Page 5

Chapter 5

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” Duncan shouted as he swept into Brodie’s room at eight a.m. His mood had skyrocketed late last night, and he couldn’t wait for Brodie to find out why.

Brodie rolled over in bed, rubbing his drawn face. “Fit’s that smell?”

“Which?” Duncan held up the cardboard tray of Starbucks cups in his left hand. “The heavenly aroma of burnt coffee?” He lifted the bag in his right hand. “Or the tantalizing scent of dwarf breakfast wraps?”

“Another Yank food chain. What’s next, Taco Bell?”

“That’s a brilliant idea. I love their breakfast burritos.”

“Och.” Brodie clutched his stomach melodramatically. “Never say the phrase ‘breakfast burrito’ in my presence again.”

“The curry was a wee bit spicy?”

“I couldn’t feel my tongue for hours.”

I’d like to feel your tongue for hours , Duncan thought as he handed Brodie his tea and breakfast, then sat at the desk. And now I’ve a notion the feeling is mutual.

“I will pay you back for this one day,” Brodie said.

Duncan kept a straight face as he replied, “This is me paying you back for infecting you in the first place.”

Brodie coughed, then took a sip of tea. “You don’t need to stay, though.”

“Are you giving me the boot?”

“No! I like having you—I mean, it’s fine if you—erm…yeah.” He gave a twitchy shrug. “Whatever.”

Brodie’s blush told Duncan he could easily push the teasing too far. “Frankly, my room’s not the happiest place at the moment, with all that football rubbish hanging everywhere. I’d rather not think about the game just now.”

“Ah. Sorry.” The corners of Brodie’s mouth drooped, then suddenly lifted. “I’d another funny dream about the library last night. I dreamed someone posted on the Spotted Facebook page that they missed me. Something about the lad in the Passenger shirt, how they loved the way I smelled after a shower.”

Here we go. “Then what happened?”

Brodie thought for a moment, then laughed. “I replied! Aye, now I remember. In the dream, I thought you were the original poster, and I wanted to have a bit of fun. So I wrote, ‘I’m still waiting for my sponge bath.’”

Duncan pulled out his own phone and turned it toward Brodie. “You mean Spongebob?”

Brodie’s smile vanished. “Wha—” He grabbed the phone, then thumbed the panel, eyes widening as he read the anonymous original post, his own reply—which was not a dream—and several others beneath his, most riffing off his accidental Spongebob Squarepants reference. “Fucking autocorrect again!”

“You thought I posted that I missed you?” Grinning, Duncan swiveled the desk chair from side to side. “A bit cocky, aye?”

“It was a dream—I mean, I thought it was. Haven’t you ever dreamed you’ve said something stupid on Facebook?”

“Once or twice, when I’ve been spending too much time there.”

“I thought this was like that.” Brodie dragged a hand through his already tousled hair. “‘To the lad in the Passenger shirt who’s not in Level Two tonight: I miss seeing your face. I miss kissing you. I miss the way you smell after a shower.’ You swear you didn’t write this?”

Duncan could have written the post—it expressed his exact thoughts—but he hadn’t. “I swear on my mother’s grave.”

Brodie gave a light gasp. “I didn’t know your ma was dead.”

“She’s not. But she’s got a headstone reserved in the family plot, so technically…” He laughed as Brodie flipped him off. “As for the post, it could still be for you. Maybe you’ve a secret admirer.” The thought made Duncan more than a little jealous. “Maybe one of the many lads you loved and left this year.”

Brodie held out Duncan’s phone, reddening again. “I didn’t love any of them.”

He met Brodie’s gaze and held it as he reached out to take the phone. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

Their fingers brushed, sending a wave of electric warmth through Duncan’s body. Brodie’s lips parted slowly.

Then his phone blared on his pillow. Duncan recognized the ring tone as Bruno Mars’s “When I Was Your Man.”

Brodie cursed under his breath, then flicked a furtive glance at Duncan. “It’s-it’s an old mate.”

