Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by Clare London

  Maybe that was the precise moment Garry faced the fact he was going to lose all that—and the potential of so much more. He ached to say to Sheila “Yeah, I wish.” It would have been true, wouldn’t it? But how bloody embarrassing. Even though Will was gay too, that didn’t mean they’d automatically click romantically. How pathetic, to trip up on that crush-on-your-best-friend trope. Garry would have laughed at himself if he hadn’t felt so dismal.

  He drank far too much after that. The bar was overheated with bodies, dimly lit, with a background of loud, bold laughter. He was surrounded by groups of smart-suited men with their jackets off and their ties loosened after work. He lost sight of most of his mates, though occasionally Sheila would come to check up on him, patting his arm as if in consolation.

  But how come he instinctively found sight of Will, every time he turned around?

  He knew it was time to go home. Run away. Just leave, no fuss, get a cab. Pull himself together. Get some perspective. Yeah, tomorrow he’d be fine. He’d be over this.

  “Garry? You need to leave?”

  Suddenly beside him: the smell of Will’s cologne and the sound of his much lower, softer voice. Garry’s heart was thumping with tension and misery and a strange, unspecified excitement.

  “I’s fni—fine.”

  Will smirked. “Didn’t realise you’d had so much. Can’t have been on Bernie’s round. The tight-fisted git vanishes to the bog every time it’s his shout—”

  A group on their way to the bar jostled them to one side. Garry grabbed Will’s arm, sudden, clumsy. He started mumbling about Will leaving the country, words spilling from his mouth like a tap had been turned on suddenly—rubbish that he wasn’t even sure Will could hear or make sense of. His back hit the wall of a shadowed corner, nestling in an alcove under the stairs leading to the upper floor, and Will stumbled with him, his body tilting against Garry’s, his knee nudging between Garry’s legs.

  Oh. Will may have been talking too, but Garry’s brain had disconnected. He acted without thought, just with pure, honest desire. He dipped his head, his mouth awkwardly brushing Will’s. It was enough to lick Will’s lips, to push a tongue gently in between them, to taste Will’s sweet, beery saliva.

  “Garry…!”

  One superb moment of Will’s mouth moving against his, his tongue in Garry’s mouth, his hand gripping Garry’s waist. Then Will tensed and pulled back.

  “Garry?”

  Garry met Will’s gaze of total shock. Total shock. He leaned back towards Garry, his mouth opening. Probably wanted to yell at Garry. Maybe thump him.

  “Gotta go,” Garry muttered. “Call you.” He all but thrust Will away from him and bolted from the pub.

  And oh my fucking God, supreme embarrassment dogged his heels all the way home.

  “HIT!” MAX shouted in Garry’s right ear.

  Garry flinched, but it was only part of the card game. He sighed and wriggled down in his plastic seat. Why the hell was the rather exhaustive company of two small children causing all this introspection?

  Don’t be naïve. He knew exactly why.

  Meeting Will today wasn’t just about a holiday. It was going to involve massive grovelling and abject apology. Garry had had a whole week to prepare for that: to man up. To admit he’d been well out of order. Grabbing Will that evening, as Will stared back at him with a strangely soft look in his eyes and his mouth—his mouth—half-open as if he wanted to say something but was uncharacteristically hesitant….

  That kiss had been such a mistake. Clumsy and sloppy, much too eager, and totally unexpected, judging from the look on Will’s face and the way he sucked in his breath and the shock in his eyes, the shock. Garry had obviously misread the signs, misjudged the moment, missed the whole damned point.

  Oh my God. It didn’t get any better, however many times he recalled that moment. He shut his eyes again and prayed for….

  He really didn’t know what.

  A woman wandered past the chairs, struggling across the airport lounge with more hand luggage than could service a family of six. One of the cases fell off her trolley as she passed, and Garry jumped up to help her balance it back on. She thanked him profusely.

  “So nice to find a helpful young man nowadays,” she gushed. “And such lovely children! You must be very proud of them. They’re like angels.” The woman gazed affectionately at Emily and Max.

