NOWHERE BOYS: Special training (Andy Lau x Jake Riles)

Special Forgiveness

"Hi," he says at the peak of his breath before another great exhale.

"Hello." The sound of your own reply is meek and pathetic.

"Can I help you with something?" He is stretching, making steady circular movements with his shoulders and tightening his shoulder blades against his back for a remarkable display of exactly how broad he is despite his slender frame.

"Yes." You are dumbfounded, blushing and nervous and all the while distracted by his leanness. You dismount your bike more awkwardly than usual (you hate to be observed doing menial tasks and slip on a pedal) before you are able to walk it toward him. "Jake."

He repeats "Andy" in turn. Something about the breathlessness of how he says it gives you a shiver. Another step closer to him and then another, until you are little over an arm's length away from one another.

"I've come to say I'm sorry."

He stares back at you with eyes half hooded, less energetic than you'd ever seen him but something about him is much more intense and the air crackles. When he doesn't reply you go on. The words feel like coughing up rocks. "I hate what I said to you. I hate... I hate that I did that."

You are pinching the underside of your elbow hard enough to nearly welt, attempting to keep from crying. "I really enjoyed the time when we were friends."

He is silent long enough that you are able to count the breaths. Seven... eight... nine... Your face fills with white hot shame, defeated. "Okay, well, I'm going to go now, sorry."

When you turn away and go to move your bicycle you feel it suddenly halted with a solid force as if it might be wedged into a rock. You lift your eyes and see he has crossed the small space between you in what must have been two very quick steps and grabbed hold of a handlebar. He says your name and it feels like a plea or a secret.

"I forgive you," he nods. "Please don't be upset." The heat coming off of his body rises around you like steam and now that he is so close the smell of his skin and the sound of his breath makes you salivate.

His eyes and mouth and sleek plains of his face had always been your reason to suck your teeth but now you are begging your eyes not to wander downward past the incline of his clavicle and the dip between tendons at the base of his neck, all dewy with sweat.

He gently lays a hand on the skin of your arm behind your elbow, eyelashes fluttering when he glances down to your knuckles and up again and your gazes meet. Your heart is racing, and you feel the warm sunlight, remembering the closeness of the day you were together in the stream. In awe, you ghost a finger just barely making contact with the centre of his breastbone at the base of his throat.

He takes your wrist in a gentle but firm grasp, turning your palm toward his face and tilting his chin. With extreme tenderness he presses it and moves so the tips of your fingers are making more direct contact with the side of his cheek, glancing at you with eyes so gentle and honest you're afraid they might melt and fall onto the ground in warm sparkling drops. He holds the back of your hand with careful fingers and kisses the centre of your palm.

You heave a deep sigh, seemingly unclenching every part of your body, your jaw relaxing, your shoulders and elbows falling even on either side of your head, the throbbing headache of misery long faded. The guilt you were feeling finally put to rest... you were at peace.