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So the very first time that Joe meets Rhys, it's at this club that Josh had dragged him to, because, "you've got to get out more. Find yourself a lovely girl, or a guy. I won't judge. Live a little, Joseph," something along those lines for days on end until Joe had decided that he might as well give in. The club is a shoddy little place somewhere near the Thames, and the DJ plays the type of music Josh likes, which also just so happens to be the type of music that Joe doesn't particularly like. He's ordering himself a drink at the bar when he meets Rhys, or rather, when Rhys meets him, because he doesn't do much other than sink down onto the nearest free bar stool with his JD and coke in hand at that particular moment.
Rhys looks up from his drink and says, "hey there," and this is before he is Rhys in Joe's mind, obviously, when he's just a strange man, almost a boy, really, a boy with dark fawnish eyes and slight shoulders.
Joe says, "hey," over the squeal of distorted guitars, and then because he has the feeling he should say something else, he adds, "you come here often?" It's the stupidest and the most cliché thing in the world, but Rhys just smiles at him.
"My first time here, actually. Not from around here, I'm just hopping random clubs at this point." He sips his drink and his fingers are dainty and made of paper skin and bone. Joe notices the way they fold around the glass carefully, like it could break, or like they could break, he isn't sure.
"So, what about you. You're a regular at this place?"
Joe laughs, can't help it, at the way Rhys is leaning forward so he doesn't have to shout quite as much, the general oddness of his mannerisms and his appearance, and then says, "not really, no."
"Great," Rhys says, and laughs back, and the sound is a big chill down Joe's throat and along his spine. He's not sure what exactly Rhys means by "great", but there's something about his voice that seems comforting, but then, maybe that's just the alcohol talking. "Don't think I'll be coming back here to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate shoegaze as an art, the influence it's had on today's alternative music, but it's just so..."
Rhys trails off and makes vague hand gestures to somewhere above his head, and Joe says, "I know just what you mean."
They smile at the exact same moment, and then Rhys asks, "you want to leave this place?"
"I don't know, I'm here with a friend," Joe replies, and something in his voice must have faltered, because Rhys just looks at him and laughs. His laugh is that thin line between pleasant and unpleasant, delicate and high-pitched, not the unfortunate affectation that Josh is trying to pass off as natural, but genuine and almost a bit too girlish.
"I didn't, you know, mean it like that," he says then, still shaking with laughter, and adds, "just go outside, so we don't have to shout any more?"
Joe reaches for his glass and downs it in one large chug, and says, "well. I'm ready."
They sit outside on the curb, just a few feet away from the club's doors, and Rhys folds his legs and lights himself a fag. He takes a deep drag and exhales a big cloud of fog, and then says, "god, I needed that."
There's a strange little twang in his voice, a thing that Joe hadn't noticed until now, and it's weird, it's different and it fits with the rest of his oddness. "So, your accent's kind of weird, where are you from, anyway?"
"Canada." Rhys sucks on his smoke again and then continues, "I'm here with my dad, he does work for the government."
Joe eyes him up and down a little, the 1960s haircut and the striped shirt that hangs loose along his skinny arms and torso, and then says, "you don't look very Canadian," even though, honestly, he isn't that sure what a real Canadian is supposed to look like.
"My mum's from Wales," Rhys says, like that explains everything. "She met my dad some twenty years ago, when he was still studying abroad. He's a diplomat, now, so we're travelling a whole lot, and I've always got to come along because if I live on my own I'll just waste my life working minimum wage and spending my food money on records."
The way he says it, it's the same way he's been saying everything else that evening, at excessive speed and accompanied by ridiculous hand gestures, and it's so casual that it's almost overwhelming to Joe, considering that in his whole life, he's never been further from home than Leeds, to visit family.
"I think my whole life I've never lived in the same city for longer than a year, maybe. I've been here for two months and some now." He pushes the butt of his cigarette out on the pavement, and says, "I'm Rhys Webb, by the way."
"Joe Spurgeon." Joe extends a hand, and feels a little silly for it, and Rhys shakes it and says, "pleasure to meet you, then."
They sit there for a couple of seconds, then, and Joe may or may not be a little bit overwhelmed by everything, by the way Rhys talks and how soft the palms of his hands are, and his toothy, earnest smile. "You want to know what really sucks?"
"What?"
"I don't think I'm near drunk enough for anything right now."
"We're not going back there, are we?"
Joe shakes his head. "You know, I think there's a pub just across the road from here. One that doesn't play loud music."
Rhys takes Joe's hand and pulls him up and says, "you're fantastic."
The pub in question is a stuffy little place filled with cigarette smoke, the type of place Rhys calls a shoe box. It's near empty save for a couple of patrons, and Rhys orders them whiskey on the rocks and sits them down at a wobbly table not too far from a fruit machine that looks like it hasn't been played since the nineties. It's perfect, it really is, and they get to talking. Rhys orders them more drinks and pays them all without question, and soon enough, they're both drunk and Joe has forgotten all about Josh over at the shoegaze place, he's that wrapped up in the way Rhys' voice rolls around stories of how he's lived in Japan, Russia, New Zealand, Argentina.
When the place closes down for the night, they leave with arms wrapped around each other's shoulders, and once outside, Rhys turns and asks, "so. What are we going to do now?"
Joe says, "sleep," and then adds, "suggest you kip at mine, since I think it's closer, it's just a couple blocks away."
"Sounds like a plan." Rhys shrugs, and they start walking.
By the time they get to the flat, Joe is more than tired, honestly this close to just falling asleep standing up, and Rhys is looking around, kind of wary.
