Page 2

Liam

He looked different in the light. That was the first coherent thought Liam was able to string together. The second thought slipped out of his mouth before he could filter himself:

“What are you doing here?”

The man stood slowly, rising from his perch on the edge of the bed. He was just as guarded as before, but even so, it was apparent that he was processing a shock of his own.

“Sorry,” Liam said. “That was rude. I just meant...” What the fuck are you doing here? “No, that was pretty much what I meant. Just with a little more... decorum.”

Something twitched between the stranger’s brows. “Decorum,” he repeated, unsmiling. “Liam, was it?”

Liam blinked, surprised at his memory of what he was sure had been an insignificant part of this guy’s night. “I... Yeah. Sorry, you left before I could get your name earlier.”

From the answering hesitation, the way the man watched him, Liam almost regretted asking for it now.

“Leo,” he said finally, and then Liam’s mouth was moving faster than his brain again.

“Oh. Leo, Liam. We’re sort of like... Phonetic fraternal twins.” Please stop speaking.

The man— Leo —crossed his arms tightly over his chest and offered the barest approximation of a smile at the mass-produced wall art, but there was nothing amused about it. The hardness in him that Liam had encountered earlier had now been replaced with something more impenetrable. It was nearly hostility.

“I think I’m missing something,” Liam confessed, adopting a defensive posture of his own. “My friends said there was some sort of surprise?”

“I thought you didn’t have friends,” he replied sharply. “You must have been mistaken, though, because I don’t come cheap. I would say your friends must like you very much.”

Sleeping is optional, Nathan had said. We wanted to make it up to you, Ben had told him.

Any disbelief Liam might have felt, any benefit of the doubt he might have afforded his friends, vanished before it could fully form. Because they would, in fact, go this far. If there was anything about them that Liam could always count on, it was Nathan and Ben’s propensity for taking a joke too far .

And it had been a joke, once upon a time. He remembered, with sudden clarity, the night they’d learned that their good pal Liam had never slept with anyone before. They had been a few beers deep at the time and couldn’t stop pissing themselves over the proposition of getting “hired help” to get his first time out of the way. For Liam, it had been humiliating and invasive, and he had tried hard to shut them down and never think about their commentary on his sex life again. For them, apparently, their “joke” had planted the seed of an idea, nurtured by years of unchecked behavior and a warped sense of humor, all leading to the perfect punchline.

“Oh my God,” Liam said, feeling faintly nauseous. “You’re...?” He didn’t know how to finish that with any amount of propriety, so he gave it up, shaking his head. “Okay. Listen, I had no idea about any of this. I’m not... Whatever they told you, I’m not interested in. .. I mean, not that I have any moral objection, or anything. I swear I’m not casting judgment on your line of work. There’s nothing wrong with—” Liam broke off. He was too busy stumbling over his messy rejection that he didn’t notice the crack in Leo’s stony mask right away. Then he registered the look of panic. “What?” Liam asked. “What’s wrong?”

Leo kept his eyes downcast and pulled in a breath. “I think,” he said through gritted teeth. “We got off to a bad start. I’m sorry.” The forced softness of his tone, almost contrite, was a jarring change of pace. “I was just having a bad night. We can start over. ”

A bad night, he had said when Liam asked him before. The redness around his eyes had mostly faded since their bathroom encounter, but in the light, there were more prominent signs of distress: dark circles under his eyes, a grayish pallor to his skin. There were loose fringes of thread at the hem of his shirt, small tears in the fabric, and an air of hunger radiated from his frame.

“You were crying,” Liam said softly. “Was it...?” He gestured uncertainly. What was he even trying to say?

“It doesn’t matter.” The tight press of Leo’s lips formed an even less believable smile than before. “I’m fine now. Let’s just start over.” With what appeared to be great effort, Leo uncrossed his arms and took a step toward Liam.

Liam, instinctively, took a step back. “I think you’re misunderstanding,” he said.

“It’s fine.” Leo took another step forward, a lithe, syrupy grace to his movement that hadn’t been there before. He moved close enough to touch Liam’s hand, to take it into his own. “We can do this however you want.” There was clearly an attempt at seduction in his voice, but Liam could hear the tremor underneath. He could feel it where their fingers touched.

Liam pulled his hand free and Leo froze, reducing him to the rapid rise and fall of his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Liam said again. “I don’t want to.”

Leo was still for a long few seconds. Then, to Liam’s horror, his eyes filled with a glassy sheen. He turned away before tears could fall, swiping at his face .