  Garry turned to stare back at these presumed cherubim. Both kids sat with their hands in their laps and their eyes wide, smiling obligingly at their new fan. They had grubby faces and their clothes were badly creased from being cooped up in an airport lounge, but their faces shone with a youth and innocence that was positively transcending. Butter wouldn’t fucking melt, Garry thought, rather gracelessly. He started to explain they weren’t his but found he hadn’t got the energy.

  “You won’t mind if I just give them a little kiss? I’m on my way to meet up with my own little darlings, but heaven knows when my flight will arrive.” The woman swept in on them; Max’s eyes widened and Emily’s nose wrinkled in what might have been horror.

  Garry smirked. “Of course not. Go right ahead. They love to meet new people. Don’t you, kids?” He watched them wince under the onslaught of dry, perfumed kisses on their respective cheeks and decided that revenge—however small a dose—was one of the sweetest things he’d tasted for a while.

  When the woman moved on and Garry sat again, Max snorted. “People do that all the time. Think we’re angels. Makes me gag.” He glared at Garry, angry with what he perceived as adult treachery, but grudgingly accepted one of the ubiquitous napkins from him. He scrubbed the scarlet lipstick off his face viciously.

  “I want to be an angel,” Emily said. “I want big white wings and gold shoes.” There was still a streak of ketchup in her angelically blonde hair. It almost matched the large lip print left on her cheek, which she didn’t seem to mind at all. Then she turned so quickly to Garry that he was caught unawares. “Are your children like angels, Garry?”

  “I….” He stammered, then started again. “I don’t have any children.”

  “Your wife will be sad about that,” she said, a mournful expression settling on her face.

  “Mum says no children would be a blessing,” Max grunted.

  “I don’t have a wife either,” Garry said swiftly. Perhaps he could distract them with more sweets. Double ice creams. Perhaps they’d just go off and bother someone else…. “Anyway, where is your mum?”

  There was no answer to this, as usual. “Mum says,” Emily began. Garry felt her brother tense up beside him, his partner in anticipation. “Mum says that men-who-don’t-have-wives hang about with wobbly women.”

  Garry laughed out loud at that. He stared at her, shaking his head. “Wobbly women?”

  Emily looked at him as if he had very, very special needs, and she should be especially protective of him. “Wobbly, like my tooth. Look!” She opened her mouth wide and wiggled her lower front tooth. “It’s loose!”

  Garry grinned even more broadly. For the first time since he got to this godforsaken lounge, he was starting to enjoy himself. “Well, that’s not me, Emily. I don’t hang out with any loose women, you’ll be pleased to hear.”

  “So who do you hang up with?”

  “It’s hang out with. And it’s with Will, of course!” Max snapped at his sister. “Isn’t that true, Garry?”

  “Yeah. That’s why we’re both meeting here, actually. We’re going to meet up with some other old friends and have a holiday together.” Garry felt warm inside, anticipating the pleasure of seeing the guys again. Of seeing Will. “One of my friends lives in Glasgow, you see, and he’s arranged hotels and things for us. We’ll all meet tonight and catch up on news.”

  “We don’t live here,” Emily said quickly. She glanced at Max. “We’re just parcelling through.”

  Garry hoped she didn’t see his breath of relief.

  “Tomorrow,” Max said.

  “Huh?”
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  “You’ll meet your friends tomorrow, not tonight,” the boy said, rather primly. “You have to wait for Will.”

  “And he won’t be here until after the Delay!” Emily announced.

  “Okay,” Garry said, his nerves once again on edge. “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “You’re welcome!” Max grinned, looking truly pleased with himself.

  Garry didn’t have the heart to be angry. He couldn’t expect a ten-year-old to cope with irony, could he?

  “You won’t be so grumpy when you’re with Will.” Emily beamed with her own certitude.

  “Maybe not.” Depends on how things have been in New York, and how they’ll be in the future. Whether we can keep a friendship going over the distance. Or whether Will really wants to move on. Has he forgiven me for pouncing on him like that? Might have been seriously pissed off. Might never want to see me again.

