“I was all set for a good brawl with any tosser Mam was about to introduce me to. What I wasn’t expecting was Leonard.”
A giggle swept the room. Stephen’s hand patted the back of his knee, and dropped away.
“Leonard is the definition of a chap. I don’t think his back really bends. He actually wore a hat to meet my grandma, so he could doff it when he said hello. He watches Antiques Roadshow and is the one person in the country genuinely enjoying it. He goes fishing.”
The giggles were rising into laughter. Leonard started to smile, and his mam was giggling behind her hand.
“That whole first year, he still walked with a stick. Proper Michael Caine, Muppets Christmas Carol job. He actually told me once to wash behind my ears—I didn’t even think my great-grandma still asked that. It took about two years for him to stop calling me Michael, so about two years before I stopped wanting to strangle him with his own tie every time he called me to come down for dinner.”
He flipped to the next cue card, and smiled to himself.
“Mam was happy, and I figured I could live with that. I could get along with this new guy who made her squawk in the kitchen again. I could put up with this new part-time sister. We didn’t have to like each other for that. But then Leonard took me up to the cemetery, to visit my dad’s grave, maybe a month after we all moved in together as a family. And right there, in front of my old man’s headstone, he said he didn’t want to be my dad. That I was a good kid, that he’d guide me as best he could and he’d be on my side just as much as my old man would have been—but he wasn’t my dad. Because I already had one.”
His throat closed, and he choked for a brief second.
“I never said how much that meant to me.”
Silence.
“Most guys won’t take on a woman who has another man’s baby. Another man’s fourteen-year-old? Come on. You’d have to be crazy, right?”
Edgy smiles twitched around the room.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, Leonard is a little bit crazy. I mean, come on, we all love her, but who’s crazy enough to put up with Mam twenty-four hours a day!”
Little giggles erupted again here and there.
“Leonard.”
They locked eyes. Mike swallowed at the film of tears in his stepfather’s gaze.
“You were right. You’re not my dad. You never will be. But you stepped in, when my dad couldn’t be here with us anymore. You never tried to replace him, but you did fill the void that he’d left behind. And you never once asked for us to forget him. You’ve made my mam happy, and you’ve made me the man I am today.”
Mam started to sniffle between them, and Mike resolutely stared past her.
“Today actually changes nothing,” he said seriously. “You were the same man yesterday that you are today. You’re my stepdad, and I’m proud to say it. One day, you’ll be my kids’ granddad, and they’ll be proud to say it, too. You’ve been a part of our family for almost twenty years, and you will be until your dying day. More fool you.”
Leonard coughed a suspiciously wet laugh and mopped at his eyes with a spotted handkerchief.
“See what I mean, ladies and gents? Proper old-fashioned chap. Now, I know as the son of the bride, I really ought to talk about the bride herself. I could talk about that singing. I could talk about how she thinks skinny people are a blight on the face of the earth, so why is she marrying a man who must only weigh about the same as one of my thighs. I could point out that most women want to pull a man in uniform in their twenties, not their forties and fifties. But we all know those stories. And, really, there is only one thing I want to say in front of everyone gathered here in front of us. Mam.”
She jolted, peering up at him with red-rimmed eyes.
“I may have been only nine years old,” Mike said, staring her right in the face, “but I remember enough about my dad to know that he would have wanted this for you.”
Her lip wobbled.
“He wanted you to be happy. And so do I. No matter what. And I have never seen you look more happy, or more beautiful, than you do today.”
She burst into tears and lurched up from her chair to hug him. Mike dropped the rest of the cue cards and squeezed her back tightly, biting back on his own tears. Stephen’s hand rubbed at the back of his leg again, and there were sniffles and muted sobs over the applause.
“John would have been so proud of you,” she whispered fiercely in his ear, and Mike swallowed.
“Would’ve been proud of the both of us,” he mumbled.
When she let go, he leaned past her to shake Leonard’s hand, the grip unusually firm, and then he was finally able to slide back into his seat, and twist his fingers up with Stephen’s.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”
Stephen leaned over to kiss his cheek. “You did great. Need to step out?”
