Archive of Our Own

The neighbour's floodlight bleeds through the window into their bedroom, its motion sensor likely set off by a raccoon. Jay can't remember if they hibernate in the winter or not. Maybe they're like the geese or the house finches, sticking around all year long, feeding off of the city's largesse.

Jay watches the light until it flicks off and he's left in the dark, in the humid pocket he's made for himself at the back of Matt's neck. He woke up snivelling, huffing out soundless sobs, tears sliding down his nose to their sheets. Matt had died, again.

Again and again. Matt in his dreams, sparks dancing between his fingers, shining in his teeth, his eyes burnt black. Matt finds him and he dies. Sometimes he kills Jay too. But often he just dies on his lonesome, smiling all the while, like his death is just another plan he's pulling off. One of the rare ones that go right.

Matt smacks his lips. Jay only realises he's holding him tight when he feels Matt's chest flex and shift under his arms.

"Jay?" Matt's voice is thick. "S'matter?"

"Nothing," Jay says. He discreetly wipes his nose in the sheets, his forehead nodding into the back of Matt's skull.

Matt sighs. He reaches lifts his arm from Jay's grip and pats Jay's face, fingers blunt and warm. One accidentally gets Jay in the corner of his eye.

"More dreams?" Matt asks, dropping his arm.

"It's nothing," Jay says. His hand slides over Matt's chest, resting in between his pecs. This is an indulgence: the flutter under his palms. Steady and real.

"Go t'sleep," Matt says. He pats Jay on the thigh, once, twice. Sniffs. Jay holds his breath and listens to the sound of Matt falling back into sleep. He looks at the back of Matt's head in the dark and imagines himself in there, tucked away safe and sound in Matt's subconscious, slipping into the grey matter where he dreams up his plans, the old yellow Rivoli sign like a second sun in his sky.

Jay doesn't sleep.

The morning is a disaster. It's the movie rush of a loveable but disorganized family stumbling around their home, throwing things into their suitcases. Matt tears through their closets, pulls out dresser drawers and leaves them slack-jawed, drooling clothes onto the floor. He's crammed a dry toaster waffle into his mouth, chewing slowly as he tosses balled up t-shirts over his shoulder.

Jay yells at him about crumbs and the two of them end up pulling everything out of the big rolling suitcase. Jay has forgotten his spare charger and doesn't have enough clean pairs of socks to last the week. Matt stuffs his Switch 2 in the crumpled pile of his shirts and sweaters and then pulls it back out so he can play on the bus. He yells at Jay to use the suit bag for his formal jacket and then yells again for Jay to roll his silk tie up properly. Jay checks the oven three times, even though they never cook. He wonders aloud if they should run the tap a little bit, and the two of them argue about frozen pipes and water damage, the cost of their water utility versus the cost of potential flooding and a ruined piano. Jay's phone is dead.

Somehow, some way, they get out the door, their heavy luggage bouncing down the steps behind Matt. They get to Union Station on time and it's them and about half the city buzzing in the bus terminal. The noise is like being inside an engine, but worse, because engines don't blare the sound of Marvel movie trailers from tinny phone speakers. Jay can't stand anywhere for even a second because he's always in someone's way. There are legions of strollers aimed directly at his knees. Matt strides ahead with the luggage rolling behind him, one hand holding his hat to his head. Jay had forgotten to eat before they left.

They find the Northern Express to Muskoka ten minutes before its departure. Matt's hair has exploded under his hat and he looks like half a dandelion. When they get onboard, he drops into the reclining seat beside the window and sighs.

Jay stretches out his legs in front of him. The engine rumbles to life beneath them. Across the row, a teenager scrolls through TikTok at medium volume.

This is the part where a title would appear across the screen, this break in the action where the bus rises from its kneeling position and the landscape lurches outside the window. It's The Johnson Family Christmas Special. Jay taps out a theme on his arm rest.

It takes about thirty minutes for Jay to close his eyes. He wakes up hours later with a crick in his neck, half slumped into Matt's chair. He lifts his head up with effort. There's a patch of drool on Matt's collar. Matt glances up from his game of Pokopia.

"I'm hungry," Jay says. He works at his neck with one hand.

"We're almost there," Matt says.

"How soon is 'almost'?"

"Like, twenty minutes? Check your phone."

"It died."

"Oh my god. You can charge it—see those outlets on the back of the seat in front of us?"

"I don't have my charger cable."

"God." Matt's head thumps against the seat. "You're like a child. Are you going to be like this the whole week?"

Maybe. "No."

"Look, I'm sorry you have to come, okay? It's not my first choice either. But my dad said—."

Jay tucks his chin into his collar. "I know," he says.

"—it's important to them. We're getting married. They want to talk to us about it. It's only one week. We don't even have to stay for the holiday part," Matt says. The original pitch, which made Jay see his life flash before his eyes, was two weeks. One week leading up to Dr. Johnson's birthday, the second week for the holidays themselves. Jay had looked so wretched at the prospect that Matt bargained them down to staying only for the first week.

This isn't the first time Matt's made a version of this speech. Jay frowns out the window. The rock face of Canada's Shield looks back, climbing jagged to the sky, almost as tall as the bus in some spots. He taps a melody—C#, D, E#, E—with his right hand, his left alternating C, D, B forward and back.

"I know you want to go home," Matt says. "But suck it up. It's one week. You'll live."

"I'm not arguing with you, Matt."

"No, you're just sulking."

Jay frowns harder. His right thumb knocks against his knee, then pointer up for F#, adds A and holds the soundless chord on the invisible piano. Outside, there's breaks in the Shield and Jay can see a copse of trees slumped and tangled amongst themselves in standing water, knocked down by bad weather.

Matt sighs, loud and performative. He pauses his game and reaches into his jacket. A moment later, a body-warm protein bar slaps against the back of Jay's hand, slithering to the ground before he can catch it.

"Just… try for me. Please?" Matt says while Jay munches. "It's a nice resort. You might enjoy yourself."

Jay's too hungry to chew properly and the swallow feels rough going down. "I'm not—of course I'll try, Matt," he says, voice tight and eyes watering a little as he suppresses a cough. "I was never—I'll always—I'll try. It'll be fine." It's a feeble reassurance but Matt's not going to push him.

Twenty minutes to go.

Matt's trust is what funds their lifestyle. Matt gained control over it when he turned 25 and he draws enough for their rent and for their bills but otherwise he leaves it alone. He never bought Bitcoin, or a Tesla, or those JPEGs people treated like money for a while. He has never, in his life, made any money moves. Instead his trust gets money from boring investments in Dollarrama, Rogers, Cadillac Fairview, Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan, and so on.

Every few months, a fat envelope will appear in the mail, and it will contain an update on his investment portfolio in a language so dense and alien that it stresses Jay out a little to even look at it. So many bar graphs. Jay thinks of Matt's trust fund like a piece of complicated medical machinery. So long as neither of them fiddle with it, they won't disrupt its life saving mechanics.

Jay has no idea how much money Matt has. At their current rate of living, Matt and Jay will never need to work a day in their lives (why start now?). To Jay's family, this is a distressing prospect, and one he hears about if he ever answers his mom's calls.

To Matt's family, however, it doesn't seem like much of a concern. This is the benefit of coming from a large family, Jay assumes. Matt's oldest brother is a surgeon. All of his siblings have children. Matt's parents have enough to brag about to their neighbours in Tuscany to last all six months of their winter residence. They have a dozen grandkids to spoil and dote on. There's no pressure for Matt to give them anything with his life.

But there is one thing they ask of him: his presence. He has to attend every wedding, every Christening or Mitzvah (eldest brother's ex-wife is Jewish), every first birthday, every funeral, every reunion, all of it. These obligations pull Matt all over southern Ontario, sometimes landing him in places that sound made up, like Scotland, Ontario.

Jay isn't expected to join, which is a relief. As much as Jay hates being alone, he hates being away from his home more.

But now he and Matt are engaged. Matt's parents gifted each of his siblings approximately fifty thousand dollars upon their first marriages. The money is a no-strings gift. It makes Jay dizzy to think about.

Jay can't dodge this one. Mrs. Johnson is turning seventy-five and she wants her entire family to spend half of December together. They've rented two massive cottages in a fancy winter resort four hours north of Toronto. Maybe, maybe, if he and Matt weren't getting married, he could duck out of it. Maybe if fifty thousand dollars weren't being dangled above their heads, he could whine and mope his way free.

But Matt wouldn't hear it.

"You're going," he said.

It's like the beginning of a joke. How many Johnsons does it take to fill up a high-end winter resort in the Muskokas? Jay has lost count.

Matt is the third of five siblings. One older brother (Peter), an older sister (Leslie), and the twins (Emilia and Erik), both younger. They are all married, and they all have kids. One of them (Peter) is even divorced. They all have careers. They all have degrees, even some post-grad degrees. They all have wild, thick hair and dark, beady eyes, like a family of Troll dolls. Only Mr. Johnson, with his grey eyes, shows deviation from the factory model.

Jay doesn't need to be told that Matt is the underachieving sore thumb.

They catch an Uber from the bus station. Because they're both men, the driver doesn't help them with their luggage, leaving Matt to haul it up into the trunk on his own, griping the whole time.

"That's what you work out for," Jay says, hands in his pockets.

"I'll show you what I work out for," Matt mutters, casting him a brief, hot look before rounding the car.

Erik is the one who meets them first as their Uber pulls into the roundabout. He's standing beside one of the two cabins they've rented for the week, wearing a big Northface jacket and fur-lined boots up to his knees. Two kids—maybe his kids?—are within running distance from him, trying to scrape up enough snow off the ground to build a man out of. He waves when he sees them.

Jay waves back while Matt drags the luggage free. Of all of Matt's siblings, he thinks he likes Erik the best. Erik is like a quieter, more grown up version of Matt, even though he's two years younger.

"Howdy, strangers," he says, slipping into a Johnson family shtick. "Nice of you city folk to come out all the way round these parts."

"Long time no see," Matt says. He rubs his forehead with his sleeve and accepts his brother's hug with his other arm. "Don't 'city folk' us. Last I checked, Peterborough isn't exactly the sticks."

"Where we live it is," Erik says. "Nearest neighbours are ten minutes by car. Fields and trees and our big house and nothing else. Course you'd know that if you ever came around."

"I'm not going to fucking Peterborough."

"Big city boy."

"It's like two hours away. I'm not spending two hours on the 401 just to end up in Peterborough."

"Less time if you take the 407."

"I'm not spending one hundred and sixty dollars to go to Peterborough."

"Hi, Erik," Jay says.

"Holy shit, it's Jay McCarrol. I haven't seen you in years. I was starting to think you'd died and my brother stashed your body in the basement."

"How do you know about our burial plans?" Matt asks.

"I'm still here," Jay says.

"I expect you'll have him entombed, pharaoh-style, with all his riches," Erik says.

"Exactly pharaoh-style," Matt says. "And I'll join him. Who's kids are those? Are those yours?"

"The one in the blue hat is Josh. You know Josh. Josh, buddy! It's your Uncle Matt!"

The child in the blue hat looks up but doesn't wave. The other child, slightly larger, takes his lapse in attention as an excuse to shove him onto the ground.

"Lance," Erik says, with a note of warning. "That's not nice." He doesn't move.

"Jesus, how old is Josh now?"

"Six. Oh fuck, that reminds me!" Erik swats Matt in the stomach. "I have a surprise for you. You remember the Magic crew at York? Well—"

A wail splits through the still air and Erik, operating on dad instinct, spins around and starts rushing off towards the source—Josh and Lance, who did not care about nice, it seemed—without a backwards glance.

"Gotta love kids," Matt says. He starts for the largest cottage.

"Who is Lance?" Jay asks.

"Beats me. Probably one of Leslie's. I think she and her husband are doing the cutesy name matching thing. He's Luke. Did you know that?"

"You probably told me."

"Luke, Leslie, Lance, Llewellyn, Laertes…"

The luggage crashes up the stairs one at a time. Matt's chin is tense as he speaks, like he's holding something between his teeth. He yanks the door open hard enough to bang it on its hinges, and stomps inside. Jay looks over his shoulder at the two kids on the ground. They've patched things up, have turned their attention to hurling precious fistfuls of snow at Erik.

It's late mid-December in northern Ontario. The sky is colourless and featureless, an uninterrupted field of grey-white. There's snow on the ground, but not much, green stalks of grass poking through the broken white blanket. The kids are doing their best, but their work has carved out a lopsided circle of green, growing fast.

Matt's low whistle draws Jay's attention.

"Look at this place. Dad must really want us all here for mom's seventy fifth."

The inside of the cottage is large, airy, natural light streaming in from tall windows that scale up to the second floor. The first floor seems to be one big room and Jay can see straight from where he's standing to the living room and from there, the back of the house, a line of windows overlooking a massive cedar plank patio. The kitchen to one side, a serving window giving a peek into its gleaming interior. Above their heads, a chandelier, and the second story. Everything is clean and exposed, rustic chic.

The light, the windows, the clean lines, it all reminds Jay of his sister's wedding again. He doesn't realise he's twisting his ring until he sees Matt staring at him. He drops both hands with a warm flash of guilt.

It looks like Matt's going to say something but a clamour of voices cuts him off. Several Johnsons—blond, large, loud—appear from the kitchen. Jay recognizes only the smallest and oldest as Mrs. Johnson, Matt's mother.

"There you are!"s sound from all around and Matt's swept up in a few tight hugs. Mrs. Johnson swats at the hair hanging in Matt's forehead.

"Why didn't you call when you got to the station?" she asks. "And when was the last time you got a hair cut?"

"Looking very Bohemian, Matty," a Johnson says. He's tanned and he's got Matt's nose and although his hair is thinning, he has Matt's curly texture. Jay thinks this is probably Peter, the eldest, the surgeon.

There's a girl lurking behind him, dark haired and beautiful and about half his age. She catches Jay's eye and gives him a sunny smile which he returns shyly. He has no idea who this could be. His first thought is maybe she's one of the older grandkids, but her outfit—oversized white cable knit sweater tucked into a tartan pencil skirt—seems a bit too sophisticated for that.

"Jay." Mrs. Johnson's voice slaps Jay back to awareness. Matt is looking at him with his expressive mouth drawn thin and his eyes wide. A warning look, he thinks.

Mrs. Johnson's face doesn't move at all when he looks at her, tries to smile. They're all looking at him.

"It's so good to see you," she says, voice echoing slightly to the high ceiling.

Despite knowing Matt for his entire life, Jay spent very little time with his family. Matt preferred they spend most of their time at Jay's home. Even though Matt's house was much bigger, much nicer, a 7 bedroom behemoth sat all to itself at the top of the street. It had a rec room and a finished basement and an inground pool. It had a big shed with pool toys, super soakers, noodles, floaties, everything. The fridge was always fully stocked with brand name pop and popsicles. Jay's mom only bought them freezies and pop was only a single 2 litre he had to share with everyone, and only on Friday nights when they ordered pizza. At Matt's house, you got a can all to yourself whenever you wanted.

Matt's room had a computer in it. It has a 56k modem. He and the twins shared a dedicated phone line for the internet. He had a closet full of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys and Lego sets in big snap lid tubs. Posters and magazine clippings on the wall. Glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on the ceiling. Matt's room was awesome. If Jay was over, that's where they spent their time.

Jay could count on one hand the number of times he'd come face-to-face with Mrs. Johnson. Dr. Johnson, actually. She relished the revelation of herself to her patients, Matt told Jay, when they would only know her by name before they met her. Her reveal like the solution to an old riddle, Dr. Johnson is a woman. All the Johnsons are like this in one way or another.

The first time Jay met Mrs. Dr. Johnson, Matt hovered at behind him with his hand fisted in the back of Jay's t-shirt. Like he was ready to yank Jay out of there at the first sign of trouble.

But Dr. Johnson's tired eyes skipped over him and all she said was Matthew, would your guest like a 7-Up?

And, of course, there was Emilia.

The kitchen looks and feels like a showroom floor, huge and shiny, filled with intimidating appliances. The middle island takes up enough room that people are always manoeuvring around it wherever they try to go, shimmying and twisting around its corners. There's platters of meat, cheese, nuts, and chopped vegetables in the centre of the marble counter top. There's two open bottles of wine. There's an orb made from soft cheese that's been made up to look like a reindeer, with pretzel antlers, olive eyes, and a piece of red pepper for a nose.

All the tall stools were taken but someone dragged one of the dining room chairs in for Jay. It's much shorter and it puts him nearly eye-level with the cheese ball's unblinking olive eyes. Matt is beside him. He was able to secure a stool.

There's a lot of talk washing over Jay. The siblings are discussing their various children and the various gripes and complaints they have about their children's education. Matt isn't talking much at all. He's got a tall glass of soda water sweating in his hand, his thumb rubbing up and down its side.

He's only an hour into this week-long visit and he's already homesick.

It sucks being outside of their home. The Johnsons are a noisy bunch and there's not much soft material to absorb their voices, laughter, chewing. It's a bit like being in a fashionable restaurant. Jay misses their living room, misses their couch, their bedrooms, his piano. Misses how Matt looks when they're at home, his expression open and relaxed.

Jay gets up to get himself something to drink. He stands in front of the double sink, sipping his water, and considers the additional bottles of wine on the counter. It's not a good idea but his nerves flutter in his stomach and the whole week stretches like a dark tunnel in his mind's eye. He's chewing on his lower lip, debating, when someone touches his elbow.

He looks down at the woman who's just called for his attention and it takes him a shameful, honest second to recognize her because she's doing her hair differently now and she's let her eyebrows grow back, and it's been almost twenty years.

"Emilia," he says.

"Jay. Hi," she says. He isn't sure what he's expecting from her—a slap, maybe, or a drink in the face. Both of which he'd probably deserve, or worse. Instead, she smiles up at him and opens her arms. It takes him another interminable second to realise what she's looking for.

"Oh my god," he says, breathing out with relief as he folds himself awkwardly into her arms. "I haven't seen you in—forever."

"Congratulations," Emilia says. When they draw apart, she taps on his left hand. "For the engagement. Nice ring."

Jay's smile grows tight. He puts his other hand over his engagement ring.

Neither Matt nor Jay had any jewellery experience and the visit to the store had left them both overwhelmed and irritated. What should have been something romantic had deteriorated into bickering as they both grew opinionated over the different gold tones, diamond cuts, lab grown vs real. Matt had wanted something attention-grabbing, something ostentatious. Jay knew it would be a stressful waste of money because he'd probably lose it and piss Matt off.

"Why should I even have to wear the ring?" Jay asked when Matt just rolled his eyes. "We're both men. Why don't you wear the ring?"

"Why would I buy myself a ring? The point is that people should look at you and know. It needs to be big and flashy so everyone knows. Besides, it'll impress people."

"What people?" Jay asked warily.

"Everyone. People're gonna look at your big, expensive ring and think, wow that guy's fiance must be desperate to lock him down. He must be something special."