“Should I leave?”

“No.” Brodie lifted the phone to his ear. “Fit like, Geoffrey?”

Duncan turned away, dismayed Brodie had chosen such closet-y words— an old mate —for his ex-boyfriend, even here, even with him.

“Na, min, I’m fair awake,” Brodie said into the phone. “Aye, better, ta. Still affa trachled, but the fever’s away.”

As they made small talk, Duncan ate breakfast and examined his chemistry notes, trying not to eavesdrop. Though there was tension in Brodie’s voice, he sounded more natural than Duncan had ever heard him, either because he and Geoffrey shared a history or an accent.

Brodie’s tone went suddenly serious. “Aye, Ma told me last night. Mrs. Baines’s niece has been clypin’.” He took in a long breath. “It was bad. She said…” He cleared his throat. “Never mind. What about you?”

Duncan stopped chewing at the sound of Brodie’s pain. What had his mother said to him last night? Who was Mrs. Baines, and what was her niece gossiping about?

“Aw, min, that’s horrible,” Brodie said. “That’s fair coorse. Fit you gonnae dee?” He paused. “You’re gonnae report it, right?” He let out a frustrated sigh. “No, you cannae haud your wheesht. Your silence just gi’es them more power.”

Duncan plugged his earphones into his tablet. As much as he wanted clues to the mystery of Brodie Campbell, he was beginning to feel like an intruder. He turned up his music to block the voice behind him—the words, at least, if not the tone. Over the course of the first song, Brodie went from angry to sympathetic, then finally dropped to a steady calm.

In the brief silence between album tracks, Duncan heard him say, “I ken this sounds a cliché, but it does get better. I promise.” Brodie enunciated the words as he repeated them, hitting the t ’s with a forceful tongue. “It. Gets. Better.”

Duncan marveled that Brodie could set aside his own hurt feelings to help his ex-boyfriend. Selfishly he hoped this turnaround had been inspired by mere compassion—or Brodie’s desire to hone his therapy skills—and not rekindled affection for Geoffrey. He nudged his music’s volume down so he could be sure.

Brodie was rattling off a list of LGBTQ resources, some of which Duncan had never heard of. “And you can ring me any time. Preferably not in the middle of the night,” Brodie added, “but if that’s when you need me, I’ll answer.”

Duncan gritted his teeth at the thought of Brodie lying here in the dark, chatting to his ex, sharing secrets kept from the rest of the world. Kept from him.

He kicked himself under the desk for being ridiculous. Brodie clearly wanted to forget their night together—technically, their twenty-five minutes together. Their hookup was a mere blip compared to his relationship with Geoffrey, or even to Duncan’s own past romances.

But to Duncan, that night had seemed the exclamation mark to the long, rambling sentence of their year together. Passing cheeky notes with Lorna and Paul during mind-numbing psych lectures. Seeing each other in the hallway here at the flat, at each other’s best (before parties) and worst (hungover the following mornings). Always revolving around the same places and people, coming ever closer to collision, like satellites in unstable orbits.

Time was running out. In a few weeks, Brodie would go home to Geoffrey, and Duncan might never discover whether they were meant to be just mates. Or whether they could be something more.

* * *

Brodie said goodbye to Geoffrey, then lay back on his pillow to think. Unlike the call with his mother last night, he’d never expected this conversation. He’d assumed Geoffrey was gone from his life for good.

Now they were going to be…what, friends? Just like they swore they’d be last September when they’d left for university, before Geoffrey decided to pretend Brodie had never existed? What if Geoffrey discarded him again?

The thought didn’t slice through him as it once had. Apparently his heart had formed a Geoffrey-proof shield.

He looked at Duncan, sitting a few feet away at the desk, bobbing his head to the music in his earphones. Brodie could still hear echoes of Duncan’s drunken laughter chasing him down the hall the night before vacation. Building a Duncan-proof shield was a task he definitely wasn’t up to. He couldn’t even bring himself to mention last night’s fight with Ma, knowing it would lead to tears.

