Instead, he pounded back the rest of the beer.

  When he lowered the bottle, Phoebe Archibald, Shaw’s mother, was staring at him. “I’m glad to see you’re enjoying the party, North.”

  “Mrs. Aldrich, hi.”

  She was a pretty woman, trim, in her late fifties. Shaw had gotten his build from his father, but his face, with those refined features and their sharp symmetry, had come from his mother. Her sheath dress was a blue so pale that it was almost white, and the lace ruffles gave it bridal echoes, probably intentional considering it was her anniversary. Chunky ebony bangles, with sharp lines and rough edges, slipped and clattered along one arm, and the contrast with the dress and the refined features was shocking, an effect that North guessed was, again, intentional.

  “Pace yourself,” she said, and her clipped tone reminded North that this woman was a professor at a prestigious university as well as an accomplished painter. “Wilson had an uncle who always said a beer in each hand kept him grounded.”

  “No, one of them is—”

  “Had, North. Past tense. The poor man didn’t go easily either. Maybe a soft drink next time.” Her hazel eyes—Shaw’s hazel eyes—narrowed. “They do have meetings for this kind of thing.”

  “I was just holding it,” North said, and when he heard his own words, the old teenage defense, the flush spread into his chest. He felt dizzy. He tried for the plaster smile, but it flaked away. Over the speakers, someone was bopping and scatting, nonsense syllables that made North feel like he’d gotten trapped in a nightmare.

  Phoebe offered a tiny smile and patted his arm. She turned.

  North envisioned the rest of his life like this, year after year, the parties where he didn’t know what to do or what to say or where to be, while this Shaw who was a stranger fluttered and flitted and smiled at guys who were a ten out of ten on the boner scale. He tried to figure out what he could do, how he could make this work for Shaw’s sake.

  “You look beautiful,” North said. “Congratulations. Thirty years is very impressive.”

  Phoebe redirected her attention at him, and this time, the smile was fractionally warmer. “Thank you, North. That’s kind of you.” She paused, and voices from the rest of the room rushed to fill the vacuum between them. “You could have brought Tucker, of course.”

  The words didn’t make any sense, so North laughed because he didn’t know what else to do. Confusion slipped across Phoebe’s narrow features. North’s laughter dried up. He swallowed and said, “That’s nice, but why would I—I mean, I don’t think he’d—” He laughed again, and this time, it hurt. “I’m sorry. Maybe I did have too much to drink.”

  In a confidential voice, Phoebe said, “That’s why it’s a good idea to bring your husband. Next time, then. I know Wilson enjoys talking shop with him. And Shaw needs to see examples of men in committed relationships. I worry about him; he’s getting too good at being single.”

  The music was suddenly way too loud. North stared at her. His face felt stiff, the flesh plasticized. Bodies jostled him. Bebop-ba-bop. Scatting cool cats all the way. The heat in the room suffocated him, and he had to fight the urge to drop the beers, let them shatter on the fancy floor, and rip his tie and collar loose so he could get one motherfucking breath.

  “North, dear, are you all right? You’re white as a sheet.”

  He plunged toward the front door.

  “Wilson?” Phoebe’s voice was a tin-can call at the other end of the universe. “Shaw? Has anyone seen Shaw?”

  Chapter 30

  SCHNUCKS HAD THE TWELVE-packs of Schlafly on an endcap, which was good, because North’s eyes weren’t focusing right, and he wasn’t sure he could have found them otherwise. He loaded four into the cart, ran blearily through the self-checkout, and was back in the GTO in seven minutes. He was home ten minutes later, lugging the beer inside in two trips, the pain in his chest making him wonder, dimly, if he was having a heart attack. North didn’t bother stocking the beer in the fridge; tonight wasn’t that kind of night.

