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On July 27, 2008, Ryan Joseph Whelan comes into the world completely silently. It takes him a few minutes to cry, the doctors shaking him between the nurses until he does. Cathy waits with anxious breath until the first tiny sound escapes his lips, a watery, high pitched cry that shakes her to the very core. She finally gets a good look at him when they place him in her arms, wrapped in a soft blanket covered with clouds. He has a shock of white blond hair and huge, bright blue eyes. Cathy holds him to her chest and sobs. He’s perfect.
Arlene and Tom visit the house a few days later with Naim in tow. He’s a tiny little baby, barely bigger than Ryan despite being slightly older, with a mop of mousy brown hair and dark eyes that pop out from his head. Arlene places him beside Ryan in the bassinet while the four of them sit and talk, watching the babies sleep peacefully through the grainy baby monitor screen.
“Do you think they’ll grow up to be close?” Arlene asks.
Cathy nods. There is no way they won’t be. Bandee is a small town and they are neighbors anyway, so the boys will grow up going to the same church and school. “Tom and I don’t think we can afford another child,” Arlene continues. “I worry about him being lonely and everything.”
“They are going to be so close,” Cathy reassures Arlene. Cathy and Bill also plan on being one and done. Getting pregnant with Ryan was arduous enough. “Like brothers. Don’t worry, as long as you and Tom don’t move anywhere, you’ve got a family here with us, and the boys will always have one another.”
It’s true, the boys are inseparable as they grow up. It doesn’t matter how old they are, they play and fight every single day, squabble about who gets the ball or who rides their bike faster or who eats the most green beans or gets the largest slice of cake. Sometimes they drink too much sugary soda until they vomit after hours of roughhousing on the playground or throw plastic dinosaurs and Legos at one another until they have made mountains of a mess all over the carpet, but they always find their way back to one another. At every sleepover, the two are usually fast asleep, sometimes right on the bare floor wherever they happen to get tired and lay down, with no blanket or pillows, curled up towards one another.
Ryan is protective of Naim since he learns how to walk. Arlene’s boy grows up reticent around adults and anxious, with fidgety hands and wandering eyes, always reaching for the edge of Ryan’s sleeve. He asks invasive questions when he’s not quiet, but is always talking to Ryan. They whisper to one another in low voices no matter how often they are shushed, even in church. Ryan makes up for Naim’s personality by being boisterous and loud when engaged with, rash and eager to please, confrontational when he’s met with challenge.
When they are 13 years old, Cathy catches her first private moment between the boys. A few weeks after Christmas at the tail end of summer holiday, she looks in Ryan's bedroom door on her way to the living room. The boys are tangled up in the tiny trundle bed on the floor, staring at one another on their sides, whispering to one another in the dark. The nightlight in Ryan’s room is on, splashing one corner of the room with pale yellow stars. She’s a little surprised they are up so late. It was a hot morning and Cathy had taken them to the community pool that day, where they splashed and chased one another until dusk. Both had fallen asleep on the way home in Bill’s old station wagon. Cathy shook them awake and guided them inside, tucking them away into Ryan’s bedroom. She hadn’t heard from them since, and that was hours ago.
“Ryan,” Naim cries quietly. “They all suck, all of ‘em.”
“Don’t cry,” Ryan whispers. “Those cunts don’t matter.”
“Yeah they do, I have to see them everyday.”
“Not always, though.”
“Not true.”
“Just ignore ‘em,” Ryan says.
“Yeah it’s easy for you to say, when they like you.”
In a gesture so tender it flays her raw, she sees Ryan reach a hand up and place it on the side of Naim’s face. Naim quiets immediately. The nightlight illuminates half of Naim’s face, his big expressive eyes wet and glistening. “Hey, it’s okay,” she hears Ryan say in a tone she doesn’t recognize. “It’s okay.”
It feels too intrusive to keep listening. She closes the door to a crack and tiptoes away. When she comes to check on them later, she finds them still facing each other, hands intertwined. The bright blonde of Ryan’s hair mixes with Naim’s brown on the pillow. She’s not sure why she bothers buying two of everything. Not like they use both. She closes the door softly.
