The Pastor’s grandson was there for the Sunday mass. 

He stood behind Mrs. Marzyciel — hands folded down his sides, chin tucked low. His grandfather’s rifle-green suit hung off his frame like a second oversized skin. He didn’t look up. Not at his grandmother who greeted the attendants softly as they filtered in. Not at the hushed, polite inquiries directed in his direction. Not at the curious, prying eyes probing him over his grandmother’s side. However, his body slumped into the sympathetic hugs as if strangers’ fleeting comfort was the single thing keeping him upright. When the older men and women pulled away to pat his jaws or squeeze his wrists, for a second, his mouth’s tight corners tipped, before it straightened back to a careful line.

“Come, love,” Nolan’s Mom murmured, tugging on his elbow, fingers gripping the bouquet in her hands. Nolan nodded. Squaring his shoulders, they trudged up the Church’s front stoop.

The only one strong enough to meet Mrs. Marzyciel’s glistened, beady pupils was their Mom. Nolan stared the cross sitting in the hollow spot between the old woman’s jutted collarbones while he and Callan echoed empty consoling phrases, bitterly formulaic. The words left an acidic aftertaste on his tongue. The Pastor’s wife’s stare scrawled long, deep gashes down his skull. Still, he leaned in, anyway, arms wrapped around her fragile form. Vacancy — cardamom, leather, sandalwood — bled into the collar of his jacket and the elbow crooks of his sleeves. 

The old woman rubbed Nolan’s shoulder blades, lips twisted into a not-quite-smile as he shifted toward her grandson.

He had expected it. Nonetheless, when Jacob’s unfamiliar dry, cold hands clasped onto his forearms, and blunt fingernails dig into Nolan’s suit, he flinched. A queasy wrongness squirmed under his flesh, writhing and thrashing at the shrinking space between them. Still, he let Jacob reel him into a suffocating embrace. The burning in his chest distilled into something foreign. 

Nolan’s nose pressed against the spot under Jacob’s earlobe, and without thinking, he absorbed it in, like a hungry animal tearing into a sacrifice — the sharp, crisp scent of fresh-fell pines filled his lungs. Nolan could hear Jacob gulp — the long lines of his throat muscles pulled against Nolan’s shoulder, expanded and contracted. For one singular moment, the faint pain throbbing in his peripheral consciousness dulled to the ghost of Jacob’s pulses, thrumming underneath Nolan’s fingertips. Fast, strong, steady. Mesmerizing. Reminding him of—

A deer’s heartbeat.

Nolan jerked. A half-scream choked in his windpipe. 

He’d have doubled over if Jacob wasn’t grabbing onto him. He stumbled, wheezing and wincing, paralyzed by a high-pitched psithurism ringing in his ears. His vision swam and blurred. His brother’s voice, floating somewhere from his left, the words were a string of static. 

It took Nolan a long moment to reorient himself, and longer to realize the painful pounding at the back of his brain was his heart thumping erratically against his rib cages. His brother was peering up at him — an expression Nolan hadn’t seen on the kid’s face since their Dad died now scrawled across Callan’s face. Nolan’s Mom shot him a frown. He shook his head. 

“‘m okay,” Nolan said, the answer came out a shaky whisper. He yanked himself off the Pastor’s grandson. His hands were clammy. “Got a little emotional, that’s all.” Giving a cursory bow to the Marzyciels, he scurried after his Mom, Callan in tow. Nolan and Jacob’s eyes met for a brief moment, before he snapped his gaze away, crossing the Church’s chamber threshold, ushered inside by the crowd flow.

/

Plenty lined up to read eulogies about Pastor Marzyciel. Less came to his cremation.

Nolan watched the flames tentatively licked across intertwining stems and leaves doused in gasoline, before it opened its jaws and engulfed it all. 

The smell of burnt vegetables and roots wafted across the Church’s ground. Pastor Marzyciel’s body blackened and charred, crimping like the flowers he was surrounded by. The abundant condolence wreaths piling and crowning the Pastor at the coffin’s center like a terrible, ironic joke. The regal man who was supposed to be larger than life was now rendered naked and motionless, his corpse whose skin stretched and swelled from bulging potatoes and carrots underneath his flesh — their green sprouts sticking out of his gaping pores. 

Mrs. Marzyciel led the funeral proceedings, Ryan accompanying her. Jacob slunk close behind, always in his grandmother’s shadow, and everybody pretended not to notice the deliberate distance maintained between the Pastor’s wife and her grandson.

/

Nolan twitched at the muted whisper of screen gliding open behind him. He turned, the half-grin slipped off his face as soon as it was formed. 

