When they pushed in together to the warm kitchen, Molly squealed in delight to see that the moron and the useless one had walked over the frosty moors to see if there was anything free they could eat or drink—not that Molly probably put it in those terms to herself, Aleksey reflected wryly. She immediately climbed into the professor’s lap and demanded to know where her wine had gone.
The cretin was kneeling up in his chair, like a kid in a candy store, enthusiastically deriding all Ben and Emilia’s car choices and putting his own unique spin on the affair. He was about to take refuge in his study when Miles arrived. The dogs, which were sitting hopefully either side of the table, now moved swiftly to the more likely source of treats.
Once more, he stood entirely ignored by everyone. Jenna might have been watching him with her uncannily fixed gaze, but he tried never to engage her in conversation. He suddenly snorted, and Ben then did glance up. They shared one of their searing, otherworldly moments when the world departed from them—or they flew from it—and it was just them left in a universe of two. He could actually hear Ben’s heartbeat speeding up, could feel the touch of his skin even though he was across the room, and then the moment passed and sound returned. He smirked and the expression was returned. Ben rose leisurely from the table. ‘How about I cook dinner for everyone and you two kiddies’—He swept Molly out of Tim’s lap, set her on her feet, glanced at Miles, and finished—‘go find the boxes of Christmas decorations and put them up.’ Then he spun around and put his palms over Emilia’s eyes so she couldn’t see any more cars. ‘Make thatthreechildren.’ She laughed, rose from the laptop, kissed him and headed for the living room.
As she passed him, he flipped her plait and murmured, ‘As car purchase decisions seem to be more complex than I had anticipated, Ben and I will take you to your meeting tomorrow. Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen enhances all attempts atpresentation—trust me on this; he’s been well…tested. Then, if you’re good, I’ll show you the site where he nearly killed me. I think they have erected a plaque in my honour.’
She made to kiss him, as she had Ben, but at the last moment got a vicious rib poke in, and he was still chuckling to himself as he sat with the other two at the table and began his second favourite pastime of pretending not to watch Ben Rider-Mikkelsen as he cooked.
The conversation around the table now descended into the usual bickering and mocking that Ben’s friends brought with them, both seeming to take the opportunity of having an audience to air grievances, even though no one was really listening to them. Ben was leaning on the counter, chin propped in his hands, pondering his cookbook, and Aleksey never listened to anyone else’s conversation if he could help it. However, he did switch his attention from where it had been—standing behind Ben’s bent form, grinding against it—at a comment from the moron:it’s not ethical. It was too ironic to resist, and he turned to their professor of ethics to see how this, whatever it was, had been received. Tim flushed and muttered back, ‘It doesn’t have to be.’
The idiot, obviously sensing he’d scored a real point and had his quarry on the run, followed up with, ‘It’s notlegaleither.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Neither of them acknowledged his question. Tim’s eyes narrowed, and he mumbled that itwas.
‘What is legal or illegal?’
Squeezy picked up one of Molly’s pencils and pointed it at his boyfriend triumphantly. ‘Legallyenforceable. No status in law.’
Aleksey thumped the table (harder than he’d intended), and everyone jumped, even Ben, who looked up from his studying. ‘For fuck’s sake, Nik! What?’
‘That’s what I want to know. What are you two arguing about?’
The cretin leaned back in his seat, regarding him sceptically, then smirked. ‘Yeah, this’ll be illuminating. Whad’ya reckon, boss? Surrogacy? Is it ethical?’
Aleksey pursed his lips, thinking about this. He wasn’t entirely sure he knew what the word meant, and had he not already decoded the moron’s cryptic comment on this subject the other day, would possibly have risked having to admit this heinous failure in his all-round superiority. But hehadheard that throwaway remark, and he had been thinking about it, so he put two and two together and declared firmly, ‘Absolutely not. It’sunthinkable.’ Unlike the cretin, he kept his smirk inside. Winding the professor up was much more fun when Timothy Watson was still under the mistaken apprehension that there was anything in this world he believed to be immoral if you wanted to do it enough.
