Their landlord hired Liam back in May to look after his other properties after seeing all the work he’d put into the Haus to keep it liveable, and it’s good work that Liam enjoys. It doesn’t pay as well as fishing -- no job for students ever could, and his uncle says 2017 is the best season they’ve seen in a decade -- but the landlord says if Liam wants to keep doing it during the year he’ll pay his rent then too. It’s a good deal, and Derek’s got a job teaching at some summer camp for kids on campus, so it’s alright, really. It works out. 

But as with the heat, another thing Liam didn’t count on was the loneliness.

After last year he and Derek didn’t want to spend another summer apart, and they’ve got the Haus to themselves all the time, except when Bitty visits with Jack or Shitty and Lardo drive up for the day. Once Liam’s younger sister Katie visits for a weekend but it’s hard to come down often and she’s doing her apprenticeship now and can’t get much time off. And she’s got friends, at home, and their oldest brother Jake and his wife Melissa and their daughter Ava are closer than Liam, so he can’t blame Katie for wanting to spend time with her five-year-old niece instead of her brother.

He doesn’t know anybody here, not really. Some of the other Samwell athletes are familiar faces, they’ve partied together before, but he wouldn’t consider them friends. And he’s got Derek with him, of course, and he loves him and they’re happy and he doesn’t regret a single decision that led him to staying at Samwell over the summer, but he misses -- his family, and the friends he grew up with who all stayed home for the summer and who post pictures of bonfires and beach days and hiking trips and big lobsters they’ve caught and beautiful sunrises on the boats he can’t experience, and he misses his team, and he misses being known, being recognized, being home. 

And he didn’t think he’d be nostalgic over waking up before the sunrise every morning and the smell of lobster burrowing itself so deep in his skin he can’t wash it all off when he gets home and the way his body hurts and his hands get infected from the lobster juices and the sting of the salt and twelve- or thirteen-hour days when the catch is good and fearless seagulls swooping down to steal his lunch and the rough, sometimes overwhelming loud voices of the swearing men on the wharves but. Sometimes he misses it so physically it’s an ache. 

Derek, of course, notices, though Liam doesn’t say anything. 

“We should do something,” he says one evening. They’re sitting in the basement on lawn chairs having some beer, and it smells a little gross down there but it’s the coolest place in the Haus so more often then not that’s where they find themselves after work. 

“Do what,” Liam says. He wishes he’d brought his punching bag from home when his dad had offered to unhook it and drive it down because he’s frustrated and wouldn’t mind something to hit. 

“Well, you know there’s a week in between camps,” Derek says. “That starts next Wednesday.”

“Alright.”

“Well, what if we took a road trip?”

“Derek,” Liam says, and sighs. “I have to work.” 

The condensation around his beer can drips down his fingers and he has no energy to wipe it off. In any case the cold feels good. 

“Just ask Joe. You’ve got nothing to lose by asking, and it’s not like Jason Street is going to fall apart for a few days without you.”

“Joe is a nice guy,” Liam says. And he’s salaried, not paid hourly. “But, like, what would we do, anyway? Gas isn’t cheap.”

“Liam, babe. There’s two of us to pay for it. And -- well, I thought maybe we could go see your parents, and you know they’ll fill the tank before we leave like they always do, and we can stop by and see Mel and Jake, and maybe Bitty and Jack, and Shitty and Lards, and then if we have time we could spend the last few days at my parents’, who will probably take us for groceries and get whatever else we need.”

“That’s a lot of time in a car.”

Derek sits forward in his chair across from Liam’s and sets his beer down to take Liam’s hands. Derek’s are also cold and damp from his can but holding on tightly. 

“So let’s do all the touristy stuff you never got to see because you’ve spent like, every single second of your life outside of school working or playing hockey. We’ll get out and take super cheesy pictures and all that."

Liam sees Derek lift his hands to his mouth and feels him kiss them, then Liam sighs again. He’s tired and sore from working all day and maybe on another day he would say no and stand firm but as it is he can’t say no to Derek. He can already hear the gulls and smell the seaweed and see his parents’ house with its decrepit swing set in the front yard and the fire pit out back. 

Derek goes with Dex in the spring, after classes are done and Dibs are secured from Ransom and Holster, like everyone knew they would be. Only for a few days – it’s Sandy’s 50th birthday, and there’s a surprise party at the firehall – then he’ll go to New York for the summer and work for his mom. A receptionist at the accounting firm, like he did last summer.

