by Alexis Hall
Obviously I didn’t shoot myself. Because I did, in fact, have a sense of proportion and I also had no idea how to get a gun in the UK. Then again, I did buy a ticket to Boston, so maybe I could pick up a Glock from a corner shop while I was over there. Y’know, just on the off-chance Nathaniel invited me back.
Anyway, ticketed and ungunned, I left work promptly so as not to be late for the thing I desperately wanted to be late for. I can’t say I hadn’t fabricated and discarded about sixty-three million potential excuses over the course of the afternoon, but now that going had become unavoidable, I didn’t feel quite as bad about it as I’d been expecting. It helped that I was looking extra cute today, in pink jeans and a dark blue shirt, the coat Caspian had bought me (mainly because it was the only one I owned), and Ilya’s scarf. And I’d even nipped out at lunchtime and bought a bottle of wine: A+ guesting.
Nathaniel lived in Muswell Hill, which was about half an hour up the Northern Line, but I decided to walk to Warren Street in order to cut down on the Tube changes. My route took me along Regent Street, which was ablaze with Christmas gold, spilling like glitter from the shop fronts and the electric angels who hovered above us on wings of light. The road rumbled with taxis and buses, and I got fairly jostled as I wriggled through the crowds, but I was nevertheless caught by the most unexpected sense of belonging. I’d been in London for over six months, watched the greens of summer in Hyde Park, walked by the river on silver autumn evenings, and turned up the collar of my coat against the December dark. This was my city now. And even though I was a pin-drop of a nobody amongst a cacophony of strangers, I didn’t feel alone.
Having factored getting lost into my ETA, I made it to Nathaniel’s house bang on seven. And then lurked in a bush round the corner for ten minutes because I wanted to make damn sure Caspian would be there before me. The idea of having to make awkward small talk with Nathaniel on my own was, frankly, too horrible to contemplate. It also gave me an opportunity to get the lie of land, in case my nerves gave way and I had to run screaming into the night. The street was leafy and suburban, and lined with those generous Edwardian houses that always seemed a bit smug. Nathaniel’s was the end terrace, white-painted and pretty, with mock Tudor gables, a parquet path leading to the door, and a front garden that looked genuinely cared for. There wasn’t much to see at the moment, since all the plants were bare, but I was sure some of them were actual motherfucking roses. While I lived in a disused dog biscuit factory. Yay.
Once I was sure it was safe, and not late enough to be actively rude, I extricated myself from my shrubbery and went to knock. There were stained glass flower patterns in the door, and they didn’t look even a little bit tacky. After a second or two, Nathaniel answered, bringing with him a swirl of warm air and some truly delicious food smells.
“Arden,” he said. “Come on in. I’m afraid Caspian got delayed at work, but he’s on his way now.”
Shit fuck wankery shit on a stick up your arse with bells on. “Oh. Err. Right.”
The hallway was spacious and light and gorgeous and fuck him. Just fuck him.
And he was smiling at me. “Let me take your coat.”
“Oh. Err. Right.”
Except I was holding the bottle of wine, so this led to me getting my arm stuck, and then my scarf got tangled, and then, about six hours later, when I’d managed to get my outer garments off, I spectacularly failed to give them to Nathaniel and ended up just dropping them on the floor at his feet. I bent to grab everything at about the same time he did, nearly banged heads with him, and finally just fell over in a heap on the polished wooden floorboards. Because of course I did.
“Shoes on or off?” I asked.
“Whatever makes you most comfortable.” He began hanging up my coat. “This is a really lovely garment.”
“Thank you. It was…uh…kind of a present?”
From Caspian clanged between us like the bells of Notre Dame.
“I brought you some wine.” I waved it. “It’s probably not very good because it was six ninety-nine, but it’s called Green Fish and it has a picture of a green fish on the bottle, so, y’know…”
Having finished draping my scarf artistically over my coat, he took the bottle from my outstretched hand like I’d offered him a live grenade. “Thank you. How very thoughtful. But I should have mentioned in the email we’re having lamb.”
