To the front of me and above me and to the sides all I can see is darkness, and I know it's behind me too because I can feel its creep at the back of my neck.
It's when I look down that there is something to see. And I have to: I have to look down. It's spotlit. A face, white, streaked with red. Its jaw dislocated, its mouth cavernous, black-tongued, toothless. It's fascinating.
And then I hear something, a sound in the darkness, and I look up and Steven is there. He's staring at me, his expression a silent scream of nausea and devastation, and I look down at the face again. It's a man. He's been disfigured in death. His blood drips from my hands. I've got to explain this to Steven but when I look up he's disappearing into the dark, and I shout out, Steven, no. Steven.
As I wake up I sit up. I touch the mattress beside me and it's cool; he must have been gone a while.
Last night – no, this morning – when we got home from the club, I took my turn in the bathroom and then I sat on the arm of the sofa waiting while he took his. I sat there for maybe twenty minutes then I listened at the door, and I could hear the shower still running, and I stood a while longer and then I went to bed. Then when he came into our bedroom I watched him in the early morning light as he put on pyjama bottoms and a T-shirt, using his towel to shield himself as he did it like a child getting changed on a beach. And when he came to bed he didn't climb over me but walked around the other side to his side and got in there.
"Long time in the shower," I said to him.
"I was cold. It warmed me up."
"Come here then."
"I'm okay. Warm enough now."
"Steven."
"Can we just go to sleep?"
"Okay. Yeah. Yeah, course." And then because I didn't dare wait for him to say it first in case he didn't, I said, "I love you."
He nodded and he said, "Yeah," and then he rolled away onto his side.
We both slept for a while at least, because I remember waking up and discovering that somehow in our sleep we'd got mixed up together in the middle of the bed as if it was any other night, and then I didn't move in case I woke him and he moved himself.
Unless I dreamt it. I doubt it though; I doubt I'd have a dream that we were lying so close together when my head is in the place it is.
And now his warmth has gone from the bed along with him, and I'm sitting up, and I look at the clock and it's after eleven.
Steven comes into the room. He's dressed, and he's carrying a mug of coffee. He puts it down on my bedside chest.
"Where's yours?" I say.
"It's outside." He thumbs in the direction of the kitchen. "I thought you shouted."
"I didn't shout. Why don't you fetch it, come back to bed, yeah?"
"I'm up now, aren't I. Anyway I've got to go out, got shopping to get for work."
"Okay, give me five minutes, I'll come with you."
"No, you're alright, it doesn't need both of us going. Alright if I take the car?"
"Yeah. But Steven – "
"Won't be long."
He hesitates momentarily in the doorway and says without looking at me, "Love you."
"Love you too," I say, but he's already gone.
:::::::
I'm kicking my heels waiting for him to get back. His Won't be long wasn't accurate.
I'm thinking maybe I'll go for a run, so I get changed and I'm going to leave him a note only it doesn't seem right somehow, writing in this notebook when we're like this, as if the book itself will be tainted. So I pick up my phone to text him instead, and it rings in my hand and it's my sister calling.
"Alright, Chez."
"Are you alright?" she says, and when I don't answer she says, "Are you on your own?"
"He's gone shopping."
"Has he? Oh, okay, that's good. Bren, I just wanted to say sorry again for my big mouth last night. Did you talk to him about it? Sort things out?"
"We talked about a lot'a things. Sort things out? I dunno."
"You will, though. Ste's not gonna hold it against you, is he. God love him, he's forgiven you for a lot worse than telling Walker about something in a moment of weakness, eh?"
"It wasn't just that though that we talked about."
"No? What..?"
"Are you on your own too?"
"Nate's working and I'm just back from dropping Cressida in town. What is it?"
"I told him... One thing led to another, and I wound up telling him everything."
"Everything? You mean..?" She means the butchery of Joel's stepdad.
"Yeah." I mean the butchery of Joel's stepdad and the screwing of Walker.
