Chapter Text
“No jokes,” Izzy warned, hauling himself up into the cabin of Jack’s pickup truck.
“No jokes,” Jack agreed.
Izzy clipped his seat belt and smoothed his hands over his thighs. The shirt had seemed appropriate for meeting with his solicitor, the real estate agent and running a few other errands but he’d unbuttoned the top few buttons while he’d waited for Jack. If he was having to do something this fucking harrowing, the least he could do was be comfortable.
Izzy looked across to Jack, expecting him to turn the key in the ignition but he was just staring back.
“Can we go?”
“One sec,” Jack replied absently as he began rifling through the centre console. “Shit, where did I…”
“Really, Jack, I just want to get this over.”
“Feeling single-minded, eh?” Jack chuckled. He pulled the sun visor down, grimaced when nothing fell out and then flicked it back up.
“I said no jokes,” Izzy hissed.
“Oops. Sorry.”
“What are you even looking—”
“Wait! I remember!”
Jack leaned across Izzy, his elbow grazing Izzy’s thigh in a way that felt far too intimate, and popped open the glove box. He rummaged around for a moment and then drew back, pulling an envelope out.
Izzy slammed the glove box shut as loudly as he could to discourage any more gratuitous reaching across. He flinched as the envelope was thrust towards him.
“What’s this?”
“Open it,” Jack said eagerly.
Izzy hesitated, fearing more jokes at his expense. He turned it over, hoping for clues, but both sides were blank.
“Open it and I’ll start driving.”
As if to prove he meant it, Jack started the engine and put the truck into first.
Sighing in resignation, Izzy fished his keys out of his pocket and used one to rip the envelope open. At least they were moving now.
Inside was a card. Strange, it wasn’t like it was his birthday or anything. And Jack was hardly the card-buying type in any case.
On the front was a picture of a three-tiered wedding cake. On the top stood a bride figurine while the groom figurine had fallen off and was frozen mid-tumble halfway down the picture. Cringing at the symbolism, Izzy opened the card to read the inscription.
Commiserations on your divorce! the card announced happily.
Below it, in smudged ink, Jack had written:
Dear Izzy,
Sorry things are shit. Hope they get less shit.
Love, Jack
There was another sentence before the sign-off but Jack must have thought the better of it as it was crossed out. In fact, he’d scribbled over it so thoroughly that Izzy could only make out “And” and then maybe “hope” or “help”. Knowing Jack he’d probably made a spelling mistake and not known how to fix it, so he’d abandoned it entirely. How that man was a teacher was beyond Izzy. Though maybe teaching five year olds, you really only needed to know the alphabet.
“You like it?” Jack asked with misplaced exuberance.
Izzy closed the card to ponder the front cover again. He wondered whether he was the one falling to his doom. Poor wretched figurine: knowing that he’d lost it all while also knowing he was yet to hit the bottom. Or worse, maybe he was the bride at the top: still holding onto the dream, hoping things might work out somehow. Maybe he was both.
Neither of them were Ed, that much was clear to him. Not unless there was a happy little homewrecker figurine waiting at the bottom of the cake to catch the falling Ed-groom. Fucking twat cunt.
“Thanks—” Izzy tried, his voice breaking. He cleared his throat. “Thanks, Jack.”
“Didn’t mean to get you all broken up over it.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake! The fuck did I just say?”
Jack took his hands off the steering wheel to feign an innocent shrug.
“And keep your hands on the fucking wheel, you imbecile.”
To Izzy’s relief, Jack clutched the wheel and frowned at the traffic ahead. Not knowing what to do with the card, he placed it along with the envelope back in the glove box. Izzy ran a hand through his hair impatiently and then shuffled in his seat, shoving his keys back into one pocket and then trying to retrieve his phone from the other.
No messages.
Of course there were no messages. Ed and husband-stealer Stede were going to be out all afternoon—Izzy had already made sure of it—so there would be no messages from Ed. And there’d be no messages from any so-called friends. All their mutual friends had sided with Ed after the separation. They’d all preferred Ed from the start anyway: he was the confident, charismatic one. The social fucking butterfly. Not the haggard black moth that Izzy was. Izzy really only had one friend left in the world and, with Jack driving, it wasn’t like he would be texting Izzy right now.
Izzy glanced across at him.