  He let the puppy out and killed two beers standing in the doorway, the May air warm and humid. Like a breath, North thought, sweat popping out across his forehead. Like someone’s breathing on my face, garbage breath, but that’s just the dumpsters in the alley. Shaw had taken the trash out that morning, wearing another pair of those godawful Dutch clogs that he managed to find somewhere. North had to squeeze his eyes shut then, and he clutched the jamb so hard that one of his knuckles popped. He coughed, wiped his eyes, and did two little jump shots, the bottles tinkling as they shattered in the recycling bin. Then he got another beer, unwrapped a fresh pack of American Spirit, and really went to work.

  When he heard an unfamiliar car out front, he stubbed out the cigarette, returned it to the pack, and stuffed the American Spirits into his pocket. In the middle of investigating a blackberry bramble, the puppy paused and cast a worried look at North. For a moment, North managed to sit perfectly still, and then he put his head back, opened his throat, and chugged the rest of the beer. He was getting another—his fourth? his fifth?—when the knock came at the door. North closed the fridge, staring at the painted steel, where a magnet held a picture Truck had drawn. It might have been a child’s work, done in crayon, the stick figures disproportionate. They were holding hands. One had yellow hair and one had brown. NORTH AND SHAW, in Truck’s scrawl, ran along the bottom, BUTT BUDDIES. North unclipped it from the magnet and folded it into a square, and then a smaller square, and then a smaller.

  The knocking was getting louder.

  The beer and tiny square of paper in one hand. One hand on the wall. His eyes had never really cleared up, so he had to blink as he opened the door and wedged his body in the gap.

  “You fucking piece of shit.”

  Shaw had obviously been crying. Still was crying, maybe, although North’s blurred vision made it hard to tell. “North, I am so—”

  “You didn’t tell your parents we’re dating?”

  Shaw opened his mouth.

  “If you lie to me, we’re done.”

  “It’s not that I didn’t tell them. It just never came up.”

  For a moment, North had nothing. Then he started to shut the door. “You are unbelievable.”

  “North, no, please—”

  “It didn’t come up? It didn’t come up when they were trying to talk you into leaving Borealis? It didn’t come up when they were trying to talk you into moving to Chicago or Boston or wherever the fuck they want you to be? It didn’t come up when they were playing matchmaker with Tyler? Oh my God, it wasn’t just him, was it? How many other guys have they set you up with?”

  “Oh no, Tyler wasn’t—”

  “God damn it, Shaw!” He hurled the bottle. Brown glass shattered on the stoop, speckling Shaw’s suit with beer suds. “You know what the worst part is? The worst part is I thought they hated me because they didn’t think I was good enough for you. But that’s not it, is it? They hate me just because I’m me. They hate me, and I’m not even your boyfriend. Jesus Christ. Can you imagine how they’d react if they knew? No wonder you never told them.”

  “North, please let me explain.” Shaw dashed his sleeve across his eyes. “Please.”

  “No, I’m talking now. You wanted me to talk, remember? So I’m talking now. It’s my turn to talk. This is about the lowest fucking way to treat someone, do you understand that? Like I’m not even a person. That’s bad, Shaw. But what’s even worse is that you lied to me. You let me believe they knew. You let me walk into that party, in their home, with all their friends, and you let me think they knew. For fuck’s sake, what if I’d tried to kiss you? Were you going to run away? Were you going to pretend to faint? Is that why you spent as much time as possible away from me, left me alone with people I don’t know, with fucking Bitsy?”

  “I—”

  “Shut up!” Aggravated breathing threatened to choke North. “Here’s the funny thing, Shaw. We’ve always been able to joke around; maybe you’ll get a laugh out of this. When I left Tucker, I told myself I’d never let someone treat me like that again. He hit me, and he cheated on me, and he fucked with my head about every way imaginable. And then I turn around, and I’m immediately in the same kind of relationship again, only even worse. And do you know why it’s worse? Because Tucker treated me like a worthless fucking nobody. But at least he wasn’t ashamed of me.”

  The color bled from Shaw’s face. North had seen Shaw after some pretty serious injuries; he recognized the waxy cast, the blue-gray tinge to his lips, the lusterless quality of his eyes.

  “North.” Shaw stopped. He gripped the porch’s handrail, swaying. “Please?”