"How did he take it?"
"How you'd expect I guess. Disgusted."
There's a long pause, and then she says, "He'll come round. I mean, I did, so."
"I know." I remember the weeks when her coldness hollowed me out, and I wonder if he'd have been the same as her back then if he'd known what she knew, instead of being the only person on Earth I could turn to. "How did you do it, Chez? How did you get past seeing a thing like that?"
"I don't know. I still... No, I don't know. Everything was a nightmare, wasn't it? Nana dying, and wee Declan in hospital, and Lynsey's funeral... I don't know how any of us got through it all. I just had to look at it like that I suppose, y'know, like it was a nightmare, and you wake up and carry on. It wasn't easy."
"I'm sorry."
"But whatever you'd done, I knew you loved me, so I couldn't just walk away, could I?"
"I guess not."
"Look, d'you want me to have a word with Ste?"
"No."
"Because I've said enough to him already? I couldn't feel any worse than I do for dropping you in it, okay?"
"It's not about you."
"Sorry?"
"I said it's not down to you. Phoning him I mean, it's not down to you."
"What if he phones me?"
"Then you talk to him, if that's what he wants. If it's what he wants, then yeah."
"Okay. Hey, maybe it's a good thing in the long run, y'know?" She's trying her best, but she doesn't sound like she believes it herself. "Everything out in the open, no more nasty surprises."
"Yeah, maybe."
"There you go, then," she says, and when I don't respond she asks, "He really is just out shopping, Brendan? He hasn't..?"
"Left me? Wouldn't blame him if he did."
"But he hasn't."
"No."
"See, it'll blow over, you'll see. Anyway you're a Catholic so you can't get divorced."
I think she's attempting to make me laugh so I oblige her, "Ha, fair point."
"Although the church thinks you're still married to Eileen, and even if it didn't they wouldn't think you and Ste were a... I'm not really helping, am I?"
"Don't worry about it."
"Brendan? Seriously, are you alright, love? You sound like your heart's in your boots."
"You know me, sis, I'm – " I give up half way to lying, and I switch to the truth. "It's a mess, Chez. Everything was good, y'know? The holiday, all the kids, couldn'a gone better. Me and Steven, we were good, we were getting it right, we were – "
So close. The words stick in my throat and I swallow them unsaid.
"Oh, Bren. I don't know what to say. It's gonna be okay though, I promise. It's got to be, hasn't it? Yous two, you've gone through so much to be together so you're not gonna let something from the past – something that's over, that was already over when you got together before... before prison – you're not gonna let it bite you on the arse after all this time. And it's not like Ste didn't know what he was taking on with you. Come on. He loves you."
"Doesn't mean he can't get hurt. He felt safe. So there's... there's farther to fall."
"That's defeatist talk. Where's my big brother, hey? The one who used to pick me up after all my many, many romantic disasters when we were wee? You used to give me a hug and tell me I was better off without them."
"Yeah, Chez, that's not the situation here, so."
"Yeah. No. God no, I didn't mean that. I just meant, you've got to not give up. D'you know what I'd do if I was there with you right now? I'd give you the biggest hug, and a kick up the bum at the same time."
"Thanks for the warning."
She laughs then she says, "I miss you, Brendan."
"I miss you too. Listen, I better go, but thanks. Thanks for the pep talk."
"Just, chin up, okay? Love you. Bye for now."
"Love you too."
I finish typing my text to Steven: Going running. Won't be long. B. X
:::::::
The streets are too busy to run along at this time of day, the temptation to barge people out of my fucking way too fucking strong, so I take the shortest route to get off the pavements and into the park as fast as I can. Here I can run unimpeded, swerving on to the grass whenever the path is blocked by two-abreast pushchairs.
It's not a cold day but yet I don't feel like my muscles are getting warmed up. The sky is dull: I guess I let myself get used to running in the sunshine, so I feel its absence.
