And afterwards, at ten past eleven and three sheets to the wind, Mike could put his hand in the back pocket of Stephen’s jeans, and use his own bulk to steer the drunken lush home.
“Oh, I see,” Stephen said when Mike squeezed one pert arse-cheek. “Still after your stair sex are you?”
“‘Course,” Mike said breezily. “Only sort of bloody sex I ever get these days.”
“You sodding liar!”
Mike laughed, and caught the clumsy kiss that came his way. It tasted of cider and pork scratchings.
“Sod it,” said Stephen. “Let’s stop at the chippie.”
This was what life was all about.
* * * *
Life was not about getting up at six o’clock in the morning on the first day of the summer holidays to drive to the bloody arse end of nowhere in buggering Scotland.
It was also not about getting landed with driving the first leg, because your nutter of a husband had gotten up at four to go for a run.
“It was nice weather!” Stephen said defensively as Mike hooked the suit bags up in the back seat, beside the just-in-case camping gear. Never knew when he’d have to flee into the Scottish wilderness to escape the in-laws after all. “And I couldn’t sleep with you snoring in my ear anyway.”
“Could’ve woken me up for a shag if you felt antsy.”
Stephen snorted. “Please. You’d have bitched and moaned then, too.”
“Only until you got your kit off.”
“It was already off,” Stephen said, folding his long limbs into the passenger seat. “You left it all on the stairs.”
Mike cracked a grin, swapping his glasses for his shades before getting behind the wheel. Stephen looked a picture, stretched out in his board shorts and T-shirt, sunglasses hiding hungover eyes, and suddenly Mike didn’t mind driving so much.
Couldn’t let that show, though. Berk might get ideas.
“You take over at the border.”
“S’fine.”
“Then it’s your fault if we get lost.”
“We won’t get lost.”
“Shame. Then we’d be late.”
“How lost do you think we’re going to get?”
“Twenty years in the wilderness lost?”
“You wish,” Stephen said sourly.
Mike did wish. Stephen came from money. Old money. His old man owned half the Highlands and three international law firms to boot. His old lady wasn’t exactly working-class stock herself. And money didn’t like its precocious eldest child chucking away a fully-funded PhD scholarship at Oxford to shack up in a grubby flat in a run-down city with an obese biology teacher. Stephen’s mother hadn’t spoken to them at all for a blissful six months after Stephen had started his own teacher training. Mike had hoped it would last.
But no, Dame Black—or Damn Black, as Mike called her—was like a mosquito. Immortal, and kept coming back to bite. The minute Stephen’s sisters had gotten engaged, Damn Black was on the blower, and insisting Stephen not only attend both weddings, but wear a kilt.
“Least I’ll get a good look at those legs,” Mike said jovially as they joined the Saturday morning traffic heading into town.
“Mm. Jury’s still out on that.”
The sun was blazing. They drove with the windows down to the motorway, then wound them up and blasted the air conditioning as Mike barrelled down the slip road and into the northbound traffic. The route was semi-familiar, and semi-not. They didn’t visit the Black family at all if anybody involved could help it, but Stephen was so in love with the Scottish mud and mountains that Mike usually ended up being dragged to some cabin in the woods at least once a year. He would find a pub, Stephen would find a mountain, and there was always a lot of genuine Scottish tablet involved afterwards. Bit of genuine Scottish shagging, too, if Mike was lucky.
Those weekends away, Mike could tolerate. Midges and bogs aside. But a six and a half hour drive to have Damn Black turn up her nose again? He’d rather roll around in honey and walk naked through the midge-ridden countryside than visit that old witch.
Still, he’d tried. Stephen had been raised with a proper old-fashioned idea of family, and it was only critical moments—like their own wedding—when he turned aside from them entirely. And his sister getting married wasn’t such a moment. “She’s my bloody twin,” he’d said. “I have to go.” And Stephen had given him the option of not coming, but Mike hadn’t wanted to make Stephen go into that wasps’ nest on his own.
So here they were.
