Chapter Text
“That’s nice,” Gideon says, eyes flicking down for maybe the fourth time this conversation. He’s sooo distracted, he’s not here at all.
Bryce is pretty sure that he could go on about anything and Gideon would keep his act of distracted nodding and polite smiling. “Yeah so at the after party I saw your brother in the corner, and he was with someone, guess who.”
“That’s n…Mackenzie?!” The haze over Gideon’s gaze disperses in an instant, those sharp eyes now fixed onto Bryce.
“Yeah. And some shady person.” Bryce holds a serious face for a second before bursting into laughter. “No, no, I’m fucking with you.”
Gideon looks disbelieving, before he scoffs. “I should’ve known.”
“But he should be invited sometime, to like a main conference. He’d be pretty into talking about his niches, yeah?”
The corners of Gideon’s eyes soften. “Probably, I think so.” And again Gideon’s eyes trace lower.
Bryce pulls at his collar, unnerved by how intently Gideon is watching him and unsure if his friend realizes he’s doing it himself.
A moment later, a strong red crawls up Gideon’s face, and he coughs uncontrollably.
Bryce almost reaches a hand out to support him, before he stops himself. “Uh. Everything okay?”
“…Yes.” Gideon seems to be thinking about something very intently, bringing a hand up for his chin to rest in thought on. “Are you aware that you…” and without another word, he taps at his own neck.
“What?”
“Your neck.” Gideon puts quite the emphasis on this statement, and suddenly Bryce remembers some less work-friendly events from the morning.
He slaps a hand over the side of his neck. Ow. Still stings.
Gideon has politely turned to avert his gaze, but its kind of obvious that he’s still watching. Bryce feels it like the weight of a steel hull, the weight of hey there’s a lot of things that maybe we should have talked about do you want to? no? me neither ok great let’s just move past it.
“Aw, shoot,” Bryce says intentionally too chipper, as his head turns into gear and his fingers fiddle with the fringe of his shirt. Can his shirt cover it up? Someone should have a sweater he can borrow, maybe his stuffy little brother. Who else saw? “Guess I have a bad case of it.”
“To be honest I thought it was a mosquito bite,” Gideon offers after a long pause.
Bryce snorts. “Half right.” He stops adjusting himself, makes a wry pose. “How do I look?”
Eyes, eyes, eyes like a search light and they hover with their melancholy too long for Bryce not to shiver. Gideon drops his gaze. “It’s not visible now.”
“Okay great. Great great great,” Bryce rambles, resisting the urge to mess with his collar again. “Thanks, Gideon.”