“We had an agreement, from the very first year we were together, Mary and I. We agreed not to seek out other partners but let things take us where they needed to go. We were open and brutally honest. And I cared. She did too. It wasn’t abusive or unbalanced. It worked. For a long time, it worked really well.”
“Until it didn’t,” he filled in.
“I wanted to be able to speak up, when everything happened. To say that these kinds of relationships exist. That sometimes, it gives us everything we need as people. And that sometimes, it’s just human nature to let the people we love be free. Other times?”
“I love you.”
I held him. Everything that he was, right here in my arms.
“Sometimes everything turns out to be completely out of our control. We just have to trust that it will be alright in the end.”
I felt out of breath getting those words out. Too many. Too meaningful. Too little for what he needed.
He stayed silent. Just little movements of his fingers against my skin. This hadn’t been at all what I expected. Perhaps I had hoped for relief. For us to take another step forward. Instead? It felt like we’d jumped light years ahead.
“I may no longer have a job,” he admitted. “It depends on how this addiction therapy goes. My boss has me in a vice. I get clean, or I’m out. I may be out anyway. There’s a lot of shit going on behind the scenes and… Well. I caused most of it. Then I lied. I never told them I’d signed up for the show. They put me on gardening leave whilst the client tried to sue the hell out of us. I was supposed to keep a low profile.”
I had to laugh. Loudly and desperately. Kissing the top of his head as I did.
Emotionally? I was in hysterics.
And I was drained to the core. In a very good way. The compass just kept spinning.
“You never got to speak up then,” he said quietly. “You never had your closure.”
“It didn’t matter. Not in the end. I learnt a lot, and in a way? When I remember the trauma of what my whole life has been? This part of it was? I think, for me?”
“It was good.” He kept completing my sentences. I didn’t mind.
“It was, in the end. Really good.”
“Because you got me. And you don’t have to say it back. Like. I get that. It’s early, and you don’t even know if you really fancy me like that, and here I am again, all naked… Fuck, Peter. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I love you.” I had to say it because it was the absolute truth. “I love you, and the whole sex thing? It doesn’t fucking matter. This matters, this right here. You and me like this. Talking, and talking properly. This fucking matters.”
“No swearing.”
“I don’t fucking care.”
I was laughing. He was too. And I think in the end? It actually didn’t fucking matter.
George
Iwoke up far too early, my body still operating on its own schedule. He was wrapped up in my arms, clinging to my side with his mouth drooling into my armpit.
Disgusting, perhaps, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind anything when it came to him.
“Go back to sleep,” he muttered, shuffling gently, adjusting his hip. Mouth. Chin now on my shoulder.
“The phone woke me,” I huffed, scrolling through endless messages. I’d been added to a new group chat. “Sacked and Proud” apparently. Someone was suggesting a name change to “Escapees with Futures”. Or “No More Insane Bullshit”. It made me smile.
“I think they terminated everyone yesterday. I keep scrolling through the group members here, new names keep being added, and I have a feeling everyone in production lost their jobs. Parent company is pulling the plug. People are talking about lawsuits, complaints and…yeah, sexual assault live on TV. That will go down well with the viewing public.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, lazily kissing the top of my arm. Snuggling into me. “Thank God you got out. Also? I love waking up with you. I don’thave to reach for my phone; you’re just here, live and direct for my every pleasure.”
“Ed,” I warned. I liked saying it. His name. Mine. Mine, mine, mine. Ed and George. George and Ed.
“Georgie, you’re my waking pleasure and nighttime delight.”