"Listen, the condo my dad's got rented out isn't that far, I think I'm going to call a taxi." He slurs his words just a little, seems to be better at keeping his speech neat than Joe is, but then, that's probably got to do with him being three years older and posh and therefore a bit more well versed in looking like he isn't drunk. "You should text me or call me, so I can get your number, I've got one, two weeks, what day is today?"
"It's the eighth, I think."
"Ten more days left in London. Nine tomorrow." Rhys pulls a biro pen from the pocket of his impossibly tight trousers and grabs for Joe's arm, and then softly scribbles a string of digits onto the back of his hand. "Just, don't let me spend the rest of those days bored and listening to shite music, all right?"
"Yeah, all right." Joe laughs, or does something that would be a laugh if he was more awake while doing it, and then Rhys pulls him in for a hug. "I'm gonna be all right, you just go to sleep now, yeah?"
-
Joe wakes up with a buzzing head and a blue ink smudge on his hand that vaguely resembles shaky handwriting. He staggers into the bathroom to piss and then to the kitchenette to make tea, and then attempts to decipher the scrawl on his skin and copies the number into his phone.
It takes a couple of seconds and too many beeps of the dial tone until someone picks up at the other end. “Hello?”
“Rhys? This is Joe.”
“Hey.” Rhys laughs through the phone and Joe can picture his face, the way his eyes crinkle closed and the corners of his mouth curl upward. “Let me guess, hungover?”
“Just a bit. You?”
“I've had worse, actually. Listen, are you free tonight?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Was thinking you should take me out. Show me some place that I haven't seen before that plays good music?”
Joe grins so wide it hurts in his cheeks. “Yeah, not a problem. Half nine, my flat?”
“Half nine it is.”
-
Rhys is twenty minutes early that evening. He's too enthusiastic when he rings the doorbell and Joe almost doesn't mind, even though he nearly falls down the stairs when he goes to let Rhys in.
“You're a bit early.”
“Sorry. It's just, I'm really bored and there's nothing to do.” He laughs and shrugs his shoulders. "So, what are we going to do?"
"I don't know, I don't actually go out that much," Joe says, because he doesn't and it's not like he doesn't like clubs, he just feels like an idiot going to them on his own and so most of the time he just lets Josh drag him to ones that play crappy music.
"And here I thought I'd found someone knowledgeable in the local music scene," Rhys quips.
"Well, I do know this one place open tonight that's not far from here. You want to take the tube?"
Rhys nods.
-
Later that night, after they're both well intoxicated, they're going back to Joe's flat, and this is a night when the moon is full out and yellow in the sky over the river. They're walking over a bridge and on either side the city lights are glowing, the little blue squares of hundreds of thousands of TV screens shining out of windows, and it's beautiful, Joe thinks. Rhys hauls himself up onto the railing and starts balancing along it, and while it's thankfully not that narrow, he's still visibly staggering, so Joe holds out a hand and he takes it.
"Please don't make this weird," he says, voice shaky with drunkenness, and Joe laughs.
"Wasn't weird until you pointed it out."
Rhys' hand is clammy when it clasps down around Joe's more tightly, and then he continues to stumble along the railing. There's a certain rhythm to it, like he's moving to the rhythm of one of those twee indie pop songs like the ones that play at the club they'd been to, and that is beautiful too, Joe thinks, but doesn't say it.
Instead, he says, "you know, this reminds me of one of these intoc-intox- drunk tests. The ones where you get out of the car and have to walk along the yellow line," and at that, Rhys laughs more than he probably should, it wasn't even that funny.
He laughs so hard he actually nearly falls down the railing and Joe has to catch him and make sure he doesn't land flat on his face.
"Yeah, I think you should just stay at mine for tonight."
-
When Joe wakes up this time, it's to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. He finds Rhys sitting at the table with a cup in front of him.
"Kind of helped myself. You're out of milk, just so you know."
Joe's first instinct is to mumble a long, drawn out "fuck", because his head is aching and Rhys is looking more fresh-faced than anyone who's had just as much as him to drink the previous night ever should.
"There's more coffee in the pot, but like I said, you're going to have to drink it black."
Joe does, but only after stirring five cubes of sugar into his cup, and then he leans back in his chair and sighs.
"You're doing anything tonight?"
"My family's got this fancy dinner coming up. Big deal, formal dress code, at some upper scale restaurant." Rhys reaches for Joe's pack of fags where he'd left them on the table and lights himself one and doesn't ask if he can, even though Joe would have said yes either way.
"Sounds boring."
"It will be. You're going to have to save me."
"Save you," Joe repeats, because it's early morning and even after the coffee he's still not in the mood to discuss anything that takes more than five words to describe it.
"Come to the place at eight and text me when you get there, I've got the address in my phone, I think." Rhys pulls out his mobile and begins to look for something. "Just don't let me spend the night with all those Welsh accents, please?"
Joe can't help but laugh, and says, "all right."
Later that day, Joe is standing out in front of a restaurant with a name that he can't pronounce and of which he isn't sure what country the owners even come from. He'd texted Rhys over five minutes ago, but Rhys still hasn't shown up and he's beginning to feel rather out of place judged by all the glances he's getting from posh people. When he was getting dressed, he'd figured he should at the very least go with smart-casual, a white shirt with a black cardigan and black slacks which he'd swapped out at the last second for a tan pair, because he didn't want to run the risk of looking like a waiter. Here, though, it seems like smart-casual isn't smart enough, because he's still being stared at, and when Rhys finally shows up, it takes Joe a couple of seconds to even realise it's him.
"Nice suit."
"Nice trousers. They clash with your shoes."
"Least I don't look like I'm getting married."
Rhys sneers, and they begin walking, even though Joe isn't really sure where they're going.
