Abroad

chapter 1

1

January 2015

Maybe leaving the safety of Nick’s room had been a mistake.

Last night, Dex had all but broken into Nick’s dorm and demanded they talk. Which they had. More than. Nick had spilled his guts, and Dex had done his best to gather him up and make it all okay. Or as okay as it could be, he supposed.

Their morning after had been everything lovely whilst cocooned in Nick’s tiny single bed, sharing hesitant morning kisses that kindled the longer they went on, turning into more s*x. Which felt unreal, considering all the s*x they’d had the night before.

Then Dex had chanced an invite to take Nick out for breakfast, since they were both ravenous, and they’d emerged from Nick’s building to a raw, cold morning. Dex had even taken Nick’s hand in order to pull him in the right direction, and Nick hadn’t drawn away. At least, not at first.

Dex stuffed his face with a fry-up and woke his brain up with endless coffee, but now that they were surrounded by people, it was like a screen had come down between them. Dex couldn’t stop noticing the way Nick’s eyes would dart around whenever a new group of people walked through the door, and he could not, for the life of him, figure out what to say that wouldn’t sound stilted and awkward. Anything he threw out to Nick was answered with two syllables and promptly dropped.

Dex knew about morning-after weirdness, but this felt like … more, somehow. Nick had taken his own hand back after about the third time they’d got a look from some random on the street, and he’d done it in a way that Dex couldn’t even point to, not really. Nick had just adjusted his scarf with it and then stuffed both hands in his pockets. Dex didn’t want to read anything into it, but it hadn’t precisely felt good.

Now he chewed the rest of his toast and sipped his coffee and attempted, for the millionth time, to engage Nick in some sort of conversation.

“This place has really good coffee,” he said, then felt himself flushing. Strong start.

Nick nodded and briefly caught his eye before going back to his food.

Dex suppressed a sigh.

Told himself to be patient.

One step at a time, right, Dex?

Then he thought, f**k it, and said, “Look, is everything all right?”

Nick’s startled, guilty look spoke a thousand words. Dex felt a bit of cold crawling up his skin, a sensation like the moment before a drop, and then Nick said in a quiet voice, “I’m—I’m sorry. This is just…”

Too soon, too much, not what he wanted, f**k, Dex was f****d—

“Kinda new,” Nick finished, and, before Dex could panic himself into a further tizzy, reached across the table and touched his fingers to Dex’s. “But—it is all right.” He huffed out a breath, then gave a tiny smile. “Sorry. I have no clue what I’m doing.”

Dex forced himself to breathe as Nick met and kept his gaze.

Of course. Nick had only kissed his first boy last night, and Dex was already expecting him to act the boyfriend. He could have kicked himself.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said. “Really.” He forced a smile past the embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to … put any pressure on you. I just—”

“You didn’t.” Nick set his fork down too fast, and it clattered against his plate. Dex watched as his eyes darted to the side to see if anyone had noticed. Nobody was looking at them, as far as Dex could tell. Nick didn’t take his hand away. “I’m sorry I’m so…”

“You’re fine.” And he was. It was Dex who’d been an inadvertent i***t.

Nick made a face and looked away.

Dex really wanted to take his whole hand and squeeze it, reassure him that it was okay to be awkward, but what if he spooked him even more?

Instead, he forced his hand still, leaned in, and said in a quiet voice that only Nick would be able to hear, Dex hoped, beneath the clatter and the chatter of the cafe, “You’re lovely.”

Nick did hear him. His mouth quirked, and his gaze darted to meet Dex’s. His impish smile broke through the worried mask, and his eyes crinkled in the corners. He’d liked that. Dex felt himself swelling with stupid pleasure. He pressed his advantage.

“Just tell me if I put my stupid foot in it, all right? I…” Well, in for a penny and all that. “I just really like you. I don’t want to f**k it up.”