Unfortunately, that had been the argument that won Jay over. And now Jay was wearing a yellow gold ring with a meridian of diamonds shot through its centre, all hundred facets glittering under the light, any light. It's beautiful the way a sunset over the beach is beautiful; rote, uninteresting, cliche. Whenever it catches Jay's eye—which it does constantly—he is reminded of its expense. He now lives in fear of losing it.

Stop fidgeting. He can hear Matt's voice in his head. He puts his water down.

"Um. Thanks."

"Listen," she says and takes a step closer to him. "Can we go somewhere a little quieter? I feel like… we should probably talk."

Okay. Emilia.

What's there to say? Jay was horny and depressed and in his 20s, fresh off his failure at Berklee, and Emilia was horny and just turned eighteen. Matt rarely had Jay over at his house but when he was there, Emilia might find him. Emilia gave Jay her personal number and her MSN Messenger email when they were both still in high school. They didn't start hanging out until he came home to Mississauga.

After Berklee it was just nice to have someone around who didn't ask him what he was thinking about, or what he wanted to do, or why he came home, or even what he's been doing in the two months since coming home mid-semester. Emilia really didn't ask much of him at all. She was pretty and easy to be around. She lived at home, in room with frosted lavender walls and a purple paisley comforter on a four post bed, taking a year off between high school and university. He'd drive her car to Erin Mills and buy them orange creamsicle rum coolers from the LCBO.

They'd drink and smoke and make out in her car, parked in the empty, sun-blasted outskirts of the parking lot. She would make him listen to bands she liked from her iPod and suck his dick. His hand under her shirt, the stiff architecture of her bra, his thumb pushing down and to the side on the hooks on the back. An easy flick-of-the-wrist manoeuver he picked up in the States. Her sticky strawberry lip gloss and the stippling of her mascara on her cheeks. The green apple air freshener hanging from her rear-view, rocking and twisting with the movement of the car, of them in the car.

That's really what Jay remembers when he thinks back to those months. The two of them, their ease together. Emilia outgoing and seemingly uncomplicated. It was just a fling. He was just her older brother's friend. Never mind that he and Matt weren't speaking then.

Never mind that Matt was in Toronto, in North York, getting excellent grades in whatever gay bachelor of arts he was pursuing. Majoring in bright futures, minoring in a charmed life.

Him and Emilia never felt real but that didn't mean Jay didn't care about her. The two of them, tonguing E into each other's mouths, Emilia securing some from some grade repeating hookup at her school, even though the rave scene was dead and buried by then. They spent the night laughing at everything and fucking in her parent's basement. The easy undulation of her hips, the way she'd ride him until he was oversensitive and close to tears. The way she'd laugh at him. He liked her. Sometimes he could trick himself into liking her a lot.

It was just kid stuff. It didn't mean anything.

By September, she was gone to Western and Jay and Matt were talking again. By October, they were living together on Queen street, in an apartment Jay found for them. Messenger was kind of done by that point and he and Emilia just didn't talk anymore.

It's strange to say it was over when it wasn't really anything to begin with.

Jay had no clue where any amount of privacy could be found in the cottage but he followed Emilia from the kitchen. She led him to the back of the house, the tall windows, and out the sliding door onto the cedar patio.

There was a small ice skating rink in the backyard, just beyond where the patio ended. A half-dozen kids swarmed the ice—Johnson kids, he's pretty sure—between two set up hockey nets. Emilia raises her hand and waves at them.

"My kids," she says.

"All of them?"

She laughs like he meant it to be funny. "I've got three. Parker there is my oldest. He's turning eight this year. Can you believe it? Grade three in the fall. Georgia's my middle, she's six, and Sofia's my youngest. She's four. They're both with their dad right now."

Like skipping stones across a pond, Jay thinks. Two years, two years, two years. He supposes there's no plan for a fourth, given Sofia's advanced age. He tucks his hands into his sleeves.

"So," Emilia says, turning to him with a bright smile. "I told my husband about you."

"Okay."

"I figured I had to," she continues. "When Matt told us about—about everything and that you were coming. It didn't feel right not to tell him."

"Okay," Jay says again. She blinks her big eyes up at him, expectant. "Okay, so. Is he going to beat me up or something?"

"No, that's not Herschel's style."

"Herschel?" Jay's eyebrows rise.

"He's from Napanee," she says, voice and expression notably cooler than before.

"Well." Jay collects himself. "I'm grateful."

He'd known, of course, that Emilia had gotten married. He remembered Matt telling him before he went away for a weekend to attend her wedding. He even, he thinks, remembers the invitation which bore both of their names in a curling golden script on a tasteful grey-blue setting.

"You know, I wasn't surprised when Matt told us about you and him," she says. She bites her lower lip, painted a tasteful taupe-y nude (no more strawberry gloss), and smiles a little. "I'm happy for you guys. Although, to be honest, I'm surprised it took this long."

Jay nods. Out on the rink, there's some sort of commotion. Two of the kids in bulky snow suits collide on the ice and fall. Three others start shouting something, skating in loops around the tangled mess of players. Jay expects Emilia to jump into action but she doesn't seem to notice.

"Can I be honest?" Emilia asks and, like always, she doesn't wait for him to answer before verbally bounding forward. "I thought you guys were together for, like, a decade. I thought after the move out of that rat trap apartment, when you got that Victorian on Shaw, you guys were for sure serious about each other."

"We were," Jay says.

"No, you know what I mean," Emilia says.

But they were. This is one of the reasons Jay doesn't like being thrust outside of his home, forced to interact with the rest of the world. It's a cliche, maybe, but it's true for them: nobody really understands them. What they were to each other. Everyone simultaneously thinks they are both gay and also not serious enough about each other just because they weren't having sex until a few months ago. It irritates him. Puts him on a side of a culture war he didn't know existed until he found himself on the defense of it.

Jay shakes his head. On the ice, the two kids roll around, shrill voices clattering with tossed sticks.

"After Matt passed on that one bedroom in Liberty Village, I thought to myself: Oh, it's because of Jay."

One of the kids starts wailing. Another jeers at him, the word pussy flying across the winter air. "Wait. What place in Liberty Village?"

She flicks her fingers. "Yeah, our mom wanted to buy him this one bedroom condo in Liberty Village in 2016. I saw it. It was a nice place. Not the usual shoebox special. They got pretty far along in the process too," she says. "But then he backed out. Kind of last minute, I think. Suddenly, he said he didn't want it." She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, looks up at him. "He didn't mention any of this to you? He and Peter really got into it, afterwards. Peter called him—well." She winces. "He said some not nice things in the sibling group chat."

Jay casts a lure into the distant past of 2016 or so and tries to remember what was going on in their lives. The trouble with living the same day over and over again is that one day doesn't exactly stick out from any other, and his memories flow together in one unbroken golden afternoon. He can remember packing up the Queen street apartment, unearthing an old Game Gear he must've gotten a dozen Christmases ago, and asking Matt if he wanted to keep it because if not he would just trade it in at A&C Games. Matt not bothering to wrap their dishes in grocery store flyers and Jay nagging at him about it. Jay accidentally breaking a picture frame when he tried to remove it from the wall. Jay bitching at Matt about the Encyclopedias, how heavy they were. Matt firing back that Mr. Upright Piano doesn't get to complain about the weight of things we're moving. Jay huffing and telling him his piano was more important than a bunch of 1980s encyclopedias.

Jay remembers how Matt would go out on his own in the evenings to look for places without Jay because Jay would just slow him down with complaints and pointless nit picky requests. Matt narrowed the list of possible new apartments down to three contenders and he finally brought Jay out to look at them. They went to the Shaw house first. Jay took one look at it, with its picture window, its old wooden floors, the beat-up kitchen appliances that neither of them would use, and he knew this was the place.

"We haven't even looked at the other two places," Matt griped. The two of them stood in the empty living room, the morning sunlight coming in through the front windows, stretched across the floor.

Jay stared at him, astonished. "But this is it," he said. "Piano here. Couch there. TV—this is it."

He still misses that place on Shaw. Burned down now for almost a decade, pre-pandemic, taking his piano with it. There was no salvage, the whole house devoured, the landlord collecting the insurance and the two of them stuck in a hotel until Matt found the new place on Manning, which was perfect. The front window, the panel of stained glass, the wooden floors. All of it exactly right. Jay found the used Mendelssohn on Kijiji and Matt hired the guys to pick it up for him.

He doesn't remember Matt behaving any differently back then. He can't remember any mention of being gifted a one bedroom in Liberty Village, or a falling out with his domineering older brother.

"Well," Emilia says off of his blank look. "It was a whole thing. Mom called a family meeting over FaceTime and everything. I just figured, after that, you know. Matt made it pretty clear that all his future plans needed a built-in Jay consideration to them. The one bedroom was too small for you two and the piano."

"He said that?"

Emilia nods. Her chin trembles and Jay can hear the faint, hollow knocking of her molars chattering together. "I told him I was happy for him." She gives Jay a strange, strained smile. "You know, it's funny. That it was you. But I guess I should've figured. Matt was always so… he was barely around. I mean, we siblings were all pretty close, but he was kind of the odd one out, you know? I had Erik and Leslie and Peter were always together. He was either in his room or out of the house. Half the time, he wouldn't even look at us when he talked to us. Half the time he didn't talk to us at all. I don't think he hated us," she says quickly. "Just. He wasn't around. Even when he was around. You know?"

Jay does not, not even a little bit. He tries to imagine a Matt that isn't around, a Matt that doesn't talk to him, doesn't look at him, and the person he sees in his mind's eye isn't Matt at all.

And then he remembers: summer 2003.

The sun coming down, Matt's silhouette in the backyard, and Jay can't look at him.

I thought you said you weren't going. I thought you said you didn't want to.

Jay, stumbling over his words, hands restless, dissecting a dandelion, his fingers stained yellow. (He loves me, he loves me not.)

You lied to me.

It wasn't a lie. It wasn't. It was just secret, it was just private.

"I knew you'd act like this," Jay said. A mistake, a bad one. The dandelion's in pieces on his lap.

Matt, silent, volcanic. The black shape of him against the too-bright sun. Looking down at Jay. Looking away.

Fuck you.

The last thing Matt said to him. The last thing for four years. Jay thought they were over. Whatever they were.

"It was different with you," Emilia says, snapping Jay back to the cold present. She's full body shivering now. "He w-was always different with you."

Jay realises too late that he is standing beside a shivering woman and he is wearing a blazer. He shuffles it off and hands it to her. Her smile loosens.

"Thanks," she says. She tucks the blazer up around her neck, like a cape. On the ice, the kids were staggering back to their feet. The sound of thuck-thuck sound of their skates carrying over the chilled air.

"Do you remember, he had you over to use the pool one summer. You guys were in high school by this point. Everyone was gone and I'd just come back from a friend's house or cheer camp or something. I saw you guys just messing around and Matt's face… It was like." A frown line appears on her forehead, a crack in her otherwise smooth face. "I didn't know he could look like that. I remember thinking Oh, that guy is my brother."

Jay waits but Emilia seems content to leave the anecdote there. He considers the skaters just in time to see an attempted slap shot whiffed hard, puck sailing cheerfully, slowly, through the centre of the ice before it's scooped up.

"I don't remember that," he says.

"That was the day I gave you my email," she says.

Jeering from the rink, the failed slap shooter throwing his thermal gloves to the ice.

"Oh. Right," he says.

From there, she delicately pivots the conversation towards lighter topics, away from Matt. Emilia tells him about her career, her kids, her husband (she calls him Hersh). She holds some kind of high ranking job at a Rogers, something in marketing and PR that makes use of her Masters in sociology that Jay can't follow and doesn't try. Hersh works as a bar supervisor at some big venue in Hamilton.

The kids have resumed their three-on-three. Jay hunches his shoulders, arms folded, shivering hard and trying not to show it.

He jumps when he hears the door slide open, slamming in its rail. Matt's stepping outside, eyes flicking from Emilia to Jay, expression souring.

"There you are," he says. Emilia perks up.

"Matty!" she says and throws her arms around him, ignorant of or ignoring the scowl on his face.

"We already hugged," he complains but pats her on the back. He purses his lips at Jay over her shoulder. "What are you two doing out here? Where's your coat?"

"Just catching up," Emilia says.

"It's inside," Jay says. He's got his hands stuffed into his armpits. "Can I wear your sweater?"

"Just come inside, idiot," Matt says.

"Please?"

"No, we're going inside."

"I'm going to stay out here for a bit," Emilia says before Jay can continue whining.

"Yeah, have fun watch your son get destroyed at three vee three," Matt says.

"Just like his Uncle Matt used to."

"Just like his mom used to too."

"Good come back."

Inside, Jay is still shivering, his body temperature dropped and his internal pilot light blown out from spending too long outside. He tugs at Matt's sleeve, opens his mouth to ask for the sweater again.

"What the fuck were you doing out there alone with Emilia?" Matt demands.

"Oh," Jay says, too startled to be upset by Matt's tone, by the red rising in his cheeks. "We were just catching up."

"Catching up," Matt repeats. "You know she's married, right?"

"What?" Jay makes the mistake of laughing. "Of course I know that. What's the problem? Can I please wear your sweater? I'm freezing."

Matt scoffs in his face and yanks his sweater off over his head. "You're such a baby," he says, muffled.

Matt's sweater is warm from his body, and the collar, when Jay presses his nose against it, carries a whiff of the body spray Matt misted over himself that morning.

"Happy?" Matt asks. He's now left wearing a white cotton t-shirt, tight to his body, his pecs and his biceps. Jay is, in fact, very happy.

And it must show on his face because some of the anger unscrews from Matt's expression.

"What's the big deal, anyway?" Jay asks.

Matt eyes him for a moment. He clears his throat. Jay sidles closer and whatever's left of Matt's earlier displeasure melts away.

"Nothing," he says. "I just wanted to know where you were." He takes Jay's cool hands in his own, the cold ring burning against skin. Matt's always run a few degrees too warm, something that's only gotten more pronounced as he's aged and started putting on muscle mass. Matt takes their hands to his mouth and breathes warm against their fingers.

Jay's been homesick since they stepped foot out the door but it spikes in his chest just how badly he wants to be back home with Matt, where they could make out on the couch while a movie they've seen a hundred times plays, volume low and murmuring, on the TV.

As usual, Matt appears to be on the same wavelength, and gives Jay a mournful look.

There's a clatter from the front hall, a parade of kid voices, kid yelling, the clunk of boots being kicked off and the shuffle of snow suits being thrown aside.

"Matt!" It's Erik, behind the squall of four kids. "Whoa. Dude. When did you get so big?"

"Some of us don't let our physique go just because we popped out a few kids," Matt says. He drops Jay's hands, wipes his own off on his jeans.

"Wait, are you saying that I gave birth and so did you?"

A dog starts barking over the start of Matt's comeback and a little Scottish terrier comes scurrying in after the kids, announcing itself over and over.

"Sorry!" someone calls from outside. "She's just excited. Delilah, heel."

Someone Jay has never seen before is in the doorway. A man in a grey wool peacoat and a blaring red tartan scarf peeking up stylishly from under the collar, with short, tidy hair, and a pair of tortoiseshell glasses on his face, lenses fogged up after coming inside from the cold. Jay's first thought is that he must be a cousin, but cousins weren't coming until the end of the week. Hershel, maybe?

The man takes off his glasses. Matt goes still beside Jay.

"Holy shit," he says.

The man breaks into a megawatt smile. "Matty!"

Matt steps towards him. "Owen," he says. "Hi."

Who the fuck is Owen?

Owen is a man with boyish good looks and a career in Canadian television. Due to a recent break-up, he is alone for the holidays. Erik found out and invited him to the resort. He isn't, technically, a part of their trip but he is staying at the hotel, in a pet-friendly suite in the main building.

"I'm a producer," he says.

The kids have filtered out of the main room and into the kitchen, where they've merged with the peewee players from the rink out back to create a cacophony for their parents to herd and enjoy. Erik pops in and out, pithy comments here and there, but for the most part they are left alone.

"No shit," Matt says.

"Any show I would've heard of?" Jay asks.

Annoyingly, yes. Owen's worked on a few Canadian-version reality things, the sitcom about the family in Toronto, and some show Jay has seen billboards for at bus stops around the city, the one where the smiling woman is holding a bloody knife in one hand and a basket of overflowing laundry in the other.

"I can't believe you actually did it," Matt says. "You made it, man."

Owen blushes and laughs, handsomely. "I guess. What about you? This guy," he says, to Jay, "he was one of the bravest, craziest filmmakers I ever met."

Filmmaker? Jay blinks at Matt, who isn't looking at him at all.

It's Erik who fills in the details, in bits and pieces as he passes through, chasing one child while bouncing another off of his hip.

"Owen was Matt's roommate at York," he says.

"Stong Residence," Owen says, his knees knocking against Matt's. "My first time in the big city. I grew up in Port Dover. Matt was the first guy I met outside of the res coordinator. We did Fresh Week together."

"They did everything together," Erik says. Because he was at York too, Jay remembers. Two years after Matt, getting a degree in something science-y or maybe psychology.

"We were in the Magic the Gathering club," Owen says.

"Right." Jay feels like he's just come up from holding his head underwater. His ears are ringing. "And that's how you met Erik."

"Oh, I mean. I met Erik a few summers before that," Owen says and all Jay can see is his mouth, his straight, white teeth. "I came to visit Mississauga a couple times. It's beautiful out there."

It's not. Misssissauga sucks. Matt isn't looking at Jay. Matt isn't looking at him.

The conversation slithers away from Jay and becomes so much noise. His head feels like a jack-o-lantern on November 1st. There's so much noise, coming from every direction. The kids never stop talking. The adults never stop lecturing the kids. There's phones playing videos, ten second clips, five second clips, two. Half-words cut off. Jay's ears are ringing.

He's up, he's gone, he doesn't think anyone notices because there's more kids coming into the room and Erik's wife is calling for him in the kitchen. Jay is upstairs, trembling hand on the bannister, knuckles white. He finds the room where Matt stored their things and sits on the edge of the bed. He puts his head between his knees and breathes. He breathes.

He can still hear the Johnsons downstairs but its easier with the door closed, with the distance of an entire floor between them. He is eight, ten years old again, at his grandmother's house in Montreal, hiding upstairs in the guest bedroom he has to share with his sister and his cousin, away from his aunts and his uncles who ask him questions about the piano and his grades and what he likes and who he likes and who he is and where he's going.

Just like he did back then, he wants to go home. It's worse now because he's older, and because his home is so much dearer to him.

When he lifts his head, its to a room bathed in the deepening blue of late afternoon in December. He can finally hear himself, his shaky breathing, his little sniffs. He looks at his hands and it takes him a second to realise he's lost his ring.

It's a panicked few moments on his hands and knees before he finds it on the floor, under the bed where it must've rolled after it fell off his finger. He screws it down to his last knuckle.