Despite the destination, it was a nice drive. Stephen dozed until they passed Leeds, then woke up a bit and they played road rage for the next fifty miles or so, critiquing other drivers and shouting abuse at BMWs that flashed past in the fast lane. As the landscape grew darker and heavier, hills beginning to swell around them, Stephen’s soft accent—so gentle it was nearly gone most days—began to swell as well.
And if there was one thing Mike missed about their damp-ridden flat in Edinburgh, it was the way Stephen’s voice had carried in soft lilts and lows when he talked.
They stopped in Carlisle for lunch, had a brief but vicious argument over shortbread—Stephen utterly refused to touch anything made south of the border—and then had to jog back to the car when Cumbria performed its usual trick of turning a nice day wetter than a whore’s drawers in under thirty seconds.
Then Mike started laughing at Stephen’s hair, flattened into a slab by the sudden downpour, Stephen dried it obnoxiously on Mike’s sleeve, and they ended up necking in the front seat like a couple of ruddy teenagers.
“Better than the back seat,” Stephen opined loftily, when Mike voiced the thought.
“Barely.”
“Definitely. We’d not fit, not with all that crap back there.”
“We fit on your graduation day.”
Stephen raised his eyebrows. “That was a taxi, not your Passat.”
“Still a back seat.”
“And you were about fifty pounds lighter then.”
“True, but you weren’t doing yoga back then either.”
Stephen snorted. “I keep telling you, that’s not what it’s for.”
“Bloody ought to be, places you can put your ankles these days…”
Stephen mimicked him in a high whine. Mike hit his knee, and turned the key in the ignition.
“Twat,” he said, just to get the last word in before they set off.
Stephen just smirked at the rain and said nothing.
They swapped duties at the border, Mike having never actually been to the Black estate, much less whatever arse-end-of-nowhere manor Beth had undoubtedly chosen to flash her new diamond ring. He took over the radio, trying to find a station without a Glaswegian murdering a cat and calling it music, and eventually gave up and rummaged in the glove box for a CD. And yes, the car was too old for the iPhone adaptor.
And the further they crept from the border, the grimmer the set of Stephen’s mouth became, and the slower he drove.
Dusk was falling by the time they arrived.
And they arrived quite out of nowhere. One moment they were following a winding, narrow road bracketed by dark trees, glimpses of a great shadow in the distance hinting at the Cairngorms close by, and the next, Stephen had jerked the car off into a hidden turning, and the tyres were squishing and crashing through muddy puddles.
And then the trees opened up, and the manor appeared.
“So,” Mike said conversationally, “Beth’s going for the quiet, low-key sort of affair is she?”
Stephen snorted.
The manor stuck out on the landscape like a boil. It was the typical sort of thing for a fancy, cash-flashing wedding: a hundred-room mansion, two hundred years old with spotty WiFi, and oozing money and opulence from every crevice like a flabby granddad sweating in a sauna. It was a brown blob in the midst of a green and grey classical painting, the setting sun bathing the distant mountains in pink and gold, and overlaying the grim wilderness with a touch of almost ethereal
beauty.
Bit like Stephen in a grump then.
The car bounced onto gravel, crunched loudly enough that they might have run over a wild haggis, and slid into place between a freakishly clean Jaguar, and an obscenely large Land Rover that was too spotless for its owner to actually need a Land Rover.
It was the latest model, too, but the personalised number plate was familiar.
“Damn—I mean Dame—Black is here.”
Stephen didn’t rise to the barb.
Not two feet inside the architect’s-wet-dream of a lobby, Mike could hear the braying laugh of Dame Mary Ann Black. Or DAM3 MAB, as her number plate insisted. Stephen’s jaw tightened, and he made for the desk like he’d caught fire and the stuck-up looking receptionist had the only bucket of water for the next thousand miles.
“Parry,” he snapped. “We have a double suite.”
A perfectly plucked eyebrow rose. Lips pursed. A hand perused the register all too slowly, as that bored gaze slipped past Stephen to narrow on Mike.
“For the both of you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“If you have an issue with that, you ought to have checked the names on the booking,” Stephen said tartly.
