April 2012; Cardiff, Wales
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Wales had expected Romano to have forgotten the promise he'd made Janice the previous day, but when he reappears in the living room at just past eleven after an hour-long sojourn upstairs, he immediately berates Wales for not preparing for the visit himself.
"But I am ready," Wales insists, puzzled, which earns him another snort-rolled eyes combo from Romano, closely followed by a disapproving head to toe once-over that lingers briefly but pointedly on the thinning knees of Wales' corduroy trousers, and then on his jumper: a mud brown and moss green Fair Isle that had been bequeathed to him by Scotland after it had shrunk in an unfortunate laundry mishap during the early days of his independent living.
In contrast, Romano had clearly been performing a thorough and meticulous grooming routine during his absence. He's polished enough that he gleams, from the tips of his mirror-shined shoes to his hair, which is slicked back so smoothly it almost seems to have been lacquered.
Wales refuses to be shamed by his efforts, though. "We're only popping next door for a cup of tea," he says. "Janice wouldn't care if we were wearing sacks, as long as we use coasters and take off our shoes in the porch."
Romano regards him with a disdainful look, suggestive of the opinion that he is an uncultured lout unfit to be mixing in decent society, but Wales ignores that, too, reasoning that he's far better placed to judge his friend of ten years' sensibilities than someone who'd chatted to her for ten minutes in the oil and condiments aisle of the local Tesco.
Janice immediately proves him wrong upon opening her door to his knock, however; practically swooning over Romano as though he was George Clooney himself - who had, by her account, displaced Harrison Ford in her heart some time in the mid-nineties, and reigned there undisputed ever since - who had popped up on her doorstep unannounced.
After Romano has pressed kisses to her cheeks, she clutches his shoulders and holds him at arm's length whilst she looks him carefully up and down. "You look lovely," she tells him, and then, to Wales, she asks, "Doesn't he look lovely, dear?"
Before Wales can answer, she returns the kisses Romano had bestowed on her whilst Romano smiles a small, and, to Wales' eye, calculatedly bashful smile dripping with false modesty over her compliments, and then ushers them both into her house.
She does so without her usual stern reminder about removing their shoes - which Romano dutifully does anyway, earning himself lavish praise for his good manners - and directs Romano to sit in the late Mr Janice's seat, a butter-soft leather armchair which is situated in the prime position in her living room, closest to the faux-coal fire.
Once she's satisfied that Romano's comfortably enthroned, she takes reluctant leave of them to put the kettle on, leaving Wales to fend for himself. As the sofa is half covered with a haphazard array of Janice's half-finished knitting projects, he's loath to try and clear a space there, so he's forced to sit in the chair beside Romano's, which is angled so uncomfortably close to it that their ankles brush together as he settles.
When he moves his leg aside, twisting it to a less intimate if slightly painful angle, Romano grabs onto it, holding it still.
"What the fuck?" Wales hisses, trying to wrench himself free. Romano's fingers simply tighten to the point where it feels as though their tips are about to start boring through Wales' skin.
Romano glowers at him. "We're not on our own now, are we?" he says in an undertone. "I thought you wanted to put on a show for your friends."
As it is exactly what Wales had asked for yesterday, he can't very well complain, though he wishes he could. The best he can in the circumstances do is offer some constructive criticism. "Fine, but it'd probably look more believable if you weren't on the verge of popping my kneecap off."
Romano's scowl doesn't abate, but he does loosen his grip, and then, to Wales' astonishment, slides his hand down a little until his palm is softly curved around the arch of Wales' knee.
"Happy now?" he asks, and the question sounds less venomous than Wales would have expected, if still not entirely genuine, and he's not sure what to make of it.
"Ecstatic," he says. "Look, I—"
"Tea's up," Janice announces brightly as she bustles back into the room, carrying a laden tray. Besides her good teapot and best china, there are three extremely generous slices of her signature chocolate cake, which Wales makes an enthusiastic grab for as soon as he's offered one of the plates.
Janice laughs at his eagerness as she always does, and shakes her head fondly. "Anyone would think you never get fed," she says.
"Well, that's clearly not true," Wales says, patting the bulge of his stomach. "You just make the best cakes, Janice. You know I'm powerless to resist them."
Romano, on the other hand, looks much less enamoured by his own slice, regarding it with the same breed of suspicion as France tries unsuccessfully to hide whenever he's faced with an example of British cooking outside the safe confines of a starred or rosetted restaurant.
He does eventually try a tentative bite at Janice's repeated and cheerful urging, and she seems delighted rather than offended by the shocked sound of pleasure he makes when he discovers that it's just as delicious as it looks. She watches him complacently as he devours the rest of the slice, and then the moment he's polished off the last crumb, the gleam in her eyes takes on a distinctly inquisitorial cast.
"So, how did you two meet, then?" she asks, which catches Wales off-guard even though he knows full well that it's one of those routine sorts of questions that people like to spring on new (or, in their case, relatively new) couples.
As Wales neither truly considers them a couple, nor has he spent any time with Romano around people who don't need to ask, he hasn't got around to constructing a cover story of the type he usually concocts to explain the more bizarre aspects of his life to the humans of his acquaintance.
Instead, he just throws out the first thing that pops into his head: "At work."
Unfortunately, Romano chimes in at the exact same moment with: "At a party."
"It was a work party," Wales says, in response to Janice's confused look. "Pretty dull, really," he adds, hoping to deflect her from any further questioning along the same lines.
Janice is not to be deterred, though, it seems. "You work for the government, too, do you?" she asks Romano.