Anyhow the dull rhythm of my steps takes over and I'm free to think, and I think back. There was another time when he found out about a thing I'd done – found the body himself by some fluke, although it was Warren Fox who apprised him of the details – and the other thing Steven found out then was that I'd had another man before him that he didn't know about. That time it seemed to me the man that concerned him most was the one I'd fucked not the one I'd got rid of, and I wonder if this time it will be the same.
I try and work it out in my head. It hit him hard, hearing that I screwed Walker: I get a flashback to Steven vomiting over the sink in his kitchen at the club last night, and I almost stumble but then I lengthen my stride and run faster, harder. I tried to explain in the end, didn't I, and he listened, didn't he, when we'd worn ourselves out and finally sat down in the quiet after all the bombs had gone off. The truth, I told him, or as much of it as I dared. And then there was that thing he said: Walker had groomed me.
That's a thing to get my head around another day. For now all I want to do is figure out if it means it's different – if his way of looking at it makes it different for him – and if that's the case, is it the dead man that's the worse thing this time? Steven listened when I told him about how I was when I did what I did to that body, about how it fitted with the psychiatrist's word for the trick my mind had learned to get me through what I had to endure. He'll have known I was telling the truth because he's better nowadays at homing in on my lies than he used to be. It's just, understanding an explanation in his head is not the same thing as how his heart will take it, because in everything he does and everything he is, his heart is the main thing. It's the main thing, and it's already been bruised and bruised and bruised.
I don't know if I've run twice around the park now or three times, but this time when I come to the gate I go out of it. You can only run around in circles so many times.
:::::::
He's back. I know he's back because the car is back, and when I go up to the flat he's sat on the sofa.
"Alright?" I say. "Went for a run."
"I know. I got your text."
I unzip my phone from my pocket and there's a reply from him on it: OK x.
"I'm gonna take a shower. Then d'you wanna go out, Steven, get a bite to eat? Get the all day breakfast in the pub or something, or the cafe? Cos I ain't had breakfast. Ain't had lunch, come to that. Guessing you ain't either, so?"
"If you want."
"I'm asking if you want."
"Okay."
"Okay. I'm gonna..." And I go and shower.
:::::::
He's said no to the cafe and no to the pub, so in the end we've gone and got a McDonald's and wandered into the grounds of the Cathedral to eat it. We hang around beside a bench until the tourists sitting on it get the message and vacate it, then we sit down.
"You gonna eat that or just look at it?" I say when his carton has been open on his lap for long enough that I've finished mine, and he's only had two or three bites of his burger, tops.
"I'm not that hungry. You can have it if you want, here."
"You gotta eat, Steven, come on."
"I'll have something at work."
"At least drink your coffee."
He takes a sip and wrinkles his nose.
"Not very nice, is it," he says.
I try mine.
"Diabolical." I reach over the back of the bench with it and pour it away onto the gravel.
"That woman just give you a dirty look then."
"Knows a sinner when she sees one. Listen, Steven, I don't know what I can say about last night – or, I mean, about four years ago – that's gonna make it any better, but I want you to know that if I could – "
"Change it? But you can't, can you, Brendan. You did them things."
"I did, yeah. Yeah, you're right, but I'd already done them this time yesterday. Yeah? So I'm the same, we're the... I'm the same man as I was yesterday. The only difference is you know about it now."
He gets up and stalks away, throws his uneaten burger and undrunk coffee into a litter bin. When he doesn't come back I go after him.
"I'm not talking about this, not now," he says.
"I thought you liked talking."
He stops and looks round, back at the seat where we were sitting.
"You better put that rubbish in the bin. There's probably cameras or a warden bloke, and we don't want you getting arrested, do we." His eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second, unreadable.
I shake my head. "I don't know, Steven. Don't we?"
I go back to the bench and pick up my rubbish, and bury it in the bin.