  Chest heaving, North fought with the image of shoving Shaw down the steps, of following him out onto the lawn, of landing a slap and then maybe another one, harder, something that would put him on his ass. His throat tightened. His eyes stung. He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he nodded.

  “I am so sorry—”

  “Stop saying that.” North cleared his throat. “If that’s all you have to say, then you should go.”

  “I didn’t tell them. You’re right. But it’s not because I’m ashamed of you. I love you. You’re the best, most wonderful man in the entire world, and I don’t deserve you. Especially after this. But I’ll never stop loving you because you’re amazing.” Shaw made a noise that sounded like an animal in pain, and he scrubbed one-handed at his face. “There’s something inside me that doesn’t want to do what people want me to do. It’s messed up. I know it is. But sometimes everything seems so ordinary, so basic, and this part of me just refuses to go along with it. Sometimes it’s a good thing. If I were normal, I wouldn’t have started Borealis with you; I would have gone to a PhD program or law school. If I were normal, I might not have met you—my parents wanted me to go to Wash U, not Chouteau. But a lot of the times, it’s a bad thing. I know I annoy you with my weird clothes and my weird food and my weird ideas. I know I’m not an easy person to get along with, and the fact that you put up with me makes me love you even more.”

  “So I’m ordinary or basic or whatever, and what, if I’d shown up tonight with a unicorn-tail butt plug, you’d have marched me right up to your parents and told them we were together?”

  “No, no, no.” Shaw was staring at the stoop. “My parents have this way of getting inside my head. They push and push and push, and they think they’re doing it for the best. They have these huge hopes and dreams for me. But they’re not my hopes and dreams. And they’re so good at all these games that sometimes the only way I can win is if I don’t play by their rules. They want me to get together with someone like Tyler. They want me to get a surrogate in the next three years and have two kids. They want me to go back to school while Tyler brings home the big bucks. They want me to buy a house in the Central West End or Lafayette Square. I thought if I changed my clothes and pretended to think about grad school, they’d stop pressuring me about guys. That was stupid; I know that. But it’s more than that. I…I just hated the thought of bringing you into that. I hated the thought of having to listen to their disapproval of you, even though they would have made everything sound like they were just pointing out facts and worrying about what was best for me. I hated having to play that basic hetero game of bringing a partner home for my parents’ approval. I just wanted it to be us because we’re so good together.”

  The sun was finally setting. The last light seemed intensely bright at the horizon, a final surge of brilliance that caught on the hi-vis reflective tape that marked off a section of pavement, glittered on the windshields of parked cars, danced on tin flashing. Two kids burst out of the house down the street, laughing, roller blades and hockey sticks in hand.

  “Watch for cars,” their mom shouted from the doorway as the boys set up their game in the street.

  “You know what, Shaw? Maybe that’s what you think you were doing. Maybe that’s what you tell yourself. But you know what the problem is? It’s not just you anymore. I matter too. What I want matters.”

  “I know—”

  “Really? Because it sure as fuck seems like you don’t. You do what you want, Shaw. Always. It’s how you dress. It’s how you spend your money. It’s what you do with my fucking food. And it’s one of the things I love about you, but fuck, Shaw, we’re in this together now. You won’t even talk about moving in together; that’s not what you want, so it’s not even an option. You show up high to jobs. We take the cases you want to take, even when we’re already booked. You forgave Johanna Griffin’s debt without asking me. You went to talk to Ronnie behind my back, for fuck’s sake.”

  A spark of something angry and defensive ignited in Shaw’s eyes, and he opened his mouth.

  North talked over him. “It’s everything. You did it with Flip; you fought and fought and fought until I backed down. You do it with sex. It doesn’t matter what I want—you push and you push until you get what you want. You can’t do whatever you want and then say, ‘I love you,’ and expect things to be ok again. You’re part of something bigger now. We’re together; we do things together, we decide things together.’”

  “That’s not what I do!”