He had mentioned it. Along with the fact the lamb in question would be ethically sourced. “Okay?”
“So,” he went on gently, “you would have known to bring red.”
I gazed up at him in the throes of an Elizabeth Bennett moment. I know I’m not always as brave or as bold as I’d want to be—on top of possessing the poise of a smooshed grape—but goddamn, I had no time for deliberate attempts to socially shame me. I mean, I am short, skinny, and queer AF: You do not get to pull that shit on people like me. Or to put it another way: My courage always rises with every (well, some) attempts to intimidate me.
“Look,” I said. “You could have told me we were having roast Martian with cantaloupe and I’d have still got the wrong wine because I know bugger all about the stuff. I brought it because it’s the sort of thing you bring to a dinner party. If I knew you better, I’d have tried to find something you’d actually like—flowers or Turkish delight or posh elderflower juice. But I don’t, so I couldn’t, so you got some crappy wine.”
There was a long silence. At this point, being thrown out of the house was looking like a positive outcome. But Nathaniel surprised me.
“I’m sorry, Arden. You’re right, of course. And I appreciate the gesture.” He helped me to my feet, his eyes steady on mine, their gold sheen luminous and solemn. “The truth is, I taught myself about wine when I came to London. But it shouldn’t be a social mandate, especially if you don’t actually enjoy drinking it.”
“I don’t mind it. I just tend to prefer my drinks pink, sweet, and bristling with unnecessary cocktail umbrellas. Y’know, like me.”
“I think I have the ingredients on hand to make a cosmopolitan. Though I can’t promise a cocktail umbrella.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to put you to any trouble.” Fuck, we were getting into competitive Good Host and Good Guest territory now. “I’m honestly happy to drink whatever you were intending for us to drink.”
“It’s no trouble. I’ll even have one myself.” He gave me a slightly strained smile—which I appreciated a hell of a lot more than an unstrained smile since this was a fucking straining situation. “Unfortunately, I still have some things to take care of in the kitchen. You’re welcome to come with me or wait in the living room—I realise in either case I’m treating you badly, but I hadn’t anticipated Caspian’s absence.”
I widened my eyes at him. “What? Caspian Hart? Absent? Say it ain’t so.”
“Well, I…” Nathaniel’s lips twitched uncertainly, as if maybe it had never occurred to him to laugh a little bit at Caspian. “I suppose my entire relationship with Caspian could be characterised as the triumph of hope over experience.”
Heh. Mine too. “Dude would take a conference call at his own funeral.”
“I’m afraid I really must get back to dinner. The lounge is just through there”—he waved somewhere off to my right—“and the kitchen down here.”
I really wanted Option Lounge. But that would involve essentially admitting I’d rather sit alone in an empty room than spend five minutes in Nathaniel’s company. Repressing a sigh, I followed him down the hall. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No, it’s all ready to go. I just need to keep an eye on the lamb.”
“Ah,” I said sagely, “but quis lamb custodiet ipsos lamb custodes.”
Somehow, Nathaniel’s back managed to give me a weird look. “I…I have no idea what that means.”
Good call, Arden. Because what this evening really needed was a “who watches the watchmen” joke. In Latin. “Don’t worry about it. I thought it might be funny, but it just turned out st
upid. Story of my life, really.”
Needless to say, Nathaniel’s kitchen was amazing: spacious and airy and decorated with the sort of subtle sophistication that would probably always be beyond me. The floor was wood, like the hall, the surfaces granite, and the fittings a dusty grey-blue that still managed to work. But what really got me was the way it was so clearly a loved space—the care that had been lavished on the design, with everything to hand and in its proper place, and the American-style breakfast bar that hinted at a wish for company. It was perilously easy to imagine what dating Nathaniel might be like. Sitting at this very breakfast bar in a wash of buttery sunlight, while he…I bet he would make French toast. In his dressing gown, with his hair still tousled, and the taste of cinnamon on his lips.
God. No wonder Caspian wanted to marry him. The best you could hope for from me in the morning was a sloppy bj I’d probably doze back off in the middle of anyway.
“Your house is so nice,” I said.