Jack’s feathery sandy-brown mullet looked almost blond in the late afternoon light. It cascaded down not unpleasantly to rest at the back of his shirt. His moustache looked as ridiculous as always, drooping down to his chin before flicking outwards. Izzy had only seen him without it once when he’d shaved it off for a school charity gig. Apparently the kids had gone absolutely bonkers to see him without it. Izzy hadn’t quite known what to make of it either; as stupid-looking as it was, it kind of suited him.
Pulling up at a red light, Jack turned his head and caught Izzy’s gaze. He winked before Izzy had a chance to look away.
Izzy scowled. “Are we nearly there?”
“You should know. It’s your house.”
“Was my house.”
“Oh yeah,” Jack conceded, accelerating hard before the light quite turned green. “Sorry.”
Izzy wasn’t sure whether he was apologising for the verbal misstep or the rough takeoff, but he did his best to let it go. He could hardly afford to write off his only friend.
Jack leaned forward and switched the radio on, then flicked through several pre-tuned channels until he found something that wasn’t an ad. Picking up the thread of the melody, he hummed along and tapped fingers against the steering wheel.
Irritated at the unnecessary sounds, Izzy folded his arms and stared pointedly out the passenger window. Not long now.
~
They stood in the front hallway of Izzy’s former home, Izzy looking around uncertainly while Jack nonchalantly leaned both arms and his cheek against the top of the L-shaped hand trolley like he was an unmanned puppet that needed propping up.
“You can take those,” Izzy said, pointing to half a dozen large moving boxes stacked up in two columns and neatly labelled in black permanent marker. There was an overstuffed duffel bag shoved against a box looking like it wanted to bust its guts. “That bag too.”
“Right!” Jack replied, springing back to life to start sliding boxes onto the tray of the hand trolley.
As Jack ferried boxes out to the truck over two trips, Izzy walked through the rooms of the house. He felt like a ghost, haunting his former home: dead but unable to leave. He’d intended to give the place one more look over, check there was nothing else to take. But instead it felt like he was saying goodbye, one room at a time.
That was the countertop where they’d signed their lease, not having brought any furniture yet. That was the dining table where they’d eaten meals together, and entertained friends, and, for some misguided reason, fucked on top of just to try it once and then vowed never again. They’d fucked in almost every room; it was hard not to think of it as he wandered through the house.
And there… there was the couch where Ed had sat him down only a year ago and told him… and told him…
Izzy angrily wiped tears away. He wasn’t going to cry. He’d promised himself.
“What next?” a voice called from the front door.
Izzy stomped back down the hall, deciding not to check the master bedroom upstairs. If he’d left anything there, he wouldn’t want it back anyway.
“Nothing.”
“Not the washing machine? Dryer? Fridge?” Jack thought for a second. “Bed?”
Izzy shuddered at the last suggestion. Sharing a bed with someone who’d shared it with someone else hardly endeared him to the idea of taking the mattress with him. They could keep it. All of it.
“No. Nothing else.”
“Packing spartan, eh?” Jack asked, sounding impressed for some unfathomable reason. “Shit, that’s a good movie. We should watch that together!”
“Spartacus?”
“300.”
“Maybe,” Izzy replied half-heartedly. He retrieved his keys again from his pocket and levered his thumbnail through the keyring, pulling the house key around the flat spiral until it came free in the palm of his hand.
It was bin night last night, he thought suddenly, but he guessed that wasn’t his job anymore. He wondered if Ed had made Stede do it. Maybe Ed, as changed as he seemed lately, would be the one to volunteer for the dirty jobs now.
“You are still staying with me, right?” Jack asked. There seemed to be a note of concern in his voice.
“Just for a couple of nights.”
Jack looked relieved but laughed it off. “Course you’re staying with Jackie. We’re gonna be bros again. Just you and me. Like the old days.”
Izzy wasn’t sure what ‘just you and me’ old days Jack was talking about. It’d been him and Ed together for as long as they’d both known Jack. But still. Maybe this was what he needed. Just two mates getting plastered and talking shit and letting the world itself be the one to take out the trash.
“Let’s go,” Izzy said decisively. He placed the key on the hall table as he ushered Jack out and locked the front door behind him, not turning back.
~
Izzy was silent on the drive to Jack’s.
Thankfully Jack didn’t feel the need to fill the space with futile words. He just turned the key in the ignition and then reached forward to fiddle with the radio.
Izzy rolled down his window and leaned an elbow out, enjoying the cool blast of fresh air.
