#jeni182

Andrew tilted his head just slightly, his mouth turning down a bit at the corner. “No,” he finally said, and moved to leave the bed. Neil stood with him to stand in front of him.

“So, what then? It’s been a year Andrew. This is still nothing? This is still just a fun way for you to pass the time?” Neil hated the way he sounded. This wasn’t him. Whining and carrying on about labels. He didn’t even need a label, really. He just wanted Andrew to admit that yes this was something and yes Neil was something.

Andrew patted his pockets like he was looking for his cigarettes. “Fun is objective, don’t you think?”

Neil crossed his arms, clenched his jaw, and threw his cards on the table. “So, you’d be totally fine if I hooked up with someone else? Since this is nothing and I’m nothing?”

Andrew’s head snapped up and his gaze met Neil’s. He could see a muscle tic in Andrew’s jaw, but all he said was, “Do what you want.”

He left the room. Neil didn’t follow him.

****

They were quiet with each other after that. Still together, still connected. It was like Andrew was inside his own head constantly, but Neil didn’t mind. He didn’t really know what to say anyway. He was still thinking about it but pushing Andrew to admit something he wasn’t ready to didn’t seem like a good idea.

They were in the library one day, studying for midterms. Neil felt good about this, because Andrew despised the library and the fact that he was here at all was, Neil was pretty sure, just to be with him. They sat across from each other, both reading. Neil, a history textbook. Andrew, something that looked very unacademic.

Neil startled a little when someone slid into the seat next to his. He’d gotten too comfortable here, he thought for the millionth time. He was out of immediate danger, sure. But for how long?

He looked to the person next to him, and it was a guy he vaguely remembered from one of his math classes.

“Hey, Neil.”

Neil didn’t say anything. He looked at the guy confused. He didn’t know his name. Tad or Jake or Brad or something similar to the hundreds of other white guys at this school who all looked exactly the same to him. Brown hair, eyes, a nose maybe, taller, weakness is in their lack of speed.

Tad or Jake or Brad cleared his throat, eyes flicking to Andrew before landing back on Neil’s face. Neil looked at Andrew too, who was still staring at his book, eyes not moving.

“I just wondered if maybe you want to study together? This statistics final is gonna kill me, and I know you’re so good at this.” He flashed Neil a smile of straight white teeth.

Neil shrugged. “I guess, sure.” He needed to study, too, after all. He didn’t think he’d have a problem, but his scholarship was dependent on his grades and the last thing he needed was to risk it now that his choices were to go pro or die.

“Perfect. Here’s my number.” He reached over and used Neil’s pencil to write his number on the corner of his history textbook, which seemed unnecessarily rude. He squeezed Neil’s arm and left with one last glance at Andrew. Neil watched him leave before shrugging to himself and looking back down at his book. He could feel Andrew’s eyes burning a hole in the top of his head a minute later.

“What?” he asked, without looking up.

Andrew didn’t answer. Neil did look up at him then, confused. He was staring at Neil with his normal blank expression, but there was something about the tightness around his mouth, the slight narrowing of his eyes that Neil didn’t like.

“What’s wrong?”

Andrew stood, shoving his book in his bag and leaving the library without looking back. Neil started to follow him but stopped. Whatever Andrew was pissed about, he probably just wanted space to sort it out. Neil knew by now that bugging Andrew to talk was only more likely to send him deeper inside his shell. So, he stayed in his seat, wrote flashcards to study, and thought about Andrew the whole time.

He let him have until after dinner before he tracked him down to the roof. Andrew was there like he was always there. Sitting at the edge with his knees pulled up, arms circling them loosely. A bottle of vodka at his hip and the acrid scent of cigarettes on the air. Neil took a seat beside him and looked out over the glowing lights of campus.

Neil waited for Andrew to talk first. Whatever this was, he was here as silent support until otherwise requested.

“Did you set up your date?”

Neil looked at Andrew in surprise. “Date?”

“With statistics boy. He seemed awfully eager.” Andrew threw his cigarette off the side and immediately lit another one.

“You mean to study? No, that exam isn’t until next week.”

Andrew snorted. “Oh, Neil. You can’t be this clueless. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you mention hooking up with other people and then you agree to study with a guy who looks at you like he’s already fucked you.”