Shutting the door, the Pastor’s grandson emerged from the shifty shadows under the roof overhang. In his hands were two water cups. His footsteps moved light and sturdy across creaking backyard deck planks. He had his grandfather's traits — towering frame, wide torso, severe nose line, and bright gray eyes tugging downward. He carried himself with a certainty and pride of a young elk, and a calmness of a buck at its home. The dress shirt stretched across Jacob’s broad chest, sharp collar bones peeking under the crisp, ironed fabric. 

Jacob lowered himself next to Nolan on the wooden bench — light reflected in his irises, turning them into glowing glasses when he glanced over at Nolan.

“Did my Mom send you?” 

The Pastor’s grandson smiled, handing him a glass. “Let’s say I’m here out of personal interest.” 

Nolan bit back the unnecessary urge to ask. He gulped some water, melting into the cold liquid coasting down his throat. He slumped further back, head tilted back until it hit against the faux-stones lining the Marzyciel’s house exterior back walls. Against his will, his eyelids slid shut, a long huff deflated from him. “What a bizarre first week at your new home, huh.” Nolan hummed. An amused low chuckle spilled out of Jacob’s lips, though he said nothing else.

For the first time since this morning, Nolan’s fingers stilled, his breath steadied. 

A gentle calmness washed over him. Their inhales and exhales echoed in the wide open space. The golden-tinted air shimmered to the heatwaves. From the inside, the mundane banters seeped through the wall cracks — merging into the relentless buzz of bees circling the yarrows, peonies and dahlia bushes blooming bright under the blazing sun. Neither Marzyciels have a green thumb, yet today, the wilting, undying yellow aloe vera the Pastor and his wife planted in her garden decades ago suddenly flushed with life. 

Nolan fidgeted with his cufflinks, wiping the sweat condensing on his upper lip with his shirt’s sleeve, panting through parted teeth. He had taken off his jacket and tie. The rare breezes were temporary, illusory reliefs. Despite the shade from the protruding eave, his clothes felt hot and stuffy under the creeping mid-summer heat. His dress shirt was already soaked with sweat, sticking to his back. The black fabric of his pants damped his thighs. 

Sighing, Nolan drained the remaining water in his cup. The ice cubes clinked as he set the empty glass on his bench. “How’s Ryan?” He asked, dozing off.

“You were the one who had a seizure, yet you’re worrying about him?” Jacob asked, the faint, humorous good-natured hint didn’t conceal the irritated snarl underneath.

Nolan’s eyes snapped open. He twisted, glaring, his shoulders drawing up. The foul resentment he had been tamping down growled alive inside him again, vicious and aggravated. The immediate retorts lined at the back of his throat, and Nolan screwed his trap shut. Because if he opened his mouth, he was going to tear Jacob a new one. 

Nolan had tried to help earlier. The Forn and the Foote kids were a team. They had a system going on for every repast. Callan manned the dishwasher, Ryan and Matthew stockpiled the food and dessert trays, while Michael corralled all the young babies. Nolan was supposed to be emptying fruit punches into ice bowls and handing out sticky solo cups to the kids and the adults right now. Except he had dropped glasses and jugs all over the floor, his own body revolted from spending another second in a crowd. At some point, Ryan had shoved Nolan out. 

He didn’t — shouldn’t — blame Ryan. However, it was hard to swallow when his friends were being useful while he was milling about at the back deck and feeling like he might puke if the wind blew the wrong way. The memory of Nolan’s legs carrying him across the kitchen and onto the backyard deck was a fever dream, tinted with a crimson shade of shame and indignation — and the Pastor’s grandson had gone and ripped straight at the wound he was licking.

Jacob returned Nolan’s stare — a lazy side-glance motion, as though he could care less. And for a moment, Nolan was almost fooled into thinking the Pastor’s grandson would be the first to look away, to tell Nolan he was overreacting. Except Jacob’s blank expression didn’t crack. His unblinking focus zeroed on Nolan. The day’s gathering heat trapped in his pupils intensified — sharpened to a fine point until Nolan could feel an imperceptible knife tip dragging up the inseams of his calves, etching around the curve of his shoulders, resting against his sternum.

“What has he done for you so far?” Jacob drawled. “He doesn’t even mention you much.”

The uneasiness inside Nolan’s chest whirred.

It was strange to share the same space with the Pastor’s grandson — the kind of strangeness Nolan couldn’t put his thumbs on, the kind that stilted his perspective into a claustrophobic and hyperventilating cage. Similar to how he’d glance at the wooden figurines lining the mantle and knew whether his Mom had cleaned them or not, ever since Jacob returned, nothing felt right. Everything was moved aside, shifted a few degrees or tilted off-centred. 

