Craig returned to his immaculate flat that evening utterly exhausted.
That was a good thing.
As usual he had worked himself flat out at the station then put in a long session at the gym, hoping when he got home he would be too tired for thought.
After pouring himself a glass of red wine, and putting on a Wagner CD - how HE would hate that - he sat at the kitchen bench and tried to concentrate on the mammoth crime stats report he could and should have delegated to someone else. It might stop his self indulgent dwelling on his misery and loneliness.
It would not work, he knew that and he had long given up resolving that the memories and imaginings that daily tormented him would dissolve by force of will, he had just hoped it would happen naturally one day with the passing of time, as he had been assured by his few confidantes that it would.
It didn't work as nothing had worked. Not throwing himself into his new position and earning all the meaningless damn accolades, not frantically and futilely trying to build a social life - he simply couldn't summon the interest- not the age old remedy of drinking himself into a stupor - he would only have the same dream again and again and again. He could even smell the flowers in that hotel suite in his dreams.
He had resigned himself to it. The yearning was not going to end. The bitterness and despair that threatened to overwhelm him could only be held at bay by ceaseless activity and distractions that did not really distract him because he could no longer feel any real enthusiasm for anything.
He reproached himself for the millionth time for getting into - and remaining- in such an adolescent and lovesick frame of mind. It had gone on far too long, but the hurt, the rejection and the overwhelming longing were too much for him. He may as well admit it. It wasn't going to go away now. It was never going to go away.
As he abandoned the heavy file of stats and stretched out on the sofa, arms behind his head, his thoughts were interrupted by the jarring ring tone of the doorbell
Craig's heart sank (could it sink any further he always wondered when he came across the clichéd phrase)
Please not Gina, he thought, lovely, concerned, sensible Gina with one of her pep talks. He just couldn't face it. Not tonight.
Wearily he opened the door and tried to summon a welcoming smile. The smile was abandoned as he felt his heart stop. It stopped in the exact same way it had seemed to stop that time more than two years ago. Then just as suddenly started again, and started so rapidly he heard his own blood thundering in his ears.
"Luke"
Luke met his eyes briefly then dropped his glance. "Craig."
Both were silent and foolish on either side of the threshold. Above the throbbing in his brain, Craig tried to summon some coherent thought, some sense of reality and above all some dignity. After all, he had berated himself often enough that it was the lack of emotional self restraint that had helped to drive Luke away in the first place.
A welter of memories - the very memories he had been trying to banish for so long flooded through him as he looked upon the beautiful and beloved face.
Can I help you? He said absurdly.
Luke raised his eyes - those eyes - again. "I was wondering .. I'm sorry… I was wondering if I could just speak to you for a while." He almost stuttered over his words.
Luke, unsure of himself!
"To say what?"
"Well, I'd rather not say here on the doorstep, we can go to a pub or somewhere else neutral if you'd prefer. ."
So he had not come for the reason that had sprung to his suddenly befuddled mind. Craig told himself he would not have had the lack of self respect to have succumbed if he had.
He knew he was lying to himself.
"Come in" he gestured with his head, widening the door and Luke - his Luke - wandered into the lounge, glanced around unseeingly, sat down abruptly on the sofa, the lean, graceful body for once seeming ungainly and ill at ease.
Craig eyed him, heart and body already burning with renewed love and desire. The very same love and desire he had felt from the moment he had first set eyes on Luke, before they had ever exchanged a single word and had felt and suffered every moment since.
"You still don't wait to be invited to take a seat then I see" he observed, hoping the tremor in his voice was audible only to himself.
Are you going to order me to stand to attention then Sarge? Luke grinned uncertainly. There was none of the old truculence in his face. All the beauty though. Oh yes, all the beauty.
God, if only I could, thought Craig , if only we could go back to that day when he strolled into the office and I yelled at him for disrespect, when I totally over reacted out of the sheer inward shock I had had at the force of that first impression. That first instant knowledge. How different things could have been.
"Can I get you something" (anything, anything). "Coffee? Wine, Beer?"
"A beer would be good if it's not too much trouble."
When had they ever been so damned polite towards each other.
Craig retrieved a bottle of lager from the fridge. He never drank lager. He often wondered why he always kept a supply of Luke's favourite brand in stock.
"Thanks."
They drank in silence. Luke seemed tongue tied and Craig made a mammoth effort to summon some of his old authority.
"Well Luke? Out with it."
Luke stared at his glass a moment or two longer then took a deep breath.
"Two things I wanted to mention. First, you know that Kerry and I split up?"
