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He looks strange waking up in a strange bed. Maybe it's that he looks like he feels strange for those few seconds before he knows where he is, like he's been magicked here, fairytale-style.
"What was it woke you?" I step across to the bed and put both cups down on this side like if we were at home. "The coffee maker, or me cursing at it?"
He squints at me, smiles and sits himself up a little so his head and shoulders are leaning against the headboard. I sit down on the edge of the bed, angled to face him.
"Both," he says. "Couldn't you work it?"
"Got there in the end. Here."
"Ta." He drinks. "That's lovely, that."
"So you had a good sleep, Steven?"
"Must'a done – in the end. What time is it?"
"Twenty to ten almost."
"I thought it would be later. Lucky we sorted a late whatsit anyway though."
"Late checkout. Yeah, don't want them knocking the door down."
"You been up for long?" He reaches and touches my wet hair. "You've had a shower."
"What gave it away? The bath robe?"
"Plus your hair's wet."
"Oh."
"Oh, you were taking the piss." He does a face and I lean and kiss him. "Did you sleep okay though, Brendan?"
"Like a baby. We neither of us moved, d'you know that? It's why I woke up, got pins and needles in my arm from you lying on it. Thought you'd wake up when I got out, but nope. Dead to the world."
"Must'a needed me sleep."
"All that... activity. Wore you out."
"Yeah. Sports day." He cocks his head to the side, innocent as the day is long.
Yeah.
"Yeah," I say. "Sports day, that was it."
"I'm starving," he says. "Are we too late for brekkie?"
"That'll be sports day as well, all that running around makes you hungry. Room service'll do breakfast all day, most hotels anyways."
"What about going for breakfast though? Like, in the restaurant, seeing as we never went there for dinner. It looked nice on the website. D'you think we're too late?"
"Okay, where's the..?" I go and get the hotel information from the coffee table and come back and sit on the bed again. "We ain't missed it – yet, anyways. Last orders at ten according to this."
"Have you only got to get dressed now? I've got to have a shower. What d'you reckon? Give it a go, shall we?"
"Up to you, Steven. Shower, polish up your pearly whites, throw on some clothes, don't spend all day making yourself pretty, then we might just make it."
"Right." He gulps down his coffee then swings his legs out of the bed and brushes past me, warm and naked, and disappears into the bathroom.
I get dressed in last night's jeans and a clean T-shirt.
"Cutting it fine, Steven," I say when he comes back.
He's got one of the white robes on.
He laughs and pulls a T-shirt off a hanger in the wardrobe, and he says, "How long we got?"
"Five minutes?"
"That's alright, long as we can go scruffy."
"You looking at me when you say that?"
"I just mean, me top wants ironing and me hair's dripping." He throws the T-shirt onto the bed and goes over to his bag and rummages around for his underwear. "Won't matter, will it? It's only brekkie."
"It'll be fine. Want these?" I pick up his jeans from the floor.
"Yeah." He puts on a pair of boxer briefs (black) then sits on the bed to put his socks on. "Bet you're hungry an' all, Bren, eh? We ain't had anything since them chips, and that was only early."
"Pick and mix..."
"Oh yeah." He gives me a big smile as he slips the robe off.
He dresses quickly. When he sits down again to put on his trainers I comb his hair back with my fingers.
"You all set?" I say.
"Yep. Got the room key?"
"Yep. Good to go."
The restaurant is up on the sixth floor, one below the nightclub. We take the lift even though it's only a floor or two above our room.
We're not too late. The place is busy, there's no sign of the business of breakfast tailing off.
Someone's arrived just ahead of us and is being taken to a table; we wait in the doorway.
"I wanna sit by the window," says Steven, "There's one over there look, over the other side."
A waiter comes and greets us.
"Table by the window?" I say to him.
"Come this way."
I feel Steven's hand at the small of my back. I think it's just a touch at first but it's not: he must be bunching my T-shirt into his fist because I feel the fabric pull tight across my stomach as we walk across the room.
