by JL Merrow
Was he reading too much into a pair of blue eyes that darkened as he looked at them?
Did it even matter?
Before he was aware he’d formed the thought, Mark found himself leaning across the final few inches to press his lips to Patrick’s. They were soft, and dry, and oh God, perfect. Patrick’s mouth was rich and spicy like the wine they’d been drinking, and far more intoxicating. Mark leaned further into the kiss, the angle awkward where they sat side by side on the sofa. He wanted to get closer to Patrick, but their legs were pressed together as it was, so how—
Yes. God, like that, he realised as Patrick slung a leg over him to straddle his lap. It was still almost chaste, no…bits rubbing together, but it was glorious. Patrick hadn’t shaved, and the light stubble that’d given him a wickedly rakish air now rasped deliciously against Mark’s face. Ellen hadn’t much liked—and God, no, he wasn’t going to think about Ellen right now. He was with Patrick, whose hand on the back of his neck was soft, yes, but firm and strong. Steadying. Patrick’s waist beneath his hands was trim but decidedly masculine, and the thighs that trapped his own were thick and muscular. Even the smell of him was all male—musk mingled with something dry and citrusy, as if he’d splashed on cologne before coming down here.
Mark wanted more—God, how he wanted more—but he also wanted this never to stop, ever. He made a soft sound of complaint as Patrick drew back from the kiss, breathing heavily.
Patrick laughed. “Christ, that Ray bloke must have been a bloody good teacher. Think maybe we’d better cool it a bit, in case Fen changes her mind about going straight to bed?”
Mark blinked and drew in a few deep breaths of his own. “God. Fen. Yes.” Thank goodness one of them could still think straight.
Patrick sat back down beside him, laying a proprietary hand on Mark’s thigh. Mark covered it with his own hand, linking their fingers together. God, it felt good.
“Prob’ly best we don’t go too fast anyhow, yeah?” Patrick said, in the sort of tone that suggested he wouldn’t mind if Mark disagreed.
Mark wanted to disagree. He wanted it so much it hurt, but he couldn’t help feeling a shameful knot of relief that they weren’t, apparently, going any further tonight.
Maybe Patrick had been right about him having some issues about being gay.
“You know,” Patrick said after a bit. “What you just told me about your dad, him beating a bloke up, talking like that… That’s really not the sort of family I reckoned you came from.”
Mark’s heart sank. He’d thought they’d finished raking over the muck in his past for now, but then again, wouldn’t it be less painful in the long run to rip the scab off all in one go? “That was pretty much the point.” He felt suddenly tired, and he probably wasn’t making a lot of sense. “He… Dad was the sort of man who could get along with anyone—anyone who hadn’t known him for long, that was. He’d suss people out, drop his accent up or down a couple of notches. Make them feel like they’d grown up together, no matter who it was. I used to get a clip round the ear if he caught me dropping aitches at home—
“He hit you?” Patrick’s voice was sharp.
“No—well, not really. It was just a reprimand. He wasn’t a violent man.”
“So you’d do the same to Fen?”
“Of course not! But…” Mark wasn’t quite sure how to finish that sentence. “Anyway,” he went on quickly, “he said if I started out well-spoken, it’d be easier for me. But half the time, he spoke like an East End barrow boy himself.”
Patrick was frowning. “I don’t get it.”
Mark steeled himself to look Patrick straight in the eye. “That was how he made a living. Conning people. I mean, I don’t think he saw it that way. He just saw it as good business sense. Being savvy. But he’d get them to invest in his schemes—he could talk a donkey into sawing its own hind leg off and handing it to him—and for a while, we’d have plenty of money. Until the scheme failed, or someone started to get a bit impatient to get some kind of return on their investment. And then it’d be Pack your bags, son, we’re moving on.”
“Where was your mum in all this?” Patrick’s tone was neutral, not condemning.