So why had he wanted Duncan to stay while he talked to Geoffrey? Thinking back to the moment he’d heard his ex’s ringtone, Brodie realized he hadn’t wanted to be alone. He needed to stay strong in the face of Geoffrey’s emotions. And strangely enough, Duncan, who’d once made him feel so weak, now seemed a source of strength.

Brodie’s phone beeped with a Facebook notification. Another comment on the sponge-bath thread, no doubt. He’d made such an arse of himself.

After a glance at this latest Spongebob Squarepants quote ( Remember, licking doorknobs is illegal on other planets! ), Brodie scrolled up to his original comment, preparing to delete it. Avoid embarrassment and exposure at all costs—that was how he’d always lived.

Then he stopped, thinking of everything he’d said to Geoffrey. How they should be proud of who they were. How their pride changed the way others thought of them, and of gays in general. How the more “out” they were, the more “normal” they would come to seem.

Everywhere you look, his mother had said, there they are.

Aye, Ma, we are. He looked at Duncan. Even on the football pitch.

“What if we pretend it was you?”

Duncan turned halfway in the chair and took out an earphone. “Pretend who was me?”

“The original poster on this thread, the one who missed the lad in the Passenger shirt. You could answer my Spongebob comment, then I’d reply, and so on.”

Duncan furrowed his brow. “Why?”

“Just for a lark.”

“But what if people think we’re serious?”

“We’ll make it funny.”

“They’ll still think we’re gay.”

“We are gay. And we’re both out.”

“Yeah, but this is a public site with thousands of strangers. You sure you’re okay with?—”

“Forget it. I’m away for a shower.” Brodie slid out of bed and went to his wardrobe for clean clothes, feeling utterly knocked back. If Duncan didn’t want to be linked with him online, he clearly wasn’t interested in a real-life connection.

After his shower, Brodie returned to his room. Duncan didn’t even look up from his notes. Determined to be equally focused on exams, Brodie grabbed his statistics textbook and sat on his bed.

The notification light on his phone was blinking blue. Facebook.

He checked the app to find a new comment on the thread.

Duncan Harris: I think you meant “sponge bath”, mate, not “Spongebob”. And I intend to give you one, when the time is right. Sadly, I’ve no sponge, so my tongue will have to do.

Brodie let out a soft gasp. His skin prickled all over, and he felt suddenly weakened and invigorated at the same time.

“Too much?” Duncan asked without looking at him. “I can delete it if you want.”

Deleting the reply wouldn’t change the fact it had been sent to everyone else who’d already posted a comment. But it would do a certain amount of damage control.

Then again, this page and countless others were filled with straight couples’ flirtations, both real and mock. Why couldn’t he and Duncan share a harmless bit of banter? This was why Brodie had come to Glasgow—to find love and lust and everything in between, all without fear.

Before he could lose his nerve, he replied.

Brodie Campbell: I think after a tongue bath we’d both end up filthier instead of cleaner.

Duncan’s tablet chirped. He checked it, then laughed out loud. “Good one, mate,” he said, keeping his back to Brodie. Then he set the device aside and returned to his notes.

“That’s it?” Brodie asked. “You’re letting me have the last word?”

“Nope.” Duncan chewed the end of his pen, then scribbled on his notepad. “Just letting you simmer.”

All day, between bouts of studying, eating—and in Brodie’s case, napping—they maintained their flirtatious Facebook patter with hourly updates. Others had noticed, posting dozens of replies that fell into two general camps: LOL and STFU . It had been a proper lark, easing their revision-week boredom. Still, Brodie couldn’t tell if that’s all it was.

Are you as confused and turned on as I am? he wondered that night as his gaze bored into the back of Duncan’s skull. Give me a sign.

“Who’s Clyde?” Duncan asked.

Brodie shook his head, which was already pounding from eyestrain. “Sorry?”