Neil’s hackles rose immediately. “I seem to remember you telling me to do what I want. Or did I hear that wrong?”

Andrew threw the new cigarette off the edge, too. Even though it was only half spent. “No, you didn’t.”

“Then why are you complaining?”

Andrew took a swig of the vodka in answer, and Neil grabbed it from him before he could take another.

“I don’t plan on hooking up with anyone else. I don’t want to hook up with anyone else. I still don’t swing for anyone but you, in case you’ve forgotten. That guy was asking me to study, and I agreed. I’m not going to manipulate you into admitting that there’s something here by fucking someone else. If you really think I’d do that, you don’t know me at fucking all which is a shame, because I know you, Andrew.”

Andrew laughed with no humor. It was sad, and Neil thought maybe a little broken. “You don’t know me.” Neil’s chest tightened to the point of pain. Because he did know him. He knew this man, knew him better than he knew himself sometimes.

“Yeah?” Neil leaned into Andrew’s space and Andrew did not lean away. “I know you’re afraid of heights, and you’re afraid of me. I know you think as soon as you admit to yourself - to me - that this isn’t just two guys getting off together, it becomes real. It’s one more thing for you to lose in a life where you’ve lost so fucking much. It’s one more thing someone can hold against you when they want to hurt you again.” Neil leaned closer, and not getting any resistance from Andrew, he placed a kiss on his neck. Andrew shivered. “I know you’ve never had this, because I’ve never had it either. And I know it’s scary, because I’m scared too. But Andrew,” Neil sighed and leaned back again, “I’ve been nothing my entire life. I still feel like nothing sometimes. You are my something, and the fact that you also think I’m nothing is fucking soul crushing sometimes. As much as you don’t want to hear it, you are everything.”

Andrew looked from Neil to campus, and Neil watched his throat work as he swallowed hard. He closed his eyes before looking back to Neil.

“Are you going to study with that guy?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.” Neil honestly didn’t know if the guy was flirting, but if it was something Andrew took this seriously, he would take it seriously, too.

“I don’t want you to.” He took out his pack of cigarettes but didn’t light another one. He just flipped it over and over in his hands.

“Why?” Neil couldn’t help but ask.

Andrew looked at him, pale and washed out from the artificial lights, but eyes still bright as they landed on his.

“Because you are everything, too.”

He let them hover there before grabbing on to Andrew’s sleeve and Andrew fucking  h a t e d  that. He pulled away before he could let it go farther. Neil wasn’t even in the right headspace for this. His hands were shaking, and his pulse was beating wildly in his chest and when had this ever happened? When had he ever felt like he was out of control because of a kiss?

Never. That’s when.

When Neil left the roof that night, Andrew threw his pack of cigarettes off the side and buried his head in his hands. These were the times he missed the medication. These were the times he wished this could all be a big joke and he could pretend the pills were the reason he felt like he had an electric current working its way through his bones. But he didn’t have the pills anymore. This was just him. And true, he hated Neil. But in that moment, he hated himself more.

The first time he got Neil off in his dorm, he didn't stop kissing him. The first moment he was distracted, Neil attacked his neck, kissing and licking. Andrew shoved him back, trying and failing to suppress the shiver up his spine. The electric current that wove its way deeper into his body. So, he kissed him more. He kissed him harder.

And when that wasn’t enough.

Andrew did something he’d never done. He pulled Neil’s hands out of his pockets and allowed them to touch his head. Neil dove his fingers in with something like desperate relief, and it was a relief for Andrew, too. Neil’s hands in his hair, Neil pulling him closer, Neil tugging just a little too hard when Andrew finally let his hand drop between his legs. He didn’t stop kissing him when he unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. He didn’t stop kissing him when he pulled him out, hard and warm and ready. And when Neil came, it was with Andrew’s own name pressed against his lips.

When Neil left his sight and he could get himself off in peace, it was to the image of Neil’s kiss swollen lips, and the sound of his name leaving them as Neil came.

They kissed a lot, in the time after. They got off a lot too, of course. After Baltimore, after blowing Neil in the shower, after taking him apart in that big bed every night that they were in that house with the team.

After Riko Moriyama was dead.