Nick’s smile dropped off at that, but then his hand was covering Dex’s and he was leaning bodily in, his ridiculous oversized scarf trailing through the eggs and beans on his plate. Dex mirrored him, careless of his own jumper and, frankly, everything else that wasn’t Nick. He waited for Nick to speak.

Instead, Nick made one small surge forward and pecked Dex on the lips. Well, he probably tried to, but he missed a bit and ended up kissing the corner of Dex’s mouth and a bit of chin. But he stayed, and the next moment, Dex moved slowly, carefully, and met Nick’s lips full-on. They remained like that for barely two seconds, but it felt so much longer, somehow. White noise replaced the chatter for that endless moment, and he breathed through the tender touch of Nick’s lips to his own.

Then his thighs gave out and he dropped back onto his seat, grinning like a lunatic. Nick looked similarly blissed out, and his face was genuinely flaming. His forehead was the only pale part of him.

“Do you—do you wanna do anything after this?” Nick asked.

“Yeah. Let’s do that.”

+

They went to Mile End Park.

It was no Regent’s or Hyde Park, with their endless green expanses and rose gardens, but it was still a quiet place that felt like you were away from the city without having to actually leave it.

January meant it wasn’t particularly green, nor a wholly pleasant stroll. Dex should have worn a scarf last night, or at least brought gloves with him. After the whole should-I-shouldn’t-I-oh-s**t-I-f****d-up fiasco of the hand holding, he kept himself to himself, but whenever Nick bumped his shoulder against Dex’s, Dex had to suppress a shiver. He felt like he was fifteen all over again. What was it that made Nick walking next to him so different from anyone else? He was so aware of each movement, so attuned to Nick’s every step.

He kept his hands to himself, but what he really wanted to do was touch his hand to the small of Nick’s back and feel the shift of the muscle beneath.

He compromised and deliberately bumped his shoulder against Nick’s. “What are you thinking about?”

Nick flashed him a shy smile, then shrugged—customary—and said, “Dunno. A lot of stuff, I guess.”

“Like…”

“Like, whether or not I—whether or not I’m gonna tell Zoya.”

Zoya? Right—his sister. “Tell her…”

“About this.” A darting glance at Dex, then back to the road. A long, quiet moment, and then in a softer voice, “I told her about … about you. And what happened, before I left.”

Dex nodded, a tiny thrill going through him, only to be immediately replaced by a wariness he hated. Nick had never indicated he had a problem with Dex being Black, but would that extend to his family?

“What, uh. What did you tell her? Just out of curiosity.” Dex gave him a smile for reassurance. Don’t jump ahead.

Nick buried his red nose in his scarf—which he’d had to clean off with a serviette after feeding it his breakfast, and Dex had watched, helplessly charmed, as his deft fingers worked on the task—and his voice came out muffled. “I told her that I thought I was gay, and I had a kissed a–a boy and then ran away.”

Succinct. Dex nodded, then saw a fork in the road up ahead and steered them instinctively away from the main drag. As they threaded through the thinner path that ran farther from the street, he asked, “And what did she say?”

“Oh, boy,” Nick said and gave a single huff of laughter. “Don’t think she thought it was as big a deal as I did, to be honest.”

Oh, Nick. “Well, that’s probably a good sign, yeah?”

Nick nodded slowly, like he was thinking about it. Dex desperately wanted to ask what he would tell her about Dex if he did explain, but didn’t feel like he could. The easiness of last night and this morning in Nick’s bed felt so far away. Even the kiss they’d shared at the cafe wasn’t making it any easier on them.

Dex was desperate to return to that place but felt like he was groping around in the dark. He had no idea how to make it happen out in the world. Had it really been that long since him and Michael?

“I think if I tell her about … about us, she’ll be happy for me,” Nick offered, and Dex silently cheered at the idea of Nick thinking about them as a unit. Maybe the awkwardness would be dispelled soon.

How, though?

He spotted a series of benches up ahead by a stream.