When we've sat down and the waiter's left us I say, "What was that about?"
"What?"
"Holding on to my T-shirt."
"Nothing."
"Steven?"
"Cos it fits your shoulders and, like, your chest, dunnit, but it's sort'a loose around your belly."
"So?"
"So I pulled it tight so people could see that you're like..." And he draws an inverted triangle in the air with his index fingers.
"What people?"
"Everyone. Everyone that looked."
"You're weird, Steven."
"Why? Cos I wanna show off me fit husband?"
I smile at him, shake my head.
"Okay. Thank you, I guess."
"Right, what we gonna have? You gonna have the full breakfast? There's all sorts here." He frowns at the menu. "Yeah, I'm gonna have the full breakfast an' all."
When we've ordered I say to Steven, "This better be good, this breakfast. I was thinking we were gonna spend the morning in bed, so..."
"So the breakfast's gotta be better than sex?"
"We got that big bed we could'a stayed in," I say. "So yeah."
"We ain't gotta be out till one though..."
He's stroking lines in the condensation on his glass of orange juice with the tips of his fingers as he looks at me. I'm imagining how they'd feel on my spine. I almost shiver.
"On a promise then, am I?"
"Might just be a kiss and a cuddle though," he says.
"I'm all over that."
:::::::
We're half way through our breakfast and it's good. We were both ready for it.
"It's funny," he's saying, "People look different having breakfast, don't they. I mean, it's not like if we was in a restaurant at night, even if it was all these same people. Like for example, you know that girl I danced with last night? I didn't hardly even recognise her when we walked in here this morning. I was thinking, what's she smiling at me for? Then I realised it was her."
"That'll be because she had makeup on last night."
"Yeah but it's not just that though. I don't think so anyway. It's like, it's more sort'a private. D'you know what I mean?"
"Can't say I do, Steven. People eat breakfast in public all the time, don't they? McDonalds, pubs, everywhere."
"Alright, yeah. Here though, right? They do look different here." He works his way through a triangle of toast while he organises his thoughts, then he says, "I know what it is. It's cos they've just got out of bed, in't they – got out of bed, had a shower and that, and then they've come and sat down for brekkie like if they was at home. They ain't got their going out clothes on or going to work clothes or whatever, and they ain't got their... like... their going out faces. It's like, they an't got going yet." He looks at me looking at him, and does a kind of awkward smile. "Am I talking bollocks?"
"No. I get what you mean now. Think so anyways. They're how they are when it's just usually their nearest and dearest seeing them of a morning, before they put on their... whatever. Defences. Mask. Is that it?"
He nods. "D'you reckon we look like that an' all? Do I?"
I put down my knife and fork and look at him for a long while.
"You look... I dunno," I say in the end. "Younger, I guess."
"Do I?"
"I doubt I do."
"You don't."
I laugh, "Oh, thanks for that."
"You look softer though."
"'Soft'?"
"Softer, I said. Not soft."
"When I'm eating breakfast I look softer. Okay."
"Nothing to do with the breakfast. Just... when it's just you and me."
"We're in a room full of people, Steven. It ain't just you and me."
"Yeah it is." He smiles, bashful like he's said something daft.
A waiter tops up our coffees.
"Anything else I can get you gentlemen?" he asks.
"We're good," I tell him, and he goes.
"I just had a thought," Steven says.
"At this time in the morning? Must be some kinda record," I say, and get no reaction whatsoever.
"I just thought, we never tidied the bed, did we, before we came up. They won't be going into our room, will they?"
"I doubt it, Steven. No point till we check out."
"I hope not."
"Yeah."
"Wonder if that furry thing's washable. The throw."
"Dry clean, must be. We can't be the first guests who..."
"D'you think they put one on all the beds?" He leans forward, whispers. "D'you reckon everyone in here's been banging all night on a furry throw?"