There's a woman sitting on the stair landing outside and down the hall from his room. Her head of long, sleek, dark hair marks her as an outsider. She turns her head when she hears him coming and he sees that it's the woman he'd seen behind Peter, the eldest, the surgeon. The woman with the nice outfit.

"Hi." She smiles at him.

"Hey."

"Kasia," she says, sticking her hand out at him. She's got long, acrylic nails. Jay takes her hand nervously.

"Jay."

"You're one of the spouses, I take it?"

"I'm, um. Yeah. I'm Matt's, um, fiance." It's the first time he's called himself that.

Her smile cracks her face into a friendly expression. "You're the guy in the band," she says. "The pianist. Can I see?" She holds her hand out and Jay's so frazzled he doesn't realise what she wants until she clicks her nails in the direction of his left hand.

The ring. She coos at it, like it's a kitten. As she leans close, he sneaks a look at her tits. "So fancy," she says. He meets her eyes. "The Johnsons really know how to flash their money around, huh?" She sizes him up. Like a lot of women before her, she seems to like what she sees. Enough that she scoots over and pats the landing. Her skirt's riding up a little.

"Come play hooky with me," she says. Jay sits down, feeling warm and pleased. "I'm the new one. Peter's new girlfriend. His first girlfriend, post-divorce. You must've known his wife."

Jay explains, briefly, that he has no memory of Peter's ex-wife, that he doesn't spend much time with the Johnsons and their spouses and their kids. Something seems to unlatch in Kasia's face and her shoulders slump with it, some invisible tension slipping loose.

She tells Jay how she met Peter at an art gallery, where she worked as an assistant. He was attending an opening, something by a client's friend, wandering the floor with a glass of wine drooping in his hand.

"He looked lost," she says. "Like an unattended child."

She felt sorry for him. She talked to him and kept talking because she liked how he looked at her face when she spoke to him and how he snuck a tasteful amount of tit-viewing during their conversation. (Jay nods, gaze resting firmly on her face.) He explained to her that he was looking to replace the art in his condo because his wife, ex-wife, picked it all out originally and she took it all with her when she left him.

"I shouldn't be hiding," she says. Her voice has dropped to a lower register, huskier. They are now sharing a secret. "Peter's been on me the whole way up about making an impression. But his mom—" She catches herself, taps her nails on her darkened phone screen. "I don't know. I guess his ex-wife was pretty popular."

"Not with me," Jay says.

It's the correct thing to say. Kasia leans into him. Jay sneaks another look.

"Peter and I went on holiday to Bali. Do you want to see pictures?"

He sure does. Kasia flicks through photo after photo on her camera roll. Candy-coloured blue sky, sugar white beach, teal ocean with white-tipped waves like frosting on a cake. She's wearing a different bikini in nearly every picture. Jay asks her to slow down now and then, feigns interest in whatever lagoon she posed in. He likes the friendly sound of her voice, a woman used to talking to men, to getting on their good side. It's almost enough to distract Jay.

Downstairs, over the sounds of movement in the kitchen—the caterers arrival—and the kids, Jay can hear Matt's voice. Climbing louder. Arguing about something, something about deck types and meta. Talking fast and passionate. And laughing.

Dinner is long and painful. Jay isn't even seated at the main table—some kind of mix up with the place setting. He and Kasia are seated with the children, and the two nannies hired for the evening. Jay and Kasia spend the dinner service talking to each other. Kasia told him about the Masters program she planned to apply to, bringing her hands up to touch the diamond studs in her ears and looking over to the main table, to Peter.

Jay's only solace, beside Kasia's aggressive friendliness, is the fact that Owen isn't there. He's fucked off to his own cabin for the night, took his fussy dog with him, but not before promising to come out and meet them again tomorrow.

There's a small bathroom attached to their room. The whole cottage—or chalet or whatever—is like a big hotel. There's three larger shared bathrooms but they're all overflowing with the kids and the kids' stuff. Bubblegum scented shampoo, cotton candy bubble bath fluid, and bins of bathtub toys. Jay sits on the edge of their bed and listens to the splashing, the clatter of bottles, children whining and laughing.

Matt's in their bathroom, brushing his teeth. Jay can see his smeared reflection in the window, their room in broad strokes, and nothing beyond.

The faucet runs. Matt spits. He emerges a moment later, stripped down to a t-shirt and his briefs, wearing his glasses. The look he gives Jay is—it's not something Jay's used to seeing aimed at him from Matt's face.

"Can you please stop sulking," Matt says, exasperated. "Do you know how much this place costs? I'm sorry about the dinner." He circles the room to his side of the bed. "Mom said there was just something weird with the—the place cards or something. I talked to her about it. It won't happen again."

Jay hasn't spoken a word since dessert. He knows he's being childish, that he's sulking, but the knowledge doesn't make him stop. He twists his ring.

Matt snaps the comforter back. "Why'd you spend all night talking to Peter's sugar baby?"

This jolts Jay's tongue from its paralysis. "Kasia?"

"Was there another Instagram baddie hanging off your arm all night? Yes, Kasia."

"She's not a sugar baby," Jay says, frowning. "They met at a gallery," he adds when Matt rolls his eyes.

"Oh, please. They met on one of those apps."

"She never told me that. How do you even know that?"

"What, she didn't quote you her hourly rate? The whole family knows that. Peter's not subtle."

"She didn't—we just looked at her vacation photos," Jay says.

"Uh huh." Matt tosses his glasses to the bedside table. He rubs his hand over his face like an over-tired toddler, fingers ending up in his wild hair. "I'm sure. Let me guess—tropical vacation? Lots of pictures of her in a bikini?"

"They were in Bali," Jay mutters, hunching. "I know what you're trying to imply. I'm not stupid, Matt. She doesn't think of me like that. She doesn't," he insists, voice climbing when Matt sighs. "I introduced myself as your fiance. She asked to see my ring."

Jay looks over his shoulder when he hears nothing from Matt's side of the bed. Matt's watching him with an oddly glassy look in his eyes.

"Right," he says. "You—you called yourself my fiance?"

Jay flushes hot. "That's what I am."

"Right," Matt says.

"Come here," he says.

It's fast and hard and it's not enough, but it's such a relief to get Matt's hands on him, under his shirt, between his twitching legs. Matt's laying half-on him, one leg flung over Jay's, hooked around the knee. His hand on Jay, Jay's hand on him, like a pair of kids sneaking under the covers. They can't make too much noise, and they can't do everything they like to do, but they can do this. Jay can still hear people moving around in the hallway outside their room, the thumps of little feet, high-pitched whining pleas to hear a story. The sound of Matt breathing, rough and uneven in Jay's ear.

Jay whispering Matt's name, until Matt puts his hand over his mouth and presses him down into the pillow.

"I tell you to do one thing," Matt murmurs, lips brushing over his own knuckles. Jay tries to push into his hand, shameless, while his own grip tightens on Matt. "And you can't even do that. What am I going to do with you, Bird?"

It's the same kind of things Matt's always saying to him. He doesn't mean it. Jay's thoughts twirl around it before they're all shaken loose and he's coming in Matt's hands.

Matt kisses the back of his own hand, sealed over Jay's mouth, and he's thrusting into Jay, finishing off onto Jay's stomach.

Afterwards, a sleepy clean-up, Jay's grey henley now slung over the shower rod, a massive wet spot where they ran it under the sink. Matt settles, flicks off the lamp, burrows himself into Jay's side. Jay looks up at the dark ceiling, the unfamiliar shadows.

"Matt," he says.

Matt grunts, already half-asleep.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about Owen?"

Matt doesn't answer but Jay knows he isn't asleep.

What Jay would like to hear is that Matt never told Jay about Owen for the same reason Matt doesn't tell Jay about his family (and why doesn't Matt ever tell Jay about his family?): perhaps because he doesn't consider them important or relevant to his—their—life.

Instead, Matt says: "I didn't?"

"No." Jay feels it like a drain unplugging in his chest, contents swirling down a dark hole.

"Oh." Matt sniffs and sighs, a big show of slipping off to dream land. "I guess I just forgot," he mumbles.

Jay's grip around Matt's shoulders tightens. "Right," he says.

And Matt either falls asleep or does an excellent job at pretending and it's too late for Jay to follow up.

Another dream. Jay is famous, and he is alone. He is in a bathroom that appears to be made of black marble, everything polished and shiny. He is with a beautiful pop star, a woman with long black hair and long and sharp nails.

And Matt is there, he's in the mirror, looking at Jay over the pop star's tanned, smooth shoulder. His electric smile. Jay can taste tin in his mouth, and then copper.

He wakes up with a jolt. Spends a disorienting second understanding where he is, and why. He struggles to catch his breath because Matt is half-way stretched out on top of him. They've kicked off the duvet at some point in the night, and the sheets are tangled around Jay's legs. He puts his hand to Matt's back, feels the familiar planes, the raised bumps of his moles, the soft rise of his birthmark. He closes his eyes and focuses on the feel of Matt's heartbeat.

It's a while before he can fall back to sleep.

The next day is a ski trip to the mountains. Jay is not much of a skier. In middle school, they took a multi day field trip to Hockey Valley and had them practise downhill skiing one at a time. In retrospect, the slope they were being instructed to go down was probably a mild incline of only a hundred meters, maybe less, to the bottom, but to Jay's twelve year old eyes, it looked like a triple black diamond. When it was his turn, he sat down on the ground and refused.

The memory still burns in his chest. There is no humiliation quite like pre-pubescent humiliation in front of all his peers, and Matt. It would've been less embarrassing if he'd pissed himself or gotten a boner. Maybe.

It didn't help that Matt did it without issue. The Johnsons have always been a robust, outdoorsy people. For as long as Jay has known Matt, they've gone on a big skiing trip every winter, and a new hiking excursion to the deep woods every summer until Matt aged up enough that he could stay home alone and start ducking out of the obligation.

Matt spent the rest of that trip needling Jay about his cowardice, calling him a girl and a baby, until Jay finally snapped and attacked Matt. The teachers had to call their parents in for a special meeting and, not for the first time, recommend that Matt and Jay be placed in separate classes next year. Or at the very least, discouraged from spending time with each other, encouraging a fit of pre-adolescent temper from both Matt and Jay, but especially Matt. In the end, their parents didn't make them do anything, too exasperated by the drama.

Anyway, Matt has always been kind of athletic. He's got decent hand-eye coordination, decent speed and strength, and okay focus. Unlike Jay, who spent most of the obligatory summer sports his parents signed him up for tearing dandelions from the ground and thinking about music and movies.

Jay knows he can't ski. He doesn't even own a snowsuit. He's wearing his black long coat, the one he got from Zara ten years ago.

Matt has a snowsuit. So do all the kids. Jay half expects all the Johnsons to emerge from the chalet in matching Lycra, like the Partridge family or the Tenenbaums. Matt's got a pair of yellow-tinted goggles strapped around his head, over a headband covering his ears. This is, Jay thinks, the first time he's seen Matt outside without his trilby in a long time.

"Are you sure you don't even want to try?" Matt asks. They're in the backseat of one of the four hired vans that arrived to take them to the slopes. "Everyone's going to ski. You can try the easier slopes with the kids."

"Matt, that's embarrassing," Jay says.

"But you'll stick out if you don't join us," Matt says. "Have you even spoken to any of my siblings? Other than Emilia, I mean." That sharp tone again.

"I—I did, yeah," he says. Technically true. That morning, while everyone ate breakfast from the platters of fruit and the pancake bar, Jay exchanged a few words with Leslie, Matt's older sister. She of the L-family.

"My eldest, Lindsey, she's started piano lessons," she said. "You play, right? You went to school for it? Remind me again—where did you go? Ah, yes. In Boston. And did you graduate? Oh. I… see. Can you please pass me the strawberry syrup?"

"You'd said you'd try," Matt says. "But all you've done since we got here is sulk and flirt with that Instagram model. Why can't you just—?" He cuts himself off with a sigh. He turns himself away from Jay and doesn't speak for the rest of the ride.

It's one of those winter days where the sky is so clear and painfully blue that Jay can barely look at it. The air is crisp and his exhales steam around his face. The hired drivers unload the equipment, with Peter and Leslie's husband (L-whatever) anxiously supervising. Matt is drawn into a conversation with his mother that Jay is too far away to overhear. He glances at Jay, brows furrowed.

Owen arrives on his own during this time, his skis strapped to his back. Everyone is either preoccupied with unloading, observing, or wrangling children. Even Kasia is busy, hovering beside Peter. This leaves Jay as his only entry point. Lucky him.

"Hey," Owen says. He's dressed in a stylish snowsuit, matched to his poles and skis. Red and white Canadian Olympic team branded.

"Did you win a medal?" Jay asks.

"Medal?" Owen's boyishly handsome face blanks out. "Oh! The outfit. No." He laughs nervously. "Just a, you know. Felt patriotic last Olympics and I needed some new gear."

Jay nods.

"So." Owen waits a beat. "It's Jay, right?"

Jay grunts in reply. He's scanning the slope, the procession of chairs heading up high. He thinks about a bad horror movie he watched years ago where four teens get trapped on the chairlift and are left to die in the cold.

"You knew Matt in elementary school?"

"Yeah." The wind picks up, taking a sheet of sparkling sugar snow from the half-frozen ridges in the white landscape. "And you were his roommate."

Alright, let's orient ourselves around Matt, our relationship to him. If this is a competition, Jay is pretty sure he will win.

"For a few years, yeah. We were in film. Actually, I was undecided in my freshman year and he's the one who talked me into movies. He's like, a really great guy."

"Mmhmm." Jay eyes the distant figures at the top of the slope and feels a real stab of envy. He'd rather be up there than standing here and trying to make painful small talk with Owen. He'd even take being one of the doomed leads in the horror movie over this.

"I was talking to him about work. It's crazy that he never—I mean, when we were in school together, he talked a lot about movies. I always figured he'd become a screenwriter or a director or something. He had a real talent. He was really—" Owen breaks off with a self-depreciating little laugh. "He always himself. You know? For a lot of people in our department, it always felt like they—we—were trying to figure out how to be creative, what version of ourselves to put forward, what image we have to make. He was just… never like that at all. He was always just himself." The look on Owen's face makes Jay feel like he's twenty-three again, a short fuse forever sparking, always two big drinks away from trouble. Nobody should look like that when they talk about Matt.

But Jay is not twenty-three anymore. He makes himself look up at the slope, his eyes watering, the snow practically fluorescent under the sun.

"I don't know what happened," Owen says softly while the static in Jay's ears starts to rise.

"Nothing happened," Jay snaps.

Owen looks at Jay like he's forgotten Jay was even there. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, no I know. I just meant—."

Matt's extracted himself from his mother at last and he's finally coming over to Jay, saving Owen the indignity of his excuse.

"Hey," he says to Owen.

"Hey, man. Nice suit." Owen smiles at Matt. With his windswept hair and his pink cheeks, dressed in his Canadian Olympic outfit, he looks like he belongs on a cereal box.

"Thanks. So." He turns to Jay. "Mom's not feeling great. She's gonna sit this one out. I said you'd keep her company at the chalet."

Jay brings his hands together in front of him, twining his fingers together. "Great."

"Is your mom okay?" Owen asks.

Jay bites the inside of his cheek. It's what he should've asked. Judging from the look Matt gives him, he knows it too.

"She's fine," he says. "She pulled a muscle in her back dancing a few months ago and it acts up now and then."

"Oh, Helen still salsas? That's awesome."

Dr. Johnson salsa dances? Did Jay know this? Why does Owen know this? Why is he on first-name basis with Dr. Johnson?

Matt's gaze falls to Jay's hands. "Bird," he says. "Where's your ring?"

Jay's eyes widen.

"Don't tell me you lost it," Matt says as Jay's hands fly into his coat pockets.

"No, no, it's—" A second of desperate scrounging and he finds the ring wedged in the corner of his left pocket. "Here." He breathes out a laugh of relief, holding the ring up for Matt's benefit.

Matt steps in close, takes the ring. "Did you take it off on purpose?"

"No, it—it just slipped off."

"It's probably because your hands are cold," Matt says. "Why aren't you wearing gloves?"

Jay gets half a syllable out before Matt answers for him. "You forgot them."

"Yeah. Sorry."

Matt sighs and shakes his head. He puts the ring back on Jay's finger. "Try to be careful with it," he says, pressing the pad of his thumb against that vein of diamonds.

"I am. I will," Jay says.

"Wow," Owen says. Jay and Matt's heads snap up in unison. "I didn't realise—congratulations, Matty. You didn't tell me you got engaged."

Matt steps back. Jay's hands sink to his sides.

"I didn't?" Matt claps Owen on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's get moving before Erik tries to rope us into praising one of his kids for falling down a hill."

Jay watches them as they rejoin the others, the big noisy knot of Johnsons, Matt's hand slipping from Owen's shoulder a second later. The tips of Jay's ears and his nose begin to sting. He spins the ring around his finger.

That's how Dr. Johnson finds him, just staring after her son like a cow-eyed idiot, spinning his ring like it's a lock he's forgotten the combination to.

"Hello, Jay," she says. She holds her arm out to him. "Shall we?"

Jay recalls reading an article in some now-defunct Toronto weekly, a moment of downtime during a plan, about the cozy Nordic style that was all the rave five years ago. Big cable-knit sweaters, lots of polished wooden furniture, cozy blankets and pillows. This is what he thinks of when he takes in the chalet. There's a big hearth at the centre of the room, real fire behind glass, licking up from molded stone made to look like wood. A polished bar dominates the majority of one side of the room, and the rest is taken up with log-built couches, piled with pillows and cushions, decorated with throw blankets. Everything is aggressively cozy.

Serving staff circle the room. One is on them as soon as they take their seats in two charmingly mismatched arm chairs set around a round wooden table, asks them for their order. Dr. Johnson orders a latte.

"Do you want any lunch?" she asks.

Jay's stomach clenches like a fist at the thought. He smiles and shakes his head. Remembers his manners a second too late and says, "No thank you."

Dr. Johnson regards him for a cool second. It's hard to read anything into her face and Jay is having a hard time even looking at her. Save for her colouring, and the shape of her eyes, she really doesn't have much in common with Matt. She's petite, tanned (that home in Tuscany), and wears her long hair neat and flat.

The server is still standing there, notepad in hand.

"Would you like anything to drink?" she asks.

"Get something to drink," Dr. Johnson says before Jay can politely refuse. "We're on vacation for crying out loud."

"Tea. Uh, peppermint. Please."

"Oh, Jay," Dr. Johnson says after the server leaves. "You can try something more exciting if you want. My treat."

"My stomach's, um. Not doing great."

One of Dr. Johnson's eyebrows twitch. "Something wrong with breakfast?"

"No, no," Jay says quickly. "It was delicious." All he managed to eat were cubes of honey melon and a handful of sliced strawberries. "I think it's just. Um. The altitude?"

"Hmm." Jay is spared the indignity of an immediate reply when the server returns, setting down their orders. Jay's tea is served in a large mug that was either handmade or meant to look handmade.