:::::::
It's Maria's night off so I've been busy non-stop, but I've finally got away for five minutes in the office on my own with a large whiskey. I'm sitting with my elbows on the desk, the heels of my hands pressed against my closed eyes.
"Got some takings for the safe, boss." It's Georgiou, come into the room without me hearing.
"You knock before you come in, idiot."
"I did knock?"
I'm up and out from behind the desk and over to him.
"You arguing with me?"
"No. The music must be too loud, that's all, that's why you didn't hear me knock."
He looks shaken. I snatch the box of cash from him.
"Out. Now!"
:::::::
When it's getting close to Steven's usual time to go home I go to the kitchen.
"There's a sandwich there," he says.
"Thank you."
I walk towards him but he turns away; he takes off his apron and goes and puts it with the pile of used teatowels and whatever, casually as if doing that was the only reason he turned away.
"That's me done," he says.
"I'll walk you out."
I follow him out through the bar to the front entrance. One of the regular cabs is there outside, so I open its door for him. I incline my head and we get so we're cheek to cheek but without touching, for just long enough for us to say both at once, Love you.
:::::::
From the way all the staff are on eggshells during the clear-up, I guess word has got around about my mood. I send them home in the end and finish the job on my own.
:::::::
When I get home he's asleep.
:::::::
His head is heavy on my outstretched arm when I open my eyes in the morning. His features are relaxed into softness, and when a few minutes later he wakes up, his eyes are soft too for the seconds before he remembers.
"I'll do some coffee," he says as he slides away, and then when he comes back with mine he says before I can tell him to get back into bed, "Just putting a wash on. Nothing else of yours that's not out there already, is there?" and I shake my head and he goes again.
:::::::
We have cereal for breakfast: he hands me the milk; I get out the spoons and hand one to him. We say please and thank you, and we sit down together. We watch TV. There's a quiz show, and when either of us knows one of the answers we tell it to the television, and we say things to each other like, I didn't even know I knew that, and, I was gonna say that, and, How's anyone supposed to get that one right? And when it's time to get something to eat in the afternoon he cooks something up and when I tell him it's good he thanks me; and then Amy phones him and he leaves his food and goes out onto the balcony to talk to her. I finish eating and take the dishes away.
"It's raining a bit," he says when he comes back inside.
"I can't stand this, Steven."
"It's gonna dry up by tonight I reckon."
"This. I can't stand this."
"I'm being nice."
"I know, and it's... We're not 'nice', are we? We're not polite, we're not... not careful, we – "
"What d'you want, then, Brendan, eh? What? Would you rather I was screaming at you, would you? I'm doing me best here, after... But I'm tired, right, cos there's all this... this... going round in me head, and I can't... It's like I've been awake for days, and I know I haven't, but that's how I feel."
"Okay. I know, and I'm not after a row, that's not what I'm saying. I just want... How we are, how we usually are, y'know? Just easy between us. I can't stand how we ain't easy together, it's – "
"Me neither, Brendan, right. But this is the best I can do."
We stare at each other for a minute, and then I nod.
"So I'm gonna get changed, get into work early. Got paperwork needs doing."
"Okay," he says.
When I've put my suit on and I'm ready to go I find him on the sofa again, flicking through channels with the remote.
"I'm going now," I say.
"I'll see you at work then."
"Yeah. Steven, I know you're all talked out, but whenever you wanna talk I'm ready to hear it. Cos we gotta fix this."
He glances up at me, then back to the TV although I doubt he's even seeing it.
"I know," he says quietly.
"I love you."
"Love you too."
:::::::
It's the same as last night: I steer clear of the kitchen most of the night because there's no comfort for either of us in me being there, and then I catch him before he goes home and I put him in a cab.
I go back to the kitchen once he's gone because he's made up a plate of food for me again. I'm standing eating it at the counter, and Maria comes in.
"Refuelling," I say.
"Looks nice. Brendan, I hope you don't mind me asking – is everything okay?"
"What if I do mind you asking?"
I carry on eating, with my back to her.