Romano, too, looks taken aback. Likely, his own fabricated job is much more exciting than Wales' invented low-level civil service position, designed to bore people into not digging any deeper into the finer points that don't exist.
"For the Italian government," he says after a momentary pause.
"Oh, at the consulate in town?"
Romano blinks slowly. "No, in Italy."
Janice's face falls. "You mustn't be able to see that much of each other, then? That's got to be hard for you both."
"Very," Romano agrees placidly, and then he redirects the conversation with a far defter hand than Wales had managed earlier, using the springboard of supposedly tragic love affairs to ask after Janice junior and the much maligned Greg again.
As ever, Janice warms to the topic like no other, and it sees them through two cups of tea each and another slice of chocolate cake each, a protracted journey through the thickest of Janice's many photo albums, neatly filling the time until Wales can quite truthfully claim the need to leave, citing Northern Ireland's now imminent arrival as an excuse.
And even though it's the truth, Wales still feels a little guilty for giving it, and even more so for being glad to be able to. Janice fortunately seems oblivious to his discomfort, simply giving them effusive thanks for their visit, the remainder of the cake - for Northern Ireland, apparently, who she also thinks needs feeding up - and another round of cheek kisses.
For a moment, Wales is relieved, happy that they've managed they've managed to get through the past couple of hours practically unscathed, but, as Janice sees them to the door, her breath stutters in a very familiar way, catching as though she's just remembered something that's taken her by surprise. His heart drops.
"We really have to go, Janice," Wales says hurriedly, nudging at Romano's shoulder to urge him onwards when he looks inclined to stop and hear her out.
"I was just wondering if you could take a look at a little something for me," Janice says, equally quickly. "Shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes."
Janice's 'little something's typically involve Wales getting stuck up to his elbows or knees in muck of a variety of sources, or otherwise sweating and swearing his way ineffectually through some mechanical task or other he's entirely unqualified to undertake. He doesn't normally begrudge being her go-to handy man, but he's desperate to make the most of his good fortune and leave whilst the going is still good.
"I'm really sorry, Janice," he says. "I'll come over and sort it out tomorrow, or I could—"
"I'll do it," Romano cuts in, perhaps in a misguided attempt at the same chivalry that had so charmed Janice in the supermarket.
Wales tries to interject himself, warn Romano that he doesn't know what he's letting himself in for, but Janice gets there before him.
"That's so kind of you, dear," she says, beaming. "Thank you."
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To his credit, Romano doesn't balk when Janice reveals that her 'little something' is cleaning out her gutter; he just rolls up his sleeves, puts on the apron Janice gives him to 'keep his nice shirt clean', and stoically trudges up the ladder Janice sets out accordingly.
Wales stands at the bottom of it, a balancing foot on the penultimate rung, and Janice, in turn, stands at his shoulder, staring up at Romano, one hand shielding her eyes against the sun peeking over the apex of her roof.
"Lovely view," she whispers at length, and then nudges Wales in his side with her elbow.
When he glances at her questioningly, she makes a surprisingly crude cupping gesture with her hands, and flashes him a lewd grin.
Wales blushes and avoids looking up. He's already aware that Romano's trousers also might as well have been lacquered on, and he doesn't need to see the evidence of that again. Such things are just an unneeded distraction from everything else that has ever proved that Romano is possibly one of the worst people for him to ever develop any sort of deeper interest in.
Janice obviously mistakes his blush for a satisfied one, and chuckles to herself before reiterating her view that he should hang on to Romano if he can. "I haven't seen you this happy since Cerys," she adds.
Wales certainly doesn't think that either he or Romano are good enough actors to have fooled her into believing that, so he can only presume that her inclination towards wanting the best for him (and her obvious soft spot for Romano) have allowed her to fool herself into believing it.
He can't bring himself to agree with her outright, even so, so he just hums in what he hopes is an enigmatic enough manner that she can read what she likes in it.
Whatever that is, it appears to please her, and to keep that same smile on her face, he makes a point to place a steadying hand on Romano's elbow when he finally clambers down from the ladder, then when Romano whirls around to face him at the contact, reaches up, unthinkingly this time, to pluck a dried leaf that has got tangled in his hair.
Romano flinches at the movement, and catches hold of Wales' wrist to keep his hand at bay. In answer to his accusatory glare, Wales mouths, 'Just play along,' then says aloud, "You've got something in your hair, cariad." He plasters a fake, soppy grin on his face. "Here, let me get it."
Romano's glare dims, but doesn't fade away entirely until he closes his eyes. He then gives a tight nod, and then slowly and hesitantly inclines his head towards Wales.
His entire body stiffens when Wales' hand first brushes his hair, and his nostrils flare as his mouth contracts into a tight, discontented purse. Every tense inch of his body screams that he finds the touch intrusive, despite the careless ease with which he'd inflicted his own on Wales earlier.
That knowledge makes Wales nervous and clumsy as a consequence, his fingers feeling thick and unwieldy. It's a thoroughly unconvincing display of attempted affection, Wales is certain, though a quick glance towards Janice confirms that she clearly doesn't see it that way, judging by her continued grinning.
When Wales finally manages to muster up sufficient coordination to flick the offending leaf to the ground, both he and Romano sigh their relief in unison, and step back from each other as quickly as possible.
Romano's face is deeply, angrily red, his own fingers twitching, bespeaking a need, barely held in check, to throttle Wales for his presumption or something like.
Wales is very thankful that Northern Ireland, at least, will be happiest if they do not touch each other or even look at each other for too long over the next few days he will be staying with them.