“Can I just?—“
Our words crash in mid-air. I give a half-laugh. “Sorry,” I say, “you go.”
“Oh. Okay. But are you sure you don’t want to finish book club first?”
We both glance at the screen. I’ve never noticed before, but when Gary really falls for a character, he’s as animated as a sign language interpreter. “No. I think…no…”
I don’t know what I think. In this suspended moment as Alaric gathers his thoughts, my soul plummets to my stomach. This is it. This is where everything goes wrong. This is when he tells me that all these weeks he’s shared my bed, I’ve given more, waited longer, felt deeper. And he’ll tell me using five thousand kind and gentle words.
I’m moving back in with Stefanis only six blunt ones, but will hurt less.
“Actually, before you start,” I blurt, “I might as well tell you something.”
I drag in a lungful of air, my eyes fixed on the screen, on the top of Gary’s shiny bald head. What have I got to lose other than pride? Maybe it’s time I took a leaf out of Alaric’s book and gave a longwinded explanation of my own. “These last few weeks, I’ve rejoiced at each flat you’ve declined and let you go on believing that what we’ve shared together has been a diversion, or a weakness of will, and nothing more. When, in fact, sharing my home with you, celebrating everything and nothing with you, simply waking up in the mornings with you, has been more than I ever imagined life could give. So, the truth of it is that I don’t want you to leave and live with Stefan, because I want you here with me. I’ve been too much of a coward to admit how I really feel. But I’m telling you now. I love you.”
There’s a long pause. I don’t look at Alaric, but he’s gone very still. In the stretching silence, Edward-not-Ed asks Gary if he can back up his assertion that ‘ugly fish are a metaphor for a person’s societal value being linked to function’ with a quote. Surprisingly, Gary can.
“You don’t feel the same.” I desperately try to hold my voice steady. “And that’s okay. Well, it’s not okay—of course it’s not okay. But I understand. We’ve had some fun but I’m not perhaps what you want in the longer term.”
Blood rushes through my ears. My stomach folds in on itself; I might be sick. Patricia disputes the validity of Gary’s quote. Claire wades in with an alternative quote.
“Please say something, Al. Anything.”
He’s so still and quiet. Too quiet. Suspiciously quiet. “Please.”
I dare to look. Alaric’s hands are two white fists in his lap. His left uncurls and rubs at his face. “Say something,” I repeat. “Anything. I’ll be all right.”
Alaric’s breath hitches, sharp and wet, a raw sound, quickly swallowed. “I can’t, you dimwit.” Wet-eyed, he turns to me. “Because I love you too, and I’m trying not to cry.”
In a shaky rush he’s in my lap. Then he’s in my arms and I’m in his. There’s a laugh, a sob—Alaric’s, I think, maybe mine. It’s not even laughter so much as a release of pent up everything; muscles, breath, joy, dread. The whole lot falls away. Alaric is still here. He loves me. I squeeze him tight. He squeezes me back.
“Oh, God. You’re staying.” I need to hear him say it. I need the weight of it in my head.
His mouth blasts onto mine in a kiss, a flawless mashup of chaos and clinginess and teeth, like he’s laying out our perfectly imperfect future.
“Of course I’m staying, you idiot.” He pulls back, glossy red lips spread wide. “Where else would I want to live than here, with the man I’ve been falling in fucking love with for the last goodness knows how long? Since the first time I walked through your fucking front door, seems like, at least if you ask Luke and Isaac and Stefan their collective opinion.”
He’s staying. He loves me.“You have? You are? You’re sure?”He’s staying. He loves me.“We don’t have to live here in Sutton Common, you know,” I say quickly before he changes his mind. “We can put the flat on the market and move somewhere else.Anywhere you like. Closer to your friends. Tell me again that you’re sure you want to stay. All day, I was so scared you were going to move out. But you’re staying. With me.”
He rolls his eyes. “I mean, like, yeah?” The expressive motormouth I love so much turns mischievous. “Who else would put up with me? Who else would pause their book while they explain the background to the plot, like I’m five, and then show off by enlightening me as to the Latin derivative of every?—”
“I do not!”I do.
“—and then pause it again while they let me suck their knob? ‘Cos, you know, Big G, I absolutely fucking dig all that pretentious stuff, almost as much as I dig sucking your knob. And who else is gonna get out of bed with a cute big huffing sigh and turn off the kitchen light I’ve left on? And reorganise the dishwasher at the same time, after I’ve spent, like, an hour stacking it? Don’t think I don’t know.”
I do that, too, almost daily.
“I’m super into it, Big G. All that weird, anally retentive shit you do makes me laugh. It makes me happy that it makes you happy.”
Alaric shakes his head before launching himself at my mouth again, making me even happier. “So, nah,” he mumbles around our kiss. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m like glitter: annoying, everywhere, and here to stay, and I’m also so, so sorry I didn’t chase after you this morning. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I was thinking and how much I loved you before you saw that message from Stefan. Yet it wasn’t until I got to his place that I fucking realised I didn’t want to be there! But at least I could tell him in person that I wasn’t moving back. He needed that. He’s my best mate, you know? I owe him, he’s kept me steady for a very long time.”
“It’s fine.” I kiss his wet eyes. For as long as I have this, for as long as Alaric’s hand is always there for me, it will always be fine. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You know how I looked at all those stupid flats?”
“Yeah. I dreaded every single one of them beingthe one.”
“Yeah, me too. I was running out of excuses not to pick one.” He wriggles in my lap, and I settle in for a lot of detailed explaining. “I kept on turning them all down. Something was telling me not to go for them, but I didn’t realise why. I was too much of an idiot to work it out, but I think it’s because my subconscious was choosing you. Again and again, no matter how nice the flats and their owners were. But…it didn’t occur to me you might have felt the same way about me, even though you were like super-hot and we were having super-sexing. Because I never saw myself as what you were holding out for.”