"Only some of the staff, they're wondering if something's wrong."
"Georgiou been telling tales, has he?"
"No. I heard about it from one of the girls. They were just saying there was a bit of an atmosphere last night, and one of them said Georgiou had a bit of a run-in with you."
"A run-in? He'd know about it if we'd had a run-in, believe me."
"Well, whatever you like to call it, I don't think it's – "
I spin round to face her.
"You got nothing better to do than gossip with the staff now, Maria?"
"That's out of order. I'm sorry but it is." She's standing her ground, not afraid to make her voice heard over the music coming in through the walls. "All I'm saying is, they're worrying that there's a problem with the business, that Alastair's pulled the plug or something."
"What?"
"Well you've obviously got something on your mind and it must be serious because you weren't even like this over all that business with the newspaper. They're worried about their jobs, Brendan, and they've a right to know."
"It's nothing to do with the business, okay? It's... The club's fine, their jobs are safe, everything's just grand. Now, you gonna let me have five minutes' peace or..?"
"Right. Thank you," she says, and she leaves me alone.
:::::::
Next morning I'm up before him. I don't leave a note and I don't text. If he wakes up and is bothered where I've gone, he'll see my gym bag is missing from the hallway and work it out for himself.
:::::::
"You were out early," he says when I get back.
His hoodie is zipped right up to his neck.
"Nothing to stay in bed for. You going somewhere?"
"No."
"If you're cold, Steven, it's because you're gonna be cold if you ain't eating more than a coupl'a bites of anything."
"I'm not cold."
"You look cold." He looks cold because he's all zipped up and his sleeves are half covering his hands. And then I realise that the reason the sleeves are too long is because it's not his hoodie, it's mine.
He picks up a package from the coffee table.
"Postman came," he says. "Look. From Ireland."
"What is it?" I take it from him; it's a jiffy bag, and I read out who it's addressed to: "Princess Leah and Luke Skywalker."
It's Friday now, and for the first time since Tuesday I smile, and I look at Steven and for the first time since Tuesday he smiles back at me.
"Is it Declan's writing?" he says.
"Looks like it, yeah. Kids'll be made up."
"Do you know what it is?"
"No, they ain't said anything to me. You?"
"No. But yeah, Leah and Lucas will be happy whatever it is. Just being thought of, like."
"Yeah they will, yeah."
He takes it back from me and goes past me into the hallway and props it beside the front door. I frown at him.
"So I won't forget to take it," he says.
"They can see it when they get here, can't they. You ain't gotta take it to Amy's."
He looks evasive. My heartbeat shudders.
"I thought I'd take them to see me sisters tomorrow. No point coming here first, I'll just go straight there when I've picked them up cos it's less messing about, like."
"I'll come with you, then."
"You hate me sisters."
"If I can survive a two-and-a-half stretch I reckon I can survive a visit with your sisters."
"No, you're alright."
"What if I want the car tomorrow?"
"Do you?"
"I dunno. Maybe, yeah."
"Then I'll fetch the kids by train."
I shake my head. "What's this, punishing me? What you gonna do, not bring them home until after I've gone out to work, and then take them back to their mother before I get up Sunday morning? Jesus. You're really gonna do that."
He doesn't answer. He just looks at me for a moment, then he says, "Go and have your shower, Brendan. Then we'll talk."
:::::::
He's left space for me to sit in my usual place at one end of the sofa; when I sit down he moves a little so our knees miss touching by an inch.
There are two mugs of coffee on the coffee table. I take a sip of mine.
"It's good. Thank you."
"That's okay."
"I'm sorry I hurt you, Steven. I'm sorry I hurt you again. It's why I never told you before, about Walker. One of the reasons anyways."
"Maybe that's one of the reasons, yeah, you didn't wanna hurt me or you didn't want me to kick off. But d'you know what I think the biggest reason is? I think you was ashamed. I think cos you knew it was what I said it was. I know you said no it's not but I think you know it deep down. You know he groomed you."
