Chapter 12
Twelve
“And when we die our bodies will create a constellation. We will live forever.”
—“The Melody of Achilles and Patroclus,” The Wooden Horse, Act One
“Carlos,” Dexter said, leaning forward in his seat to tap the driver on the shoulder. “Take us to The World’s End.”
“Don’t listen to him, Carlos,” Jonah mumbled, trying to focus on the screen on his phone rather than the drunk imbecile beside
him in the back of the car.
“I want to go to the pub,” Dexter said, continuing his pestering of poor Carlos. “The World’s End.”
“Sure thing,” Carlos said, coming to a junction and signaling left, the opposite direction from the home address Jonah gave
him.
Jonah lowered his phone. “It’s closed,” he said. “Carlos, keep going to Lawford Road.” Carlos signaled right.
“Carlos!” Dexter whined. “Carlos, old buddy, old pal. Please, don’t listen to this absolute swine. He knows nothing.” God,
drunk Dexter was insufferable. Carlos hesitated.
“Lawford Road, Carlos. I’m paying for this, not him.”
Dexter scoffed and folded his arms across his chest. “I can pay for myself. I will give you a tip too. The World’s End. Go!
Ahead! God’s speed!”
“One star, Carlos,” Jonah warned. “I swear I will give you one star.” The debate ended and Carlos swiftly headed toward Lawford Road.
Dexter groaned and knocked his head against the window, leaving a sweat mark where his skin touched the glass.
His cheeks were flushed against his pale skin, his tan from a few weeks ago faded, and Jonah wondered if he’d been on holiday to have had such a color.
He could ask him; Dexter might even indulge Jonah in his drunken state, but Jonah couldn’t help the burning rage inside of his chest at the blond having cock-blocked him by being such a messy drunk, so any small talk questions fizzled out on his tongue.
“I can’t believe I lost my jumper,” Dexter pouted as he pressed a finger to the car window. “I lose everything.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I do, though.” His eyes glazed over as he watched London pass beyond the glass, bright lights fading as they neared Camden
and the town became sleepy. “You wouldn’t understand. You get everything you want. Bet you don’t lose your clothes.”
Edward came to Jonah’s mind. Again. God, he wanted him to disintegrate into specks of dust so tiny he wouldn’t be able to
recognize him anymore. He wished he’d stayed at the bar, even if just to make out with Man Bun for a little longer, even if
it went no further. He needed the attention, he needed to forget. More than anything, he needed to rectify the fact that the
last hands to touch him intimately were Edward’s. He looked down at his phone and opened FullStack to see eight new matches,
and only three of them started the conversation with pictures of their penises. He lingered on one photo, the angle actually
quite flattering, before Dexter swiped the phone from his hand.
“You dirty little pervert.” He laughed and stretched his arm away from Jonah as he tried to snatch it back. “Mate, you can’t
be looking at pictures of dicks in Carlos’s car!”
“Fuck off, Dexter.” He grabbed the phone and wrestled it from Dexter’s grip. “I can’t help getting unsolicited dick pics,
and it’s none of your damn business what I do on my phone.” By pulling the phone away from him, he inadvertently caused Dexter
to shift in his seat, their legs pressed together, but neither of them moved. Jonah didn’t want to think about how nice it
was to have someone pressing against him, and he blamed the alcohol for not minding it was Dexter’s leg against his.
“Why are you so mean to me?” The question came out as pathetic as it sounded, and Jonah rolled his eyes at him. “What?” Dexter pouted, those stupid lips of his so full. “At least I’ve got a reason to be angry with you.”
“Yeah? And what’s that?”
“You took Achilles from me.”
Jonah stared at him. “No. I didn’t.”
“Yeah. You did.” His speech suddenly sounded more coherent. “You took him from me. It should have been me. It should have
been me taking it to the West End and winning the fucking Olivier Award, but they gave it to you, and I still can’t understand
why.”
A numbness crept over Jonah’s skin. “I auditioned,” he conceded. “It took months. I . . . I actually asked if you were taking
the role and they said no, you were cast in something else, so I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s a bloody lie. I saw that role from the workshops all the way to the tour. Then they had me audition for the West End
and told me they were giving it to someone else. You. You got it. And I had to pretend it was fine and that I always had something
else lined up, but I didn’t. My agent got me an audition last minute for Tick, Tick . . . Boom! And thank God, I got it.”
If Jonah didn’t feel sober before, he certainly did now. “Really?” he asked quietly.
Dexter nodded. “And I loved the way people tore you apart online,” he said, though there seemed to be no malice in his tone.
“And how people wanted me. But then . . . then they loved you. And I went to see the show and of course you were amazing and
it . . . it hurt. Then the Olivier and WhatsOnStage awards came around and the nominations alone made me want to set fire to everything, but
I had to just grin and be, like, fine with it.” He spoke quickly before tapering off into a whisper. “Achilles is mine.” He
sounded broken, his voice quivering, on the verge of tears, and for the first time Jonah saw a side of him he never thought
he would be privy to: he was vulnerable.
“I’m sorry you’re upset,” Jonah said. “But I’m not sorry for auditioning and getting the role. It’s how it works, we audition, some stuff we get, some we don’t. You can’t blame me for that. Blame the casting team. Blame Colbie. Blame yourself for returning to a production that’s clearly hurt you.”
Dexter looked at him then, his eyes glistening as he blinked back tears. “It’s the biggest show in the West End right now.
I would’ve been stupid to turn down a role in it, even one I didn’t want. It’s just . . . your life is perfect, and it pisses
me right off.”