"Don't talk to me about getting married. Swear, this is all that my folks want to know, whether I'd found a nice girl yet."
Joe can't help but laugh at that statement, at the sheer cliché of it. "Well. Have you?"
Rhys shrugs and then begins to free himself of his suit jacket, which looks like it must have cost more than the rent Joe pays for his flat every month. "Well, on account of the fact that I'm not into girls that much in general..."
"Oh."
"You're not going to mind, right?"
"Not really." Joe pauses to pull his cigarettes from the pocket of his trousers. "You don't look particularly straight, I kind of figured."
Rhys laughs and swats at his shoulder and says, "hey, watch it." He reaches out one hand and Joe hands him the fag without question. "So, where are we going to go in this unseemly attire?" he asks, and looks down at the particular pair of pin-striped slacks he's wearing. "Can't imagine we'll fit in very well."
"We'll go to a gay bar and say that you're the closeted groom who ran off with his badly dressed best man at the altar." Rhys shoots him a rather weird look that Joe doesn't want to think about for too long, and so he has to add, "that was a joke."
They end up in a somewhat run-down place that plays a weird mixture of sixties psychedelia and eighties post punk and after, they're walking along the river once again. Joe's starting to get used to it, after three nights in a row, begins to associate the smell with being drunk, and with Rhys, with the way Rhys laughs at some inane comment Joe had made three minutes earlier and the way Rhys smells and the pretentious way he holds his cigarette.
They're at a part of the promenade where there's a worn-down stone staircase leading down straight to the river when Rhys stops and says, "god, you know what I want to do right now."
Joe asks, "what?" and instead of giving him a straight answer, Rhys reaches for his wrist and tugs him closer to the part where the pavement ends and the Thames starts, and really, it's not like Joe can't swim or the water is particularly deep, but it's ten feet below him and Joe is reasonably sure that if either of them were to stumble right now they'd probably both fall and break their necks.
Then Rhys is dragging him down the staircase to the water, and the river is shallow and relatively calm, and then Rhys is in the river. The water goes up to his thighs and licks at the bottom of his shirttails where he'd pulled them from his trousers earlier, and he laughs. "Ruin a good suit." He splashes the water, almost childishly, and some of it gets on Joe's clothes where he's standing on the landing at the bottom of the staircase.
"You should come in, the water's nice," Rhys says. He reaches out and tugs at Joe's wrist again, and then Joe is in the water too, but it's not nice at all, it's cold and Joe doesn't want to think about just how filthy it must be.
"God, you're a twat," Joe exclaims, and if he was less drunk he'd probably find it embarrassing just how hysterical he sounds.
Rhys just laughs again and splashes at the water, and this time, it hits Joe right in the face.
"Fuck you," and Joe just can't stop the drunken shrieking, but Rhys keeps laughing and the sound of that and the splashing of water all over him is driving him dangerously close to homicidal, so he reaches out and grabs Rhys by his skinny shoulders and throws him down into the mucky water.
"You bloody cunt! I had my phone in my pocket!"
Rhys scrambles at the stone wall next to them and then he grabs at Joe's arms and pushes him backwards, but Joe is stronger than he is and doesn't let himself be pushed that easily, so they just end up in a deeper part of the river where the water goes up to their hips, and suddenly, Joe is really glad he decided to put his phone into his shirt pocket.
"You're such a," Rhys goes, and then stops like he isn't sure exactly what Joe is, and then adds, "just fall over already, come on," and Joe laughs and grabs Rhys' hips and pulls them back to the more shallow part.
Then like that he must have tripped over something because the world suddenly does a flip backwards and the stone landing is under Joe's back and Rhys is on top of him.
Rhys says, "fuck, this isn't, not what I had in mind," and reaches out to swat at the water and splash it into Joe's face.
Joe is past being mad at this point, and just amused, and Rhys' face is so close to his and his body so warm and in the half-dark of the stars he looks pretty and fragile and grabbing his face and kissing him seems like the logical conclusion. So Joe does.
Rhys' lips are wet and taste like something that Joe doesn't really want to be able to place, and then like beer, just a little, and when he pulls back, Rhys goes, "oh. Well..."
"Sorry?"
Rhys laughs and Joe assumes that means he accepts the apology. "You're still staying at mine?"
"Guess I'll have to." Rhys tugs at the wet fabric of his shirt. "Hey, can you take your hand from my arse?"
They get back to the flat and Rhys starts peeling his still soggy clothes from his skin before Joe has even closed the door. He leaves his suit and shirt in a messy heap on the floor and collapses onto the couch in just his briefs and says, "fuck."
Joe decides to not say anything, mainly because he's not sure what, and instead starts to strip his damp slacks off.
–
The morning after, Rhys is gone, and Joe is almost glad, really. His head is pounding, just a bit, and he's not exactly in the mood to have to deal with Rhys right away, or at all, because he's got the feeling this is going to be one of those incidents that just end up making everything awkward. When he stumbles into the bathroom to piss, though, Joe finds Rhys' shoes standing in the tub, still a bit damp and filthy with river water, and it almost makes him want to smile.
–
Rhys does not call that day, or the day after, and Joe pretends that he doesn't mind. He goes to work and out to the shops and when Josh calls him on the second day without Rhys and asks if he wants to come along to a gig of this new band, he says yes, even though he can already tell beforehand he's going to hate the music there. He doesn't mind, though, he really doesn't.
When Rhys does call, on the third day, it's from an unknown number. Joe picks up after the fourth ring, and that's only because he's smoking at the windowsill and the phone is lying on the edge of the bathroom sink, where he most definitely didn't put it so he would have an excuse to not pick up.
"Joe? This is Rhys."