But for now, he goes with Dex. He hasn’t actually been since Thanksgiving, and the difference is stark – the village is awake now, if a little muddy, seagulls circling overhead. There are more cars, more OPEN signs in shop windows. It smells like spring, but a cleaner and sharper spring than Derek’s ever experienced.

“You can tell which ones are the summer homes,” Dex says, still a little sleepy from the nap he took while Derek drove. He points to an enormous house up on a hill, facing the harbour. “The shutters are still closed.”

“And you know who everyone is anyway,” Derek says. He too feels alive with the town. He takes Dex’s hand and kisses his knuckles one by one as he drives through, then takes the street where the Poindexters live. It’s begun to feel familiar, and he has time now to memorize the details of the town. The red house on the end has a weather vane on its gable shaped like a cat, its tail pointing northward. Next door, there’s still a wreath hanging under a window, looking worse for wear but still somehow intact. The potholes have grown since the ice melted, and the white line is nearly invisible, rubbed away by the salt and the slush. “Who lives there,” he says, pointing to a beige duplex with an impressive tree in the front yard and a little garden bed with blooming crocuses.

Dex laughs. “On one side it’s Glen and Lisa Carter and their big-ass Bernese Toby, and I’m actually not sure who’s on the other side anymore. It used to be the McTavishes, but I don’t recognize the car.”

“Maybe they got a new car, William,” Derek says. “Or someone’s visiting.”

“Maybe,” Dex murmurs. He’s smiling, and smiling at Derek, which isn’t that new anymore but hasn’t gotten old yet. Right now, he doesn’t feel like it ever will.

“Do you think Ava will like the paints I got her?” Derek asks, because he wants Dex to keep looking like that.

“You don’t have to get her something every time you see her, you know,” Dex says. His face still unchanged, bright in its happiness. At Thanksgiving, Derek had gotten her a miniature hockey stick with a rubber ball as a puck. “You’re starting a potentially expensive tradition.”

That Dex thinks of it as a tradition is – well. The main reason Derek decided to set the precedent at all.

“I’m just trying to be the favourite uncle, here. And I missed her birthday, so let me live.”

“You’re not even her real uncle. And anyway, I built her an actual dollhouse for Christmas, so like, I’ll be super offended if you become the favourite.”

“We’ll see,” Derek says.

When they pull up to the soft yellow house, dilapidated swing set still out in front (having weathered another winter), Ava is already on the step waiting for them, hopping up and down impatiently with her grandmother smiling from behind her. Derek honks the horn when they park because he knows it makes Ava laugh and Sandy shake her head.

“Hello!” Dex calls as he steps out of the car and stretches his arms out, loosening his muscles after being cooped up all afternoon. Ava runs towards him, but makes a detour at the last second to go to Derek, who laughs and catches her as she trips on a crack in the pavement and falls into his waiting embrace.

“That was a close one,” he says. She shrugs and hugs him tighter. Over her hair, he sees Dex roll his eyes.

“She takes after you,” says Dex, and Derek says nothing -- probably wise, he thinks. He lifts Ava and drops her in her actual uncle’s arms instead.

--

“You boys have any plans for tonight?” Sandy asks while they’re tucking into supper -- spaghetti and meatballs, though Derek’s plate is meatless, and nearly spotless. It’s just Will, Sandy, Dex, Derek and Ava tonight, because Katie’s doing a welding apprenticeship in Bangor and will only make it down tomorrow for the party, and Jake and Mel have claimed that they’re needed in Boston at a pharmacy conference. In reality, they’re spending the night at a friend’s house in town. Jennifer will come up tomorrow too.

“I think --” Derek starts, but is cut off by Will’s gruff voice 

“Liam, we’re at the supper table. 

There’s a clatter as Dex drops his phone on the floor, which means he’s been looking at it under the table, and Ava flinches at the sound. 

“Sorry, I’m just -- just waiting for an email,” Dex says. Derek frowns. He hasn’t heard of any email.

A motherly click-click of a tongue from Sandy. “It’s past six on a friday. You’re not getting any emails now. Put it away.” She stares at Dex as he bends down to pick up the phone and makes a show of putting it on silent and in his pocket. “Great. Now what were you saying, Derek?” 

