Chapter 27 #2
Neil shrugs. “Then I’ll bring a bunch of tissues along and lie in bed with you. I told you, rash whisperer. Totally in, for the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Sharing a tiramisu big enough to feed five, we talk about other things.
Him and Ezra had a positive meeting with a loans advisor at the bank this week and got the green light to go ahead.
The next step is another meeting with the architect and the project manager.
Then, early next year, it’s all systems go.
Neil’s super excited, though he’s doing his best to pretend he’s not.
“So Ezra’s not letting you wriggle out of it, then,” I tease.
“Oh my god, no.” Neil rolls his eyes. “Earth is going to be the most visually impaired-friendly club and restaurant in London. Maybe in Europe. You know what he’s like when he’s got his teeth into something. If Ez says it will happen, it will happen.”
We order coffees and settle the bill. It’s getting late; only a handful of customers remain. Neil, chin resting on his palm, watches me.
“What. Have I dribbled tiramisu on my top?”
“Nope.” His lips quirk. “Just enjoying you looking and sounding so great.” He ducks his head. “And thinking how much I want to kiss you when we get home.”
Back at Neil’s, first, he gives me a one-armed crushing hug, tight enough to press the breath out of me. Nothing about it is gentle and fragile. “Missed you,” he says, muffled somewhere between my shoulder and my cheek.
Our hug lasts far too long to stay innocent.
Gradually, Neil’s hand strays from the safe places, his fingers slipping lower along the ridges of my spine.
When I shift closer, my own hands moving up to his hair, he makes a soft appreciative sound.
His lips find the curve of my neck; then his nose brushes my ear, my cheek, my jaw.
For a second, we share the same breath, his heart thumping loudly against mine.
“Thanks for coming on a date with me,” he whispers. “We should do it again sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
Slow and hungry, our mouths meet. Desire pools in my gut as my fingers fumble with the hem of his shirt.
I need the warmth of his skin under my palms. I want that nipple piercing under my tongue.
The kiss heats up. If we were in a movie, I’d rip off his shirt without our mouths parting.
But this is real life, and a fibreglass cast named Polly third-wheels in a sling between us, which means it fast becomes less movie kiss and more medical procedure.
“This might be the least sexy thing anyone’s done to me,” Neil murmurs as I step back to wrestle with the knot in the sling at the back of his neck.
Somehow, it’s caught up in his reams of thick curls.
He catches my waist as I slip his arm gently out of it.
“But it’s also one of the nicest, rash whisperer. ”
“No sudden movements,” I instruct. “You’ll knock it and hurt yourself.”
His good hand, nursing my hip, moves over to my groin and rubs, just once, against my growing hardness. “You make medical compliance sound hot.”
A slow smile spreads across his face, all trouble and invitation. He presses a little harder before finding my hand and folding it into his own, then tugs me gently towards the stairs. “Are we gonna take this somewhere more comfortable?”
Ages ago, Isaac told me I could trust Neil.
But he didn’t need to. Neil has already shown me I can, each time he’s pressed his lips to mine.
Each time my hood has fallen back and he’s tucked it neatly into place again.
How he’s never pushed me to reveal any more of myself.
At every turn—even now, as he kisses me, and his hand returns to my denim covered dick—he’s looking out for my consent.
If I say no, he’ll shrug it off and then kiss me some more, let me play with his piercing some more, and wait for me to take the lead.
“Let me do it,” I say as, one-handed, he attempts to unfasten the top button of my jeans.
I push them down and step out of them. Then, in one quick motion, before I talk myself out of it, I grab the edge of my hoodie and yank it over my head.
The fabric catches on my chin; I lack Neil’s natural grace.
But with a final tug and a crackle of static, it’s off, dropping from my hand to the floor.
My thin cotton T-shirt goes the same way and…
the room holds its breath as I stand there, under the bright bedroom light, feeling less and less courageous by the second.
It’s not only my patchy hair this vast collection of hoodies has been hiding all this time.
Neil doesn’t flinch. No twitch, no blink, no breath held tight.
His unwavering dark gaze traces the lines running up and across my pale arms, as if committing to memory the rivers of meandering puckered scar tissue.
Delicate silvery threads—souvenirs of desperate pleas for help—have no place here.
My mottled slashes were planned, deliberate, deep, and gaping.
“Sorry,” I offer inadequately, turning my arms outwards so he can see the scars.
