Chapter 6 #4
“About my utterly embarrassing teenage infatuation? Hell no.” Leo inhaled, and all of a sudden he felt lighter, almost giddy with relief.
He’d done it. He’d shared this slice of the past with Nate, and it had been close to easy.
Painless. The world hadn’t come to an end, and Nate was watching him with warm eyes and didn’t press for more than Leo was willing to offer.
“Well.” Nate grinned. “Obviously not that part. Just about Eton in general, I guess. Pretty sure he’d like to know, and it’s sort of like you’re holding out on him.
When you have all these memories and he’s in them, but he doesn’t even know you guys have crossed paths before. Doesn’t really seem fair, does it?”
“Life isn’t fair. Didn’t they tell you?” Leo was careful to keep all bitterness out of his tone. “And you’re right, it doesn’t seem fair, I guess. But I wouldn’t want him to ask follow-up questions. Like what happened to me after.”
“Or why you changed your last name.”
Leo stiffened. “How did you—”
“Educated guess,” Nate interrupted. “Jesus, don’t get your knickers in a twist, yeah? It’s just that early on, you always took a bit long to react to the name, you know? You don’t do that anymore, mind.”
Oh. Yeah, okay, Leo could see how Nate would have drawn that conclusion.
When Nate had joined James’ team, about six months after Leo had, each “Graham” had sounded strange to Leo’s ears, had tasted sour and unfamiliar on his tongue.
By now, he’d long since made it his own; it was his. An integral part of who he had become.
“So you didn’t, like…” Leo hesitated. “You didn’t look into my background?”
Nate’s brows pulled together. “I wouldn’t do that. Friends don’t spy on their friends, right?”
The words were interwoven with hurt, and Leo touched his shoulder, trying for a smile. “Sorry. I know that you wouldn’t, it’s just… stupid paranoia. Please don’t take it personal.”
“No, I get it.” Nate was quiet for a moment, then the corners of his mouth tugged up into an answering smile. “So, like, I know you’re a bit prickly about physical stuff, but I think this warrants a cuddle, yeah?”
Leo exhaled on a chuckle and shifted closer, sliding up his hand to rest between Nate’s shoulder blades. “All right. If you must, I suppose that we can have a cuddle. Just don’t cop a feel, okay? I know it’ll be hard to resist, what with my ace body and all, but I’ll have you know—”
Nate’s laugh cut him off, and then he was pulled into a tight embrace, his face shoved against Nate’s shoulder. “Suffocating here,” Leo managed weakly, which only served to make Nate tighten his grip until Leo sighed and relaxed into it. All things considered, this wasn’t too bad.
Pressing his nose into Nate’s chest he took a deep breath, caught the lingering scent of lavender soap and detergent that was carved into his memory as belonging to Joshua. Leo could get used to the whole cuddling thing. “Thank you,” he mumbled.
“Anytime, mate.” When Nate loosened his hold, Leo didn’t move away.
Honestly, he was comfortable where he was.
It reminded him of tucking his sisters into bed, reading them a bedtime story while they’d burrowed in close, listening with rapt attention as he moulded his voice to fit the characters—the little blue fish all happy and optimistic as it begged for one of the rainbow fish’s glittering scales, or sweet Miss Honey in a back-and-forth with Matilda’s high-pitched, energetic tumble of words, both of them offset by ill-tempered Miss Trunchbull.
Fuck, it had been years since he’d let himself think about any of that. He wondered how the girls were doing, whether they thought about their brother at least once in a while.
Swallowing around the knot that had lodged itself in his throat, Leo pulled back and scrubbed a hand down his face. He was fine. He was fine.
Nate watched him with his mouth twisted into a gentle downwards curve. “So I guess it’s my turn, right? Tell you something about my own past.” For all that he clearly strove for a casual tone, it didn’t quite work; Leo could hear the discomfort underneath.
“You don’t have to,” he said. “We’re not playing tit for tat. That’s not how friendship works.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, yeah?” Nate rested his chin on a fist, the dim brightness of the lamp softening his frown. “It’s more that it’s a long story, kind of. And kind of not, but I don’t really like to think about it. You know?”
Yes, Leo did know. He hadn’t offered anything past the fact that he’d attended Eton, and Nate hadn’t asked—had known not to ask, probably. Because he understood Leo in a way that people like Joshua, or Mo, or Tristan, never would.
“I get it.” Leo paused to study Nate’s face. “No need to tell me, okay? Just wondering, though… Did you get into trouble with the law? Like—I think Ben did. But not you, I don’t think so.”
“I didn’t. My missions, they were”—a tiny hitch—“officially sanctioned.”
