Free Giving Up the Ghost by Jane Davitt, Alexa Snow

waves were crashing onto the beach like they always did, like nothing had changed. “I guess it didn’t go a lot farther than that. And things have been…well, not exactly good. For a while.” He realized Michael’s actual question was still sort of hanging. “Yes. It’s the first time.”
    “And you’ve never…?” Michael cleared his throat again.
    “No! God, no.”
    “I wouldn’t have thought John would’ve even looked at another man, to be honest.” Michael gave him a sidelong glance, obviously starting to reassess where the blame lay. Nick couldn’t blame him. John had been Michael’s best friend for as long as they’d known each other and Nick was a newcomer. “After all you’ve gone through I’d have thought you were settled.” He frowned and said slowly. “Content. Aye. Like me and Sheila. But you’re not, are you?”
    Nick shook his head. “I don’t know if I can be. I don’t know.” He couldn’t look at Michael, so he looked out the window again, pulling John’s jacket more tightly around him even though he wasn’t cold. “I was, for a while, I think. But then things started to go wrong, and I didn’t know how to fix them, and…I don’t know, maybe this is my fault as much as his.”
    “I don’t know about that.” Michael shrugged. “I mean it. I don’t. I see you two together, and I think you look happy, and then I see John with this little frown, watching you -- he does that a lot, you know? -- And I wonder what’s going on, but I don’t feel comfortable asking. And I’ve been fair gagging Sheila sometimes, because she was all for a bit of plain speaking, and I didn’t think it was anyone’s business but your own.” There was a wry, humorless smile twisting Michael’s lips now. “Even now, there’s enough people talking about you two; I didn’t think you needed anymore. Maybe I was wrong, if it’s come to this. Are you kicking him out, then?”
    “I don’t know.” Nick was starting to think that he could make a recording of himself saying that and use it to answer pretty much any question. “He said he’d go if I wanted him to, but I don’t. Want him to.” He looked at Michael, finally having absorbed something the other man had said. “You don’t think he’s happy with me?”
    “I think that’s the question he’s asking about you,” Michael replied. “We don’t really talk about it much, but the other night in the pub he was, well, wondering if you were maybe a wee bit bored. Of the island. Of him.”
    “No,” Nick said, frowning. “God, no! I’ve been…distracted, sure, but I’m not bored. I love it here. I love him .” He flushed, aware of how awkward this was. “So you think he’s been unhappy because he thinks I’ve been unhappy?” Michael nodded, and Nick sighed and leaned his head against the window glass. “God, how does stuff like this happen?”
    “You’re asking the wrong man,” Michael said, starting the engine again and pulling away. “I once had Sheila mad at me for two months before I worked out that she’d had her hair cut and I hadn’t noticed. And by the time I did, it’d grown back to how it always was, anyway.”
    “Maybe I’ve been too caught up in my own head,” Nick agreed. “He’s said stuff about me spending too much time writing, but I guess I really didn’t hear him. Or didn’t want to.”
    Michael paused the car at the crossroads, looking at Nick expectantly, and he nodded. “Yeah. Could you drive me back to the house? I really need to talk to him.”
    John’s car was still in the drive when they got back; Nick let out a breath he hadn’t even known he’d been holding.
    “Thanks,” he said to Michael, opening the door.
    “No trouble,” Michael said.
    Nick stood in the drive, leaning against John’s car as Michael left. He’d wait until John woke up, he decided, and then they’d talk, no matter how much neither of them really wanted to. But they weren’t going to get through this