"Hey. New phone?"
"You don't really think I'd get to buy a new one after what happened to the last. My sister's."
"Ah." There's an awkward silence and Joe isn't sure what to say other than "ah". "So you're coming out tonight then?"
"Can't. My folks, they've been keeping me locked in the condo here since I first got home."
"Because of what happened to your phone?" Joe asks, and immediately feels a bit silly for it, but he mainly wants an excuse to say anything.
"My phone and my suit and my shoes." Rhys laughs. "Mainly the suit, that suit was custom tailored."
"I can't believe you're what, twenty-two and your parents grounded you." Joe laughs back, and he thinks he can hear the way the corners of Rhys' mouth pull so far up that his cheekbones go fat and chipmunk-ish with the flesh of his face all pushed onto them, the way his face looks when he thinks something is really funny. "Grounded you for ruining a suit, too."
"Yeah, well. Rich people are weird, aren't they." Rhys takes a deep breath. "You should come over mine, tonight. I've got the condo all to myself, they're all going out to see some play or something." A short pause. "You've got to come, I'm going to die of boredom."
"Yeah," Joe says, "yeah, all right. You want me to bring anything? Alcohol?"
"We can get into the liquor cabinet. Bring my shoes back though, yeah?"
"All right." Joe smiles to himself and can't stop, and says, "eight then, yes?"
"Eight's all good."
He hangs up and then goes to put on his own shoes, even though he doesn't have to be back at work for his afternoon shift for another half hour, but suddenly the idea of sitting behind the register for five hours has gotten a lot less unappealing.
After the end of his shift, Joe takes a bottle of Bailey's from the back of the shop and leaves the extra money in the register, leaves a note for his boss, because even though Rhys had said that he's got more than enough liquor at the condo, he'd still feel like a bit of a berk if he just went over to a posh guy's flat and drank all of his booze. He splurges on a taxi from the shop, even though the driver glares at him like he's got something on his face, him with his work clothes and the plastic bag with Rhys' filthy fancy shoes and the whiskey in it in one hand. The condo is in a ridiculously posh part of town, the building has a portier, who also gives Joe a strange look, and a revolving door and a fucking elevator. A little, Joe feels out of place, honestly, not just a little, but really, really out of place, but at least the portier gives him the number of Rhys' door without question and doesn't attempt to make any conversation otherwise.
Joe takes the stairs, force of habit, mainly, but also because he dreads the thought of running into any more overly snobby rich people if he takes the elevator. He's only slightly out of breath when he finally gets to the seventh floor, but his heart still booms up into his throat when he knocks at the door that the portier had said belongs to the Webbs. The door is heavy dark wood with a porthole, not cheap plywood, and the floors are polished so brightly that Joe has the unsettling feeling that he's being watched. He can't remember if he's ever been to a place as posh as this before, and a little, it reminds him of church, the marble floors and marble walls and the deep silence that hangs over him. With all of this, the five seconds that it takes for Rhys to open the door after the first knock feel like far too long.
"Hey."
"Hi. Come in."
Joe does, and the condo itself is just as overly fancy as the halls. The furniture is glass and metal, or wood so dark it's nearly black. The sofa in the living room is so white that Joe doesn't even want to think about sitting on it, even when Rhys is sprawled out on one end of it with his feet right on the upholstery, and the large windows are so clean they almost don't exist. It feels like being in a sci-fi movie, or a really expensive hospital. Joe ends up standing kind of uselessly on the fluffy white shag carpet that covers the dark wooden floor, but then, he feels like his socks are too dirty, his feet too sweaty, and he's probably going to leave footprints in that carpet, and so he steps off the carpet. There's an angular bowl full of satsumas standing on the glass-and-metal coffee table, and he considers taking one, maybe eating will make him less nervous. Or drinking.
"Help yourself, yes?" Rhys says, and then reaches for the satsumas and starts peeling one. "Not like anyone else is going to eat them." The orange skin falls down onto the floor like he doesn't even care, and Joe just keeps standing there not saying anything.
"And take a seat, will you." Rhys gestures at the other end of the sofa, and that awakens Joe somewhat from his vegetable state.
He's still careful when he sits down, though, and then he says, "sorry. 's just, rich people's houses, they're a bit overwhelming to a lowly commoner like me, you know." He tries to turn it into a joke, but he can tell that Rhys knows how fucking terrified he is of this condo with its polished surfaces and interior designer furniture.
"Well," Rhys says, "it's certainly something, isn't it," and there's a weird kind of disdain in his voice. He pushes a slice of satsuma into his mouth and doesn't say anything for a couple seconds, and so Joe grabs one from the bowl as well and starts peeling it, careful to leave the skin all in one piece.
Rhys starts laughing then, just for a short two seconds, and then says, "huh."
"What?"
"I could never really do it like that." He points at the band of orange peel Joe has just dropped onto the glass table and says, "I always break it off."
Joe shrugs, "it's the easiest thing in the world." He starts eating the first slice, but the flesh feels too juicy and tastes too sweet and the thin white skin is too rubbery, and that's probably just the nervousness itching in the pit of his stomach that turns everything weird. Maybe he really needs that drink. "So, are we going to start drinking anytime soon? I've brought Bailey's."
"Should have brought proper food instead. You know, normal people food." Rhys drops the other half of his satsuma down onto the table and says, "I mean, we've got food in the kitchen but I think the only thing that doesn't have to be cooked in there is caviar and crackers, and caviar's gross."
Joe shrugs, not really sure what to say to that, because he doesn't even know what caviar tastes like. "I could order us take out, I guess."
"Chinese?"
"If you want to."