I glance around the restaurant. It's full of straight couples.
"D'you mind, Steven? Putting me off my eggs."
He laughs. He's got his elbows on the table now, watching me eat, then when I've finished he hands his plate over to me and takes mine. All he's left is his baked beans and the whites of his poached eggs, but I help myself to some more toast to have with them.
"Thank you for this, Brendan."
"My empty plate?"
"This, stupid. The hotel and everything."
"That's okay."
"It's been nice just, like, talking and that."
"Like you ever stop talking the rest of the time?"
"I don't mean just me. I mean proper talking."
He's picking at a pulled thread in the table cloth with his fingernail. I lay my hand on his hand. I'm aware of the smoothness of his silver cuff, the almost-roughness of the hairs on his wrist.
"I know," I say.
Then I reach the rest of the way and get the pepper, because that's what I was doing, I was reaching for the pepper.
"You already put pepper on, Bren."
"Did I?"
"Yeah you did."
"I know."
:::::::
We kiss on the stairs.
:::::::
"They've not come in and cleaned, you were right," he says when we get back to our room. "Good."
He goes and opens the window. Sounds float up and seep in from the street below – traffic; the proof of a Tuesday morning like any other – but they seem remote from us. Or we're the remote ones: there's the world outside, and then there's us.
"Gonna be a hot one," I say.
"Yeah. Lovely."
When I come back from the bathroom he's straightened the bed covers and he's shaking out the throw so it falls smoothly on top of them.
He says, "Got a message from Pearl, just saying everything's fine and what supplies I've gotta get for tonight."
"Back to reality."
"I know, yeah. I did ask her to text me though like normal cos I need to know. She weren't just interrupting."
"Still, we still got a good coupl'a hours. Got to pack, but..."
He sits on the bed and takes off his trainers, then he gets on, on top of the throw; lies down and moves over so there's room for me. I take off my trainers and when he sees me taking off my T-shirt too he sits up and does the same, and then when he lies back down, the slanted rectangle of bright sun from the window falls across him as if it was in wait for his skin to be bared.
I lie beside him. We're on our backs, and then we both simultaneously turn onto our sides to face each other. He laughs.
"It's like we went, Turn... now," he says.
"Isn't it."
He's playing with the fur between us on the bed, then he touches my chest and then the fur again.
"Mm," he says, cheeky as fuck. "This is softer."
"The throw is?"
"Yeah." He nods, smiles, then the smile relaxes away but leaves its warmth in his expression.
"You're soft," I say. "In the head."
I wonder if he'll fall asleep, here in the broad daylight with his breathing even and slow, but his eyes don't close – don't stay closed when he blinks – and he watches my face as closely as I'm watching his. Minutes go by.
"Are you gonna kiss me or what?" is the next thing he says, and yes, I guess I am.
I don't know how long we kiss for. We're caught up together, inextricable. I undo his jeans so I can slide my hand down the back of his briefs to knead and stroke his arse. He runs his hand up and down my arm from elbow to shoulder, up and down. I drag him nearer, get the bulge in his pants pressing against my groin. His kisses get more active, more open.
He pulls back, looks at me.
"We're gonna do it, in't we."
It's a statement more than a question but I answer it anyhow.
"Don't have to. We can just – "
"I want to though." He scrambles away and heads for the bathroom. Stops part way, comes back and leans over and kisses me and gives my crotch a squeeze. "Back in a sec."
I lie back and close my eyes until I hear the bathroom door again.
He's taken his jeans off and he drops them on the couch and goes and gets a bottle of water from the fridge in the minibar.
"You know how much that's costing me?" I say.
"Is it dead expensive?" He comes back to bed, drinks noisily and offers me the bottle.
I sit up.
"Minibars always are, ain't they." I drink too, then put it down and kiss him.
"You always make out you're mean but you're not." His hand is cold on my waist from holding the bottle.
