Sk8r Boi

"I wish you wouldn't do that." I grumbled. "It's really rude for you to have conversations without me when I'm sitting right here." Nicky laughed and sat down with a pot of coffee.

"We like him." She said. "Are you seeing him again?"

"Friday." I smiled.

"Nice." Jared fist bumped me across the table.

"So sex after dinner worked?" Nicky asked. I choked on my coffee, but I guess I'd invited that.

"We didn't." I sighed. "He wasted all this time losing to me playing crash bandicoot and we ran out of time."

"Aw." Nicky smiled. "Didn't even put out and you still want to see him again. Cute."

"I'm not cute!" I frowned at her. "How dare you!"

"You are cute."Jared said. "We've always said so."

"Fuck of!" I laughed. "You guys are assholes." I started digging into my eggs.

"So any plans today?" Nicky said.

"Moping and wanking." I grinned at her. "The usual." She rolled her eyes.

"You should start a project." She said.

"Oooh like a vision board. Good idea. I'll start printing off headless Grindr torsos."

"You could go through the hallway cupboard." Nicky said. Jared's head shot up and he widened his eyes at her frantically.

"I could go through it." I thought about it. "I guess." I glanced at the hallway cupboard and cleared my throat as I felt my chest tighten. "Only fully expect to come home to me bawling over a sock or something." Nicky reached for my hand and squeezed it.

"We can leave it all if you want." She said. "I just thought maybe you could give it a go." I shuffled my food around my plate.

"I'll give it a go." I said slowly.

——

I faced the cupboard dubiously. I stared at it and it stared menacingly back.

"Ok." I said to it. "I don't like you and you don't like me. But let's put that aside." I put my hand on the door. "Be gentle." I asked it quietly.

I paused. And I took a deep breath and opened it.

It smelled like him. Old spice and Commes des Gargons Black and sweaty t-shirts. I bit my lip.

"Hey." I said to the piles of shit. They didn't reply. "Sorry I've been avoiding you." I said. "It's not that I haven't been thinking about you." I slowly reached in and started pulling out a bag of clothes. "Ugh." I smiled to myself. "You know, at least if we'd been the same size some of this could be useful." I sat down and looked at the pile in front of me. "You wore this to Kaitoke." I said. "You didn't change for three days. You're so fucking gross." I held the t-shirt in my lap. "Ok, I'll hold onto this." I sighed. "Dick." I muttered. "There isn't going to be a single thing in here I can throw away, asshole. Why did you have to..." I paused as I felt tears. "Well. Ok. These shorts can go." I cleared my throat and blinked. "Actually all the trousers. Anyone ever tell you you're too tall?" I started to carefully divide the pile of clothes up. "Make you a deal." I said. "I'll keep all the t-shirts if you won't get mad at me for donating the rest." I sighed to myself as I sorted the clothes out. My hands brushed a pair of socks. "Oh fuck." I muttered. "I really am gonna cry over a pair of socks." I held them loosely in my hand. "Stupid lucky socks. No one has those. It's stupid. You're so superstitious Drew." I squeezed them and hesitantly brought them to my face. I laughed as I caught sight of myself in the mirror. "Nice." I said. "Look what you've done, fuckhead. Now I'm some creep who sits on the floor sniffing some dead guys' socks."

I felt the tears then, really, and I couldn't stop them. Because I don't think I'd really ever said the "D" word out loud. He was gone, he wasn't in my life, he was a memory- but....

I sniffed and let them fall as I slowly sorted through the clothes, and then all his textbooks, and all his stupid fishing gear- which Jared could have- and his books which his parents had given to me and I'd stuck in the cupboard with everything else. There was nothing that meant nothing. Every scrap of paper had something on it that I remembered. Every damn bit of shit had been a day out, or an argument, or a make up present, or a dumb competition to buy each other the ugliest thing we could... I paused as I hit the gardening stuff. My tears had been stopping and starting for hours now, and I might have been all out. I held his trowel and stared at it. "I um. I met someone." I said slowly. I glanced at the cupboard. It didn't yell at me. It didn't look at me in shock or disappointment. It was a cupboard. "Ash." I said. "You um. You'd like him. I think."

I sat with the trowel in my hand silently. I was right, I was out of tears. But I wasn't out of sitting on the floor, staring at an inanimate object. Holding it in my hand and feeling the wood, and the steel. Breathing deeply.

The door opened at some point and I glanced up.

"Oh Dusty." Nicky fell to her knees and embraced me. "Baby, you ok?" I shrugged her off.