A few blocks down the road, whatever benign rock song had been playing faded out and was replaced by a song Izzy recognised, one he and Ed had both liked. It was romantic but stoic; sweet but not sappy. In fact, there was every chance it had played at their wedding. He vaguely remembered dancing to it. Listening to the lyrics, he realised they could just as easily be read as being about the absence of love as the having of it.
And then he was crying heavy streaking tears that fell without sound. He turned his head to rest his cheek on his hand, not wanting Jack to see him cry, but not knowing how to stop. The song played on: the pining after a present lover twisting in his mind to mourning someone now gone.
He could change the station. He could turn off the radio. But what would that prove? That he already couldn’t hack it out in the world?
Without warning, Izzy felt a warm hand brush over his hair to rest reassuringly at the back of his head. The hand didn’t move for the remainder of the song, so neither did Izzy. Maybe he should feel embarrassed or affronted or outraged at the touch. Maybe he should bark at Jack to fuck off and drive. But he just closed his eyes and let the tears flow down until they met at his chin and dripped onto his chest.
“Just take me to a hotel,” he croaked eventually.
The song had long ended and something bland and mostly instrumental was playing. Jack had both hands back on the steering wheel.
“No way, man. You’re my guest.”
“Seriously, Jack, it’ll be easier. Just dump me somewhere, I don’t care where.”
“You’re staying with me, Iz. I’m going to take care of you.”
Izzy stared out the passenger window, eyes flickering rapidly left and right as he tried to focus on passing houses. All he really saw were a blur of colours. He wiped his eyes, trying to clear his focus.
“Just a few nights,” he conceded.
“For as long as you need.”
~
Jack’s apartment was nice. Weirdly nice. There was an actual living room set, not the planks of wood over upturned milk crates Izzy had imagined. And, from what he could see of the kitchen, there seemed to be actual fresh herbs on the windowsill.
He’d never been to Jack’s place, not this latest place at least. Not the last few places, in fact. It wasn’t like Jack hosted dinner parties or even really threw house parties. Jack you met at bars: he would be the one to buy you a round for your birthday or throw you a buck’s night despite your vigorous protests. And it was Jack who you’d call if you ever had to hide a body (not that any of them had ever been in that situation.)
Now Izzy was the body that needed hiding. He reached up to his throat: it felt raw from crying despite never having made a sound. He felt like he’d been choked by a hand or strangled by a rope. A hanged man: that’s what he was.
“You wanna watch a movie, man? Or play a game? You can be my player one.”
“What?” Izzy rasped.
“The new GTA came out last week. I’ve already finished it but I don’t mind playing through again. Or Far Cry? I’ve got all of them except Primal.”
“They’re hardly two player games,” Izzy huffed, annoyed at being dragged out of his thoughts.
Jack crossed the room to stand in front of an enormous bookcase and ran a fingertip along the spines of his library of video games. “Two player… two player… Ooh there’s Portal 2, it’s a classic. Wait, you always hated split screen. Hmm… Mario Kart? They just did a remake. And there’s always Diablo 3, I guess. Oh it might sound weird but Yoshi’s Woolly World fucking kicked, just trust me on this. What do you say?”
“I don’t want to play games, Jack. I’m fucking tired. I left my home, I quit my job, I have six fucking boxes to my name and I’m crashing on your couch like a fucking teenager. The last thing I need is to play stupid fucking games! Shit—” Izzy caught himself, realising he’d gone too far. None of this was Jack’s fault. “Where’s your bathroom?”
If Jack was hurt by this outburst, he didn’t show it. “Down on the left. You can’t miss it: it’s the room with the toilet.”
“Charming,” Izzy muttered sarcastically, unable to help himself.
~
After a decent amount of hissing at his reflection to pull it the fuck together and stop being such a fucking twat—and a few minutes snooping through the bathroom vanity to discover Jack owned the kinds of toiletries, cleaning products and basic first aid items of an actual functional adult—Izzy reemerged.
He was met with the tantalising smell of frying garlic and onions. He hadn’t given food much thought, being too strung out to be hungry. He’d just figured Jack would order a pizza eventually and he might pick at a crust. He forgot his grief for a moment, utterly stunned by the realisation that Jack was cooking.
“Need a hand?” he called out.
“Nah, mate. Just make yourself comfortable. This’ll only take ten or so. Do you like oregano? Or basil? I’ve got some growing.”
“Yeah, whatever you like.”
