Chapter 2 #2
With pizza, beers and a half-dozen fairy cakes Tristan had brought along to “commemorate the occasion”, they sprawled out on the sofa, Joshua comfortably squashed between Tristan and Mo despite the fact that there was a football pitch worth of space available to them.
Mo switched the telly on to some old episode of The Simpsons, and they talked about nothing much for a while: England and Ireland’s chances in the World Cup and which matches they’d attend together; whether they could fit an additional week in Brazil into their agendas; in which ways the Church needed to chill and why; the tragedy of pizza never tasting quite the same after a day in the fridge.
Even though Joshua was fully aware that Mo and Tristan were humouring him, giving him a chance to relax after the day’s events, he appreciated their efforts.
His friends were the very, very best.
When he said as much, possibly with a slight thickness to his voice, Mo reached over to ruffle his hair. “Anytime, mate. You want to talk about those reasons now?”
“Reasons?” Tristan shifted to drape his legs over Joshua’s thighs, pushing his plate closer to him.
From Tristan, it was practically a declaration of love.
Helping himself to a slice of Tristan’s pizza, Joshua took a bite, chewing carefully with his gaze on the telly.
He had no idea what Homer and Marge Simpson were talking about.
“Reasons he’s in the closet,” Mo said in Joshua’s stead.
“Oh, we’re actually talking about that? Awesome.” Tristan swiped his index finger through leftover cheese that had dripped onto his plate, nudging Joshua. When Joshua glanced over, Tristan gave him an expectant look while licking his finger clean. Against his will, Joshua found himself grinning.
“You realise that if you seek eye contact with a proclaimed member of the gay crowd while sucking on your fingers, it will come across as sexual innuendo, right?”
Waggling his eyebrows, Tristan let the finger slide out of his mouth with a wet pop.
Mo snorted, and it took a second before Joshua felt his own grin widen, tip over into a short laugh.
It wasn’t that funny, it really wasn’t, and his mirth came with an edge of hysteria. He felt lighter all the same.
“Reasons,” he said slowly. “Yeah. Like, Mo thinks it’s mainly the public scrutiny that’s holding me back, only that’s not all there is to it.” He frowned and put the half-eaten pizza slice back on Tristan’s plate, hunger evaporated. “I can’t believe we’ve never talked about this.”
Tristan shrugged. “Figured you’d talk when you’re ready.”
“Same.” Draping an arm around Joshua’s shoulders, Mo pulled him close, fingertips snaking underneath Joshua’s sleeve. “Guess you’re ready now, so out with it.”
Joshua tipped his head against Mo’s shoulder, Tristan’s legs heavy across his lap.
Homer was performing some kind of shuffling dance on the screen, and Joshua’s stomach wiggled with the motion, a hectic buzz under his skin.
He’d made it a habit not to give the whole issue too much thought.
In fact, he’d managed to tape off that section of his brain and declare it a no-trespassing zone—right up until this morning, when the threat of exposure had come crashing in with brutal immediacy.
“If I came out,”—his voice sounded deeper than usual, rougher to his own ears—“it could impact our relations with other countries. Uganda and India, for two. Or, I mean, our work on human rights? What if Mum and Emma are suddenly seen as biased, because of me? I just—there could be protests even here.” Lungs tight, he remembered to breathe.
“Like, the more conservative parts of the Church of England, the parts that prevented priests from blessing gay marriages. What if people take this as the reason to question all of it? Monarchy, us? I don’t want to be the downfall of—of my family, kind of? The one to bring it all down.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Tristan muttered. He twisted a hand into Joshua’s T-shirt, fingers warm through the fabric.
“Josh.” Mo’s embrace tightened. “You ever asked your mum or Emma about it? Not that I’ve met them often, but seems to me they’d hate holding you back.”
“They would. They love you a stupid amount, and they’d support you no matter what.
” Tristan’s tone was confident, and unlike Mo, he knew both Joshua’s mother and Emma well—most notably from those horrifying six months when he’d been dating Emma.
Joshua had pretended to be oblivious; there were some things he did not care to know about his best mate and his sister. God.
“I don’t want to be the weak link in the family.
” Curling further into Mo, Joshua took a deep breath, and another.
