“Charlie?”
“Hmm?”
Kate frowned. “Are you all right? You’re a bit pale.”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, you don’t seem it. Listen, your father and I like to trust you to put yourselves to bed at a reasonable hour at the weekends, but we’re not idiots. If you’re going to start staying up all night playing Xbox or whatever it is you boys do, we’ll have to impose a bedtime.”
Charlie thought about scoffing, but Kate’s glare kept him quiet, along with Reg’s dire warning about what would happen if Leo’s behaviour became too disruptive.Quick. Think of something she likes.“Leo played football in the park. He’s probably tired from that.”
Kate’s expression brightened. “Oh that’s nice. We were hoping he’d start playing again now his arm is a little better. Anyway, we’re off to Aunt Sal’s for the day. I’ve left cold pizzas and salad downstairs for lunch. Try and amuse yourselves without making a mess, okay? We’ll be back around six.”
Kate left. Charlie pushed aside the guilt that came with his white lie and waited for the front door to slam, and then the car to roll off the drive before he hauled himself out of Leo’s bed and went back to his room. He retrieved his phone from the tangled pile of clothes on the floor. Twenty messages from Jess and Lucy greeted him. He fired off a couple of replies, reassuring them he wasn’t dead, then shuffled to the bathroom to make a half-hearted attempt to clean himself up.
Taking a shower felt like a mountain he couldn’t climb, so he settled for taking a leak and brushing his teeth, and then scrutinising the cracked skin on his lips and the dark circles under his eyes. Damn, he was a bloody mess after just one mad night. No wonder junkies looked so utterly ruined.
He drifted back to his bedroom with heavy legs. Leo hadn’t moved an inch. Charlie considered him, and then the empty bed across the landing. He shivered, remembering the warmth of Leo pressed against him, and before he knew it, found himself sliding back into his own bed.
Couldn’t quite find the nerve to snuggle into Leo again, though. Instead, he snagged his headphones from his bedside table and found a crap film on Netflix to doze to while he waited for Leo to wake up.
He was on his second film by the time Leo finally rolled over and tucked his bad arm close to his chest, grimacing as he opened his eyes.
Charlie pulled his headphones out. “All right?”
Leo rubbed his face. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“Dunno.” Charlie took in Leo’s lidded eyes and flushed cheeks. He put a hand on Leo’s forehead. “You look pretty rough, and you’re burning up.”
“Am I?” Leo grunted.
Charlie frowned. “Actually, yes, you are. Do you feel okay?”
Leo shook his head. Charlie waited for him to elaborate, but Leo didn’t do anything other than stare into space, his expression vacant in a way Charlie hadn’t seen before.
Charlie touched his shoulder and felt the heat simmering beneath his skin. “What’s the matter?”
“I . . . um, I feel like shit.”
All at once, Leo seemed incredibly young. He’d had bad days before—days when his arm had bothered him, or his mood had grown so black he’d refused to leave his bed—but this felt different. Charlie set his phone aside and slid down the bed so his face was level with Leo and asked again, softer this time, almost in a whisper, “What’s the matter? Are you gonna puke?”
“No, nothing like that. Just a headache, and my throat hurts.”
“That’s probably the twenty fags you smoked last night, and the bottle of rum.” Charlie chanced a grin.
Leo stared back at him. “Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” Charlie tore his gaze from Leo’s and focussed on a tiny speck of fluff on the pillow beyond Leo’s head. “Kiss you, or drop the pills?”
“The pills, Charlie. I know why you kissed me. We talked about it last night.”
A flashback of Leo’s flat confession flickered into Charlie’s mind—he liked me kissing him—but he pushed it away. Leo was right, they’d talked about that already, and stretched out together in bed, nose to nose, feet touching, Charlie wasn’t sure he had the balls to talk about it again.
That left the pills, but it was far from the easy option. What was he supposed to say?I kissed you, you backed away, and I wanted to forget it forever . . .It sounded pathetic, even in his head. “You do drugs all the time. What do you care?”
“I smoke a bit of weed. I don’t do nothin’ else.”
“But you have, though, right?” Charlie flicked his gaze back to Leo. “You’ve done them all, haven’t you?”