“She died when I was eleven. I think… Maybe he wouldn’t have been so focused on the wheeling and dealing if she’d lived. I don’t know. Maybe that was just the way he was. I don’t really remember much from before she died.” Mark gave a humourless smile. “Ellen used to say I was suppressing things because it was too painful to remember her. Maybe she was right. I mean… He wasn’t a bad father. I wouldn’t want you to think that. I’m sure he wanted the best for me.”
“Just wasn’t that great at providing it?”
“He did try. He used to say he’d never denied me anything, and it was true, in a way. It was just that a lot of his promises had a way of not coming true.”
“From the way you’re talking, I’m guessing he’s no longer with us?”
“No. He was diagnosed with cancer while I was at university. Died about a year and a half before Fen was born.”
“Must have been rough, having to worry about your dad while you were studying. Still, you must have done all right—got your degree, yeah?”
Mark nodded. “No credit to me, really. He, well, he put up a good front. Nobody knew how ill he was. I suppose he thought no one would have confidence in a dying man. And, well… I was young, and there were a lot of distractions. You know what it’s like at uni.” He still felt guilty about it.
Patrick shrugged. “I never went to uni. Didn’t fancy the debt and wanted to get out in the real world. No offence.”
“None taken. I’m not sure I’d have gone if they’d been charging fees to students in my day.” Or if his father hadn’t managed to fiddle the form somehow so he’d got a full maintenance grant with no parental contribution, but Mark decided not to mention that. He had a feeling Patrick, with his social conscience, wouldn’t approve.
“What did you study?”
“Maths.” Mark said it self-deprecatingly, bracing himself for the usual response of you must be so clever, which he’d never really known how to answer. On occasion, he’d just gone with a simple yes, but this wasn’t a conversation he particularly wanted to shut down.
Patrick didn’t disappoint. “Ooh, bright lad. You’re an accountant, yeah? At least, that’s what Barry said.”
“Ah yes. That’s right.” He’d started out as an accountant, before choosing to specialise in tax. Mark wasn’t sure Patrick would be all that interested in his many years of studying and exams, however. “I’m not sure it’d have been my choice, necessarily, but I didn’t have strong views either way and, well, Dad was keen for me to go into it. Got to know the rules before you can work around ’em, was what he said.”
“And you didn’t wanna upset him while he was ill, yeah?” Patrick guessed correctly. “Was it hard when he died? Shit, sorry, that must sound like crap. Course it was hard.” He ran a hand over his hair. “Just—think I mentioned my dad’s a right shite, yeah? Sometimes I wonder, you know. If I’ll regret stuff when he goes. Sorry.”
Mark thought about his father’s death, and the mess of guilt and regret he’d had to untangle afterwards. “I don’t think anyone really knows until it happens. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think he deserves a reconciliation. Not from what you told me.”
“Wasn’t sure you’d remember all that. You were a bit under the influence at the time.” Patrick gave him a half smile that was teasing and charming all at once.
“And you weren’t?” Mark raised an eyebrow.
“What, me? I can hold my drink, I can.”
“So all that business in the gents’ that night—that was you being entirely sober, was it?”
“Well, maybe not totally sober. Christ, that was fun, though. The look on that bloke’s face.” Patrick laughed. “Yours too, come to that.”
His face straightened. “So are you okay with it now? Us, I mean?”
Mark ruthlessly suppressed the stray bolt of panic that shot through him for an instant. He swallowed. “Yes. I think so. Yes,” he said again, more firmly this time.
Patrick gave him a shrewd look. “In public? Telling everyone in the Spartans you’re my bloke?”
Mark grabbed the wine bottle and refilled their glasses. “Just let me get a pint in first, all right?”
Patrick grinned and clinked their glasses together. “I’ll drink to that.”
He stayed another hour or so, then left, saying his mum was expecting him. Mark suspected it had more to do with the kisses getting a bit heated again. And while Mark’s baser half wanted to tell him no, come back, I’m a grown man, for God’s sake, his more sensible and, dare he say it, more romantic half was relieved and delighted that Patrick had meant it about not pushing the pace.
