Marsh nodded. “Yeah, that’s not so bad. So do you…?” He tipped his head toward the screen. “Want to give it? Like, for practice? I could listen. I mean, I probably wouldn’t understand it or anything.”
Greg’s gut twisted. Marsh would probably be bored out of his mind. “Nah, I mean, I’m still working on it.”
“Really? Isn’t it soon?”
“Friday.” Greg was seriously starting to feel queasy about it.
“You’ve got to have at least part of it done, then.” Marsh smirked, but there was a shadow to his smile. “Come on. I’m a good listener. I won’t fall asleep on you or anything.”
Greg wasn’t so sure about that. His work was so
boring
. And he just…he
couldn’t
.
He shook his head. The idea of doing this in front of Marsh made his stomach flip dangerously and the back of his neck sweat. “Nah, I mean, I have to give it in front of my advisor on Wednesday. I’ll probably make Ronnie listen to it tomorrow or something.”
Something in Marsh’s face shifted, and he blinked. “Oh. Sure. Cool.” His jaw looked tight, and he glanced away again.
It sent Greg scrambling for excuses. “I mean, you’d just be bored. And you couldn’t comment on the science or—”
“Yeah, of course,” Marsh cut him off. His knuckles were white around his pen, and it made Greg feel all twisted up inside. “Whatever.”
He tried to imagine again what it would be like to practice this in front of Marsh, but he just wasn’t ready for that. He still had too much prep to do. Too little confidence about how Marsh would react to hearing it. Trying to be as conciliatory as he could, he gave a wincing little smile. “Thanks for offering.”
Marsh had already buried his gaze in his text again, his foot tapping out a rhythm against the carpet that ratcheted up Greg’s anxiety even further. “Like I said. Whatever.”
“Okay…” Nothing about that felt final, but there was a dismissal there. Greg lingered for a few seconds, then turned toward his screen, only his attention was shot. Five times, he started to twist to look over his shoulder, but that was stupid. There wasn’t any reason to feel nervous like this.
Then Marsh asked, “So, can anybody go to these talks?”
“Sort of.” He’d asked about this when his mom had insisted she and Dad were coming. “People visiting from other campuses are supposed to have badges, but no one’s really going to be checking. And anybody who goes to school here can sit in.”
“But it’ll be just you science types?”
Greg chewed down on the inside of his lip. Science types. Right. “Not necessarily. Some of the other guys will probably invite some of their friends.”
“Oh.”
The word hung in the air, and Greg didn’t know whether that was the end of it or not.
“You’re talking on Friday, you said?” Marsh asked.
“Yup.” Friday. Three days. He checked the clock. It was almost midnight. So, swiftly approaching two days. Christ.
“I only have the one class on Friday.”
“O…kay?”
“So if you need any help or anything. You know.” Marsh shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, but his voice was heavy.
“The guys from the department are all assigned to take care of all the hosting stuff. I think we’ll be fine.”
“Right.” And that word was even tighter. “When are your folks getting in?”
“Thursday night.” Greg sighed and rolled his eyes. “Wanted to make sure they could take me out to dinner before. You know, because I’ll have so much free time then.”
“Sure.”
“I mean, I shouldn’t be complaining. I appreciate the support and everything, you know, but…”
“Yeah,” Marsh said, cutting in. “Supportive parents are…are great.” The corner of his mouth twitched up, but it was as much a grimace as a smile, the cant of it hard to look at somehow, and Greg shifted his gaze away. “That’ll be nice then, dinner with them. On Thursday. Are you going to get Ronnie or any of them to go?”
Greg hadn’t really thought of that. “I don’t know. Maybe I should ask them.”
There was a snap, and Greg furrowed his brow as Mash cursed. His pen had split open, but it wasn’t leaking ink, at least.
“Hey, are you okay?” Greg asked.
“Shitty pen,” Marsh said, but he wasn’t meeting Greg’s gaze.