“There’s something wrong with those boys,” Bill says a few months later after Sunday dinner. Ryan had picked at his food and pedaled off on his bike the second he got excused. Bill sets down his phone and beckons her closer. “I've been feeling this more and more lately.”
“Feeling what?” Cathy stops putting the dishes away and takes a seat next to him. “What do you mean?”
“The boys. Naim and Ryan are too close,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s not right, how close they are. They should be getting into little crushes with girls by now, fighting over them and everything, like I did. Normal shit for boys their age. Not getting even more touchy feel-y.”
“They’re best friends, basically brothers,” Cathy chastises. “Jesus, Bill, Naim was there when Ryan was born. They’re only children, of course they are close.”
“Thirteen isn’t a kid anymore, Cath. He’s a teenager now, the boys will be thinking differently of him.”
“Which boys?”
“The boys!” Bill emphasizes, waving his hand. “All of the boys!”
“For what? Having a friend?”
“For being around a guy friend all the time instead of chasing girls, that's right.”
“I don’t think it’s exactly healthy for any teenage boy to chase girls. They usually don’t like that. I didn’t.”
“That Reid boy isn’t right,” Bill continues as if she hasn’t spoken. “Always on his own drawing and staring at everyone and too damn quiet. He’s way too soft and weird.”
“How can a boy be soft? Just because he doesn’t play sports?” asks Cathy.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Bill says. “The kid is a queer, I’m calling it now. Hanging around with Ryan so much is only going to get Ryan into trouble.”
Indignation rises in Cathy. “Would you say all of this in front of Tom, Bill? Shame on you. Naim’s his only son. He’s a good boy. He’s a good friend to Ryan and a good example.”
Bill enrolls Ryan in a sports rec league, youth Australian football. He’s good at it, very good at it. Ryan fits in well enough with the team. He goes to more birthday parties, these times with football shaped cakes at crowded sports centers. Naim is never invited.
Much to Bill’s chagrin, it doesn’t matter. Ryan’s at Naim’s house every conceivable moment he’s not with his new friends or at school. It's far less than it ever has been before, but the two of them are still stuck together like two peas in a pod. Cathy doesn’t mind. Naim has never hurt her son, and she refuses to allow Bill to start.
The boys are 14 when Cathy gets a call that Ryan’s been in a fight and needs someone to come pick him up. She calls Bill from the car and rushes over to the school. She sits in the parking lot for a moment, preparing herself to walk inside, but nothing could have prepared her to see Arlene Reid and Naim on the other end of the principal's desk. Arlene looks just as confused as she does, staring at the boys, mouth agape, clutching her purse to her chest.
Cathy stares between them in confusion. “Ryan? Naim? What is this?”
Neither one of them says anything. They both look a mess, scratched up and guilty as hell.
“Boys,” Arlene starts, voice on the edge of hysteria. “You’re going to start explaining right now.”
“It’s Naim’s fault,” Ryan says vehemently. He looks straight at Naim. “Went and clocked me out of nowhere.”
“Nowhere? You pushed me first!”
“A push isn’t a punch, idiot.”
“You’re the idiot.”
“Idiot? At least I don’t throw weak ass punches!”
Arlene lightly smacks Naim’s arm the same time Cathy pinches Ryan. “Stop! Naim! What is going on?”
“Ask his new best friend,” Naim says hatefully. Cathy is surprised at how forcefully it comes out. Naim never raises his voice. “Hunter.”
Cathy's never seen this look on Ryan’s face before, one of frustration and confusion and sheer, unadulterated hurt. “He’s not my best friend!”
“Looks like it!”
“Why are you so jealous?”
“Why are you being such a dickhead?”
“I’m a dickhead?” Ryan practically leaps from his chair. “Why are you being such a cunt?”
“BOYS!” The principal yells. “You will both SIT and you will both be QUIET or you will be suspended right this instant!”
Cathy’s less worried about the threat of suspension than she should be, stuck on trying to picture tiny little Naim Reid throwing a punch. His uniform is ripped and dirty and Ryan’s isn’t much better. Both of them have puffy lips, but Naim has it worse- a big, dark scrape and bruise on the bottom of his chin, and darker shadows under his huge, watery eyes.
“What on earth is this about?”
