Chapter 11 #2
She comes along with me happily, chattering about school and friends.
She’s a lovely little girl, smart and happy, and I let her chatter fill my head so I don’t have to think about where Niall had gone this morning.
My first thought is work, but he’s never raced off like that before.
He loves morning sex, so it’s a fact that he’s always slow to leave the bed.
Molly dances off to tunnel her way through the fallen leaves.
Her boots make a crackly noise in the red and gold carpet and I smile at her as she throws handfuls into the air.
The morning is crisp and cold with a watery pale gold sun trying valiantly to hold the frosty chill back a bit longer.
My breaths make clouds in the air and I inhale the scent of the woods –earth and leaves and a cold autumn smell.
It improves my mood so that I’m smiling when I emerge out of the wood ahead of Molly and stand on the drive in front of Niall’s house. I’m acutely aware of that smile dropping from my face as I stand and look up at the figures of Niall and Gideon on the balcony that runs off Niall’s bedroom.
Gideon is barefoot and in pyjama pants and a black t-shirt and Niall is in just a pair of shorts with wet hair. They’re holding cups of coffee and standing very close to each other laughing. I stare up at them, feeling like I’ve been punched in the throat. Then I turn and wheel back the way I came.
Niall
I stand on the balcony of the house, sipping coffee and watching the leaves flutter down from the trees and onto the gravelled drive.
It’s a very cold morning with the mist still clinging to the branches of the trees, but I feel a smile on my face that has nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the man I left this morning burrowed under the covers like a very small mole seeking shelter.
I hear a step behind me and when I turn, Gideon is standing there.
His eyes are still hazy with sleep but the coffee he’s sipping is rapidly clearing away the cobwebs.
My smile falters slightly and I immediately bolster it, but the quirk to his lips tells me I didn’t cover it enough.
However, staying true to his enigmatic personality, he just smiles and comes to stand next to me.
He looks over at my wet hair. “Is it safe to stand so close?”
“Fuck off,” I say companionably and nudge him with my shoulder. “I slipped. It’s not my fault a fucking fox had decided to shit in the place I chose to land.”
He laughs. “It was rather rancid.”
“No more than that twink you picked up a few months ago. His aftershave smelt like someone had died and they’d bottled the body odour.”
He shakes his head. “And yet you still managed to fuck him.”
“My nasal cavities might have died but my bodily urges still worked.”
He looks at me searchingly. “Unlike now. What a difference a few months make.”
I stare back. “So, we’re going to talk about the elephant in the room, then?”
He takes a sip of his coffee, his face calm and pensive. “Not sure Milo could ever be described as an elephant, although he was a very rowdy toddler, if I remember rightly.”
“He was a noisy bugger,” I say, smiling at the thought of him rampaging through the house when I’d visited, holding my hand and always talking, talking. My smile dies as I remember the fact that this had vanished after his head injury and I’m actually fucking the adult version of that boy.
Gideon shoots me a look as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking, which wouldn’t surprise me at all.
At one point we were so close we could echo each other’s thoughts.
I frown because at one point I’d thought myself in love with him, and that delusion had allowed us to fuck each other and other people through many hedonistic years.
Now, I know it was never love, although I shy immediately away from why I’m so sure.
His voice interrupts my thoughts. “How long?”
“A week.” I look at him but he just nods. Then his mouth pulls tight.
“Is this just fucking?”
“No,” I say hurriedly and forcefully. “No, of course it’s fucking not.”
He sighs. “Part of me is happy about that because he’s my brother but the other half …”
His voice falls away and I look at him. “The other half, what?”
He shakes his head and I know he won’t tell me. Finally, he sighs. “It seems strange and yet somehow inevitable.”
I’m startled. “ Inevitable . Why?”
“Because you’ve always been so protective of him when you’re not like that with anyone else.” He hesitates. “You weren’t like that with me.”
“Because we never let our relationship develop like that.” I shrug. “Maybe it would have if we’d fed and watered it, but we didn’t and it died.”
He winces. “And Milo is different?”
“Milo has always been different.”
He shrugs and then suddenly laughs. “You can say that again. Do you remember his habit of stripping his clothes off when he was five? He used to walk everywhere naked, apart from a little plastic builder’s hat.”
“He’s always made odd sartorial choices,” I say, and he laughs again. It’s only a slight turn of my head that lets me see the flash of Milo’s red jumper on the drive before he whirls around and vanishes back into the woods. I look at Gideon and myself and wince. “Fuck!”
“Was that Milo?”
I nod.
He looks almost amused and it makes me want to punch him. “So, he must think that we …?” I nod and he laughs. “Well, we still could.”
I pull away, stung. “I spill my heart out and you joke.”
His arm shoots out and he grabs me. “Your heart.” He sounds almost winded. “Your heart, Niall?”
I look at him. “I think I’m falling for him,” I say steadily. “I know that might worry you, but I can’t help it.” I pause. “You don’t look surprised.”
He looks thoughtful. “Some part of me isn’t. Maybe I’ve always known that the wind would blow this way.”
“Are you worried?”
He shakes his head slowly. “No. I think you’ve kept him safe all these years.
That’s why I sent you to him when the Thomas situation got out of control.
I knew you’d protect him and watch over him.
I just didn’t know it would be until he was ready for you.
” He shakes his head and raises his hand to cup my cheek.