“Better ease up there.” Greg laughed, trying to make the sound light, but everything was strained. He didn’t know why it was strained.
“Yeah.” Marsh stood in one fluid motion and tossed the shattered plastic in the trash next to Greg’s desk, and Greg couldn’t help it. He reached out, putting a hand to Marsh’s waist, but Marsh twisted away, arching back from the touch.
Greg swallowed hard, and it tasted like bile. “Marsh—”
“I’m gonna go.” Marsh retreated farther. He bent to pick up his book and his notes and jammed them into his bag.
And he’d come in there, less than an hour ago, all tentative knocks and uncertain kisses, and now this. What had Greg done wrong?
“Hey, we can—” But the thought died on his tongue. What? He didn’t have time tonight to go out or watch a movie or do anything interesting. Anything someone like Marsh would think was interesting.
“Nah, I just… I need to work on this paper, and I left my laptop downstairs.”
Only, as Marsh crammed things in his bag, Greg could see the corner of the laptop right there. He could see the cord.
“Oh,” Greg said, and now he was really going to be sick. “Okay.”
Marsh edged toward the door, and he didn’t make a motion to lean in for a kiss or even a touch. “I’ll, um, see you around.”
“Right.”
“Good night.” Marsh had the door open already, one foot through it. Had he always had one foot on the threshold? He looked out into the hall. “And um, good luck. On your presentation and stuff.”
“Thanks.” A clanging bell rang out in the back of Greg’s mind, because, really, when had this all started? The distant look in Marsh’s eyes and the grip that could snap a pen in half? “If you do want to listen to it, I can—”
“Nah,” Marsh said, laughter ugly in his throat. “Like you said, I’d just be bored by it anyway.”
Of course. Something deep inside of Greg went cold. “All right. Good night, then.”
One jerky nod, and then Marsh was gone, the door closing behind him, and Greg was left to sit there with his work and his commitments, staring at the place where Marsh had stood.
He threw his notebook across the room and swore.
The sounds of fucking
jazz
music followed Marsh into the hallway and down the stairs, and how fitting was that? Greg listened to jazz. The only thing worse would have been Mozart or something. Hell, Greg probably had that, too.
Who did Marsh think he was kidding?
Something thudded upstairs, but he ignored it. He swung by his room to grab a jacket. Out of spite, he nabbed his earbuds, too. He stormed out of the house, not really seeing anything, and stood in the cold, waiting for the bus. It took forever; late-night buses always did. When it finally stopped, he climbed aboard and slipped into a seat far enough back to not have to make eye contact with anyone, but not so far back that he’d be stuck with all the drunks.
Scrunched up in his seat, fingers half-numb, he fiddled with his phone and brought up the stupidest album he owned. Something he’d wasted his money on before he’d known how limited it was, springing for the whole record just because he liked the single. Awful, cheesy synth-pop flooded his ears through the headphones, and yeah. That kind of music at least he understood.
He leaned his head against the window and stared out into the darkness, slouching down in his seat and tapping his foot along with the beat.
He got off at Yulia’s stop and trudged his way to her apartment. It was late enough he didn’t bother knocking, just let himself in. He dropped his bag by the door and stripped out of his jacket and toed off his shoes.
Yulia’s room was dark, but whatever. He took off his jeans and snuck in under the covers beside her, wrapping his arms around her middle and burying his face against the curve of her spine.
“Marsh?” She slept so lightly. She reached an arm behind herself and petted his hair.
He just squeezed her tighter.
Getting a firmer grasp on the back of his neck, she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Crawling into my bed at one in the morning on a school night isn’t nothing,” she said, but her voice was colored by her yawn, the words trailing off. He half-thought she’d fallen back to sleep before she mumbled, “You’re gonna have to tell me eventually.”
He stayed silent for the longest time, like holding it in would keep it from being real, but words were clawing at his throat. Finally, so quietly he could barely hear it himself, he said, “He doesn’t want me to meet his parents. Or go to his conference.” He shuddered, and this was pathetic. Just bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, but he couldn’t seem to stop it from looping over and over in his head.
