§ § §
As soon as he was sure Nikolas was in the bedroom, Ben nipped up the stairs into Tim’s room. Tim was sitting on the bed, apparently slightly dazed. Ben had told Tim a lot about Nikolas, of course, but always, he now realised, things about what Nikolas thought or said or did. Ben had never actually mentioned anything about how helooked. Tim had once asked Ben whether—as he was living with a civil servant—Nikolas wore a bowler hat. He’d clearly been picturing a thin, cerebral man, perhaps a slightly less creepy John Hurt. But now Tim looked like a man who’d been blindsided by a six-foot-four Nordic god in his shower that morning. Muscles, scars, bruises. Cheekbones. Panther eyes…accent. Ben was used to Nik, of course. But he couldn’t help but picture Tim’s reaction to him, and perhaps to the most obvious god-like attribute, which would have no doubt been raised, glistening and flushed dark on a ripped, tanned…
“Ben! Hello!”
Ben shook himself and realised Tim had been talking to him. “Sorry. Was he pissed?”
“No. Considering, he was very polite. So…that’sNik?”
“Yeah. I didn’t get a chance to warn him, sorry. You want tea?”
“What I really want is to send John a picture of me in the shower with Nikolas.”
“Maturity a prerequisite of being a university professor, is it then?”
“Nope. As John rather proves. Eighteen. Fuck.”
“Come on, you’re dwelling. What do you want to do today?”
“Nikolas?”
“Yeah. Okay, actually, I do have an idea. You’ve just reminded me of someone.”
He went into the bedroom, expecting to find Nikolas reading the paper, but he was asleep with a pillow over his head. Ben frowned and sat down on the edge next to him, easing the pillow off. Nikolas jerked awake. Ben swiftly leant in and kissed him. “Sorry. I didn’t want to wake you last night to tell you.”
“Why didn’t you call and ask me first?”
“Because I asked myself what would Nik do? What was therightthing to do?”
“Oh, you’re good. Let me alone for a while, Ben. I want to sleep.”
“What’s wrong? Seriously, you don’t look good.”
“I’ve had a headache since we got back.”
Ben ran his hands over the healing scar on Nikolas’s head. “Maybe you should see someone, get checked out.”
“I’m fine. It’s just a headache. Go play with Tim.”
“Seriously? I can have a play date with my little friend? You’re so not funny sometimes.”
Nikolas clearly wasn’t feeling very funny. He pulled the pillow back over his head and feebly waved Ben away.
Ben went straight to the study. If Nikolas wouldn’t make an appointment to see a doctor, he’d make one for him. He stopped in the doorway, staring. There was an almost empty bottle of vodka on the desk and an ashtray completely full of cigarette butts. The computer was on with a video on perpetual loop. Two men appeared to be grooming a horse, naked. Until he got closer and saw they weren’t. He turned it off, picked up the bottle and swilled it around for a while. He was tempted to return to the bedroom and give Nikolas a headache worth complaining about. While he’d been humping boxes all day and offering charitable support to a friend in need, Nikolas had spent the day in lazy, self-indulgent debauchery. And he’d broken his promise to give up smoking.
He didn’t make the call to a doctor and left Nikolas to his own self-inflicted misery.
§ § §
Nikolas was indeed miserable. He woke feeling groggy and disorientated, unsure of the time or where he was. He pulled the pillow off his head and turned to peer at the clock. His heart froze and he felt sweat prick his skin, adrenaline flooding him. There was a woman sitting on the bedroom chair. Her hair hung over her face, long and lank, her dress soaking, her feet bare. He moved slowly away to the furthest side of the bed. She looked up with dead eyes. He whispered, “Moder?” but nothing audible came out. He turned very swiftly to check if the bedroom door was open for an escape, and when he turned back, she was gone. The chair was covered in Ben’s neatly folded clothes. His mouth was so dry he couldn’t wet his lips, and his heart was still pounding. He slid off the far side of the bed and backed out of the door. He went as far as the banister and pressed against it. “Ben? Benjamin?” The house was silent. He needed water, and he needed painkillers. They were both in the kitchen. He glanced at the stairs and made his way cautiously down, at any minute expecting the fish-white, drowned hand of his mother to snake out and grab his ankle. He hadn’t dreamed of his mother since she’d died. Since he’d tried to find her, to save her, swimming and shouting and swallowing seawater until they’d had to give him a sedative and put him under virtual house arrest. But then Sergei had come for them, and all had changed anyway.
The kitchen was mercifully free of his dead mother’s ghost, but sitting prominently on the counter was an almost empty vodka bottle, his, he assumed, two cigarette butts, again, his, and a note, not his, in Ben’s writing. It merely stated, “Later!” Nikolas couldn’t help quirking a smile at the implied threat, despite his pain and confusion. He picked up the vodka bottle and polished it off with a handful of painkillers. He felt better immediately. It wasn’t only cigarettes he had a long history with; he’d been drinking since he was ten as well. Sergei had quickly discovered if he wasn’t the only one drunk on his nightly visits to his little son, then things went a great deal more smoothly.
When Nikolas began to feel better, he also began to feel the effects of thirty-six hours without enjoyment of Ben’s body. He grabbed another bottle of vodka from the freezer, took his phone off the charger and went up to the office. He propped his feet up on his desk and texted:Where r u?
Ben wrote back:Not talking 2 u
Sorry?
