Page 59 of The New Place

“Have you seen him like this before?”

“Oh hell no. This is another level entirely.”

“I like her.”

“Yeah?” Ned grins. “I do too.”

“Better than you liked Megan? Or who was it, Julie?”

“Absolutely. They were doomed from the start.” Ned taps Abbot’s sternum with a gentle finger. “Hey, I never got the whole story on your guy.”

“Yes, because I’ve been waiting to hear about Michael.”

“Ugh.” Ned turns onto his stomach, burying his face in his pillow. “Fuck Pat for bringing that up.”

Abbot tickles the skin above his collar. “If I find out he’s a trained statistician, I might even count myself jealous.”

Ned laughs. “He was a guy from an app, and it was fine. That’s probably the nicest thing I can say, which doesn’t explain seeing him more than once, but I’m not pretending I was in the best head space.”

The short hair on the back of Ned’s neck is soft, and when Abbot scratches his nails through it, Ned hums. “What other delightful stories haven’t you shared?”

“Well, there was the woman I took out around that same time, and then ended up apologizing to after meeting for one drink, so that was humiliating. And then there was the entire period of life where I barely went outside except to work and see Peggy, and certainly didn’t talk to anyone, until you showed up and interrupted my delightful wallowing.”

“Delightful?”

“I was getting real good at it. But there you were, pining away for me…”

“Speaking of things that shouldn’t be brought up, that remains at the top of my list.”

“It’s adorable,” Ned says. “And if I’d known, that guy was all the way down here in Boston. You were much more convenient. I show up to your office, we work our frustrations out on top of your desk, and somehow we still end up together.”

“Happily ever after. That’s exactly how it would have happened.”

“Yeah, cause the way we actually went about it was so much simpler. And look at us now. Being absolute idiots about this Realtor thing in the morning, I’m sure.”

Is that what Ned thinks? Because looking at property is a lot simpler than the ruse they carried on last fall. “It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.” Ned rubs his face. “Let’s go back to talking about the summer. No, wait, that Zürich guy. Who was he?”

“Who?”

“Right answer, but also I do want to know. The one you mentioned at the bar.”

“Oh.” Reto. He’s not even worth thinking about in the same space as Ned. And besides, Abbot doesn’t exactly want to rehash those years, not in the scant time he and Ned have together.

Ned likely won’t be particularly impressed with who Abbot was then. Abbot certainly isn’t. Wasn’t in the moment, either. “Let’s talk about Switzerland this summer,” he says instead.

“That is not at all the same as you dishing on your lost love. And I gotta have a job, first of all, if I’m going anywhere.” Ned pokes Abbot’s thigh. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not. I want you to come.”

“No. Your college romance. Spill. All the details, with the specifics, so I can get good and jealous and then fuck you.”

“Oh? Now that’s much more interesting. I’ll start by assuring you that romance is certainly overstating things.” Abbot wills the prick of embarrassment from flushing his face. Ned is everything Reto wasn’t, and it’s horrifying now to think about how long Abbot remained hung up on him, so unwilling to acknowledge Reto’s clear disinterest in anything more than being physical. Even that had barely kept Reto’s attention, Abbot hurrying over to see him at the drop of a hat, always waiting for word from him and languishing when it didn’t come, knowing full well it meant Reto was with someone else.

Just one of many repetitive cycles of Abbot’s attraction to unavailable men. It’s been so much better to leave that behind, now that he has Ned, and they don’t need to dwell on the various messes Abbot made of his own life. The desperation Abbot had for the scraps of attention these men would occasionally toss his way, how he contorted his schedule, his days and weeks shaped around the chance to see them, ignoring every bit of evidence that they didn’t value him the same way. Didn’t even think about him, not really, not like he obsessed over them.

A distraction, he’d known even then. Letting himself become absorbed in another person, washing his thoughts away from hospital beds and test results. Filling his time so he couldn’t fret, and becoming increasingly, conveniently unavailable when his father called.