"Yes, I'm sorry. " (Was he Hell. Apart from an impersonal sympathy for Kerry whom he sincerely liked, he hadn't been a bit surprised or sorry to hear the news which came just a few months after that gut wrenching wedding) "Are you OK?"
"Not really, but that's not why I came."
More silence.
Craig took a draught of his wine, Luke a swig of his beer.
"I wanted to apologise Craig. To say sorry for the shitty way I treated you."
Craig felt his stomach turn cartwheels. It was absurd at his age to feel such a physical reaction to a few tender words.
"It's water under the bridge Luke," he said, every last vestige of his will power straining to maintain an even tone of voice. "It was a long time ago, and I know you were in a lot of turmoil"
"It was no excuse for the way I behaved," said Luke, and Craig suddenly realised what he had been searching for in the still boyish face. The sulky petulance had gone, also the defensiveness. Was there even a hint of humility? Somehow, Craig did not want that.
"Why have you really come? "he said, for the first time with no affectation in his voice.
"I wanted to explain."
"Explain what?" Suddenly and also for the first time, the anger that had so long been overwhelmed by bitterness and despair welled up.
"That you have this wonderful heterosexual lovelife? That I was a bloody nuisance and a stalker, that you made explicit advances on me with the ostensibly specific purpose of driving me away?"
Some of the familiar belligerence momentarily returned to the very straight line of Lukes's mouth as his head jerked up, just as it always had when he had been put in his place by the arrogant Sergeant.
"I wanted to explain that I was stupid and immature and scared witless by the fact that you were in love with me." ("were", thought Craig with a pang) "I didn't want to admit I was gay, I was afraid and I took it out on you. I was a moral coward and a bully. OK?"
Stunned at this honesty Craig immediately wanted to cry, to reach out to him, to hold the beloved body just one more time, but he had steeled himself over these long long months never to set himself up for such searing rejection again.
Instead he nodded and gave Luke a clumsy clap on the shoulder. "It's ok Luke, I hardly behaved in the most mature a manner myself. I couldn't help myself, I was besotted, I was crazed with jealousy. It's over, it's forgotten."
Luke suddenly looked Craig straight in the eyes. "It's not forgotten by me", he said.
Once again, and with a drowning sensation, Craig restrained himself.
"Well then?"
"Well then…" Luke swallowed, glanced around the room then took a deep breath. "I just thought you ought to know that every day since we parted I've thought of you, thought of that night we spent together, fantasised again and again about what happened and wished it would happen again and again."
Craig stared, unable to take it in. It would not do to be honest and admit that he was way up on Luke on that score. Every day? Every minute of every day more like. But he had been too frank to his own cost before.
"So what is it you want Luke?"
"What I've got no right to ask for I suppose," mumbled Luke. Then suddenly very directly. "Are you seeing anyone?"
Clearly he hadn't been keeping as close tabs on Craig's life as vice versa. Was he still, wondered Craig, be going to accused of stalking, if he admitted he knew pretty much every detail of Luke's personal circumstances despite not having laid eyes on him for eighteen months?
"No Luke, I'm not. I told you that day how I felt. Nothing's changed and I've come to accept that nothing will."
"Do you think….?"
"Do I think what? " Craig felt on the verge of madness. "Do I think we should spend another night together? Or several nights together and be so bloody unbearably happy, for everything to be so utterly bloody right only to have your next fit of self disgust turn on me? Do you think I want to go through that again?
"Craig no. It wouldn't happen again, I've grown up. A lot. I've accepted who I am, and I've accepted that not everyone I care about is going to accept that."
Craig was scarcely able to breathe now.
"Because the only one I really care about is you, I've never admitted to myself or anyone I never thought I'd get the bottle to say it, but seeing you here. So close ..," his voice trailed off.
"I waited to come and speak to you until I had myself sorted out, got a new job, got my own place, I'm not running to you for a bolt hole. I hoped .."
"You hoped?..." determined to make Luke say it this time rather than give into a physical impulse he had so immediately regretted and explained away so glibly in the past.
"That it could be like before, …the times when you just walked towards me, and looked at me in the way noone ever has or ever will. That night you held me as if you never wanted to let me go, only this time….", Luke gave a gulping breath, gathered his courage.
"This time?"
"This time I know I'd be the one to never let go."
It was the longest and most eloquent speech Craig had ever heard from Luke - his Luke- and throwing aside his ideas of dignity and self restraint - since when had these had anything to do with Luke? - he walked forward just as his past and future lover had hoped.
Ends