“Playground fighting,” the Principal explains. “Roughhousing, boys will be boys, you know. But you have to learn to leave it-” he points at both Naim and Ryan - ”leave it on the schoolyard, and don’t bring it inside. No yelling and fighting in these halls, you hear me?”
Ryan nods tersely. Naim twists his hands in his lap, the fire seemingly blown out of his sails. Without it he looks deflated and sad.
“Yes?” the Principal prompts.
“Yes, Sir,” Naim mumbles.
Cathy nudges Ryan with her elbow. “Yessir,” Ryan says.
The Principal waves his hands. “Good. I don’t want to see either of you up here again. Mrs. Reid, Mrs. Whelan, I’m sorry for making you take time out of your day to come get them.”
They clamor out of the office. Arlene hugs Cathy and promises to call later. Neither boy speaks when they return to the hallway. Ryan turns on his heel and starts walking away from Naim, five paces ahead of Cathy. He keeps walking straight toward the car and doesn't look back. She jogs to keep up with him.
“Slow down! Ryan, why was Naim talking about Hunter? What did he do?”
Hunter is one of Ryan’s football friends, and she’s pretty sure the three of them, her and Bill and Ryan, had made the trip to Hunter’s birthday party at Pastor Rod’s a few months ago. He seemed like a nice enough kid, a little surly, but that’s just teenage boys for you.
“Nothing. Naim was just being stupid, that’s all,” Ryan says. He tugs on the locked car door handle, forcing Cathy to unlock it four times in a row before he gets it right. He fastens his seatbelt without looking at her. Cathy sighs, reaching out to touch his arm. He jerks away.
“Seriously, what on earth was this all about, Ryan?”
“Nothing,” Ryan says sullenly. “Just got in a fight; that’s all. No big deal.”
“You’ve never gotten in a fight before,” Cathy says. “What on earth got into you? You and Naim are best friends, why would you be mad at each other?”
“I dunno. Reckon he’s mad I have a life and he doesn’t.”
Cathy doesn’t really believe that. “I’m going to have to tell your father,” Cathy says. She meets Ryan’s eyes in the rearview mirror, filled with unshed tears. “He won’t be pleased.”
“Mum, please don’t.”
“I have to, Ryan, I’m not going to lie to your father.”
“Fine. It’s just- please, mum, don’t tell dad it was Naim, okay?”
“Ryan, I have to-”
“You can say whatever about the fight, I don’t care,” Ryan pleads. “Just don’t tell him it was Naim. Dad already I dunno, hates him or something and I don’t want him to hate him more.”
Cathy is so confused. “So you and Naim are still friends?”
“‘Course we are,” Ryan mumbles. He wipes his face with his sleeves. “We were never not friends.”
When Ryan is 15, things start to settle down, or at least they seem that way to Cathy. Ryan still plays club AF, and it keeps him quite busy during the week. Naim comes over on the weekends. He’s had a growth spurt, and he's nearly as tall as Ryan now, but he's just as skinny as he's always been, drowning in the same baggy clothes. Ryan and him spent hours away from home on their bikes or playing video games in the living room.
The most noticeable change is how often Ryan is on his phone.
Cathy peers over at him from across the kitchen table. “Who are you talking to all the time?”
Ryan looks up. He swipes away from Instagram messages. His lock screen is a picture of an empty football pitch. “Naim.”
“Why on earth do you have to text him all the time?” Cathy asks, genuinely baffled. “He lives five minutes away.”
“Can’t go over there often, can I?” Ryan says between mouthfuls of stew. “Got practice.”
“What could you possibly be texting about?”
“Leave off, Mum,” Ryan says. “Why do you care so much?”
She shouldn’t. It’s not her business. She’s just so curious. Do they ramble about deeper topics? Do they discuss sports or the news? Do they send each other stupid memes, like all the other boys their age? Girls? She hopes they don’t say awful things about them, she’s seen some of these cases on the news, kids trading awful comments and vile pictures amongst each other like currency. She can't imagine the boys doing that.
As she silently watches him wolf down two more bowls of stew with huge chunks of bread, Cathy realizes she doesn’t actually know very much about her son at all.
“Just want to know you better, sweetheart.”