“Oh. Just that I think Liam said something about meeting up with his friends.” 

“Which ones?” Sandy asks. “Where are you going?”

“Mom,” Dex says. “Does it matter?”

“Liam,” Will says, a warning clear in his tone.

“Just some guys from my old team and their girlfriends. Like, whoever’s around. Going down near the gravel pit.”

Derek catches Ava’s eye from across the table and makes a funny grimace at her, and she giggles, sweet-sounding and soft.

“Are you going to be drinking? You better not be driving if you are. Neither of you are 21, anyway. You shouldn’t be drinking at all.”

“Mom,” Dex says, stops, then sighs. “We’ll be fine.”

until it’s not. the bulb flickers off and bitty drops the socks from his arms, because the feeling is immediate. creeping in, squeezing his throat, taking his head and spinning it around. the fuck was he thinking? this closet is small. tiny, even, and he can’t breathe. he left his phone on the bed and his eyes haven’t adjusted to the darkness -- or maybe he shut them tight and hasn’t been able to open them yet. it’s so fucking dark in here, and he remembers, he remembers --

he turns, nudges a sock with his toe as he does, and. and there’s some light from the windows in the bedroom creeping in from the cracked door, so he runs, and makes it to the bed gasping for lungfuls of air. the first thing he sees is his phone lit up with a text from jack: radio said the power’s out. i’m on my way home. be there soon. and one from his mom, from earlier, asking about how his weekend went. he hesitates, and looks back at the door now thrown wide open, then picks up the phone.

“dicky! i was just going to call. i saw something on the news about a storm and was wondering if you were bundled up,” mama says before he can even greet her. he takes a breath as the last of the dizziness fades away.

“not dicky anymore, mama,” bitty says. 

“oh,” she says. she’s frowning, he can tell. “alright. everything okay, baby?”

“yeah, mama. everything is good. is daddy around? i’ve got,” he says, and in the kitchen the microwave beeps in time with the closet light stuttering back on, “i’ve got something to tell you.”

holster:

“tommy?” holster says before he can stop himself, and the man in front of him turns and stares. still, after all these years, unmistakeable. a slight twist to his lips from a cleft palate long since fixed by surgery, and a scar on his chin from -- “tommy bennett?”

“big adam,” tommy bennett says. no one’s called holster that in years. he’d almost forgotten.

almost.

the pepsi fridge he’s standing next to hums and the door to the bodega tinkles but they just stare at each other. 

“i haven’t seen you since, since -- well, how are you,” holster says. tommy is still half a foot shorter than holster is, but he’s standing straight and his shoulders are square.

“what do you want,” tommy says. which is, well, fair.

“nothing,” holster says. “nothing. or, well -- ”

“i just want some sprite, man,” tommy says. he gestures to the fridge holster is blocking with all his bulk. 

“oh. i’m sorry,” holster says. “like, not just about the sprite. about the, the, the, you know. the everything. i’m sorry.” his hands move to point to his own chin but he drops them halfway through the motion. “i’m sorry.”

tommy stares. “okay.”

“okay. really though, i’m --”

“sorry, i get it. can i...?”

“yeah. yeah,” holster says. he moves away from the glass, leaving a space in the condensation the shape of his hand. “i hope. i hope you’re doing well,” he says. 

he gets no answer.

when he opens the door to the car, stomach twisting in nausea, ransom just raises an eyebrow at his empty hands.

“the fuck took you so long? and you didn’t even get any snacks,” ransom says. 

holster turns on this car. “i’ll tell you later,” he says. “i think we’ve got chips at the haus, anyway.”

“alright, bro,” ransom says. “whatever you want.”

the neon lights of the store illuminate the rearview mirrors when holster looks back and the snow starts to fall.

shitty:

the envelope is addressed to mr. bishop knight in unfamiliar handwriting and the return address is one shitty’s had memorized since the month after he turned 12, though his mother hasn’t even looked at it once. he knows what it contains without even opening it: a birthday card and a signature. once there would have been thirty bucks too, but that stopped when he turned eighteen.

“hello-o-o,” lardo says from her bed. “coffee?”