"And a deck of cards, please," Dr. Johnson says before the server leaves. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing," she adds to Jay. She picks up a yellow packet from the sugar bowl and shakes it. "You're trying very hard not to take more than you think you've earned from us. I know the way we live, if you're not used to it, can seem intimidating, but you have to let yourself relax. A lot of the new spouses are like you." She rips the packet open and pours it over the white foam in her mug.

Jay tries to laugh because he doesn't know what else to do, how to respond. Dr. Johnson stabs at the foam with a spoon, aggressively mixing it into the milky espresso.

"I just… I don't want to impose," he says.

Dr. Johnson smiles very briefly and Jay recognizes the look, for once, because he's seen it on Matt's face enough times.

She thinks he's lying to her.

"You're not imposing," she says. "You're a guest. You're going to be family soon. You can relax around us. Ah, thank you," she says to the server, who sets the deck of playing cards in the centre of the table.

"Pick your poison, Jay," she says. He stares at her. "What game do you want to play? Do you know how to play Cribbage? I can get the board. Or Rummy?"

The last time Jay played cards with anyone was at his grandfather's funeral, more than twenty years ago. Him and his younger cousins, sitting around a heavy table in the church basement, all of them bored and trying to feel sadder than they did. They played Asshole, he remembers, just for the excuse to curse under the nose of the priest.

"Rummy," he says, because he kind of remembers playing it as a kid. She picks up the deck and shuffles, the cards slippery in her shaking hands. She deals and explains the rules.

She starts talking about her kids. How proud she was when Peter got accepted to McGill, how he rose in the ranks at Mount Sinai as an orthopedic surgeon.

"It's a shame about his wife. Ex-wife," she amends as Jay deals the next round. It isn't easy being a surgeon and having a family, she admits. She goes a bit further and confides in Jay that she's grateful only one of her kids followed her into the medical world.

"I worried Leslie might try. Thank goodness her father got to her first. An MBA is a much easier prospect and she's much happier at Metro HQ, a job with stability, insurance, and minimal stress. She's only had one stomach ulcer, and that was years ago," Dr. Johnson says. Half her hand is already gone, flushes and three-of-a-kinds spread out on the table in front of her.

And then there were her three youngest, the sensitive artists in her family. Emilia studying marketing—"Which is more an art form than a science," she says—and Erik studying PoliSci which despite the name, she assures Jay, is truly an art.

"And there's Matt, of course," she says. Jay knew it was coming, had already braced himself for the turn. "I always thought he was very cerebral." She purses her lips to hold back a twitching smile, snatches the top card from the discard pile, and lays out a two-three-four-five of hearts flush.

"Always living up here," she adds, tapping her temple. "We had him tested, of course. They said he was an excellent candidate for the gifted program. All my kids," she adds with no small amount of pride, "were in that program. Remind me again—were you?"

"No," Jay says. He draws a card from the deck.

"Of course it's just a title," Dr. Johnson says. "I was excited when Matt announced he wanted to go to York for film studies. We've never had a filmmaker in the family before. I was so worried he'd skip out on higher education entirely. I was sure he would, actually. In high school, he had these plans—well. You know about them. He was always very stuck on you."

Jay looks down at his hand, the glittering ring. He swallows.

"I'm glad he finished his school, at least," she says with a sigh. "Even if he hasn't done much since. I really believed he could've done something with that degree. He was so happy in university. It was like he became the man I always knew he could be."

You didn't tell me you'd gotten engaged.

Why is Jay thinking about Owen now? Why is Dr. Johnson—Helen—speaking to him about this? The needling words, all in the past-tense. His hands shake as he silently lays down a three-of-a-kind.

"I just want my kids to be happy," she says, blinking down at his sad, little spread of cards. "That's—I'm not one of those domineering parents who tries to steer their lives. I'm really not. I just want them to do something with themselves. Make themselves happy." She looks up at him. "Is Matt happy?"

Jay stares back, dumb.

"We almost never see him," she adds.

The bathroom stalls are single person, unisex units, with a sink and a toilet. Jay stares at his reflection, mute.

He hurts himself.

It sounds—it's not like it sounds. It's not like. There's no blood, or anything. He doesn't cut himself. He doesn't punch himself in the head like some of his classmates used to, the ones who would start screaming on the playground if they lost sight of their favourite t-rex toy or whatever. He really doesn't do anything.

He just… pinches himself. Like, it's a joke. Like he's looking to wake up from a bad dream. It's stupid, it's nothing. He pinches at the sensitive skin at the inside of his elbow, twisting until the sting makes the black swarm of his thoughts settle to an acceptable hum and the scream building in his chest deflates. He releases the skin and watches it turn white and then red. He does it again, just to be sure, and digs his thumbnail in with the twist. He does it a few more times, working down the inside of his forearm.

It's not a big deal. The marks he leaves behind are gone in minutes. Less. It's like he's not doing anything at all.

He doesn't remember how old he was when he started this. It comes and goes. The last time was in Boston, his last year in Berklee.

Jay feels better when he emerges, a line of stinging red marks up his left forearm, already fading to nothing.

"Another round?" Dr. Johnson asks, hoisting her giant mug jovially. Jay smiles. He does.

Jay knows, now, what the future would look like if he and Matt were not together. He knows that Matt wouldn't shrivel up and die without him. But. The view he'd gotten, brief though it'd been, had shown him that Matt wouldn't achieve great heights without Jay by his side. The same house on Manning. The same decor. No bunk beds. Three roommates and a drum kit. The knowledge had taken a back seat to everything else Jay was reckoning with at the time, but when he looks back on it, he feels…

Well. What he feels isn't nice or charitable, but that he doesn't mean he doesn't like it. Seeing what became of Matt without him, it settled something in him, quelled an anxiety, something he will never admit to even to himself. Now he knows that if he'd left Matt, he'd blast a massive, Jay-shaped hole in his life.

(Never mind the glimpse Jay got of his own life, of the echoing mansion, the cold and sterile furniture, all of it so impersonal. The band members that mumbled into their phones, hid smiles behind their hands, that never quite met his eyes. The bottles of pills he found in his bedroom, prescriptions for pains and injuries he didn't have.)

Now he wonders if he wasn't being too quick with his relief. Now he wonders: what if they'd gone further back? Jay's presence in Matt's life had metastasized by the time they were in the Queen street apartment. What would've happened to Matt if Jay hadn't slunk back into his life after university? Maybe if they'd never lived together, things might've turned out different.

The one bedroom condo in Liberty Village, the promising career in film at the side of a man who has a successful future ahead of him as a producer, the life rinsed clean of frivolity, distraction, whimsy, where Matt's intelligence and creativity might be better utilized, funnelled, and monetized.

The life where Jay never came home from Berklee, maybe. Jay on the bridge, and the water below.

The third day is more of the same, but now they're hiking the trails into the forest. Jay doesn't have hiking boots. Matt tells him he better find a pair. He is not sitting this one out.

Owen is going too. Of course.

Jay gets a moment to himself in their ensuite before they take off. There's a red mark on the inside of his elbow that still hasn't faded when he rolls his sleeve back down. He leaves, feeling more grounded, and immediately has to rush back because he'd nearly forgotten his ring on the counter.

When he comes out, it's to Matt and Owen at the bottom of the stairs, heads bent towards each other, their phones in their hands.

"…bracket two match, went with my Black Blue. The guy actually laughed at me," Matt is saying. "But not for long."

"Incredible. I can't believe you're on Midrange decks now. I thought for sure you'd be Aggro for life."

"I've grown up since then. I like turning the screw."

"Trickster Johnson. I remember—at the Ab, when you and Jim and Liam drafted that Blue-Red deck and you—."

"Classic. I retired that deck ten years ago. I've been tinkering with this Blue Midrange deck for cEDH now and it's lethal. Lean and mean. I'm going to try it out at a tournament over the summer."

Matt doesn't look up from whatever's on his phone even when Jay's foot hits the bottom step. Owen doesn't seem to notice him either, his gaze locked on Matt with a fondness that makes Jay want to find a can of gasoline and a lighter.

"I'm glad you're still doing this stuff," Owen says. "When we get back, we should—."

"Absolutely," Matt says.

"I've fallen off. I need to get back. People keep talking about that all-lands EDH deck and when I first heard about it, I thought that's a Johnson deck for sure."

Matt smiles. "That's a me deck. Erik would never. He's too much of a pussy. But yeah, man, when we get back to Toronto, we'll definitely—" He stops himself, glancing up and finally noticing Jay. "Oh. Hey, Jay. Did you find a pair of boots?"

Jay ends up in a group with Peter and Kasia. Matt is with Owen, Erik, Erik's wife (S-something. Sandra? Susan?) and their two kids. Peter's kids aren't with him this holiday; they're with his ex-wife. Even though she's Jewish.

"She only started celebrating Christmas because of us," Peter says. "And now she just does it with the kids. Well, I had to work next week anyway."

It's not so bad talking to Peter. He talks mostly about himself, his work, or about Kasia.

"I'm glad you guys have hit it off," he says, cutting Jay a look over his shoulder. It's a narrow path they're on, single file with Peter in the lead, Kasia, then Jay. "I don't know what everyone else's problem is."

"No one's had a problem," Kasia says, breathless.

Peter snorts. "That shit at the first dinner made me furious. Even Emilia's being an asshole."

"Seriously." Kasia's laugh is a hard scrape of sound. "It's fine. Your family's been…" Pause, a gulp of air. "Fine. Drop it, please?"

"Kasia's super into music," Peter says, dropping it. "Have you guys talked about, um. Honey, what's that band you introduced me to? The one with the yodelling vocalist?"

Kasia's laugh comes easier, sounds better.

"Geese," she says, when she's caught her breath.

They talk music in between gasping breaths, none of them terribly athletic, although Kasia insists she can SoulCycle the house down. She staggers now and then as they trudge up an incline, stepping over fallen branches. Jay's borrowed hiking boots are a bit too snug, and he can feel a blister forming on his pinkie toe. Like the stinging wind, it's a nice distraction.

Peter put them on a more challenging path than the others went on because they didn't have to worry about kids. It's been a slog, and Jay can't say he sees the appeal of a walk through a bunch of trees, but at least it's peaceful, and he gets long uninterrupted looks at Kasia's ass in her tights. The ground evens out under their feet. Jay puts a gentlemanly hand to Kasia's lower back as she sways on her feet, nudging her up the last foot of their slope.

Then they are at the top of a small cliff face, overlooking one of the hundred thousand lakes dotting the landscape. This lake is partially frozen, black-grey, its surface smooth as a stone between the rind of ice. It's a nice view. Jay takes it in while he catches his breath. The sun peeks out from the clouds, adding a sparkle to the grim landscape below.

A group emerges from the trees on the far side of the lake, adults with a packet of children in bright snow suits.

"I think that's Erik and the others," Peter says. Jay squints in the weak sun. It's hard to make out their expressions but he recognizes Matt immediately. He sees Owen, too, and the dog on her leash.

"Oh, it totally is," Kasia says. Peter raises his arm, waving wildly.

Jay bends at his waist, breathing hard. Kasia puts his hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?" she asks. He tells her he is. He is just out of breath, and out of shape, and forty-two years old.

"Only forty-two?" she teases. "We have to get you into SoulCycle when you get back into the city, girl. Get your husband to pay for it. Tell him it'll help with your stamina."

Jay laughs. He straightens, Kasia's hand on his arm, and looks to the Johnson group in the distance. The kids are running around the shoreline, waving sticks, their shouting and laughing voices skipping over the water. The dog's barking away.

He realises, with a start, that Matt is looking at him.

"Is that that Owen guy with Matt?" Peter asks, reading Jay's mind. Kasia confirms that he joined them in the morning while Peter was busy taking a call. "Weird," he mutters. "It's weird that he's…" Peter stops, looks to Jay.

"I guess Matt's happy to see him," Kasia says. "What's his deal, anyway? Were he and Matt, like, dating or something?"

Peter opens his mouth but Jay's talking first. "What?" He wheezes out a weak almost-laugh. "No, they're… they were roommates. At York."

"Oh." Kasia makes a face. Peter looks away, back down towards the glittering granite surface of the lake.

"Right," Peter says.

Jay watches them too, the kids, the parents on their heels, the little dog. Matt. He raises his hand to wave but Matt turns away. Towards Owen, it looks like, who has something in his hand.

Kasia's hand tightens on his arm and Jay doesn't even realise he's lurching forward like a dying tree until she yanks him back a half-step.

"Careful." She looks up at him with alarm all over her pretty face. "You almost fell."

This thing he does, he doesn't remember when he started doing it. Only that he started it one day and it made sense. He just needed something that felt real, immediate, sudden. Like diving into the deep end of the pool in June. Like getting slapped in the face. The astringent smell of rubbing alcohol.

It was kid stuff.

He has rules around it. Don't pinch anywhere stupid, like the inside of his thighs, even though the pain would be better and there's more skin to grab. It was too much like what those girls in high school did, the one who smoked clove cigarettes and hung out in the a/v room between classes, who cut holes in their fishnet tights to wear them as make-shift gloves. Their black and purple lips, their ringed eyes, their dyed hair. All that drama.

What Jay does, it's silly. Nobody would take it seriously, which is why he's never told anyone. It's not a secret. It's just private.

That night at dinner, Erik's wife (fuck it, call her Erika) asks him what Berklee was like. Jay talks about Boston, about the food, the grey grind of winter on the coast, and the pubs. He doesn't talk about the school or the work he did. He couldn't even if he wanted to. Like, physically. The words wouldn't come out of him. They wouldn't even form inside. That part of his life, the hiss of that soundless space cushioned by noise cancelling panels, it's sealed away. A black box.

That same night, in the post-dinner chaos when the kids were running around trying to dodge washing up, he's saved from further conversation with the Johnsons by Kasia, who approaches him after a brief stint in the washroom with red eyes and a too-wide smile. Her hands tremble a bit when she snakes her arm through his. She's desperate for distraction, or entertainment.

"How many instruments do you play?" she asks him. Jay tells her, smiling a little when her eyes widen.

Operating on old instincts, the sort that kick in when a beautiful woman looks even mildly impressed with him, Jay looks around for something to play. No piano at the cottage and he couldn't recall seeing one in the big ski lodge either.

"I wish I could show you," he says. Kasia squeezes his arm and produces her phone with her other hand, waggling it in front of his eyes.

"I have an idea," she says, the screen bright, the app store opening.

Apparently, there's an app for everything and soon enough an icon for a virtual piano app appears on her homescreen. This is how the two of them spend almost an hour curled up in the corner of one of the big sectionals together, thigh to thigh, Jay tapping out songs on request. The volume keeps climbing and others in the family start giving them looks that neither of them notice.

Jay even teaches her how to play a scale, guiding her fingers with his own. This is an old trick of his and it almost never fails. He looks down at her to see a flush in her cheeks, spreading over her chest. She turns even redder when he says, in a low voice, that she's a natural.

She isn't, of course, but she looks happy with the praise. "Maybe I missed my calling," she says, nudging him. "I should've gone into music instead of illuminated manuscripts."

"It's never too late to learn," he says.

Kasia's smile fades as she looks past him. Her eyebrow twitches up. "Huh," she says. "What's up with Peter?"

Jay looks over to see Peter has cornered Matt at the far end of the living room. He can't see Matt's expression, but he watches as Peter leans close, looking stern, looking like their father, talking in constant stream. He cuts his hand through the air once, shakes his head, and does it again. Matt's grip is tight around his mug.

When they split apart, they wear matching expressions of displeasure. Matt's glance pings off Jay's face.

"What was that about?" Jay asks later that night, when they're both getting into bed. "You and Peter. You looked like you got into it with him."

Matt shoves at his pillow, trying to knock it into shape. "Nothing. He's just being a nosy pain in the ass."

"About what?"

"Nothing." Matt slams the side of his head into the pillow, his back to Jay. "Just drop it."

"Sorry," Matt whispers, when the lights are out. Jay pressed up against his back. "My family just stresses me out. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Jay says. He has one arm wrapped around Matt's chest. Matt takes Jay's hand in his and brings it to his mouth, lips pressed over the ring.

"It's only a few more days," Matt says.

"I know."

"Thank you. For this. For trying. I know you hate it."

Jay swallows. Matt's voice is sleep-thick, slowing down.

"Just a few more days," Jay says. "I'll be fine."

Nothing. Matt's asleep.

Those first few months after Berklee, Jay didn't do anything. Those endless spring afternoons, the crawl of those daytime, sun bleached hours, Jay spent that time in his room with the curtains drawn. He spent that time in his bed. He spent that time asleep.

He only emerged late at night, when he was sure he wouldn't run into either of his parents, or his sister. He ate crackers from the sleeve. An apple. Drank water from the tap. Went back upstairs and crawled into his bed, burrowed under his comforter, and wished he'd just done it. With the water rushing twenty feet below, a grey band snaking through the city, and him on that bridge, so tired.

If he'd done it then, he wouldn't have to answer his dad's tense questions about what comes next for him, if not school. He wouldn't have to listen to his mom's shrill voice, that fragile tremble in her words as she tries, again and again, to ask him what happened.

Nothing happened. No one believes him, but it's true. He just couldn't hack it. He just failed. He's just a failure.

A pussy too, because he couldn't do it, even though he started thinking about it every day. Every day walking across that bridge, to and fro from a job he hated and kept fucking up at, up until the day he was fired, he'd thought about it. Or about stepping off the curb when a bus comes rushing through an intersection. Or finding rooftop access in a high rise.

The problem wasn't Berklee. It was him.

And then, the clouds began to clear, almost as fast as they gathered. Emilia pings him out of the blue on MSN Messenger. Pokes him on Facebook.

i heard you're back in town.

wanna meet up?

And then it's him and Emilia getting high, getting drunk, fucking. It's good and it's easy and it's such a relief. Emilia giggles into his neck, pushes her whole body against him, touches him like he's hot property, not a fuck up at all, but just a good looking guy with a drivers license that let him buy her Bacardi and Stoli. Easy, easy.

Jay starts to feel a little better. He stops considering long drops, sudden stops, cold water in the lungs, all of it.

It's August when Matt comes home. He's been working hard, taking summer classes, staying on campus.

(With Owen, Jay now knows.)

He's on track to graduate early. He only comes home for a few days, mostly just to get some food and do his laundry. Emilia mentions this to Jay and frowns into the top of his head when he doesn't respond.

"You didn't know?" she asked, pulling back to look at him. "Did you guys, like, break-up?" She laughs a little as she says it.

Jay means to stay away from the Johnson home that week. He mopes in his room, thinks about Matt only a few blocks away, so close that it would be stupid to even ride his bike there. He thinks that Matt is home and Matt knows that Jay is home and neither of them are doing anything about this.

He lies in his bed for hours, sleeps the way he did in those first few weeks back home, much to his parents' distress. He tries to write an apology in his head but it all feels so dramatic and overblown. Jay didn't even do anything wrong. Jay imagines telling Matt that he was wrong to leave, that he'd made a mistake. Matt would probably love to hear that.