It was a big thing—all puns aside—to have sex with another man for the first time. Kissing, well, he’d done that before. But while he had no doubt it was what he wanted, Mark couldn’t help feeling a certain amount of trepidation at the thought of crossing his own personal gay Rubicon.
After Patrick had gone, Mark buzzed around the house, too keyed up to settle to anything as mundane as reading or watching television. The very thought of sleep was laughable. He felt, right now, as if he could dash off a book in a night, if he could only settle to writing. Or phone up his former superior, Charles, and tell him exactly what he thought of his bigoted attitudes.
In the end, Mark got out his laptop and did a search for Ray Franzese. He could remember Ray telling him about his surname—he’d thought it was funny. “Here I am, a British bloke with an Italian surname that means French. No wonder people don’t know what to make of me.”
Right. Dad had known only too well what to make of him.
There were several people with the name Ray Franzese, all of them with profile pictures, thank God, so at least he’d know when he’d found him. Then again, would Mark even recognise him after all these years? He scanned through the images—too young, too black, too blond…
There. It had to be, although, Christ, what the hell had happened to his hair? But he was the right age, had the right look—crooked nose and all—and it was a wedding photo, with him standing next to a dark-skinned man of similar age and lack of hair, both of them smiling their bald heads off at the camera. Heart thumping, Mark scrolled down Ray’s timeline, feeling uncomfortably stalkerish but unable to stop himself. He’d married his husband, whose name turned out to be Ola, only last year—no, wait, that had been the conversion of a civil partnership to marriage when the law allowed, Mark realised after scrolling down further. They’d had a second ceremony, both of them dressed in traditional morning coats, top hats and all. They’d been together for… God. Twenty years now.
There were plenty of good-hearted comments from friends on the photos they’d posted, both of the wedding itself and of moments from their life together.
He didn’t do too badly in the end, did he, Dad?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mark saw Patrick several times over the following week—he seemed to be quite happy to drop round either for dinner or after they’d eaten, even though it inevitably meant spending time with Fen too. It was gratifying that she seemed to want to get to know him, although Mark wasn’t sure he’d ever feel wholly comfortable with the way she continued to rather obtrusively leave them alone together after a while.
Still, it was probably better than going up to Patrick’s house and being glared at by his mum. He was damn certain there’d be no tactful withdrawal of chaperonage there.
Thursday night, Patrick turned up a bit later than usual. “Hope it’s not too late to come round. Kitchen disaster,” he half explained as Mark stood aside to let him in. “Don’t ask, and don’t offer me any toasted bread products. I had to stay and help Mum out. No Fen tonight?” he added, seeing the empty living room.
Mark shook his head. “Apparently, she’s actually been given some homework tonight, so she’s upstairs on her laptop researching towns with a tourist industry. Or playing games on Facebook. One of the two.”
Patrick grinned. “So, just you and me, yeah? Glad I came after all. Not that I’m only after your body. Wouldn’t want you to think that.”
“No?” Mark felt by this time he’d had plenty of leisure to think over the idea of having sex with a man, and he’d come to the conclusion that yes, he was fine with it, and could he be having it right now, please? He grabbed Patrick by the hips and pulled him close. “But you are after my body? In addition, obviously, to all my other fine qualities?”
“Fine qualities…?” Patrick’s puzzled frown cracked into a laugh as Mark pinched his bum in retaliation. “Oh yeah. I am seriously, seriously after your body, Mark Nugent.”
They kissed, Mark wondering if he’d ever get used enough to the taste of Patrick, the feel of him in his arms, to take it all for granted. Right now, every moment seemed like a gift. He was getting hard, and was desperate to know if Patrick was too. Maybe if he shifted their bodies just so—
Patrick broke away. “C’mon. How about we sit down and watch a bit of telly. Don’t want you feeling like a booty call.”
Mark would, right now, have been just fine with being a booty call. “If nothing else, it’d be a novel experience,” he muttered, sinking down on the sofa beside Patrick.