Missions, Leo thought. What did you do, what happened? Does it have anything to do with how you never drive, but always insist on taking the passenger seat?
He forbade himself to ask, simply nodded.
“What about you?” Nate asked a moment later. “Did you break the law?”
Well. There’d been a few instances of shoplifting, and the first time Leo had accepted money in return for sex, he’d been seventeen.
It had been early November, an unusually cold one with night-time temperatures dropping towards freezing, and a warm bed for the night had been his original goal—a bit of a fumble in exchange for a roof over his head and maybe, if he was lucky, even a cup of tea for breakfast. Instead, he’d found himself back out on the street an hour later with fifty quid in his pocket and his heart lodged in his throat.
Fifty quid for a hand job and some dirty talk. The bloke had been generous, seriously decent as well, even if Leo had been too bewildered to appreciate it at the time. He’d been fortunate.
“Nothing that would have landed me in jail,” he replied, slightly delayed. If anything, the underage component would have landed his punters in jail and him back with his parents. Which—thanks, but no thanks.
Outside, a motor boat chugged past, then everything was quiet again. They should get some sleep, especially seeing as tomorrow would see them jumping right back into coaching Joshua for the interview. Yet Leo felt wide awake, his thoughts skittering about like ants in a tizzy.
Nate had accepted Leo’s response with a faint smile. He’d only just moved to flick off the light when Leo asked, “What’s going on with you and Mo, then?”
The room was plunged into shadows, lit only by the distant brightness that trickled through the curtains and turned the windows into rectangular shapes.
It took a few seconds for Nate to sink back into his pillow, and when he spoke, he sounded mildly confused.
“I don’t actually know. He’s really hot, obviously.
And much nicer than I thought. A bit of a dork, which I think is cool, you know? ”
“Holy fuck, you sound like you’re ready to propose.” Leo grinned and rolled onto his side, closing his eyes. He could feel his pulse slowing down, less erratic in his ears. “Honesty hour, mate: did you or did you not wank off to that underwear shot you told me about?”
Nate breathed out a snicker. “I am under no obligation to answer.”
“That’s a yes,” Leo decided.
“Shut it, Grammy.” A brief silence followed Nate’s words, and while it wasn’t awkward as such, Leo wondered whether Nate was pondering how the nickname was based on a lie.
If Nate was bothered, he didn’t show it and instead went for a light, teasing tone.
“You know, that whole flirting thing you and Joshua got going on—”
“Flirting thing?”
“You call him Princeling and little prince,” Nate said, matter-of-fact and thoroughly unperturbed by the warning Leo had tucked into his tone. “And maybe you meant to mock him at first, but now, you just sound fond. You know, I think Joshua would go for you.”
Leo inhaled slowly, carefully. “So this is what we’ve come to now? A pair of gossiping teenagers chatting about boys we like?” Much more quietly, he added, “But really, it’s not an option.”
“Because of your past.” It wasn’t a question. Leo answered anyway.
“I couldn’t—yeah. I could never be there with him, you know?
Not really. He wants something steady, like a real boyfriend.
I can’t be that.” The space behind his lids was of a deep, velvety black, and he let it soothe his thoughts, felt them slow down to a crawl.
I couldn’t be what he wants, needs. What he deserves.
“Leo—” Nate began, and Leo interrupted before this could deviate into a conversation he wasn’t ready for, not yet. Maybe not for a long time.
“Let’s just sleep,” he said.
Three seconds trickled past, then Nate exhaled around a yawn. “Sleep,” he agreed.
In an unspoken show of gratitude, Leo gave Nate’s shoulder a quick squeeze before he turned to face away, tucking the pillow under his shoulder.
He fell asleep to the rhythm of Nate’s deep, even breaths, to distant images of empty sidewalks and headlights streaking past, of tangling his hands in dark hair and squeezing his eyes shut, head tipped back for a kiss that never came.
* * *
Joshua’s nose tickled. There was, like, hair? In his mouth? And God, what, it couldn’t be later than seven, but they’d forgotten to close the curtains last night, so it was too bright, and it was too warm, and also, also, there was hair in his mouth. Sharp, spicy cologne. Mo.
Joshua shuffled back only to bump into Tristan, who made a disgruntled noise and flapped his arm without waking. Astonishingly, he managed to hit Joshua square in the jaw. Cheers.
Rubbing at the spot, Joshua slid out of bed and stood at the foot for a few seconds, trying to blink the haze from his brain. A glass of milk, yeah. Then maybe catch another couple of hours of sleep because it was—ugh, really? Just past six? Too early, yeah.