“oh. right.” shitty’s still dressed from his solo trip to annie’s, so he sets the coffee tray down with the envelope on his desk and slowly unwinds his scarf, lovingly knitted by alicia zimmermann as a christmas gift. he unbuttons his jacket slowly, ignoring lardo’s impatient huffs.  

“you got snow in your hair,” lardo says, rolling her eyes. “it looks like dandruff.”

“hm?” shitty carefully strips himself of his shirt and pants and brings over the cups to the bed. it’s warmer in here, with lardo, than outside. “oh, yeah. it’s messy out there."

“what’s that,” lardo says, gesturing to the desk with the hand that’s holding her cappuccino. 

“christmas-slash-birthday card,” shitty says. “from my father.”

“oh. a little late for that.” then, slowly, “you gonna open it?”

shitty can’t help but lean into lardo’s side, and lardo lifts the arm not holding the coffee and wraps him up. takes him in. 

“no,” shitty says, and closes his eyes, smiling, “not this year.”

jack:

la route de la patinoire jusqu’à la maison n’est pas longue, mais avec la neige devenant de plus en plus épaisse, et bittle seul chez lui dans la noirceur, elle semble interminable. les tempêtes lui ont toujours fait sentir impuissant, mais – bref, ils ne sont pas uniques dans la catégorie.

son père lui a souvent dit qu’ils ont tous deux un « esprit cartésien », et c’est peut-être vrai, mais ce n’est que dernièrement qu’il le prend vraiment à cœur. étape par étape, sa thérapeute et ses parents lui répètent. donc, voilà : prends une droite après le stationnement ; continue lentement pour trois kilomètres ; attention à la glace ; maintenant, arrête à l’intersection ; compte un, deux, trois ; avance ; une gauche, et ensuite une droite ; un autre arrêt pour la vieille qui veut traverser le chemin ; quatre kilomètres, puis l’immeuble droit devant.

rends-toi au stationnement souterrain et trouve l’espace qui vous a été désigné. éteint le moteur. prends ton sac du siège à côté et va à l’ascenseur. fais-le vite, quand même – il ne faut surtout pas oublier qui t’attends. et puis cinquième étage, deuxième porte à la droite. ouvre-là.

– jack ? bittle dit. oh, i’m glad you’re home.

sa voix, douce et familière, provient du salon. le salon qui a de la lumière, donc la coupure n’aurait pas duré longtemps, jack suppose.

– me too, jack répond. roads are getting pretty bad.

bittle apparait dans sa vision, avec sa couverture la plus chaude autour de ses épaules et un grand sourire peinturé sur son beau visage. il tend une main vers jack, qui la prend fermement. voilà une chose qui ne lui a jamais fait sentir comme s’il ne pouvait rien faire.

un nouveau plan, alors. étape un : prend la main de celui que tu aimes. étape deux : respire, respire, respire…

dex:

nursey stops him at the door, which is just as well, probably, because he's been staring at it for five minutes, trying to decide if he’s going to go this week. like he does every week.

“where the fuck are you going like that?” nursey asks. he crosses his arms and dex can’t even meet his eyes. he’s been having trouble meeting them for a while, now. “it’s a storm out there. you don’t even -- fuck, dex, you don’t even have gloves on.”

“i’m fine, nurse,” dex says down at his shoes. 

nursey exhales, then shakes his head. “it’s not like i haven’t noticed you go out this time every sunday, you know.”

“i -- oh. um. i didn’t think you would.” dex bites his lip hard, then looks at the door. he hasn’t told nursey where he goes. or anyone at all. 

“fine. if you’re not going to take care of yourself...”

when dex looks up, nursey is pulling his jacket off a hook on the wall and stuffing his arms into it, then pulls out a pair of gloves from the pockets. 

“what are you doing?” dex asks. he feels panicked, suddenly, and reaches out to stop nursey’s hands. nursey just catches his and holds them tight.

“it’s non-denominational, isn’t it?” nursey asks. he brings dex’s knuckles to his lips and kisses them with a gentleness dex will never possess. 

fuck. 

“um.”

“i was waiting for you to tell me,” nursey says. “i figured you’d do it on your own time, or whatever.”

“oh.” 

he’s never really been one for words, anyway.

“dex,” nursey says. “can i come with you?”

dex looks back at the door, then at nursey, with a smile tentative and soft against dex’s hand.