  It seemed to Garry that the misery was settling into his gut for the long haul.

  “You need breaking,” Emily announced.

  Garry shrugged, almost comfortably tuning in by now to her vocabulary. “Yes, you’re right. I probably do need a break. Relax for a week or so, you know. Get things straight in my mind. Decide what to do with my future. My options. And everything.” He thought he was rambling a bit. It had been a long time since the fries, and he was feeling shaky again from hunger. “I haven’t seen the guys all together for a while.”

  Will, more recently. That night, in the bar….

  “We’ve just had a break,” Emily chirruped. “We’re on our way back to Lollywood after staying with Unc. Dad’s a carrot tractor.”

  “Character actor,” Garry said, at the same time as Max. They exchanged rueful grins.

  Emily nodded impatiently, as if she didn’t see why everyone had to repeat everything.

  “Mum says it was a break, all right.” Max scowled. “Stuck with us all day broke her heart.”

  “Dad says her shopping broke his bank,” Emily bounced back.

  They pulled faces at each other, the most perfect antithesis of angels that Garry could ever have imagined. Then they cleared their expressions like they’d been wiped off a chalkboard, and they laughed together.

  He looked from one to another, feeling at a complete loss.

  “Look, kids,” he started nervously. “Parents, you know? They might fight a bit, but they don’t always mean what they say.”

  The children both turned to stare at him with amazement. It was that “special needs” look again, mirrored in two sets of clear blue eyes.

  “It’s fine, Garry,” Max said, quite gently. Like he knew he had to explain it very slowly and very carefully. “It’s just part of growing up. For the adults. We don’t let it get on top of us.”

  Garry wondered what it must be like to be in the mind of a child. He wasn’t sure any amount of therapy could cope with it.

  “Can we get some more fries?” Emily asked. “With extra ketchup?”

  IT WAS early evening, and stranded passengers were searching for places to lie down and rest. Garry scoured the notice boards for any further information, but there was no change to the ETA of Will’s flight. Funnily enough, he didn’t feel as angry about it anymore.

  Exhaustion, he expected. Still several hours to go. He wondered if Allen would call the airport when he and Will didn’t turn up at the hotel and learn about the Delay. Garry still hadn’t been able to get through to Allen’s mobile. Should he try again? He couldn’t seem to find the energy. What would be, would be.

  He was wryly amused at his newfound tolerance.

  Max had insisted on being the one to go to get the fries, so Garry was left with Emily. She chose that time to snuggle up to him and have a rest. Not a nap! She was very firm about that. She could stay up longer than any person who could stay up longer than the world could stay up around the moon. Or something like that. He couldn’t follow the words, but he liked the determination in her eyes. It reminded him of his friends when they were all younger—when they were so passionate about the world and their place in it.

  He looked down on the tousled blonde hair resting on his arm. “Will Max be going to check in with your parents?” he asked, softly.

  Emily bit back a yawn. “Prob’ly. Garden ants have to do that. He said Dad was still red and Mum was in the toilet. But Unc will sort them out.”

  “You love your Unc?”

  She nodded. “He gets me sweets. He makes me laugh. Max says he boils me.”

  “Spoils,” Garry murmured instinctively.

  “He’s a friend like your Will.” She smiled and pushed back some hair to stare up at him. The Hello Kitty T-shirt looked worse than ever, but she still looked impossibly cute.

  “You seem strangely fascinated by Will.”

  “I can be fancy mated by him, can’t I?” She pouted. “You are.”

  “Hey,” Garry protested gently. “Sorry, kid, but you know nothing about it, okay? You only just met me. You don’t know Will or how we are together.” He didn’t think he’d been too fierce, but he watched with some alarm as her face struggled with sudden upset.

  “Don’t you want him to boil you?” Her sniff sounded suspiciously like a snivel.

  Garry stepped mentally on eggshells. “Spoil, honey. No, I don’t expect that. Adults don’t do that, you see, not the same way as for children.”

  “But he—”

  “Yeah,” Garry broke in, ready for her this time. “He makes me laugh. Maybe he’d get me sweets. But the spoiling business isn’t for guys like us.”