“No. No, I’m fine.”
He kept a tight grip through Vikki’s speech, though—thankfully more irreverent than his, and seeking to lighten the mood—and the danger gave way as one of Leonard’s old army mates gave a speech about an unrecognisable squaddie who had been taken to a strip joint by his platoon buddies fresh out of training, and had instead of admiring the girls, had gone straight to the club manager to ask who had done such a good job rigging up the lighting. By the time one of his mam’s work friends had told them the story of Leonard coming to pick her up after work for the first time, and half the care home residents wanting to get a lift from him, too, everyone was laughing uproariously and Mike’s hand sat on Stephen’s knee more out of habit than out of need.
It stayed there through several drinks—soft, because Mike didn’t want to get drunk and end up bawling like a ruddy pansy at his mother’s wedding—and then when he started inching his fingers higher, Stephen swatted him away and dragged him out onto the floor for a bit of a dance. Mike wasn’t much of a one for dancing, but Stephen and Suze made a dangerous pair, and he ended up mostly watching Stephen’s long, lithe body doing its thing.
And the kilt doing its thing, too.
As the night drew in, and the slow songs took the place of the thumping disco, Mike caught a flying hand and dragged the twirl of tartan in for a hug-and-sway routine more suitable for copping a feel. Stephen laughed, eyes bright, and settled against him to sway, kissing Mike’s ear and calling him a soft old bastard.
“Yeah, sometimes. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Oh, no, my secret.”
“You worn out yet?”
“Little bit. Why?”
Mike pressed his mouth to the hot juncture of Stephen’s neck and shoulder, and kissed a pulse thumping away there. A five o’clock shadow had crept in. The smell of deodorant had long since fled, replaced by the warm, sleepy smell of Stephen himself.
And between his knees, Mike could feel a bare leg, and the heavy fall of the kilt.
“Come on,” he murmured, patting the bony arse hidden in the great folds of skirt. “Hotel room.”
Stephen burrowed his nose into Mike’s shoulder and squeezed tight.
“You promised,” Mike reminded him.
Stephen chuckled. “Alright, alright. You want a Scotsman in your lap, I get it.”
“Nah,” Mike said, rubbing the top of a thigh where it met a very bite-able buttock. “Going to spread you out in all that tartan and have a bit of an explore.”
“Too tired for one of your marathon shags.”
“You can sodding sleep for all I care,” Mike chortled. “Me, I’m taking advantage. Nine years, you’ve only worn that four times. So I’m having a good, long look.”
“Oh, right,” Stephen muttered, even as he hung on and let Mike steer him from the dance hall and into the quiet lobby. “Because you’re just going to look…”
Mike bitched about difficult other halves until they were in the lift, then pushed Stephen up against the handrail and kissed him, slow and soft and very sensual.
“You,” he said against his mout
h. “Me. Bed. Kilt.”
“How about,” Stephen tugged on his tie, slowly peeling it off. “You. Me. Kilt. Nothing else.”
“Done.”
“Mike?”
“Uh-huh?” Mike said absently, busy finally getting a hand between kilt and hot, smooth, perfect skin.
Stephen nuzzled his ear.
“Proud of you today.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I was proud of me, too.”
Stephen laughed. “Arse.”
Mike pinched it as the lift opened and spat them out onto the third floor. “Oh, not yet, flower. Not yet.”
But in the end, he didn’t do what instinct told him to do—get every inch of him possible under that kilt and shag Stephen’s brains out—but what his heart wanted instead.
To lie there, only the kilt remaining, and simply hold on, exchanging kisses and touches that were barely there, until sleep settled over Stephen like a blanket, and Mike was left curled around his entire world, with rough tartan overlaying them both.
Right where he’d always belonged.
Christ, that was a bit sodding poetic, wasn’t it?
Chapter 5: Jane
Mike hefted his suitcase off the rack and said, “This had better be worth it.”
