And it had spilled over when, in the middle of the dance floor, the bride’s father had accused his new son-in-law of being drunk.
Which…ye-es, was technically accurate. Mike suspected it was the way he’d bellowed it at deafening volume that had really put the cat amongst the pigeons. Then there’d been punches thrown, Mike had had to drag Jez out of it by the collar, and one of the hotel staff had shouted for the police.
“Bail,” Stephen had said.
And ever since, Mike had been working on his shots pyramid. Why the hell not? Stephen had lost the coin toss, so dinner and drinks were on him.
“I don’t get it,” Mike said. “Who fights at a wedding?”
Stephen raised his eyebrows. “Uh, you?”
Mike blinked. “What?”
“You fight at weddings.”
“I bloody don’t!”
Stephen smirked. “You punched my father in the face at my sister’s wedding. You. Fight. At. Weddings.”
Mike frowned. Ah. “He deserved it though.”
“Not going to argue.” Stephen shrugged. “Just—pretty sure Jez and Jo’s dad both think the other deserve it, too.”
Mike wrinkled his nose.
“Or maybe you’re too drunk for conversations about morality.”
“How are you not?” Mike asked incredulously.
“Scottish.”
“Sod that, you’re a lightweight.”
“It’s also nearly midnight, and they were brawling by seven.”
Mike blinked. Squinted at the shot glass pyramid.
“Then why am I this drunk? Ten shots since seven isn’t much.”
“Oh-kay, drinky, that’s enough for you,” Stephen said, laughing and sliding out of the booth. “That’s just the ten glasses the bartender hasn’t retrieved yet. C’mon. You still want your chippie?”
“Fancy a kebab actually.”
He slung an arm over Stephen’s shoulder as they staggered out of the door. The bouncer chuckled.
“Need a hand with your mate, pal?”
“Nah, we’re good,” Stephen called back, waving to him and steering Mike down the main road. “C’mon. We’ll get a kebab and a taxi. We can fetch the car in the morning.”
“No, no, I can drive…”
“No you sodding can’t, I left the keys with the hotel to make sure.”
“Twat.”
“Live twat, thank you very much, and wanting to stay like that…”
There was a brief interlude to find a kebab, and then they sat on a wall by the canal, munching their way through a shared takeaway box, and Mike blinked out at the murky water as he came to a realisation.
“I was Jez at Beth’s wedding.”
“Aye, you were. Less pissed, mind.”
“Fuck.”
“Father did deserve it though,” Stephen said, “and let’s be honest, Mike, that’s why we got married the way we did. There was no way my lot were going to attend without causing a huge scene and trying to get it all cancelled.”
“Wasn’t why. Was your allergy. And making sure your family didn’t get shit if things went wrong.”
“Yes, that’s why we got married,” Stephen said patiently. “But we snuck off to Lincoln because Father would never have stood by for it if we’d done it the traditional way.”
The phrasing made Mike snort.
“Traditional. What the hell about us is traditional?”
“Eh, married with a house and planning to have kids, that’s pretty traditional.”
“Fine, I’m traditional. You’re not.”
Stephen grinned, pinching the last bit of dubious meat. “And you love it.”
“I do and all.”
“How about we get that taxi home,” Stephen said, as Mike tossed the balled up remnants of the takeaway into the water, “and have that crap shag on the stairs you promised at the end of term?”
“Would you marry me proper?” Mike asked.
Despite the booze, he felt deadly serious. They’d had to do it how they had, he knew that, but…they’d never had a real wedding, not the traditional way. No matter his mam had been pissed.
“No.”
“No?”
“Nope.”
And suddenly Stephen was straddling Mike’s lap, the back of his suit trousers cold and damp from the stone wall, and front of them hot from being, well, on the front of him.
And his mouth was biting at Mike’s lower lip.
“Already did,” he whispered, “and I’d not change it for the world, you maudlin old git. Muddy boots in that registry office and the best shag we ever had in that grubby old hotel at half one in the morning? Best wedding ever.”
