"Camping?" said Robert incredulously.
"It'll be fun!" laughed Adam, who was clearly enjoying Robert's reaction. Aaron was too, by the look of the broad grin on his face, as he and Adam exchanged amused glances. "You, Aaron, me, Vic, two tents – what could be better?"
Robert held up his palm, with each finger separated. "Count 'em," he said, "Five stars. That's what."
"They'll be millions of stars," said Aaron, "All you have to do is look up."
"Oh, ha ha," said Robert, grimacing at Aaron. But he couldn't help grinning back at the happy face opposite him. And he knew that he wouldn't be able to say no to anything Aaron asked him – not if it meant keeping that smile on Aaron's face. The curious thing about falling in love with Aaron when he was so miserable and anxious, during the trial, was that every day that they were happy felt like an unbelievable gift. And those days were the norm now, he was pleased to say. Just sitting here, in the backroom of the pub where once he'd have been turfed out instantly, felt so natural and right. It felt like home.
"C'mon lad," said Adam, "Vic is excited about it." It was the first time that Adam had called Robert 'lad', as Robert immediately realised. He didn't want to make a big deal about it, but it was wonderful to hear. Perhaps he was truly being accepted by the people that Aaron loved. Even Chas now called him 'love' occasionally, even if that was offset by the number of times she made smiling remarks about wishing he'd fall down a well or something.
But the look Aaron gave Robert then showed Robert that he hadn't been alone in noticing the 'lad'. Aaron looked so happy.
"Vic has always loved all sorts of horrendous things," said Robert.
"Like you!" said Aaron to Adam, elbowing him in the rubs.
"Stop it, you! You're supposed to be helping me convince Robert."
Aaron laughed and rolled his eyes, then pretended to get all serious.
"Go on, Suggers." He leant his head forward but kept his eyes locked on Robert, making a pretence of pleading. "Please? I'll owe you." And he winked at Robert.
"Enough of that, thanks!" Adam hit Aaron with the back of his hand – and Aaron did the same to Adam in response. Soon they were playfully smacking each other, while Robert looked on with a resigned grin. He didn't want to forget that 'owing' though. That would be worth keeping in the bank. Or maybe even in a tent.
"I leave the room for ten minutes and this is what happens!" squawked Victoria, coming into the room and slapping both Aaron and Adam on the back of their heads. They stopped and rubbed their heads, exaggerating how much she'd wounded them. "Have you persuaded him, then?"
"Are you really up for this, Vic?" said Robert.
"Are you kidding me? A tent in the middle of nowhere, baked beans over a bonfire, these idiots probably putting a tent together upside down – what's not to love?"
"Oi!" said Adam. "I've been camping loads of times."
"And how many times has the tent blown away?"
"That was one time!"
Victoria sighed, kissed Adam on the side of the face, rubbed Aaron's hair – getting a scowl in response – and headed back to the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway. "Well, you'll have to make your mind up soon, Rob, 'cos we're going in about half an hour. Mm'kay?" She flashed him a big sisterly smile, and vanished.
"Half an hour?!"
"I've packed you a bag," said Aaron, sounding a little bit guilty. Then he looked more intently at Robert. "I thought we could share underwear again."
"Ah, mate!" protested Adam, but Robert felt a thrill go through him. He loved that they could joke about this in front of their friends.
"Oh, fine," he relented. "But I'm not eating baked beans out of a saucepan for anybody."
"Hark at him," said Aaron, nodding towards Robert. "Too fancy for beans in a pan!" He leant over and put his hand on Robert's knee. "Seriously, though, Robert – thanks. It'll be fun, promise."
"Maybe there are worse things than sharing a tent with you. Now, go and pack the car, if we're going so soon."
Aaron patted him on the knee and got up to leave – stopping at the door to nod gratefully at Robert. He looked like he might be about to say something, but obviously decided against it. He nodded again, and Robert watched him leave with a big, wide-open smile."
When Aaron was safely out of earshot, Robert spoke in a lower voice to Adam. "Do you think it worked?"
"Yeah, mate," said Adam, "I don't think he had a clue this was all your idea."
Putting up tents was every bit as calamitous as they'd anticipated. Victoria and Adam kept breaking off to make out with each other, occasionally falling to the ground – supposedly because they'd tripped over tent pegs but, Aaron suspected, entirely deliberately. More than once they'd ended up under a collapsed canvas without any obvious intention of emerging.
