Loud Like Love

Chapter Twelve: Bosco

'And who am I?'

'Oh, fuckssake . . . You're Rich—' he hiccuped, 'Richard.'

'Okay, he's not in any immediate danger.' Richard sighed. 'We should get him to bed.' He took Nick off Matt's hands, and then Dave heard footsteps on the stair.

'Thanks, you guys,' said Zoë. 'You lot okay? Need anything?'

Dave shook his head. 'No, we're fine. I should get home . . .' He passed her Nick's guitar.

Zoë took the case, set it down in the hall behind her, and hugged Dave. 'Have you been doing all right?' she murmured.

'I'm fine. Don't worry about me.' Dave hugged her back.

They parted and Zoë hugged Matt as well. 'Thanks for getting him home. We'll . . . we'll take it from here.'

They said their goodbyes and Zoë closed the door. Matt and Dave returned to Alan, who stood next to the fence, fag nearly smoked down to the filter. Matt took it from him and got the last drag before putting it out. Alan put his arm around him.

'Sorry you had to see that,' Matt said to Dave. He looked tired, drained. Defeated.

'Has it been that bad all along?'

'It's been worse,' said Alan.

Matt sighed. 'Much worse. It's why he stopped seeing Brian.'

'I didn't even know about that until tonight,' said Dave softly. 'Dunno if you saw him, but he was at the gig. We talked, just for a bit. He told me they weren't seeing each other anymore.'

'Yeah, I didn't want to trouble you with it, since you seemed to be doing so well with Patrick.' Matt looked like he wanted to say something more, but in the end he shook his head. 'It's not my story to tell. Nick is actually better, though. This, it's better than it was.'

Dave nodded. If that were the case, it must have been pretty bad. He chewed his lip for a moment. 'He really was amazing tonight, though.'

Matt smiled sadly. 'Yeah. He was.'

* * *

Nick's first thought when he woke up was, Ow. A moment later he voiced it out loud. His head hurt worse than it had in a good long while, and at first he couldn't think why, until—

Nick sat bolt upright in his bed. 'No. No! No, no, no, no . . .' He pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged himself. What had he done? The last thing he remembered was sitting with Dave at the bar, pleading with him, and then trying to kiss him. God, what had he been thinking?

He looked about him. He was in his own bed, in his own room, alone. There was a bucket next to his bed, but it was empty. He could not remember getting there. He couldn't remember leaving the club. He had a vague recollection of running away from Dave, feeling sick, and then, nothing. He felt like he might have another panic attack, anxiety pulling his limbs taught, making his breathing ragged, but he forced himself to take several deep breaths to stave it off, and he fell back against the pillows, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. His head really was in agony.

There came a knock on his door. He made a groaning noise that was supposed to convey, 'Come in.' Thankfully, Zoë was fluent in tired Nick, and she opened the door slowly and stepped inside. She held a glass of water. 'Morning,' she said. Her expression was unreadable. Somewhere between amusement and concern, perhaps. 'How are you feeling?'

'Like death,' said Nick earnestly, and coughed. His throat was so dry.

Zoë came to his bedside and sat down, handing him the glass. 'You had us worried.'