Izzy returned to the living room and looked around, taking it in. It wasn’t overly furnished or decorated. A very comfortable looking L-shaped grey couch and complementary rug took up most of the space. In the centre was a coffee table the same coloured wood as the bookcase and television unit. Probably Ikea; but still, this was cosy. It could use some art or a potted plant, and some colour. But maybe Jack liked it minimalistic. What had Jack said, spartan?
Izzy smiled but then frowned as his gaze caught on the boxes stacked next to the front door. No use unpacking, he’d only be here for a few days. A week at the most. The duffel had everything he’d need.
Trying to distract himself, Izzy walked to the bookcase. It really was a impressive collection of games across multiple platforms. Even more surprisingly was the complete lack of dust coating the two rows of consoles inside the doorless tv unit. Either Jack played all of them regularly or the man had taken up dusting. Or maybe he just paid someone to clean?
“Want to set the table for dinner, dear?” Jack called in a sing-song voice.
“What?” Izzy faltered.
“I’m just kidding,” Jack laughed, emerging from the kitchen with two plates of pasta, “I don’t have a dining table!”
Jack placed the plates down on the coffee table and gestured for Izzy to sit down. As he returned to the kitchen, presumably for cutlery, Izzy quickly inspected the food. It was surely spaghetti bolognese, though with what looked like olives, peas, sliced mushrooms and diced red capsicum stirred through. It seemed a little odd but, for someone who Izzy had never seen eat anything green, he supposed it counted as eating vegetables.
“Oh shit, nearly forgot,” Jack said, returning with knives, forks and serviettes only to hand the bundle awkwardly to Izzy before bounding off to the kitchen again.
A moment later he was back. “It’s not a meal without a salad, am I right?” he said and placed down a bowl of rocket leaves topped with shaved parmesan and a bottle of store-bought balsamic dressing.
Izzy frowned in confusion. “What, do you have the real Jack tied up in the basement or something?”
Jack laughed heartily as he sat down on the couch next to Izzy. “Let’s eat.”
Izzy couldn’t remember the last time someone cooked for him. He was always the one who cooked for Ed, or they ate out or ordered in. Ed had whipped up pancakes on a whim a couple of times or made cheese toasties and heated up tomato soup the rare times Izzy was sick, but no one had cooked him a proper meal.
At first he wasn’t sure whether to balance the plate on his lap or perch right on the edge of the lounge so he could hunch over the coffee table. Jack solved it by dragging the coffee table closer so they could both sit comfortably while leaning over it.
“Probably should get that dining table, huh?” Jack commented.
Izzy shrugged. Who was he to tell anyone else how to live? Having the perfect home certainly hadn’t made his life work out. He delicately nudged the mound of spaghetti over so he could add some salad to the side of his plate. He ate a first mouthful of pasta.
“Oh wow, this is really good,” Izzy said and realised he meant it.
Jack’s face lit up. “Folks’ll tell you the secret ingredient is adding a little sugar but that just wrecks it. No, the secret is adding chilli and garlic to the oil.”
“Good to know.”
Jack smiled proudly like he’d just been handed a ribbon. Izzy reached forward to grab the bottle of dressing at the same time as Jack and they both pulled back sharply.
“After you,” Jack offered.
“No, you go. It’s your house.”
“And you’re my guest. You go first.”
It was stupid, being this polite together. How long had they known each other now? The better part of two decades? And they were both acting like two idiots on a bad blind date. Izzy smirked. What a thought.
“Been, uh… been cooking long?” Izzy tried.
“Nah, spag bol takes me like fifteen minutes, tops.”
“I mean—”
“Oh you meant? Sorry, yeah. Um, yeah it’s relatively new I guess. I’ve just been motivated the last few months to eat better and get to the gym and tidy the place up. Plus one of the parents gave me a gift certificate for a cooking class as an end of year gift. Super weird, that whole buying your kid’s teacher a gift thing, but who am I to complain? Anyway, I actually kind of enjoyed it so I went to a few more and then just started learning off YouTube. Amazing what kids these days have access to, eh?”
“I remember if I wanted to know something it was a trip out to the library on a Saturday and by then I’d lost interest. The skills I could have learnt or languages even. I could have learned coding or sword fighting or, I don’t know, knot tying for all I know.”
“Yeah but we’d have just ended up watching dumb reaction videos and hardcore porn.”
“Probaby,” Izzy laughed, caught off guard.
“Knot tying?”
