by Marina Ford
“I am,” the old man said. “I’ve stopped your mother from bringing her own canapés. Did you thank me? No.”
Kieran repressed a laugh.
“Hardly a great accomplishment,” Harry said. He was smiling, but I could see the strain in his eyes. “At least she offered to do something to help with the event.”
“You’ve not seen what she was planning to bring,” Mr. Byrne said. “If you had, you’d be publishing letters of thanks in the newspapers.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Yes, thanks, Dad.”
Mr. Byrne, seeming to warm to the subject, waved his hand, as if presenting the headline: “Local fool thanks father. Poisoning of London averted.”
He elbowed Kieran, who bit his lips, though his shoulders were shaking. Someone called Harry’s name from the crowd, and he threw me an apologetic look and then rushed off to attend his guests. Kieran and Mr. Byrne returned to their conversation.
I watched as Harry hurried to greet some distinguished-looking new arrivals. From another part of the room, I caught Maya’s eyes. She seemed a little forlorn, so I threaded my way to her side.
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, it’s the usual.” She sighed, chewing on her fingernail. “Everybody’s happy to go to a charity ball, and to glam up and shake hands with people, but when it comes to loosening their purse strings . . .”
I hadn’t considered. Glancing about me, at the smiling faces, hobnobbing for a tiny fee, I became resentful on Harry’s behalf. How was the man to accomplish half of his noble goals if these rich bastards weren’t willing to help?
“Leave it to me,” I said, rolling up my sleeves.
Maya blinked up at me, wary. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“Nothing you won’t have plausible deniability over, trust me,” I said with a quick wink.
“Did you see that?”
Harry was drunk. His eyes were shiny, his cheeks flaring, and he was very loud.
“Ten thousand pounds!” he cried. He was sitting squarely on my lap, because we were stuffed into the back of the cab like a bunch of clowns.
“Not quite ten grand,” Frank said. “Could’ve got more if Chloe’d agreed.”
Chloe was napping in her corner of the cab, but I could respond for her. “She wouldn’t get married for anything.”
Harry hiccoughed.
“How’d you do it?” he said, stroking my face. I wasn’t sure why he’d begun drinking so much, but when I found him at the end of the night, he could barely stand up straight.
“Oh, it was easy,” Frank said. “We’re artists—if we don’t know how to get money out of people, trust me, we’d never get paid at all!”
Depressing but true.
“The trick is to be exuberant, energetic, and overbearing,” Frank said.
“The mistake people make,” I added, “is that they’re afraid to ask. You and Maya were being very middle class about it. Frank and I went for the cowboy method.”
Harry laughed and kissed me.
“Get a room!” Frank demanded. Gabriella giggled against his shoulder.
We spilled out of the cab together, Frank remembering to pay and tip the driver, and I had to half carry Harry up the stairs to the flat. I laid him down on the bed in the recovery position, a little worried about how much he’d had to drink.
His phone was vibrating, and fell out of his pocket as I placed him on the bed.
I didn’t mean to look, but the messages kept flashing up on the screen as I picked it up to put it on the bedside table for him, and I worried it might be an emergency, considering how many messages were arriving all together.
02:49 Mum: We are very concerned. K. says you have not been returning his calls, and that’s hardly a mature way to behave. The woman I told you about is a relationship counsellor with a great deal of experience. I’ll text you her number. Please give her a call.
02:49 Kieran: Had a nice time tonight. Sorry if it was awkward. Early start tomorrow, but I’ll give you a ring when I get back from CD. Nice suit btw. Tyrwhitt?
02:50 Kieran: Ollie said he wanted to watch the rugby with me on Saturday. Maybe you can come with?
02:50 Siobhan: Do you want to have dinner with Ollie and Kieran on Saturday? Kieran’s coming over to watch the game, so it could be like old times <3 <3 <3 Had a nice time tonight! Congratulations on the huge donations!!!