Joe does, at the only place that he can really afford, and has to reassure the voice on the other end that no, this is not a joke, after he dictates the address into the phone. While they wait for the food to arrive, they sit on the bed in Rhys' room, which is also so white and neatly kept it makes Joe feel like he's in a hospital. Rhys puts on this band from Iceland that he discovered when he lived there, back when he was seventeen, and Joe is pretty sure that his record player must be the most expensive thing in the room. There are two large cardboard boxes filled with vinyl on the side next to the bed, and Joe looks through them absent-mindedly while Rhys is lying back on the mattress and mouthing along the lyrics in a language he doesn't understand. He finds records by bands he's never heard of before, of genres he's never heard, records with Arabic or Cyrillic script on the front cover, and after he's done flipping through them, Rhys says, "I've got more vinyl back home in Toronto, you know, this is just some of my favourites and what I've picked up lately."
He shrugs and adds, "probably the only advantage of travelling, it's building up a collection, even if I can't have most of it with me all the time," and Joe isn't sure what to say to that, because over the past few years he's managed to scrape together enough money for some decent records and a shoddy second-hand portable turntable.
The needle slips from the record and Joe puts on a different one, one where he vaguely recognises the band name, he thinks he might have seen them play a gig some months back, but then, he must have been pretty drunk that night.
Rhys raises his head from where he's lying, and then, when the first few notes start crackling out from the speakers, he says, "mm. I like those guys."
"Yeah," Joe says, and nods along to the beat of a song he's pretty sure he's heard before, "yeah, me too."
"Hey, think you can bum me a fag?"
Joe passes over his box of cigarettes and Rhys stands up to open the window. He sits up onto the windowsill and lights one, and then for a while, it's silent again. There's still the twisting awkwardness in Joe's gut of being completely out of place in Rhys' overly posh flat, and then there's the fact that he's thinking about kissing Rhys again, about just walking over and nudging his legs apart and doing it. About pushing his hand into Rhys' hair that's perfect as usual and shoving the other one up his far too expensive looking shirt and then seeing where it leads them.
Maybe those thoughts will go away once he's drunk, Joe hopes, and so he asks, "so, about your liquor cabinet, then?"
Rhys laughs and says, "yeah, give me a minute.”
The liquor cabinet is at the very back of the kitchen and filled with brands of spirits that Joe has never seen before and that he doubts you can just buy at Tesco. It's locked, but Rhys uses a piece of wire to pick it open, "many years of being grounded or locked up in many different places," and then he reaches for a bottle of rum that looks like it's never been opened.
"We don't have to do this, you know, I've brought Bailey's," Joe says, and immediately feels too much like his own mum for it, and Rhys shrugs.
"What do you think my folks are gonna do, double ground me?" He shuts the glass door to the cabinet and carefully fiddles with the wire in the lock until it clicks shut again. "I'm not supposed to leave the house until we leave for... Egypt, I think. That's four more days."
Joe says, "oh," and feels like there's nothing else to say, so he doesn't.
"I think I'm sneaking out tomorrow night, though, I can't stand this place any more. Don't know why I didn't do this sooner." Rhys unscrews the top of the bottle, carefully, and then takes a large swig. "You want a glass or?"
"Think I'm good, no."
"My parents don't actually drink this stuff, you know," Rhys says and hands the rum over to Joe, "they just buy it as a souvenir for ridiculous prices and then take it around with them on their travels. This is from some Caribbean place, I think."
The Caribbean rum smells overly bitter and Joe sips it carefully. "It's an acquired taste."
Rhys shoots him a glare and says, "don't savour it, this stuff is only good for getting drunk quickly. Got to gulp it down." He says, "we're doing my folks a favor, really."
Joe shrugs and takes another gulp, ignores the taste and the way it burns when it goes down his throat, and ever so slowly, he starts to relax.
When the Chinese arrives, they sit on the carpet in Rhys' room with their legs folded and eat, and Joe feels the need to apologise for how long it took to get here and how greasy the spring rolls are, but Rhys shushes him and says, "it's perfect." They continue to drink, having switched to the Bailey's because it tastes less terrible than the Caribbean stuff, and they put on a Stones record and talk about nothing.
Then it's eleven and Joe can no longer see straight, and Rhys calls him a taxi and kisses him on the cheek, just quickly. It's okay because they're both drunk and shakey and probably won't remember this, and Rhys says, "I'll call you tomorrow, yes?" and kisses his cheek again. Joe is dead tired with drunkenness the whole ride back home, but he doesn't sleep, and then he's lying in his own bed with the drunkenness keeping his warm under the thin sheets and the cold air coming in through the cracked window and still doesn't.
-
The phone ringing wakes him up the next morning, or well, noon, because it's already one and Joe is really grateful that it's a Saturday and he doesn't have to work. He doesn't even check the number before he picks up.
"Hey commoner boy. How's your hangover treating you?"
"Don't even talk to me about it."
"You want me to come over and make you feel better, then?"
"Fuck," Joe says, and he's this tempted to hang up because Rhys is entirely too cheerful for his liking once again, but then, if he does, he knows he'll spend the entire weekend either holed up in his flat or at clubs he doesn't like with Josh. "If your hangover cure involves any sort of drinking don't even talk to me about it. Feels like something crawled into my head and died."
Rhys laughs. "We don't have to drink, you know there's other ways to have fun. You make us sound like a bunch of alcoholics."
Joe wants to roll his eyes, but then he remembers that Rhys wouldn't be able to see it. "Fine, come over mine then. Bring me food, yeah?"
"Yeah," Rhys says, "I'll be there in an hour."
There's the click of him hanging up and then all Joe can hear is the dial tone. He listens for a few seconds before it begins to get on his nerves, and then he hangs up as well and rolls out of bed to take a paracetamol and shower.