It's Emilia who pulls him from his spiral. She comes to his bedroom, crawls into bed with him, jams one bottle tanned leg between his. She tells him she wants to go to a party, wants him to buy her some rum, wants him to come too. She's all wriggly, in a summer dress with flowers on it and her hair is up off the back of her neck. She kisses him and tells him to get the fuck up and get dressed. Downstairs, she makes small talk with Jay's mother while she does up her gladiator-style sandals, straps climbing her waxed smooth legs right to her bruised knees.

It's a house party and the sun hasn't even set by the time they get in, but everyone's very clearly drunk. Emilia pecks him on his cheek and goes skipping off with her bottle of Bacardi white to greet a pack of squealing friends. Jay recognizes a lot of people from high school, from his grade and younger. He drinks a beer and smokes half a joint that barely touches him and listens to music he doesn't like, playing loud enough to rattle the fake crystal chandelier in the entry way. Some people remember him and they make the smallest talk in the world.

He drifts away from it all, feels a bit like the main character in Garden State, and then feels like an asshole because nobody he knows has died and he doesn't even like The Shins. He pushes his way into the backyard, past the smokers gathered around the picnic table, into the rambling green. Cut grass sticks to his bare feet and he hopes that whoever owns this place doesn't have a dog. He makes his way without thinking to the corner of the yard, to the shed, where he can see a small light shining against the wooden fence.

Later, he'll wonder why he thought to go outside, to the shed, because he'd started out that way before he even saw the flickering light. Like maybe he knew.

Because that's where he found Matt, sitting with his back against the shed, invisible to the rest of the party, his bare legs stretched out in front of him, one crossed over the other at the ankles. A new DS in his hands and headphones over his ears. He doesn't look up; he doesn't hear Jay, hasn't noticed him at all, and Jay could leave now and Matt would never know.

But that's stupid. It's like the bridge again, the water, but this time Jay won't pussy out. He takes a small breath and drops, sits down right beside Matt. Matt startles—old instincts, like a prey animal—and looks up, eyes narrowed. Jay can see the second it registers that it's Jay and Matt's mouth slackens.

"Hi," Jay says. He thinks he should probably say something else but his throat squeezes when he opens his mouth again and his heart's clamouring in his chest.

Matt doesn't say anything. Jay isn't sure what the look on his face, blank and glassy, means. Maybe he's made a mistake. Maybe Matt will just get up and leave and if he does, Jay won't know what to do. If he's left here behind the shed all alone, he might just stay there, live among the unused garden tools and lawn mower.

But Matt takes off his headphones.

"Hey," Matt says.

"Long time," Matt says.

Relief is light and fizzy, like champagne in his mouth, and Jay feels like he could cry from it, might be on the verge of it. For the first time in months, in spite of the beer on his breath and the weed still in his system, he feels awake.

"Yeah," he says, smiling so hard his cheeks ache. "How've you been? What are you playing?"

They talk for hours, the conversation like running downhill. They talk the next day, and the day after that, and it's like nothing's even happened between them. And Jay starts to feel silly about the whole thing. Matt's about to graduate. There was talk of pursuing a Masters but maybe he'll do something else instead. Maybe they could move to Toronto, start a band.

Everything just falling into place. Nothing could ever happen to them. Bullet-proof.

Jay stops seeing Emilia. Well, she was going away for school anyway.

Jay white knuckles through the week. He sleeps like shit. There's two red marks on the inside of his left forearm that aren't fading. Matt falls asleep at his side and dies in his dreams. When they're awake, Owen is around, smiling at Matt, showing him things on his phone. They play games with each other, with Erik when he's available, using some kind of mobile app.

Jay tries.

Jay tries with Matt's siblings. Emilia has cooled a little on him but she can hold a conversation, at least until her husband starts asking her about something. He's always around, Jay notes, when he tries to talk to her. They can't get more than a few words before he's there, asking about a missing pair of shoes, where he can find the gloves they packed, the knit hats, the Switch, whatever.

Leslie doesn't like him and has stopped pretending. At one point, two wine glasses deep into the dinner, she asks him in a low voice if he's ever held a real job in his life. Sneers at his answer.

Erik is always with Owen. Matt too.

Sometimes, Jay will try to get Matt on his own. He craves it, that glimpse of their shared home, the soft look on Matt's face and the sound of his voice. It helps to be near him, to touch him, even if it's just something simple, a brushing of their shoulders, Jay twisting a lock of Matt's hair between his fingers, Matt holding his hand.

But Matt's edgy, twitchy, his eyes always jumping. He tells Jay that they need to be a little more social with his family. They can't just fall back into their old rhythms. His mom won't like it.

Jay doesn't know how to ask Matt for what he needs. He's never had to ask for it before.

Jay had always assumed Peter, with his multiple degrees and his fifteen years of serious, life saving work, his nearly-grown kids, his massive condo down on Front Street, wouldn't like Jay at all. But Peter turned out to be the easiest to talk to.

Over dinner, Peter talks to Jay about learning to play the electric guitar and the lessons he's started taking from a guy whose number he got from a flyer. He shows Jay pictures on his phone of eBay listings he'd been looking at.

"I've always wanted to learn and now I have the time," he says. "I know it's corny. Very mid-life crisis, divorced dad of me."

"Just don't get a tattoo," Kasia says, winking at Jay.

"There are worse things to get up to," Peter says, touching the phone screen, sending the image of a butter yellow Fender scrolling away with a flick. "When you're in your mid-life crisis." He punctuates this with a look to Matt, who is watching the three of them.

Jay gives him a smile. They're on opposite sides of the long, long table. Owen is there, between Erik and Matt.

Jay has been told that he is not allowed to be upset about this. Matt explained to Jay that Owen is having a Hard Time with his recent break-up and his family cut him off when he came out so he truly has no one right now. He only knows so many people in the Johnson family so it's more awkward for him, even though he's met them all before, back during those long summer breaks at York, and everyone seems to like him just fine.

And Matt hasn't seen him in a long time. And Matt sees Jay every day, will see him for the rest of their lives. So.

Matt's answering smile flickers and dies in a blink. He turns back to whatever conversation Erik and Owen are having.

The fifth night is the big one. Dr. Helen Johnson's seventy-fifth. The reason all the dozen school aged children had taken an extra week off of school. The reason everyone took time off from their careers. The reason the extended family will drive out to stay at the resort or one of the half-dozen other nice resorts that dot the northern Ontario landscape. Nobody would think to miss this.

Even Mr. Johnson will be there, coming straight from his home office, a hired driver taking him up the four hours north, his arrival scheduled for an hour before everything is supposed to start. Jay cannot remember for the life of him if he's ever met Matt's dad. He figures he must've, but he can't put a date or place in his mind. He's seen photos. He knows their dad gave Matt his wild, almost-curly hair, his mouth and his nose.

Tonight, and then tomorrow for recovery and nothing major planned, and then Sunday they pack up and finally, finally go home.

There is a bruise nestled in the crook of Jay's elbow but he is otherwise doing just fine.

People are in and out all day. The kitchen is alive and off-limits, both ovens glowing, the fridge wheezing open and shut, the knock of knives against cutting boards. The kids are restless and loud, and nap times are being disrupted, and the day time nannies look frazzled. The parents, too. Everyone is bundled up and sent outside to burn off the excess energy. The forecast predicts snow in the afternoon and it happens.

A red stripe appears at the top of the weather app, an alert that Dr. Johnson stares at with a frown. The snow comes down and doesn't stop. The kids whoop with pleasure from the other side of the big picture windows, their figures flickering between the white.

All the childless adults—and Peter, who has children that just aren't around—are at loose ends. They can't be in the kitchen, and there's no planned activity to keep them busy. There's talk of going to the slopes—Jay tensing with it—but the snowfall puts the kibosh on it. They sit in the living room, the five of them and Matt's mother, and play a few hands of Gin Rummy, then Hearts, then Asshole. It's the most uninterrupted time Jay has spent awake with Matt in the last five days. It's unfortunate, but not a surprise, that he has to split it with Owen.

Dr. Johnson excuses herself for the fifth time in an hour and Peter gets up to follow her.

"I'll just talk to her," he says. He rests his hand on Kasia's knee as he stands. He's upstairs, around the corner, and then there were four. Jay and Kasia, Matt and Owen.

For a second, there's silence. Kasia picks up the glass of red wine she's been nursing for an hour and takes the tiniest of sips, lipstick smudging in the exact same place on the rim of her glass.

Owen turns to Matt. "So," he begins, with a voice and face like sunshine. "Did you have a chance to look over that thing I sent you? What'd you think?"

"It's interesting," Matt says. "People love kid detectives and I think the nostalgia wave for Ghost Writer isn't going to get any better so you may as well throw together the pilot now."

"I sent him a proposal my company's working on," Owen says in the face of Jay and Kasia's blank looks. "For a new show. I think we're going to try it. I think you'd be a good choice," he says to Matt.

"I don't know," Matt mutters. He picks up his mug and drains it.

"Think about it, man. It'd be a step up from entry level."

"Man, I'd feel like such a nepo baby, though."

"It wouldn't be nepotism," Owen says. "Technically, it'd be cronyism. And it's not against the rules," he adds.

"Is this a job?" Jay asks, looking between them. "Is Owen offering you a job?"

"As a script supervisor," Owen says. "This thing's gonna get picked up for sure. It's a sweet gig. You just need to be a stickler for details."

"A job?" Jay repeats softly, looking to Matt. "Like… full-time?"

Owen laughs. "Yeah, full-time, with benefits. The whole thing. The hours kind of suck, I won't lie, but it's, you know. It's the first step on the ladder. Actually it's a few steps up from the first but you know what I mean."

Jay wishes Matt wasn't on the other couch, wishes there wasn't a coffee table between them. "You're going to take a job?" he asks.

Matt shoots him a narrow look. "I'm just thinking about it," he says.

Jay waits for more but there's nothing else. He rubs his mouth and nods, stupidly.

"So," Kasia says after seconds of silence. "Jay told me you guys met when you were kids."

Matt straightens from his slouch. "Yeah. When we were—yeah."

"That's so sweet," she says. She crosses her legs. She's in a curve-hugging pencil skirt, ridden up just above her knee, and grey tights. "I always love stories about childhood sweethearts."

Matt folds his leg, ankle on opposite knee, and pulls up his sock. Jay's thumb finds the edge of his ring, still turning Matt's apparent job offer over in his mind. They don't really ever talk about this. Everyone they know knows their story. It's strange hearing it being described by an outsider.

"Well, it wasn't like a romcom or whatever. We weren't sweethearts right away," Matt says. "We were just friends. For a long time."

Jay's hands curl into fists on his lap. He struggles to think of a time when he would describe what he had with Matt as 'just' anything.

"But you were in love with him," Kasia says. "Right?"

Matt sweeps the scattered cards from the table into a loose pile. "Sure," he says, gathering the deck and beginning to shuffle.

"From the time you met? Was it love at first sight?" There's a laugh lurking in Kasia's voice, a glistening under her thick lashes, that Jay doesn't really understand. She keeps leaning into his side, her hand alighting on his thigh. He wonder if she isn't a little drunk.

He watches Matt. They've never talked about this. Not even with each other.

"It was like that with Peter and me," she continues, taking her hand back from Jay, when Matt takes too long to reply. "When I first saw him, I was smitten right away."

There's something like a smile on Matt's face as he taps the deck against the edge of the table.

"Right," he says. "I'm sure you were."

Jay frowns. Kasia blinks rapidly, red wine sloshing against the glass.

"And to answer your question," Matt says, riffling the cards between his hands. "No, it wasn't love at first sight. He was just a weird kid who lived two blocks away. The—the rest of it came later. After we'd known each other for a while."

That first time, it's blurry now, but Jay remembers that it was cold and bright outside. He remembers that within an hour of meeting Matt, Matt would wrestle off what he sneeringly called Jay's prescription headphones, and scream right in his face. The rush of him, the whole world right in his face, painful and sudden and close.

Painful, but in a good way. Painful because it was real, sharp enough to shear a layer of insulation off of Jay that wasn't serving him, didn't help him, that wouldn't be missed. He remembered feeling shivery, fluttery and light.

Matt threw the headphones into the river.

This is the first time he's ever heard Matt talk about this. It might be the first time he's ever talked about it. Jay is—surprised. To hear Matt describe them, their relationship like that. How small he makes it sound.

Jay's fingers sneak into the sleeve of his opposite hand, presses his thumbnail into the skin of the inside of his wrist.

"Oh. Well. It was different for us," Kasia says. She gives Jay a tight, watery smile, hand back on his thigh. "I should check on Peter. I'll be—I'll just be right back."

Jay waits until she's out of sight before he leans forward. "What the fuck was that?" he asks.

Matt's still shuffling, although they're not playing anything. "What's what?" he asks.

"Why were you being an asshole to Kasia?"

"I wasn't."

"Yes, you were. She was trying to be nice to you."

"Come on." Matt laughs. "She's a twenty-four year old Instagram model. A gold digging sugar baby draining Peter's savings account."

"That's not true." Jay stabs at himself with the blunt edge of his thumbnail. "She works at an art gallery."

"Oh, please."

"She works," Jay says, heat rushing through him. "Peter actually lets her work."

Matt flinches. Owen, who has been staring at his phone pretending he is both deaf and invisible, finally looks up with a small frown.

"He… lets her?" he says while Matt and Jay glare at each other.

"It's different," Matt says, lowering his voice.

"How is it different, Matt? Everything you just accused her of, you could say the same about me. Your siblings could say about us both. And they do," he says, realising it. "Don't they?" That group chat Matt's never shown him.

Matt slams the cards on the table. "Owen," he says, making the other man jump. "Can you give us a minute?"

Owen is thrilled beyond words to give them a minute. He jabbers something about getting ready for dinner and he's gone, his dog trotting silently after him.

"Don't start on this," Matt says when it's just them at last.

"You started it," Jay says. He scratches at his wrist, gouging. "You didn't have to be mean to Kasia. She's a nice person."

"Oh yeah, I can see that," Matt says. "I can see how close you two have gotten this last week. You haven't even tried to talk to my mom since the ski trip, have you?"

The two of them, they're leaning over opposite sides of the coffee table, abandoned drinks and cards between them, speaking in hissing whispers, struggling to keep their voices down.

"Why would I talk to them, Matt?" Jay asks. "They don't even like me. And what about you? All you've done—"

"How can they like you if you don't even give them a chance?" Matt asks, talking over Jay.

"—is spend time with Owen. And now you're getting a job? Full time? Since when do you want to work? Who the fuck is Owen?"

Matt's neck turns red above his collar. "We're not talking about me and—and Owen. This is about you, taking that—woman's side. This is about you flirting—"

"I'm not flirting!" Jay's voice slips too high, echoing quietly off of the ceiling. Matt lunges across the table and grabs Jay's wrist, the one he's been scratching.

"Quiet," he hisses, holding tight. They both pause, letting the ambient noise filter back into the room. They can hear the caterers in the kitchen, the kids outside, the thump of snowballs against the side of the building.

Jay's throat clicks with his swallow. His eyes sting. He looks at Matt across from him, the spread of his shoulders, the mess of his hair, flatter than usual because it's so dry, the softness of his face, his round cheeks—Jay wants to be on the couch with him. He wants to crawl into his lap and put his head against his neck. He wants Matt to hold him. He wants to beg Matt to forget about this whole thing, the job, Owen, Kasia, all of it. He wants Matt to take him home.

"Look," Matt says after the moment passes. "Let's just… call a truce for now. Okay? Let's just drop this for tonight. Please, Jay. Please? My mom is freaking out about the weather and everyone's tired and we're all just on edge. Please." He squeezes Jay's wrist, the fragile skin scored white against red where Jay's nail had dug in.

"Fine," Jay says, sullen. He tugs free of Matt's hold, pulling down his cuff before Matt could see. "Fine."

It's a semi-formal event. Jay wears a dressed down version of the grey suit he'd worn to Elle's wedding. He trims his stubble, plucks and shapes his eyebrows, crunches curl mousse into his hair, steams his trousers, pinches himself ten times. The bruise shadowing the crook of his elbow has spread, webbing red at the edge of faint violet and yellow. He pushes into it with his thumb.

He catches sight of his reflection and laughs, hiccuping, because he's still doing this stupid, childish thing. He shakes his head. He's so dramatic for no reason. There's a crescent divot in his skin when he pulls his thumb back at last, nail-gouged white, fading in seconds. He remembers to put his ring on before he leaves their room.

Matt's gone ahead. He's downstairs, standing with his mother and father in the foyer. Mr. Johnson had arrived only an hour later than expected, the roads no match for the black tank of an SUV that'd delivered him to them. The snow's tapered off, finally, and guests begin to arrive five minutes after he does. Their friends from the hospital, from the non-profits they sit on the boards of, from their neighbourhood. Everyone's made the trip to Muskoka for Helen's seventy-fifth.

Servers come in from the kitchen, which is glowing, fluorescents humming, oven timers beeping. They emerge with trays of hors d'oeuvres, flaked pastries so light and buttery it dissolves on Jay's tongue before he can start chewing. He holds a glass of white wine, its stem so long and thin he could bite it in two.

Owen is there, standing handsomely in a powder blue button-up that brings out the great lake colour of his eyes and a dorky bowtie that for some reason works for him and even Jay can see that. Matt keeps looping around the room, going from group to group, greeting people he hasn't seen since the last family wedding he attended. Every time, Jay watches him, his fingers squeezing the thin stem of his wine glass, hoping that Matt's circuit will deliver him to Jay.

But it doesn't. He goes, inevitably, to Owen.

Why does Jay keep letting this happen? He stews on it miserably, passing on the offerings presented on the silver trays floating through the room. He sets his glass down without finishing it. It's making him drunk in a bad way, his head feeling hot and static-y.

Their fight, or whatever it was, still burns in his chest. It's never fun to fight with Matt. Matt can remember things—slights, arguments, insults—Jay's forgotten, holding them close and flinging them like fucking ninja stars when the opportunity presents itself. Matt remembers everything, and he withholds, and he can wield a chilly silence like a plastic bag pulled taut over Jay's head.

It's a few hours into the night and he's coming out of his room's ensuite when he encounters Kasia again. She's sitting at the top of the stairs, just like when they first met, with her hands tucked between her knees, phone dangling from the tangle of her fingers. She's slumped into herself, lashes low, mouth slack and trembling.

She looks up at Jay, offers him a weak smile that flickers and dies in a blink. He sits down beside her.

"I've stopped drinking," she says.

"Cool. Me too. Like an hour ago."

"I only had a couple drinks. And then I stopped. I had some champagne. Did you see the bottles of Veuve? I had some." She's speaking with the careful enunciation of someone who is, in fact, a few drinks deeper into the night than they want to let on. The sort of drunk that Jay, in his twenties, would've tried to take some advantage of. "And then the pretty wife, what's her name, she asked me if I liked the taste of champagne. Then she asked me how often I get my nails done."