Ryan rolls his eyes. “You’re my mum, what else could you not know?”
Ryan is 16 when Cathy realizes that she knows much, much less than she thought, and Bill, for the first time in their 20 years of marriage, is right about something all along.
It’s late afternoon on a Wednesday when she gets home from the store. When she pops open the trunk to take the groceries inside, she hears conversation in the backyard. She pops her head around the birdcage to investigate. Both boys are standing there, school uniforms on, jackets tossed aside with their backpacks in a heap by the back door.
“You’re still so different at school,” Naim is saying. He gestures with his arms, spreading them wide. “Like especially at school but fucking everywhere, you’re so different, but when you’re with just me…”
“I’m so different, how? It’s all in your head, mate,” Ryan scoffs. “I’m the exact same cunt I’ve always been.”
“That’s not true! I know you, Ryan. You’re just different, especially when you’re around that cunt Hunter. It’s like how you walk, talk, do anything, it's all different. Then you come over and act like nothing ever happened and I’m like, important to you again, after a whole day of ignoring me for all your footy mates.”
“Bullshit,” Ryan scoffs.
Naim scowls at him. “It’s not. I just wanna know why.”
"There is no why!"
"Don't be a dickhead."
"I'm not tryin' to be." Ryan turns away. “You’re mental, mate. I dunno what to tell you.”
Naim lunges after him, performing a clumsy tackle that catches Ryan in his side. He wraps both arms around Naim’s waist, taking them both slowly to the ground. They tussle back and forth, but Naim is no match for Ryan, who's got several kilos and a handful of centimeters worth of leverage at his disposal. Naim ends up on his back, hands pinned next to his head.
Ryan lifts Naim’s wrists and thrusts them down again, pinning his body against the grass. “What the fuck are you doing?” he shouts.
Naim doesn’t respond, just half-heartedly struggles, then stills. The moment he does, her son bends down and kisses him. Naim jerks his head away. Cathy gasps, the sheer shock of Ryan’s audacity overtaking her. Would Naim get up? Would he yell? Would this be the end of their friendship forever? What on earth was Ryan doing? Is this a cruel joke? Is Hunter or another friend waiting with a camera to turn this into another horrifying bullying story? Just when she’s bracing herself for whatever will surely follow, Naim winds both arms around Ryan’s neck, pulls Ryan down, fingers buried in Ryan’s wild blonde curls, and rises up to meet his mouth.
Cathy covers her mouth with a hand silently. Suddenly, the world tilts and her son's entire history with this boy shifts into a new light for her.
Ryan and Naim had always been close. Despite all of her protests to Bill’s inclinations toward Naim, if she were to be completely honest with herself, she'd always had an inkling that they were either more than friends or going to be someday. But to see it on display like this, in the light and a few meters away is confronting and undeniable, setting in stone what’s been etched beneath the surface.
They are kissing for real, now. Even from her perch in the carport, Cathy can hear the little groans between kisses, see the glimpses of tongues and teeth. It’s not aggressive or even playful- it seems tender, almost, like each of them is unwrapping something soft and gentle about themselves in the sanctuary of one another's arms and mouths. Ryan rolls off of Naim’s lap, turning them both onto their sides. Ryan cups the back of Naim’s head, guiding him as they kiss, Naim’s hands trembling on Ryan’s shoulders.
Cathy realizes how invasive she's being, staring at them from afar like this. She tears herself away and takes her grocery bag inside, pours herself a glass of wine, and texts Bill that he should stop and grab dinner on his way home. Her hands are shaking too much to cook. How long has this tension existed between them, she starts to wonder. How long have they known, but been unable to admit it to themselves? How long has she known but been unable to fully accept it?
She recalls them as much younger boys, wrapped up together in Ryan’s little trundle bed, sleeping soundly after a day of playing and fighting and making up all in one evening. She supposes this is the natural continuation of that connection, a fire that’s always existed yet waiting for its spark.
Cathy doesn’t mind, not really. In her heart of hearts, perhaps she’s always known that Ryan liked boys. Hindsight may be 20/20, but she’s certain now that he’s always liked Naim. She tries not to stare when they come inside for dinner with bright eyes and swollen lips, covered in grass stains. They exchange secretive looks all through dinner, and when Naim finally leaves, Ryan locks himself immediately into the bathroom and doesn’t come out for a long time, not until the shower stops running and Bill is beating on the door to let him have a turn.