Rhys gets to his flat sooner than he'd said he would, the knocking at the door comes while Joe is still half naked and trying to force himself into a pair of particularly tight trousers. He's brought cheap fast food in a brown paper bag, and Joe feels a bit awkward at the concept of letting Rhys into his flat, considering that the whole thing is smaller than the fucking kitchen at the condo, and so he runs a hand through his wet hair and says, "hey. You mind if we eat on the go?"
"Hey. Not at all." Rhys smiles and reaches the bag out to him. "I've got cheeseburgers and fries, I wasn't sure what you liked and I figured that's the stuff everyone likes, right."
"It's all right." Joe starts to unwrap one burger and takes a huge bite, and then he asks, "what do you want to do today, then?"
"I don't know, it's all up to you."
"Long as we don't drink I don't care."
Rhys grins and shoves a handful of chips into his mouth. "Sounds like a great plan."
They take the tube and don't really know or care where they're going, but eventually, they end up in Camden. For a while, they trawl through record shops and vintage clothing shops, flipping through singles and trying on ridiculous shirts without actually buying anything, and then they drink iced lattes in this little café and watch the tourists.
Rhys whispers, "god," and then vaguely gestures at a woman waiting to cross the street, "you'd think someone would tell her that her hair looks like a cheap wig put on backward," and Joe laughs. Or Rhys points at the back of a man who's standing on a corner barking angry words into a phone and says, "look at him, he probably thinks he's the hipster king and he just looks like a gay cowboy."
It's the last thing Joe ever thought he would do, gossiping about strangers and drinking posh coffee with strange names, and he's enjoying himself quite a lot, to be honest. The whole time he's, in the back of his mind, thinking about how he's only got three more days of Rhys before he has to hop a plane and go live in a different fancy condo in a different major city, and three days has never seemed so short before.
After the coffee, they take the tube to Covent Garden and watch the buskers for a while, and then they get lost in an antiques shop in a little side street. They eat ice cream from a street vendor and watch the rich folks enter and exit the high end shops, and the whole time, Rhys gives a running commentary of the work they've had done and how he can tell.
By the time the sky is starting to go dusky, they're lying on the grass in a park with a platter of fish and chips shared between them, and Joe isn't exactly sure what park this even is, but it's this close to empty and there's no drunken hobos snoring on benches so he figures this is the posh part of town once again. They're talking about nothing, once again, and Rhys is rolling a spliff from the little bag of weed he'd pulled from his shirt pocket a few minutes earlier and which he claims he'd stolen from his sister's bedside table.
"Give me a light, would you," Rhys says, which Joe does, and then he's exhaling a big cloud of smoke into the sky above them, into where the first stars are already twinkling.
It's beautiful, Joe thinks, but not as beautiful as the way Rhys looks when his eyes drop shut and his throat works around the smoke in it. He passes the spliff over and Joe accepts, he takes a deep drag and then lets his head drop down onto the grass. For a while, they stay like that, just silently smoking, and then there's a strange noise and Joe turns his head.
Rhys is staring up into the empty air, spliff still held between his thin fingers, and there's moisture collecting in his eyes and running down his cheeks in tracks. For a second, Joe just looks at him not sure what to do, and then the noise is there again and it's a sob and it hits him that Rhys is crying.
"Hey? Rhys, hey, what's wrong?"
Rhys makes a noise that sounds like a hiccup and wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket, and then he says, "god. You know, I really really hate this, this always being on the go. With this knowing that if I meet someone, a guy who's good looking and funny and nice and perfect that I'll never really get to have him because in a few months or a year or two I'm going to be somewhere else and he'll forget me and I just really want to settle down already and live my own life and I don't have the balls to do it because I don't even have the balls to ever get a proper job or settle down or even just tell my parents I like blokes." He sniffs into his sleeve again and it's gross, but Joe still puts an arm around his shoulders and goes, "shh, now now, it's all right."
Rhys whispers, "I just want someone to love me. Like, really love me, that I know he won't run away with some other guy or a girl just because I'm on the other side of the fucking globe." His eyes are red, both from crying and from the weed, and his lip twitches between his teeth.
Joe wants to kiss him again, kiss the sadness and the loneliness and the tears right from his face, but instead he just pulls him closer and holds him tight. He coos senseless little strings of words into Rhys' ear, "shh, it's all right, it's okay, let it all out," and feels like his own mum for it, but it doesn't really help because Rhys just won't stop.
"I've never had a boyfriend, never had someone who really loved me, I just attach myself to people and fuck them and leave and tell myself that it's what I want, when I actually want love, it's so stupid."
Rhys sniffs again and Joe wipes it from his face with the back of his hand. He keeps it there, just lets his thumb rest on the curve of Rhys' stupidly high cheekbone, and that want to kiss him is still there in the back of his brain and won't go away. Really, Joe doesn't want to just kiss Rhys, no, in the back of his mind he wants to take his clothes off and touch as much soft pale skin as he can, wants to find out what kind of noises he makes when Joe has his cock in his mouth, what he tastes like, all of him, what he sounds like when he's getting fucked and whether he falls asleep straight after or not. All of that, all these things that Rhys most likely doesn't want him to do, not like this, and so, he doesn't kiss Rhys.
Joe looks back at him, at the way his brow is knitting into deep worried crinkles and the weird colour his face has turned and the way he says, "I just want someone, that's all," and digs his fingers into the fabric of Joe's shirt where it's already stained green with grass. He sniffs again and Joe wants to say something, but he knows it's all pointless, so he just strokes Rhys' shoulder mainly to do anything at all.