I get up and strip off my jeans and boxers. He's lying there looking at me, his fingers idly tracing across where his treasure trail meets his underwear.
"D'you ever miss condoms, Brendan?"
"What?" I frown at him and kneel on the bed. "No. Why? Do you?"
"No. Used to like watching you put them on, that's all. It was like, that's for me."
"This is for you." I get his hand, wrap it round my cock.
"D'you like it better without?" He's squeezing gently. He's also looking into my eyes.
"Yeah. Not that it wasn't good before."
"I should hope so. It's funny, I probably wouldn't even know the difference if I didn't know if you had one on or not, but – "
"You serious? It feels just the same to you?"
"Yeah. Except when it's just... like... just going in and when it's come out, cos that's when I feel..." He strokes his thumb over my tip. "Cos that bit feels different from if it's got a condom on. But – "
"So it doesn't feel..? Y'know, the... intimacy, it's not – ?"
"I was gonna say, it dun't feel much different, like, physically, but in me head it is." He's stroking now, with his whole fist but every now and then pausing his hand and rubbing the underside with just his thumb. "Like, imagining. Yeah? Imagining it inside me, just all... D'you know what I mean? It's like... it's what you said."
"Intimate."
"Yeah. And you're the only one that I've ever let do it, and I'm the only one you've ever – " And then he must see it in my eyes, some giveaway, a break in my gaze, a distancing, just something, because he's stopped dead – his hand loosening, his expression bruised – and then he says quietly, "I'm not, am I." Statement, not question.
"Steven – "
"You've slept with other blokes without a condom. Brendan, just tell me."
I can't lie. There's no point, not with him right here, sitting up now with his eyes still on my eyes and his hand still on my dick.
"Once or twice. That's all.."
"Once? Or twice?"
"Okay twice, but it wasn't – "
"Who with?"
"Come on, Steven."
"Who with?"
Fuck.
"Just... It was Macca, okay, just – "
"You told me you was always dead careful because you didn't wanna pick something up and take it home to Eileen."
"It was after... after she threw me out. I had to go round to his for something, I wasn't gonna... I was leaving – leaving Belfast – I'd ended it so I wasn't gonna... But it just..." I'm babbling; I get a grip. "I don't even remember it, Steven, okay? What it felt like, I don't remember, because it was nothing. Nothing like – "
"What about the other time? Twice, you said."
I've got to lie now. If I tell the truth I'm scared of where it'll end. If I say his name, if I say Walker, it'll be, Why? And there's no answer I can give that won't lead to more questions with answers like detonators.
Lie: "No one. Someone I picked up." Truth: "You know I used to do that, Steven, you know."
"No condom though? Why would you do that?"
Truth: "My head was wrecked, I wasn't thinking straight. It was the only time."
"When?"
Truth: "The night before the explosion at the beach house."
He nods.
"There's more, isn't there? I always knew there was more that went on, cos of what Cheryl was like with you when you was in hospital. I know your head was wrecked not just from the explosion."
Truth: "That was the only other time, Steven, I promise you. And it wasn't even a... a satisfaction. It was stupid, it was a mistake." Truth: "I planned it with you. Got tested, everything, because it meant something. Means something."
"After Dublin."
"Yeah. Commitment, that's what it meant. Means."
"I know, yeah."
"So you're not gonna kick off then or..?"
He shakes his head.
"It's not like you lied. I just assumed, that's all."
"I love you."
"And it's only me you've said that to. 'I love you.' It better be only me, Brendan."
Full disclosure: "Said it to Eileen."
"Eileen dun't count. You never said it to Macca or that Vinnie one, or no one else. You only said it to me."
"Only you."
I don't ask him how many people he's said those words to, but the question is in the air and he must know it is, and he knows I've chosen not to pursue it just like he's chosen not to pursue what else went on in the days before that explosion almost four years ago. It feels like we're taking steps forward, him and me, and sometimes you don't want to risk looking back to see where you've come from in case, in taking your eye off the path ahead, you end up losing your way.