“I knew someone would take you away from me because you wouldn’t be happy with what I offered for forever. ”
I jerk my head back. It feels wrong for him to touch me.
An almost cruel look crosses his face. “Yes, it’s awkward to know how each brother fucks, isn’t it? It’s some men’s dream, but it won’t be Milo’s.”
“I’m sorry,” I say slowly. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
He draws back. “You haven’t hurt me. You’ve just finally seen that all those times you looked at me you should have been looking beyond me at who was waiting for you to notice him.”
“Is this going to cause a problem between you and Milo?”
He shakes his head thoughtfully. “No.” He shoots me a suddenly spiteful glance. “It’s got to last a while for it to maybe become a problem. You’ll grow bored in the end of pedestrian sex with the same person and when you’re finished with it, come and look for me. I’ll be waiting.”
“You and Jacinta?”
He shrugs. “Who cares. It will always be me, anyway. That’s the way it’s always been with us.”
I catch an edge of desperation in his voice and it stops the angry words from flowing out about how the sex with Milo is beyond anything I’ve ever done.
Transcending the tawdry with shine and soft beauty and feelings that run through to the depths of me like I’ve tapped a previously unknown lake.
I can’t say that to him, no matter how he behaves, because a part of me will always care for him.
It’s just not the rest of me, which yearns for Milo.
“I have to go,” I say abruptly. “Don’t play games, Gideon. It doesn’t become you and if you hurt him, you’ll have to come through me first.”
“Threats before breakfast,” he muses casually. “How very Dynasty .”
I break away, desperate to get to Milo and explain, shoving Gideon’s last expression away to examine later. The banked anger in his face which had glowed clearly for a second.
Milo
I hear him before I see him. Pounding footsteps echoing along the path.
Molly looks up. “Ooh, is it a monster?” She seems more happy than bothered.
I shake my head. “Not recognisably.”
She opens her mouth with a question on her lips but at that point, a now fully dressed Niall crashes through a bush and lands in front of us.
“Niall!” Molly squeals with delight, displaying no consternation that he’s just barged through some shrubbery.
“Molly.” He smiles at her but it dies as he looks between the two of us.
“I’m watching her for an hour for Mrs. Granger,” I say curtly. “I thought I’d work on the pictures until I realised that the revolving door on your bedroom might make that slightly awkward.”
“Does your door turn around?” Molly asks, immediately interested. “I wish mine did that, Niall.”
“No, I erm,” Niall falters and Molly loses interest, preferring to stride over to grab a loose branch so she can knock seven barrels out of a pile of leaves.
I watch her while trying not to look at Niall.
I know it’s childish, but I can’t escape the thought of him and Gideon standing so close together and laughing when he’d left my bed to go to him.
“Milo,” Niall says in a low voice. “Nothing happened.”
I force myself to look at him. “Well, you w-would say that, w-wouldn’t you.”
I close my eyes at the stammer and the stricken look on his face when he hears it as if I’ve punched him.
“Sweetheart, look at me.” His voice is firm, and my eyes fly open and I take an automatic step back when I find him directly in front of me. It’s nothing but an instinctive gesture born of my time with Thomas, but he flinches as if I’ve hit him. “ Milo ,” he says beseechingly.
I immediately shake my head and step into him. “That wasn’t you,” I say, breathing in between the words when it feels like they might get twisted. “Never you. You were just so close and it was automatic to move back.”
He shuts his eyes and breathes out slowly. “Okay. That’s good, right?” My lip twitches and he shakes his head. “Ignore me. I’m babbling. Come back to the house with me,” he says suddenly and passionately. “You didn’t interrupt anything.”
“So why were you gone so early?” I wince at the note of whiny complaint.
“Baby, you were fast asleep. I woke you and told you I had to be out by the lake today and you actually spoke to me.” He shrugs.
“It was a bit like I’d imagine it would be to talk to Jason Voorhees if he too were a cover stealer, but I was sure you were listening.
I’ll learn, I suppose.” He smiles tentatively at me.
“I slipped while I was down there and fell in some fox shit, so I came back to shower and change. Gideon had only just come out when you saw us. He was barely more awake than you.” He pauses.
“Do you believe me?” he asks in a low voice.
“Why is that important?”
“Do you believe me?” he repeats stubbornly.
I consider him and then nod slowly. “I do.”
He sags slightly and grabs my arm. “So, come back to the house, have some breakfast with me.” He pauses. “And maybe have a conversation with your brother because I’m getting tired of being the registered talker around here at the moment.”
I smile, feeling sunshine wash across my heart despite the fact that I have an awkward conversation looming over me. “Okay. We’ll follow you there.”
“Thank you,” he says, grabbing my hand.
Molly comes up to us. “Are you Milo’s boyfriend then, Niall?”
He looks at me and smiles. “I think maybe I could be,” he says almost challengingly. My hand jerks in his in complete shock but he holds tight.
Molly shrugs. “I don’t think I’d like a boyfriend. Ginny at school has one. He’s called Simon and he smells. I think I might like a girlfriend instead.”
“Would you?” Niall asks.
“Yes. They smell better, and my mum says girls should cook and clean. I don’t like doing that but surely another girl will. Then she can cook and clean for me while I go out and fight monsters.”
“I’m not sure that’s a very modern take on relationships,” I say doubtfully, but she looks at me almost pityingly.
“Milo, you’re very old. I don’t think you know about things like this.”
Niall’s laughter rings around the wood.