Straight

XXVIII

Eddy.
Oh, Eddy. He's here, on his doorstep, looking radiantly beautiful, even though he's clearly worried. About him. His heart gives a little jump at the realisation. Eddy is carrying a satchel, Brett guesses with food, and he tries to smile his thanks, but he seems to have left all of his smiles behind in last week, when life was still good. 
"Jesus, bro, are you that sick?" Eddy asks in shock.
Brett steps back to let him in and shrugs.
"I'm okay. Thanks for coming. You didn't have to."
Eddy eyes him worriedly, but he doesn't respond.
"I... I brought food." he says quietly, pointing at the bag in his right hand.
"Thanks." Brett says as he sits down on the couch that used to be theirs. "I think I'm done hurling now. Food's probably a good idea."
"Jesus." Eddy sits down next to him and puts a hand on his knee. Oh, it's nice. So nice. Too nice. "Did you catch something?"
Brett laughs harshly before he can stop himself.
"Yeah, I caught about five too many beers. Look, it's my own stupid fault. I don't know what I was thinking."
He looks at the bag of take-out with some hesitation, but his stomach seems to have calmed down, and even his head is feeling a lot better. He opens it to find exactly the same he brought Eddy the other day, and he almost cries again because it's the sweetest thing. Instead he swallows quickly, picks up the spoon, takes the lid off the soup and takes a careful bite.
Oh, it's good. So good. Rich and flavourful, and his stomach seems to settle more with every bite. Eddy picks up the other box and enthusiastically starts on the fried rice. He offers him the other set of chopsticks. The rice is divine, and settles him more. He tries not to picture feeding Eddy a bite of the fried rice with his own chopsticks, tries not to imagine Eddy smiling at him as he takes the bite.
Because no matter how nice this is, this sitting next to him on the couch as if nothing at all has happened, as if no girls have been fucked, no alcohol has been consumed, he can't do that. He must drink the cup of poison, he needs to adress the elephant in the room. Brett looks down at his knees with his chopsticks in mid-air and swallows once, twice. Gathers all the courage he can muster, pulls what's left of his shell as close as he can. Then he takes a deep breath.
"So, you had a big night, last night?"

He expects Eddy to smile demurely, to look away, maybe with a little bit of that coquettishness he saw in Jill just yesterday. He expects him to tell him yes, it was so good. Jill is great. I've done it, Brett, I'm finally not a virgin anymore. In fact, Brett can hear the words already, as clearly as if Eddy has really said them.
Exept, Eddy is not saying them. In fact, Eddy looks crestfallen. He looks down at his own knees now, and seems to be searching for words, searching for himself. And fuck, is he crying?
Yes, he is crying, because a tear falls on his skinny jeans and spreads out through the fabric. Brett's heart stops for the hundredth time this week as he waits for him to tell him what the fuck is going on. Was it no good? Did Jill reject him?
God help him if he won't have her arse if she did, for real.
He sits for an eternity as Eddy seems to grope around for something to say. Then he takes a deep, laboured breath.
"Not really." he says so quietly, so defeatedly, that he's barely audible even though he's like ten centimetres away. "Look." he adds. "I... I didn't sleep with her."