“You’ve been enough of a prick in your day,” he says smartly, expecting me to laugh, but my expression stops him. “What?”
“I was a prick,” I burst out, feeling the words tumble out beyond my capacity to will them back.
“Okay,” he says in an alarmed voice, sitting down at the small iron table and gesturing to a seat. “I think we need to talk about this. It’s not going to be settled until we do.”
I sit down, putting the rose carefully on the table, and for a few minutes we stare at each other. Finally, I sigh and scrub my hands down my face. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry for all the shit I put you through when I found out about you and Niall. It was completely out of order, and I’m ashamed of myself every time I think about it.”
“Have you told Eli about Niall?”
“Not yet.” I bite my lip. “I can’t tell him that.”
“You have to,” he says sternly. “That’s too big a thing to keep covered up.”
“Thank you. I always try to keep my big thing covered,” I say pertly, but he doesn’t rise to the bait and returns to the previous topic.
“Why are you still worrying about this, Gid? You said sorry before. We had that long chat and came to an understanding.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t tell you the truth about everything.”
“What?” he says, sounding unnerved. “Are you not okay with me being with Niall?”
“Of course I am,” I say quickly. “Completely okay and very happy about it. He’s perfect for you. Like I said to you at the time, it was hurt pride that caused my behaviour and worry because I was losing someone I could be myself with. Or as close as I came in those days.” I pause and say in a rush, “Do you remember thinking that I’d been pushing you towards him in Verbier? That I’d engineered it all?” He nods. “Yeah, I wasn’t,” I say quickly. “Not all the time, anyway. I was pretty fucking angry. And to be honest, that move only works in Jilly Cooper books.”
Whatever I’d expected his reaction to be when I told the truth, him laughing was never it. He laughs and chuckles and when he manages to stop, his eyes are streaming. “God, that’s good,” he finally says.
“Milo,” I say in a warning tone which nearly sets him off again. “I let you believe I’d done a good thing when in actual fact it was completely accidental.”
Finally, he sobers. “I knew that,” he says.
“How?”
“Because you’re not a very good actor around me, Gid.”
“I bloody am,” I say indignantly. “Really, Milo, you’re not doing a lot for my confidence. First you said I looked in my fifties.”
“Your confidence shows no sign of being depleted, and I said forties,” he murmurs but I continue.
“In myfiftiesand now you’re saying I’m shit at acting.”
“Only with me,” he says, a smile brimming in his eyes. “I see through you, Gid. Not always at first, but usually when I stop to think about it.” He shrugs. “I knew about ten minutes after I left you that night. I sat thinking for a bit, and I knew then.”
“And you’re not mad?”
“Of course I’m not,” he says simply. “Because while you tend to forget every time in the past when you might have been good and focus on all your bad behaviour, I still remember. I remember how kind you are and thoughtful. How protective you are. It’s a very hidden part of your character, Gid, but it’s still there.”
“But I haven’t shown it to you. You of all people should have had that.”
“But I did,” he says firmly. “When you used to read me stories at night. When you came in when I had nightmares, when you stuck up for me against Jamie the next-door neighbour when he was bullying me and calling me a faggot and you pushed him in the pond. You alone believed me and sorted it out. Even though it got you sent back to school early. You sent Niall when I needed him because you knew there was something wrong.” He grabs my hand. “You did everything you could for me for someone who was much older than me and who Mum and Dad pushed so far out of the family some days they didn’t even remember they had another child.” I flinch and his hand grabs tighter. “But I remembered, Gid. Ialwaysremembered. I know what they did was wrong, and I know that we don’t talk about it because you’re worried about hurting my feelings. But Gid, you’re more my family than they are.”
“What?”
“You heard,” he says firmly. “Mum’s love is suffocating, and Dad’s so busy at work he lets her get away with it. But the problem with her love is that she doesn’t see me apart from an extension of herself. You, however, have always seen me. You might have been impatient and cross and you might have behaved badly. But at the end you corrected yourself, and you made me see what was in front of me that I might have lost otherwise, because I was too in my head to see Niall clearly. Whether it started off with good intentions or not, the result was the same. I got Niall, and you let me have him.” He stares at me curiously. “Would you behave the same way again?”
I bite my lip. “In the interest of complete honesty, I probably would. I was a shithead then.”
Milo laughs, and I stare at him. “Gideon, you might have been a shithead then, but you’re a brutally honest one now.” He lifts my fingers and drops a kiss on them. “At the end of the day, I took someone from you. Probably the only person you really had who you could beyouwith, and you were hurt.”
“Please,” I scoff. “Niall and I were fucking on and off for years. It wasn’t Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler.”