"Can you stop saying – "
"I'm not saying you didn't know what you were doing, because you did. You can't do that – you can't actually put your thing inside someone without wanting to, can you, it's not..." He picks up his coffee, gulps it, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and then sits leaning forward with his arms folded on his knees so all I can see is his profile. "But once you found out it was, like, his plan all along, it must'a felt like... You must'a felt like he abused you, and it makes me so angry. I hate him. Hate him."
"Steven." I sit forward and touch his shoulder but he shakes me off.
"And I'm angry at me too for feeling like this. Cos it was mental, what he did, but I'm still thinking about you and him doing it, and kissing, and even if it weren't twisted and... and sick, yeah, I've still not got the right to be jealous, have I, cos it was none of my business who you was doing it with, cos you and me wasn't even together."
"You got nothing to be angry at yourself for. It's me, it's all down to me."
"Yeah well I'm angry at you too, don't worry."
"You just said you got why I didn't wanna tell you about him, so what's the point of still – ?"
"I'm not on about Walker. I'm talking about the other thing you did. Joel's dad, his dead body. I can't..."
"Is that why you wanna keep the kids away from me? Because you think if I can do that I can do anything, is that it? I tried to explain the other night, I – "
"Dis-something, you said."
"Dissociation."
"Yeah. You tried to explain but you've had four years to explain, Brendan, and you've not said anything for all this time. You should've told me, then I would've known."
"When? When should I have told you? When would'a been a good time to drop it into the conversation?"
"I don't know."
"See?"
"See, what I don't get is, Cheryl knew, she saw you doing that, and then three months later she was asking me if I still loved you and she was all happy when I went to Dublin instead of America."
"She knew it was separate, I guess, knew it had nothing to do with how I felt about you. D'you wish you hadn't?"
"Hadn't what?"
"Gone to Dublin."
"Don't be so stupid."
We're both slumped back now, ruminating.
"I guess Cheryl got tired of hating me," I say after a long silence. "More comforting to see me like she used to, just her big brother, y'know? See the good in me, or imagine it if there was none to see. Bury the rest."
"Must run in the family, burying things."
"I reckon it does, yeah. Listen, Steven, even if I had'a wanted to tell you about it, I wouldn'a known how. Okay so yeah, I buried it, because I didn't wanna remember it myself, never mind put it into words and have you think what you think of me now. Y'know, I wish I still hadn't told you, I wish you still didn't know, cos from where I'm sitting all it's done is hurt you. Hurt us."
"Well it's done now. And then you went and made it worse."
"What? What d'you mean?"
"What you said about me... me and the fire, when I left Louise in there. Why did you say that, Brendan? Cos you found out all that time ago and then what did you do? You saved it, yeah, for when you wanted to use it against me. That was horrible of you. It was, like... It was cruel."
"Yeah I saved it up, and d'you know why? Because I was scared. I thought... I hoped that if you ever found out I was even more of a monster than you already knew I was, it would be something to even things out. And I know it doesn't, but I used it anyhow because it was all I had. And yeah, it made things worse, because I fuck up. It's the one thing you can count on, that I'll fuck anything up, anything that's good or – "
"I didn't know Louise was even in there. I was just gonna burn the place, only she came out from in the back and she saw me, and I was trying to stop her from seeing me face, and I pushed her over and like, she hit her head, and I thought she was dead. There was blood, yeah, so that's why I left her. I didn't know she was still alive or I would'a dragged her out or something, but I just... I panicked, and I thought she was dead so I didn't think it would make any difference."
"You did what you had to do."
We look at each other.
"You're thinking I should've told you," he says. "You think I'm a hypocrite."
"I don't think anything, Steven. Guess Foxy's off your Christmas card list though, for filling me in."
"He was never on it, mate. What he did to you, getting you beat up in prison before. And what he was gonna do to Mitzeee, he was gonna kill her, weren't he?"