Mike got both hands on his arse, and squeezed, laughing.
“Was me and you sticking it to your old man,” he said, and found himself grinning around a messy, sticky kiss. “Was you jamming me between your family and you if that surgery went wrong. He’s never going to forgive us.”
“See?” said Stephen. “Best. Wedding. Ever.”
Chapter 4: Stella
A hangover cure was desperately needed by the morning.
Mike felt like something had died in his mouth. Stephen point-blank refused to come within range until he’d gargled half a bottle of mouthwash, and even then only tolerated a peck on the cheek, citing a headache that was threatening to dissolve his eyeballs.
“Mam’s?”
“God, yes.”
They had to get a taxi, Stephen unable and Mike unwilling to fetch the car from the hotel just yet. The cabbie took one look at them, chortled, and said nothing for the entire journey. Stephen tipped him extra, just for that grace.
Thankfully, Mike’s mam was a proper Yorkshire mam. She opened the door, snapped, “Oh for goodness’ sake, Stephen, look at you!” and hustled him right inside to be fed.
Skinny people were an insult to Stella Parry’s personal beliefs, and Mike had been defending nine years of a relationship with, “I cook plenty, Mam! He just bloody well runs it off!” It didn’t help that Stephen ate like a starved pig, again thanks to all the bloody running, and Mike’s mam would scowl at him every time they came round for tea.
Which, given her cooking, was always.
The kitchen was covered in chaos that morning. Stephen was hustled into a chair—”not in your condition!”—and Mike ruefully set about helping clear up. There were seating plans pinned to the corkboard above the microwave, and piles of ironing everywhere.
“So,” Stephen said, delicately picking a cravat out of the fruit bowl. “You all set for Saturday, Stella?”
She huffed. Mike’s mam was a short, round woman with fluffy fair hair that was slowly turning a regal silver. Nothing about the rest of her was regal. She always smelled of laundry powder and detergent, and looked perpetually tired due to night shifts at the care home. Her life had been measured by looking after other people, and in Mike’s experience, nothing was more stressful than trying to make his mam take a day for herself. No doubt she’d spend the wedding running about after everyone else, too.
“No,” she said frankly. “Nobody ever is.”
“We were,” Mike said cheerfully.
“You didn’t have a proper wedding,” came the tart reply. “And get away from that oven before you burn yourself, you daft boy!”
Being the wrong side of thirty did nothing to stop his mam calling him a boy. Mike grunted, and slid into the seat beside Stephen’s.
“Bacon? Eggs? Stephen, you’ll have a big plate, won’t you, love. Honestly, does our Mike even feed you?”
Stephen smirked into his sleeve. Mike rolled his eyes.
“When are you two going to do it right, anyway?” Stella continued as she banged pans and rummaged for ingredients. “Your sister’s doing it properly!”
“Vikki’s only doing it properly because Suze is making her.”
“Good for Suze.”
“Things were different for us,” Mike said pointedly, and his mam sighed.
“Th
ey’re not anymore,” she said. “You should have a proper wedding, you know.”
“Sod that.”
“Costs money,” Stephen said.
“Tight Scottish bastard.”
“Mike! You ignore him, Stephen.”
Mike rolled his eyes. Stephen grinned into his sleeve again, then rocked sideways on his chair and into Mike’s side. Mike lifted an arm around his back, and let the new weight settle against him.
“Oh! How did the clinic go?”
Mike could imagine the eye roll taking place in the vicinity of his neck.
“Fine.”
“When do you find out?”
“Day after Vikki’s wedding,” Stephen lied calmly. Mike frowned.
His mam held up crossed fingers, throwing a smile over her shoulder. The pan sizzled as the first rashers hit the oil, and a delicious smell began to creep across the kitchen.
“Have you thought about—”
“No offence, Stel,” Stephen said, “but we’d rather know the result before we get ahead of ourselves.”