Stephen just shot him a dark look.
The carriage was packed. A gaggle of Chinese students swarmed through the doors as they opened, like released bees. A toddler had been throwing the mother of all paddies the whole way from central London, incensed that its gibbering wreck of a mother had dared to put its toys in the blue bag instead of the green one. Stephen, with his long legs, had especially struggled in the sardine tin of a train.
Thankfully, the size of Gatwick made the airport a little more breathable. They found a corner near the check-in desks, and Mike sat on his suitcase while Stephen rubbed the cramps out of his calves.
“You don’t want to go, do you?” Mike said flatly.
Stephen snorted.
“Thought they were family.”
Stephen’s lips tightened. “Yeah, well, after Father saying we can’t have a baby, I’m not feeling charitable.”
“What did you expect?” Mike asked, genuinely curious. “He hates my fat guts. I’m a whole staircase down from your lot, never mind a step. He doesn’t want my genes clogging up the Black pool.”
“Given we were talking about kids before we even talked about moving in together, I think that ship’s sailed.”
“Whole bloody fleet’s sailed on that one, sunshine.”
The answering smile was thin and brittle.
And it made up Mike’s mind. A long weekend in an unreasonably hot country, surrounded by fancy finger-foods and fancier so-called family, and not even able to get good and drunk? No chance.
“We’re not going.”
“What?”
“The Maldives. We’re not going.”
Stephen blinked down at him. “We’re already here, though. Suitcases and everything. And it’s the Maldives.”
“A whole island of sand in stupid places, and your mother. And your new brother-in-law, too.”
“Didn’t know you spoke to him.”
“Didn’t need to, he’s clearly a fart that followed through.”
Stephen cracked up laughing, and Mike grinned. First laugh in a week. This had happened the last two attempts at the clinic, too. Miserable as sin, and twice as ugly. And what good would come of the Maldives? Too ruddy hot, nothing to bloody do, and surrounded by posh Scottish—Pottish?—pansies. There’d not even be any rugby on the telly, Mike would bet.
“G’wan,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
“Like where?”
“Anywhere with some sun. You name it.”
“No point naming it if we can’t get a flight, knobhead.”
“Oi! Watch it, or it’ll come out of your wallet.”
“Aye, like all the other bills…”
Still, Stephen followed him to the EasyJet desk, and hovered at his shoulder as a pretty lass rattled away on her keyboard for available seats to Mike’s vague request of somewhere cheap with a bit of sun. The next one with space was to Paris, but Mike vetoed that due to the perpetual smell of piss.
“There’s a flight to Barcelona leaving at one thirty with a couple of free spaces.”
Mike glanced at Stephen. Stephen shrugged. “It’s hot. And there’s a beach.”
“Deal.”
Armed with fresh tickets, it felt oddly like being students again. Hell, it felt like getting married again. It was just as off-the-cuff. It felt like those six months apart, when Stephen had been finishing his degree in Edinburgh and Mike had already moved to Sheffield to start teaching, and Mike would come home some evenings to find Stephen already in his flat, making himself thoroughly at home and offering no explanation beyond, “Felt like it.”
Maybe that was why, when the bags were gone, security cleared, and the duty-free ducked through, Mike felt a hand slide into his own.
“Why?” said Stephen quietly.
Mike squeezed. “Because they stress you out.”
“They always do.”
“Yeah. And right now, no stress. Just in case.”
The smile was faint. A little worried. “Yeah. Just in case.”
“Plus, six weeks off and no holiday? Sod that. What’s in Barcelona?”
“Bugger knows. Beach. Big old church. Some other stuff I imagine.”
“Get on Trip Advisor then.”
“Oh, hey, wait.”
Stephen took the tickets to the Maldives out of his pocket, and resolutely tore them into tidy eighths. He stacked the pile on his palm, and tipped them into a nearby bin in a rain of confetti. Mike grinned.
“Best text your mother.”
“Oh, God, no.”
“Fine, I’ll do it.”
