Chapter 4: One Way

Lucas

I'd called Oliver at eleven twenty-nine because I'd been mad he wasn't coming. I'd hung up because halfway through the second ring my knee had hurt so badly I'd dropped the phone onto the seat.

I'd been sitting down the whole time.

I lay on top of my covers with the towel still around my shoulders and checked the call log again. The numbers hadn't changed since the last time I'd looked. At the foot of Oliver's bed, his jeans were draped over the back of his chair. There was a dusty streak from the step across the right knee.

He'd let me shower first. Now he was in the bathroom, and I had my feet planted on the mattress like that might stop anything else from happening. When the pipes knocked, I went still. A second later the back of my neck warmed up.

"Oh, come on."

I sat up. The towel fell away from my shoulders, and the heat kept coming. I put my hand behind my neck and held it there. My fingers stayed dry. I could feel my hand and the water in the same place. The water didn't so much as change direction.

I waited for the shower to shut off. It did. The heat went with it. I was just starting to think I'd had enough evidence for one night when a different sensation caught me low in my stomach. It was so sudden and so unmistakably private that I grabbed the edge of the mattress. I was halfway to the bathroom before I stopped. There was nothing I could say through that door that wouldn't make things worse.

I got down and went to the kitchen. The floor was cold through my socks. I poured water into the nearest glass and spilled a little down the front of my shirt. At least I knew where that had come from.

By the time Oliver came in, I'd finished the glass and refilled it. He opened the freezer and took out a bag of peas.

"You hungry?" I asked.

"For frozen peas? Always."

He wrapped the bag in a dish towel and pulled out a chair. I watched him lower himself into it and stretch his right leg out under the table. There was a round patch of purple starting to show just below his kneecap.

"Put that on slowly," I said.

He looked up. "What?"

"The peas. It'll hurt if you drop it on there."

He laid the bag across his knee. Cold sank through the front of my sweatpants. I slipped a hand under the table and held it over my own knee. The fabric was room temperature. I was starting to hate how much sense this made.

There was still one thing I didn't know. I rested my arm on the table and pinched the inside of my wrist hard enough to leave a mark. Oliver opened his phone. He scrolled past something, went back, and made a face at whatever he'd read.

I pinched harder.

"You're gonna have to say something eventually," he said.

I let go. "About what?"

"Noah. You've been walking around like you want to hit something since we got home."

I looked down at the glass. I'd left wet rings all over the table.

"I should've gotten him out of there when he asked if I wanted to leave," I said. "I stayed because I didn't want her to think she'd run me off."

"He didn't get hurt because you finished a drink."

"He got hurt because he got between us."

Oliver thought about that for a second. He turned his phone face down. "Yeah. He did."

I pressed my thumb into one of the wet rings and dragged it across the wood. I wanted him to say something that would make it easier to call Noah in the morning. I also knew I'd have hated him if he'd tried.

"Can I see your hand?" I asked.

He put his right hand on the table, palm down. There was still a faint mark where the locker room door had caught him. I reached for it. Then I moved my thumb to the unmarked skin beside it and pinched.

"Ow." He pulled back. "What are you doing?"

The pain shot across my own hand. I tucked both hands into my lap.

"Checking if it still hurt."

"It didn't until you did that."

"Okay. Good to know."

He stared at me. I picked up my glass with both hands and drank until he looked away.

That settled it. I could pinch myself and get nothing out of him. I could pinch him and get the pain back immediately. And whatever had happened in the shower was going to stay between me and my kitchen glass until I had a better way of explaining it than Remember when my mouth landed on yours?

Oliver took the peas off his knee. I could feel the cold easing.

"You're looking at it again," he said.

"You're going to have to tell the trainer."

"I know."

"You can't go out there and make it worse."

"I know that too."

I hadn't meant to sound worried. I got up to put the glass away and found that I was still holding it hard enough to hurt my hand. My own hand this time. I made myself loosen my fingers.

Oliver carried the peas back to the freezer. When he passed me, he took the dish towel off his shoulder and wiped the rings I'd left on the table. There was no reason for that to get to me. He wiped down the table every night.

"I'll text you when I hear from Noah's mom," he said.

"We're going to the same room."

"I know. I'm trying to make it so you can go to sleep."

He left the kitchen light on for me. I stood by the sink, pressing a fingertip against the mark I'd made on my wrist. I could still tell the two pains apart if I paid attention. I could tell exactly which one I'd caused him.

Tomorrow I'd tell him to get his knee checked again. I'd go see Noah. I'd keep my hands to myself, which should've been possible for a grown man with a full day of things to do.

I was going to have to figure out how to get Oliver to do the same.