Nicaise has never been.”

Laurent doesn’t say anything. A bad sign.

“Listen,” Damen says, slowly. He half-expects Laurent to snap at him, to say I am listening. Laurent stays quiet. “There’s a bunch of documents you’d have to sign, but I’ve printed them out already. It’s not a big deal, just a formality since he’s a minor and doesn’t have dual citizenship. I could drop the papers off at the apartment later this week, or you could come—”

“No,” Laurent says.

“He really wants to go.”

“Did you tell him about it already?”

It wouldn’t be fair, Damen thinks, to dodge the question. He fucked up, and he knows it. “Yes. It was—I wasn’t thinking. I told him I’d ask you—”

“I let you take him to one fashion show,” Laurent says, “and suddenly you think you’re allowed to take him out of the country?”

“Laurent.”

“Why would you tell him about it without talking to me first?”

“Because I’m an idiot,” Damen says. For once, he actually means it. “I knew as soon as I said it that I’d fucked up, but it was already too late. I’m asking you now.”

“And I’m saying no.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Laurent says. “I’m his guardian, not you. I get the final say, always.”

There’s a crack in that last word, Laurent’s tone fracturing to reveal—something. He’s not being a dick, Damen thinks. Or rather, he’s not trying to be a dick. He’s stating how things are because…

Control issues, maybe. 

“Okay,” Damen says after a moment. “You’re right.”

A clicking sound, teeth on teeth. “What?”

“You’re right. I went about it wrong, and you’re—he’s living with you. Obviously. You get to decide.”

This pause is longer than the ones that have preceded it. Damen tucks and untucks the duvet with his foot while he waits for Laurent to speak, or hang up. Things could go either way.

“Have you talked to Nikandros about it?” 

Damen’s foot freezes, tangled in the sheets. “No. Why?”

“I think it’s best if Nicaise doesn’t go,” Laurent says. Then, strained, “Maybe next time.”

Next time. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Anything else?”

No. Yes. “I could pick him up,” Damen says. “When it’s late and you don’t feel like driving to his friends’ houses. I don’t mind.”

“When I don’t feel like driving.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how—”

“You hate driving at night,” Damen says. The way the line goes deadly quiet on the other end shouldn’t make him feel smug, and yet it does. “Next time, just text me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m mostly free after work. I don’t go to the gym this late.”

“No,” Laurent says, slowly. “Why are you offering? He’s not…”

Mine? Damen doesn’t say it. Nicaise isn’t Laurent’s either. “It’s just an offer. You don’t have to say yes.”

Silence, stretching, and then, “Okay.”

“Good. Is he still giving you a hard time then?”

“A hard time,” Laurent says. The laugh that follows is dry, flaky. “It’s fine. He’s fine.”

You should talk to Paschal about it. Too contemptuous. “Any news from Agnes? Or is he still not talking to her?”

“You’re…” Laurent trails off, so slowly Damen is certain he’ll pick the sentence up at some point. When he does, his tone has changed. “Agnes is not allowed to tell me what they talk about.”

“But she gives you reports, right?”

“Sometimes. He talks a lot about college.”

“I’ve been looking into VVU,” Damen says. “Er, I don’t think they’ll take him with the grades he’s got. They’ve got that new ECTS system.”

“Oh,” Laurent says. He does not go on.

“Maybe he could try DU? You could—”

“He doesn’t want to stay in Delfeur.”

Impulsivity. They have a hard time making rational, calm decisions. “I think he’s just saying that to piss us off,” Damen says. “Going to Vask doesn’t make sense if he wants to study psychology.”

A tapping sound from the other end of the line. Laurent drumming his fingers, maybe. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Pissed off,” Laurent says. “That he wants to live abroad.”

Damen looks up again. The ceiling offers him no help. “It worries me, that’s all. He doesn’t do well with change, and VVU isn’t exactly ten minutes away from either of our houses.”

Quiet, quiet, and then: “Marches University is closer.”

Right. Marches. “Yeah. How was the trip?”

“Good,” Laurent says. He sounds awkward for the first time since the conversation started. “I got Ancel enough soap to last him three lifetimes.”

“Soap’s nice.”

“The otter monument is gone, by the way.”

Damen frowns even though Laurent can’t see him. “What?”

“They’ve replaced it with a hideous statue of Gerard Egin.”

“Tell me you took a picture of it,” Damen says. “Egin? Really? He looks like—”

“An otter,” Laurent says. “Maybe that’s the parallel they were going for.”

