Under the Bridge

By R. Cooper

Copyright 2012 by R. Cooper

Smashwords Edition

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of this author.

“What’d you do this time to get your ass
kicked?”

Chris jumped at the question. He was already
shivering from the cold and shaking with adrenaline and tension but
he raised his head and peered around the aura from Stanley Street’s
one streetlamp until he saw the shape of a boy at the very edge of
the light.

Shape of a
man
, he should say, since
according to the commencement speech that morning, they were men
now, ready to face the world, or at least life after high school.
Chris didn’t feel like a man. He felt pissed off and sore and
stinging and scared, and he was tired of feeling all of those
things so despite the kick of his heart against his ribs, he
frowned and lifted his chin.

“Nothing.” He thought he was too loud, but it
was at least two in the morning and the street was deserted. The
distant noise of the grad party he’d just left would be blamed if
anyone heard him, and the people around here were used to ignoring
what their kids did.

Nicky, because that had to be Nicky over
there no matter how unbelievable it was that that he’d be talking
to Chris, snorted.

“Isn’t that like this town? Punishing you for
what they think you want to do?” Nick’s voice was far away and
slightly slower than Chris remembered it, but he hadn’t really
heard Nick talking up close since grade school. He sounded drunk,
Chris decided immediately and watched as the outline of Nicky
tipped his head back to drink something from a bottle that was
probably alcoholic.

Who knew who had sold it to him. He could
have stolen it, since according to the rumors Nick was all kinds of
criminal. The cool, scary, hot kind. The kind that good girls
denied hooking up with despite how their eyes stayed on him when he
crossed a room. The kind who had weed or beer if you needed it,
even if he wasn’t allowed in your house when your parents were
home. The kind who came to school with scraped and bruised knuckles
every other week and a fat lip that only made him sexy instead of
dangerous, or sexy and dangerous. Whichever, he was the kind who
didn’t talk to Chris.

Very few people talked to Chris unless they
were punching him and then the words were along the lines of “Fuck
you, faggot” which seemed a gayer and gayer thing to say every time
he heard it.

Chris licked at the cut in his bottom lip and
squinted his one good eye at Nicky. At
Nick
. Nick hadn’t
been Nicky since they’d been kids, back before Nick’s mom had
married his first stepdad and they’d moved away only to move back
two years later with stepdad number two. Chris had been twelve,
Nick just thirteen, and the Nick who had come back to town had not
been interested in being best friends again.

Nick hadn’t been interested in being
anyone’s
friend. It had been a surprise to see him with the
rest of the class waiting to walk across the stage to get his
diploma. Only his grandmother had been in the audience, not his
mom.

“You didn’t go to Ryan’s party?” Chris didn’t
know why he said it; it was the last thing he wanted to talk about
and of course Nick hadn’t gone. Nick was having his own little
party right here. He’d probably been getting drink under the small
bridge that was part of the fire access road behind the last houses
up here in the hills. The creek it was built over was dried up most
of the year and that was where Nick spent his time, according to
everyone.

“So that’s what you did,” Nick commented
thoughtfully, as if they were really having this conversation.
Chris couldn’t make out his expression. “You showed up.”

“Yeah.” Chris surprised himself by agreeing.
He even smiled though it pulled his split lip and half of his face
hurt like hell and there was no one to kiss it and make it better.
“Yeah. They, uh, didn’t like it.”

“I bet.” Nick snorted again. “They don’t like
people who make them think about things they don’t want to think
about.” He was definitely drunk. He had to be, to be talking to
Chris again. Chris went with it anyway, though he didn’t go any
closer. It was nice to have someone agree with him who wasn’t
family.

“That’s what my mom says.” Chris glanced back
in the direction of the party, blocks away now. If he wasn’t small
and thin he would have hit back. Someday he was going to in some
way that mattered, so they wouldn’t pick on anyone else. He looked
back at Nick, who was tall and broad-shouldered and anything but
little. “I just think they’re assholes. No,” he immediately
corrected himself with a sigh. “That’s not really true. I know they
are probably just as messed up as I am, but at the moment, I’m
sticking with assholes.”

“Now there’s the Captain Jupiter I remember.”
Nick slipped into the light enough for Chris to see his
heavy-lidded eyes and the glisten of alcohol at his mouth. He
smiled a little, as if just saying “Captain Jupiter” made him want
to laugh. Chris pictured them in the capes and helmets of cartoon
superheroes in his backyard and felt his face get hot for no reason
he could think of.

“Hey, you were my sidekick,” he defended
himself without thinking and winced, but Nick stumbled and
straightened up in almost the same motion.

“You were bossy,” Nick answered after a
second and took another swig before holding the bottle out. “You
want some?”

God only knew what was in that bottle. It was
brown and almost clear in the light. Chris looked away from the
pink mouth that the girls raved about and the high cheekbones and
Nick’s serious, shadowed eyes and tried to act as if people offered
him booze every day. But his heart was pounding as he slowly
crossed the street.

Nick’s fingers didn’t brush his as he took
the bottle, but Chris could see him looking over his face and
noting his cut lip, his swollen eye, his messed up hair. Chris had
looked this beat up before but he didn’t think he’d ever noticed
Nick taking an interest. But if Nick was bothered he didn’t say
anything, he just handed over the booze and watched as Chris tried
and failed to keep his eyes from watering up as the JD hit his
tongue.

“Delicious,” he croaked when he’d had enough
and handed the bottle back. “Thanks.” He wiped his mouth and tried
not to cough.