Cathy gathers her courage and knocks on the doorframe of Ryan’s room. “Ryan,” she says, and he turns his head.
“What’s up?”
When did her son grow so tall? “I just want you to… be mindful,” she says carefully.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says smoothly and without faltering. He takes a big swig of the soda on his bedside table. “Mindful of what?”
“Be mindful of who could see you,” she says. “I don’t…I don’t mind if Naim comes over, you know.”
Ryan’s eyes have a small crease between them, like he’s trying very hard not to roll his eyes. “Obviously, Mum. He’s my best friend.”
She wonders if he knows she’s trying to help him out. “Best friend,” she repeats.
He stares blankly at her. “What?”
“I don’t want your father seeing you in a…compromising position with Naim, that’s all, sweetheart,” she tells him gently. His face suddenly splashes bright red. “Just.. not outside, okay? Or when he’s home?”
“Yeah, okay,” Ryan mumbles. He won’t look her in the eyes. Cathy wants to draw him into a hug, but she’s not sure if he would rebuff her or not. She lingers in his doorway.
“You’ll be safe, won’t you darling?”
“Yeah,” Ryan says. “Course I will.”
“Oh, one more thing. You’ll have to keep the door open when he comes over now for sleepovers,” she says firmly.
Ryan’s face immediately clouds over. He sits down on his bed with a huff. “That’s not fair!”
“Maybe not fair but it’s final,” she says, and closes the door behind her.
Arlene comes over one day after church. Cathy hasn’t seen her as much since Tom died. Arlene has been keeping to herself and her bible, preferring to go on long walks alone or read at the church sanctuary for hours at a time. Cathy wants to respect her space, but she does miss her. Cathy also knows Arlene isn’t here to talk about their friendship. She’s here because she’s worried about Naim.
Cathy fixes them a glass of wine and shepherds her to the living room. She’s not sure where the boys are. Somewhere outside, she knows that much, because Ryan’s been coming home covered in sawdust. They sit there, facing one another, sipping at the same time. Cathy waits for Arlene to speak. It takes a while, sometimes, for her to find polite enough words.
“I think there is something wrong with the boys,” Arlene starts. Her voice is so quiet Cathy strains to hear her. “I think they might be… fooling around.”
Cathy fixes her strongest neutral expression across her face. “What do you mean?”
“Naim came home the other night after hanging out with Ryan, and he had these marks on his neck. They could only be hickies, they were such dark bruises. I mean Naim doesn’t exactly play sports or anything, does he? And there were so many of them, his collar couldn’t even cover them up.”
Cathy didn’t really expect teenage boys to be discrete, but she’s immediately annoyed by Ryan’s carelessness. “Do you really think Ryan was the one who did it?”
“Who else could it be? He comes home and he’s fine, but then he goes on a bike ride with Ryan and comes back mauled like some kind of an animal.”
“Oh no,” Cathy sighs. “I’ll talk to him about it. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“Did you know about this?”
Cathy takes Arlene’s hand. “Of course not, Arlene. But I had suspicions,” she lies gently. Lying to Arlene feels worse somehow than concealing Ryan’s secret from the latently homophobic Bill. Bill was a man’s man, tough and judgemental and always too hard on Ryan, but Arlene is a loving and supportive mother, or she tries to be, in her way. “You have to admit, they have been very…close.”
“I know. I guess I didn’t want to think about it.” Arlene’s eyes fill with tears. “I don’t want Naim to have a harder life, Cathy. With Tom gone… People can be so cruel to people who are different. And the bible has made things very clear, about men desiring other men. I am being dramatic, maybe, but I don’t want Naim to not see his father in heaven someday,” Arlene sobs. “He misses Tom so much. I feel like I’m failing him, how could I let my own son fall to temptation like this? And he’s so young.”
Cathy shakes her head. She tops off her own wineglass, then Arlenes. “I think whatever is going on isn’t something we ever could have stopped. I think that…maybe it might always be going on, for a long time. I don’t know how much.”