“Is there a Clyde at the library?”

“He’s the mouse in Level Ten. Why?”

“Erm…you’d better have a look at the Spotted main page.”

Brodie opened his Facebook app to see a new anonymous post.

To Brodie and Duncan, the callous bastards who hijacked my sincere post to my ex-boyfriend: I envy you two. It must be nice not to know what love is, to never feel the pain when the person you want more than anything in the world won’t even look at you, much less touch you again. Wherever you are, all I wish is that ONE DAY SOON you’ll know what it’s like.

Brodie swallowed as he tapped the Read More… link to see the rest of the post:

Also, if I ever spot you cocksuckers in this library again, I will knock you both flat and introduce Clyde to your rectal cavities.

He looked at Duncan. “I felt sorry for her until that last part.”

“I’m going to apologize. I’ll say that you mistook her post for one by me about you—which is true—and that I played along. That I pretended the post was mine to spare you the awkwardness of your mistake.”

“That makes me sound pathetic.”

“I could say her post was so beautiful that I wished it was mine.” He met Brodie’s eyes. “I could say it felt like something I could’ve written.”

Brodie shivered inside. He wanted to ask if that were true, but feared the answer would be a laugh and an Of course not!

“I can’t let you lie.” Brodie quickly thumbed in a response to the new post.

Brodie Campbell: Sorry. :(

Duncan glanced at his tablet. “‘Sorry frowny face’?”

“I feel vaguely bad, and nothing expresses that like ‘Sorry frowny face.’”

“Aye, but now if I say ‘Sorry frowny face,’ it’ll look like we’re mocking her.”

“Then come up with something better. You are, after all, the lead bastard cocksucker.”

“Hey! At least I’m not a Bed Hog,” he said, kicking the side of Brodie’s mattress.

“Then you’re part of the Bed-Hog Police, which is arguably worse.”

“Fair point.” Duncan scooted his chair closer. “I should probably reassess your bed-hogging tendencies and file an official report.”

Brodie’s comeback died as he realized what Duncan meant. Speechless, he shifted over to make room, offering half his pillow as well. Duncan picked up his tablet, then slid beneath the covers.

As they lay there, side by side on their backs, Brodie fixed his gaze on the ceiling, wishing for the courage to make something, anything happen. The inch-wide gap between their arms, legs, and hips hummed with energy.

Finally Duncan clapped his hands together once. “Terribly sorry, old chap,” he announced in a posh English accent. “I grievously underestimated your bed-sharing abilities. I shall attempt to salvage your reputation post haste.” He awakened his tablet, displaying the Spotted post.

“Leave it. There’s been enough drama for one day.” Brodie squinted at the bright white display, then put a hand to his pounding temple. “Och, I cannae look at any more screens.”

“No River City tonight?”

“Sorry, my head’s fair killing me.” He hoped Duncan would turn out the light and take his mind off the pain in the best way possible.

“I could read to you until you fall asleep.”

Nothing had ever sounded so romantic. “All right.” Brodie rolled over to face the wall. “As long as it’s not our psychology text.”

“Let’s see what else is on my tablet. Oh, here’s my favorite book! At home I’ve got the hardcover and the paperbacks with the American cover and both the film covers—the 1997 Colin Firth film and the 2005 one with Jimmy Fallon—and in my room I’ve got the original paperback. It’s pure marked up.”

When Duncan finally hit pause on his enthusiasm, Brodie asked, “Which book?”

“Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch , of course.”

Oh God. “I love Nick Hornby.” But I hate football. “I thought you wanted to forget the game.”

“Eh, I guess it’s not so painful when I’m here with you.”

Brodie smiled against his pillow, despite his dread of the book’s subject matter. “On you go, then.”

With a happy sigh, Duncan began reading aloud, about the obsessive nature of the football fan, the sort of man whose identity and happiness were inextricably entwined with the fate of a round leather ball. The sort of man Brodie would never understand, but was more than happy to lie beside tonight.