Chapter Seven Marching Orders #3
“I dunno! I just need to hear you , so I don’t have to listen to the shit going on in my head.” He tapped his temple as if he would shake free the demons.
Freddie ran both hands down his face. Tried to collect the whirlwind in his chest and make it line up into words. “Okay. Fuck.” He looked at him hard, trying to will him into hearing it. “This doesn’t have to ruin your life, yeah? You can still come Ibiza.”
It came out harsher than he meant. Too much bite. Too much desperation. But how the fuck else was he supposed to say it? When everything he wanted was slipping right through his fingers?
Freddie, more than most, knew fathers didn’t have to stick around.
Knew all too well how easy it was for a man to…
leave. His own dad had walked out when Piper was still in nappies, leaving their mum juggling three jobs and Freddie playing man of the house before he could even tie his own laces properly.
Yeah, it was shit.
Yeah, he hated him for it.
But sometimes, on the worst days, he looked at Nathan’s dad and wondered if maybe his had done them a favour. Because at least silence didn’t bruise like disappointment did.
Still. This was Nate . This was different.
This was them. Whatever the hell this was.
And it wasn’t supposed to end like this. Not before they’d even had the chance to begin.
Nathan let out a bitter laugh. “Am I supposed to fuck off to Ibiza while she’s back here having my kid? That ain’t how it works, Freddie.”
Freddie opened his mouth, but the words caught. Why doesn’t she… He couldn’t finish it. Couldn’t ask the thing he knew was cruel, even if it had been his first thought.
Nathan heard it anyway.
“She’s having the baby,” he said, voice low but unshakable. “I’m gonna be a dad. Jesus fuck.”
Freddie pushed away from the door, started to pace, clenching and unclenching his hands, trying to keep from punching a wall. Or himself. Or Nate !
“Okay. Fine. Fuck. Okay. We can deal with this. We don’t have to go to Ibiza. We’ll stay here. Get a tent, yeah? Camp out on the beach all summer. You and me—”
“I’m joining the army.”
Those words hit harder than anything else had.
Freddie stopped cold. “You what?”
Nathan swallowed hard, then turned back to the poster on the wall. The one of Kasabian, dressed in military-style jackets from their Empire album, all brooding faces and mock heroism, staring out like rock gods halfway to war.
Freddie had put it up as a joke. A vibe. Camo with swagger. Rebellion with guitars.
Now it felt like a warning.
“I signed up back in March,” Nathan said, not looking at him. “I’ve already done the assessments. Fitness. Medical. The works. I’m on the next intake. Catterick. I ship out for basic next month.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“Cause I thought I wouldn’t go. My dad told me to go for it and, honestly, I was just doing it to please him.
Get him off my case about needing a plan.
I figured I’d do it, then we’d…” He looked away.
“Shit. I need a job, Fred. I need to give her money. The army gives me a wage, a roof, a future. Barracks. No rent. No garage. No Dad breathing down my neck reminding me how I’ve fucked up my life. ”
Freddie looked at the poster again.
Empire.
It wasn’t funny anymore.
“No.” Freddie shook his head as if he could rewind the moment. Unhear it. “You can’t. That’s not…you can’t leave!”
“I have to.” Nathan’s voice cracked then. “What am I supposed to do? Uni’s out the fucking question now. So what, work my whole life in that oil-stained pit? With him watching me fail every day? This is the only way I can do right by everyone.”
“Everyone?” Freddie spat. “What about me?”
Silence.
Nathan still couldn’t look at him.
“I…” Nathan waved vaguely at the air between them, as if whatever they were, whatever had bloomed in the space between friendship and something more, was smoke he couldn’t catch hold of.
“You kissed me, Freddie. And now I don’t know what the fuck this is.
You’ve always been more. But this thing? It messes with my head.”
Freddie’s chest caved in. “At least fucking look at me when you say I’m nothing.”
Nathan turned slowly.
His face drew tight. Guilt. Fear. Shame. Love, maybe. None of it spoken. None of it safe.
“Please.” Nathan’s voice was barely a whisper. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Freddie didn’t think.
He stepped forward. Two strides, and he was right there, toe to toe.
He kissed him. Hard. Desperate. And he went straight for Nathan’s belt, fingers fumbling, as if he could prove it, force it, feel it.
That this was real. That Nathan wanted him.
Not just needed him. But wanted him. Like this.
Wanted Freddie around him. Hands, mouths, maybe more than what they’d already done if they were given the chance.