With a pitiful noise he stared at his beer, out of reach unless he moved from where he was comfortably settled between Tristan and Mo.
Pinching Joshua’s stomach, Tristan leaned forward to get it for him.
One day, when they least expected it, Joshua would make Mo a Knight of the Realm and gift Tristan a castle or something. He could totally do it. There were many perks to being a prince after all, and most of the time, Joshua was very aware that he was lucky.
Just… not right now. Tomorrow, though. He’d be fine tomorrow.
* * *
The list Joshua had texted was surprisingly short, contained just over a handful of names—his mother and sister (but notably not his father, who’d split from Queen Louise in a divorce that had been handled with quiet dignity some ten years ago), Tristan and Mo, George Atkin and, somewhat randomly, the musician Ed Sheeran.
Leo paused on the last one, sparing a wistful second for wondering whether he could get Joshua to introduce them.
A happy coincidence had placed Leo in some bar with an open mike one night, browsing for clients, but he’d stopped the moment Ed had strummed his guitar and sung the first few notes of an unfamiliar song.
Leo had listened to the entire set with a blank mind and a full heart, and then spent five quid he really didn’t have on a demo album.
Throughout the first few months of Leo starting to work for James, that album had been on repeat for Leo’s tube rides to work, companion to his struggle to sink into a regular rhythm of rising early and going to bed before midnight.
Not the issue at hand, though, and taking advantage of Joshua’s connections would be a tacky thing to do anyway.
Especially when Leo wasn’t even sure he liked Joshua. Or vice versa.
Strolling into Nate’s office, Leo sat down in a chair, then proceeded to bounce both himself and the chair around so he was next to Nate.
In their early days of working together, Nate would have hated the disregard for boundaries; now his fingers didn’t even pause on the keyboard.
Boring. Leo would have to step up his game.
“Got the list,” he said out loud.
“List?” Nate glanced up and blinked, his eyes clearing. “Oh. Give it here, then.”
Bringing it up on his phone, Leo handed it over and kicked his feet up on Nate’s desk, upsetting a pile of scribbled notes that might as well have been written in an alien language.
Nate huffed and moved to right the mess, then handed Leo’s phone back.
There was a pinched look to his face. “Does this list look weird to you?”
“Weird?” Leo looked down at the screen, then up at Nate. “Why, because of Ed Sheeran?”
“No, not that. Course Joshua would move in those celebrity kind of circles. He’s friends with Mo Puri, right, and Puri is a pretty well-known model.
Like the Armani campaign? The underwear one?
” There was a fascinating tinge of pink to Nate’s cheeks.
Leo could not recall seeing that particular Armani campaign, no, but maybe he should take a look.
Based on Nate’s reaction, it sounded worth the while.
“‘Friends.’” Leo lifted one hand to mime air quotes. “Yes, Joshua and that Mo person appear to be very good friends. Makes me wonder whether I need to rethink my own definition of friendship, since I’m clearly missing a certain element there.”
Nate appeared to consider a rebuttal, then merely shook his head. “So you don’t think there’s anyone missing from that list?”
“His father?” Leo frowned and took another look, narrowing his eyes. Incomplete, how was that list incomplete? Who was missing? Apart from James’ team, who should be on there and wasn’t?
“It’s so easy to forget the people in the background,” Nate said softly. “The ones who are just there, and maybe you never tell them stuff, but they see so much more than you think.”
Oh.
Oh.
“The people in the background,” Leo repeated slowly, and for a moment he was tempted to ask whether that was the kind of work Nate had done before this, whether he’d specialised in blending in with his surroundings, no one questioning his presence as he’d slipped in and out of rooms without anyone taking much notice, giving him a chance to sneak away and hack into computer systems. They didn’t share stories from their past though; for all intents and purposes, their lives may as well have started when they’d joined James’ crew.
Leo had his suspicions, of course—Ben might have spent some time in prison, Nate showed traces of military training, and parts of Carole’s story seemed to resemble Leo’s own—but he’d never sought to confirm his theories.
They’d all been promised a clean slate. It was only fair he allowed others the same courtesy he expected.
“Don’t ever forget the people in the background,” Nate told him, a strange set to his mouth.
Leo nodded and didn’t ask.
One of Joshua’s bodyguards was in serious, serious debt.