Andrew and Neil had time. And that meant that Andrew had the wherewithal to realize why it was he loved kissing Neil so much.

It was because he refused to say things out loud that would in any way make him feel vulnerable. But when he kissed Neil, it was like talking without saying anything.

He learned to slow down sometimes. He learned to soften his mouth. He learned that hard and fast was okay and good and fucking hot.

But slow and steady was fine, too. Slow meant he could map Neil’s mouth with his tongue. Slow meant he could swallow Neil’s soft sighs. Slow was telling Neil things he wasn’t ready to say just yet.

When he was graduating, and Neil still had one year to go, they kissed slowly.

Andrew had him pressed up against the door to their room at the Columbia house, and Neil had his head on his shoulder and his t-shirt clutched in both hands. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Andrew didn’t need to either. He kissed him instead.

It started like this.

A hand on Neil’s chin, forcing him to meet Andrew’s eyes. Meeting them and searching. Depths of blue that Andrew let himself drown in for longer than he meant to. A movement forward, his hand dropping to the back of Neil’s neck. Running his nose along the straight line of Neil’s, just to share breath with him for a moment. Just to feel the warmth of it go to his head.

Then the kiss.

Andrew moved slowly and pressed his lips against Neil’s softly. He felt his full lower lip slide between his own and he cherished it for just a second. 

He spoke with his mouth without ever having to say the words.

He pulled back to look at Neil again, rubbing a thumb over the scars on his cheek. Then he kissed those, too.

He spoke with his mouth without ever having to say the words.

Neil pulled him closer by the belt loops and took control of the situation. Andrew was okay with that. Because Neil was speaking, too. They had an entire conversation with their mouths working furiously against each other. Tongues diving deeper and hands holding tighter.

I'll miss you. I'll miss you. I'll miss you so fucking much.

He kissed every inch of Neil that he could, that night and all the nights they were together like this. When they moved in together to a little apartment near the stadium. When they moved to a house near the stadium with the cats. When they left exy behind and the city and the fame and lived inside each other.

Andrew did not like kissing.

But he loved kissing Neil.

****

The next night, Andrew had a brand-new journal. The pages were empty. The paper smelled fresh.

He had no idea what he was doing.

This had been the least cringe worthy of Bee’s ideas. ‘Write it down Andrew. You can show him if you’d like, or you can toss it if you’d rather. There’s no pressure.’

He didn’t see how this was any different from texting. He didn’t want to say any of the things he was thinking in a text either.

So, laying in his bunk on his stomach with his journal open in front of him, Andrew tried very hard to push aside the feeling of being a teenage girl and put a pen to the paper.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

What the fuck am I supposed to write.

When is Neil supposed to be back?

Andrew looked at his watch and sighed.

Neil is supposed to be back in an hour. He’s on the court teaching stupid freshman how to put the ball into the goal because they’re all incompetent. I don’t know why he bothers. But I guess that’s just so Neil. He always says, ‘someone had to show me’ and I guess that’s true and he IS an idiot. But not like these idiots.

Andrew tapped the pen on the paper and sighed.

I wish he would come home.

Andrew read what he’d written and slammed the book shut before he could rip it out and tear it to pieces.

****

One weekend, when they were at Eden’s after a game, Andrew lost Neil.

He left to get more drinks and did not make it back to the table. After ten minutes, Andrew left the table to look for him. Roland hadn’t seen him. He wasn’t on the dance floor. He wasn’t in the bathroom. Andrew was very calmly losing his fucking mind.

Where are you, where are you, where are you.

He found him finally, in the back room. He was sitting on the floor, back against the wall. His knees were pulled up and his head was buried in his arms. Andrew dropped to the floor next to him and pulled him into his chest.

“What the fuck happened? Where were you?” He felt Neil shudder, and Andrew rubbed the back of his neck, massaging the tension out.  Neil looked up and the glow of blue eyes in the dimness made Andrew want to close his own.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry. There was…a guy. I don’t know who. He grabbed me and called me Wesninski and I don’t know. I just panicked. I ran back here. I didn’t want to lose it out there and have security throw me out.”

Andrew let out a low growl. “Where?”

“No, just… Don’t worry about it. He’s probably already gone. Can we just leave?” Neil nuzzled his face into Andrew’s neck and Andrew took a deep breath. He nodded, and they left.