"Okay."

Kasia's mouth flattens. "It sounds like nothing to you because you're a guy. You don't know. But she was being a bitch."

"Sorry." He twists the ring around his finger and looks down to the ground floor. He tugs his tie loose from its knot, casts a sideways look to Kasia, slipping down her chest before looking away, shame curdling in his stomach.

"I'm sorry about—about Matt. I don't know why he was like that. With you," he says.

Kasia snorts and then laughs at herself. "I know why," she says. "But it's sweet of you to apologise." She knocks her bare shoulder against his, her hair swinging into him. "You know, you're nothing like I imagined. Peter gave me the run down of all the spouses," she adds. "He told me you were—. Well. Okay. Can I be honest? But nice, I'll be nice. He sort of painted you as a mooch."

Jay laughs a little because he was expecting much worse. "Sure," he says, nodding. "I get it. I don't work. I'm in a band."

"Peter likes you," she says. "I do too. He's really impressed with all your music knowledge. And I think you're sweet."

Jay stares at her, at a loss. He has not been in regular conversation with a woman he's not related to in years. He has never, not once, been accused of being 'sweet' by any woman. Not even his family.

Downstairs, Matt's wiping at his forehead, pushing his hair back. He's with Erik, showing Erik something on his phone. Owen leans over too. Jay twirls his ring round and round.

Her gaze drops to his hand and she shakes her head. "You really have to get that thing resized."

He closes his hand into a fist. "Yeah. It keeps falling off."

"You should just put it somewhere for safe keeping," she says.

"Well… Honestly, if I take my ring off while I'm with you, I think Matt would—he would not like it." He swallows.

Kasia's expression darkens. "He has a lot of nerve," she mutters. "Getting jealous. Sorry. But it's true." She clicks her nails together, a twitchy, witchy sound. "Him and Owen. It's fucked up. You're handling it a lot better than I would. Cause if Peter's brother bought his ex-wife to hang out all week as a surprise—"

"Wait, wait." Jay laughs. "What are you talking about?"

She squints at him. "What do you mean? I'm talking about exes. I think it's fucked up," she says again, spitting with emphasis.

"Him and Owen," she says, scowling, clicking her nails again. "They were dating back in university. Peter told me."

She shakes her head, a shoal of hair slipping over her shoulders. "That man of yours, he's got a lot of nerve."

Jay cuts through the crowds. He ignores anyone looking at him. He takes Matt by the arm as soon as he's within reach.

"I want to talk to you," he says. Now he's the one over-enunciating, although he is not drunk. Has never felt more sober in his life. "Alone."

Matt takes in his face, mouth twisting. Owen is beside him and he looks like he's going to say something. Jay feels out of his mind, because if Owen opens his stupid mouth, Jay is pretty sure he will spread that up-turned doll nose of his all over his face.

"Okay," Matt says, gaze darting side to side. "Okay."

"Is it true?" Jay asks. "Is—is it—did you—you and Owen?" He's speaking too fast now, verbally tripping over himself.

They're in their little room, door closed. Matt's twisted out of arm's reach almost as soon as they were alone.

"Use your words," Matt snaps.

They come up too fast, a stomach acid burn in his throat. "You and Owen," Jay says. "You—you were—in university? You were dating?"

Matt's eyes widen. Then, quicker than Jay can blink, Matt's expression shuts down.

"Who told you that?" he asks.

"It doesn't matter," Jay says. "Is it true?"

Matt pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue. He looks at their made bed, the army corners, at the bedside table where he'd left his glasses and his contact solution, at the blue wall, out the window. Anywhere but Jay.

"Is it?" Jay asks, voice as small as he feels. Smaller.

Matt opens his mouth but it's a second before his voice emerges.

"Yeah," he says.

There's music outside the door. Someone calls for a cheers to the birthday girl, and is granted a chorus of well-wishes. Jay sits down on the edge of their bed.

"How… You…" Jay rubs his hand over his mouth. "You didn't tell me. You weren't going to tell me?"

"You want to talk about keeping secrets?" Matt asks.

"This whole time. You and—and your family, you all knew?" Through the cold swell in his stomach, Jay can feel that first hot spark of real anger. "Everyone knew?"

"You want to talk about everyone knowing something, Jay?" Matt asks. "You want to talk about keeping something from each other?"

It's a mistake to meet Matt with anger. Matt loves anger. It's his second best friend.

"Let's talk about it, Jay. Let's talk about secrets," Matt says and Jay feels the ground shifting under his feet. "Let's talk about Emilia. Even though it's about twenty years too late."

"That's…" Not fair, Jay wants to say, but he knows it is.

"She told me," Matt says. "Back in 2016. I guess she thought you and I were together—"

We were, Jay thinks, stupidly.

"—and felt she owed me the truth. Because I guess you were never going to say anything."

"That's… I didn't…"

"Oh, oh, what's that? You didn't? What are you saying Jay?" Matt stalks across the room. Jay backs away. "Let's hear it. Let's hear the excuse. We've been spending time with my family—all of whom, by the way, know about you and Emilia—and you haven't said a word to be about it. Not once. I kept waiting and waiting for you to tell me."

"It's different," Jay says weakly.

"Okay. How?"

"It's—" Oh god, Matt is actually going to let him to explain himself. Jay tries to breathe. "It's just—we were never really serious. Me and Emilia, it was—was only a few months and didn't, like. Mean anything." He hates the sound of his own voice so much right now, the high, reedy sound of himself, the wheedle in his words. "We were never—"

"Never what? You were with her almost every day for months, Jay. Do you know how humiliating it was to find that out?"

"Y-yeah—I mean, no, but—"

"And now you can't even own up to it. You can't even tell me with your whole chest," Matt says. His eyes are wide, pupils like nails, his hair sticking up from where he's run his hands through it too many times. "That's so typical of you. Trying to weasel out of it. First day we get here, first hour, and what do you do? Run off and have a little private tet-a-tet with your ex-girlfriend—"

"No, she was never—we were never like that."

"—when I needed you to try and ingratiate yourself with my family and instead I have Leslie asking me why you've snuck off with your fucking ex-girlfriend—"

"Stop calling her my ex-girlfriend! It was never like that."

"—reminding everyone," Matt says, stubbornly talking over Jay, "of how you've fucked two of the Johnson siblings and how do you think that makes me feel, how do you think that makes me look?"

Get ready to reap the whirlwind. It's one of Matt's favourite sayings and he lives up to it, it's how he gets when he's truly angry. He's a force of nature, category five, face red and voice solid, strong enough to knock Jay down, accusations whirling like debris, and all Jay can do is take shelter and hope for the best. Jay's never been great at fighting with Matt, but he's really lost his appetite for it in recent years. It's too stressful. It hurts too much.

"My mom knows, Jay," Matt says. "How do you think that makes me feel? All these years," he goes on, hammering, relentless. "And you never told me. Were you ever going to tell me?"

It's like being beaten and all Jay can do is protect his vitals. Jay is sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, his fingers flexing in his hair. The questions rattle him and he can't think of the right answer.

All he can think to say is what he's been saying all along. "It wasn't like that." He doesn't know how to explain it. He almost never has to explain himself to Matt. "It wasn't."

He can see the tips of Matt's shoes and nothing else. He hears Matt's small noise of frustration.

"I hate it when you get like this," he says. "You think I won't stay mad at you if you go all pathetic, acting like you're some kind of victim here." He makes the noise again, a scoff. "I'm the pathetic one," he says, quietly. "I'm the one who has to watch you check out that sex worker every chance you get."

"Kasia's my friend," Jay says. Matt's foot retracts from Jay's vision. He hears Matt laughing from somewhere on the other side of the room, by the door, he thinks.

"Sure, Jay. Your friend. Emilia too, right?" Matt sniffs. "And to answer your question: yeah, me and Owen. For all of university. And it did mean something."

The door opens. The sound of outside rushes forth, more than Jay can stand. The door closes.

Jay's alone.

He doesn't go back downstairs.

He thinks about it but the image won't stick. He's not the guy who pulls himself together and goes downstairs again like nothing's wrong. Owen's down there.

It meant something. It meant something. Four years.

There were people who got married out of university. People who fell in love and then got married in their twenties. People who decided their careers and built themselves a life. Had kids, maybe. Did Matt ever want kids?

That summer when Matt came home from university, when they reconnected, a few months before they moved in together. Were he and Owen finished by then? Jay re-examines the memory with this new knowledge.

Matt, fresh off his first relationship, heart broken, the lead of his own coming of age movie with his own sad indie soundtrack, sitting behind the shed of a party he didn't even want to go to but felt he had to because—what? To find something else, someone else. Maybe that's why he talked to Jay, when Jay came up to him. Maybe he just wanted to forget about Owen for a while.

Now that Jay knows how fragile the timeline is, how the future can be broken open and put back together again in a different shape, he can't stop picturing what could've become of Matt if Jay hadn't come home at all. He thinks about what Matt has given up to be with Jay, to take care of Jay.

Jay got to see what it looked like for him if things had gone differently. Matt never did. It all seems so unfair.

He can't change that. He can't fix it for Matt. He can't even stand up from the bed, go downstairs, try to salvage the evening for the both of them.

Just like before, just like all those other times. He's a failure.

It's deep into a summer afternoon, the humidity thick enough to chew through. Jay doesn't like going outside when it's like this. He's in someone's backyard and he's not sure why he's there or how he got there. There's the smell of mesquite in the air. He has a sweating beer bottle in his hand, the label peeling, rubbing from the glass under his fingers. Someone is talking to him—no one he knows. People are looking at him. Watching him.

He's famous, so it's natural, as natural as sunlight, to have that attention on him. Even when he doesn't want it. People watch him even if they aren't looking directly at him. Phones like eyes in the palms of everyone's hands. Everything is forever. He has to smile because if he doesn't, someone will talk about it, some blind item on some million-follower Instagram, and his PR team will book him in for an emergency teleconference. They're always trying to save his image. The other Jay, the one who lives on stage and on the covers of magazines (GQ's Sexiest Man Alive 2016!), the one who goes on Ellen and hosts award shows. He is beautiful and without flaw.

Jay has to keep that other Jay alive or it all comes to an end. A dozen people rely on him for their livelihood at any given time. He has to look people in the eye when he talks to them, he has to smile like he means it, he has to say the right things on the right podcast, has to like the right things on Instagram. He has to be good, always, or people won't love him anymore.

People want to love him, but they want to hate him too. Nobody wants to hear a famous person complain about being famous, so he keeps his mouth shut.

For some reason, he can't get it right today. His smile isn't right, his words aren't right, even the way he's standing feels wrong. It's the heat, maybe, even though he's dressed in Egyptian cotton. He can feel it when the person behind him starts tapping something out on their phone, like their fingers are on his spine.

He wants to go home. Except he doesn't, because home is just a place he gets swallowed up, where nothing ever happens to him, good or bad. Home is a fortress against the bright and colorful and painful world, a place where he surrenders to his vices. Home means blue label whiskey, the rattle of pills, his Raya account on his burner phone. Home is dark even though the windows are so tall and big. Home has rooms he barely even looks at, filled with furniture and decor he didn't pick.

Jay longs for something he's lost a long, long time ago. It's that longing that brings him to his feet and past a crowd of admirers and hangers-on, to the corner of the cedar plank porch, where a black and silver barbeque belches hot, shimmery air, the hiss of fat and flesh on the grill. It brings him to the man standing there, with the arm-length silver tongs, dressed in Bermuda shorts and a blue tank-top, his bare arms and shoulders shiny with sweat and dutifully applied sunscreen. Jay feels a tug under his navel towards him. A compass needle spinning to due north.

"Matt," he says.

Matt raises his head, meets Jay's open smile with a blank and vaguely pleasant expression.

"Oh, hey man," he says. "Glad you could make it."

The bottle keeps slipping in his palm. Jay has to hold it tight.

"It's me," he says.

"Yeah." Matt squints at him and then his attention is back to his grill. "Nice to see you. Been a while, right? Um. Do you want—?"

Like a skip in a video and a beautiful man in a linen Hawaiian print button up appears. He puts his hand to Matt's lower back. "Hey, babe, have you seen the kids?"

"They're in the basement," Matt says. "Owen, you remember… Jay?"

Sweat dappled, feeling ill, cold in spite of the heat. Jay feels like he's been thrust onto the stage, and he's not prepared at all, he's skipped out on the sound check and hasn't approved a set list. Matt's barely looking at him and when he does, it's like staring out at row after row of a blanked out audience, faces lost in the glare of the stage lights.

"Oh, sure," Owen says. He hooks his chin on Matt's shoulder and smiles at Jay. "Your old friend Jay."

There's another skip and then—

There's something on the grass, a slick splatter of black-red, arterial, shining in the sun. Jay's sitting on the edge of the porch steps with his head in his hands. He's alone. He can't hear anything but the whine of his here-and-gone tinnitus. His right hand no longer belongs to him but to a cold pain that's clamped its teeth around his wrist. Shards of glass wink up at him from between his feet.

It's a relief when he sees the pair of familiar blue Nikes. The torn jeans, holes ripped down to his calves. Matt kneels down until Jay can see the lower half of his face. Two fingers chuck him under his chin, forcing him to look up into a pair of black eyes.

In a moment of weakness, some weeks ago, Jay googled 'what does it feel like to be hit by lightning' and wishes he hadn't.

"Matt." He's snivelling, fat tears sliding down his cheeks and off his chin, blood smeared hot up the side of his face.

Electricity dances between Matt's fingers as he reaches for Jay and Jay knows the pain is coming, he doesn't want it, but—it's Matt. He falls into Matt's embrace, grateful, before the hurt erases him.

Jay wakes up slowly, confused, drawn out of the dream by the sound of a distant door slamming. Or something. He blinks into the dark, nerves fluttering in his throat. He's not holding Matt. He turns in the bed and throws his arm out.

There's no one else in bed with him. The room is silent, almost too warm.

He's still wearing most of his suit, minus the tie, the jacket, and the belt. He doesn't remember falling asleep. He strains to hear anything outside his room but there's nothing. Party must be over. Jay sits up in the empty bed, arms quaking. He tries to talk himself down, that it was just a dream, that it never even happened, not really, that Matt was fine and Matt was pissed at him but it didn't matter, because he was alive. He was fine.

Jay sighs. He runs his hands through his hair and surrenders to this need. He can't dream about Matt dying again and not—not at least see Matt for himself. He slides his legs off the side, feet on the ground, and stands.

The downstairs is mostly dark and completely silent. There's plug-in lights shining low to the floor, offering just enough illumination to stop someone from slipping and breaking a hip. The living room is nearly pristine, the surfaces cleared all of all debris, so unlike the house party aftermaths Jay is used to. Oven lights in the kitchen bring out the hard angles of the counters, the shapes of the chairs all tucked in around the big island.

Jay has no idea where Matt would be. He had a half-formed image of Matt on the couch, where he'd go any time he was in a snit back home. In fact, there is a blanket half-covering one of the larger couches but otherwise there is no sign of Matt.

Before he can stop himself, Jay thinks: he's gone back to Owen's room.

Jay's gnawed his thumbnail to a ragged edge and it feels good when he drags it over his wrist, again and again. His breath keeps slipping away from him, wheezing in his throat. He twists his skin so hard tears pop into his eyes and it's not quite enough.

A laugh rustles the air, low and soft and far away. Jay thinks it's in his head until he hears it again. He lifts his eyes and scans the room. He notices, for the first time, that the out of season hurricane lanterns are ablaze outside, a remnant from the party he thinks. But now that he's watching, he sees shadows moving on the porch. When he moves closer, he can hear it better now: the sound of voices. Matt.

Up against the glass patio door, he can hear the rumble of Matt's voice but not the words. His idiot heart lurches in his chest. He slips on the pair of boots left beside the door. With his tongue between his teeth, he eases the door open as silently as he can, and slips outside.

It'll be enough, he tells himself, just to see that Matt is okay. Then he can go back upstairs and—and maybe plan out what he wants to say, how he'll apologise, if he should even apologise at all.

The wrap-around porch turns a corner with the house and that's where Jay can hear Matt talking. He sticks close to the wall, past the outdoor furniture zipped up in their covers. He peeks around the corner and finds Matt, sitting on the top step, beside—who else?—Owen. The lightning bug of a lit joint passes between them, smoke gone in seconds in the cold. Owen's saying something, Jay thinks, but he's too far away to hear it. Matt snorts an ugly laugh.

It would be better if he'd walked in on them in bed together. Sex is—whatever, maybe Jay isn't very good at it, or maybe Matt could get bored with him. Jay could understand what need was being met in that situation. But this…

Jay leans against the wall. He finds the ring on his hand and twists, twists. With the patio lights on, he can't really see the stars. He listens to the sound of Matt's voice.

There's a snap of movement at Jay's ankles. Jay flinches back, thinking it's a fox or a racoon or something, but he hears the jubilant bark bark bark as Delilah the terrier gallops, tail high, into the halo of lamp light.

Owen jumps up and gets the first syllable of her name out before she's streaking past him, a blur of reddish brown, and into the snow beyond. He lunges for her too late. He runs after her—also too late.

It takes less than ten seconds. She's stopped barking. Owen's stumbling after her, legs tangling as he staggers to a run but it's no use. The little dog is gone.

Jay left the door open.

"Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Owen's back on the patio, spitting curses through a stuffed nose. "Delilah, she was just—how the fuck did she get out?"

"Oh fuck," from Matt. "Fuck, fuck, dude, we have to—" Clattering, the boards shaking as the two of them storm back to the cottage.

Jay knows he's caught but he's still not prepared when they round the corner and find him crouched against the wall.

"Jay?"

The sapping, nervous energy radiating off of Matt finds a grounding target in Jay. His expression shifts, fast as a wink, from nervous to angry.

"What are you doing here?" He looks past Jay. "Did you—did you leave the door open?"

"She was supposed to be asleep," Owen moans. "There's coyotes out there."

"Why did you leave the door open for?" Matt demands. "Are you fucking stupid? Owen's dog is worth, like, six hundred dollars."

"That's not why I'm upset about this," Owen snaps. He shakes his head and stalks away from Matt. "I need to get—get her leash or something. A toy. I'll be back."

Jay can't stay here another second alone with Matt, who is looking down at him with jittery anger. Jay stands up.

"Where are you going?" Matt demands.

"I'm going to look for the dog," Jay says without turning around.

He storms off into the night, following the little paw prints out of the light. The boots he's stolen are too small and his heels are stuck in the neck, which means he has to walk almost on his tiptoes. Breathing hurts his chest, each inhale hiccuping a little, a dry rasp in his throat. He isn't thinking about anything except the dog, the look on Matt's face, Matt's voice when he called Jay stupid in front of Owen. His face burns.

He realises that he doesn't know where he's going. He's past the skating rink, heading towards the tree line. He thinks that Owen is right and that there are coyotes, or snowy owls, or maybe even wolves. At least the dog doesn't have to worry about bears; all of them still asleep for the winter.