Damen laughs. It comes out of him in a short burst, and when he pauses he can hear Laurent laughing as well, breathy and soft. 

“What about the sand museum? Is it still there?”

“I didn’t,” Laurent starts, then cuts himself off. In the silence that follows, Damen goes through all the things that might have come after those first two words. Check? Take him there? “The wheat maze is.”

Something jolts in Damen’s chest, hot and loose, swaying. Held back as if by a spring. The maze had been Laurent’s idea, too out in the open to be Damen’s. In his fist, Laurent’s hair had been the same color as the short walls around them. A kiss, at first, then Laurent’s fists on his chest opening, turning into palms that trailed down, down—

“It’s late,” Laurent says. He coughs once, as if to clear his throat. “I should go to bed.”

“So should I.”

“Goodnight, Damianos.”

Damen opens his mouth to reply, but the line’s dead before he can get a single sound out. The phone is already in his hand, and his fingers move on their own as he opens the Instagram app and goes to Laurent’s profile. The last picture is the same as last week and the week before. Laurent hasn’t posted anything since his tattoo reveal. 

There’s no evidence of his trip with Maxime.

The last picture that shows his face, however, is the one he took with Ancel. Picture-Laurent’s hair is so long, his mouth curled up into a pursed smile. His neck is right there, pale and untouched, because when that picture was taken he and Laurent had still been together. 

Damen’s foot dangles off the edge of the bed. Goodnight, he thinks. Picture-Laurent does not even blink.

*

“Dating,” Neo says. 

“I’m not nervous about it.”

Neo’s pen moves across the paper. “I never said you were. Do you think you’re in a good place, mentally and emotionally, to start dating again?”

“I’m,” Damen says, stops. It’s a trick question, but Neo’s voice is so devoid of judgment it’s hard not to fall for it. “Fine. I feel fine.”

“What about your panic attacks?”

“I’ve never had one when I’m with a girl. They’re not the problem.”

Neo hums, a prelude to something bad. “Do you want to talk about that? I’ve noticed you’ve only been seeing women since your breakup.”

“Well, I’m not gay,” Damen says. Is that rude? “Is that rude?”

“No, it’s just a fact.”

“Okay.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that you can’t be interested in women now,” Neo says. “Or rather, more interested in them than in men. It’s simply a question.”

“I’ve always been more into women. It doesn’t have to do anything with Laurent.”

“Does Nikandros know that?”

Damen frowns. Why is everyone always asking him about Nikandros? “I guess so.”

“So you haven’t discussed it with him, your preferences?”

“Why would I?”

“He keeps introducing you to women,” Neo says. He flips the pages of his notepad, going back, back, back. “Kyra you met through Tinder, but Aline and Jane Doe you met through Nikandros.”

“Jane Doe?”

“Someone you met at the gym.”

“Aktis gave me Aline’s number,” Damen says. He feels hot in the face just thinking of telling Neo that Jane Doe only sucked him off once, that it wasn’t a date. “It’s not—what does Nikandros have to do with anything?”

Neo shrugs. “Does it make you uncomfortable that he’s been so insistent about you dating again, but has only suggested women as a possible option?”

“No.”

“All right. So how do you feel about this new girl?”

“I haven’t met her yet,” Damen says. “Er, I followed her on Instagram, and she followed me back. She seems nice.”

“Iris, right? That’s her name.”

Wouldn’t want to call her Jane Doe 2.0. Damen nods.

“Does she—”

“Why is it bad?” Damen says, tries not to feel bad about interrupting. “Nikandros telling me to date and stuff. Why is it wrong?”

Neo tilts his head to the right. “I didn’t say it was wrong.”

“You implied it. I think.”

“Your other friend seemed to think Nikandros was rushing you into things,” Neo says. “Pallas, I believe. He told you he understood why it was taking you so long to get over your last relationship.”

Damen blinks. “I am over my last relationship,” he says, and is met with an awkward, spiky silence. “I am .”

“Okay.”

“I literally am over it,” Damen says. “I don’t want to get back together with Laurent. I don’t—see him that way. Anymore.”

“Okay,” Neo says.

This is stupid. Damen feels as though he’s talking to Nicaise at Virtus, or Ancel outside of the bakery, trying to convince them of the obvious. It should be obvious, especially to Neo. Damen has never implied that he misses Laurent, that he wants to be with him again. That text message he sent months back shouldn’t be used against him; he was drunk. 