"Keep." I gestured to one pile. "Donate." I gestured to the other. I cleared my throat as I looked at the trowel. "This lives in the cupboard for a bit longer." She nodded and sat next to me, stroking my back.

"I'm so proud of you." She said eventually. "I couldn't face it." I squeezed her hand.

"I..." I sighed. "Yeah." I said. I glanced at the door. "Jared on the way?" She rolled her eyes.

"Boys were heading out. Fuck knows when he'll be home." She held me. "Take out?"

"Yeah." I said. "And cheap wine."

"Absolutely."

——

We sat on the couch for dinner, burgers and chips, and we laughed when we realised burgers were a pain in the ass to eat one handed. Half the filling ended up in my lap and I almost pissed myself as we tried to clean me up and made it a whole lot worse.

"Hey Nick." I said as I wriggled out of my trousers, now dripping with oil and cheese. She glanced up.

"Is that an invitation?" My eyes bugged wide and she started to laugh again. "Joking, asshole!"

"Whatever, no one can resist me!" I grinned.

"You're right." She sighed dramatically. "Ten years Dust... and eight of them with your best friend but it's only ever been you..."

"I know baby. And I'm shipping out tomorrow. Let's make tonight count." She laughed as I put on my wounded warrior face.

"But the baby!" She flopped dramatically on the floor.

"I'll come back for you." I said seriously. "I'll come back for him."

"We'll always have Paris."

"Oui... je suis... excite." Nicky laughed.

"Tu es shit en francais."

"Merde." We laughed and Nicky poured me another glass of wine.

"What's up?" She said. I sighed. I'd had a knot in my stomach all day.

"Hey it's... It's ok right... seeing Ash?" I said slowly. Her face settled into the softest expression as she looked at me.

"Baby. You don't need to move on. But you should move forward." She reached for me and pulled me in close. "And I can tell you that. And Jar can tell you that. And Drew would tell you that, but you need to tell yourself that." I lay silently in her embrace. "It will never go away." She said slowly. "Not for anyone." I looked up at her. Sometimes I forget I'm not the only one hurting. I squeezed her.

"You know he loved you more than me?" I said. She laughed.

"Doubt."

"He tried to make me give you my signed Lupe Fiasco record." I said.

"You did give me..."

"Yeah he was right." I held her tight. "He was so good." I sighed. "I guess I hoped I'd never meet anyone else, a bit. Fucking people is ok but... feeling something. For someone else..." Nicky stroked my hair. "It's like... I mean I couldn't say goodbye." I sniffed. "And now..." I never believed in heaven or hell. I believed in ashes. But that didn't stop me from feeling guilty, like I was cheating, like I had any stake in a life without him... Nicky cradled me. "I just feel like an asshole."

"Yeah you are an asshole." I laughed in shock and she smiled at me. "A really nice asshole who deserves love and a nice guy and a good job and a good life Dust." She sat up a bit and I shifted so we were facing each other. "He always told me he'd be lost without you."

"Please." I rolled my eyes.

"You're a rock." She said. "You're the strongest person I know. You kept him grounded and loving life- without you he would have been studying all fucking day, and had no friends, and become a lawyer with a weirdly right wing attitude. You gave him love and fun, and the best years of his life. And it's not fair." She choked. "But given that life's not fair it's not fair for you to hold yourself back on his account. He'd be so mad at you. And I am so mad at you. Dust..." She paused and looked at me. "You bring a lot to the world. And you'll bring a lot to Ash's world. And he's lovely." I started to sob and we both collapsed on one another. "Aw Dust." She held me. "You're a good man. Just take it slow." I nodded and waited until I could speak.

"Sorry for fucking my arm up." I choked out eventually. She laughed.

"Maybe it was fate." She said. "Maybe it was Drew telling you to get over yourself and stop being so depressed and go fuck someone you love." I started to laugh again.

"Well love is a big word." I said. "But it's been a while since anyone gave me butterflies."

"Ash gives you butterflies?" I grinned at her.

"He gives me the worst fucking case of butterflies." I admitted. "You don't think he's too cool for me?"

"Oh definitely." Nicky sat back. "But I won't tell him that." She pulled away from me and started to nibble on a chip. "So really, truly, not another hookup?" She said. I sighed and sat back.

"I really hope not." I said. "Because if Ash breaks my heart it's beyond repair." Nicky grinned and rubbed my shoulder.

"You gonna tell him?" She said slowly. I swallowed.

"Think I have to." I said. "But maybe not the second date." She nodded.

"There's no schedule." She bit her lip. "I think you should tell him though." I looked at her and sighed.