“I was in boy scouts as a kid. Never got any badges coz they never taught us how to do anything. You were meant to go away and learn it in your own time and then come back and show it to the scoutmaster. Then you had to buy the damn badge and sew it on yourself. Shit, maybe they should have taught us how to sew instead. And the goddamn regattas. No one told me it was a fucking yacht club. All they cared about was whether our uniforms were spotless and then playing British Bulldog or Capture the Flag. Should have just joined the army.”
“You in camo with a shaved head?” Jack squinted at him. “Yeah I can kind of see it actually. You’d look fucking fierce.”
“And you’d have to shave your moustache. And your mullet.”
Jack’s cutlery clattered onto the table as his hands went protectively up to his top lip. “Oh no, never again.”
“But what about your mullet? You wouldn’t shave it even for charity?”
“Never. It’s quintessential Jackie.” Jack abandoned his plate and swivelled to sit cross-legged on the couch, facing Izzy.
“Quintessential? Okay,” Izzy sniggered.
He lay his cutlery down neatly in the centre of his plate and moved to mirror Jack. He felt rude putting feet up on the couch, even just in socks, so he crossed one with his foot hanging over the edge and his outside leg hooked over it.
“Yeah nah,” Jack continued, “next charity drive I said I’d happily dress in full drag for the day but there was no way I was shaving anything. The hair stays.”
“Full drag? Like the makeup and everything? Couldn’t you just wear a dress and call it a day?”
“Nah mate, I dress in drag every day. Or haven’t I told you about Princess Howdy?”
“Princess who?”
“Princess Howdy: the cowboy princess.”
Izzy stared at him like he’d just asked for a razor and shaving cream.
“It’s this persona the kids cooked up one day. I was reading them The Paperbag Princess,” Jack paused. “Do you know it?”
“No, I’ve fallen a bit behind on my children’s picture book reading.”
“It’s really good!” Jack exclaimed, missing the inherent sarcasm. “It reverses the whole prince rescuing the princess from the dragon thing. Good for the kids to see things that break out of the stereotypes, you know? Anyway, I did a ‘what kind of prince/princess/non-gendered monarch would you be?’ activity with them and they decided to give me an alter ego too. So, long story short, I now do the daily storytime wearing red cowboy boots, a pink tutu and a tiara.”
Izzy grinned despite himself, feeling it all push to one side of his face.
“What’s that look?” Jack asked suspiciously.
“I’m trying to imagine you in a tutu and tiara.”
“Hey, I’m still trying to imagine you in a boy scout’s uniform.” Jack raised an eyebrow and growled a wet throaty growl.
Izzy laughed.
“Oh but I can show you!” Jack said suddenly, leaping up.
Izzy rolled his eyes playfully, wondering what fresh horror the evening would bring. But he helped Jack stack up the things from dinner and followed him into the kitchen.
His hands full, Jack gestured towards the fridge using just his eyebrows. While he scraped plates, loaded the dishwasher and put leftovers in tupperware, Izzy admired the art adorning his fridge.
There were a few dozen A4 sheets all overlapping and precariously held in place by bottle cap magnets, each artwork a different stick figure or blobby rendition of Princess Howdy, complete with moustache.
Jack had been working as a house painter when they’d first met. Izzy had always been secretly impressed that he’d decided to retrain and change careers, but he’d never seen the actual teacher-side of Jack. It certainly wasn’t the kind of thing Jack pulled out on a night at the pub. But seeing him through the kids’ eyes, even just through these crude drawings, was… different.
“Drink?” Jack asked. “I’m fucking dying for a beer.”
“Uh, tea?” Izzy suggested.
“Oh yeah. Tea. That’s probably better.” Jack put on the kettle and pulled two mugs from a cupboard.
“Don’t let me stop you.”
“Eh, I’ll cope.”
Izzy never thought he’d see the day that Jack ‘just another for the road’ Rackham would turn down a drink, but it seemed impolite to draw attention to it. He relaxed back against the bench, resting his elbows on the countertop.
“Oh and I got you something,” Jack added.
Izzy tilted his head, curious but wary. Jack produced a scrunched up paper bag from the pantry, opened it and thoughtfully arranged its contents on a small plate. He walked over to hand the plate to Izzy and then returned to tea-making.
It was a cupcake. Not the fancy kind with a tall whip of piped frosting but a squat, sunken thing with icing so hard you could crack it with the back of a spoon. Izzy peeled the paper liner down and took a bite. It wasn’t stale exactly, but it was denser than butter cake sponge should be.
“Did you make this?” Izzy asked, swallowing hard and wishing he’d waited for the tea.