Embarrassed, I put the phone away. I lay awake at Harry’s side, listening to it buzz more, jabbed by irritation every time it did. It took much not to reply on Harry’s behalf and tell them to get a life.
Early in the morning, I was woken up by Gabriella rushing out to make it to church on time. Harry and Frank were still asleep, so I helped her fix up and let her out.
“Tell him I’ll text him later,” she said, kissed my cheek, and then rushed out. I locked up after her.
I checked on Chloe, but she was right as rain, meditating in her room. She didn’t acknowledge hangovers.
When I returned to my room after a lengthy shower, Harry was up. Bleary-eyed, he was checking his phone and rubbing his stubble. I remembered the messages I’d seen the night before and tried to see by his expression what he felt in response. But he only looked worn. That is, until he saw me, and his frown melted into a smile.
“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t really remember how I got here. Was I hard to handle last night?”
“You crashed immediately. Do you want Aspirin?”
He shook his head and stretched out his hand to me. It was a gesture of such easy familiarity, a tingle went down to my stomach. I sat astride his lap. The towel I had wound around my hips loosened, and he pulled it apart and threw it to the floor.
“How do you look this good after a night that long?” He laughed. “I feel like someone’s dragged me out of the sewer.”
He kissed my shoulder, then tilted his head sideways, examining my tattoo. “A hummingbird?” He let his finger trace its edges.
“Jamaican national bird. I designed it.”
“Oh?”
“It symbolises peace and love.”
“It’s nice. Are you Jamaican?”
It was funny to me how we’d been so intimate before and knew so little about each other. He must have felt it too, because he smiled and said, “What?”
“I’m British,” I said. “I was told my parents were Jamaican.”
There was a question in his eyes, but clearly he didn’t want to prod, so I volunteered, “I’m adopted. I don’t know much about my birth parents.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. “Nothing to be sorry about. One day, when I’ve earned enough money, I’ll go to Jamaica and find out more about them.”
He caressed my shoulder again. “Can you not find out anything from here?”
“It’s hard. My birth parents, whoever they are, didn’t leave me much to go on, and they’re no longer in Britain, which makes the process more complicated and far more expensive than I can afford. I’m working on it. Those drawers over there? All full of files and leads. One day, I’m going to find them.”
“Why did they give you up?” he asked. Then, clearly catching himself, “Is that something I shouldn’t be asking?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really know. My mum says it’s because they were very young, like teenagers. I’m not bothered about their reasons. My mum’s a treasure, and I wouldn’t give her up for the world. I’m so lucky she’s the one who got me.”
There was sympathy in his expression, so I smiled past it and said, “What about you? What would you tattoo on your chest, if you had to?”
He frowned in thought. “I don’t know . . . a shamrock?”
I laughed. “Christ. Why?”
“Because I’m Irish,” he said in an Irish accent he didn’t usually have.
“You’re Irish?” I said, imitating the accent.
“It’s Irish not Oyrish.”
It sounded the same to me.
“Say ‘some
thing Irish,’” he said in the accent.
“Sum-tin’ Oyrish,” I said, which made him crack up again.
“Here.” He took my jaw in his hand lightly. “Soften that t sound you make there, and it’s not an oy, more something between an oy and an ay.”
I said it like he said it, mostly because he said it really close to my face, and then he kissed me. I said “Irish” again, and he kissed me again.
“Was this to shut me up or a reward for getting it right?”
“Neither.” He winked at me.
“In that case . . .” I said, pressing his hand to my crotch.
“You have a very direct way of putting things,” he murmured. “You should be a writer.”
“Can you imagine the sort of things I would write?”
“I shudder to think.” He kissed my jaw and curled his fingers around my cock.
“Probably porn,” I said. “I wouldn’t intend it to be porn, but it would turn into porn in the end. You know, like . . . ‘Rory walked down the paddock to tell Brett about his uncle’s secret plan to poison the king. Brett turned around. His lederhosen bulged invitingly.’ It would go downhill from there.”
