“What?Togethertogether? You’re still fucking?”
I picture myself curled up in Gerald’s lap a few nights ago and him uncomplainingly pausing his tedious programme about China’s Bronze age. I absolutely had to tell him right that minute about the cool new trick the boss showed me mid-operation for if ever I find myself struggling to wiggle a silicone stent around a ureteric stricture. And how Gerald listened, patiently, then asked an intelligent question about biomarkers in renal disease. So much more than fucking.
“Yes and no. Though it started out like that. But…it isn’t casual. At least, not for me, and I’m pretty sure not for Gerald either. He doesn’t do casual. Although it’s taken weeks of him fucking me magnificently for me to realise that. Even though, before we ever did anything, he specifically spelled out he didn’t do cheap sex and he didn’t do cheap people. Honestly, Stef, he couldn’t have made it any clearer. Yet I still didn’t put two and two together, even when we started spending every night together and shopping and cooking and talking and?—”
I blow out a long breath. For a book smart guy, I’ve been so, so bloody slow on the uptake. The clues were literally there; in all of Gerald’s words, his actions, his cooking, his fuckingGeraldness. Scattered in plain sight like a line of crumbs leading all the way to his big, big heart. “We do everything couples who are serious about each other do,” I carry on. “This is it, Stef. I’m in this, with him. I have been for weeks; I’ve just been too fucking stupid to see it. All these flats I’ve been viewing, all the lovely new housemates and great locations I’ve turned down, I thought it was because I was hoping Marcus would leave and you’d ask me to move back. And he did, and you have done, and—I’m eternally grateful that you thought of me first and also that he’s gone, because even though it probably doesn’t feel that way at the moment, you can do so much fucking better than that pervy pant-sniffer.” Could he ever. “But it wasn’t you and this flat at all, it was wanting to be with Gerald. Probably for forever, if he’ll put up with me for that long.” My fingers twisting in my lap, I offer up a silent prayer. “And, when you’re okay, I need to go back to Sutton Common and tell him that. Because, for a man who’s always got a hell of a lot to say, somehow, I’ve managed to not get around to telling him that. I’ve been digging through shit for a jewel, Stef, and the jewel was there, sitting in my fucking palm all the time.”
My spiralling verbal chaos peters out. Honestly, if I was paid by the word, I’d be buying my own flat, not negotiating rent on other people’s.
Stefan doesn’t move, so I can’t see his eyes, but I know him well enough to know he’s crying again. The crawling feeling in my stomach I blamed on cheap fizz climbs up into my chest. I’m an absolute heel. And yet, despite wanting to fold my best mate up into my arms and make everything right for him, I’m also overcome by a tidal wave of relief. Because Stefan’s not the only one hurting. In a cosy little flat in Sutton Common is another man I love who’s full of hurt, too, knowing I’m coming home later, but petrified it’s only to pack my bags.
But I can grieve this ending of an era and feel relieved, right? I can support and love my oldest friend through his relationship breakup and also love Gerald more? Just as I can be the sort of responsible thirty-year-old who goes out clubbing sometimes but takes his boyfriend with him? Who puts some money aside into a savings account but also splurges on a cool new shirt he doesn’t need every once in a while? Who rearranges dental appointments and his kitchen cupboards one day, but eats Coco Pops for dinner the next?
Neither of us say anything for a while. Stefan helps himself to more fizz, and I decline. In a few minutes, I’ll leave.
“You’ve been much happier since you moved out,” he says into the silence.
“Have I?”
“Yeah.” He side eyes me. “You fidget less.”
“I’m sleeping better. I think Gerald is… he’s really good for me, Stef. Sutton Common is… well, it’s Sutton Common, but I think maybe that’s good for me too. You should come and visit. Meet Gerald. I’m not saying you’ll love him straight away—he’s an acquired taste.”
“But you love him.”
“Yeah. And he loves me, I think. I’ve, like, got to check on that, but I’m pretty sure he does, and if he doesn’t then, trust me, I’ll be straight back here and taking that better bedroom for zero rent like you’ve just promised, and we’ll be downing a fuck tonne more of this shitty Prosecco. But don’t move your stuff out just yet, ‘cos Sutton Common’s finest dog dancer—that’s a whole other fucking story—is also Sutton Common’s finest cook, comedian, optometrist and lover. His cock is way better than Marcus’s, by the way, and bigger, and I’m not giving him up without a fight.”
CHAPTER 33
GERALD
Dad phones to thank me for dinner. So wrapped up in fretting about Alaric, I clean forget our rapprochement. My old twattish reflexes kick in. “Uh… thanks for coming.
How was work?”
“Not so bad. You?”
“Good, thanks.”
Fortunately, Dad doesn’t need Alaric Alvin in his eyeline in order to function like a human being.
“You sound a bit down,” he observes. “Anything I can do to help?”
The impulse to say no, to shut him out, is right there. Remembering Alaric’s words, I stop myself just in time.If you want your dad back in your life, then you actually have to open the door and let him in.
Who knows? There might be useful advice waiting on the other side of it, or at least a shoulder to cry on. I’ve heard Alaric offload his woes to his parents a hundred times, all kinds of minor things in excruciating detail, and he’s the most upbeat person I know. I suck in a deep breath.
“I’m worried Alaric’s going to move out.”
“Oh.” I picture Dad frowning. “Sandra and I thought you two were…”
“No. We’re not. Not officially, no. I…um… obviously, I like him a lot, and we are…we have become, um, you know, more than just…uh…housemates, but I…ah…”
It’s painful—I’m out of practice—but eventually, I spill the whole tale. I skip over my four years of self-imposed celibacy, awkward, embarrassing, and, now I think about it, far too lofty an ideal. No wonder Alaric was shocked to his core. And my description of our unfolding relationship sounds positively Edwardian in its chasteness. But do I feel better after getting it all out? Probably. Dad doesn’t offer a magical solution or pointless reassurances, but somehow, voicing my fears out loud, letting them breathe in the open, makes them feel marginally less tangled. And I feel less alone.
“Have you asked Alaric if he feels the same way?” Dad queries when I reach the end.
“No, I was still plucking up the courage. He’s not, well, he’s not like me, is he?”