“Oh. Oh no. No…problem.”
Stephen near-jerked the offered key away when it was held out to him, and it ended up being Mike who signed for the room, seeing as how Stephen had already disappeared towards the stairs. He offered the receptionist an apologetic shrug. She simply stared back, like a lobotomised lab rat. The droned, “Enjoy your stay,” could have come from a supermarket tannoy announcement.
Mike took the stairs slowly. He didn’t bother to catch up. Stephen in a snit wasn’t worth catching up to. Especially not when his mother was involved. Thankfully, their room was at the top of the flight, far away from the hyena in the hotel bar, and Stephen had relaxed against the wall by the door. Mike offered a kiss and a rude name, got a middle finger and a smirk, and decided it was probably safe again.
“Still waiting for the day you say sod it, and send the invite back unopened.”
“It’s Beth’s wedding.”
“So?”
“She’s my sister,” Stephen said, the same thing he’d been saying since Mike had first met him, and followed Mike into the room.
“We-ell. I guess this is the up side.”
It wasn’t a room, it was a small flat. In fact, Mike was reasonably sure it was bigger than the flat they’d shared in Edinburgh. It was definitely bigger than the one they’d shared in Sheffield, before Stephen had gotten his first teaching post. The bed was big enough to fit a rugby team in, and hide them thanks to the four-poster frame and the thick, heavy curtains. The bay window had a sofa built in underneath it. The mini-bar was an actual damn bar, and the port selection wasn’t to be sniffed at. The bathroom, when Mike peeked, had a bath that could have drowned an elephant, and a shower cubicle that could have been ripped out of the wall and used as a horse stall.
“Right,” Mike said, pointing a finger at the cubicle. “I reckon this is going to be our one and only chance at shower sex. Get your clothes off.”
Stephen raised both eyebrows. “Bloody hell. Reign in the romance there, lover-boy. I might swoon.”
“Do you want a blowjob or not?”
“Yeah, all right then.”
So they had shower sex. It was interesting enough but not as good as Mike would have thought. He was oddly distracted from having Stephen’s legs wrapped around his waist by the lack of a slip mat on the shower floor, and was too busy trying not to fall and kill them both to really enjoy Stephen soaking wet and covered in soap.
Stephen was a bit less moody afterwards, though, so they broke open one of the bottles of port and sprawled out to dry naked in the cavernous bed. Then Stephen got a bit pissed, cuddled up, and who was Mike to intervene if Stephen fancied giving him a handjob?
And so it was that they had arrived on Saturday evening, having promised to go to dinner with the hyena and Stephen’s useless sperm donor of a father, and…woke up at six o’clock on Sunday morning with raging hangovers instead.
“Bugger,” said Mike.
“You could sound like you mean it,” Stephen groused.
Mike thought about it.
“Ah, bugger it?”
“Close enough.”
* * * *
They didn’t emerge—no, scratch that. They did emerge, but not for dinner and company. Stephen went for his usual ten mile hangover cure, because he was apparently a mutant who could outrun a raging headache. Mike shuffled down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, which was revoltingly fancy and continental, without a glimpse of a bacon butty anywhere.
“This is Scotland,” he moaned to Stephen later. “Where’s the bloody bacon!”
“This is posh Scotland,” came the shouted reply over the shower water.
“No such bloody thing.”
“It’s not all deep fried Mars Bars and haggis, you know.”
“Those are the only good bits,” Mike protested.
The bathroom door opened and Stephen wandered out from his second shower of the morning, completely naked, and Mike paused in his raid of the tea supplies.
“Alright,” he conceded. “Two of the three good bits.”
Stephen gave him a look so unimpressed it could have come from their cat, and rummaged in his bags for underwear.
“So who’s this lad Beth’s marrying, anyway?”
“Robert MacNeil.”
“Bob,” Mike immediately decided.
“Doubt it. Great Aunt Alicia said he worked at Mother’s firm.”
“Shagging the boss’ daughter. Nice one, Bob.”