When the ugly thing that's propelled Jay away from the house, from the warm and the light, finally loosens its hold on him, Jay is in the trees. He's wobbling slowly along, guided by his phone's flashlight, on what he is pretty sure is a hiking trail. It's a narrow path, his phone slicing the night open, white snow and black shadows, and the trees on either side. He flinches, phone jumping in his hand, when he hears something crashing towards him.

His mind is briefly terrorized with images of razor-teeth lined mouths, stringy with drool, red tongues lolling, hot breath huffing, eyes glowing—a pack of wolves set to descend and put him messily out of his misery.

But the light of his phone flares up into a pale, pouchy, familiar face several feet away.

"Jay!" Matt hisses. He has his own phone out, and Jay is temporarily blinded in turn.

For a second, Jay is thrilled—Matt chased after him! He still cares! But the feeling is quickly doused. He doesn't want to see Matt.

"W-why are you here?" Jay asks.

"Are you fucking serious right now?" is Matt's heated reply. "You ran off without a coat, idiot. Here—" He attacks Jay with the coat, using both hands to jam it over Jay's shoulders.

"I can't believe you," Matt says while Jay sullenly sticks his arms through his coat sleeves. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You run off into the night without a coat. You don't even know where you're going, or what you're even doing, do you? You're just like a kid, running off at the first sign of trouble because you didn't want to get yelled at."

Was that so bad? Who wants to get yelled at? Jay hunches into his coat and walks away from Matt, makes it only a few steps before Matt's hand clamps down on his arm.

"Stop walking away," Matt snaps while Jay tries to shake him off. "We're going back."

"I'm going to f-find the st-stupid dog," Jay says through his clicking teeth.

"Owen's already on it," Matt says.

"Then go hu-help him. I'm f-fine."

"No you're n-n-not," Matt says with a sneer, still grabbing at him. "You're just throwing a tantrum. Don't you know anything about a rescue mission? You walk off like this, you're just making a second rescue situation for everyone to deal with."

"I d-don't care," Jay says, slapping at Matt. "I don't—"

Matt hooks one arm around Jay's waist, talking fast. "Stop, just stop, Jay—"

"—want to! Let me go, Matt—" Jay twists. He drops his phone, uses both hands to try and pry Matt's arm off of him while Matt tries to lift him from the ground. "Matt, just—"

Matt grabs Jay's hand, pries it back, squeezes his fingers. He freezes.

"Where's your ring?" he asks, breath hot against the side of Jay's head. He squeezes Jay's bare left hand again. "Bird, where—?"

Jay's phone fell face down in the snow, beam of the flashlight sent up to the heavens, lighting up their features from the bottom, like they're telling scary stories at camp. Jay looks at his hand in Matt's hold.

"Oh," he says. He rips his hand free and pats down his coat pockets. "Oh. Oh no." Frantic as he stabs his hands into his pants' pockets—empty—and then back to his coat. "No, no, no, no, no," he chants steadily, patting at his clothes.

"Bird?"

"No, no, I didn't—I didn't—" Jay gulps in a breath, dropping to his knees. He sweeps his hands over the snow. "I didn't—I, I—" He crawls forward, back to the indentations of his steps. His breath keeps running out of him, and his throat gets tighter with each rasping inhale, and there's nothing under his hands but snow and ice.

The ring's gone. It's gone.

"Fuck," Matt says with a sigh. "You lost it."

Jay doesn't understand what happens to him. The night clamps down on him and the pressure inside of him bursts like a lanced boil, and it's like—like he's being split open. There's a hot rush of sound from his mouth, gushing out of him in a great wave. It's an arterial sound, black-red and from deep inside, something vital slithering out with it. He's heaving with it, body wracked with sobs that rattle him right down to his bones. He curls over his fists, head bowed into the snow, and cries like the child Matt keeps accusing him of being.

There are hands on him. He fights them off. They come back, tighter, firmer, grabbing him from his waist and pulling him off the ground, onto his feet. He's half-aware of himself, trying to stagger away, trying to hide, but he's pulled into Matt, arms wrapped around him tight.

"Bird, Bird, Bird," Matt's saying. "Birdie, Birdie, it's okay, it's—oh—I'm sorry—I'm sorry, please—Birdie—please stop crying, I'm sorry."

"Please." Jay's voice comes out wet and thick. "Please… Please don't… Don't—don't. Don't send me away. I'll f-find the ring. Please, Muh-Matt. I'll p-pay you back." The rest of his words come out as a whine. If Jay were aware of anything beyond the hot pressure pushing at the inside of his skull, he would be humiliated.

Matt shushes him. He strokes his hair.

"You're—I—I r-ruined your life," Jay says, choking on his voice. "You d-died bec-cause of me. And I—I'm—sorry. Matt, I'm s-sorry."

Matt squeezes Jay, one hand on the back of his head, pushing his face into the crook of his neck.

"T-take the j-job. Ta-ake it. You should. But p-please let me stay. If you wuh-want to be with Owen just… do it at th-the office. D-don't bring him home. Please."

"What the fuck," Matt whispers.

"I'm sorry," Jay whimpers. He's clinging to Matt like he's a lifesaver and Jay's in the river. "Y-you can do what you want." He sniffs. "I'll just… leave the house or something. You can have him over. But I want to come back. You h-have to let m-me come b-back." He dissolves into a fresh round of pitiful sobbing.

"Okay, enough." Matt presses Jay firmly into himself. "Stop talking. Stop talking, Jay."

Jay obeys. His throat hurts and he's crying too hard to say much of anything anyway.

"Just, um. Take a breath for me. Okay? Take a breath, Bird. Okay?"

Jay tries. His inhale hitches, hiccups, and his exhale shakes him with a fresh round of sobs.

"Keep going," Matt says, so Jay does. "Another for me. Another. Keep going. Good. Good, Bird." His voice so unbearably gentle.

Jay sniffs again. It's getting easier to breathe in the cold air.

"Okay. Okay," Matt says. "I'm—okay." He pauses. Jay feels his shoulders rise with an inhale, sink with an exhale. Matt tries again. "To start with, I'm not going to cheat on you, Jay. That's just not going to happen."

"Don't lie to me," Jay says.

"I'm not lying. No, hey, I'm not. I'm not." He tightens his hold as Jay shakes his head, tries to squirm free. "Jay, I promise you. I wouldn't."

"Tonight," Jay says stubbornly. "You—you and him. I woke up and y-you were g-gone." The words splinter as he gets worked up again.

"Okay, no, stop talking, Jay. I was—yeah." Matt sighs the word out.

"Oh, Bird," he says after a long pause. "I'm so—so sorry. I did this to you." He strokes down the back of Jay's head, flattening his hair against the nape of his neck. "I did. I did this to you. I—me and Owen. I knew you were—upset. I knew. I could see it. I knew I was hurting you. I was doing it because… because it was hurting you."

Jay absorbs this in silence. He turns his face away from Matt.

"You shouldn't cry over someone like me," Matt says with a weak laugh. "I was—I was pissed off. Because you still wouldn't tell me about fucking Emilia and every time I turned around there was a drop dead gorgeous 20-something hanging off your arm, batting her eyes up at you."

"I told you," Jay says. "Kasia and I are just friends. She—she knows me as your fiance."

"Yeah, but you're—you're you. I mean, if I was a hot girl and I had a choice between my sad sack middle aged brother and you, I know who I'd pick."

"Matt. I'm a sad sack middle aged man too."

"Yeah, well. You have better hair than Peter does."

"I'm broke. I'm in a band and I don't have a job. Matt." He breaks off with a breathless laugh. "There is no one in this world who would consider me a catch."

"Don't be stupid," Matt says. "I caught you thirty years ago."

Jay rubs his snotty nose into the fabric of Matt's jacket and doesn't even feel bad about it. Matt wanted to hurt him on purpose.

"I'm sorry," Matt says. "I am. I didn't—didn't think you'd get this upset. I don't know—I just get messed up in my own head sometimes. It's—being around my family fucks me up and it's hard to think straight. I'm sorry."

"I wish you'd just talked to me," Jay says. "Instead of this. I missed you all w-week."

"I'm sorry," Matt repeats.

There's no sound in the night but the ones they're making—both of them now sniffling, their stuttering breaths. Matt's arm is flat against Jay's back, his hand stroking his hair. Jay's hands are cold from the snow, from being outside for so long. Without asking, he worms them up under Matt's shirt, tugging the tails out of his slacks, and presses them against Matt's skin. Matt hisses quietly but he doesn't object.

"The thing is," Matt says, speaking quietly, "is that you're mine, Jay. And I don't—I'm not—when I say this to you, I don't just mean it as like, a sex thing. I don't just say it because I know it gets you going."

Jay huffs. His fingers stroke the soft divot of Matt's spine.

"I mean it in every way," Matt says. "Like, in a problematic way. Like, the way I think about you should—if you knew even the half of it. Like, I should be put away. But I need you to understand that you're mine, Jay. You just are. I love that you give yourself to me but I—I forget, sometimes, how much responsibility I have. I get careless. Does that make sense?"

"No," Jay mutters. He's still stuck on 'you're mine', the statement so simple and confident, like Matt's observing the stars above their heads.

"I just… I need to be better for you. I need to take care of you," Matt says. He breaks off with a sniffle. "And I will. Take care of you. I promise. This week was a mistake and I'm s-sorry. I'll take better care of you from now on. And that stuff about the job—don't worry about that. I'm not taking a fucking sitcom script supervisor job." He laughs wetly. "I don't want that. I never wanted that. I have you. I just want you. I want our band. I thought you knew that."

"You could have a lot more than me," Jay says.

"That's a stupid thing to say," Matt says.

Jay's cheek is pressed into Matt's shoulder. He feels like he's spewed up his guts and now he's been emptied out. His head's lost that hot pressure that made him want to crack his skull open. His eyes sting. He closes them tight.

"If I'm so much work," he says, "then why would you pick me?"

Matt's hand stills on the back of Jay's skull, fingers splayed. "I told you why." He rubs his thumb along the chilled shell of Jay's ear. "Now I want to hear you say it."

Jay's fingers trace up the curve of Matt's spine, to the wings of his shoulder blades. He can feel the moles and birth marks, can feel the tiny, raised line of an old scar, gotten while cliff diving into the lake almost thirty years ago.

"I'm yours," he whispers.

"Good. You're my what?"

"Um." Jay swallows. "Your… fiance?" He winces, wishing he didn't make it sound like a question, but the missing ring still hurts.

"Yes," Matt says to Jay's relief. "What else?"

"Your… roommate."

"Mmhm. What else?"

"Your friend," Jay whispers. He rubs his cheek against Matt's coat. "Your best friend."

"Yeah. My very best b-friend." Matt tugs lightly at the back of Jay's neck, pulling him off. Jay's hands slide down to Matt's waist, still skin on skin. Matt cups Jay's face. It's hard to see Matt with only the light of his fallen phone, but Jay can make out the gentle tilt of his eyebrows.

"What else?" Matt asks.

"Um." This feels like a loaded question and Jay fears a wrong answer. He tries his best to look into Matt's shadowed face.

Matt strokes his thumbs over the soft ledge of Jay's cheeks. All at once, Jay feels silly. There's no threat here; Matt's sorrow, his sympathy, his penance, he wears it all so plainly. He's hiding nothing from Jay.

"I'm…" Jay licks his lips, feeling suddenly shy. "Your Jay."

Matt's fingers tighten. "Right. What else?" he asks, hoarse, tugging Jay a little closer, until they're nose to nose.

Jay knows. It's what Matt likes to tell him when he's inside of him, when he's pushing Jay past his limits, when they're both hand-in-hand with the downhill race of their pleasure. It's what he tells Jay every time before his orgasm sweeps him up, holding onto Jay like he thinks Jay is the one who's falling to pieces.

"Your Birdie," Jay says.

Matt's kiss tastes of salt and there's a hint of smoke in his mouth, his earlier joint. It makes Jay think of Owen but then Matt's pulling Jay back against him, pressing him from hip to chest.

"My Birdie," Matt whispers. Jay is so close he can feel Matt's lips purse against his mouth with the words. "Mine. I made myself for you," he says. "And I made our lives for you. And I've never regretted it. I would do it again," he says, dragging his nails over Jay's scalp, making him shiver. "I would do it again."

They walk back to the cottage hand in hand.

"I'm sorry about the dog," Jay says.

Matt squeezes his hand. "Don't be. That was my fault too."

"No, I'm—"

"It's my fault. Please don't argue," Matt says. Jay closes his mouth.

The sky is still pitch and Jay can see the stars when he tips his head back, which he does, safe in the knowledge that Matt's leading him. There's no wind and the snow squeaks and crunches under their boots. Jay's feet hurt. Maybe this is how girls feel when they wear heels. He makes a note to himself to ask Kasia.

Matt notices when Jay slows down. He tsks at Jay's sheepish explanation. He crouches on the ground.

"Come on," he says. "Piggy back time."

And when Jay musters up a feeble protest, Matt cuts him off. "Don't," he says. "Please. Just get on."

Jay sniffs and sighs and makes a show of his reluctance, but he doesn't think he's fooling anyone. The second Matt stands up and Jay's feet leave the ground, it's a relief. He sags into Matt's arms, his easy strength. He feels so very tired.

They're back in the circle of light before Jay knows it, the massive cottage rising from the landscape. Jay raises his head from Matt's back as they go up the stairs to the porch. Matt sets him down beside the glass door with a grunt, knees cracking when he straightens again.

"You should've said if I was too heavy," Jay says as Matt slides the door open.

"Stop arguing with me."

"I'm not arguing, I'm just saying."

"Stop saying—" Matt cuts himself off as a figure sits up from the couch.

"Close the door," Owen says. He's sleep burred, his tortoiseshell glasses sideways on his face, squinting.

There's a cheerful jingling of dog tags on the floor and Delilah comes trotting into view. Matt shuts the door before she can pull another escape attempt.

"You guys are okay," Owen says around a yawn. He stretches, spine popping. "I found her like ten minutes after you left, Matty."

"That fast? She was, like, gone," Matt says.

Owen frowns at him. "She comes running for her squeaky toy. I was trying to tell you but you were…" He glances at Jay as Jay struggles to kick off his borrowed boots. "Uh. Is everything okay with you two?"

"Yeah," Matt says. He stands still as Jay puts his hand on his shoulder, using him to stabilize himself as he kicks off one boot and then the other, his socks slipping loose. "We're fine. Jay's going upstairs," he says.

Jay looks down at Matt, brows furrowed. "But—"

"You're going to go upstairs, to our room," Matt says, lowering his voice, his hand coming up to rest on Jay's waist. "And you're going to get into your pajamas and get under the covers and wait for me. Okay?"

Jay knows that tone of voice. It's been almost a week since he's heard it and it feels like far, far too long. Something that's been flapping loose inside of his head for that same amount of time is finally, fantastically, tied down tight. He nods.

"Good night," Owen says as Jay glides past.

"Night, Owen," Jay says.

Upstairs, Jay strips out of his clothes. His pants are damp from the knees down from the time he spent kneeling in the snow. He throws them over the shower rod. He washes his hands, rubs water over his face, up into the roots of his hair, over the back of his neck. He finds and puts on one of Matt's sleep t-shirts and a pair of his flannel pants, drawing the string tight to keep it from sliding down his hips. It's not exactly what Matt told him to do but he doesn't think Matt will mind. He gets under the covers.

He doesn't know how much time has passed when he feels the duvet being pulled back, a flush of cool air as Matt slips behind him. He fell off fast as soon as his head hit the pillow.

"Matt?" he mumbles. "Everything okay?"

Matt curls up against Jay's back, arm sliding over Jay's waist. "Go back to sleep," he says and kisses Jay behind his ear. Jay finds Matt's hand on his chest and twines their fingers together.

He closes his eyes and tries to focus on the feeling of Matt surrounding him, his heart beating against Jay's back.

He sleeps.

When he wakes up again there's light in the room, peeking around the drawn curtains. Jay hears movement coming from downstairs, the sound of stampeding children coming and going, the door opening and closing.

He knows that Matt is awake too because he can feel Matt's mouth on the back of his neck, just below the line of his hair.

"Morning," Jay mumbles, voice sleep-thick.

"Morning." Casually, with a small yawn, Matt slides his hand down Jay's stomach, past the waistband of his pants. He takes hold of Jay's morning wood, as Jay still struggles to wake up, and gives it a few pumps.

"Oh," Jay gasps.

Matt's mouth is hot and wet on the back of his neck. His big hand works Jay's dick steadily, his thumb slipping over the head with each up stroke. Jay's brain still isn't online, he's got nothing to offer Matt except the restless movement of his hips.

"If we were at home I'd roll you over and fuck you stupid," Matt says, voice rough the way it always is first thing in the morning. "I'd keep you in bed all day. Keep you naked and ready and open for me to use whenever I want."

Jay moans. Matt's other hand comes up to Jay's face. He pushes his fingers past Jay's lips, two pads on Jay's tongue, muffling him.

"I'd take such good care of you. You won't have to ask for anything. I'd give it to you, whenever you wanted it. I'd make you eat from my hands. We haven't done that yet, have we? I want to try it for a day. You can only eat what I give you. I think you'd like that."

Jay nods, hums agreement, drooling around Matt's fingers, gagging a little as he shoves them in deeper. His hand holds Matt's wrist as the pleasure builds past the point of no return, and he's coming with a whimper.

Matt coos at him. He pulls his fingers free, releasing Jay gently.

"Good morning," he says, dropping a kiss on Jay's shoulder, where the t-shirt's slipped.

"Morning," Jay says for a second time, catching his breath. He runs his hand over his face, wincing at the feeling of the sticky spot in his pants. He turns over onto his back. "Uh. How'd you sleep?"

Matt's bare to his waist, propped up on his elbow, staring down at Jay with a fond smile. Jay's insides squirm.

"Good," he says as Jay slides off his pants. "We should get up soon. It's pretty late in the morning," he continues as Jay nudges him onto his back and straddles his waist. His smile grows, his fond look turning hot as Jay grinds into him.

"Birdie," he says. He cups Jay's face. "You're really fucking gorgeous first thing in the morning, you know that?" Jay sucks the tip of his thumb into his mouth. "Especially like this. The Winnie the Poo look really works for you."

Jay nods, eyelids sinking. Really, Matt could be saying anything and Jay would nod along to it. His brain is only half-online but he's not in a rush.

"Do you wanna fuck my mouth?" Jay asks.

"Jaybird." Matt's eyes widen. "You really have to ask?"

Matt sits up against the headboard and Jay slides off, settling between Matt's legs. He hooks his fingers in the waistband of Matt's briefs and peels them down. Matt is gratifyingly hard. Jay lowers his head, nuzzling at the base of his dick, into his pubic hair. He takes a moment to savour this, the scent and feel of Matt surrounding him. He cups Matt's balls with one hand, kissing the underside of his shaft. He traces the vein with his tongue. Jay can feel Matt shift under him, hear his breathing change.