For a few seconds, they stay silent, and then Rhys finally stops crying and wipes his nose on his jacket for the last time. "Fuck," he says, "I'm sorry, sorry you had to see this. I get emotional when I'm high sometimes, I guess," and he looks at the spliff burned almost all the way down in his hand and takes one last drag before stubbing it out in the grass.
Joe still doesn't know what to do, other than kiss Rhys, which is still the worst possible thing he could do, so he still doesn't.
Rhys folds his legs upward and rests his chin on his knees, and then he says, "I think I want to go home."
-
The next night, it's only two more days until Rhys has to leave, and they go out drinking once again. This is after Rhys has woken up Joe with another phonecall, mainly consisting of him apologising over and over for ruining last night, and Joe assuring that it's not a problem at all, and then the both of them agreeing that they should go out tonight once again.
They end up in the very same place that they'd sat in the first night, the little shoebox place with its walls stained with smoke and the cheap whiskey that tastes more like water. Joe plays the fruit machine and wins twenty quid, and Rhys tells him the story of how last year, when he lived in San Francisco, he and this guy went on a road trip to Vegas for his twenty-first birthday, and how he didn't win a single dollar. The Vegas story turns into stories from Japan, Russia and South Africa, the story of how Rhys tried to run away from home once, when he was eighteen, how he'd caught a plane to Paris and lived in a shoddy loft apartment with a graphic design student who could say maybe four sentences in English.
"They came to get me after three months, my folks," Rhys says and sips his drink, "tracked me down with my credit card purchases but they decided to wait until my dad had work to do in Spain." He traces a dark stain on the wood of their wobbly table and adds, "shame, I was starting to understand enough French to actually hold a conversation with the guy."
Joe laughs. "What'd you even do the entire time you were with him?"
"Don't know, I did my thing and he did his, and I paid part of his rent with my dad's cash so he let me live with him." Rhys shrugs and stubs his cigarette straight into the middle of the stain on the table and then he says, matter of fact, "and I let him fuck me a bunch of times when we were both really drunk, so I guess that's what we did. Drink and fuck."
He sips his whiskey again and folds his hands in his lap the way he does when he's finished telling one of his stories, and Joe says, mainly because he can't think of anything else, "you know, I never realised how boring my life actually is until I met you."
"My life's not that exciting, really." Rhys grins and it's crooked with drunkenness. "It wears off after a while, I mean, you know." He makes a gesture and Joe knows he's thinking of the rant he'd gone off on the previous night. "But at least I know how to say 'fuck me' in twenty languages."
"Can see how that would come in handy, yeah."
"Ne viens pas dans mes cheveux," Rhys says, in a terrible accent, and then he laughs.
After, when the place has closed down, they're walking along the Thames, once more, and it's so familiar to Joe at this point it's almost comforting, the smell and the sound of the river and Rhys' body warmth next to him. They're walking at a stretch of the promenade that seems familiar, even though it's all just water and of course it's familiar, and then Joe sees the stairs leading down again and knows where they are. Rhys is telling a story from when he lived in Japan, how he met a foreign art student there who insisted on sketching his face from every angle and who never went further than to kiss him, and how there's a painting of him somewhere in a gallery in Tokyo now.
"He sent me a picture," Rhys says, "and you can see the caption below the canvas there, and he'd spelled my name wrong."
His mouth twists into a laugh, and with the way his lips curl and with where they are, it seems like the most obvious thing to do, so Joe taps his arm and asks, "hey, Rhys?"
"Hm?"
"I really want to kiss you. Can I kiss you?" It's stupid and it's wrong, because Rhys leaves the day after tomorrow, but it's out now, and besides, Joe really, really does want it.
"I don't know," Rhys says. He's still half laughing though, and that's a good sign, maybe. He says, "I'm leaving the day after tomorrow, you know."
"Right," Joe says, even though he knows very well, he's been thinking about it since Rhys brought it up in his kitchen, two days earlier. "Well, now or never, then."
"I guess." Rhys licks at his lips, almost like he's anticipating it, or at least that's what Joe hopes. "So, do we just..."
He looks out at something behind Joe, the river, maybe, and then he laughs.
Joe laughs, too, can't help himself, and that hand that's still on Rhys' arm strokes up and down and holds his wrist, just loosely. "Yeah. Yeah, we just..."
Then he's kissing Rhys, and it's different from the last time, because they're not wet and disgusting with river water, and they both actually see it coming. Rhys' lips are soft, like he's been using chapstick, maybe, and he still tastes a bit like whiskey, whiskey and mouth. His free hand goes to the nape of Joe's neck, like he wants to keep him there, maybe, but then it's over after a few seconds and Rhys pulls back.
"Well," he says, and wipes his mouth on his hand, "well, that was something."
"Yeah," Joe says, "guess it was."
"Think I can kip at yours?"
-
The next morning, Joe wakes up to the smell of coffee brewing yet again. Rhys is sitting on his sofa with his legs folded under him, sipping on a steaming cup and watching some inane talk show on the telly with the volume turned down low.
"Morning."
"Coffee's in the pot. You're out of milk again. Or still."
"Think I've got more important things to do than buy milk." Joe makes his way over to the kitchenette and pours himself coffee into the biggest mug he can find. "You want to go out drinking yet again?"
"Was thinking we could just stay in for tonight. It's my last night tonight, you know?"
"Yeah," Joe says, "yeah, I know."
"I packed all my bags yesterday already. Don't really feel like going back to my folks until we've got to leave, they might lock me up again."
"You're saying you want to stay here the whole day, then?"
"Today and tomorrow, yeah."
"I've got work."
"I can wait. Keep myself entertained."
Joe takes another long sip of coffee and then says, "fine by me, then."