“My stepdad’s,” Nick volunteered in a
strained voice, but shrugged when Chris stared at him. “It’s better
than the pills or whippets or whatever stupid shit they’re doing
back there.” He looked back at Chris suddenly, right into his eyes.
Nick’s eyes were the exact shade of the whiskey he was drinking.
“Why did you go? Why do you always—?” Nick stopped and raised the
bottle to his mouth. He drank enough to wet his lips but not enough
to swallow. “You aren’t their punching bag.”

He spoke slowly. Chris wondered how drunk
Nick really was. He already hurt, but it hurt more to think of
anyone drinking alone under that bridge.

He reached for the Jack and gave a start when
Nick let him take it. It fucking hurt more to drink it; it hurt
going down, it hurt his bottom lip. He hated it.

This time he did cough, only to freeze when
Nicky bared his teeth in a grin. Chris felt warm and stupid and
glanced at his feet.

“I know I’m not their punching bag,” he
mumbled with whiskey on his breath. “But they need….” He prodded
his lip with his tongue and heard Nick inhale. He looked up to find
Nick still and watching him. “I won’t be invisible.”

“Your lip is bleeding.” Nick had the same
warm, boozy breath but long, long eyelashes. He was wearing the old
leather jacket he always wore, probably his dad’s, kind of like an
aviator’s jacket from the 60’s or 40’s and if he brushed his hair
to the side he’d look like a hero from old serial footage from
history class. Chris realized he was staring, but at least Nick
probably wouldn’t kick his ass for it.

“I know,” he responded after an embarrassing
pause and glanced around them at the same empty street. “What are
you doing out here?”

He didn’t ask why Nick didn’t want to go
home, he wasn’t that stupid, but no way was he going to pry. Not
with Nicky speaking to him for the first time in years.

“Dumb question for the Valedictorian.” Nick
turned away and Chris clenched his hands in frustration before he
realized that Nick wanted to be followed. He was heading off the
street, down toward the bridge, but he paused and twisted back
around enough for Chris to glimpse his raised eyebrow. “And the
head of Amnesty International and the Gay-Straight Alliance and
champion mathlete….”

Chris nearly tripped over his feet and he
wasn’t even moving. “You… noticed me?” He cringed to hear himself
and then scowled sharply before Nick could turn around again. “You
could have talked to me. You ignored me for almost five years.”

Nick exhaled loudly. It kind of sounded like
he said “Yeah” but he shook his head. “I’m not one for talking.” He
looked like he wanted the bottle back.

“Unless you’re drunk I guess.” Chris raised
his voice. He was as stupid buzzed as he was sober apparently. Nick
turned all the way around to face him again.

“Drunk?” He pulled at his jacket. He didn’t
seem like he was ready to beat anyone up, though Chris knew he was
capable and could see him shaking. “This isn’t drunk. Can you still
feel? Then you aren’t drunk.”

Nick’s eyes widened like he hadn’t meant to
say that, then he quickly turned and started to walk away.

Chris crossed his arms and saw goose bumps on
his bare skin though he didn’t feel cold. “I didn’t realize that
was the criteria!”

“Criteria!” Nicky yelled back over his
shoulder, moving surely through the high grass. “That’s a good
word, Captain. The student body approves. Good luck in college, all
right?”

He would have disappeared into the night if
he hadn’t flicked open a lighter to light a cigarette.

“You’re a dick, you know that?” Chris shouted
after him and saw a light come on in a nearby home. He looked down.
He was still holding Nick’s whiskey.

His lip stung as he took another drink and
then licked at the cut, but it didn’t stop him from following after
Nick, heading blindly toward the bridge as Nick vanished from
sight.

The grass was tall and the dry bed of the
creek was low. Chris fell and got back up and hurt his knees and
scraped his hand and spilled some whiskey in the space of a minute.
He was pissed by the time he ducked down to get under the bridge
and saw the dim light of a camping lantern. He was not in the mood
to look around, even if Nick had fucked more than his share of
girls here.

It looked cold and dark and lonely with that
little light, not the kind of place to bring anyone. Nick was
sitting on an old garden bench he must have dragged here from
somewhere. There was a backpack next to him, open and filled with
snack bars.

Chris stopped dead. He didn’t have to bow his
head to fit in the small space. Nick probably did when standing,
but now he was frozen on the bench, his cigarette glowing as it
dangled between his lips. His eyes were wide.

“Chris.” He looked like he hadn’t expected
Chris to show up and got to his feet only to sit right back down.
Then he coughed as he threw his cigarette to the ground to crush it
out. “Cozy right? Just like your mom’s place.”

“I always imagined there’d be a mattress.”
Chris shut his eyes at how drunk he sounded but couldn’t shut up.
“For all the people you sleep with.” He opened his eyes when he
realized he was telling Nick that he’d imagined him having sex,
grinding against some girl on a dirty mattress, going down on her.
Of course, in his fantasies, it wasn’t a girl, it was him, which
hopefully Nick wouldn’t guess. “I mean
girls
you sleep with.
I know you aren’t…. You don’t…. That you date girls. Drink?” He
took one and stepped closer to offer the bottle. Nick stared at him
without taking it.

“I don’t ‘date’ girls,” Nick answered at
last. “I fuck them.”

“Oh I know.” Chris needed to stop talking but
he felt like a kid again, like they were in his clubhouse and he
could tell Nick anything. “Everyone knows. You’re a heartbreaker.”
That’s what his mom called Nick when Chris had, vaguely, mentioned
the stories. “Heartbreaker,” he was compelled to say it again,
quiet and low. Nick flashed a smile, a
gorgeous
smile, and
kept on staring at him.