“Oh, hey. That sounded bad. I’m sorry.” Liam started to reach out a hand but retracted it before he could make contact. “It honestly has nothing to do with you, I—”

“Fuck.” The word was whispered into the palms now covering his face, so quiet Liam almost didn’t hear. Then, louder, “ Fuck. ”

“What’s happening?” Liam said. He was beginning to get the feeling that whatever this was went deeper than hurt feelings. He waited out the tense silence, helplessly watching this almost-stranger fight to control his breathing.

“Please,” came his muffled whisper. “I need the money.”

A sick feeling lurched in Liam’s stomach. “They didn’t pay you?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Leo dropped into a crouch so fast that Liam thought, at first, that he had fallen. Leo pushed his hands into his hair, blunt fingernails scraping over his scalp hard enough to leave marks.

“I messed up,” he said, over and over. “I know better. I know. I know.”

Liam felt the uptick in his own anxiety, watching him fall apart with no idea how to help.

“Listen,” Liam said, kneeling beside him. “You’ll get the money. All of it, okay? I’ll make sure of it. It’s not your fault my friends are assholes.” When Leo didn’t immediately respond, or even look up at him, Liam continued. “You can just take the money and go. Consider it a paid night off.”

Bloodshot eyes peered up at him, wary and tired. “I’m booked for the night,” Leo said .

“You’ll get the full amount,” Liam promised. “How much is it?”

For a few long moments, the hum of the air conditioner was the only sound in the room.

Leo pulled his eyes away before he answered, as if bracing for a negative response. “Five hundred,” he said.

Fucking Nathan.

“Okay. That’s fine. I’ll get it for you. I’ll go now. Wait here?”

Leo hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

Liam waited until he was seated back on the bed before he left. He spent the walk to the shared room dreading the altercation ahead of him, and still reeling from the one behind him. He really wasn’t in the mood for whatever rehearsed commentary they had planned for his return. He could already hear it, predictable as ever: “ Jesus, Cassidy, we knew you’d finish quick but that’s gotta be a world record.”

But when Liam opened the door, their hotel room was dark and empty. He stopped short, pulling his phone from his pocket. There was a singular text from Ben waiting for him.

Meeting friends in Wicker park, it said. Have fun, killer.

It shouldn’t have stung. He didn’t want to admit that it did, but he found himself momentarily frozen by the hurt. It hadn’t been enough to lose him at the first bar of the night. Now they had created a diversion that allowed them to leave him behind without feeling guilty, if they were even capable of such a thing. Had this been the plan all along? To use Liam’s birthday as a viable excuse to borrow daddy’s credit card for the weekend, then ditch him for their real friends?

He clicked his phone off without responding.

Any hesitancy he might have had about digging through Nathan’s bag had faded, at least. He dropped onto his knees by the duffel on Nathan’s side of the bed and tore through the pockets. Nathan always carried cash, and thankfully he carried extra when he was out of town. Liam counted out four-hundred in large bills and sighed. He pulled out his own wallet, already knowing it was a bust, and found two twenties. It was the best he could do for now.

As he made his way back down the hall, drafting mental apologies for the shortage, a bleak possibility dawned on him: What if Leo had nowhere else to sleep tonight? What if this overnight job, this hotel room purchased as a joke at Liam’s expense, was his only opportunity for shelter? It was early October, and the night-time temperatures in Chicago were beginning to drop. He thought about the clothes Leo had been wearing. Short-sleeved cotton and ripped jeans. Not a jacket in sight.

The more he considered it, the more the fragmented pieces of the evening came together to form a clearer picture. He didn’t want to project his own assumptions onto this stranger, but it was obvious something was off. Whatever questions Liam had, whatever pieces of the story were missing, he didn’t need all the information to understand what was right in front of him: that this person was in desperate need of a break, and Liam was in a unique position to grant him one.

He knocked when he got back to the room, waiting on the uncertain call of approval before keying himself in. Leo was waiting right where he’d left him, hunched over at the foot of the bed. His posture stiffened when Liam entered.

“It’s a little short,” Liam prefaced as he held out the wad of cash. Leo unfolded the bills and began counting as soon as they were in his hands. “My friends went out, and this was all they left behind. We can go to an ATM for the rest if you want. Or I can transfer you the money. Do you take—?”

“Cash only,” he said without looking up.

“No problem. We’ll sort it out.” Liam rocked back on his heels, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. “Um, so listen. About tonight—and please, feel free to tell me if I’m overstepping or whatever—but, would you... maybe like to stay?”