Holding the words up like an evidence bag, he says, “When we met up for coffee the other day, to talk about Nicaise, he had a hickey. On his neck.”

Neo doesn’t say anything.

“And I didn’t care,” Damen says. He pushes past the uncomfortable feeling inside him, twisted and tangled. He’s telling the truth. “I cared about Nicaise seeing it, but not about it. Does that make sense?”

“You didn’t care at all?” Neo says. 

“No.”

“Okay.”

The veins in Damen’s forehead hurt like they’re about to burst. “Stop saying okay.”

“What should I say then?” Neo says, tilting his head to the left. “You’re making statements, and I’m agreeing with them. Why does that upset you?”

“It feels like you’re being condescending.”

Neo puts his pen on his armrest. “Would you rather I asked you some questions? You’ve said some interesting things we could reflect on.”

Damen nods, massaging his temples. Isn’t this how people get strokes? The blood refuses to move, clogged up, and veins burst open. 

“You saw Laurent’s hickey and experienced absolute neutrality,” Neo says. “Yes or no?”

“I—no. But—”

“So you felt some type of way about it.”

“Because of Nicaise,” Damen says. “It’s fucked up that he’s exposed to that.”

“As opposed to how it was before? When you and Laurent were together?”

“Yes.”

“Did you compare the two situations?” Neo says. “Did you continue to think about it after you left the café? Do you often find yourself thinking about Laurent, unprompted?”

Unprompted. Damen thinks about Laurent a normal amount, under normal circumstances. When he drives by Pêche or Sakae. After they’ve talked on the phone. When Nicaise mentions him. He checks Laurent’s Instagram profile sometimes, more out of habit than real curiosity or interest. 

He doesn’t jerk off to Laurent. Anymore. Or at all.

“It’s not like that,” Damen says. He feels cornered and doesn’t know why. “We were more private about… things. And marks. I never did that. To him.”

“You did something similar last time you saw Laurent and his new partner together. It was at Nicaise’s birthday party. Do you remember what I’m talking about?”

“I remember the party.”

Neo smiles a little. “Yes, I imagine you do. But I mean, do you remember how, upon seeing the two of them interact, you sort of compared them to how you and Laurent used to be?”

“That’s normal. Everyone does that.”

“It is quite common,” Neo says, “but that’s not what I’m interested in. I’m interested in you admitting that you have emotions, Damen. Sometimes it seems like you’re trying to deny yourself the right to feel anything at all when it comes to Laurent.”

Damen doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s too complicated. “I know how I feel about Laurent.”

“Which is?”

“Neutral. I don’t care.”

“You don’t care about him as a person? At all?”

“Of course I do,” Damen says. “I just don’t want to be in a relationship with him.”

“Did you feel this way when you two broke up? I’ve asked you about it before, and you said you never thought you’d not be with him.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“When do you think this shift occurred then? You went from being in love with him, in a relationship, to only caring about him as a person. Did this happen during the last stage of your relationship? Did it happen afterward?”

“It’s normal to stop caring when you break up with someone,” Damen says. The words come out forced, like they’d rather stay in the warmth of his mouth. “Are you in love with all your exes too?”

Neo takes his glasses off. His eyes look beady without them. “Okay,” he says, and slips them back on. “Let’s just—tell me about your talk with Kastor. Or about your idea to take Nicaise to Akielos. Where did that come from?”

Damen rubs the back of his neck, finds it damp. “I actually… have a question. About that.”

“Yes?”

“Nicaise thinks Nikandros doesn’t like him. Do you think that’s, like, something Laurent could have told him?”

Neo doesn’t answer right away. He looks at Damen for a long, stretched-out minute. “Told him? As in, Laurent putting ideas in Nicaise’s head?”

“No,” Damen says. Then, “Maybe?”

“Let’s rethink this question a bit. Do you think Nikandros likes Nicaise?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do,” Neo says, not unkindly.

“No,” Damen says. “He doesn’t like Nicaise.”

“Good. So, why is it hard to believe Nicaise has noticed this dislike on his own?”

“Because Nikandros has never been cruel to him.”

Neo picks up his pen. “Do you think Nikandros is that good at acting? That he can fool Nicaise into thinking there’s no animosity between them?”

“Animosity,” Damen says. “Nicaise is a kid.”