At this Harry lost his composure and, shoulders shaking, let his forehead fall down on my chest.
“‘Lederhosen’?” he said unsteadily.
“Oh yes, the whole kingdom is terribly fond of them. That and oil. And,” I added in a moment of inspiration, “spanking!”
He turned his laughing face up to me and I kissed him.
“I like you,” I said.
He stopped kissing me for a moment, surprised. “I like you too.”
He wasn’t as impatient as I was—he stroked and kissed me as though time didn’t exist, and there was nothing but the two of us, a bed, and eternity. My hand wound into his hair and I closed my eyes. Why did this feel so much better than anything I’d ever experienced before? His lips, warm and soft, his tongue playful, everything felt so . . . God, I love this . . . I love him.
“What do you want to do?” he asked, when my lips were not on his, but pressing against the warm skin down his neck.
“Having you on your back is a start to what I want,” I said, pushing him back against the pillow and kissing his collarbone, and then down to his nipple. Every part of him I felt on my tongue echoed warmth through my body to every nerve ending. A sweet sense of belonging, of wanting him close, closer, more than skin to skin . . . I sucked on his nipple, gently, and then he pulled my face up to his. His kisses were now full of tongue, as if he, too, wanted to taste me, as if there wasn’t enough of me in him yet. We struggled to get my cover to stop dividing us, and then sighed with relief when we could touch more of each other. But it wasn’t enough. I hooked his leg over my hip and he groaned, a sound I could feel on my skin, travelling with a shiver through me, inside of me. His cock was flat against my abdomen, warm and hard, a thin line of pre-come connecting his tip to my skin.
“Joe . . .”
I reached down to his thigh, holding him close to me, worrying I was holding him too hard, wanting to pull him to me harder. I was throbbing with desires I didn’t want to speak out loud.
“God, you feel so . . .” I breathed.
“I know,” he sighed. “Ah . . .”
“Fuck . . .”
I ran my hand up his side, and pulled him to me more sharply, letting him feel the edge of my lust, letting him know: say something, do something, or I will.
He sucked on my lower lip and thrust his hip up, suggesting, inviting.
“I want to fuck you,” I blurted out.
“Oh God yes.” He sighed, relieved, and then stuck his tongue into my mouth. My heart throbbed with painful anticipation. I’d never done that before, but now it would happen and with him . . .
I love you, I love you, I love you . . . my heartbeat sang painfully. I kissed down his chest, down his abdomen, wanting to make him feel this thing I was feeling.
“Ah, Christ,” he hissed when I sucked him into my mouth as deeply as I could, my forehead resting against his abdomen. His hips rolled, his moans sounded strangled, his cock was hot and swollen in my mouth. Harry muttered, “Oh mother of— Ah!” He was sour and sweet on my tongue; when I came up again, every part of me tingled with love and anticipation, my muscles tense, my vision a little blurry with lust.
He’d pressed lube onto his hand and now turned himself over on all fours, or threes really, and backed towards me, massaging his dripping hand over his crack. At first I could only watch and then, dizzy and feeling my balls rise and tense, my cock twitch, I moved closer and touched him.
He paused, looked over his shoulder. “Fingers, yeah?”
I nodded and positioned myself over him, kissing his back, the muscles of his back and shoulders rippling as he shifted to fit under me. My one arm embraced him; with my other hand I pressed one finger into him. I could feel the intake of his breath against my chest. His skin hot on mine. His pulse fast against mine.
I kissed him, lovingly, and let my heart go.
“I love this,” I said. “You’re amazing. I love you.”
“Oh Joe . . .” He pushed himself against me. “Oh God, I need you.”
Two fingers, three. It was like an electrical charge between us. He looked over his shoulder again, then pulled away from me.
“I want to turn around,” he said. He fell onto his back and raised his knees up. “Come to me,” he said, extending his arms to me.
My heart was hammering against my chest, my blood on fire.