Leo’s hand stuttered midway through tucking the money into his front pocket. He looked up at him slowly, wary once again.

“I know I said you should just take the money and go,” Liam said, eager as ever to fill the silence with nervous rambling. “But I was just thinking, the room is already paid for, and not on my dime. Why let it go to waste?”

Leo narrowed his eyes, searching. “You want me to stay?”

“Yes? I mean, yes. Only if you want to, though.”

After another beat of silence, Leo nodded. “Okay. ”

“Okay,” Liam echoed on the exhale, grateful for some silver lining to this disaster of a night.

Leo stood and pulled the wad of cash out of his pocket again, depositing it onto the nightstand. This was probably Liam’s cue to excuse himself, slip out, and let this guy enjoy his night, but the idea of slinking back to his empty hotel room and waiting to be woken up in the middle of the night— again —by a drunk Nate and Ben wasn’t exactly appealing. It was his fucking birthday , after all, and Liam didn’t deserve to be miserable either.

He was about to pitch the idea of a joint room service dinner on Nate’s tab, but Leo turned back to him and spoke before he had the chance.

“How do you want to do this?” he asked.

Liam stared at him. Leo stared back with the resolve of a man on a gallows march. Then it clicked.

“No!” Liam blurted. “Sorry. No, that...I promise, that was not intended as a proposition. I’m still not... I don’t want to...” For a lack of words, he gestured vaguely toward Leo’s body, which, justifiably, earned him a blank look. Liam closed his eyes, took a breath, and started again. “I just meant that you could stay here tonight, keep the money, and everybody keeps their hands to themselves. Thoughts?”

“Why?” The word slipped out of Leo like he had been holding it back and couldn’t anymore, putting into a single word every suspicious glance and weighted silence .

“Because I know a thing or two about having a terrible day.” Liam tried for a smile. “If you don’t mind the company, maybe we could both hide out here for a while?”

“And do what?”

Liam crossed the room to the desk in the corner and picked up a laminated menu.

“This could be a good start,” he offered. “Are you hungry?”

“I don’t have any money,” he said, then winced. “I mean, I can’t spend.. .” He gestured vaguely toward the cash on the nightstand.

“It’s on the room,” Liam interrupted before he felt the need to explain further. “They owe us dinner, I think.”

Despite his reassurance, Leo ordered the cheapest item on the menu. In turn, Liam ordered a few extra appetizers and hoped his intentions wouldn’t be so obvious as to embarrass him.

When the food arrived, they each claimed a separate bed. Liam turned on the TV and tossed the remote to Leo, hoping that a little background noise might lessen the self-consciousness of eating with a stranger. Still, he couldn’t help but notice the way Leo shoveled spoonsful of his chicken noodle soup into his mouth, as if it would be snatched out from under him any moment. He felt guilty when Leo caught him staring and slowed his pace.

“Sorry,” they said at the same time .

Liam cleared his throat. “When was the last time you ate?”

Leo shrugged one shoulder as he took another bite, slowly this time, keeping his eyes trained on his food. Wordlessly, Liam reached for the platter of wings and fries he had left on the nightstand and held it out. Leo took a single fry from the end of the plate with shaky fingers.

“It’s yours,” Liam said, leaning forward to place the whole platter on the bed beside Leo.

They were quiet for the rest of their dinner, but Liam found that it wasn’t the uncomfortable kind.

“Tell me to leave if you would rather be alone,” Liam said when they were finished, gathering the empty containers. “But to be honest, I’m in no hurry to go back.”

“It’s not my room to kick you out of,” Leo said. He must have sensed that wasn’t the kind of enthusiastic consent Liam was looking for, because he amended his statement. “I don’t mind if you stay.”

“Are you sure?”

Leo narrowed his eyes. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“I talk when I’m nervous.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Liam looked up from the trash bin in time to catch the fleeting wisp of a smile. Despite himself, he mirrored the expression. “Yeah, well, I’ve never been accused of being subtle.”

“Would you mind if I took a shower? ”

The sudden change in topic, or perhaps the fact that he was asking Liam permission for such a menial task, caught him off guard.

“Sure,” he said. “Yeah. Go for it.”

Leo wasted no time climbing off the bed and crossing to the bathroom. He stopped for just a moment as he reached the corner, looking back at Liam as if to say something more. Liam watched him patiently, giving him time to find his words, but after a beat he seemed to decide against it and disappeared into the bathroom.