Nathaniel had made a beeline for the cooker, which was big enough it probably qualified as a range, and currently bristling with a terrifying array of pots and pans. But he glanced over his shoulder, blushing faintly. “Thank you. It was a bit of a fixer-upper, to be honest. I could never have afforded it otherwise.”
Fan-fucking-tastic. So not only was his house completely ridiculous, but he had made it that way himself. The man was an entire episode of Queer Eye all on his own. Actually, he was better than an episode of Queer Eye because he seemed legitimately able to cook, and wasn’t just going to put cilantro on top of something and call it a meal.
I hoisted myself onto one of the chairs at the breakfast bar. “And the food smells out of this world.”
Because it did.
Also, at this rate, I could just keep complimenting Nathaniel on the amazing life he had and we wouldn’t have to talk to each other at all.
“Thank you.” He threw me a smile, which seemed genuine. And then, in quite a different voice, “Oh, there you are. Hello, sweetness. How’s my darling?”
For a brief about-to-throw-up-in-my-mouth moment, I thought Caspian had arrived, but it turned out Nathaniel was talking to a cat which had just come into the kitchen.
Not quite willing to abandon the Admire Everything strategy and conscious that pet owners—much like people with kids—dug it when you made a fuss of their animals, I said, “Oh wow, he’s beautiful.”
“Isn’t she? She’s called Lillie, after Lillie Langtry.”
“Wasn’t she friendly with Oscar Wilde?”
Nathaniel nodded.
“I can see the resemblance.” I mean, I couldn’t. It was a cat. But what are you gonna do? And I had to admit, she was striking, being long-haired, and silver-coloured, with pale green eyes and an aristocratic better-than-you expression. “What breed is she?”
“I’m not sure—she’s a rescue cat.”
Of course she was. Of course. Nathaniel worked for charity, fixed up his house, cooked with ethically sourced products, and made me want to claw my own skin off with his oblivious commitment to being a good person. His unnaturally lovely cat could only have come from a shelter.
“I think,” he was saying, “she probably has some Maine coon blood in her. From the shape of her head and the fluffiness of her tail.”
“I can’t believe anyone would abandon her in the first place.” I’d watched a fair bit of Pet Rescue growing up, and catteries tended to be stuffed with sad-looking black-and-white moggies, not lofty feline princesses.
Lillie was twining herself possessively around Nathaniel’s ankles, and purring. “Well, she has FIV and people can be ignorant and cruel.”
“Eep. Sorry.”
“It’s a very manageable condition. It just means she can’t go outside or interact with other cats very much. But”—and here Nathaniel readopted his cat-voice which, I couldn’t deny, was kind of sexy in a messed-up way—“Lillie knows she’s my special girl. Who’s my special girl? Is it you? Yes it is. But Daddy has to cook now, darling.”
Okay. So. Here’s hoping I never have to hear Nathaniel refer to himself as Daddy again. While I was still processing, Lillie padded across the floor and leapt up onto the seat next to me, sitting there in the style of one of those ancient Egyptian cat statues, waiting to be worshipped.
“Hi, Lillie,” I tried. “What a pretty cat you are.”
I went to pet her ears but they snapped down immediately into hell no mode. And the next thing I knew, Lillie was a ball of electric fur, glaring at me from the floor, and my hand was covered in scratches.
“Um, Nathaniel?”
“I should probably have warned you. She can be a little nervous around strangers.”
“Sorry, but I’m um…bleeding here.”
“Oh, Lillie.” Nathaniel regarded her with an air of exasperated fondness. “What have you done, you naughty little minx?”
I would have thought it was fairly obvious. Lillie just turned and sauntered off, her tail curled smugly over her back in that here’s my arsehole, sucker way that cats seemed especially into.
“Do you maybe have a tissue or something?” I asked. “I’m dripping on the floor.”
As it turned out, Nathaniel—on account of being a fully functioning grown-up—had a first aid kit. And I had to sit there like a kid who’d fallen over in the playground while he disinfected and bandaged me. As intimacies went, it was pretty banal, but it was still way more intimacy than either of us wanted. Unfortunately, the alternative would have been admitting our preferred level of interaction was as little as humanly possible.