“Oh, of course, love,” she said quickly. “Best way, I say. Don’t want to get your hopes up.”
“Mm.”
“Mushrooms, either of you?”
“Aye, go on then.”
“No, ta.”
Footsteps shuffled. Boards creaked above their heads, and then a heavy tread sounded on the stairs.
“Good Lord, more mouths,” Mike’s mam grumbled—then smiled and said, “Morning, love!” as Mike’s stepfather came into the kitchen. Leonard Avery was a tall, thin man in his fifties, who had a bolt-upright posture from military service but a slow shuffle from the brain injury that had ended said service. He was completely bald, his hair having fallen out during chemotherapy treatment nearly ten years ago that was responsible for the long engagement, but his eyebrows had grown back bushier than ever, two enormous brown caterpillars snoozing above his face.
“Morning, chaps,” he said, shuffling over to kiss his fiancée on the cheek.
“Breakfast, dear?”
“Please.”
The kitchen settled into a routine as familiar to Mike as though he’d never moved out. Leonard smoked and read his paper. Stephen ate a small country’s worth of food. His mam started humming to a pop song on the radio. It was home. Mike could just imagine a high chair by Stephen’s elbow, and mashed swede being flung energetically about.
He mentally rewrote that future to feature himself in a slightly less hungover state, though.
As they cleared their plates and Mam swept them off the table and into the sink, Stephen heaved himself up from the table, and announced he was going for a kip on the sofa.
“Don’t fall off like last time!” Mike shouted after him.
“Indoor voice, you,” said his mother, clipping him round the back of the head like he was fifteen.
“Give over!”
“Don’t you come in my house and shout like a bloody great bear,” she scolded, then slid a cup of tea across the table and took up a spot opposite him. “How’s Stephen?”
Mike took a gulp. “Fine.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
She hummed. “He was very quiet. And the last time—”
“He’s hungover as hell,” Mike said. “Trust me, he’s fine. We had a good night at Jo’s wedding, and we’re going to have fun at yours next week. It’s keeping our minds off it.”
She reached over to squeeze his hand.
“I know you,” she said gently. “You’re still hoping.”
“‘Course I am,” he said bluntly.
“You know Vikki would help if—”
“I know.”
She made another soft noise, and patted his hand on the table.
“You’ll get there, sweetheart,” she said, “I know you will. However it needs to be.”
Mike smiled, and squeezed her fingers.
“Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”
* * * *
It was a quiet week.
Mostly because Mike insisted on staying out of his mam’s way. The closer the wedding got, the more she’d be in a flap, he knew. And the more distraction Stephen had in the wait for test results, then the happier they’d all be. Didn’t need a neurotic mam and a moody other half.
So while the week after Beth’s wedding had been peaceful silence, together in front of the telly with their feet up and their red pens out, the week before his mam’s was more of a whirlwind tour of being out of everybody’s way.
It wasn’t difficult. They’d been putting off a lot of the housework, and lost a full day clearing out the spare room at the back of the house and repainting it a bright, fresh white. In true Scottish fashion, Stephen refused to have workmen in, and spent twelve hours on his hands and knees, not for the best reason in the world, sanding and varnishing the boards to create a cottage-y look that was surprisingly nice. Even if Mike complained it would be bloody cold in the winter.
“Wear your slippers then, you useless berk.”
Once the house stank of paint and varnish, both of which Stephen wasn’t particularly resistant to, they set to work on their tiny back garden instead, pulling up the paving slabs, putting down fresh soil, and creating a little herb garden. Or rather, Stephen did. Mike did the washing up and cleaned the kitchen, admiring the view of Stephen in denim shorts, barefoot and shirtless, and sweating buckets. Sweaty fit bloke doing all the hard work? Maybe it wouldn’t never appear in the global list of top ten kinks, but it was Mike’s kink, and he enjoyed every second of it. And the literally dirty shag up against the sink when Stephen came in out of the heat, grim and gorgeous from head to toe.