“Would you mind if we sat there for a bit?” he asked, pointing, and Nick shook his head before taking Dex’s hand the next moment and squeezing. It felt deliberate, like a decision made. Dex probably looked daft as hell when he turned to face Nick, but he didn’t care. Nick was watching him with something close to trepidation. His serious grey eyes looked so pretty.

Dex leaned down, taking it slow, giving Nick enough time to pull back. But he didn’t. Instead, he lowered his eyelashes and leaned in. Out of the corner of his eye, Dex glimpsed a girl walking a dog, then a jogger running past them. Nick must have seen them, too, but then he was kissing Dex and Dex was pulling him in and he felt so close and so warm, and their kisses fogged the air around them.

+

“What about you?” Nick asked, his voice only slightly hesitant.

They’d just settled themselves onto a bench, Dex squirming a bit as its cold seeped through his jeans. He tried his best to look casual as he slung an arm behind Nick, careful to only touch the bench. Still, it felt possessive, and a line from a book Nat had made him read a while back floated to the surface.

Behold the woman I f**k.

“What about me what?”

Nick cut him a glance, looking particularly squirrely. “What were you thinking about? Wait, no…” He scrunched up his face. “What would you tell your family? Would you?”

Oh. Dex scratched his forehead, genuinely gobsmacked by the question. He hadn’t even got there yet. He’d been too busy worrying about Nick.

“I s’pose so,” he said slowly, then hurried on, seeing the look on Nick’s face. “I mean, I had been wondering what I’d say to Izzy or whatever, I just hadn’t yet—it’s not like that with us.”

Nick tilted his head in question.

“With my family, I mean. I guess I…” Dex paused. He’d never thought about it, not really. “I guess I’ve never really told them much about my personal life, only if I had a serious boyfriend, and only when things got … really serious.” He blew out a breath. “Think I told them about Michael three months in.”

His friends were the people he went to. His family had, at some point, become sort of distanced from his personal stuff.

Nick was frowning. “Why?”

All he could do was shrug. “I guess I genuinely don’t think about it, and honestly hope they don’t much either. I mean—they’re—” They’re your family, Nat had said once. He couldn’t remember the context, just her tone—viciously dismissive. They have no place in your s*x life. He’d taken that to heart and only later realised how much she had been lying to herself. But it felt true for him. “They have other s**t to worry about.”

Nick nodded and lowered his eyes. Judging by everything he’d told Dex, his family was quite different.

That story he’d told Dex last night, about feeling like his family could see what he was doing—that would terrify anyone into never even toeing the line. Nick didn’t say as much, but it seemed to Dex as if the line was a lot more constraining for him than it had ever been for Dex.

Dex felt callous, and like he wanted to make an offering. Even a small one. “I’ve sort of been low-key dying to tell Izzy all morning, actually,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a lie. It was hard keeping all this feeling inside when what he wanted to do was run around and tell random strangers that he’d pulled the prettiest—and most complicated, he could admit—boy in the vicinity.

Even as the boy was staring at him like he was attempting to figure him out but failing. “Really?”

Dex laughed and dropped a kiss to Nick’s cheek. Cold and stubbly and lovely. “God, yeah.”

He watched Nick flush again. Were all white boys this easily embarrassed, or was it just this one? Dex wanted to plant the biggest, dirtiest kiss on him just to watch him flush again and again, but they were in public and Nick was so horribly new to this.

“Text her now.” Nick nudged him. “Want to?”

Dex thought about it, even touched his phone. But something stopped him. “In a bit, I think.” Nick nodded, looking uncertain. “It’s just … I want us to be just us for a bit longer,” he admitted, and watched as Nick flushed again. Mmm. He couldn’t help himself and pecked Nick on the nose. “Should we keep walking?”

Nick’s smile came easily. Dex really thought he might burst from seeing it. “Okay.”

They got up, took each other’s hands wordlessly, and walked on.