“Let’s speak in hypotheticals for a moment, since we don’t know anything for sure. If Nikandros happened to be bad at concealing his thoughts and emotions, and Nicaise, on the other hand, was very skilled at reading people… How do you think interactions between them would make Nicaise feel?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“It must hurt,” Neo says, “not being liked. Especially by someone your—parental figure cares about deeply.”

Parental figure. Damen lets it slide. “Nicaise doesn’t care about that sort of thing. He doesn’t care about Nikandros’ opinion.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Damen is sure. He’s so sure he decides to comb through his memories of the scarce interactions Nikandros and Nicaise have had. They’re all blurry, the dialogue mostly gone, but Nicaise hadn’t seemed upset. Nicaise usually avoided Nikandros.

Nik’s coming over tonight, Damen would say, and Nicaise would shrug. He went through a shrugging phase, at fourteen. When Nikandros knocked on the door or rang the bell, Nicaise would leave the living room empty for them to watch the game in. He’d leave the kitchen and take his dinner with him to his room. He’d watch movies with Laurent, always falling asleep on Damen’s side of the bed. 

“Nikandros never said anything,” Damen repeats. “I wouldn’t have been fine with that.”

“Then maybe you should ask Nicaise about it, about what it is that has made him feel unliked.” 

I don’t want to know, Damen thinks, the thought so bright he can’t think of anything else. A neon sign, blinking. I don’t want to know, and the pressure on his chest grows a little, his sternum sinking under its weight. He doesn’t want to know, because if he does, if NIkandros said something, then—

“What about Kastor?” Neo says. “Any news on that front?”

A deep breath, as deep as he can make it. The pressure recedes enough to let his throat work. “We had lunch,” Damen says.

*

what’s your fav color?

Damen doesn’t roll his eyes. It’s a good question, it’s the sort of question people ask all the time when they’re meeting someone new. 

Red

Yours?

purple!!

your turn haha

There are things Damen wants to know about Iris. Playing twenty questions with someone shouldn’t be hard, he thinks, and it isn’t. It’s not hard. There’s so much he wants to know it’s hard to pick a single question, that’s the thing. He’s too interested. 

What gym do you go to?

sharks&tanks

you?

Is that your question?

got me. 

cats or dogs?

Damen looks at Dog, asleep next to him on the couch. Cats, he types, but doesn’t send it. 

lena says we should have a double date when you guys come back from sicyon!

what do you think?

A double date. Damen hasn’t been on one of those in years. The last time was right after he met Nicaise, when Laurent introduced him to Ancel and Berenger. They’d held hands under the table, and Laurent’s had been damp. I think they’ll like you , he’d said to Damen, mouth puckered small. Ancel’s a bit much, sometimes, but he’s my —

As if pressing a button, Damen stops the memory. He doesn’t need to be thinking about Laurent right now—or worse, about Ancel. He’s texting Iris; he’s in the present. He doesn’t miss anything at all.

Sounds good

:) <3

Later, as he climbs the stairs to the second floor, Damen thinks of opening that bottle of rosé he got as a housewarming present from Nikandros. It’s in the cellar, just another flight of stairs away. He could check one of the boxes full of stuff from his dad’s house while he’s at it, try to find some of his graduation pictures, some random medal from high school to hang somewhere.

The stairs seem to stretch as he stands there, thinking about the cellar and its boxes and the bottle of rosé. A pounding sound makes it hard to think, and suddenly he remembers that one story from primary school, of the beating heart hidden away under moldy floorboards. How it had rattled the entire house.

Dog barks twice at the bottom of the stairs, and Damen startles so badly he hits his elbow on the banister.

“Fucking hell,” he says, only half the insult directed at the piece of wood on the wall. He rubs his elbow. “God. Why are you so… Come here.”

Dog tries, and fails. His legs are not meant to climb these steps, and so Damen is forced to go downstairs and pick him up like a child. 

do you like sushi?

The cellar or his bed. Damen stands in the middle of the stairs again, Dog under his arm, paddling in the air. I don’t really know how to do it, he’d told Laurent. They’d been dating for less than two months.

“Here,” Laurent said. Suddenly his hand was on Damen’s, not tugging but—guiding. “Dominant hand first. Then you use your other one to line them up.”

Damen nodded. He wasn’t looking down, at the instructions he was being given, but at Laurent’s face. His eyelashes weren’t very long, but there were many of them, some paler than others. 

“Your thumb should move like that.” He smiled at Damen’s motion. “Yeah, it’s—”

“You’re good at this,” Damen said. 