To his surprise, Stephen handed over his phone. Mike clicked through—but not to Damn Black.
To Bastard Black.
Not coming. Something came up. Love, Mike and Stephen.
* * * *
Stephen slept on the flight. He drooled. Mike scarfed down his snacks in retaliation. They landed with a hefty bump, and the crawl through customs was slow and tedious. They’d managed to book a hotel online at Gatwick, and buy some euros, but it was early enough in Spain that they needn’t have bothered.
Stephen was still groggy by the time they reached the hotel—a simple little three-star job with tiny balconies and a distinct ancient Mediterranean feel to its brown-tiled décor, hiding in a side street just off La Rambla—so Mike left him for a kip in the cool, shadowy hotel room, and nipped out to explore a little. La Rambla was heaving. The beach wasn’t far. The weather was bright and hot, the fierce oppression of summer having just waned, but the miserable wet weather having not yet landed.
Perfect.
And there was an Irish pub not two streets away. Bet they didn’t have that in the Maldives.
He had a pint of odd-tasting Guinness, watching a Croatian football match on the telly above the bar, before heading back at half time to collect Sleeping Beauty. The city smelled of heat and dust, sweat and rubbish, flowers and salt. The old stone of narrow streets ground itself against the bright splash of Coca-Cola signs and souvenir shops. A couple of elderly nuns were shuffling by; a couple of chavs on bicycles shot around them and disappeared into the throngs with shouts that, even to Mike’s untrained ears, weren’t Spanish. It was nothing like home—and yet it was exactly the same, too.
The hotel felt almost cold after being out.
Stephen woke up readily enough when Mike disturbed him, and then—to Mike’s surprise—put off dinner until after a shag. And not a quick fumble, either, but a proper one. Balls deep and biting. Afterwards, Mike smoothed down his hair again and asked after the reason, only to get a shrug.
“Abroad, isn’t it? Got to make the most of it.”
“Bloody hell, I need to take you away more often.”
&
nbsp; “Not going to argue with that.”
“Come on then. Now I really need to eat.”
Mike hadn’t tried much Spanish food. And Stephen would eat anything that stayed still long enough, thanks to the excessive exercise regime. They hit up a café in another side-street, and had real paella, not the packet stuff that Mike’s mam got from the supermarket sometimes. It wasn’t half bad, either, and apparently the fashion for huge prices and tiny portions hadn’t hit this Spanish equivalent of a greasy spoon.
They made plans, too, Stephen logging onto the café’s WiFi and looking up routes and tickets, wanting—of course—to visit everything that was older than Aunt Alicia. Bloody history teachers. He enthused over the number of museums, and Mike called for another beer—sir-vay-sir was apparently close enough, even if the bloke smirked a bit when he asked—and tried to wheedle a bit of beach lounging as well.
“It’s a holiday, not a marathon event.”
“You run twenty-six miles in a marathon, you don’t walk it with a map and lots of rest stops in bars.”
“Bloody should, I could be an athlete again.”
“Again?”
“Oi!”
They mock-argued over dinner, and then when the plates were gone and they got another round of drinks in, they settled down to watch the football. They picked opposing teams, just for the hell of it, and when Stephen’s lost, he bought the third round.
It was dark when they left the bar, and they meandered back to the hotel in a roundabout route, exploring how pretty the city suddenly became at night. It reminded Mike of their early dates, when they’d just been a couple of pisshead students, calling pub crawls and gigs dates, when he could have kissed Stephen in the middle of the street without giving a damn who was watching, when he’d been as surprised as everybody else that someone like Stephen could have his head turned by a grumpy fat git like Mike.
But then, Stephen was a grumpy skinny git, so what was the difference, really?
“Remember when we went to Amsterdam when you were in your second year?”
“Yeah?”
“Wanna try that again?”
“What, Amsterdam?”
“No, the least romantic shag of your life, as you put it.”
Stephen grinned. He was still so bloody sodding beautiful, and there was a ring glimmering on his finger like it had always been there.
Married Ones Page 10