Nathaniel’s attentions were careful and impersonal as he bent, frowning in concentration, over my gushing cat wounds. But it was still too much, transforming him, very much against my will, from a plaster saint to a flesh-and-blood man. One who touched and felt, and was as real to Caspian as I was.
A different thought occurred to me. “Am I going to get cat AIDS now?”
“No, Arden. You’re not going to get cat AIDS.” For some reason, it sounded way worse repeated back to me. “FIV is not transferable to humans.”
“Good to know.”
God, I wanted to go home.
Maybe Nathaniel was thinking along similar lines, because he slid his phone out of his pocket, checked it, and wasn’t entirely able to hide a grimace. “Caspian’s stuck in traffic.”
“Yep yep.”
“I think”—Nathaniel finished packing away his gauze and antiseptics—“I’ll make those drinks now.”
Well, it was that or joint ritual suicide. “Sounds great.”
Of course, he just had martini glasses sitting in one of his cupboards. Sigh. And a cocktail shaker, which—while he didn’t fling it around or anything—he handled in a manner that suggested he knew what he was doing with it. Sure enough, a minute or so later, he was placing two perfectly made cosmopolitans onto the breakfast bar, each with a slice of lime balanced on the rim.
I was too ground down to tell him it was amazing-wonderful-fabulous, so I just drank the fucking thing, mumbling a half-arsed “Cheers” a second or two before the alcohol hit my mouth. It helped a bit—it tasted good, exactly the right mix of sweet, tart, and fruity, and the vodka was faintly numbing.
Numbing was good. Numbing was my friend.
Nathaniel put down his empty glass with a click. And we sort of stared at each other for a while. I honestly couldn’t tell anymore if we were enemies or allies or something in between, like the English and German soldiers playing football in no-man’s-land on Christmas Day. Only with less mud and imminent, horrible death. I opened my mouth to say…I don’t know…I guess I wanted to be honest? I wasn’t made for whatever game we were playing. And I didn’t think he was either.
But before I could speak, there came the rattle of a lock and the sound of footsteps in the hall, and my brain went surface-of-Mars desolate apart from he has a key to Nathaniel’s house, which scored itself into my psyche in letters that could be seen from space. And then Caspian him
self walked into the kitchen.
Chapter 16
His coat was over his arm, and he was wearing one of his most austere suits: charcoal grey over a blue shirt, with a dark tie, very similar, now I thought about it, to the one he’d worn for the interview. It wasn’t my favourite look for him—I missed the sly flamboyance of his pocket squares and silk linings—but it gave him this kind of refined ferocity, all sharp lines and shadows like a thresher shark.
“It seems”—his gaze settled on our empty cocktail glasses—“I’ve missed quite the party.”
“That’s what you get for being late,” I told him at the same time Nathaniel said, “We had one drink.”
God help us, it was going to be a long evening.
Nathaniel slipped away from the breakfast bar and kissed Caspian lightly on the cheek—which I desperately, desperately didn’t want to see, but ho hum. “I’m glad you’re here. Why don’t you take Arden through to the dining room and I’ll serve?”
It was, like, literally off the kitchen, so I didn’t need an escort. All the same, I waited for Caspian to pass his coat to Nathaniel and then obediently followed him through to another well-proportioned, well-appointed room, this time with a fashionably rustic vibe. Seriously, couldn’t Nathaniel own one ugly thing? Just one?
Lillie slunk in and eyed us both with obvious contempt.
“She can be nervous around strangers,” explained Caspian.
I have to admit I wasn’t feeling super long on social graces right then. “Does she now?” I waved my bloody hand. “I had no idea.”
“So”—he cleared his throat—“injuries aside, how are you?”
“Good, thanks. You?”
“Likewise.” I gave him a withering look and he had the grace to blush. “That is, I’m quite well. Busy, of course. But well. And what of you?”
“I just told you: I’m good.”
There was definitely a panicky glaze in his eyes now. “So you did. But your family? Are all in good health?”