“I’ve…um…I’ve got some cuts on my arms.” Hit by a rush of cool air, the ridged, imperfect skin over them pebbles.
“See? We’re a matching pair.” I turn my worst arm a little more.
“Living to see these heal and scar was never my intent.”
Neil turns away to sit on the bed. “Come here.” He pats a spot next to him. “So I can look properly.”
His eyes never leave mine as I slip between the covers.
When I make to hide myself away under a corner of duvet, he pushes it back down.
“Please?” Carefully, he takes my wrist and turns it over.
“I’ve wanted to check out this gorgeous swimmer’s body hidden away under all these hoodies since we first kissed. ”
I huff a laugh. “It’s not pretty.”
“You’re wrong. It’s the prettiest sight I’ve ever seen.”
When he’s had his fill of my arms, his gaze lifts to my head, to the uneven gingery clumps with their roughened edges, where, even as recently as three weeks ago, strands of hair used to cling.
An involuntary shiver runs through me as I wait for—something. A question, a stifled intake of breath, a hesitant swallow.
Instead, moving slow as if he’s afraid I might shy away, Neil reaches out to my head with his good hand. His warm and gentle fingertips brush across my cheek, settling on the bare islands of skin.
“Can I ask when this started?” He rubs slow circles on my scalp. On places only I have ever touched.
“I was seventeen. My parents were divorcing because Dad was seeing someone else.”
I still remember that summer as if it were yesterday. That nasty little shock of a confession and then the stunted, silent days that followed. “In the grand scheme of divorces,” I carry on, “It was reasonably amicable. It mostly still is. They’re much better apart than together.”
“Are you close?”
“They live in Edinburgh, so I don’t go up to see them that often, though I have good relations with both.
At the time, I was working hard to get a med school place while feeling as if I was the only boy on the planet who was attracted to other boys.
Looking back, no one noticed I was retreating into myself.
My folks probably just thought I was staying out of the firing line.
Some kids find relief chewing their nails, some get in with the wrong crowd, some take illegal substances.
I’m an introvert; I comforted myself by pulling out my hair. ”
I’ve told this story to enough healthcare professionals by now that it’s more a memory than an open wound. Neil seems to sense it. He simply nods, as if he knows some things don’t need sympathetic commentary. “Does it feel good when you pluck it?”
I bark a laugh. “Good? It’s the highest high in the whole world—for about half a second. If I can’t give in to the urge and have to edge myself, then, when I finally succumb, it’s even better.”
“And after that?”
“And after that, I hate every fibre of my pathetic little being and vow to myself I won’t do it again.” I smile wryly. “I’m a born liar.”
“No, you’re not. You’re human. We all are. Someone very clever once pointed that out to me.” Neil’s fingers travel from my hair down to my left arm, the worst side. “And this? Did you also sink a bottle of whiskey, throw a hissy fit, and fall on a tonne of smashed glass?”
“Sadly, no.”
This story carries a much fresher sting, but I’ve come this far, and Neil still hasn’t legged it, so I plough on.
“Three years ago. 30th May. Random date, it doesn’t have any special meaning for me except it’s the day I decided I’d had enough.
I didn’t want to be here any longer. I researched technique, treated my Stanley knife to a new blade, then found an empty on-call room at the hospital, and did the deed.
Unfortunately, the fire alarms went off—totally unrelated to my drama.
Someone accidentally set a ward toaster alight on the floor below.
A fire officer checking my corridor wondered why one of the fire doors was closed. He found me about a minute too soon.”
“Too soon?” Neil frowns. “Do you still think like that?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not any more. That attempt got me admitted to the psych hospital. But I had another crack at it not long after I was discharged.” I point to an ugly scar running parallel to the biggie.
“That time, I called 999 immediately afterwards.” I shiver at the memory of how desolate and lost I used to feel, in a thin, exhausted way.
Watching day after day after endless day stacking up without weight and meaning.
“I was all over the place. Not sure what I wanted that time. Help, I think.”
Idly playing with my short tufts of hair, Neil presses a kiss to my cheek. “And what do you want now?”
To be cherished by you.
I kiss him back, pushing away the misery of who I used to be. That lonely, unhappy person is still in me somewhere; he’ll never leave. But he’s far away in the background tonight. “I want more of this sweet little thing we’ve got going.”