Jonah sucked in a deep breath. “My life isn’t perfect,” he said. “You don’t know me.”
“And you don’t know me.”
They descended into an awkward silence as Carlos pulled up on Lawford Road. Dexter sat motionless, his eyes trained on his
hands as his head lolled slightly, still clearly drunk, and a shadow of the cocky persona he usually portrayed.
“You’re home,” Jonah said after four excruciating minutes.
“Yeah.” Dexter nodded. “Thanks.” He didn’t look at Jonah as he got out of the car and wandered down the road before stopping
at a door and fumbling about with a key. Carlos seemed to have the same concern as Jonah, because he didn’t drive away and
instead watched as Dexter tried time and time again to insert the key into the lock.
“You should help him, man,” Carlos said, looking over his shoulder at Jonah in the back of the car. “He’s gonna end up asleep
on his doormat.”
Dexter shouldn’t have been Jonah’s problem. Yet there he was. A bloody problem.
“Fine, wait here,” Jonah snapped and got out of the car and crossed the road to where Dexter still struggled with his door.
“Let me,” he said, whispering so as not to disturb Dexter’s neighbors. He took the key from him, and Dexter blinked in bewilderment.
The key didn’t fit the door. “Dexter, is this your house?”
Dexter took a wobbly step back and peered at the building. “Huh. No.”
“What number are you?”
“Eight.”
“Dexter,” Jonah hissed. “You told me you lived at forty-eight. Eight’s all the way down there!
” Jonah tried his hardest not to raise his voice as he gestured toward the end of the road.
“Come on.” He allowed Dexter to cling to his arm like a lost child as they walked farther down until they finally came to number eight.
Jonah left Dexter standing by the curb fiddling with his shirt buttons as he unlocked the door for him.
“Thanks,” Dexter said, stumbling forward. He stood face-to-face with Jonah, the flush of his cheeks even redder than before.
He opened his mouth and Jonah expected a snide remark to come from it, but instead Dexter doubled over and threw up all over
the front of Jonah’s trousers. The vomiting seemed to go on forever, and Jonah just stood there, not making any attempt to
move, the shock clearly having paralyzed him until Dexter stood back up and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “Fuck. Sorry,”
he said and took the key from Jonah’s hand and stepped through the threshold. “See ya, Jonah.” He closed the door.
Jonah could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He looked down at himself, vomit seeping through his trousers and covering
his shoes, the smell utterly rancid, and he kept his hands above his waist as he trudged back to Carlos, unsure of what to
do or how to function.
Carlos unwound his window and leaned out to look at Jonah before locking his doors. “No, sorry, mate, not driving you anywhere
like that.”
Jonah stared at him. He imagined he looked like Carrie after they poured the bucket of blood over her at prom, his limbs stiff,
eyes wide. “Carlos. Help me.”
Carlos shook his head. “Sorry, man.” He shut his window and drove off without another word, leaving Jonah standing in the
middle of the road trying his hardest not to throw up himself.
The streetlights were off, drenching the roads in the pitch-black darkness of the night, a blessing in that no one would see
him covered in sick. He began to walk, Castle Road only ten minutes away, and he could feel a dampness in his socks, the vomit
having worked its way down the ankle of his shoes. This wasn’t how his night should have ended. It should have been full of
blow jobs and orgasms. But instead of having sex he was walking home covered in someone else’s regurgitated dinner.
Castle Road turned its nose up at him as he walked down it, his house unhappy to see him as he stepped inside and undressed in the kitchen.
He stood naked in front of the sink and rinsed his clothes off before stuffing them in the washing machine.
His shoes looked at him sadly as he placed them in the bin, beyond saving, and he walked stiffly to the bathroom.
The tiles on the wall felt cool beneath his palms as he stood beneath the steady stream of water from the shower, more sober now than he’d ever been in his life, and he scrubbed his skin with such force it turned red beneath his sponge.
He dried himself roughly with the towel, not caring if his skin remained damp, simply thankful he’d washed away the vomit, and collapsed onto his bed completely naked with a groan.
“Fuck,” he said to himself as he reached for his phone and looked at the screen, wanting to text Bastien but knowing full
well he would be passed out by now at home in his bed with his perfect boyfriend. The FullStack app remained opened, the photo
of the penis still in full glory, and he grimaced before deleting the message. Was this his life now? Dick pics and vomit?
And did he seriously have a seed of guilt about getting the role of Achilles over Dexter? He did what any actor would do.
His agent arranged an audition, he went to it, he did his best and got the job. He rarely thought about the other people also
vying for the role; he couldn’t, the industry moved so fast, and everyone seemed to know they had to roll with the punches.
But he never expected Dexter Ellis to be sitting somewhere heartbroken at the role he originated being given away to someone
else. Jesus Christ. He did feel guilty. The realization weighed heavily on him; it pressed him down into the mattress and
turned his limbs to concrete.
He tried to swipe on FullStack, tried to distract himself with nearby men and promises of a life where he wouldn’t die alone surrounded by microwave meals and blocks of cheese.
He kept his phone in his grasp as he allowed his eyelids to droop.
Sleep so close, with the promise of clearing his mind.
The room turned fuzzy, the alcohol still lingering in his bloodstream dulling his senses until his phone vibrated in his palm.
He blinked at it, the screen far too bright against the darkness shrouding the room, and he squinted as he tried to get his head around what he was looking at.
Because there, in the stark contrast of the night, was a message illuminated in blinding white from Edward. Three little words.
I miss you.
And Jonah fell asleep in the knowledge his life was officially a complete and utter joke.