  “You shouldn’t be such a sick nickel,” she snapped, her mood turning from anguish to anger in a split second. Garry swallowed hard and tried to keep up. “I’m sure he’s lonely without you,” she insisted. “That’s why he’s meeting you here.” She seemed to have recovered from his rebuke and was back on the offence.

  Garry was still decoding cynical, and she’d caught him unawares again. “No,” he protested. “That’s not really how it is.”

  Is it?

  “So does he have a wife? Lots of kids?”

  Fuck. Now he had Will’s résumé to cope with as well. “No,” he said carefully. “But I don’t think that’s anything to do—”

  “So I’m right!” she interrupted. She stabbed a sticky finger at his chest like a weapon. “He needs you. You can boil each other ’cos you don’t have kids like me. ’S perfect.”

  “We don’t want kids. I mean, neither of us wants… individually… you know.” No, he thought wryly. She wouldn’t know. Obviously he and Will had already made decisions and taken directions through adulthood that Emily was years away from. They were talking from very different ends of the spectrum.

  She looked at him with furrowed brow. “But you’d want some if they were like me. And Max. Right?”

  “Right. Of course. You two apart,” Garry soothed. It was a minefield, this dealing with youngsters. Where the fuck was the manual?

  “You do like me, Garry, don’t you?” The wobbling lower lip was back in evidence.

  “Of course! A lot.” It was a flip reply, but he realised it was true. Sometimes he forgot she was only seven, that she’d invaded his space with sugar and ketchup, that she’d brought her matching bookend brother.

  He liked them both. He wasn’t sure how he’d have coped so far without them. They’d made the Delay almost bearable. Though he wished Max would come back soon with the fries and it wasn’t just because he was starving.

  But Emily snuggled back down against him and seemed to have abandoned her emotional arguments. “I like you a lot too, Garr-eee. And you like Will, just as much. He’s special.”

  He bent his head to catch all her words. Her voice was muffled against his shirt—now also stained with chocolate ice cream—and she was a little sleepy. “Well, of course he is,” he murmured. He tucked some of her blonde hair back behind her ears. Her Barbie clip was hanging loose and he re-fastened it. “I have lots of special friends.”

  “No,” she sa
id, sighing as if life was a dreadful trial for one so young, especially with a new friend who was proving to be so dense. “He’s special special. Your eyes go weird when you talk about him.”

  “As well as the screwed-up face?” said Garry. He was getting used to the contempt that kids seemed to hold for the adult race.

  “Yes,” she said, quite matter-of-factly. “With your eyes and your face, you look silly. Silly all over.”

  She fell silent, losing her fight against sleep. Garry just sat there and tried to stretch himself comfortably under her limp little body.

  Will’s lonely without me. He smiled to himself, though a little sadly. Wasn’t that the most unlikely thing this side of the Atlantic? Just the opposite was true, of course. It was his loneliness that was nagging at him, his painful need to see his friend.

  He was surprised that so many things were suddenly so blindingly clear to him.

  You look silly.

  He mentally slapped his forehead. And didn’t that just sum him up?

  HE’D AVOIDED Will in the forty-eight hours before he left for America. How childish was that? But after the kiss—the shameless groping—he felt such an idiot, he had no idea what he’d say to Will to explain.

  If he even could.

  Will rang many times. Garry felt shitty about ignoring the calls. In the end he sent Will a text to say he’d come down with food poisoning and couldn’t leave the flat, and would Will let work know Garry wouldn’t be in. Then another text, to tell Will not to come around, because he was sleeping all the time.

  Double shitty.

  He knew Will didn’t have enough time before leaving for New York to make a fuss. But he did muster enough courage to text Will—again—with the promise he’d call as soon as Will settled in America.

  Wuss.

  He’d called Will in the US. Of course he had. He wanted to hear all the news, all about the staff they’d only ever seen mentioned on internal memos, about Will’s hotel, about the places they took him to eat. Thank God Will hadn’t picked up an American drawl yet.