Chapter 32 #2
I haven’t missed Marcus’s moods, that’s for sure, nor Stefan’s weak, gaslit responses to them.
Nor the five a.m. hiss of air brakes as the Tesco delivery driver uses Stefan’s quiet road as a cut through to drop off its morning supplies to the Tesco Express around the corner.
Now I come to think of it, I don’t miss the neighbour’s shite music, Stefan’s even more shite music, and tripping over Marcus’s padel racquet, either.
So, apart from checking in with my oldest mate each morning, which we still do through the medium of FaceTime anyway, what have I been missing?
A blank space occupies the spot in my mind where a long list should be.
Picking flaky pastry from my sweater, I absorb the familiar room.
A different version of me lived here. The oblivious young man, hell bent on living in the moment, every moment.
The one who danced and screwed and crawled home wrecked in last night’s party clothes but determined to go another round in a few hours.
The version of me who believed those golden, feckless days of youth would stretch into always.
That for as long as I had a PlayStation, Pringles, and Stefan—a living, breathing reminder of a problem-free youth—desperately zapping CGI soldiers alongside me, everything would stay the same.
Latterly, however, I’ll guiltily admit that I’ve hardly thought about him, our shared history, or any of this at all.
I’m not here this evening for a stroll through the past nor with a desire to relive it.
I’ve pitched up for the ugly crying, the bad Prosecco, and high-calorie comfort. I’ll always be here for those.
“Marcus was a walking red flag,” Stefan observes sadly.
“I know, sweetie. I believe I may have pointed that out, once or twice.”
“I didn’t listen.”
“I know.”
“The sex was good, though.” His maudlin, Prosecco-pissed gaze scans the room as if searching for reminders.
I hope I’m not fucking sitting on any. “We blew the roof off this place. I’m going to miss that the most. His dick was like,” Stefan demonstrates a dick shape with his hands, just in case I haven’t felt the shape of my own in the last few minutes, “and he had this little ridge and this really sensitive bit, you know? Just under here.” Stefan lets out a sniff, wet and rattly, as if he’s slurping soup through a straw.
It’s the sort of sniff only a best mate will tolerate.
“And now he’s feeding that to some fucking twenty-year-old student snack who isn’t going to appreciate it. Whereas I fucking worshipped it.”
He bursts into tears. “I love him,” he wails.
“I know,” I soothe.
“Even though he tore the corner off my One Direction poster signed by Zayn. I queued for nine hours in the rain outside Wembley Stadium for that. Marcus ripped it on purpose, and I still love him.”
“Love works in mysterious ways.” I sneak a peek at the time, not that I’ll leave until Stefan gets it all off his chest. Gerald will be home from work about now. It’s bin day– he’ll be wheeling out Mrs Gregson’s recycling alongside his own.
“He was a bastard,” Stefan cries.
“The biggest bastard,” I confirm. Book club starts in about an hour. I hope Gerald’s head’s in the right place for it.
“He said you tore it,” he sobs.
“I didn’t,” I assure him. “You can have mine.”
My knee jitters, worrying about Gerald. If he was here, he’d place his hand over it. His thumb would circumscribe little circles just above my tibial tubercle. He trims his fingernails every Sunday evening, using a little kit he stores under the bathroom washbasin in a black leather case.
I can’t get him out of my head, even here with Stefan, listening to his woes and comforting him.
Marcus’s fingernails were as ugly as his feet, gnawed down to the quick.
Even his cuticles had cuticles. Whereas Gerald’s fingernails are ten neat, broad squares.
When he saw me struggling two nights ago to accurately paint the nails on my dominant hand, Gerald sat cross-legged on the bed and painted them for me.
It’s a small, quiet detail about the man, yet it triggers a wild, terrifying, beautiful realisation. Something so clean and sharp I scarcely know what it means myself. My PlayStation controller slips from my hand with the shock of it.
I love him.
I love Gerald Mason.
I don’t simply like him, want to fuck him, or be his mate. I love him. And I didn’t tell him because, until I sat here contrasting him with wanker Marcus and Stefan’s place with our cosy home in Sutton Common, I never knew it myself.
My hand shakes as I pour more Prosecco into Stefan’s empty mug. Sometimes only sparkling vinegar hits the spot. I need some myself, what with my sudden epiphany.
“It’s Marcus’s loss, Stefan, and one day he’ll realise that.” I manage to sound normal. I love Gerald! I feel like screaming it from the top of my lungs.
“He will.”
“You’re so much more than a snack. Stefan Andrew Henderson is a whole fucking Heston Blumenthal, three-Michelin-star feast.”
So is Gerald Mason, and that gourmet dinner is all mine. As are his bed, his big hands, his big ears, and his flat.
“One which gave him food poisoning.”
“Yeah…okay, if that’s the analogy you want to run with. In which case, here’s hoping every toilet a desperate Marcus waddles to is occupied or closed for cleaning.”
Even though every morsel of me wants to run home to Gerald, I’ll stay here on this sofa for as long as Stefan needs.
He snivels a lot more, each sniffle punctuated by a dramatic inhale and a lip wobble as if he’s gearing up to cry again.
Not dissimilar to when he broke his wrist in two places climbing into a neighbour’s garden to retrieve our football.
“At least I’ve got you,” he says, tipping his snotty face up from my shoulder with a brave, soggy smile. “Marcus stole a lot from me, but he’ll never steal you.”
He thieved a pair of my pants is on the tip of my tongue, but even with your best friend, some truths are better left unsaid.
We reach the end of a game—I’ve let Stefan win for a change, but only because he’s upset and my head is full of lovesick mush. Putting the second-best console down, I finish off my Prosecco, in need of every drop for this conversation.
