“You really want me to move in with you?”
After a beat, he nods.
“You don’t want to wait? I’m… I’m not easy to live with. My room doesn’t always look like that. I have to set seven alarms each morning. I am a pretty good cook, but not so great at cleaning up after myself. I get insomnia and some days, when I’m really overstimulated or overtired, I can go into myself and not say anything for hours and hours.”
He takes my hand and squeezes it while keeping his swirling blue-green eyes on me. “I don’t think I’m easy to live with too. As you know, I clean. A lot. Too much. I can be rigid and controlling about where things go. I have a pretty strict routine that I don’t like to deviate from, and I don’t like to stay up late and I like to wake early. I eat the same meals over and over again, and I also have moments where I need to be alone and quiet.”
I shrug and feel the corners of my mouth pull down. “It doesn’t sound like we’re very compatible.”
Giles takes my other hand. “I don’t know. If you’re a good cook and you don’t mind incorporating some of my preferred meals into your repertoire, I’d be more than happy to take on the clean up afterwards.”
I smile. “I can do that. And you say you have a strict routine, well, I sort of need that. It’s why I prefer living with someone else rather than on my own. If I know your routine and your expectations, that helps me stay more organised than I usually would be.”
“I would be happy to share my routine with you. And if I’m already awake early in the morning, maybe you don’t need to set all those alarms. I can wake you up with kisses.” He pecks my shoulder where drips of water still lie from my wet hair. “Or more.”
“Oh, that doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Maybe it will be good for me to live with someone who is a little messy, a little… less rigid than me.”
“And maybe it will help me feel less shit about those days I need to withdraw, if some days you need to do it too.”
He squeezes both my hands. “We just need to talk about it.”
“Yeah, like Mamma said.”
“Like your mamma said,” Giles repeats. A mist lands in his sea eyes. “I think I could grow to love your mamma.”
“I hope you do.”
For all the ways I didn’t doubt Mamma wouldn’t be judgemental or unwelcoming to Giles today, I didn’t think at all about how good this could be for both of them. My mother will never be a mother-figure for Giles, and Giles will never be like another son for Mamma – and also, ew – but they could really besomethingto each other.
I bring our joined hands to my chest, as if to share with Giles just how hard and happy my heart is beating for him, for us, for the future.
“I don’t think I’m ready to move in just yet. I don’t want to leave Mamma so suddenly, not after I’ve just dropped this small bombshell on her. But I do want to. I really, really want to.”
Giles nods and grins at me. “We’ll talk about it again one day. When you feel ready.”
“Yes, we will,” I promise him, and I also promise myself. “Now come on. I want to make you wear my Italia 1994 football shirt and watch you eat all my mother’s food.”
His nose wrinkles slightly but it doesn’t wipe away the smile on his face. “Lead the way.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Giles
The painting behind my therapist’s head has thirty-seven flowers. Which is very annoying. I’m on my third re-count to see if I counted one twice or maybe I missed two but it’s hard to concentrate on that while I also tell Lucille my life story.
“So then I moved to London and started working my way up the ladder in gentlemen’s tailors. I opened my current business about eleven years ago, using the inheritance I got from after my father passed. That was always my intention after he died but I knew I needed more experience, more expertise before I took on the task of running my own tailor’s.”
Definitely thirty-seven. Fuck.
Feeling that itching sensation climb up the back of my neck and across my shoulders, I shift in my chair and quickly, and hopefully innocently enough, scan the room for any other pictures of flowers, or maybe a vase somewhere on her desk. There’s isn’t.
“As for relationships.” I sigh and rub my hands together, my palms clammy and warm. “I’m queer. Pansexual. And that’s not an issue. At all. I’m comfortable with that side of myself. But I haven’t really had any long-term relationships. Ever. Until now.” I also can’t stop the smile that grows on my face. “I’ve met a great man. We were friends first. Training buddies. In the gym. But now… we’re more.”
Lucille nods. She’s a grey-haired woman who I suspect is in her fifties. She has a slim build, narrow features and wire-framed glasses that do little to soften her face, and yet her expression isn’t hard. Just very unreadable.
“So, just so I understand correctly.” She moves in her chair, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs. “You lost both your parents by the time you were nineteen?”
