Chapter 7 #3
“Yeah, I wondered about that.” Mo’s tone was thoughtful. “Think we might have been a bad match, probably. We’re both pretty easy-going, yeah, and that makes us a great fit as friends, but maybe not so good romantically. Missing that spark of fascination, like.”
“The challenge?” Joshua asked, and yes, that made sense. He chuckled at the mere idea of them lobbing insults at each other in passionate anger. “We’d never fight, would we?”
“Nah, we wouldn’t. You and Leo, on the other hand…” Amusement shining through, Mo trailed off.
You and Leo.
Joshua found himself smiling. Shifting a little, he turned to study Mo’s face, its details shrouded in shadows. “What about you and Nate? Do you think you’ve got that spark?”
“He’s… complicated.” Mo paused. “I think there’s a lot more than meets the eye, and I think… With him, it could be…”
When a few seconds had passed without another word from Mo, Joshua finished for him. “You want to date him. Make sweet love under the moonlight.”
“Smug doesn’t suit you,” Mo muttered.
“I’m not smug.” Joshua considered it. “Okay. Maybe a little. I mean, you’re the one who always called me a ridiculous romantic, like, with my dreams of something steady and exclusive.
And now look at you.” He bit back the urge to coo at Mo—mainly because Mo’s knee was dangerously close to his groin, and Joshua valued his ability to reproduce.
Even if he wasn’t quite certain about his options just yet.
“Fuck off.” Belying that, Mo inched closer, his exhalation escaping him in a sigh.
Draping an arm around his waist, Joshua hummed a little.
For a short while they remained like that, the night breathing around them.
Somewhere not too far off, a car honked, offset by the stuttering engine of a boat on the Canal below.
Ordinary sounds. So easy to forget that in this very same city, hundreds of people were bound to be dealing with the consequences of Joshua’s interview—Leo, Nate and the rest of their team, George and his staff, reporters for newspapers and TV, bloggers, people discussing it online.
Everyone who had an opinion would itch to put it out there, for London to see.
No. This wasn’t just London. This was global.
“Hey, Mo?” Staring up at the sky, Joshua tried to make out individual stars and couldn’t. Light pollution drenched everything in a gentle orange glow.
He remembered how, when he’d been thirteen and anxious about living at Eton, Emma had claimed that all boarding schools were like Hogwarts.
He’d arrived expecting a big lake and an enormous dining hall with a ceiling littered with stars.
Instead, he’d found himself in a school that was by no means in a remote Scottish location, had joined a house where pupils ate in a smaller common area rather than in the central dining complex where many other houses gathered, and the proximity of London had eliminated all chances of a splendid night-time sky.
On the other hand, he’d got Tristan out of it.
“What?” Mo asked when Joshua had been silent for a moment.
Joshua cleared his throat. “Do you think me weak for hiding right now? Should I be out there? Listening and reading what people are saying?”
“No.” Mo’s voice was sharp in a way it hardly ever was.
“There’s bound to be some nasty stuff mixed in with the good, because you’re rich and a public figurehead, and some people are jealous shitheads.
They don’t deserve your attention. And I think…
” He paused, one of his hands nudging underneath Joshua’s T-shirt.
“You already said your piece. For now. Anything else wouldn’t improve the message, you know?
Think it might cheapen it, even. Time to let the professionals do their thing and not give a fuck about what some stranger on the internet says about you liking dick. It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m trying to get there,” Joshua said softly.
“Not caring so much what people think, separating what matters and what doesn’t.
Getting better at it, I think. Incrementally so.
” Briefly, he weighed his next words. For some reason, he hadn’t shared the specifics of the time he’d spent with just Leo on Saturday.
It had felt private somehow, but then again, Leo hadn’t asked him to keep it a secret.
So. “Three days ago, that morning I went to Leo’s place because you and Tristan weren’t around?
” Joshua frowned at the too-bright night sky.
“Leo does some kind of volunteer street worker thing, and he took me along. Those kids are—I can’t imagine what it would be like, that kind of life.
Scavenging for food, sleeping with someone for a little bit of money. That’s rough.”
“Joshua.” Mo’s fingers curled against Joshua’s stomach, knuckles digging in. “You’ll never have to find out. That’ll never be you.”
“That’s not what I meant. I just meant…” Another boat stuttered past, and an echo of the humming engine buzzed behind Joshua’s forehead.