He and Robert hasn't fared much better. Robert was holding the instructions that came with the tent, and every now and then would turn them upside down and try again. Aaron rested his chin on Robert's shoulder – which required standing on tip-toes – and looked at the diagrams.
"Can't we just wing it?" he asked, feeling his jaw press into Robert's shoulder with every syllable he spoke. He kept his hands in his pockets, but was pressing his upper body against Robert's back and feeling his warmth. It felt intimate without being inappropriate. Not that Vic and Adam seemed particularly bothered by boundaries right now.
"No, A, we can't just wing it," said Robert. He nodded towards the collapsed canvas. "Look how that's worked out for those idiots."
"Well, what's this?" Aaron pointed at one of the pictures, looping his arm under Robert's to do so.
"Erm…" Robert frowned, and turned the paper over again.
"It doesn't look like anything we've got."
"No."
There was a pause while Robert tried again to work out what was going on with the diagrams – and Aaron distracted him by kissing his neck, emboldened by Vic and Adam being immersed in green fabric.
"Well – "
"Yes, Suggers?"
"I've got an idea."
"Uhm-hm?"
Suddenly Robert screwed the instructions up into a ball. "Let's wing it!" he said.
And somehow, winging it had eventually worked. Though it certainly had not been speedy. It was getting dark before they were halfway through, and by the time the final tent peg had been knocked into the ground, and the final guy rope secured, it was almost completely dark. They were in a field, in the middle of nowhere, just the four of them. Their tents were a few metres apart – so as not to make any nocturnal adventures too noisy to the people in the other tent; nobody had mentioned that that was the reason, but Vic and Robert had exchanged a look that clearly said "I don't want to hear anything at all from your tent tonight" – and had marched their kit a few paces further away from each other.
Oddly exhausted, Aaron and Robert in fact hadn't done anything other than kiss for a while. It wasn't the most practical place for anything more, they realised – but snuggling together in separate sleeping bags was still unexpectedly enjoyable. Just feeling the warmth of each other, with the cold night sky outside, only a layer or two of canvas between them and the stars, was bliss. Neither of them were romantic people usually, but this felt special – like only they existed in the whole world.
Robert put his arm around Aaron, and Aaron settled in the crook of Robert's arm.
"I love you, Suggers," murmured Aaron – partly for the pleasure of being able to say it.
"And I love you, A," Robert murmured back. "So much."
Finally, love was something that meat happiness and warmth – not angst or uncertainty or distrust.
Aaron went to sleep, contentedly, with Robert seemingly on all sides of him.
But – two or three hours later, when Aaron woke up, he could instantly feel something was wrong. It was the temperature, perhaps. Where Robert's warm body had been, there was now only the coldness of the night air fighting its way through the canvas.
"Robert?" he said softly – though he obviously wasn't in the tent. Aaron rubbed his eyes, feeling a bit disorientated, shaking his head to wake himself up a bit. Then he realised something else that was wrong: it was clearly the middle of the night, but it was strangely light outside the tent. A flickering light.
Pulling on a hoody, Aaron struggled out of his sleeping bag. He wasn't quite panicking, but he wanted to make sure what was going on. And he wanted his Robert.
He unzipped the tent, and let his eyes get accustomed to the light outside. For somebody had lit a bonfire, which was dancing and crackling between the two tents. And standing next to it, he realised, was Adam and Vic – Adam's arm around Vic's shoulders, and a silly beam on Victoria's face. "Hi!" she mouthed, stretching her mouth into an even sillier grin. Adam made a thumbs-up sign with the arm that wasn't around Victoria.
Aaron looked away from them to the other side of the bonfire. And what he saw there made him catch his breath.
There was Robert. On one knee. A nervous look in his eyes and an equally nervous smile on his face. He was holding up an open box which had a chunky silver watch in it.
"I didn't think you'd want a ring," Robert said. "But I thought this would work instead."
"You haven't actually asked him, you idiot!" called Victoria.
"Dammit!" laughed Robert. "Yes – yes. Aaron Dingle – you're the best man I've ever met, and I love you more than – I dunno – more than – "
"Gilets?" suggested Adam.
"I knew I shouldn't have brought them!" said Robert. "I love you more than anything, A. Will you marry me? I mean, you'd better now, because I've ruined these trousers."
Laughing, crying, nodding, Aaron knelt down too, took Robert's face in his hands, and kissed him deeply. That was all the answer that Robert was able to get through Aaron's happy sobs, but it was all the answer he needed.