I don’t speak for a moment, biting my lip as I try to consider whether I want to ask this or not.
“Corey? What is it?” Nash asks kindly.
“Umm, on second thought, could you maybe do some bloods for me? You know, for like infections and stuff?” He nods slowly in understanding and quickly draws a few samples, labelling the tubes and putting them into a special compartment of his bag.
“Is there anything else?”
“Nope, thank you, Nash.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, lookingsideways at his bag. “Here,” he says, fishing a small business card from the front pocket of the bag. “This is for a colleague of mine. She’s a therapist with a lot of experience working with people who’ve experienced… difficulties… in their lives. I’m not saying you should call her, or not, I’m just giving you her details, so you have them.”
I’m not one of those people who avoid therapy. I know it can help, and I know it is probably a good idea for me to do. But right now, I just want to get settled somewhere for longer than a few weeks. That said, he looks so earnest that I take the card without complaint.
“Thank you. For everything.”
“You’re welcome.” He smiles at me and ignoring the swoop in my tummy at his gorgeous face, I smile back in return.
I’m battling a case of the ‘if onlys’ as I watch Nash driving off from the kitchen window an hour or so later. In another place, at another time, Nash seems like he could be everything I’ve ever wanted in a partner. Calm, collected, kind. But that’s not real life, is it? You don’t just rock up to a tiny village and walk straight into the man of your dreams. Well, perhaps Rain did, but he has to be the exceptionrather than the rule. There can’t just be a slew of delicious bears roaming rural East Anglia waiting around for petite broken boys to turn up and be ruined by their sexiness.
Besides, I need to get my life in order. I make a mental list of all the things I need to do. First things first, I need to find a job. A proper job. I wince internally at the disloyalty to John and the job he offered me on faith alone, but I have a degree in Early Childhood Education. I want to get to a place where I can actually use it to work with kids, and in the meantime, I’ll take anything, literally anything, to make sure I’m not sponging off Rain and Aidan for longer than absolutely necessary.
But first, I need a shower.
“Do you want anything to eat, babe?” Rain asks in his sweet, concerned voice.
“No thanks. I ate on the train, and honestly, I feel gross and exhausted. Can I have a shower, please? And then maybe a nap?”
Rain immediately snaps into action. “Of course. OK. Let’s go upstairs.” He grabs my backpack that was leaning against the console table in the hall and leads the way. He takes me back into the room I was just in with Nash. I’m sure it’s psychosomatic, but I swear I can still smellcedarwood. “This’ll be your room while you’re here. The bathroom is straight across the hall, and there’re towels in the airing cupboard.”
Gratitude and affection for my friend hit me with the force of a wave. God, I missed him. And now here he is, looking better than I’ve ever seen him and so damn happy. I want that. I want to be happy. I feel like a life without happiness isn’t much of a life at all, and for the longest time, I’ve just been existing. Things got better once I met John and Emma, but I was still just a homeless guy who happened to have a job and hid the more unsanitary and uncomfortable aspects of his life.
Well, no longer. I’m going to do everything I can to foster this friendship with Rain. Aidan too. And maybe Nash. I swallow the lump in my throat, my gratitude almost choking me, before I speak.
“Thank you, Rain,” I croak, meaning it with every fibre of my being. “I honestly was about at the limit of what I could cope with. I’m so grateful to you and Aidan for putting me up.” Rain stops fiddling with the bedsheets, straightening the already straight bedspread, and takes both my hands in his.
“I’m so glad you’re here, but listen. We need to talk properly about everything,but later? You must be exhausted. Have your shower, get some sleep, and we’ll catch up in a bit, OK?”
“Yeah, OK.” He pulls me into a gentle hug before leaving me to it.
Rummaging through my backpack, I dig out some pyjama bottoms and my old University of Exeter T-shirt, ignoring how threadbare it is at this point, because it’s so soft and cosy to sleep in, even if it does ride up a little at the bottom, exposing my happy trail to all and sundry.
The shower is glorious, the water pressure putting the showers at John’s gym to shame – sorry, John – and the luxurious amber and oud shower gel smells too delicious to ignore when I have a nosy sniff.
So that’s how I find myself drying off afterwards, my friend’s boyfriend’s scent covering me from head to toe. Much better than my value range shower gel that smells like pine toilet cleaner and leaves my hair like straw.
I hang the towel carefully on one of the spare rails on the towel warmer and pull on my pyjamas. As I fingercomb my hair, I can see just how much it’s grown in the time I’ve been on the streets. It looks ratty, and the colour is growing out. I flip it over one side of my head insections and inspect the roots that must be at least two inches long by now. I really bloody hated bleaching my hair, but Dominic insisted. He said that with my blue eyes, courtesy of some cheap contact lenses he ordered for me, his punters would want to see me with bright blond hair. Prick.
I don’t even really know why I’m still wearing the contacts. It’s been a few years since anyone other than me saw my real eye colour. Even when I’m alone, I don’t tend to look in the mirror too closely, too afraid of what I’ll see. Some broken version of who I used to be, all sense of myself hidden beneath a disguise imposed on me by someone else, but that I seem incapable of shedding even now.
My first job for tomorrow is to find a Superdrug or something and get some hair dye. I want to get all this blond shit off my hair. Maybe when I look a bit more like me, I can finally bring myself to get rid of the contacts as well and really try to remember who I am. For now, I take them out and pop them in the case, then climb into bed.
I sleep. Hard.
When I wake, it’s dark outside, the clock on the bedside table telling me it’s gone eleventhirty at night. Realising I just slept away the whole day, I get up and change into some joggers and a well-loved varsity-style hoodie from my old life. I doubt Rain will still be awake, but I feel like such a terrible house guest, I have to check.
Plus, I’m starving.
The house is silent, the only sounds the ticking of a clock and the whirring of the dishwasher. On the kitchen counter is a pizza box with a Post-it Note stuck on top letting me know it’s for me. I open the box and smile when I see the ham and pineapple pizza. Rain and I have had debates in the past about whether pineapple belongs on a pizza. The fact he remembered how very pro-pineapple I am makes me happy.
