Mickey walks him home, and Ian, exhausted, races up to his room. He's about to doze off when loud yelling wakes him. He feels like he's eavesdropping, but Mickey and Karen are having such a row, it'd be impossible not to hear them. Karen in particular sounds hysterical, not at all the cool, careless girl he's come to know, and he thinks that Mickey can try even the most patient person's temper.
"That's all you ever wanna fucking eat. Do you ever eat anything else? Anything that's not pizza and beer?"
"What fucking business is it of yours what I eat?"
"I want to go out, I want to do stuff-"
"Well, then go out and do it-"
"What's the point of having a boyfriend if-"
"That I'm your boyfriend don't mean you fucking own me-"
"I can't believe you'd rather stay in your fucking dirty-ass house-"
"You don't like it, don't come over-"
"How can you live like that?"
Ian's cringing even before the door slams. He looks out the window and sees Mickey storming out of the house.
He avoids going downstairs because he doesn't want to run into Karen, half-afraid she'll kick him out. It's inevitable, though, and when he does run into her, she acts like nothing's happened, and he realizes she's a much better person than he thought.
Maybe even too good for Mickey, even though he feels like he's betraying him by thinking that.
The next time he goes to Mickey's, he's surprised to find him home, passed out on the kitchen floor. There is a pile of bloody rags in the sink, which he begins washing. Mickey wakes with a start, but relaxes when he spots Ian, trying to clean the bloody mess in his kitchen.
"I can't live another way that isn't this."
"No one's asking you to."
"Can you deal with it?"
"Yes, Mickey. I can deal with you. Isn't that what you're really asking?"
He squeezes the rags as Mickey watches him, red flowing freely down the drain, and thinks back to a time when he threw up at the sight of blood.
"How do you know I don't have AIDS?"
"Is that supposed to be some sort of gay joke?"
"No. It's just.. you're touching my blood."
"Do you have AIDS?"
"Not as far as I know."
"Good."
He lays down next to Mickey when he's done, both of them lost in their own thoughts.
"Mickey?"
"Yeah?"
"Put your mouth on me."
He can hear the catch in Mickey's voice. "What?"
"Your mouth. I want it on me."
This time, Mickey's unsure, uncertain, silent. Ian pretends he doesn't feel his hands shaking as he unzips his jeans, but he doesn't take his eyes off him, even when he's between his legs.
Mickey's on his feet almost as soon as they're done. "I'm going for a drink," he says, and Ian nods. He gets up, too, and has a seat on the old rocking chair, where he falls asleep and wakes up hours later to find Mickey, coiled at his feet.
"I'm not going back."
"What?"
"I'm staying here."
"You can't."
"Why?"
"Because there's nothing for you here. Don't you get it? A summer, it's fine. You wanna be working at the warehouse forever?"
"Mickey, you-"
"Don't say it."
"You need me."
"I did fine all these years without you."
"I know."
"We're nothing, Ian. I'm with Karen."
"I know."
"I got nothing to offer you. I will never leave this house. This house is my roots."
"I know."
There's a bouquet of flowers on the dining room table, and he can guess where they came from. Sheila's beaming over them like she never saw flowers before, and Ian thinks that, if Mickey wanted, he could actually make people happy.
Karen insists on Ian going to the movies with them, and she does it to be nice, but the truth is that she's so into her boyfriend that she pays no attention to him at all. Ian watches them sometimes, when they're making out, and wonders for the millionth time if Mickey can feel love in different ways or maybe not at all. He asks him about it, next time they're alone, and Mickey shrugs.
"I don't know. I don't care what I am."
"But you agree there's a possibility you might be gay?"
"Why do I have to be anything?"
"You like me, right?"
Mickey rolls his eyes.
"So that means you like guys-"
"Maybe that's just not who I am, have you ever thought about that?"
"And you're using me to figure it out?"
But Mickey just turns away.
Mickey's taking to hiding again, and Ian's taken to not looking. He spends his late nights watching TV, downstairs in the living room, sometimes with Sheila and others with Karen.
Tonight, Karen comes home first, looking exhausted. She makes herself a sandwich and sits down next to Ian, eating slowly and giving Ian the impression that she wants to say something but doesn't know how to.
"Ian?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you tell Mickey what I told you about my uncle?"
"Why?"
"He set fire to the warehouse last night. They got him locked up at the county jail."
She looks concerned, but calm, and Ian thinks, with a pang, that she must be used to this.
"Yeah, I... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have."
Karen chews on her sandwich slowly. "He's a good guy, Mickey. People say he ain't, but..." She shakes her head. "What am I trying to convince you for? You love him."
Ian struggles to find the words. "He... he isn't everything you think he is, Karen." And that's why you love him, he tells himself.
"Ian, he's going to jail this time. For real. For a while."
"Are we gonna get to see him? Before?"
"He'll be out for a couple days. Until he has his court date."
Ian sighs. "Sometimes I think he likes getting into trouble."
Karen shakes her head again. "He promised Mandy before she left. That he wouldn't go back to jail."
Ian takes a deep breath and Karen looks at him. "See?"
"Karen thinks you did it for her."
Mickey doesn't know what he's talking about, doesn't care.
"I should have told her the truth."
"And what is that?"
"That you did it so I would stay away."
"You think you're so fucking important."
Mickey thinks back to that fuel and fire, about how he didn't even take a minute to think, Jesus this thing is turning my head, it's making me stop being who I always thought it was, it's making me let go of everything.
"When is your trial?"
"I got court in a week."
"How long do you think they'll give you?"
Mickey shrugs. "I'm barely eighteen. Maybe they'll take it easy on me."
He picks up a couple of burgers before going to find Mickey, as he knew he would, at the construction site. He's up on his usual platform, stops working and sits down when he sees him.
"Got your plane ticket?"
"Yup."
"For?"
"Today. Five o'clock."
"You're gonna leave without seeing your family?"
Ian shrugs. He hasn't thought about them more than a couple of times this summer. "Why do you care?"
"Don't. But if I could visit Mandy, I would."
Ian nods and Mickey looks away, before things get too sentimental. "You bring food?"
"Yeah."
Mickey extends his hand out to help him up and this time, Ian takes it. They sit together on the platform. Mickey takes the bag from him and looks inside. He pulls out a hamburger, unwraps it and takes a ravenous bite.
"Thank god. I'm fucking sick of pizza."