"This isn't fucking your mouth, Bird," Matt says.

"Can't I take my time?" Jay asks. He licks Matt's foreskin, smiling to himself at Matt's moan, his stifled curse. He's gentle, lavishing Matt's cock with kisses, long stripes of his tongue from base to head. He licks the bead of precome, groaning at the taste, while Matt whimpers above him. He uses his thumb to fold the foreskin back, licks gently at the revealed head, earning a strangled "God, fuck," from Matt.

"Birdie," he whines. He's red from his chest to the roots of his hair. "Birdie, please. Stop teasing."

"You wanna use me?" Jay asks.

"Yes, god yes, absolutely."

With Matt's hand on the back of his head, he takes the tip of Matt's cock into his mouth. He gives it a light amount of suction, smiling when he hears Matt's gasp, and starts lowering. He pauses for a moment, letting the feeling of being filled up settle over him, moaning softly. He's got one hand on Matt's hip, the other holding him at his base.

"You love it, huh?" Matt says. His voice tightens as Jay begins to bob his head. "You love sucking my dick, don't you, Birdie?"

Jay does his best to let Matt know just how much he agrees without being able to speak. Each downward bob of his head, he can take Matt a little bit deeper, feeling him at the back of his mouth.

"Fuck, Birdie." Matt's doing his best to keep his voice low. He strokes Jay's hair. "You're so perfect. Sometimes I wonder how you can be real. I used to think I dreamt you up, you know that? But I—I think I had it backwards. I think—think I'm the one. I had to dream myself up just to be with you. You know what I mean?"

Jay huffs, mouth full. It's a new discovery, like so many other new things he's learned about Matt since they started this, that Matt likes to talk in bed. Matt likes to talk everywhere, it's true, but there's something special about this. His mouth moves without much engagement from his brain, and the things he tells Jay have a shade of the confessional to them.

"I made myself for you, Jay. Do you understand me?" There's a strain in his voice now, and in his thighs too, thick muscles flexing under Jay's palm. "I'm not—not me unless I have you. I can't be. It's just not possible. I need you. How could you think—? No, that's my fault, I fucked up, I shouldn't have given you any reason to doubt me. You're supposed to think I'm solid. I'm supposed to be bedrock. Jay, Jay, Birdie, I'm so—are you going to let me come inside you? Can you swallow for me?"

Jay hums and nods as best he can. He cradles Matt's balls in his palm, flattens his tongue against Matt's shaft. Matt pulls Jay's hair, his hips jerking, as he finishes into Jay's mouth. Jay closes his eyes and swallows it all, again and again. He stays there for a beat, lets Matt rest inside of him, until Matt's tugging at his hair again.

Pulling Jay off of him, grabbing for him, murmuring "Come here, come here," pulling Jay on his lap. He kisses Jay lush on the mouth, his hands under the t-shirt, fingers spanning over his chest.

For a while, that's all they do. Slow and easy, making out, feeling each other up, like men half their age.

Finally, it's Matt who breaks them apart. "We should get up," he says. Jay hums again, rests his head against Matt's chest. "We should get packed."

"Why?" Jay stifles a yawn, eyes sliding shut. "We're not leaving 'til tomorrow."

"Ah, no. Change of plans. There's a bus leaving in…" Matt reaches over to the side table, plucks his phone from the wireless charging panel. "Four hours. I already got us tickets," he says as Jay lifts his head. "We'll be home before nine."

"But… your mom," Jay says. "The money. It's only one more day."

"I don't care. That's not my priority."

Jay frowns. "Matt…"

"It's not an argument, Jay. Everything's already been decided."

"What about the ring?" Jay asks. "I sort of thought we could try looking for it now that it's daytime."

"In the snow? Jaybird." Matt sighs. "That ring is gone. I'm sorry." He pets Jay's hair. "I'll get you a new one."

"I liked that one," Jay mumbles. He didn't realise it until last night, but it's true. He did like it. It's a shame he only knows it now because it's gone.

"I'll get you one just like it."

It takes a little more cajoling to get Jay on board with the change of plans, but not much. Really, his protests are just for show and they both know it. Matt said they're going home. That's one of Jay's favourite sounds.

Jay gets up, pulls off his borrowed t-shirt. "If we have a little bit of time, we should just go back over our steps from last night," he says. "Maybe there's a metal detector we can borrow from the hotel." He bends over the luggage, goes through his folded clothes.

"What happened to your arm, Jaybird?" Matt asks. Jay freezes. "Did you get a rash or something?"

Jay closes his mouth. He selects his clothes and starts putting them on, briefs, slacks, button-down shirt. He sits on the edge of the bed and rolls his socks over his feet.

"Bird?"

It's not a secret, Jay thinks. It's just private.

"Can… can I tell you later?" he asks, voice small.

He risks a look over his shoulder when Matt doesn't reply. Matt blinks at him, entirely baffled. "Sure?" he says. "Whatever you say, man. If we want to try looking for the ring, we'll need to get moving. Did you leave anything in any other room?"

Jay relaxes. They pack up.

The hotel does not have a metal detector for them to borrow, which Matt says he expected. Jay thinks that Matt is humouring him more than usual, following his lead as they trudge into the snow. Anxiety twists in Jay's chest as they retrace their steps and he feels like he's running into the ghost of last night. When they get to the spot on the hiking trail where they fought and made up, Jay half expects to find a stain on the snow, some marker of everything that came splashing out of him in great waves.

But of course there's nothing. Jay kneels down. Matt tenses beside him. Jay sweeps his gloved hands over the snow, turns up even less than he did the night before. He sits back on his calves.

"I'm sorry," he says to Matt.

Matt pulls him back up to his feet. He bends to brush the snow off of Jay's knees. He takes his hand and walks them both back to the cottage.

On the way back, they find Owen, bundled up with his blaring red hat and scarf, Delilah on her leash trotting along ahead of him. He waves at them. Matt squeezes Jay's hand as Owen makes his way towards them.

"Hey," he says. Matt nods at him. Jay just stares. "Uh. I just spoke to Helen. She wants to see you, Matt." He fidgets. "Seems like she was upset about something. She's at the cottage."

Matt makes a face. "Okay. Great. I'll talk to her," he says.

"I want to try another sweep," Jay says quietly. "Just one more," he pleads when Matt frowns at him. "Then I'll stop and we can go. Okay?"

"I'll help," Owen says.

Matt looks nervously between them. He just kisses Jay and wishes him luck.

Owen and Jay watch Matt leave. Delilah snuffles at Jay's ankle.

"Delilah, come on," Owen says, tugging the leash gently.

"I'm sorry," Jay says. "About last night. It was an accident. I wouldn't—"

"No, no, I know," Owen says, waving one hand through the air. "It was an accident. Thank you for going out to look for her."

Jay nods, embarrassed. Really, he hadn't cared about Delilah at all last night. She looks up at him with big brown eyes, her little tongue hanging from her mouth.

They fall into step and walk the same path he and Matt just went over.

"Sorry about your ring," Owen says. Delilah leaps ahead of them, kicking up tufts of snow. Jay nods, eyes scanning the ground. "And, um." Owen clears his throat. "I owe you an apology. For this week."

Jay looks up, surprised. Owen's facing straight ahead, his cheeks and the tip of his doll-like nose pink. He kicks a clod of snow down the path.

"I've been a real bastard," he says. "I should've been… more considerate. It wasn't cool, monopolizing Matt like that. Did he tell you I just got dumped?" Jay nods. Owen smiles, bitter. "Ten years down the drain. I wanted to get married and he didn't. But he wouldn't just tell me that. He kept putting it off and putting it off until I got sick of waiting. And then, when Erik invited me out here, said Matt was coming too, I just…" He tips his head back to blink up at the sky.

"That's not really a good excuse," he admits. "I'm sorry."

Jay can't think of anything to say. He has never received so many apologies in such little amount of time in his life. He wonders if he should try his luck with Dr. Johnson next. He hopes Matt isn't fighting with her.

"It's not an excuse," Owen says again. "It's just… you never really forget your first love. Do you?"

Jay nods.

"You don't have to worry about me. I'm not… despite all appearances to the contrary, I'm not a homewrecker. And Matt made it pretty clear to me last night that he's happy with you," Owen says.

"Did he, um. Did he ever talk about me? In university, I mean," Jay asks.

"No," Owen says immediately. Jay wilts. "But I knew about you. There was… When I would visit his family over the summer, you were like… They would talk about you. Or around you. Like, 'oh, remember when Matt was going through a skater phase with…' or 'remember that summer Matt pitched a fit and stayed home so he could…' and nobody would ever say your name out loud. You were like Rebecca from Rebecca," Owen says. Jay nods and tries to figure out if he and Matt ever knew anyone named Rebecca.

"One time, I walked into our dorm and found him on his laptop. He slammed it shut as soon as I stepped inside, got all flustered. I thought I caught him looking at porn. But when I went to peek while he was in the shower, I saw that he was on your MySpace page."

Jay puts his hands in his pockets and hides a smile in his collar.

"You never forget your first love," Owen repeats quietly, as if to himself.

"You sure don't," Jay says.

Their luggage sits by the front door. Matt's in the kitchen, standing over his mother, who is seated at the island.

"I've made up my mind," Matt says. Dr. Johnson's response is too soft to make out. "I know. I know it, mom. But I don't care. I don't."

He looks up as Jay creeps into his vision.

"You sound like a teenage girl," Dr. Johnson says. "But mommy, I love him."

Matt scrunches his nose. "Gross. I'd never call you mommy. Jay," he says, raising his voice. "Any luck?" Jay shakes his head. "Oh well. It was a long shot anyway."

Owen slides the glass door Jay had left open shut, shooting Jay an exasperated look he doesn't see. He unclips Delilah's leash.

"Owen." Dr. Johnson breaks into an unselfconscious smile, no hint that she's just been caught talking about Jay behind his back. "And Jay. It's good to see you both."

"You guys're leaving already?" Owen asks.

"We've got a bus to catch," Matt says, crossing the kitchen. "I've packed all our things," he says to Jay. "You got everything? Phone? Gloves?"

"Check and check. I want to say goodbye to Peter and Kasia before we go."

Matt's mouth twitches to a brief frown but he only waves Jay off. "Do what you have to," he says. "But don't linger."

Kasia hugs him tight when he finds her, crushing her breasts into his chest. Jay feels like a bit of a jerk for even noticing. Peter's out with Leslie and her husband for a hike but she promises to tell him bye on Jay's behalf. She makes him take out his phone and puts her number in. The first time a girl has given him her number in almost two decades.

"Text me whenever," she says. "I'll take you to my gym." She rests her fingers on the edge of Jay's phone. "And, um. Peter has a spare bedroom," she says. "In case you ever need it. I know he wouldn't mind."

She hugs Jay again before he can say anything.

"Bye, Jay," she says.

Dr. Johnson's standing beside their luggage when he comes back downstairs. Matt and Owen are talking, but Matt's eyes are firm on Jay. They flick up once to where Kasia disappeared on the top landing.

To Jay's surprise, Dr. Johnson pulls him into a hug.

"Next time, it won't be so intense," she says. "So don't be a stranger. Okay?"

"Okay," he says, wondering what Matt told her. "Thanks for everything, Dr. Johnson."

"Sweetheart." She sighs. "You can call me Helen."

They're on the bus, watching the monochrome landscape slide by and Matt is still holding his hand. It's a long ride home and it'll be dark soon enough, the sun already sinking even though it's not quite evening. Jay can already see his own reflection in the glass.

"Jay," Matt says in a tone that makes Jay tense. He turns from the window.

"Last night," Matt says. Jay's fingers spasm in Matt's hold. "You said—well, you said a lot of things. But among them, you said that I…" Matt pauses, frowns to himself. Moistens his lips and tries again.

"You've been having nightmares lately," he says. "You wake up crying sometimes. And then last night, you said that I died for you. Except I don't remember doing that, Jay."

Everything is still too fresh, too raw. Last night still feels too close, even though it feels like it was years ago, too. Jay turns back to the window and sees Matt's smeary reflection, his shiny button eyes, his pale skin. Jay swallows hard past the lump in his throat.

"Bird," Matt's reflection says. He tugs Jay's hand. "Birdie. Look at me."

"Do we have to talk about this?" Jay asks. He can hear the soft lisp in his voice he only gets when he's especially tired.

"I want to, yeah," Matt says. He holds Jay's hand with both of his. "Look at me. Answer me. Is that what you've been having nightmares about?"

Jay only looks because he can't stand the sight of Matt's reflection for another second. He nods.

"Does this have something to do with that weird vision quest you went on in the summer? Where you were famous without me?" Jay nods again. "And then I died. For you?"

"Yeah," Jay says.

"How? I mean—what'd I do? Kill myself because you weren't around?" He says it so casually it makes Jay flinch.

"No, don't say it like that," Jay pleads. "It wasn't like that."

"Tell me, then. Jay." His voice sharpening as Jay turns away again. "Just tell me, Bird. You should want to tell me. After all, I'm still alive, aren't I? Shouldn't your brush with my death really emphasize the importance of not leaving things unsaid—"

"Okay, okay." Jay tries to hold up both hands to get Matt to stop, but Matt holds Jay's left hand firmly. "I'll… I'll tell you. But it'll sound crazy. You're going to think I'm crazy."

"I already know you're crazy."

"Matt," Jay whines.

"I'm serious. Okay, okay. Go on and tell me. I'll take you as seriously as I can."

Jay does, with reluctance. He explains everything, framing it as an insane dream: the RV, the Orbitz, the two of them in their old closet listening to their 20 year old selves playing for hours. He tries to skip past the parts Matt already knows about—Jay being famous, being alone—but Matt stops him and makes him to elaborate. He asks him about the concert. Jay tells him, even about the backstage meet and greet, his voice dwindling to a mumble, his face alight with shame.

He expects Matt to get angry with him but Matt's expression is that of mild interest. He nods. He watches Jay and traces the tendons on the back of Jay's hand, thumbs over the pronounced knob at his wrist.

"You big timed me, huh," he says.

"I was mad at you," Jay mutters.

He tells Matt the rest of it. Luke and the kickback of a pistol in his hand, running to Matt with his tail between his legs, looking for help, for shelter. He talks until he gets to the part with the police sirens and the lurch of the big RV speeding along Queen street, the cab shaking like it was going to fall to pieces around him. Seeing Matt with the pliers and the extension cord.

"Clever," Matt says when Jay can't bring himself to go on. "Using myself as a conductor. Just like we were taught in grade seven science."

"It wasn't clever, Matt," Jay says. His throat clamps down on anything else. He turns away, rubs his eyes with his free sleeve.

"I died for you," Matt says. "In the dream."

"I think so, yeah. Or for us, maybe. For my chance to bring us back together. I don't know."

"And in the dream, that's what you did? You went back to 2008 and fixed things."

Jay nods.

"And then you came back to 2025. And woke up."

"Yeah," Jay says.

Matt stares at him, lips parted. His thinking face. "Huh," he says.

"And in the dream, I proposed the CN Tower plan," he says. Jay freezes. "You dreamt about it the night before I actually came up with it."

The bus rattles over the highway, a pothole or something making the cabin jump. The sun's almost completely gone and when Jay tries to look outside, he's confronted with the inside of the bus, with himself and with Matt.

"Interesting," Matt says. "What an interesting dream you had, Bird."

"Yeah." Jay laughs weakly. "I told you I'd sound crazy."

"I died, and you woke up, and you decided to kiss me at the top of the CN Tower. Because you wanted to. And all that stuff you said, I'd do it too, I'd do it too," Matt quotes in his least cruel Jay impression. "Crying like a baby. You meant that you'd die for me too."

Jay rests his forehead against the glass and closes his eyes. He feels the stretch in his shoulder because Matt still hasn't let him go. The bus slows down as reflective signs for Barrie and an On The Go flash past, the traffic thickening on their approach.

"Okay." Matt brings Jay's hand to his mouth and kisses it. "Thank you for telling me."

"That's it?" Jay straightens. "That's all you have to say to me?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"You should be—Matt! You died because of me."

The woman seated two rows ahead of them turns and peeks at them in the gap between headrests. Jay flushes and sinks down in his seat.

"In a dream," Matt reminds drily.

"In a dream," Jay agrees, lowering his voice. "But still. You died. You should be—I don't know. Angry? Why aren't you angry with me?"

"I'm not interested in being angry," Matt says. "I've been angry with you all week. I'm sick of it. Anyway, if you expect me to get all worked up on my dream self's behalf, you're in for disappointment. That guy is my hero and he went out like a badass."

"Don't say it like that," Jay says, voice twisting with a whine. "It was a stupid waste, Matt. It was—you—do you know how much getting struck by lightning hurts? Because the other you found out!"

"Well, if it's any consolation, that guy didn't have to know about it for very long. Oh, Birdie, don't give me that look." Matt grins at him, leans over Jay's captured hand to chuck his fingers under Jay's chin. "As far as I'm concerned, he died for a good cause. I know for a fact he had no regrets. Look at what he's given us. Because of him, I have you."

Jay stares at Matt. An announcement comes on over the speakers, informing everyone of the upcoming stop in Barrie.

"It can't be that easy," he says. Matt shrugs. "Is it really that easy?"

"I think you should stop crying for him," Matt says. "I think it's a waste. He was a hero. And now we're together."

"But it's… it's you, Matty."

"I'm me," Matt says. The bus chugs around a corner, pulling off the highway at last. "And I'm here. So stop crying about it. Stop having nightmares."

"It's my fault." Jay isn't sure why he's so determined to argue with Matt, why he wants so badly for some of last night's anger to make a reappearance. Why it's important that he suffer for this.

"I guess I don't see it that way," Matt says.

Jay sits back, huffing as the bus slows to a stop.

"If our situation was reversed," he says, petulant, "you wouldn't be so relaxed about it."

"Bird, if our situation was reversed and I watched you die and I came back to you for a second chance, my first move is building a big bullet proof glass cell in our basement like the guy from You has and putting you in it. Thank your lucky fuckin' stars our situation isn't reversed," Matt says.

He nuzzles his cheek against Jay's knuckles while Jay stares at him in horror.

"Right." Jay feels a bit light headed.

They're moving again before they know it. At some point, Matt pulls out his phone and plays one-handed Hearthstone and Jay falls asleep.

The sound of the piano fills their home. She's stiff under Jay's hands but she warms up fast, despite sitting an entire week in the barely-heated house, unplayed. Jay plays without any goal in mind, stretching his fingers to strike challenging chords, teasing out melodies, letting the song stretch out and shape itself. The house warms up around him.

Matt comes downstairs. He's been unpacking while Jay got reacquainted with the Mendelssohn. He leans down and drapes his arms around Jay's shoulders, nuzzles against the side of Jay's head.

"My Birdie," he sighs.

Jay winds the song down, smiling.