Alone, Liam collapsed back onto the bed. He hadn’t realized just how much tension he was holding in his body until then. When he heard the water splashing against the shower floor, he pushed himself onto his elbows, debating whether or not he should grab his duffel bag from Nathan and Ben’s room. Maybe he could get his laptop, give himself something to do. Maybe he could lend Leo something clean to wear out of the shower. The thought had him reaching for his key card.

Much to his relief, Ben and Nathan were still gone for the time it took him to slip in and out.

The shower cut off shortly after Liam returned, but not before he placed a stack of clean sweats just inside the bathroom door, which had notably been left ajar. He tried not to read the gesture as a misplaced invitation, closing it gently behind him before he returned to the bed he’d claimed .

When the bathroom door creaked open again, Liam looked up to find Leo standing in the doorway, a towel wrapped around his waist. He held up the wad of Liam’s clothes, looking unsure of himself.

“They’re mine.” Liam explained, making a conscious effort to keep his eyes above Leo’s neckline. “For you.”

“I have clothes,” Leo said, bristling.

“You don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to,” Liam said. “I just thought it might be nice to have something more comfortable to sleep in.” He left out the fact that Leo’s clothes were visibly unwashed, and he wanted him to feel refreshed after his shower.

Wordlessly, Leo stepped back into the bathroom. When he reappeared a minute later, he was wearing the sweats.

“Thank you,” he told Liam.

“All good.”

“For the food, too.”

“It’s on the room.” Liam reminded him.

Leo remained standing in the empty space between the beds and the bathroom, looking uncertain about his next move. When Liam made no effort to direct him, he settled for the empty bed, this time scooting back against the headboard and drawing his legs up to his chest.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Leo said suddenly. “I made you uncomfortable.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Liam opened his mouth, then closed it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Why? ”

“I don’t know.” Liam shrugged. “You seemed really freaked out.”

He turned away from Liam, facing forward. “I’m fine,” he said. Any of the soft sincerity he’d earned retreated again behind an airtight seal. For a minute, Liam thought he might have lost him completely. Then, tentatively, Leo asked, “You said it was your birthday?”

“It is,” he said. “Or, it was. I guess it’s technically a new day now.”

“Sorry you didn’t have a good time.”

Liam shrugged. “It can only be uphill from soggy-and-naked-in-a-bar-bathroom, right?”

Leo huffed a quiet laugh of agreement. “That place is a shit hole,” he said.

“Do you go there often?”

Leo shifted, the bed springs creaking under his weight. “Often enough,” he said eventually.

“My friends chose it because it was a gay bar and they wanted to be supportive of my lifestyle ,” Liam emphasized with air quotes. “But I’m pretty sure Nate was making out with some girl from a bachelorette party most of the night.”

“Your friends,” Leo said, pausing to consider his words. “They seem... different from you.”

“I’m sorry for whatever they said to you. They can be assholes.”

Leo shot him a sideways glance. “You don’t like them?”

“No,” Liam said, then quickly backtracked. “I mean, yes. It’s not that I don’t like them. It’s complicated.” Liam drew his legs up in a mirror of Leo’s position. “Our parents have been friends since we were kids. We were sort of grandfathered into it, but it became apparent early on that we didn’t have much in common.”

“But you keep them around?”

“I think most people would see it the other way around.” Liam laughed, a bitter sound. “For me, they were a survival tactic. Not that it’s much of an excuse now, but being in their orbit got me through school mostly unscathed.” Liam returned Leo’s questioning glance with a knowing look. “I’ve never been very good at making friends. Being the weird religious kid would have been bad enough without the glass closet I was standing in.”

“Religious?” Leo asked.

“Past tense,” Liam said. “But I grew up that way. It kind of sticks with you, though. No matter how far you run.”

Leo rested his head on top of his knees, his face turned toward Liam. He blinked slowly, exhaustion lining his features. “Yeah. It does.”

“You too?” Liam asked.

“Past tense,” he echoed. “Pentecostal. Strict. Fire-and-brimstone.”

Liam wanted to press for more, but something in the way he spoke, the careful avoidance and carefully chosen words, told him to ease up. “Pop quiz,” he said instead. “Heathen to heathen—what was the first gruesome bible story to traumatize you as a child? ”

Leo gave a small snort. He thought about it for a second, then a twitch pulled at his mouth. “Jonah and the whale,” he said. “For obvious reasons.”

Liam tilted his head. “Obvious reasons?”

In an instant, the soft smile was wiped from Leo’s expression. “What’s yours?” he asked a little too quickly.

“Sodom and Gomorrah.” Liam said. “Also, you know, for obvious reasons.”