I don't ask him if he's feeling this too though, because I think if I tried a metaphor on him at this point it would not be appreciated (I've never once known him to appreciate a metaphor of mine, truth be told.)
It could be simpler than that anyhow, the reason we're neither of us up for this fight right now. Could just be that this place, these hours have made us want to be gentler with each other.
"We're wasting time," he says.
He looks down and seems mildly surprised that my cock is still in his hand. He picks up where he left off, and I kiss him, and we're back together. We lie down, me on top of him. I can feel his dick stiffening inside his boxers. When I look at his face between kisses his cheeks are flushed, his pupils huge when his heavy eyelids lift enough to reveal them; his lips bite-reddened. He looks over to the table where the lube is and I have to get off him to reach it, and when I do he turns away, curled on his side.
"Don't wanna look at me?" I say.
"I wanna do it like this. Like, spoons."
"Spoons. Okay."
I pump a big blob of lube into my hand then I lie against his back. He sticks his thumb into the waistband of his pants and wriggles them down to his thighs. I spend a minute softly massaging his perineum and his rim. He thumps his hand onto the mattress, bunches the throw in his fist. I suck where his shoulder meets his neck, suck till I can taste the iron in the blood beneath his skin.
I can tell he's ready by how he feels when I ease a finger inside him.
I manhandle him so he's face down, but he resists, elbows me away.
"No," he says, and he looks at me over his shoulder, pouting like I've confiscated his pick and mix.
"What?"
"Spoons."
"I know, spoons, yeah, only I can't get the..." Not force: force is the wrong word. "It's easier to get in if you're face down. Okay?" Especially when his thighs are bound together with those tight boxers banded around them: it's a challenge.
"Okay." He gets my point. He's a reasonable man.
"You're gonna stop moaning, yeah?"
"Thought you liked it when I moan." He laughs at his joke, and lies on his front as requested.
I straddle his legs and lift him up by his hips. I get a moan out of him – the right kind – when my cock breaches him and slides in. Then I roll with him, onto our sides – spoons – and as we're changing positions I almost slip out of him but his ring clenches and grabs me. My boy here has skills.
Of course when we lie like this I can hold him close to my body and also I can reach around and play with his dick. I don't know which of these was his motive for demanding it this way this time, but I give him some of each, and the sun is warm and there's a warmth between us, a tenderness.
"Are you imagining?" I breathe the words into his ear.
"Yeah."
"What? Tell me."
"All in me, like..."
I'm getting in deeper so he's got more to imagine.
"Tell me."
"Like... full up... Fuck... Oh... like... it's you, I've got you..."
"I've got you," I say, and I make him come, and his spasm empties me. Inside him I can feel my cum oozing around the head of my cock, and what I imagine is it'll infiltrate him so it's there – I'm there – in his bloodstream, pounding through his heart.
I laugh at the thought, out loud, at myself for thinking it.
"What?" he says. His head turns, his hair brushing my face.
"Nothing. You. You make me..."
"Mm?"
"Poetical. Or crazy or..."
He eases himself off my cock, turns round in my arms and looks at me like he's trying to figure out what the fuck I'm talking about; gives up and hugs himself closer to me, his face against my chest. I can feel where his stomach is sticky from when I wiped his cum onto it from my hand. I pull up his pants for him, and he breathes a laugh when I tuck his dick into them.
"I'm gonna have a bath before we go," he says when we've lain here long enough that the heat has dried the sweat on our skin. "I like that bath."
We lie a little longer though.
:::::::
We pack while the water fills this bath. He comes out of the bathroom with his wash bag bulging.
"Taking all the products, are you?" I say.
"Yeah. They're paid for, int they."
He gets one of the bottles out and empties it into the bath.
"What's that?"
"Oil. Smells nice. You getting in?"