"As always, dickhead, you're right."

——- Boy has a date ——

But not on the second date.

I couldn't stop the smile as I approached the bar we were meeting at. I knew it was too early to be head over heels so I wasn't, but I couldn't wait to see him again, and joke with him, and touch his hair, and if I was lucky touch some more of his body....

He waved me over and I slid next to him.

"Got you a beer." He said, pushing it towards me. "I don't know what you drink so my first thought was something middle of the road." He shoved it toward me and I gulped some down and choked.

"Middle of the road?!" My eyes started watering.

"Well then I remembered you're the kind of guy who breaks his arm doing BMX tricks and I opted for a weird pickle salsa beer I'd never heard of instead. It any good?"

"No!" I laughed. "It's fucking awful!"

"Yeah." He laughed. "Let me try." He grabbed at the beer and swallowed some. "Oh!" He gasped. "Yeah thats terrible. That's maybe the worst I've had all year."

"Thank you so much." I laughed. "How much did that set you back?"

"$17.00!"

"Jesus!" I sipped on it. It wasn't getting better. Ash laughed at my face.

"Wanna swap?" He pushed his beer towards me with a twinkle in his eye. I took it and narrowed my eyes at him. He smiled, all innocent like. I sipped the beer and blinked.

"Dude you have the worst taste in beer." I laughed. "What the fuck am I drinking?"

"It's lemon soufflé flavoured!" I sipped on it again.

"Actually this ones mildly better." I pushed mine towards him and we continued to swap as we went, moaning about how dire they were. "Alright." I said as we downed the last. "My round." I grinned at the bar tender. "Same again."

"Dude no!" Ash tried to stop me but I'd already waved my card. I laughed at his face.

"Not worth it." He grumbled as the bartender handed us our drinks.

"Totally worth it." I cackled at his face. "Play stupid games, Ash..."

——-

We shared some chips and wings at the bar.

"Do you want real food?" Ash said. "I can't cook but we could go somewhere?" I sipped on my beer as I overthought that. Well we were already drinking beer and eating fried food- I guess fucking was already off the table. I was hungry. But I was also broke. I hesitated for a fraction too long and Ash's face fell a little. "Unless you want an early one." He checked the time. "It's been a long week for me too." I smiled as he tried to give me an out.

"No, I'd love to grab dinner." I said quickly, and tried to think of something cheap and cheerful.

"Sweet." Ash said. "There's a really nice place like two doors down, Italian, that work?"

"Sure." I smiled half heartedly and excused myself to go to the bathroom, where I checked my bank account. Man. Being broke sucks. I guess I could put off paying power for a week. If I was lucky Nicky wouldn't kill me.

It was a small little place with dim lights and open windows tucked between some bars. Ash knew the guy behind the bar and I wondered if I was the latest in a series of men he took here. The guy Ash knew was eyeing me up thoughtfully. He leaned over and muttered something to Ash and Ash hit him playfully before steering us to a table in the window.

"You come here often?" I asked as I browsed the menu. Ash smiled at me.

"I come here quite a bit." He said. "I like it. Intimate." I smiled and nodded, and glanced at the menu. The guy from the bar drifted over with some water.

"The usual?" He asked Ash. My heart sank a little. I tried not to think about all the guys Ash took here and shared whatever the usual was. Ash leant back and looked at me. "Maybe you can help him actually finish a meal for once." The guy smiled. "His eyes are bigger than his stomach eh?" He nudged Ash in the ribs and grinned at me. "We do him a platter and a pizza and he always tells me he's gonna finish it this time but he's always lying." He laughed. I glanced at Ash, who rolled his eyes.

"I'll get an aperol and he'll have a beer, but maybe you give him a minute to look at the menu Marcus?" Marcus nodded and called over the restaurant to the bar. "Usual for Ash and a Peroni." He pulled the menu from Ash's hands and looked at me expectantly.

"A minute?" Ash implored. I handed Marcus my menu with a shrug.

"Whatever you usually have sounds good." I said and Marcus beamed.

"And we'll do you some extra bread, and we'll make you some nice potatoes on the side." He squeezed my shoulder and called over the restaurant again as he walked away.

"Ash's usual but bulk it up." He called. Ash sighed as he looked at me.

"Sorry- I didn't mean to order on your behalf."

"You didn't." I laughed. "He did." I grinned at Ash. "How'd you find this place?"

"I come here after work when I want a night away from everyone." He said. "You got a place like that?"

"Sort of." I glanced at my lap. "Not a restaurant though, just a place I go to with some whiskey." Ash laughed at me.