Heaven help me. The pressure of him around me was almost too much. I tried to breathe, tried to somehow control my urge to drive into him, but my thoughts were being chased by instincts over which I had no control whatsoever. “Oh God . . .I think I’ll come really fast.”
“Slowly,” he said. “Come deeper.”
I pushed in all the way. I had to stop and close my eyes hard.
My arms stretched straight on either side of him; he caressed his hands up them, calm in contrast to the storm in my veins.
“How does it feel for you?” I asked, strained, watching him anxiously.
“So good.” He glided his hands up my arms all the way to my neck and drew me down. “Come here, handsome. Kiss me.”
I lowered onto him. My mouth descended onto his and I kissed him, deeply, and then began to grind. For a moment I could see and hear nothing, and everything inside me was liquid.
I pulled back a little and felt the tight clench of him, and the warmth of him, and the power of the friction, and I let out a groan deep from my throat.
“Oh God, Harry . . . This is . . .”
“So good,” he said, again, like a sigh. His hands glided to my bottom and then he suddenly thrust up to me, hard. I gasped, surprised, since I was holding back from going really hard. But he clearly wanted it. His eyes met mine, a look so warm and longing it robbed me of my breath.
“Yeah?” I asked, returning the thrust of his hips.
“Oh yeah,” he breathed, his eyes rolled up.
Once I began, I had no more control of it than I had of my heart beating. I was on my elbows now, covering almost the whole of him, my mouth open upon his, his arms around me, his knees high, holding me close, and his hips meeting mine in eager anticipation of each of my moves.
Whenever I came up for air and to make sure he was all right, he drew my head back towards him, kissing me deeply and winding his legs tighter around me, pushing against me, encouraging me to go on. So I did, holding nothing back, even though my bed was making unholy sounds and my bedposts were denting the wall. He came in hot jets against my chest, his moans stifled by my mouth.
It was for some moments that I lay heavily on top of him, having slipped out of him, my chest heaving and my heart trying to break loose. His arms were around me, his hand stroking my back. At some point, he drew the blanket over me, and then I fell asleep, holding him to me in a tight embrace, like I might drown if I let go. His heart thudded against mine. His swe
at was my sweat.
“I do love you,” I said, or perhaps dreamt.
Things to do when dating someone on the rebound:
Don’t forget they’re on the rebound.
See rule number one.
Tattoo rule number one on your forehead.
Hire an opera singer to sing rule number one to you in lieu of an alarm clock every morning.
Harry had told me that his sister was his twin, and that she would let me in if he ran late. Since the charity ball, he had popped by in the evenings, often tired from work and good for little more than a quick chat and some sleep. But this time we were going to go out, we’d agreed. I had news to share, and it was the sort of thing that called for a restaurant and drinks. I was to pick him up from his sister’s flat, where he was still staying.
When I arrived, the door was opened by a tall, bearlike man with a beard, who let me in and introduced himself as Ollie. The Ollie, I presumed, who liked to watch rugby with Kieran.
Indeed, he didn’t seem particularly pleased to meet me, even if he claimed the opposite as he shook my hand. His sister was worse. She held a mug in two hands and glared at me with suspicion and dislike from above its rim. This was Siobhan, then. The Siobhan who longed for the old times.
She said, “Harry’s not come home yet. You’ll have to wait for him.”
We stood awkwardly in the kitchen until Ollie remembered that they had a sitting room and invited me to wait there. I thought that maybe they’d just leave me there, but no, they took seats opposite me on a red leather sofa, and I felt like I was at an audition.
“Do you want a drink, Joe?” Ollie asked in a way that made me think my choice of beverage would be used to form an opinion about me, all the options being unfavourable to my outcome.
“Er, no thanks.”
We fell silent.
“So,” Siobhan said, eyes still narrowed, “I understand that you’re an artist? What does that mean?”
It sounded less like a conversation gambit and more like an exam question. My hands were sweaty. I shifted in my seat but attempted to smile.