The longer they spent staring at each other, the more the subtle wrongness offset Nolan. The silence itched. His chest prickled. His attention latched onto Jacob’s presence — magnetized and entranced, and Nolan couldn’t do a fucking thing about it. The tension coiling underneath his muscles and the anticipation buzzing at the back of his brain didn’t loosen. They strengthened, clawing and snapping at him until he wanted to throw up.

“I’m not having this conversation with you.” Nolan stood.

“If he’s a good friend, he’d have noticed you had an attack,” The Pastor’s grandson continued.

He snapped. “I suggest you mind your own business, buddy.”

Jacob tracked a single bead of sweat rolling down Nolan’s neck until it disappeared under open collars before he raised his eyes and met Nolan’s gaze again. Wind skittered across the garden, whistling between lithe leaves. “Why should I? I’m Fascinated by you.”

Nolan spluttered and gaped. All his frustration vanished, leaving a stupid blank space inside his brain. He spun and marched to the deck’s far side, desperate to put some separation between them. Listing his hips on the railing, he folded his arms and trained his attention out the garden encircling them. He wanted to scream — from joy, anger, or maybe sheer surprise.

“Don't fuck with me.” Nolan gritted out, strained.

The Pastor’s grandson rose to his feet. He walked to Nolan’s side, leaning his elbows on the rails, their shoulders close enough to bump together if either made a movement. From this angle, Nolan could glimpse Jacob’s lower half face, and his awareness drifted to Jacob’s nape. “You don’t trust him as much as he doesn’t trust you.”

“We don’t fucking tell each other when we’ve a flu.”

“But this isn’t a flu, isn’t it?” Jacob retorted and Nolan flinched. His silent probe was like a million slow needles sinking into Nolan’s skin. The sharp edge in the Pastor’s grandson’s voice gleamed again — and he laughed, a harsh, wicked fierceness hard-set across his face. “Do you know what you looked like back then?”

Nolan unfolded his arms and covered his face with his hands. The canary-yellow sunlight slunk across the sloped roof facets and dripped over the overhanging eaves and onto their exposed skin, haloing a rim around the dark-oak panels and the lined patterns across the ceiling. 

Nolan had blacked out on his feet at Church at some point earlier during the ceremony. Both Callan and his Mom said they couldn’t wake him despite grabbing and shaking him hard. They had to call Jacob for help. Even then, once Nolan seemed to snap out of it, for a full minute, his pupils were glazed and hazy as though he was drugged.

Nolan sucked in a breath. “Look, Ryan has a lot going on right now.” He lowered his hands. His palms clutched the rail’s hard edge to stop the jittering coursing in his bones, looking down at Jacob. He knew what he should say next, I’ll tell Ryan when both of us are ready, although that meant making a promise he could neither keep to himself nor to this boy who prod and strike too far into the hornet nest. Biting his lips and clearing his throat, Nolan spoke again, his voice reduced to a small whisper. “I can sort this out myself.” 

Jacob tilted his chin. This time, Nolan glanced away first, fingers pressed against his ribs.

He didn’t know what the fuck was happening to him, but he was scared. His hands hadn’t stopped trembling. It might have stopped for now, however what could happen in the future. 

His Mom wanted to go home and bunker down until they could figure out whatever the hell was haunting Nolan. The logical part in him knew that was the best option, but the louder part in him was the one speaking — fueled by a terrible, stubborn determination born out of pride and fear. He had begged her to let him attend the repast, threatening to walk the eight-miles distance between their home and the Pastor’s if push came to shove. His Mom had relented. Still, her fright-struck expression put a leaden weight in his gut.

“Please don’t tell him about my fit,” Nolan said, shoulders drooping.

Jacob scoffed, but he smirked, anyway. “Sure. For a price,” He said, in a tone far too light to be a casual joke. “Your heart.”

Nolan snorted. However, the sliding door rattled, and he paused, straightening. 

Ryan stepped onto the deck, and whatever Nolan was going to say died in his throat. Before he moved away, however, the Pastor’s grandson had reached out a hand and stopped him dead — his touch formed a cold shackle on Nolan’s forearm. 

“Ryan,” Jacob said.

A chill gust scrawled over Nolan’s neck, like a spider’s slender, delicate legs crawling across its intricate web. When he looked back, the puzzled expression on Ryan’s face had crumbled into something indecipherable. 

“Jake,” Ryan said. The harsh shadow and light contrasted down his crooked nose bridge, carving out a chunk of his flesh under his eyes. “Your Mom’s heading home, Nol.” Nolan blinked. And the Ryan he knew was there again, apologetic and abashed. “I’ll see you, bud.”