I step into the bath and sit down, and he gets in and lowers himself carefully in front of me, leans his back against my chest.
"Don't go getting ideas about putting a bath in the bedroom at home, Steven. Ain't enough space for a start."
"I know." He twists round, smiling, for a kiss. "It's nice having this one though, just while we're here. Like, a treat."
"Lean forward."
He does as he's told and I sponge his back and his shoulders.
"Can you believe we were at home only yesterday morning? And this time yesterday we was at sports day."
"Yeah, seems a long time ago."
"It's funny. Feels like we've had a proper break, dun't it. And Brighton's gonna be the same, only for longer."
"Brighton won't be the same as this."
"What d'you mean?"
"Won't be like this. Won't be for us, y'know? It'll be for the kids."
"For us as well though."
"With the kids."
"We'll have time to ourselves, Brendan. Night time."
"Lads'll be up as late as us. Declan will anyways," I say, and he just shrugs and sighs, and I say, "What?"
"We'll just have to see, won't we Brendan."
:::::::
It's dead on one o'clock when we leave our room. He's ahead of me going out of the door and he stops and looks back past me into the room one last time like he wants to commit it to memory. Then we head to reception.
The girl there asks us if we've been happy with our stay.
"We've had an amazing time, an't we Bren?"
"What he says."
"Lovely," she says. "I hope you'll choose us again next time you're in Manchester."
"Yeah we will," says Steven.
By the time I've paid the bill my car has been driven round from wherever the valet car park is. We throw our bags in the back and get in.
"Alright?" I say to him.
He smiles at me.
"Yeah."
"Come on then. Let's get you home."
The traffic is heavy in the centre of town but we work our way through it.
"Can we stop and get me shopping for tonight on the way? Save me going out again."
"Yeah. Where d'you wanna go?"
"I thought we could go to that market, you know the one where we went the other week when we picked up the kids? Cos it's right next to that supermarket, innit, the one where Angela works, so I thought we could go in there, see if she's at work today."
My stomach does a flip.
"Why? Why d'you wanna do that?"
"It's on our way more or less."
"No, I mean why d'you wanna see if she's working? I thought you didn't want to have anything to do with them. Her."
"I don't. I just thought if I see her I can tell her that I don't want Terry knowing where I am. Cos when I saw her before I was so surprised, weren't I, I just didn't think properly. I wish I hadn't told her where I work for a start. I mean, I don't think she would'a said anything to him cos she knows what he was like with me – that's if she still talks to him – but I wanna make sure. You don't mind do you? We'll be there in a minute."
"You don't think you're just gonna get her more interested if you go looking for her?"
"I don't know. I just wanna tell her not to tell him though. If she's even there."
"Okay, okay."
It's not okay. There's something in my head, some things, jumbled, coming or coming back. Déjà vu is it? A home town. Childhood places revisited, recounted. A turning point. A hotel bed. Bliss. A name promising trouble: Walker. A heading home. A father, long gone but returned. An ending.
"You've missed the turning, Bren. You'll have to go round again."
I do what he says. If he's going to talk to this Angela then maybe she'll say something that will give me a clue how to handle this, because it can't be the same ending, not when I've got more to lose than I've ever had. Not when we both have.
:::::::
He's picked up what he wanted from the market stalls and now we're in the shop.
"Needle in a haystack," I say, because it's a big place and we don't even know what her job is.
"I could ask someone I s'pose."
He tries asking a couple of people stacking shelves but they don't know who he's talking about.
We're getting some shopping and while we're doing it we're both keeping an eye out but there's no sign of Steven's stepsister, until we're heading for the checkouts and he says, "Is that her? Yeah it is."
We join the queue at her till.
She's on autopilot, doesn't look up until Steven says, like he's surprised, "Hiya. Didn't know if you was working today."
She smiles when she sees that it's him.
"Alright, Ste? Didn't know if you'd be round this way again. Live down Chester way still, you said?"