Laurent looked up. “This?”

Teaching, Damen meant to say. What came out was a different word. “Etiquette.”

“This isn’t really etiquette.”

“Did you grow up eating Japanese food?” 

“No,” Laurent said.

I don’t think he and his family get along, Damen had told Nikandros. It was best not to ask, sometimes. Best not to ruin their lunch with awkward questions. Yet, “Chinese?”

“Try to pick up one of those.” Laurent pushed the little wooden tray closer to Damen’s plate, tapped it twice. “We can practice with sashimi later.”

Damen tried. The roll flopped to his plate after some fumbling.

Laurent picked it up himself, took a bite. “Your grip’s fine. It just needs to be tighter.”

“Where did you learn?”

A kiss, to Damen’s mouth. Or rather, the corner of it. Laurent’s hand was back on his, directing each movement, getting him to pick up a different piece and bringing it up, up. Damen bit into it.

He chewed, slowly, thinking of what to say next. Maybe they could talk about the play they’d just seen, about what the week ahead looked like, about—

“My brother taught me,” Laurent said. 

Not really, Damen types.

Its a bit overrated

oh ok!

i like ramen

Dog barks and wiggles, asking to be put down. Damen only tightens his hold and begins the long hike up the stairs. 

The cellar door stays closed.

*

The road splits into three ahead, and only one path leads to Ios. Damen watches the green sign from the passenger seat, the fat white letters and crooked arrow, and says nothing when Nikandros takes a right turn. To Sicyon , that sign reads. 54 km.

Damen looks down at his phone, Instagram feed frozen between two pictures. He doesn’t know who they belong to, and he doesn’t really care. a small price for paradise!!! a caption reads. 

“I swear,” Nikandros says, “if I have to take another fucking turn I’m going to scream.”

One would think a fucking Veretian designed these roads, his dad used to say. “Yeah, it’s shit,” Damen says. 

“Next time we should fly to Dice and be done with it.”

“I don’t think that’s very practical, man. We’d have to get a ride to your parent’s place either way.”

“But I wouldn’t have to be the one driving us,” Nikandros says. “Can you imagine Elon sitting in the back seat? He would have totally puked by now.”

“Nah, he takes stuff for it. Dramoline or something.”

“Dramamine.”

Damen purses his mouth. That’s the sort of mistake Ancel would make. “So, who’s gonna be there?”

“My parents, Lea, some cousins… I don’t know for sure, but you’ve met all of them already.”

“Yeah, when I was ten.”

Nikandros’ eyes flicker to him. “Are you nervous? Is that it?”

“No,” Damen says. A lie so small it might as well not even exist. “When’s Calista coming back from Thailand?”

“She’s not there anymore. Last time we talked she was in Vietnam, following some weird monks. You know what she’s like, she’ll come back when she gets bored enough.”

Out of Nikandros’ three sisters, Calista has always been the nicest. To Damen, at least. “Can women become monks?”

“Why would I know that, dude?”

Damen shrugs.

Nikandros frowns, so deeply his forehead seems to sink. “Do you think she’s trying to become a fucking monk or something? A monkess? Google it.”

“What?”

“Google what the requirements are.”

Damen is three articles into Buddhism when Aktis texts their group chat. “Got the promo,” Damen reads out loud. “Party at my place on the eighteenth. What promo?”

“His uncle finally made him partner,” Nikandros says. “Do you not read our texts at all?”

“I do. Sometimes. Work’s—”

“Been busy. You’ve said so.” Nikandros’s hands move on the steering wheel as he rolls his shoulders. “You’re turning into Pallas. Is it a lawyer thing? I swear I’ve never met a lawyer that knows when to stop working.”

“You know two lawyers, man.”

Nikandros takes another turn, the last one before the dirt road begins and the soft hills make an appearance. 

Damen’s memories of the house are fragmented, glued together in strange, impossible ways. He remembers a red door, banisters and chalk-white walls, but also an inner patio with a tiled fountain, where he and Nikandros would soak their feet after a day at the beach, sand collecting at the bottom. He can’t remember the order of them, the placement. In his head, the house is but one giant, collaged room.

As Nikandros parks the car and pops the trunk open, Damen studies the front door. It’s dark brown, not red, and the knocker looks different. It used to be higher up, he thinks. They dared each other to jump and touch it, and Damen would always win.