“I meant that compared to that, it’s really—the things I’m worried about, they’re quite marginal.
Unless the Commonwealth breaks apart, but as Leo so kindly likes to point out: if a little gay prince is all it takes, the foundation must have been weak already. ”
“Not funny,” Mo said.
“I don’t think it’s meant to be funny.” Joshua followed it up by tightening his arm around Mo’s waist. “Hey, you were never… I know there were times when money was tight, but with your job, and the scholarship, you always made it work, right?”
It wasn’t the first time Joshua had wondered about it; he and Tristan had even discussed it a few times when they’d all still been at university.
They’d never dared ask an outright question though, well aware that Mo had grown uncomfortable each time they’d so much as tried to broach the topic.
Maybe it would be different, now that Mo had easily paid off his academic debts and a spacious flat on top of it.
For an instant, Mo’s body tensed against Joshua’s.
Then it went lax again. “It was never anywhere near that bad for me,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, there were times I had to—like, when I shopped for groceries, and it was always picking the cheapest jam, and maybe no yoghurt because it was the end of the month and toast was cheaper. Sometimes, the luxury still hits me now, you know? Just the simple fact I can pop to the shops and grab whatever jam looks best, that I don’t have to keep track of what’s in my basket. ”
Jesus Christ. Joshua couldn’t even imagine what that would be like—always counting, calculating. It sounded horrible, a constant weight to carry.
Instead of voicing those thoughts, he pulled Mo even closer, burying his nose in his hair.
“When Tristan and I asked you along when we went out,” he began, low and careful, “you said no sometimes, right, because you didn’t have the money.
We thought as much. But you also hardly ever let us invite you, or allowed us to skip you when it came to paying for a round.
We kept trying, and you wouldn’t let us. Why?”
Mo was quiet for so long Joshua thought he wouldn’t answer.
Just as he was about to give up, Mo spoke, tone hesitant.
“I didn’t want your pity, you know? Or worse, if you had thought I was using you.
I know it’s happened to both you and Tristan, people hanging on for the money or the status, and I never wanted you to see me as that person. ”
Oh. That was so… so Mo. And it made much more sense than Tristan and Joshua wondering whether Mo had been ashamed, or felt he couldn’t trust them with his problems.
“You could have said as much,” Joshua told him, nose still buried in Mo’s hair. “We could have worked something out.”
“Joshua.” Mo’s smile showed in his voice.
“There was nothing to work out. I wouldn’t have accepted money from either of you.
Especially not from you. With us screwing around sometimes, it’d have been wrong.
I didn’t ever want you to feel like you were paying for my company. ‘Cause mutual fun and all.”
There were so many things Joshua could say. He settled for swallowing around the lump in his throat and curling his fingers into the hem of Mo’s T-shirt. “Very eloquent, darling,” he commented. “Remind me why they didn’t appoint you as my coach?”
“Fuck off, love.”
Joshua grinned. “Love you, you know?”
“Course you do.” Mo lifted himself up for a wet smooch to Joshua’s cheek before he dropped back down. “You should,” he said around a yawn, “go get us an actual duvet.”
“Why don’t you get it?” Joshua asked. “You’re a model, you need to stay in shape.
Some physical exercise would serve you well.
” The urge to yawn had transferred from Mo to him, and he fought it for a moment, just on the principle of it, before he gave in.
Raising a hand to cover it up, he was already sliding out from under the afghan, Mo releasing him with a brief delay.
On bare feet, down to boxers and a T-shirt, Joshua padded inside to grab one of the duvets off the guest bed. He imagined it smelled like Leo.
Fuck, he was ridiculous.
When he returned to the terrace, Mo was blinking at him with a sleep-heavy smile, barely visible in the shadows. Joshua tucked him in like a child, pinched his cheek and called him Mo-bee, earning himself a half-hearted grumble of complaint.
Still Mo lifted the duvet for Joshua to slide in with him, and they drifted off tangled and warm, comfortable.
Familiar. Vaguely, Joshua wondered what this would look like to someone who didn’t understand them—a potential boyfriend, maybe.
If someone didn’t get the closeness between him and Mo, between him and Mo and Tristan…
Joshua couldn’t ever be with a guy who didn’t fit in with all of them, even less with someone who would object to their easy physical proximity.
He tried not to think of Leo.
Failed.
* * *