That night, Joe takes another bottle of Bailey's from work, and then he stops at the kebab shop on the corner before he hurries back home. He finds Rhys lying in his bed, listening to an old record Joe picked up at a charity shop and smoking.
"Hey."
"Hi. Kept yourself entertained, then?"
"Yeah. You've got some pretty good stuff in your collection there. It's a nice start, I like it.” Rhys pauses and scratches at his stomach where his shirt is rucked up a little, and then he says, “I like your flat too. It's comfortable.”
“Yeah, well,” Joe says and glances from the bathroom door across Rhys on the bed to the sofa and then to the kitchenette without even having to turn from where he's standing, “it's not big and the heating broke this winter, but it's basically mine as long as I can keep up with the rent.”
Rhys laughs. “I like it. Better than living in a plastic bubble.”
He lets the ash fall down onto where the floor is already scratched from the legs of furniture and grimy from too many cigarettes dripping onto it already, and Joe pretends that he doesn't see it. He's not entirely sure what to say to that, though, and so he just states the obvious.
“I brought booze and food, you know.”
“You're wonderful.”
Later that night, they're sitting on the bed, which, really, is just a mattress laid along the wall, but Joe likes to be optimistic and consider it a bed. The single most embarrassing record in his collection is playing, irritatingly twee pop indie that gets played on the radio, but his excuse for buying it had been that it's catchy and besides, Rhys had decided to put it on.
Rhys is smoking a spliff, once again courtesy of his sister's weed, and Joe is almost too aware of all the places where their bodies touch, the press of Rhys' knee against his leg and the slide of their arms against each other.
“You should give that over here,” Joe says, almost surprised by how low his voice comes out, “before you start getting emotional again.”
Rhys laughs, dryly, and passes the spliff to him. Their fingers brush for maybe a second longer than it would have been necessary, and Joe takes a deep drag and blows a wispy thread of smoke into Rhys' face.
“Tonight's my last night here,” Rhys says, and it's probably the second time that night, as if Joe could have possibly forgot, and he takes another swig of Bailey's.
“Egypt, right?”
“Yeah. It's sand and angry people, mostly, I've heard. I'll send a card.”
“Very thoughtful of you.”
“I know, I'm generous.”
Joe laughs, and then their faces are too close together again. Rhys smells of weed and whiskey and the grease from not having showered in nearly two days, and that's what he tastes like as well, whiskey and weed and the sour taste of not brushing your teeth, and it's gross, really, but also perfect. His hands go to Joe's shirt, his neck, his hair, like he isn't sure where to put them, and he's making these soft little noises in the very back of his throat that make Joe want to push him into the mattress and put his hands and mouth all over him just so he will get to hear more of them.
When he pulls back after a few seconds to catch his breath, Rhys' face is this blissful hazy expression that is most likely not just the weed, or at least Joe hopes so.
“Well, hey.”
“Hey.”
Joe leans forward and pushes what's left of the spliff out onto the wooden floor, and then he rings his arms around Rhys' waist and presses him down onto the sheets. He kisses him again, first his mouth, soft and wet and wide open just for him, then his cheeks, his neck, what he can reach of the pale skin below his collar, and his hands move up the back of Rhys' shirt. There's so much of Rhys' skin right in front of him, and every kiss and every touch just lets more noises fall from Rhys' mouth and every single one of those noises just goes straight to Joe's cock.
“God,” Rhys whispers when Joe's mouth is sucking at the part of his throat where his heartbeat is fluttering fast below the skin, “come here, come here.”
His hands dig into the belt loops of Joe's trousers, tug them along with his pants down to his thighs quickly, and then does the same to his own. He clutches at Joe's back and presses their bodies together, their bodies and their mouths, and then there's friction and Joe can't stop himself from moaning into Rhys' mouth.
“Ne viens pas dans mes cheveux,” Rhys whispers, and this time, Joe can just barely pull together enough of what he remembers from French class to figure out what it means.
“Stop ruining the mood,” he replies, rocking his hips downward at the same time, and swallows the little moans that come from Rhys' mouth up with his own.
After, when they're done and Rhys has wiped them both halfway clean on the sheets and then stripped both Joe's and his own trousers off all the way, he tucks his head down between Joe's head and his shoulders, and then says, so low that Joe can barely hear it, “god. I thought I was done with that part of my life.”
Joe isn't sure what to say to that, once again, so he just strokes Rhys' side through his shirt.
“I like how small your bed is.” Rhys rubs his leg against Joe's thighs where he's thrown it across both of them. “It's nice.”
“Mhm...”
–
The morning after, Joe wakes up to find his flat empty with any trace of Rhys gone, and he's not really all that surprised. The sheets still smell like sex and weed, like the cologne Rhys wears, and so he strips them off the bed and puts them into the garbage bag where he keeps all his dirty laundry and then opens the window. He can smell the river from here, he swears, and he knows that in two or three hours, Rhys is going to be on a plane to Egypt to another expensive condo, and he lights a cigarette and puts the record from last night on once more.
–
Months after that, winter, when London is grey and cold and nasty and he's gotten a second job waiting tables in the evenings so he could get the heating fixed, after he's received a postcard with the pyramids on it saying, Egypt's all right, too much sand and not enough decent clubs though. xx Rhys on the back, Joe is walking back home from some club that Josh had dragged him to, yet again, because, “Joseph, come on, you don't get out often enough.”
He's walking up the street to his flat and the wind is blowing the smell of the river all the way to here. It makes him think of Rhys, and then he sees the car parked on the pavement at the far end of the street, a black town car with diplomatic plates. He knows it's silly, but right then, he crosses his fingers inside his pocket and fucking hopes.