Leo laughed. The sound, low and rough and sudden, seemed to surprise even him. “It’s hard to believe you’re bad at making friends,” Leo said.

“That’s because you don’t know me,” Liam said, horrified to hear that his tone hadn’t come out as lightly as intended.

If Leo heard how close he was to cracking, he gave no indication. He only shrugged, eyelids finally losing their battle against sleep.

The drone of the television was the only sound in the room after Leo drifted off. Liam assumed he wouldn’t be far behind, given the long night in the rearview, but he was wrong. Minutes strung together into a full hour, his eyes glazed over as infomercials flickered across the screen. His thoughts centered solely on the stranger in the next bed over.

Not so much a stranger anymore.

The conversation about their upbringings had Liam wondering what Leo’s childhood might have looked like compared to his own. Perhaps not that different at all, though somewhere along the line their paths had diverged in a significant way. He didn’t know Leo’s story. He didn’t know his past, or even have a good grasp of his present, but the details he had gleaned so far did not add up to something good. It had only taken a couple of minutes with Leo to feel the fear that pulsed beneath every action and word. He was terrified of something or someone, and Liam didn’t know what role he was supposed to play in holding that information. Or if he was to play any role at all.

It was closing in on 3 a.m. when Liam finally grabbed the remote from the nightstand and turned off the television. Just as he was about to click off the lamp, though, a small noise from the other bed drew his attention.

Leo was flat on his back, just as he had been the last time Liam looked over, but this time his eyes were wide open, darting across the ceiling as if they were the only part of him capable of movement. His body was rigid, convulsing around each gasp for air, none of which were deep enough to fill his lungs. A particularly strangled sound from his throat prodded Liam into action.

“Leo?” he said, scrambling out of bed. “Hey. Are you awake?”

Liam’s sudden proximity must have triggered something, because from the corner of his eye, Liam caught a flash of movement. Leo’s hand twitched against the duvet like it was being electrocuted; quick, desperate jerks of motion from a body that was otherwise out of his control .

“Leo?” he tried again, louder, but nothing seemed to break through.

Taking a chance and praying that he wouldn’t make things worse, Liam reached up and clasped Leo’s hand between both of his own, squeezing tight.

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “You’re okay. You need to wake up. Please, wake up.”

Finally, finally , Leo’s frantic eyes cut over to catch Liam’s. The moment of connection seemed to bring him closer to the surface.

“There you go,” Liam encouraged. “Can you move? Can you nod your head or something?”

Slowly, as if afraid to find out the answer for himself, Leo jerked his chin up then down. Just once, but it was enough to break whatever paralysis had been cast over him. Leo came back to himself in a rush, scrambling to a half-sitting position against the headboard. Liam rose to his feet and hovered nearby, unsteady and unsure. At his side, his fingers throbbed from the strength and sudden release of Leo’s grip.

Leo drew in a few more ragged breaths, though they were beginning to level out, each one pulling deeper than the last.

“Are you okay?” Liam started to ask, but before he could complete the thought, both of Leo’s arms shot out toward him, clutching Liam around the middle. Leo buried his face in the material of his shirt, which soaked through with tears in seconds. Liam could feel Leo’s whole body shaking. Slowly, carefully, he raised his hands to rest on Leo’s back.

There was a snapshot of a moment, frozen in time, where Liam marveled at the path his night had taken: from catching a stranger’s eyes in a dirty bathroom mirror, to holding him as he fell to pieces in a hotel bed.

When his back began to ache from the angle, Liam lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, watching for signs of distress. Liam couldn’t see the clock from where he sat, but they stayed like that long enough for Leo’s panic to subside to a steady baseline.

He had been sure that Leo was asleep again when Liam felt the soft vibration of murmured words against his chest.

“What?” he whispered, blinking back to awareness.

“I said my name isn’t Leo.” He fell quiet again for so long that Liam thought that was the end of the thought. Then, even more quietly, he added, “It’s Jonah.”

Liam let his head fall back against the headboard, turning this new piece of information over in his mind.

His lips parted in sudden realization.

Jonah and the whale.

When Liam woke, it was to an empty bed and, upon further inspection, an empty room.

He turned over his shoulder, the sheets falling away as he blinked the sleep from his eyes. He strained to listen for any sound coming from the bathroom, and when he found none, his eyes shifted to the nightstand .

Leo’s— Jonah’s —sparse personal items were gone. In their place was a single sheet of hotel stationery with a note written in pen, resting on top of a neatly-folded pile of borrowed pajamas:

Liam,

Thanks for everything.

Happy birthday.

Your friend,

Jonah