“I’m going to take a walk; feeling a little overfull. I’ll see you all at dinner,” he says, directing his words to no one in particular.
He rises without meeting anyone’s eyes and heads as steadily as possible around the table and off the patio, marching toward the hedges at the far corner of the back lawn. Hopefully he can scurry down into the depths of the maze and find a quiet corner in which he can collapse, far away from prying eyes.
He makes it almost all the way there before he hears footsteps jogging behind him. It can only be one person, and he doesn’t know how he can face Bobby right now. Doesn’t know how to explain everything swirling through his head.
“You all right?” Bobby asks, catching up to him and lightly taking his elbow.
James forces himself to nod, continuing to walk into the maze. Bobby follows without argument. He’s seen James in a state before, after all. But not since they’ve been sleeping together.
James doesn’t want to make this Bobby’s problem, but it is. It’s all their mutual problem now. He’s gone and developed feelings for Bobby Mason, and Bobby’s developed some level of feelings for him, and now his anxiety is swirling, and he doesn’t know what tosay.
“James, slow down, hey,” Bobby says, pulling him to a stop after they turn their third corner into the maze. “What’s wrong?”
James stares down at their feet, trying to breathe through it. Trying to find the words to tell Bobby’s he’s fine.
“Did Gwen say something to upset you?”
“What?” he says, looking up in surprise. Which is a tactical error, because Bobby looks so concerned, and lovely, and handsome. It instantly cracks something in James’ chest. “No,” he says. “No, she didn’t.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
James shakes his head. “Nothing. Just... a little sun-tired,” he lies.
Bobby raises an eyebrow. “Sun-tired? Do you want to... nap?” James forces a strangled chuckle. “What’s the matter, really?”
“I—I just—” Bobby steps closer, running his hands up and down James’ biceps and James loses the battle to keep it all from bubbling out of his mouth. “How can you stand this?” he exclaims.
Bobby’s hands go still as he blinks down at James, that sly look slipping off his face. “Stand what?” he asks.
He can see Bobby’s thoughts racing behind his eyes, knows he has only one chance to properly explain this. “It’s like—it’s like there are rocks sitting on my chest, you know?”
Bobby cocks his head. “What?”
“I’ve— Being here is amazing. Andyouare amazing. And I’ve tried, really I have, to be like you—to just live in the moment and not worry about the future and not care about the consequences.”
James hears his words play back only in time for Bobby’s face to darken. Bobby’s hands slip from his arms. He doesn’t move, but the lack of contact feels like a chasm between them all the same.
“Is that what I do? Don’t give a damn about the consequences—that’s what you still think of me?”
“No!” James exclaims. “No, I just—I’m not explaining this well.”
“Clearly,” Bobby says, and there’s no warmth to his voice, no teasing.
“I just—I don’t know how I can—how we can—just return to London after everything we’ve done and face everyone. How we—”
“‘Everything we’ve done,’” Bobby repeats. “What, is this a tawdry secret to you? Something wrong and disgraceful?”
“No!” James says again, that clutch of panic shooting all over his body in a tight, pulsing fear. He’s messing this up, like always. His mouth running away before he can make sense the way he means to. “No, but my stepfather, and the ton, and—you know they’re just waiting for something to use against me—us—and this... if it ever got out, what we’ve done—”
“Stop saying that,” Bobby says, his words ringing around the hedge maze. “I am not something you’ve done. I’m not some boy at the back of an inn or a classmate behind the classics building. This— I am more than that.”
That’s not what he meant, not at all. “Of cour—”
“I know you feel it between us,” Bobby says, and James clenches his fists, trying to control his own breathing. “This issomething, James. Are you really so afraid of your bloody stepfather you’re willing to throw this away on the off chance he finds out? So afraid of him you can’t even admit you wanted this?”
“How do you expect us to continue a relationship like this in London? How could we do this in the actual world?” James beseeches, his heart thudding loudly.
“Tell me you don’t feel it,” Bobby demands.