“Nah, bought it at the canteen yesterday. Sorry, I should have gotten you something better.”
And fresher, Izzy thought even as he took another bite. It did actually taste kind of alright once he knew what to expect from it.
“What’s the occasion?” he asked.
“Well I just thought, marriage begins with cake, right? Shouldn’t it end with cake too?”
Izzy winced, his mouth instantly dry and with nothing to wash down the cakey lump in his throat. He put the cupcake back on the plate and placed it down on the counter.
“Oh shit, I’ve upset you,” Jack said.
He brought a far too milky tea over and sat it on the counter next to Izzy. Izzy took one look at it and knew he wasn't going to drink it.
“Forget it,” Izzy murmured.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out to check.
Ed 20:13
We’re on our way home. You been and gone?
We. Izzy shuddered. He couldn’t just say ‘I’m on my way home’? And why say ‘home’? Why not ‘I’m heading back’ or ‘I’m 30min away’.
“You ok?” Jack asked hesitantly.
“Fine,” Izzy replied, not looking up.
And then the coldness, the abject callousness of ‘You been and gone?’ like it was all a simple transaction: the entire dismantling of their lives together just a quick, impersonal errand. Well fuck him if he thought he’d get a reply.
“I’m going to bed,” Izzy announced.
“Oh yeah, sure. Anything you like.”
Izzy looked up and realised he’d be essentially exiling Jack to his bedroom.
Jack crossed to the kitchen doorway and gestured at the hallway leading off the living room.
“Bedroom’s at the end on the right. Bathroom’s the door before it. I left out some spare towels in case you like to shower in the evenings.”
“I didn’t realise you had a spare bedroom,” Izzy said.
“Nah it’s a one-bedder alright. But you take it; I’m fine on the couch.”
“Jack, I can’t kick you out of your bed.”
“It’s fine, mate. The couch pulls out and everything. Though it’s pretty comfy just as is. Wouldn’t be the first time I passed out there. Besides, you’ve got a bad back. You take the bed.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll be up for a while yet anyway. Old Jackie’s still a bit of a night owl. But I’ve got headphones so I won’t wake you.”
“Thanks,” Izzy said.
He had the sudden urge to hug Jack or clap him on the back but he resisted and took off down the hall.
“Anything else you need?” Jack called after him.
“No, I’m good.”
“Bedtime story from Princess Howdy?”
“Fuck off.”
~
After indulging in a long, luxurious shower and changing into track pants and an old t-shirt, Izzy searched the bedroom for a power outlet. He found it at last, hidden behind the bedside table, and plugged his charger in. There was a framed photo on the top of the table, the only photograph Izzy had seen in the apartment.
It was of the three of them: Ed, Izzy and Jack. Izzy recognised the night but not the specific photo. There was a similar one on a shelf back at his—Ed’s, he corrected—place: Ed looking beautiful, Izzy scowing and Jack looking boyish and goofy. But this was a different shot. It wasn’t a flattering one of Ed, he had begun to turn away from the camera and was caught mid-blink. Jack wasn’t much better: he had his mouth open and hands blurred in gesture, probably in the middle of saying something obscene. But Izzy in the middle was smiling, a real smile that reached his eyes, and was looking warmly at Jack like he’d just said something hilarious.
It seemed like a strange choice for a bedside table; it would have been far more at home out on the bookcase or on the corner of the tv unit. But each to their own, he mused.
Izzy’s phone buzzed.
Ed 21:02
We just got home. The move go ok?
Izzy tried not to throw his phone against the wall. He turned it off, switched off the light and got into bed. It was too early to sleep but what the fuck else was he meant to do?
Jack’s bed was huge, a king, he figured, but he curled into a ball on the very edge and stared out into the darkness. He and Ed had slept in separate rooms for the better part of the last year but Izzy could honestly say he’d never felt more alone than tonight.
There was a strip of light bleeding in from under the doorway but at least Jack wasn’t clattering around or playing something loud. Still, the light was distracting.
Izzy rolled over, grabbing the second pillow off the other side of the bed to hug to his chest. It smelled like Jack. Everything here smelled like Jack: spicy and strong, but a little bit sweet.
He had a flashback to the moment in the truck when Jack had reached out to brush over his hair and cup the back of his head. He realised he wanted that again. But what could he do, wander back out into the living room and say meekly, “Jack, will you come to bed and hold me, you know, just as mates?”
Izzy clutched the pillow tighter, buried his face in it and sobbed.