Freddie would get on his knees for this man. All fours. Whatever he fucking wanted.
And for a heartbeat, maybe two, Nathan let him.
He kissed him back. Mouth hot and trembling.
It wasn’t soft. It was messy. Frantic. A collision.
And fuck, it felt good. So damn good. But Freddie was still furious.
Bone-deep, blood-hot kind of mad that made everything sharper, and he yanked at Nathan’s zip-up, ripping it off his shoulders and letting it fall to the floor in a heap.
Then his mouth found Nathan’s throat, sucking hard, marking him, as if he needed to leave something behind.
Proof that he’d been there. That this happened . That it meant something.
He then slipped a hand beneath Nathan’s waistband, fingers seeking heat, connection, anything that might make sense of the mess in his chest. And when he did, and his palm met hard flesh, Freddie’s whole body coiled tight, clenched with hope and hurt.
But Nathan gasped, jerking back to tear Freddie’s mouth from his neck. “Fred—don’t.”
Freddie caught him by the hoodie, yanking him closer, breathless and wild. “You want this,” he rasped, groping Nathan’s semi as if he could bring back what they were losing with sheer stubborn will. “Don’t lie to me. Don’t fucking lie. I can feel it.”
“I can’t….” Nathan closed his eyes, a slight moan trembling from his lips as Freddie stroked him.
“Yeah, you can.” Freddie jerked him faster, but it wasn’t enough, and he dragged his hand out of Nathan’s underwear to fall to his knees, fumbling to get Nathan’s jeans down.
“Fred, stop.” Nathan gripped his belt, holding his jeans in place.
So Freddie stood back up, kissed him again instead, deeper this time.
Then dipped his hand back inside Nathan’s boxers and gripped his erection firmly, breath stuttering in his throat.
Nathan groaned then grabbed Freddie’s wrist, but he didn’t pull his hand out.
Didn’t move away, either. And Freddie knew he didn’t want him to stop. He never had before.
So Freddie didn’t.
“Oh, God, Fred…please… ”
Was it an ask to stop or a beg to continue? Freddie couldn’t tell anymore. Couldn’t read the lines between hunger and hesitation.
Then they collided.
Bodies. Breath. Heat.
A shove melted into a clutch. Into a kiss. Frantic, burning and unfinished. Clothes bunched in fists. Fingers skimming skin. A mess of motion and heat and confusion where Freddie couldn’t tell the difference between anger and ache.
It wasn’t a fight. Not really.
It was everything they hadn’t said colliding all at once.
Love tangled with lust. Fear knotted tight around want.
A desperate, breathless mess of don’t and please , of pushing and pulling and not knowing which one would hurt more.
It burst out of Freddie between Nathan’s grunts of, “please, Fred” then his gentle, quiet utterings of, “don’t stop,” and when he slipped his hand in Freddie’s trackies, seeking his erection too, Freddie couldn’t stop.
They jerked each other off between shoves that Freddie met with a kiss and each kiss Nathan returned, harder, stronger.
It wasn’t violence. It was need. Raw, ugly and beautiful all at once.
And it spilled out in touches too rough to be gentle but too desperate to be anything else.
Until Nathan said, “Stop.”
And Freddie lashed out.
His fist connected with Nathan’s jaw with a sick, heavy thud.
Nathan stumbled back, hand flying to his face, more stunned than angry. His lip split. Blood welled in the corner of his mouth, and he dabbed it, then looked at the red smearing his fingers. “What the fuck, Fred?”
“You’re a coward,” Freddie spat through his breaking heart. “A fucking coward. ”
Nathan looked at him then. Not with anger. Nor hatred.
But with the hollow, gutted expression of someone who’d already lost everything and was now losing more. He didn’t say another word. And he turned, opened the door, and with his belt flapping and jeans half undone, he walked out.
Leaving Freddie standing there with his hand still curled into a fist, Nathan’s zip-up discarded on his floor and watching everything he’d ever wanted walk away from him.
Present day…
Freddie hated that memory. More than anything in the world.
Because that had been the last time he’d seen Nate.
Until he arrested his kid.
So on Tuesday night, he found that zip up in the back of his wardrobe. The one he never gave back, nor threw away. Nor had he ever washed it. And he wore it as he drowned the memory in a cheap bottle of Merlot from the local offie and told himself to stay away from Nathan.
He didn’t deserve him, anyway.