Patrick slid an arm around his shoulders, and Mark settled a bit lower in his seat to make it more comfortable. He was slowly getting used to sometimes being the snugglee, and not just the snuggler. Of course, they were much of a height, which made it easier to switch roles. He wondered how it was for men with much smaller partners. Did they find themselves perennially the big spoon?
“Now that, I can’t believe,” Patrick murmured in his ear.
Mark blinked, then realised what he was referring to. “Believe. I wouldn’t say booty calls hadn’t been invented—although, as far as I know, the term didn’t exist—but they were a lot less prevalent back before I got married. At least, from the sort of girls I knew.”
“And you never had a chance to get to know the right sort of blokes, yeah?”
Patrick had been flicking through channels and had apparently settled on a dull-looking programme about migrating birds. Mark frowned at the television. “You really want to watch this?”
A laugh tickled his ear. “Not a lot, no. You ready to be my booty call now?”
“God, you have to ask?”
This time, their kiss was richer, deeper. Patrick’s tongue delved into Mark’s mouth, sending a jolt straight through his body to his groin. Mark met the challenge with one of his own, light-headed with it all. He slid a hand up from Patrick’s hip to his chest, and thumbed a nipple through the thin fabric of his shirt. Already peaked, it hardened under his ministrations.
Mark shifted closer, and Patrick leaned back, pulling them both down to lie on the sofa, Mark on top of him. He could feel Patrick’s cock getting hard against his hip, and ground his own erection into the warm, perfect body beneath him—
“Dad?” It was Fen’s voice, calling down the stairs. “DAD!”
Mark broke the kiss and closed his eyes briefly. “Sorry. It’s probably just a spider in the bath, but I’d better see to it, whatever it is.”
Patrick chuckled as they got up, straightening shirts and adjusting trousers. “Nah, it’s okay. I’d better be going anyhow. But it’s been great, yeah? I’ll see you soon.”
He left, Mark watching him go with an ache in his heart and…elsewhere, to the sounds of Fen calling “Dad! Now, all right? DAD.”
It was some small consolation that Fen had discovered a minor leak in the bathroom that might, if left to itself, have had serious repercussions for the downstairs ceiling.
Mark couldn’t help wishing she’d given them just
half an hour longer before reporting it, though.
Even five minutes would probably have done, damn it.
* * * * *
Next day, after a restless night with some dreams he would not want his daughter to know about, Mark was just starting to think about lunch when the doorbell rang. Opening it, he found Patrick on the doorstep, bearing a couple of paper bags from the village baker’s shop and a hopeful expression. “Wanna do lunch?”
Mark smiled, his heart—and yes, all right, other parts—giving a joyful little leap at the sight. “Come in. I was just about to eat, so your timing’s excellent.”
Patrick grinned as he closed the door behind him and kicked off his shoes. “How hungry are you? Gotta eat this minute, or you okay to wait…for a bit?”
The glint in his eye left absolutely no doubt as to exactly what he meant a bit of. Mark swallowed. “I can wait,” he said fervently, in a voice gone suddenly hoarse.
“Fen safe at school, yeah?” Patrick asked, stepping closer and slipping his arms around Mark’s waist.
Mark nodded. “Not due back for hours. Come upstairs?”
“Mm, no hurry.” Patrick nuzzled into Mark’s neck and nipped at an earlobe playfully. “I told Lex I’d be taking a long lunch. Thought we could pick up where we left off last night.”
“With a leak in the bathroom?”
“No, ta, I went before I came.”
Mark drew back to stare at him. “What—not that sort of leak! That was what Fen was yelling about last night.”
Patrick’s smile was slow and lazy. “Uh-huh? So what am I gonna be yelling about today? Gotta say, I was hoping for something better than that.”
“In that case,” Mark said firmly, “let’s go upstairs and give you something to yell about.” He grabbed Patrick by the arse and pulled him close, unable to stifle a groan as their erections ground together. God, he’d never been so hard in his life. Patrick had grabbed him right back and was nipping at his neck again, none too gently.