when naim starts training in medicine, he gets accepted into a friendly little group of coursemates his age. conversation turns to partners every now and then — naim says he’s got a boyfriend, says he’s called ryan, doesn’t say all that much else. maybe it’s a residual protective instinct leftover from his years in bandee. whatever it is, naim keeps the details on ryan pretty vague. he doesn’t think much of it: he’s always been a private person. it’s not a big deal.
his friends, though — they kind of begin to assume that maybe naim and his boyfriend aren’t going so strong. maybe it’s a complicated situation. naim is clearly withholding, but it’s his business. nobody pushes, and he doesn’t give anything more away.
one afternoon naim mentions he’s leaving a little early. appointment, he explains — needs to go get his passport redone, something mundane and routine. offhandedly says his boyfriend is giving him a lift.
3:00pm and naim interrupts himself mid-sentence, cutting off whatever he was saying about next week’s first aid module to wave at someone from across the room. leaves the biro he was writing charts with on the front desk, heads over to whoever’s waiting for him at the door — tall & blond, dusty boots, tradie.
tall & blond is smiling preemptively, strikingly comparable to a dog with a wagging tail, a couple bracelets on each wrist, looking kind of like he’s walked straight out of a magazine about surfing. he says something indiscernible that naim laughs at. his hand settles casually on naim’s side like neither of them even realise it’s there. tall & blond — ryan, that’s gotta be ryan — scoffs at something, reaches out to link him and naim’s fingers.
watching them is like — staring into the sun. magnet and metal. they’re about to harness the power of osmosis and fucking fuse any second now.
naim heads back over to grab his bag. "that's ryan?" one of his friends blurts, and naim looks like a deer in headlights.
"yeah," he says, hackles clearly up, defensive on instinct. his brown eyes are big. skeptical. maybe suspicious.
and then someone says, "kind of assumed you guys were going through a rocky patch," and naim looks surprised.
"nah," he says, like he needs to clarify. like the evidence of just how well him and ryan get along hadn't been excessively and obviously shining at everyone from across the lobby just a couple moments ago. like ryan’s eyes aren’t still focused on him. and then, "how come?”
"you never talk about him much."
naim shrugs. he toes the lino floor like he's guilty, or maybe not sure what to do with the attention. "didn't think anyone’d wanna know."
a slightly bemused expression. “you can talk about whatever you want, mate.”
maybe that's all he needed, who knew? he gets to work the next morning & from then on ryan’s nearly all he talks about. he looks happy about it.
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