For CazB

Face to Face

Part 45

He'd expected Aaron to angrily defend his mother; he might have only half an hour since called her all the names under the sun himself but that didn't mean anyone else could. But Aaron had just turned around and made his way back upstairs, and after giving his mum a withering look he'd hurried after him. He'd found his boyfriend sitting on their bed, head bowed, a dejected air about him, obviously hurt by what he'd just heard. He knew his mum would want to apologise in person but in the meantime, "I'm sorry, she shouldn't have said those things ..."

"You don't have to apologise for her Jackson, she didn't say anything I haven't thought or said to my mam to her face."

He knew he should be relieved by Aaron's calmer than calm reaction but he wasn't, it worried him, "Are you ok..."

"You expected me to lose it with her didn't you?" Any other time he probably would have done, but there just wasn't any fight left in him.

He eased himself down beside Aaron capturing his hand in his own before saying, "I expected you to be angry; you had every right to be. If anyone had said that about her I'd..."

"I'm just..." He was suddenly desperate to explain, he wanted Jackson to know what he was feeling right now, he needed him to help him understand the strange aching inside.

"Just what?"

"I don't know... I'm just... I'm just so fed up of it all, the rows, the upset, the bad feeling. All that with my dad, now my mam, Paddy... I don't want to fall out with your mum too... I want her to like me." It was important that she did, he didn't want anything coming between him and Jackson and he was scared Hazel might be the one thing that could.

"And she does, that's why she was sounding off, she cares about you."

"She's got no reason to." She hadn't, he was nothing to her.

Aaron really was on a downer, he'd known he'd end up deeply regretting his earlier outburst, he might have hurt Chas and Paddy with his verbal assault but he'd managed to hurt himself even more, he hated himself right now, was beating himself up, it hurt to see him like this, "She's got every reason to, she knows I love you."

"I bet she's asking herself why this morning!" She'd heard him mouth off, witnessed firsthand his notorious temper, she had to be wondering what the hell her son was doing shacked up with a head case like him. He'd lost control and not for the first time, and Hazel was well aware of that too.

"What you think she's never lost her temper or said things she didn't mean? Well believe me she has! Who hasn't? Aaron, it's Chas and Paddy she's disappointed in, not you. You she's just concerned about... and that's something you're going to have to get used to."

"Are you taking her back to the flat this morning?"

He hadn't been expecting that but he could understand Aaron wanting to put some distance between him and his mum after what had just happened, He was eager to remove her from the scene too, she really did care about Aaron and wouldn't think twice about letting her feelings known to Chas and to Paddy for that matter. It wasn't any of her business but she'd make it so, "Yeah, just as soon as she's ready..."

"I'll come with you."

That had taken him by surprise too but what had thrown him even more was Aaron getting to his feet to retrieve the holdall he kept on top of his wardrobe, which he then started to stuff with his clothes, "What you doing?"

"I'm not staying here... I'm moving in with you."

He was on his feet now, taking hold of Aaron by the forearms forcing him to look at him, "You need to sort things out with your mum, with Paddy."

"It's them that need to sort things out... their 'relationship' for starters. I don't want to be around them until they do."

He wasn't sure about this, but then there wasn't a healthy atmosphere here at the moment, not where Aaron was concerned anyway, and maybe Chas and Paddy could do with some space, some privacy to work out just what they meant to each other, if anything! "Alright, but you tell them that before we..."

The knock on their bedroom door had caused Jackson to stop mid sentence and him to shake his head, he was in no mood to talk to anyone other than his boyfriend. Jackson was determined he would though, saying the longer he left it the harder it would be. In the end he hadn't given him any choice he'd stepped over to the door and opened it.

His mam was standing there, fully dressed, make up and hair done, ready to take on the world...to fight her corner. Jackson gestured to her to come in and after giving him a reassuring look had disappeared out the door closing it behind him, leaving the two of them alone. He forced himself to make and maintain eye contact, just the encouragement his mother needed to start talking.

"It's not what you think..."

"What so you sneaking out of Paddy's bedroom at half five in the morning doesn't mean you regret sleeping with him?"

"I wasn't sneaking out I was going to the loo and no, I don't regret what happened between us...

"But you will, if not today then tomorrow. You don't care about him, not in that way."

"That's where you're wrong. Last night we... well we... we had a good time, and I realised there was still something there, that I did have feelings for Paddy. When we came back here we talked, really talked and we decided to give things another go..."

"No!" As much as he might like to have believed that he didn't, not for one minute. His mother was on the rebound, she wasn't thinking clearly, and Paddy was just clinging to a dream... one that would eventually turn into a nightmare yet again.

"Aaron..."

"I don't want to hear it" He didn't want to witness the madness either, so he snatched up his bag and made for the door.

"Where're you going?"

"I'm moving in with Jackson, you and Paddy can do what you like, I don't care anymore!"

TBC