Damen holds his breath as Nikandros opens the door, for no reason at all. They leave their bags by the shoe rack, their jackets too. Damen copies Nikandros like a mime would, breathing a bit easier now that he’s sure there is no one watching.

The sound of voices and laughter wafts in from somewhere in the house. Nikandros follows it without hesitation, and Damen is right behind him, stupidly letting his fingers graze the walls of the hall as he walks, feeling the roughness of the material, the cracks in the old stone. This is the same wall he’d press his whole palm against, whenever they’d play hide and seek and he needed a break from all the running. 

“—thought I heard something,” a voice says as soon as they step onto the patio. Lea’s suddenly there, in front of them, scolding Nikandros. She’s taller than him, by more than a head. “Mom told you to text us when you were ten minutes away, dumbass. Now we have to wait longer until lunch is ready. Hey, Damen.”

Damen swallows, blinks. “Hello—”

“How would that have made a difference? It’s literally ten fucking minutes, Lea.”

Lea rolls her eyes. She’s wearing a blue summer dress, the hems of it dyed white. Even though Damen tries, he can’t find anything of Idalia in her. Maybe the shape of her eyes, if he’s being generous. Lea, unlike Calista, is all her father’s.

She says, “Karin’s here. His gluten-free bread takes like seven hours to rise.”

“Once again,” Nikandros says, “I don’t see how me texting you ten minutes ago would have helped.”

“Did you get the lemons?”

“What lemons?”

“I texted you two hours ago,” Lea says. “Mom wanted you to pick some from Fera’s tree. She’s going to make those little bars for dessert.”

Nikandros rolls his eyes. “I was driving two hours ago.”

“Through a pig pit? You reek.”

“I don’t,” Nikandros says. He sniffs once, not very subtly.

There are other people here. Damen leans against the doorway, tuning Nikandros and Lea out, and watches as two of Nikandros’ cousins get up from the stone bench to the right. He smiles at them, and they smile back, and they’re coming here—

“Damen, right?” the tallest one says. He huffs when Damen nods, pats his shoulder three times. “You were this big last time I saw you. I’m Rhos.”

“I know,” Damen says. “Thelia’s son. Your mom made those boat things. I remember.”

“What boat things?” the other guy says. “I don’t remember that.”

Rhos laughs. There’s silver in his beard, a whole patch of it. He’d just left college when Damen met him. “You hadn’t been born. This was, what? Ten years ago?”

“I’m fifteen.”

“It was definitely more than ten years ago,” Damen says. Fifteen. The kid has an eyebrow piercing, subtle but very much there. Thelia was never like Idalia. “Your mom made boats for us to play with, out of waxed paper. Nikandros tried to eat a couple.”

The kid snorts. “Yeah, right.”

“No joke,” Rhos says. “The wax was apple-scented or something. My aunt was worried she was gonna have to give him a suppository to shit them out.”

“—into the oven,” Lea says, loud enough that Damen’s right ear tingles. “Wanna bet? Twenty euros, come on.”

“Fuck off,” Nikandros says, then turns to Damen. “Let’s go to the kitchen before I have a stroke.”

The transition from the patio to the kitchen is loud and somehow cramped. Rhos’ shoulder stays pressed to Damen’s, and Lea’s laughter turns into a wheeze when the nameless younger cousin brings up Nikandros’ childhood eating habits.

Damen tries not to sway when he walks into the kitchen and finds it twice as chaotic.

The colors are the same as last time: white walls, bright blue cupboards, brick-like tiles on the floor. So many people are sitting at the table Damen gives up trying to count them. Thelia, Argos, more of Nikandros’ cousins. It’s strange to think of people having children once he himself stopped being a child. 

Idalia is by the window, in a camisole that looks white at first glance but isn’t. There are shades to white, Laurent had told him once. They were shopping, somewhere, for a birthday present. Laurent said Nikandros looked best in cream, not white. Damen had never thought of it. Do you like me in white? he’d asked. That was the sort of thing he’d been concerned about, back then. 

“Boys,” Idalia says, like they’re still ten. 

She looks older than the last time Damen saw her, but not enough to cause alarm. Everyone goes on talking as she grabs Nikandros by the shoulders and pulls him into a hug, yet Damen finds it hard to pay attention to what anyone is saying. Nikandros wiggles a bit, trying to pull away, but still gives her a kiss on the cheek before she finally retrieves her hands. 

They have the same hair color, brown like cedar. Curls angrier than Damen’s.