As the big day grew closer, and the weather turned into this awful, oppressive August heat, they abandoned the housework in favour of laziness. Apart from Stephen’s morning runs, they spent the days lying around in their underwear, all the doors and windows open, occasionally stirring to run the vacuum cleaner around after their shedding cat or clean the cool places like the bathroom or the shade-covered kitchen. Stephen usually liked to do a big spring-clean before the autumn term started, but honestly, it was just too sodding hot.
And when it was too hot to even take advantage of Stephen’s perfect arse being on display ninety percent of the time, then global warming had gone too sodding far.
It was the only time of year that Mike considered going on a diet. He wasn’t precious about it: he was fat because he ate too much crap food, and did too little exercise. No other reason. He just didn’t care. He never had to share space on a plane, or struggle to get through a crowd. Skinny people parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses, and if they wanted to start something, he could just sit on them. Worked to keep Stephen in one place for a bit of a cheeky fumble, too. And he never had to layer up in the winter, even if it snowed. He’d always been fat, he was always going to be fat, who gave a shit?
But Christ, the summers were oppressive.
It was why he’d stayed in Edinburgh for his doctorate. He’d had an offer from University College London, which fit better to his research interests, but London’s smog-insulated thirty-five degree heat every summer? No chance. Edinburgh was always clear and cool, and it was full of fit Scottish lads like Stephen. Perfect.
Sheffield was usually prey to cooling winds, thanks to all the hills, but that August was bloody awful, and Mike found his gaze straying to Stephen’s salads and wondering if he couldn’t axe a few pounds just through sweating and salads for a week.
“Don’t even think about it,” Stephen said, when Mike kicked the sheets off the bed a couple of nights before the big day and voiced those thoughts. “Not having a husband decreasing in value. I married two hundred pounds of you, I intend to get a return on that investment.”
“I’m not a bloody shares portfolio.”
“Shame.” A hand found its way into his underwear and began to work. “This alone would do nicely.”
“You calling me a sex worker?”
“C
alling you a good shag, shut up and take the compliment.”
“Only if you shut up and take the prick.”
A leg was flung over his hips, and Mike chuckled as he braced a surprisingly heavy weight in the dark.
“Predictable,” he said accusingly, then groaned. “It’s too hot for this.”
“No such thing. Shut up and shag me.”
“Oi, top does the work, bottom does the basking.”
“Then shut up and bask, Christ…”
Afterwards, when Stephen rolled off him and they appreciated their massive king sized bed by spreading out like starfish, not touching in the still heat, Mike blinked at the darkness and said, “You reckon we have too much sex?”
“Excuse me?”
“Nine years. Going to be a bloody decade soon. Not sure we should be shagging this much.”
“You wait until I’m back on my medication, then I’ll show you shagging too much…”
Mike grinned. Bloody hell, Stephen on that stuff had been a workout regime unto himself.
“Christ yeah, I remember that.”
“You weren’t complaining then.”
“Wasn’t melting then.”
“Milan.”
Mike winced. “Oh. Yeah. Good point.”
“And Rome.”
“Yeah.”
“And—”
“Alright, alright, I get the picture.”
A finger nudged his side. “If you really think we have too much sex, we can always go celibate for a while.”
Mike thought of the compost-covered screw in the kitchen on Wednesday.
“Not a chance, lover-boy.”
“That’s better. Now, it’ll start chucking it down tomorrow. You can do me all romantic-like to the sound of the rain.”
“Oh, sure.”
It did start raining in the morning. And they did have a shag to the sound of rain on the window.
Wasn’t romantic-like, mind.
* * * *
Thankfully, the big day was sunny.
Steaming, in fact, because it rained all night, but by the time they got up, the sun was blazing in an endless blue sky, and the car felt like a frying pan after a full English. Steamy, sticky, and more than a bit grim.
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