Stephen snorted, wriggling the briefs up over his hips. “All I know is he’s the head of the corporate law team, and he went to Oxford. And you can imagine why Mother decided to tell me that.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Can’t get a pint for less than a fiver in Oxford.”
“Exactly.” Jeans followed. Well-cut black jeans, but still jeans. At least Stephen wasn’t entirely playing along, and going for the suit-and-tie look for the vultures. “Dinner’s at six. We’ve got a few hours. What do you want to do?”
“You, up the arse, in the Maldives, round about November when the little shits are just getting lippy at school.”
Stephen rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh. And more realistically?”
“Find a bloody bacon butty.”
“Alright, alright…”
Mike was still hungover as hell. Stephen drove. The air was blessedly cooler this far north, and Mike had to grudgingly admit that the winding route to the nearest town was pretty. The town itself was quite pretty, too, but the café with the red-and-white plastic tablecloths and the biggest fry-up Mike had ever seen was downright beautiful.
“I want a divorce,” he said through a mouthful of mushrooms. “I’m going to propose to the cook.”
“Okay,” Stephen said, “but I’m keeping Molly.”
“Deal.”
Stephen looked tired, and was on strong coffee. He rarely drank it, especially with extra espresso, and once Mike had taken the edge off his hunger, he tapped the mug with his fork.
“Everything alright?”
Stephen shrugged. “Didn’t sleep well.”
“Penny for ‘em.”
“Eh?”
“Your thoughts. Penny for ‘em.”
“Oh.” He sighed through his nose. “I don’t know. Just don’t like being back here I guess.”
“Bad memories?”
“Mm.”
“Bollocks to ‘em,” Mike said firmly, and earned himself a wan smile. “You’ve got a good job, a—”
“That’s not it.”
“No?”
Stephen hunched his shoulders. “Couldn’t be me here. Feels like I never was me here. If that makes sense.”
“Ah,” Mike said, and tapped the mug again. “Well, welcome to the arse-end of nowhere, Stephen. Doesn’t even have b
loody bacon for ten miles in any direction. It’s shit. I’m weighing up not drinking at this sodding wedding, just so we can start going home the minute it’s over.”
As he ranted, the wan smile turned into a snort, and then Stephen smirked into his coffee as he finished it.
“Better,” Mike said. “You’re already a Scottish git, don’t be a miserable one, too.”
“Charming.”
“Don’t need to be, given you take your trousers off whenever I ask.”
“Ask? Demand…”
“Spousal rights.”
“You bloody wish,” came the tart reply.
Stephen seemed to cheer up a bit at any rate, and Mike let the topic alone. Nine years, Mike knew when Stephen needed to brood and when he needed to blow his lid. Snorting into his mug wasn’t either. He might be a bit quiet, but he was alright.
“So what’s the plan?” Mike asked as he cleared his plate.
“Get back for five, dinner with the family at six.”
“Which bits? Can’t imagine your future brother-in-law is allowed.”
“I don’t know,” Stephen admitted. “I don’t even know how many people are coming to the ceremony.”
“Hundreds, surely? Got to be event of the century, with your mother involved.”
“Yeah, but Beth’s shy.”
“Really don’t reckon the bride got to plan this one, Stephen…”
Stephen made a face. “Point. Mother’s still mad at us for getting married on the sly. Or at all.”
Mike grinned. “Best wedding ever.”
It had been a registry office do, in a town they’d never been to before, with only their mate Jo with them. They’d had to borrow the other witness off the street. It had been in the middle of a raging storm, and they’d been wearing overflowing wellies and ugly waterproofs. Mike still remembered the icy cold feel of Stephen’s smile against his mouth when they’d kissed. And then Jo had thrown a handful of plastic petals she’d ripped off a fake bouquet in a petrol station over their heads, and said she’d get the first round in at the pub.
Mike’s mam hadn’t talked to him for a month, furious at her only child running off to get married in secret instead of having the big wedding she’d hoped for. Stephen’s mother had turned her nose up and said it was just one of those silly things that students did, he was acting out against his father after the argument, and he’d be divorced again in a year.
Married Ones Page 2