Above ground the heat was thick and syrupy and pooled on your lower back in salty drips of sweat, and the streets in town were deserted. There were clothes strung up between houses, the Company ones in rows that were so close to being identical that if you screwed your eyes up and squinted it looked like double vision made infinite. The quiet deafened, quite literally -- that ringing noise unique to late summer drought enveloped all -- and it felt like a storm was coming. The almanac and the old women’s creaking bones said there was, anyway. It was August 21st, and a Saturday, and in Springhill the heat had forced everyone inside where at least the oppressiveness of it all was lessened by the shade. Or -- well, if it wasn’t, then it was an illusion no one dared disturb.

Down below things were not much better. In fact they never were.

“He’s new,” Archie Scott the foreman said when Will arrived to the pit head. It was his last night shift for a week, and beginning Monday morning he wouldn’t see the sun again for another six days. “Take him down with you.”

The man, a stranger, was in crisp coveralls that had not yet seen a speck of coal dust, and he stood against the dirty shed wall with his hands in his pockets and a lamp round his head looking bored. He looked to be about Will’s age, maybe, though he didn’t look as old and worn as Will felt at 19.

Archie was a first cousin once removed on Will’s mother’s side, and had been working in the pit since his ninth birthday some fifty years ago. He was a rough man who, when he coughed, coughed black as much because of the dust as because of the tobacco he chewed constantly.

“Why me?” Will asked. By the wall the new man didn’t move his gaze.

“Because I goddamn told you so,” Archie said. He had a bump of chew in his lip now.

“Alright,” Will said, because one day he wanted Archie’s job.

The man followed him up the cart tracks without a word and made noise only when he tripped on a rock and caught himself before he fell. The days were getting shorter and soon it would be dark this time of night, and cold. Will wondered if he was going to have enough credits to buy a new coat from the company store. His was old and threadbare with holes in the elbows and had been inherited, anyway. He had a hard time still considering it his own. It wasn’t the only thing.

“Name’s Derek Nurse, by the way,” the man said before they joined the others on their way into the mine. They said it was one of the deepest collieries in the world. It certainly felt like it when you were down there.

Will looked at him. He had green eyes that felt deep too. It would be a shame, Will thought, that if he stayed in the mine they might one day go blind from the darkness.

“’M from Sydney whereabouts,” Nurse said. Will had expected him to be from Cape Breton on account of his skin and the faintly Caribbean inflection of his words that sounded otherwise like a true Caper’s. Now that he thought about it, it was probably the reason Archie had told Will to take Nurse down at all. The group Will dug with most often already had Ransom from Guysborough and Chowder whose parents had a Chinese laundry in Halifax and sometimes the others avoided them. That could have also been because of Jack from down the French Shore who spoke little because his English was so bad, and he had a lazy eye and a nervous stutter from a bad batch of moonshine to boot. Then of course there was Eric Bittle who had been so claustrophobic in the mine shaft at first that he’d fainted on two separate occasions, and who some called queer because of his size and because he liked to bake with his Ma. He was the fastest digger on their shift. They were all nice as anything, anyway, and good miners, so Will just kept his head down and worked hard.

“You got a name?” Nurse asked.

Down in the pit, everyone’s skin was black.

“Poindexter,” Will said. Then they joined the crowd.

“The fuck’s this?” It was Shitty Knight, who never wore his coveralls or his hard hat if he could help it and whose father had at one time worked for the company, before the war. He hadn’t left his son very much money, and now Shitty worked in the mine and went on diatribes about the union. “You pick up another stray, or something?”

“Guess so,” Will said, shrugging, just as Nurse said “another?”

“He does that,” said Ransom, who had come up on their other side.

“Didn’t strike me as the type,” Nurse said. He and Ransom shook hands.

“I’m Oluransi,” Ransom said. “Who’s your father?”

“Nurse. From Whitney Pier. I’m Derek.”

“Nah, don’t know him. But I got a good buddy from up your way -- you know an Adam Birkholtz?” Ransom had worked in the Glace Bay mines near Whitney Pier before coming to Springhill after the ‘56 explosion.

“I don’t think so, but I never worked in the Bay collieries.”

“Jesus fucking Murphy,” Shitty said. They had arrived at the open shaft and were waiting their turns to go down in the coal carts. Through the regular throng of men Will could hear a pony whinny. “He really is new.”