Ben joined them at the table. Aleksey looked wistfully towards the range, which wasn’t even on yet, and suspected the takeaway menus would soon be drafted into service. Ben was looking between his friends, puzzled. His gaze eventually settled on Tim, possibly as the only one likely to give him a partway sensible answer, and he opened his mouth as if to speak.
A piercing scream rent the air from the other room.
Aleksey knew Ben could move fast, but occasionally even he was shocked by Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen’s reaction times. Ben sprang on one hand, vaulting over the table, and was almost to the living room when Molly came flying out, still screaming, ‘It’s snowing! Daddy, it’s snowing!’
Aleksey, who was not far behind Ben, now skidded into him as Ben scooped his daughter up. He could swear he felt Ben’s heartbeat through the contact of their skin. Before either of them could respond to Molly’s frantic cries and demands to be put down, Miles and Emilia came rushing out together. ‘It’s snowing! It’s like a blizzard! Look!’
Ben turned towards the vast windows which looked out over the garden and pronounced with a reverence that Aleksey should have predicted, knowing Ben as well as he did, but still found utterly bemusing, ‘Oh, my, God, look! It’ssnowing!’
Before he could put a stop to proceedings—point out that snow was wet and cold and that it therefore got humans wet and cold, but especially dogs, because they had fur, and so it settled and clumped and froze on their pelts, and then subsequently melted upon returning to a warm kitchen; or that they did indeed have a warm kitchen with plate-glass windows from which such a commonplace occurrence as snow on high moorland in December could be monitored without having to actually get either wet or cold; or to remind Ben thathehad a particular aversion to both snow and being cold, for very good reasons, and that therefore his preferences should be considered first—he found himself outside in the softly falling whiteness, arms outstretched, head back and catching fat flakes on his tongue, and laughing as Ben scooped wet handfuls of the settling coldness to thrust down the moron’s neck.
He blinked as the flakes landed on his lashes, and when he opened his eyes again it was as if he’d been transported. He was no longer trapped in memories where snow blistered and then killed, sucking the life out of broken bodies. He was here in an enchanted world. The house, vast and glowing with the honey-yellow light from the log fires behind them, threw illumination onto the faces of these people he had chosen to live his new life with. He saw them as if in a tableau on a Christmas card come to life: bundled in coats and scarves, laughing, whirling and playing in this ethereal beauty. He closed his eyes once more to imprint the memory, and as he did, had the strangest sense of something else in his mind now being lost forever. He was not merely being changed, he was being rewritten, and that therefore all things were new, and everything was possible. It was a startling swerve for a man who was half a century old and who had thought there was nothing new life could teach him.
* * *
Once his pristine kitchen was trashed with wet coats and boots flung haphazardly around, and melting clods of snow trod across the flags, the noisy mob moved into the living room to continue their blitz of decorating destruction there. After a while, he heard chopsticks being played repetitively and badly on his piano. Ben, who was supervising some roasting chestnuts and heating some cider, apparently in lieu of actual food, glanced sympathetically over at him. ‘Sorry.’
Socked feet up on a spare chair, leaning back, hands behind his head, he murmured, ‘What for?’
Ben huffed, knowing full wellheknew exactly what the apology was for: chaos; noise; disharmony. But there was nothing to ask forgiveness for. It was their life, and he would not return to the silent, ordered sterility of his one before Ben Rider for any reason whatsoever.
Molly came flying out of the living room once more, chopsticks now mercifully forgotten, and began to drag at Ben’s leg. ‘Come and see, Daddy, come and see. It’s so pretty.’
‘Take Papa. He’s dying to admire your work.’
‘Miles said we’d better tidy up a bit before Papa comes in.’
Ben suppressed a smile. ‘Go ask Emilia to come here and watch the chestnuts then.’
‘Papa can watch them.’