"I think so, yeah. I think he was gonna go through with it."
"I hate him."
"You hate a lot of people."
"Why did he tell you anyway?"
I shrug. "Scoring points? He knew it would get to me, telling me something about you that he knew and I didn't. Went for my weak spot – he always had a knack for that, old Foxy."
"But you think he's changed though, don't you? Otherwise you wouldn'a told Mitz it was safe to come back to England."
"He'll always be a sly fucker, but yeah, I believed him. He's ready to be a better man, whatever he's done in the past."
"Like you, is that what you mean?"
"You know I've changed."
"I know."
"They're always gonna be there, though, ain't they," I say, "The things you've found out."
"I can't just forget it."
"I know you can't, Steven, but – "
"I don't know how you've lived with it all inside you. Does it feel better now that it's not a secret any more?"
"Depends. Depends if it's gonna... If you can..."
"I've got to. Cos it's like..."
"What? Steven?"
"Nothing." He stands up. "Did you have anything before you went down the gym? D'you want some toast or something?"
I stand too.
"What were you gonna say, Steven? Tell me."
He shakes his head and I don't think he's going to talk, but then it's as if it's too much for him to hold in and it spills out of him.
"It's like when you used to hit me, Brendan. Right? It's like, it was you that hurt me, but it was you that could make me feel better. Only you."
We stare at each other for a moment, both of us shaken by the fucked-up truth of his words. And then I've got him in my arms and I'm saying to him, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
:::::::
First thing I do when Maria gets to work is, I tell her to come to the office with me.
I close the door.
"I shouldn'a talked to you like that, Maria. I apologise."
"Okay."
"It had nothing to do with you, or this club. It was down to me. I shouldn'a brought it to you."
"Or the staff."
"Or the staff. So, we're good, yeah? You can... I'm not much good at apologising, so..."
"So you'd like me to let them know you're..."
"Yeah."
"Will do."
"Maria?" I say as she turns to go. "Don't make it sound like I'm grovelling. Gotta think of my image, ain't I."
She smiles and she says, "Yes, boss," and I nod at her, Thank you.
:::::::
When I go in to the kitchen at the end of his shift, he's already done all his clearing up and he looks like he's been waiting for me, and he looks agitated.
He hops down from sitting on the island counter and comes towards me, stops a pace or two away.
"I've only just realised," he says. "What he made that Kevin do, it was because he knew, weren't it?"
I look round to make sure the door behind me has swung shut.
"What d'you mean, Steven?"
"Walker. He told that Kevin to say you sexually assaulted him because he knew what Seamus did to you. Walker knew it was the worst thing anybody could ever say about you, and that's why he made him say it."
"I think so, Steven, yeah." The music is pounding, and we're having to raise our voices to be heard above it, counter-intuitively for so furtive a conversation. "I should'a put two and two together. The things Kevin said before that, I should'a realised Walker was behind it."
"What things?"
"Told me a story, about how his uncle... It was that night, d'you remember, the night you and me baked bread together?"
"Course I remember."
"When he called me to fix some problem, the beer pump, whatever, and then he told me about getting... getting abused by his uncle. And I believed him, didn't listen to the voice in my head telling me this was too coincidental, too out of nowhere."
"Lying about something like that, it's sick."
"By the time I realised it was too late. They changed their plan, stopped trying to get him to split you and me up, went on to the accusation instead."
"I should've realised."
"How could you? You didn't know."
"I don't mean back then. I mean after, after I knew. I should've realised Walker must've known, that you must've told him. I must be stupid."
"No you're not. Could'a been plenty of reasons that he picked that kind of accusation. Could'a been, y'know, homophobia."
"But it wasn't."
"No."
"I hate him. I fucking hate him. Both of them, him and Kevin."
"I know."
"They didn't win, though, did they. Not in the end. Cos we're here, in't we, we're still..."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah we are."