That night, when they were in the bed in their room in Columbia, after he’d shown Neil how worried he’d been with his hands and his mouth, Andrew pulled out his journal. Neil was snoring softly next to him, and Andrew ran a hand through his hair. He was rewarded with a soft sigh.

He started writing.

I love that noise. It means he feels safe here, with me. It means he trusts me to take care of him. I would kill that guy that grabbed him. I would kill anyone who made him feel like he had to hide. When I couldn’t find him tonight-

Andrew had to stop to close his eyes and gather his thoughts. To think about how to say this, even to this piece of paper.

-the feeling inside my chest was like a vice. It was squeezing and squeezing and all I could think about was Baltimore. Only it’s worse than Baltimore, because now I’ve had it and now I know what there is to lose. Everything.

****

On the day of Andrew’s graduation, Neil pulled him in for a hug. Andrew did not huff, and he did not pretend it was annoying like he might have done once. Instead he let his head fall into Neil’s neck and breathed in his scent of soap and sweat and Neil.

“I’m proud of you,” Neil said quietly to Andrew’s ear. Andrew did not respond. It was too much.

There was a party in the tower, for Andrew and Aaron and Nicky. There was booze and the Vixens were there and the music was terrible. Andrew didn’t mind so much. He stood with a cup of vodka and watched everyone around him have fun. Neil found him leaning against the wall and came close with a small smile on his lips. He moved until he was leaning against Andrew. Until they were chest to chest and thigh to thigh. He took Andrew’s cup from his hand and set it aside on a nearby table.

“Dance with me?”

“Never.”

Neil tilted his head back and laughed, and Andrew used the opportunity to run a hand up his neck, until it was wrapped loosely around it and his fingers were on Neil’s pulse point. Neil looked back at him and Andrew felt his pulse quicken. Or maybe that was Andrew’s own pulse. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

The next morning, when everyone was still in an alcohol induced sleep, Andrew wrote.

I’m leaving in a week. I’m leaving for Denver and Neil will stay here. Aaron will go to Chicago and Nicky will go to Germany. I am equal parts amazed that we’ve all survived this long and discomfited that after keeping and eye on everyone, it won’t be my responsibility anymore. Neil, though. Neil will always be my responsibility. I still don’t know how to say words. I still don’t know how to tell him what I want to tell him. Maybe I don’t really need to, after all. No, I know I don’t need to. I know he knows. Because no one has ever been able to read me like he has. No one has been able to give me a look that says, ‘I know what you’re not saying, and I feel the same way.’

I still wish I could say it.

****

The night before Andrew had to leave for Denver, they were at the Columbia house. They’d already moved out of the dorms. Already packed all of Andrew’s things. Already found Andrew an apartment.

Neil and Andrew sat outside on the back porch, cigarettes lit and coffee on the step next to them. The summer nights were warm now, bugs chirping and the air a heavy weight on their shoulders, blanketing them in nighttime stillness.

Neil was twitchy.

“Are you going to tell me what your problem is?” Andrew asked, because he couldn’t simply say ‘What’s wrong?’

Neil shrugged. “You leave tomorrow is all. It’ll be a while before we can see each other. It’ll be weird, not having you here.”

Andrew took a long drag. Neil went silent. After a moment, Andrew blew the smoke out in a harsh breath and took up the journal he had sitting beside him. He saw Neil glance over, but he didn’t acknowledge him. Instead he wrote.

It’ll be weird for me, too.

He passed it over to Neil, and Neil smiled a little. He plucked the pen out of Andrew’s hand and wrote back.

I’ll miss you.

Instead of passing it back, he scooted closer to Andrew, moving the coffee out of the way. They sat thigh to thigh and Neil moved the journal so that each of them had half of it resting on their laps. Andrew took back the pen. And so, it went.

I’ll miss you, too.

Will we talk every day?

Every single day.

Will you think of me when you’re in goal?

I will never not be thinking about you.

Will you send me nudes?

Every chance I get.

Neil laughed, and Andrew’s lips twitched.

They both went quiet for a moment, and Andrew took another turn.

I love you.

He heard Neil suck in a small breath and before he had time to wish he could take it back, Neil snatched the pen from his hand.