and tarnished the day they met, but the one he’s got on now is platinum. He wonders if it was Avery’s first purchase with the money he got walking away from the contract signing—or maybe it was something nice he was too afraid to wear because he’d never be able to replace it if it was damaged or lost.
Whatever the case, it clinks when he curls his hand around the glass, tapping out a faint, melodic rhythm, and it makes Alejandro’s fingers itch to tap out his own in response. He doesn’t, of course. He clenches one hand in his lap and the other around his scotch, and he stares with passive eyes and a soft mouth.
Everything he feels is so deep under his skin, it would have to claw its way out, leaving him in bloody tatters. And it’s not worth the effort when the ending will always be the same: pain, loss, grief. It’s better to watch the sparks of hurt flare to life in Avery’s eyes when he knows he’s getting nowhere with all his talk about classmates and shitty professors because that is the sort of pain which can be soothed with time and security.
Both of which Alejandro has an abundance of.
One day, Avery won’t be sitting across from him any longer. One day he’ll be gone and probably married. Someone will love him as much as Alejandro will probably come to love him. Except that person won’t be gripped with fear of loss so deep that he’d rather carve out his own organs than take the risk. And that’s who Avery needs—that’s what he needs.
Courage.
“Got nothing for me today?” Avery asks.
Alejandro doesn’t acknowledge his words. He hears them—feels them. And he sips his scotch.
“I met my friend Sharice for lunch today,” Avery says after a beat of silence. “She tried to convince me to buy lace panties, but I don’t really like the feeling of my balls being squished.”
He doesn’t choke on his swallow, but he thinks if he had less control he might have. He thinks that Avery’s trying to get him to rise to the bait, and it’s not that he doesn’t want to, because the very idea of Avery in lace panties does something to him. But there’s connections between his brain, his heart, and his dick, and they’re severed from neglect and disuse. So, he’s able to take another drink and push his fork through his pasta and not quite meet Avery’s eyes as he keeps talking.
“Anyway,” Avery says from behind a sigh, and he sits back with his arms folded over his chest, “I think I get why I’m here now.”
And that almost drags a word from him, but he holds his tongue.
“I mean, I know the rule about digging into your past—so I won’t. And I don’t think you have mommy and daddy issues the way people keep saying—and what is with that, by the way? Like shitty parents make you unworthy of patience and love? Fuck that.” Avery laughs at himself, and the sound is enough to soothe the edges of a rough thought trying to burst forward in Alejandro’s brain. “I think you’re sad, and I doubt I’ll know why. But I’m just gonna keep talking because I think that’s what you want.”
He takes another drink instead of answering, because it’s both no and yes. No, he doesn’t just want that, but yes, that’s all he’ll ever accept.
“So, buckle up, boss,” Avery says and winks, which makes Alejandro’s heart beat in a single, painful thump. “I’m about to regale you with the tale of Chad the Choad in my History of Athenian Law class on Tuesday.”
2
The Way He Is
Avery Marshak didn’t grow up with a lot of expectations about life. His parents were firmly lower-middle class and that was fine. He didn’t have a college fund, and he got a handful of checks at his bar mitzvah that most definitely weren’t going to cover the cost of a car when he turned sixteen. Instead, he spent kit on candy, and he and his friends snuck into an R-rated movie. It made suffering through Hebrew lessons and enduring wet kisses from distant aunts totally worth it.
His parents didn’t have big dreams for him, and the worst he suffered at school were the anti-Semitic teachers who assumed he was going to be good with accounting or drama. His mother had suggested exactly one time that he think about Rabbinical school because he was good at history, but the look