:::::::
This time when I see him into his taxi, our cheeks touch when we say, Love you.
:::::::
The package has gone from beside the front door when I get home. I guess he's taken it down to the car ready for the morning.
There's warmth on my side of the mattress when I get into bed: he must have been lying here and only moved over when he heard me come in.
He doesn't turn his back. It's too dark to see if his eyes are open or closed but I don't think he's asleep, so I take a chance and say – whisper – "Alright?"
"Think it's gonna be nice tomorrow. Not raining." His words are soft at the edges from the closeness of sleep.
"Today, you mean. It's three o'clock in the morning."
"Today. And Sunday, gonna be nice. They'll be after ice creams."
"Taking them out, are you?"
"We'll go down the park, won't we? Like normal."
"Sisters cancelled on you?"
"I never asked them. I was gonna, but I never."
"So, the package from the lads..?"
"It's on the coffee table so they'll see it."
We lie for a while.
"Know what day it is tomorrow?" I say.
"Tomorrow? Or today? Cos it's three o'clock in the morning."
"Smart arse. Today."
"So it's Saturday."
"Thirteenth, it is."
"So what?" he says.
"So it's six years since... since Chez Chez opened."
"That was the day we... You remember the date?"
"Always remember the date, don't I, because only my sister would launch a new business on a Friday the thirteenth."
I think I jump when he kisses me: I feel his nose bump into mine on his way to me in the dark and then I feel his lips, and I breathe in sharply from relief maybe, I don't know, and then I kiss him back.
My arm is outside the cover and he's under it, so I pull it down a little so I can find some skin. His arm, velvety under my palm from shoulder to elbow; I touch it so lightly I'm almost not touching it, scared he'll change his mind if I try anything more emphatic. I feel him shiver.
Then I feel his knee push against both of mine and then slide in between them, and there's no doubting him now. I hook my leg over him and anchor him to me, and he strokes up the back of my thigh and squeezes my backside, and then his hand sweeps up my back and I feel his nails scratching there, but gently for a change. I kiss him, keep kissing him. I'm easing him onto his back and he's going with it, his head arching on the pillow, his throat exposed. There's two or three days' stubble on there, enough that when my teeth scrape it it feels as if it makes a noise inside my head.
I move down on the bed, push his loose vest up and kiss his bare belly. It's smooth under my tongue. I open my mouth wide and bite down on it, seal my lips to it and suck until the faint salt taste becomes metallic and I know a mark is being made. He's moaning, and where the flat of my hand is pressing down on the mound in his boxers I can feel his erection growing. I could stay like this but he's getting restless, writhing, and I move up and kiss his mouth again, and I say, "Are we gonna..?" and he nods and I kiss him again and move off him to find the lubricant.
He moves away a little, starts to sit up and I put my hand on his breastbone to push him down again but he shakes his head and I think, that's it, he's changed his mind, there's too much gone on for him to want this any time soon. But then he says, "No, you lie down."
I do what he says, and there's just enough light in the room that I can see that he's stripping off, so I get my boxers off and lie back, and then he straddles me, and then he waits for me to fumble a blob of lube out of the bottle. He hisses in a breath with the cold of it when it touches him, but it soon warms up between my fingers and him.
I take my time, try a tip of one finger inside his ring, then carry on stroking across it, then I slip two fingers into him so he starts properly with his noises, Ah. Ah.
"Feels okay does it?" I've remembered our lubeless fuck the other night, but if he's sore he's showing no signs of wanting to take it easy.
I stop touching him and start on myself. There's lube left on my hand and I get it onto my cock, and then his hand is on my shaft too and we're both working on it, and then I let go and let him carry on, and I'm glad he's ready because Jesus, I know I am. He shuffles himself forward and wrangles my cock in between his legs, and opens himself with it. His body feels greedy, silkily muscular around me. I lift my hands and he grips them, palms against palms, and he rides me till there's nothing left in my head, only him, only us.
