Chapter 10 #2
‘Exactly like Rory's cheerful commission. The dentist's waiting room.’ She grinned. ‘He showed me the yellow canvas. I thought it was a protest painting.’
‘It was a protest painting,’ Rory said. ‘A protest against cheerfulness.’
Patrick brought dessert. Treacle tart, golden, the pastry short and crumbling. He set it down without ceremony.
‘Patrick's treacle tart has been known to cause mystic experiences,’ Rory said.
‘It's just tart,’ Patrick said. He walked back to the kitchen. He knew how good the tart was. He had no intention of saying so.
Neil ate the tart. It was, in fact, an experience. The pastry dissolved. The filling was sweet and dark and slightly bitter at the edges, the treacle doing something complex with the lemon and the breadcrumbs that shouldn't have worked and did.
‘I want to live inside this tart,’ Neil said.
‘Everyone says that,’ Tess said. ‘Patrick once made it for a wedding and the bride cried.’
‘Tears of joy?’
‘Tears of pastry. She said it was the best thing she'd ever tasted and that included the groom.’
Kieran looked up from his phone. ‘Can we not talk about eating grooms at the dinner table?’
‘We're not talking about eating grooms. We're talking about treacle tart.’
‘The subtext was clear.’
Footsteps on the stairs. Small ones, steady, small, steady footsteps. Bedtime was negotiable.
Beth appeared, trailing pyjamas and righteous indignation about bedtime. She hugged ‘Uncle Rory’ with ferocious grip, like he was furniture. Then she turned to Neil.
‘Hello. I drew this.’ She held out a piece of paper. ‘It's an axolotl.’
Neil took it. A pink blob with four legs, a smile, and an elaborate crown of feathers around its head. He looked at it seriously, without condescension. ‘The gills are particularly good.’
‘Most people think they're ears. They're not ears. They're external gills. They breathe through them.’
‘How do you spell axolotl?’
‘A-X-O-L-O-T-L. It's Aztec. They're from Mexico. They're critically endangered.’ She said this last part with the gravity of someone reading a sentencing remark. ‘Humans did that.’
‘That's true.’
‘It's not acceptable.’ She studied him. ‘You know about axolotls?’
‘A bit. My son Freddie doesn't know about them yet.’
‘How old is Freddie?’
‘Five. Nearly six.’
‘He can come next time. I'll teach him. The most important thing is that axolotls can regrow their limbs. Their hearts. Even parts of their brains.’
‘That's remarkable.’
‘It's the most remarkable thing in nature. If something breaks, they just... grow it back.’ She said it simply. Like a fact that should comfort everyone. ‘I think that's what we should all be able to do.’
Kieran looked up from his phone. ‘She's been saying that to everyone for six months.’
‘BECAUSE IT'S TRUE.’
‘Both of you,’ Tess said. ‘Neil is a guest.’
Beth looked at Neil. Then at Rory. Then back at Neil.
‘Are you Uncle Rory's boyfriend?’
The table went still. Rory's wine glass paused mid-lift. Tess closed her eyes. Patrick continued eating.
Beth’s expression was neutral. Curious. Data collection.
‘Yes,’ Neil said. ‘I am.’
Before the internal committee could convene. Before the protocols and the distance. Beth had asked a direct question and he'd given a direct answer.
Beth nodded. ‘Good. He's been really grumpy.’ She retrieved her drawing and disappeared upstairs.
Tess closed her eyes. ‘I'm going to start charging admission.’
Rory was staring at Neil across the table. The wine glass still halfway up. The face stripped of the half-smile and the banter.
The word was out. Spoken in front of five people and a collie, and the collie was a witness and the collie had lifted its head and put it back down, which was the dog equivalent of acceptance.
‘Did you just...’ Rory started.
‘Apparently.’
‘In front of...’
‘Apparently.’
‘You said boyfriend.’
‘Beth asked a direct question. I gave a direct answer. It's what I teach my students to do.’
‘You teach your students about boyfriends?’
‘I teach my students about clarity. Clarity requires honesty. Honesty requires nerve.’
‘And you just had nerve.’
‘I just had nerve.’
Tess reached across and squeezed Neil's arm. Brief. Firm.
Patrick looked up from his potatoes. A direct, measuring look that lasted two seconds. Then: ‘More wine?’
‘Please.’
The drive back was quiet. Different quiet. The silence had changed shape. Easier now. Rory drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting between them on the gearbox. The headlights carved a tunnel through the dark country roads.
‘They liked you,’ Rory said.
‘They liked that I took the bread seriously.’
‘Beth asked if you were my boyfriend and you said yes.’ He was quiet for a beat. The car moved through the dark. Hedgerows silver in the headlights. ‘You said yes, Neil.’
‘I know.’