Damen looks away then, his heart at the last door of his throat. It’d be rude to get caught staring, ruder for sure than not saying hello right away. Rhos is asking him something, the word firm only leaving his mouth partially before Damen feels a hand on his arm, right above his elbow.

“Damen,” she says, and waits for him to look up.

“Thanks for having me over, Mrs. Kyros,” Damen says instantly. “It’s—”

“Idalia.”

Damen’s neck burns. He doesn’t touch it. “Right. Sorry. I… Thank you for inviting me.”

“Thank you for coming,” Idalia says. Her smile is turning smaller, shrinking. “I wanted to invite you over for Easter too, but Nini said you were busy with work. Are you and your brother doing anything for Christmas? Because if you’re not, we’ll be down in—”

“Don’t crowd him, mom,” Nikandros says. “He hasn’t even had a sip of water.”

“It’s fine, I’m—”

“Nikandros,” Idalia says. “Have you shown him his room? The bathroom?”

Not thirsty, Damen finishes in his head. 

“No, mom. We’ve been out of the car for ten seconds, all right? God.”

“It doesn’t take longer than that to offer a guest some water,” Lea says from the back of the kitchen. “Mom, Damen’s probably starving. It’s a four-hour drive from Delfeur, and you know how Nini’s about snacks in the car.”

Damen opens his mouth again.

“You should sit down,” Idalia says, already bringing him closer to the table. “Do you want some olives? There’s bread. Lunch isn’t ready yet, because—”

“Nini didn’t text us when he should have,” Lea says. “That’s why.”

Nikandros doesn’t snap. He rolls his eyes, steals some bread from the table, his arm brushing the top of Damen’s head when he leans down to snatch some olives, and goes back to talking to Rhos. “The girl in the tollbooth said it’s the worst weekend she’s worked so far this year. From T-19 onwards it was literally gas, brake, gas. Every two fucking seconds.”

Kastor would have snapped, Damen thinks. And kicked him. He always kicked Damen when he called him Kas instead of Kastor.

Idalia presses a cold glass of water into his hand. Damen’s fingers close around it on instinct. “Thank you,” he says, and swallows the Mrs. Kyros that was about to slip out. He’ll need to work on that.

Everyone at the table is looking at him. 

“Damianos, right?” a man says. There’s laughter on his face. “You were this tall last time I saw you.”

“Boy’s a lawyer now,” Thelia says. “How’ve you been, honey? Is Delfeur any better?”

Nikandros steals another olive. “Delfeur’s always gonna be Delfeur.”

“Still better than Arles,” Damen says. There’s a hand on his shoulder, too warm, but he’s scared to look behind him. 

The woman to Damen’s left snorts. “Try Kempt. I swear, the higher up you go, the worse it gets.”

It’s been too long since Damen has sat at a table like this. He doesn’t know where to look, what to do. Maybe Kastor has it easier; Jokaste’s family is bigger than this. Maybe it’s worse. Even there, at Aretha’s house, Kastor will always be nothing more than Jokaste’s husband. Just like Damen is nothing but Nikandros’ friend. He takes a sip of water, then two. The hand on his shoulder gives him a pat.

“—monks,” Nikandros is saying. “Shaved heads and all.”

“Cal wouldn’t do that,” Lea says through a mouthful of bread. “She bleached her hair that one time, but this is different.”

“How’s it different?”

“If you shave your head, you have no hair. If you bleach it, it looks like shit but you still have hair.”

Nikandros pretends to toss an olive at her, just to watch her flinch. “Like yours?”

“Don’t fight,” Idalia says. “Damen, did you stop to eat?”

“Not really. It’s only—”

“Nikandros.”

“It’s a four-hour drive, mom. Damen had breakfast and so did I.”

That’s a lie, at least on Damen’s part. He had a protein shake, which isn’t food. Pulverized come or coffee? Laurent would ask in the mornings. He’d—

Damen stands, and the hand on his shoulder falls away.  

“Er,” he says. “Bathroom?”

“First floor, third door,” someone says. “Woah, he really is tall.”

Nikandros’ elbow finds his. “Do you need me to walk you there?”

“No,” Damen says. “I’m—no. Thanks.”

Water, mercifully cold. Damen paints the back of his neck with it, his wrists. The Damen in the mirror copies him perfectly, but Damen ignores him. Everything is different here—the sink, the floors, the bathtub—and he welcomes it with open arms. Change is nice, sometimes. Good. 

Change is necessary.