Arlene looks stricken. “Tom and I tried to set a good example…”
“None of that.” Cathy takes her hand. “You're a good mother. This isn’t your fault, or Tom’s. It’s just how they are. How they were born.”
“Born, or raised?” Arlene takes a hearty gulp. “We tried so hard to raise him right.”
“Who is to say he isn’t right? Naim’s a good boy, smart. He doesn’t get in trouble more than any other teenager does.”
Arlene isn’t listening. She shakes her head slowly from side to side, twisting her wedding band on her finger. “Maybe if they didn’t see each other…”
Cathy thinks back to an 8 year old Ryan and Naim, cuddled together on the couch. She thinks of them at 10, bickering over the same ice cream cone, but then sharing it, passing it forth silently after it’s gone. She remembers them at 12, where Naim had gotten so scared of the spiders in the yard he cried, and Ryan had held his hand, sat with him on the sidewalk because he didn’t want to walk in the grass.
“I really don’t think that would have helped,” Cathy says gently. “I think they might have always been with each other, in some fashion, and now they are teenagers. It could be so much worse. Lord knows the kind of crazy trouble I got into when I was young. Bill and I lived in sin for years. You and Tom had Naim at 20, you know.”
Arlene brushes her hands off on her skirts. “Well yes, but we were married,” she says, mostly to herself. Cathy reaches out to pat her hand. Arlene squeezes back.
When Cathy confronts Ryan that night, his stricken expression tells her that he already knows. “You have to tell Mrs. Reid it’s not Naim’s fault, it was mine. She grounded him.”
“I know,” Cathy sighs. “I told her I would deal with you. You two have GOT to be careful. When you two go off to the city, or move away somewhere, it can be different…but for now, you’re going to have to be discreet, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Are you just saying okay, or are you hearing me, Ryan Joseph Whelan?”
Ryan sighs, long suffering and dramatic. “I hear you.”
She scowls at Ryan. “And you leave that poor boy’s neck alone. Mauling him like an animal! I don’t care if he’s another boy, I raised you to be a gentleman,” she says, holding up a hand before Ryan could undoubtedly try to protest. “I don’t need to know. Just tell me you’ll be more responsible, all right?”
Ryan turns away. “Okay.”
Cathy hesitates, but says, “I don’t need to have the talk with you about safe sex, do I?”
Ryan groans. “No, mum, you don't!” He gets up and stomps off then, his face beet red.
————
It’s almost graduation season when Bill and her decide to take a little anniversary trip. It takes some cajoling, but Brain warms up to the idea of Ryan staying back without them. He’s 17 now, closing in on 18, plenty old enough to be at home for a few days, provided he doesn't have any parties or light anything on fire.
And, as Cathy has resigned herself to admitting, old enough to be getting up to some hanky-panky whether his mum likes it or not. She’s heard no more complaints of visible hickeys on Naim since she last scolded him, but she knows that doesn’t mean they’re not getting up to anything. She remembers what being 17 was like. She knocks on Ryan’s door to tell him the news about their getaway.
“Come in.”
Cathy pushes her way inside. Ryan’s room is a tornado of clothes and shoes, school notes and random paper, wires and cables for all his gadgets. She steps on a phone charger and picks it up, dangling it in front of his face for a second before dropping it on his desk.
“What did I tell you about cleaning your room?”
Ryan groans. “I get it, Mum. What’s up?”
“We are leaving tomorrow, remember?” Ryan nods. We’re not going to be home,” she tells Ryan. “Not until Sunday at noon.”
“Okay,” Ryan mumbles. He doesn’t look up from his phone.
“You’ll have the entire house to yourselves,” she says.
Ryan looks up. “Yourselves?”
“If Arlene would be okay with Naim staying over, he could,” she continues, hoping he’ll read between the lines. “If you two can be respectful of our house.”
Realization slowly dawns across Ryan’s face. He tries not to let it show. The expression comes out halfway between twisted with delight and a scowl.
“Cool.”