  “Oh yeah? When I was too tired last week, did that stop you? When I said I wanted you to fuck me, is that what we did? What about a couple weeks before that, when I said I didn’t want to play with those new toys, and ten minutes later you’re shoving an alien-tentacle dildo inside me? God, Shaw, I’m not a sex doll, all right? And I’m not a wet dream. I’m a person, even if I am an asshole most of the time. And this thing, with your parents, it’s the same fucking thing. Did you ask me how I felt about you not telling them? Did you even let me know that’s what you had decided? Did you ever consider that it’s a relationship, that we’re a couple, and that we need to decide things together? We’ve spent the last week dealing with kids whose batshit parents try to run their lives, but it’s not just parents who want to run people’s lives and live out their fantasies through them, Shaw. You’re doing it too. To me. And I’m so fucking sick of it I’m going out of my mind!” Between the adrenaline and the Schlaflys, North’s legs were starting to shake, and he had to lean harder against the jamb. His rage cycled up and up; the last tenuous thread of control snapped. He felt like he was shouting up from the bottom of a well, shouting as hard as he could, and his voice still barely audible. “For fuck’s sake, Tucker, I’m a person!”

  If anything, Shaw’s color had gotten worse. He white-knuckled the handrail, and the other hand was pressed low over his belly. Where the Slasher had stabbed him, North thought.

  The slap of a stick against a ball echoed up the street. One of the boys cheered, while the other shouted, “That’s not fair! That’s not fair!” The boy who had scored skated victory laps, whooping and pumping his arm.

  “I don’t know where that came from,” North managed to say. “I’m sorry. I don’t think of you two—”

  “Please stop.”

  The breeze riffled North’s hair. He focused on the shards of glass sparkling on the stoop. “I think we should take some time off.”

  Shaw nodded jerkily.

  “From each other, I mean.”

  “I knew what you meant.”

  “Do you want to come inside,” North dragged his gaze up, “and get a few things?”

  Shaw closed his eyes slowly. When he opened them again, North couldn’t make out the variegated green and brown, and he realized how dark it had gotten. Shaw shook his head.

  “I know you’re tired of me saying this,” Shaw said, voice low but firm. “But I really am sorry, North. I love you so much, and I never, ever wanted to make you feel this way.”

  His waiting was a question, and North didn’t have the answer.

  “Night, Shaw,” he said and closed the door.

  Chapter 31

  HALFWAY THROUGH THE BEER, North decided a drive was a good idea.

  He found himself going west on I-44, exiting at Elm, heading north. Webster Groves was one of the inner-most suburbs, with old, expensive homes on tree-lined lots. The Schaflys were navigating, so North was half surprised and half not when he found himself parked in front of a Japanese maple, looking down a long drive to a two-story house with a detached garage. Night hung over everything in thick, velvet folds, but the house was bright and shining. North jingled the keys in the ignition. He could walk up to the door. His key would still work; he knew it would. He could walk inside, into the smell of boutique cologne and furniture polish and the Bath and Body Works air fresheners, and he could sprawl on the sofa, and he could flip channels with a beer on the floor next to him, the condensation making a ring on the rug that Tucker would bitch about. He could go home.

  He leaned back, closed his eyes, and came unmoored for a while.

  Tapping woke him, and he looked over at the passenger window. The texture of the night had coarsened to felt; he could almost feel it between his fingers. Everything had a dreamlike quality. Everything was unreal and hyperreal at the same time. Tucker’s face was the moon, his hair spilling out of its neat part, his expression unreadable. He tapped the glass again, and North leaned over to roll the window down.

  “Hi,” Tucker said.

  North stared at him; he felt his head wobbling on his neck.

  “You don’t look so good.”

  North’s mouth was fuzzy. He tried to work moisture into it.

  With a small smile, Tucker cocked his head. “I saw you sitting out here, and I got myself all worked up for a fight, and now I’m thinking maybe that’s not why you came over.”

  “It is.” North’s voice was rough. He swallowed. “I want a fight. I came over here for a fight.”

  Neither of them moved. The crickets were making their usual racket, and a whiff of Tucker’s cologne floated through the car.

  “Maybe you should come inside for a little while,” Tucker said softly. “Before we fight, I mean.”