“Yeah…um…about that, Stef. Your text, telling me I could have my old room back.”
“I’ve been thinking we can swap the rooms around, if you like.” Christ, he sounds so hopeful. “I can put my work stuff in yours and you can move into the other one, with the bigger wardrobe.”
“Um…thank you? But I-I’m… I need to tell you something, Stefan. I don’t think I’m moving back in.” Talk about twisting the knife when a man’s already hit rock bottom, but now I’ve said it out loud it feels so right, down to my bones. “I’m staying in Sutton Common. With Gerald.”
The cheap fizz curdles in my belly as Stefan blinks slowly. “Sorry, did you say you were—“
“Yes. Staying in Sutton Common. With Gerald.”
Yep, still feels right. Every nerve in my soul is nodding in agreement.
Stefan makes a sound landing somewhere between a scoff and a snort as if I’d just suggested he swap this beloved, knackered sofa for a new one.
“I don’t know which of those two sounds worse.” Noisily, he blows his nose. “If it’s the rent, I said I’d lower it. Fuck, you don’t have to pay any at all for a few months, if it gets you on a better financial keel.”
“It’s not the money. It’s…Gerald. H-he and I are together. Well, I think we are—I hope we are. We haven’t actually discussed it yet.”
“What? Together together? You’re still fucking?”
I picture myself curled up in Gerald’s lap a few nights ago and him uncomplainingly pausing his tedious programme about China’s Bronze age.
I absolutely had to tell him right that minute about the cool new trick the boss showed me mid-operation for if ever I find myself struggling to wiggle a silicone stent around a ureteric stricture.
And how Gerald listened, patiently, then asked an intelligent question about biomarkers in renal disease. So much more than fucking.
“Yes and no. Though it started out like that. But…it isn’t casual.
At least, not for me, and I’m pretty sure not for Gerald either.
He doesn’t do casual. Although it’s taken weeks of him fucking me magnificently for me to realise that.
Even though, before we ever did anything, he specifically spelled out he didn’t do cheap sex and he didn’t do cheap people.
Honestly, Stef, he couldn’t have made it any clearer.
Yet I still didn’t put two and two together, even when we started spending every night together and shopping and cooking and talking and—”
I blow out a long breath. For a book smart guy, I’ve been so, so bloody slow on the uptake.
The clues were literally there; in all of Gerald’s words, his actions, his cooking, his fucking Geraldness.
Scattered in plain sight like a line of crumbs leading all the way to his big, big heart.
“We do everything couples who are serious about each other do,” I carry on.
“This is it, Stef. I’m in this, with him.
I have been for weeks; I’ve just been too fucking stupid to see it.
All these flats I’ve been viewing, all the lovely new housemates and great locations I’ve turned down, I thought it was because I was hoping Marcus would leave and you’d ask me to move back.
And he did, and you have done, and—I’m eternally grateful that you thought of me first and also that he’s gone, because even though it probably doesn’t feel that way at the moment, you can do so much fucking better than that pervy pant-sniffer.
” Could he ever. “But it wasn’t you and this flat at all, it was wanting to be with Gerald.
Probably for forever, if he’ll put up with me for that long.
” My fingers twisting in my lap, I offer up a silent prayer.
“And, when you’re okay, I need to go back to Sutton Common and tell him that.
Because, for a man who’s always got a hell of a lot to say, somehow, I’ve managed to not get around to telling him that.
I’ve been digging through shit for a jewel, Stef, and the jewel was there, sitting in my fucking palm all the time. ”
My spiralling verbal chaos peters out. Honestly, if I was paid by the word, I’d be buying my own flat, not negotiating rent on other people’s.
Stefan doesn’t move, so I can’t see his eyes, but I know him well enough to know he’s crying again.
The crawling feeling in my stomach I blamed on cheap fizz climbs up into my chest. I’m an absolute heel.
And yet, despite wanting to fold my best mate up into my arms and make everything right for him, I’m also overcome by a tidal wave of relief.
Because Stefan’s not the only one hurting.
In a cosy little flat in Sutton Common is another man I love who’s full of hurt, too, knowing I’m coming home later, but petrified it’s only to pack my bags.
But I can grieve this ending of an era and feel relieved, right?
I can support and love my oldest friend through his relationship breakup and also love Gerald more?
Just as I can be the sort of responsible thirty-year-old who goes out clubbing sometimes but takes his boyfriend with him?
Who puts some money aside into a savings account but also splurges on a cool new shirt he doesn’t need every once in a while?
Who rearranges dental appointments and his kitchen cupboards one day, but eats Coco Pops for dinner the next?
Neither of us say anything for a while. Stefan helps himself to more fizz, and I decline. In a few minutes, I’ll leave.
“You’ve been much happier since you moved out,” he says into the silence.
“Have I?”
“Yeah.” He side eyes me. “You fidget less.”
“I’m sleeping better. I think Gerald is… he’s really good for me, Stef. Sutton Common is… well, it’s Sutton Common, but I think maybe that’s good for me too. You should come and visit. Meet Gerald. I’m not saying you’ll love him straight away—he’s an acquired taste.”
“But you love him.”
“Yeah. And he loves me, I think. I’ve, like, got to check on that, but I’m pretty sure he does, and if he doesn’t then, trust me, I’ll be straight back here and taking that better bedroom for zero rent like you’ve just promised, and we’ll be downing a fuck tonne more of this shitty Prosecco.
But don’t move your stuff out just yet, ‘cos Sutton Common’s finest dog dancer—that’s a whole other fucking story—is also Sutton Common’s finest cook, comedian, optometrist and lover.
His cock is way better than Marcus’s, by the way, and bigger, and I’m not giving him up without a fight. ”