"Yeah. Just getting stuff for work." They both look at the stuff we're buying, and it's all things he could easily get nearer home, so he says, "Had to see a supplier in Manchester, and this is on the way back."
"You got a minute? I'm due me break anyway, I'll just..." She gets a sign out from under her till – Checkout closed – and says to me, "Will you put that after yours please, love?"
I put it behind our shopping on the belt so no one else will join the line behind me.
"Yeah, can't stop long," Steven says, "But yeah, okay."
She's scanning the shopping then she registers that it's not two separate loads.
"This all together?" she says, and then she looks at me properly for the first time. "Oh yeah, you're his boss aren't you? I remember, you was with him before."
"Me boss, yeah," says Steven.
Then Angela says to me, kind of flirty, "He's not gonna get in trouble is he, stopping for a chat?"
"This is me sort'a... me stepsister."
"Pleasure's all mine," I say.
When we've paid and bagged the shopping, Angela says, "Okay if we go outside? Just the car park, only I'm dying for a fag."
We follow her out and walk away from the store over to where the recycling bins are. It looks like it's the customary place for smokers to take their breaks.
"So," Steven says, "How's things then, Ange?"
"Want one?" She offers her cigarettes to him then to me; we both shake our heads. "Yeah, not bad. Moved back in at me mum's now, me and me fella, cos she finally got rid of her bloke, thank god."
"Terry?"
"What? No, course not. She never let him come back after he went off with your mum, did she. Might as well of, though, cos her other boyfriends were just as bad. That's why we've moved back in, we're gonna try and stop her picking another one. Sorry, is it okay going on about this in front of..?"
"It's fine, yeah, we're mates an' all."
"That's nice, being mates with your boss."
"So do you ever, like, hear from Terry nowadays or..?"
"Yeah. Well, now and again. He's not lived round here for years, see, he's Birmingham way now. Got a wife down there."
"Kids?" I say.
"No. Well, not kids kids. She's got grown up ones, live with their dad. No, he's only got me and our Ste. Far as I know anyway – wouldn't put it past him."
"Working, is he?" I say, and I wish Steven was asking these questions because they would seem less weird to her coming from him.
"Driving, yeah. Man and van sort'a thing."
"Not drinking now, then?" says Steven.
"Just like, normal drinking I think. Social drinking, like. Yeah, his missus sorted him out, seems like, cos he's not been on the scrounge so much lately. My mum reckons it's because when he's skint he can't afford the petrol to come up here with his hand out, mind, so I dunno, she's probably right."
"I was gonna say," Steven says, "You won't say anything to him, will you, about seeing me? If you do talk to him, like. Cos I've got me own life now, and I don't want him, y'know... Cos you know what he was like."
"Course, yeah. No, I won't say anything."
I don't think Steven will have seen it, but I did because I was alert for it: a flicker – Oh shit – before she masked it and lied. She'll try to fix it I bet. She's not a bad woman, I don't think, so she'll call her dad and tell him he'd better not go looking for Steven where she's told him he works. She'll tell him to leave him be.
Maybe he'll even listen.
:::::::
We're on the outskirts of Chester now, getting close to home. The conversation with Angela has put Steven's mind at rest and he's relaxed, talkative, and he's got his shades on – we both have – and we've got the windows wound down because he likes the breeze better than the air-con.
"See that bloke?" he says.
"What bloke?"
"You missed him now. Builder bloke."
"What about him?"
"Had a muscle vest on, didn't he."
"So?"
"It looked nice."
"He looked nice?"
"It did, you muppet. The vest. I told you, right, it would suit you, one of them. You know, for on holiday."
"Yeah you told me. Yeah, course I'm gonna walk around in a muscle vest, in Brighton, carrying a ghetto blaster with I Will Survive blaring out of it. Course I am."
"What's a ghetto blaster?"
Jesus.
"I ain't wearing a muscle vest."