"You go drinking in a park when you need space?" I laughed.

"Not exactly." I looked at him. "You know the big fence around Zealandia?" He nodded. "There's a spot I go to, there's a morepork who's around there real late at night. I saw her take flight once, it was amazing- this silent giant bird just leaping out into the night... anyway it's a nice spot for thinking. No annoying Italian waiters who tell me what I'm eating for dinner." Ash laughed.

"You've sold me." He said. "Maybe..." He trailed off and looked away. I glanced down at my lap. I knew what he was going to say, and I didn't help him out. If it was a different spot then yes- I would love to walk with Ash up Mt Vic or the Massey memorial late at night and sit and drink... but the fence.... well. I wasn't ready.

Luckily our drinks arrived and I teased Ash for the girliness of his and he laughed and told me I was an ass, and the antipasto arrived shortly after and we ate and talked about our work, and our friends and our knees touched under the table. I grinned at him. I hadn't sat down with a guy and done this in years. I loved everything about it. I loved the dim light from the candle, and the way Ash explained what I was eating, and asked me what I liked, and the way he ordered another round of drinks for us and took my hand between courses.

"Would you..." Ash said slowly. I looked at him and smiled.

"Would I?" I prompted.

"Like to come back to mine?"

"Yes." I said as our pizza arrived and we pulled our hands away. Ash grinned at me.

"I bought Nitro- Fueled." He said.

"That's cute." I kicked him under the table. "You didn't learn your lesson?"

"What, suck at video games hard enough and you can talk your way into a blowjob?" I laughed.

"New stakes." I suggested.

"I'm listening."

"I'll blow you again if you can win a single round. If not... we do whatever I want." Ash smiled.

"I've been practising all week." He warned.

"Good, you definitely needed to."

"I think I'm gonna fucking own you."

"We'll see."

——-

"Anyone would think you're losing on purpose." I grinned at Ash. "Another round or do you submit?"

"Another round." He said firmly. "I'm still warming up."

"Your funeral." I shrugged and turned back to the screen.

"Give it a rest Ash." His flatmate Mike laughed. Mike and Harold had been watching us play for the last half hour while they waited for their ride to watch the game with Ash's other flat mates and some friends out in Seatoun. I'd forgotten it was on and kind of wanted to watch too, but I guess hanging with Ash wasn't a bad second place. We were sitting away from each other on the couch- he'd been kind of standoffish since we'd got home actually. But he lived with like 4 straight guys. He was probably used to toning down the whole gay thing.

"Right, Rog is downstairs." Mike said, standing up and stretching. "We're out." Ash stood up to say goodbye, patting them on the back and telling them to have a good one. They nodded at me.

"Nice to meet you Dust." Harold said. Ash walked them to the door and I grinned as I heard Mike mutter 'nice work Ash'.

Ash slumped beside me... much closer... and he glanced at the screen and back at me.

"Ready to lose again?" I said. Ash grinned and put his controller down.

"What was it you said we were gonna do if I lost?" I put my controller down and reached for his hand.

"Whatever I want." I said. Ash smiled and let me pull him closer.

"Well. What do you want?" He asked. I grinned.

"You sure you don't want to try once more?" I ran my fingers down his torso and he shivered.

"I think I'd like to see what you had in mind." He said slowly. I grinned.

"Last chance Ash."

"I submit." I grinned and pulled him into me. He straddled my knee as I reached my arm around him and pressed our lips together. He kissed me back desperately, moaning. His lips were so damn soft, and our stubble scratched each other as we wrested- I knew he'd be dominant, but so was I and he'd already lost this game. He moaned and pressed his crotch into my thigh, and I could feel how hard he was.

"Hey Ash." I whispered. He pulled away a fraction and looked up at me. I nodded at the TV. "I wanna watch the game."

"What?" Ash frowned.

"You heard me." I grinned and leant back on the couch. I gestured to the TV again. "Put it on." Ash pouted at me and I grinned. "Unless you want to try again?" Ash rolled his eyes and slowly started reconnecting the TV. He turned it to the right channel and glared at me.

"We're really gonna sit here and watch rugby?" He said. I shrugged.

"Well I'm gonna watch." I grinned at him. "You're gonna be busy."

"Is that so?" He frowned at me again, but it wasn't that convincing. His eyes were smiling.

"Why don't you help me out here Ash?" I said quietly, looking at my jeans. He stepped towards me and slowly knelt down in front of me. He helped me out of my trousers surprisingly deftly, even unlacing my shoes and getting them off as well. He leant his head on my thigh as he finished and smiled up at me.