“Shh.” She turned inside his embrace, moving to lie on her back and wrangling him until his head rested on her abdomen. It didn’t ease the shaking any, but those awful, self-indulgent words about how shitty Greg had made him feel retreated into his throat, and he could keep them there. “Shh,” she murmured again, and her fingers were magic in his hair.
She didn’t have to tell him she wasn’t going to have sex with him. He couldn’t have, even if he’d wanted to. Couldn’t even imagine it. Sex was ruined. Everything was ruined. All he wanted was to lie there and be miserable and wish that things were different, somehow.
After long, long minutes of silence, her fingers faltered against his scalp. He closed his eyes.
“You have to talk to him, you know,” she whispered in the darkness.
Squeezing his eyes tighter, he said, “I know.”
Chapter Twelve
Five minutes. If Greg left right now, he’d be exactly five minutes late for work. He rubbed his temples in tight circles, then dug his knuckles into his eyes. When he looked up again at the kitchen clock, it was blurry around the edges, and he blinked hard to clear the haze from his vision. The slightest hint of an ache was building behind his left eye, but it wasn’t bad. He dug into his bag for the little bottle there. He got the cap off and shook an ibuprofen into his hand. This didn’t feel like a killer one. If he nipped it in the bud, it should be fine.
Seven minutes. He swallowed the pill down with the rest of his coffee and glanced at the front door. It sounded like—
The door opened, and Greg was on his feet, gaze riveted, and the nascent headache had nothing on the way everything else hurt. Marsh stumbled in, hair sticking up on one side and flat on the other, eyes red, and Greg’s heart broke right in two.
“Oh.” Marsh stopped short, hovering in the hallway before the turnoff for his room. He ran a hand over the crown of his head and tucked the thumb of his other hand into the strap of his backpack. He was still wearing the clothes from the night before, when he’d stormed out of Greg’s room. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Licking his lips, Greg darted his gaze toward the door. “Just getting home?” And how stupid was that? Marsh had just come through the front door, and he sure as hell hadn’t been home when Greg had checked on his way downstairs to start up the coffeepot and to apologize. He still wasn’t quite sure why Marsh had reacted so strongly, but a few things were clear. He shouldn’t have dismissed Marsh’s offer so quickly.
He should have asked him to stay until he figured out what was wrong.
Marsh nodded. “Yeah. Um. Had to go to Yulia’s, and then it was late and…”
Greg’s whole lower face felt frozen and cracking with the fakeness of his smile. Everything inside him felt brittle, and he was running ten full minutes late now, and for what? He should’ve just left. Seeing Marsh come in like this wasn’t helping anything, and Greg had nothing to say.
He wondered if Marsh smelled like her sheets.
This was killing him. It was time to go. Cut his losses and get out of here before he could show exactly how much this all hurt. He gripped his keys so they dug into his hand.
Except then Marsh shuffled his feet, readjusting his bag on his shoulder. “We’re just friends, you know. Me and Yulia. Best friends. But that’s it.”
Greg’s heart hammered hard, and he nearly lost his hold on his keys. “Oh?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged and looked toward the ground. “Tried it the other way a few times, years ago.” He chuckled darkly. “Didn’t work out for a reason.”
“Oh.”
The twisted-up little knot of despair in his chest didn’t exactly let go, but it shifted its shape. That was good news. Amazing news, and it cast that whole afternoon in the café when he’d stumbled on the two of them in a whole new light. Changed this morning and last night up, too.
Marsh wasn’t screwing around with someone else. Greg’s lack of interest in sex last night hadn’t driven him into someone else’s bed. At least not for that.
But he was jealous all the same. What did Marsh tell her? Why did he feel like he had to go to her when he was mad at Greg?
Why couldn’t he just
talk
to Greg?
Why the hell didn’t Greg just talk to him?