‘In front of people. Out loud. Without rehearsing or qualifying or adding a footnote.’
‘She asked a direct question. I gave a direct answer.’
‘You don't give direct answers. You give answers with caveats and subclauses and occasionally a bibliography. You said yes. To an eight-year-old. In a pub. Without hesitation.’
‘I'm as surprised as you are.’
‘Are you going to take it back?’
‘No.’
‘Even though you didn't plan it?’
‘Especially because I didn't plan it. Every time I plan something it comes out wrong. This came out right.’
Rory was quiet. His hands on the wheel. Then, low: ‘It did.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you know what that means? To me?’
Neil looked at the road. The hedgerows silver. The dark. ‘Tell me.’
‘It means you're braver than you think. It means the man who walks into my flat on Friday nights and barely looks at me in the eye at school on Monday mornings, that man just said yes in front of Tess and Patrick and Kieran and Beth and a collie and he didn't die.’
‘Beth said you'd been grumpy.’
‘Beth is right. I've been grumpy. Because you were hiding me. And tonight you stopped.’
‘Although,’ Neil said. ‘Boyfriend isn't quite the right word.’
Rory's hands clenched on the wheel.
‘It's not the right word because we're not sixteen.’ He spent his life choosing words.
He knew the weight of each one. ‘Boyfriend is what you say when you're holding hands at a school disco.
I'm thirty-three. You're thirty-two. There's a child in this.
We've got a mural and jobs and your brother's A-levels. We're grown men, Rory.’
‘And grown men say...’
‘Partner.’ He found the word and it fit. ‘If you agree... partner.’
The word held. The car moved. The effort of containment showed in his face.
‘Partner,’ he said. Eventually. Rough.
‘Partner fits better.’ Neil paused. ‘If you'd prefer boyfriend...’
‘I'd prefer partner.’ Low. Definite. ‘I'd very much prefer partner.’
‘Then partner.’
‘Say it again.’
‘You are my partner, Rory.’
Rory reached across the gearbox and took his hand. Held it. The grip was tight and the car moved through the dark, the word between them, heavier than boyfriend, thought about, chosen, and neither spoke because the word was doing the work.
He didn't let go.
At the flat, Kieran was out. Carol's. Text on Rory's phone: Staying over. DON'T WAIT UP.
The flat was quiet. Music low. Rory poured wine and set the glasses on the nightstand in his bedroom. The bed.
They undressed each other without hurry. Nothing like the frantic pulling of the sofa. Rory reached for Neil's jumper. Lifted it over his head. Set it on the chair. T-shirt next. Each piece removed was a small surrender Neil had stopped resisting.
Neil undid Rory's shirt buttons. One at a time. His fingers were steady. That was new. Tonight his fingers moved from collar to hem, choosing at each buttonhole. The shirt fell open. As he pushed it off Rory's shoulders, Rory shrugged it off and it dropped behind him.
Jeans next. They helped each other. The familiarity of four months meant the belts and buttons and zips happened without crisis. Boxers. Last.
They stood in the dim light of the bedroom, lamp on, curtains drawn. Naked and looking at each other.
Rory's skin was still faintly damp from the shower he'd taken when they got back. His hair was still wet at the ends, curling against his neck, and he smelt of soap and underneath it, skin and woodsmoke from the barn.
No rush. Neil's mouth found the collarbone, the scar he'd catalogued in the studio, the ring he'd learned to tug. Familiar territory now.
When he reached Rory's mouth again, the kiss carried the barn's wine and underneath, just Rory, the baseline taste he'd been learning since October.
They fell onto the bed. Rory pulled him down, hands on his hips, and the weight of Neil on top of him was still new enough to register.
The full-body press. Chest against chest. Cock against cock, both hard, both slick at the tips.
Rory's hips rolled once, grinding up, and the friction drew a sound out of Neil's throat that would have embarrassed him three months ago.
Rory's mouth at his ear. No apology, no performance.
'Fuck me.'
Rory's hand was already on Neil's arse, pulling him closer. His legs had opened, knees wide, making room. His body had already decided. His mouth was catching up.
Neil's stomach dropped. He'd thought about this for weeks. His browser history cleared twice.
'I've never... not this.'
'I know.' Rory's hand came to the side of his face. Thumb on his cheekbone. Green eyes, steady. Offering, not leading. 'I have. And I want you to.'
The drawer. Rory reached across the mattress and pulled it open. Condom. Lube. A bottle half-used, which meant Rory used it, which meant Rory's hands on his own body with this exact bottle, and Neil's cock twitched at the image before his brain could intervene.
Rory pressed the condom into his hand. Then the lube. Then lay back. Arms above his head. Patient. Wanting something specific and willing to wait for Neil to find his nerve.
Neil's hands were shaking again. First time in weeks. He opened the lube. The click of the cap was loud in the room.