She tries not to, but as she’s lounging on a beach chair on a rocky shore on the nearby coast, or strolling through the coast side town with Bill, she can’t help but worry a little here and there. It’s irrational. No one is getting pregnant while she’s away. Looking down at her toes in the cold, slimy tide-smoothed stones at her feet, she supposes that maybe all she’s scared of is that her little boy is growing up. In a few months, he'll be a fully grown man. Sometimes Cathy thinks she's dreamed it all up, all 17 years, like she snapped her fingers and bam, the time passed. Now here she is with grey hair and wrinkles and a beautiful blonde haired stranger who lives in her house and calls her Mum.
She’s relieved when they return. Ryan promised to care for the bird and water the plants and mow the yard, and he clearly did, because when they return the entire house is spotless, more tidy than she left it.
But something did happen, Cathy can tell, because now the air between Ryan and Naim isn’t air at all, it’s something sweet and thick, strung between the two of them like honey. It’s in the way they look at each other when they think no one is watching, eyes lidded and tender, gazes and hands lingering.
It’s no surprise to her when she sees a notification bubble pop up on Ryan’s phone and she catches a glimpse of an unread message that contains the word Baby. Nor is it a shock when she finds what could only be Naim’s boxer shorts in the washing machine, or when Ryan announces that he and Naim want to go to the same university.
One night when they get ready for bed Bill tries to broach the subject again. “I really think now that there is something between them. Found them practically standing on one another's damn feet in the kitchen. School dance coming up too, the last of the year, and Ryan hasn’t even mentioned taking someone. You know the rest of the boys on the team are getting a limo? They all have dates, even Hunter-”
“Bill. Bill, stop.”
“What?”
Cathy applies her face cream liberally and tries not to look at him. “I don’t think it’s any of our business.”
Bill huffs. “I think if he has something to share with us, he’d tell us, too,” Cathy adds. “Baby, please. I don’t want these last few months before he graduates to be difficult.”
Bill mumbles something under his breath. Cathy suspects it has something to do with calling Naim Reid a no good bad influence queer, but she lets it slide. As long as he leaves the boys alone, her and Bill won’t have serious problems.
She’s tempted to ask Ryan again if they're being safe or just about how they’re doing, one night when her husband has cleared out and it’s just her and Ryan at the dinner table, but as she opens her mouth to speak she hears another ping from Ryan’s phone. She sees him grinning down at his lap as he taps at the glass, the pale glow of the digital screen illuminating his face. His background has been changed to a picture of two bikes on the ground.
Her son looks so happy. She closes her mouth and decides to stay silent, smiling softly at him instead.
A day before their graduation ceremony, Cathy is heading out to the clothesline in the backyard to hang up some sheets when she catches them kissing off to the side of the birdcage. Naim Reid is standing on his toes, leaning up into Ryan’s hands, fingers curled in the arm of Ryan’s school jumper. She nearly stumbles with the clothes basket in her hands and backtracks to where they can’t see her. Cathy peeks around the corner.
Ryan has both hands around Naim’s neck, cradling his face close. “I don’t wanna let them down,” he whispers. Cathy can barely hear them above the rustling of the wind.
“Ryan,” Naim says. “You could never let them down.”
“Didn’t reckon I would actually get into Uni.”
“I knew you would,” Naim says, his scratchy, deep voice sounding more confident than it ever has. “I knew you would get in and I didn’t doubt you would come with me.”
“You still want it? Like, the whole plan? Reckon I can still come with you, the spot is still open, so.”
"Yeah, for sure."
"Yeah?" Ryan kisses Naim softly. It doesn’t turn filthy, just a series of soft, gentle pecks that Naim returns with equal enthusiasm.
“I’ve never imagined a future where you didn’t,” Naim says when they part.
“Ever?”
Naim nods. Cathy sees him scratch the curls at Ryan’s nape. Ryan leans into the touch, a gentle smile playing on his lips. “Ever.”
Ryan wraps both arms around Naim’s waist and lifts him up in a bear hug. “I love you so fucking much,” he says loudly. “Fuck, we fucking did it, didn’t we?”
“Fuck yeah we did,” Naim agrees. Cathy's never seen him smile so brightly. “Love you too.”
Cathy takes her basket and sneaks away. They'll be okay, she’s sure of it. No matter where they go or what they end up doing, they'll always have one another.