"I might buy you one anyway so you can try it. You might like it when it's on."
"You'll be wasting your money."
"You can try it on, and if you don't like it, I'll have it."
"You ain't got any muscles though, so."
"Yeah I have."
"I wasn't counting your ssssphincter."
He laughs.
"Have you seen the weight of me pans at work though? I couldn't lift them, could I, if I didn't have no muscles. They just don't show."
"You're stronger than you look, I'll give you that."
"I thought you liked me looking skinny anyway."
I pull up at a red light.
"I love you looking skinny." I give his thigh a squeeze. "Okay?"
"Me sphincter might be wanting a coupl'a nights off after these last coupl'a days, by the way. Just so you know."
"Yeah? You okay?"
"Don't look so worried." He laughs again, that braying laugh of his. "I'll be fine, just keep doing me pelvic floor exercises and I'll be ready for you."
"Your what?"
"Pelvic floor exercises. It's what Amy had to do after our Lucas was born. Like, clenching her whatsit so it, like, tightened up again."
"Jesus, can you not?"
"I mean, I ain't got a whatsit, obviously, but it's the same except with me... And it's good cos you can do it anywhere, the exercising. Like for instance, while I'm cooking, I can be, you know..."
"While you're cooking?"
"Yeah. Anywhere. I'm even doing it now."
The lights go green.
I stall the car: "Fuck."
Again that laugh.
I get the car going, glance at him and he's looking straight ahead, but he knows I'm looking at him. I can tell from the way he's trying not to smile.
:::::::
We park up outside our building and get out of the car. He stretches.
I open the boot.
"Okay to leave your supplies in here till we go to work?"
"Yeah, should be fine."
We get our bags out and the bag of our own shopping, and we go inside and up the stairs.
We'd left the blinds tilted to keep the sun out, so feels cooler inside the flat than it felt outside. We dump the bags on the floor and I go and pull up the blind over the door to the balcony and open it to let in some air.
"Home sweet home," says Steven. "What d'you want, tea or coffee?"
"Coffee. Gotta be awake at work, ain't we."
"True. You get it started, then, and I'll put the shopping away. Better put a wash on an' all."
We fall into silence and routine. I put the coffee maker on, he empties the carrier bag out onto the worktop; we both dig out our dirty washing from our bags and throw it in the washing machine. Unpack whatever's left in our holdalls. Plug our phones in to charge. Pull the covers back for the bed to air.
"We got bread?" I say when we go back to the kitchen. "We got bread. Make us a sandwich, will I?"
I find some cheese in the fridge and whatever, make a stack of sandwiches while he's tidying up. Pile them onto a plate and take it out onto the balcony and set it down on the wee table. He brings the coffees and we sit.
"Need our shades," he says. "Can't be arsed to go back in and get them though."
"When did you get these?" The mugs we're using are from the hotel with their art deco-style logo.
"Packed them when we packed."
"They're available to buy, Steven. They had a price list on the door of the wardrobe."
"Didn't see." He shrugs, and drinks from his stolen cup.
"There's those pickles in some of the sandwiches, by the way."
"Them ones I can't stand?"
"Yeah."
"Which is which?"
"Dunno, Steven. You'll have to look inside, unless you fancy Russian rouletting it."
"Don't think so." He checks a sandwich for safety then sits and eats it; he's quiet for a while – we both are – and then he says, "Two weeks today."
"Mm?"
"This time in two weeks Declan and Paddy get here, don't they."
"Is it?"
"And two weeks and two days, the holiday starts. Sixteen days from now."
"Good if the weather's like this. Kids'll be happy, outdoors all the time."
"I wouldn't even care if it rained." He's silent again for a minute, then, "Feels funny going back to work tonight."
"Don't you wanna go?"
"Do you?"
"It's alright, yeah," I say. "I don't mind going, y'know, now you're working there too."
I expect a bit of cheek, some remark, being told I'm soft.
"Same," is all he says.