by Andi Lee
He hoped not, but he wasn’t sure of anything anymore. They came to their last song, and he felt giddy with relief and ready for it to be over. The crowd lapped it up, and he smiled with an empty flash of teeth as he put his uke back in the case and slung it over his shoulder.
“I’m heading off, guys. See you later.” He went to jump off stage, but strong hands grabbed him around the waist and swung him to the ground.
He gave a yell so high-pitched it would have sent dogs running, and he grabbed on to forearms covered in worn black leather to stop himself falling. He knew who it was, of course. Who else would it be?
“We need to stop meeting like this,” Liam grinned as he slid his hands to Jamie’s waist.
Jamie noticed that his eyes were two different colours under the harsh light on the makeshift dance floor. He’d never noticed that before, but he had been preoccupied. He pushed Liam’s hands away. “Are you following me? You’re like a bad smell.”
Liam pouted and held on to his chest in mock pain. “And here I am, thinking we’re friends now. Hell, we’re practically family. We’ll be tied by rat family trees soon enough.”
“That’s a long way off. There are a lot of people before you on my waiting list.”
“I’m prepared to wait.”
Jamie didn’t know what to say to that, so he kept quiet.
“This is my very best friend, by the way. Selena, this is Jamie.”
He only then noticed the pretty girl with shiny brown hair tied into a bun, showing off an undercut. She was staring at Liam with a look of concentration and jumped slightly when he nudged her and brought her out of whatever zone she was in.
“Oh, hey. Yes. Good to meet you.” She grinned at him and showed a dimple in her left cheek. It was a surprise to see Liam had any friends. Jamie presumed he was too self-centred to be close to anyone but himself. Which was shitty of him, especially as he had helped Jamie that day. He didn’t have to, and Jamie still didn’t understand why.
Jamie managed to smile at her, and then he heard Dane’s voice rise, and he winced. Who was he fighting with now? He turned to find out what the problem was and saw Paul and Tommy. It was like a punch in the gut, and the breath shot from his lungs and left him dizzy. It was the first time he’d seen them together since the split, and it was so much worse than the images in his mind. Fucking he could almost deal with, but the way they stood shoulder to shoulder, Paul’s arms crossed in defiance and Tommy with a casual yet claiming hand around his waist, shouted intimacy. It wasn’t just sex, and that hurt more than anything he had pictured so far.
Tommy, at least, had the grace to look uncomfortable. Dane, bless his heart, was trying to get them to leave before Jamie spotted them, but Paul wasn’t having any of it.
“This is a public house. We can come here if we want.”
Jamie’s throat seized up, his tongue so dry it stuck to the roof of his mouth. He grabbed the bottle of Bud out of Liam’s hand, knocked back half of it, and handed it back. Liam stared at the bottle, ran his finger over the rim where his mouth had been, and took a sip himself.
“Leave it, Dane. He can do whatever the fuck he wants. He always does.” Paul always got his way. He’d forgotten that.
Paul and Dane recognised Liam at the same time, and Jamie laughed at how different their reactions were. Dane turned away from Paul, walked over to Liam, and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
“I recognise this clumsy oaf.” Dane smiled at Liam. “How’s the head?”
Liam touched the back of his head. “It’s still there. But the lump has gone.”
“Trying to replace us already, are you?” Paul’s face was pinched as he scowled at Liam. “A wannabe rock star and his fag hag? How original.”
“Leave it, Paul. Let’s just go and sit down, have a quiet drink,” Tommy pleaded, trying to pull him away, but Paul shrugged him off and stepped forward.
“Tommy’s right. Let’s not start anything tonight. Sit down,” Markus said in a tone that brooked no argument. He pushed Paul and Tommy away with an apologetic look back at them.
“Well, he was a bag full of delights, wasn’t he?” Selena said.
“That, my darling, is an understatement,” Dane said. “So tell me, how did you two meet properly?”
“I took my rat to a rat show, and guess who was there?” Liam said, grin wide as he poked Jamie in the side and made him jump.
Dane’s eyes widened as he put two and two together. “Oh. The infamous rat show. You like rats, do you?” he said to Liam. Then to Jamie, he said, “You sneaky boy. You didn’t tell me he was the handsome bloke Jan saw you with. I expect more gossip out of you.”
Jamie felt his cheeks burn, and he fought not to look at Liam to see what his reaction was. “It didn’t seem important in the great scheme of things.” He glanced over at Paul, who was sitting in their booth, and he shivered, suddenly cold. Tommy had his arm around Paul’s shoulders and held Paul’s hand with his other on top of the table.
A pang of loneliness shot through Jamie’s chest. He missed Paul, missed them both. He missed going for a pint with Tommy, missed kissing Paul, missed the way their bodies fit together.
Dane coughed and touched his arm, pulling his gaze away. The pity was back again, and Jamie couldn’t deal with it. “I’m going to head home.” He shrugged the uke higher up his shoulder and walked toward the door, refusing to look at Liam, who had seen too much already.
A part of him was disappointed that none of them stopped him, but it was what he wanted and what he’d asked for.
He got home to his cat sleeping on the kitchen table. There was a note tacked to his fridge in his mother’s handwriting, and it made his blood boil. For fuck’s sake, he wished she wouldn’t just let herself into his house. She had a key for emergencies, not to let herself in whenever she felt like it. He stomped over to the note, yanked it free, and sent the magnet flying.
Jamie,
You and Paul haven’t been round for dinner in months. Give me a ring and we can set something up. I wouldn’t have to break in if you answered your phone or visited once in a while. I needed to check that you were still alive and hadn’t been eaten by the cat.
Love, Mom
He crumpled the letter in his hand. Great. Marvellous. Another thing to deal with. He could just imagine her face when he told her he and Paul had split up. He loved his mother, he really did, but she would make such a big deal out of it and catastrophise it. He was already doing that himself. He didn’t need her to do it too.
His cat looked up and meowed but didn’t move. He gave her a stroke behind the ear, and she started to purr. “Hey, Stark. Have you been busy sleeping? Looks like it was a hard day for you.” He put some biscuits in her bowl and she jumped down and nudged her head against his leg. Then he made his way upstairs to the rat room.
The most exciting thing about buying his own house was being able to install a rat room. He’d hand built a wall of cages to the left, and to the right were three Savic Royal Suite cages as well as a chest of drawers he used to keep hammocks, food, and substrate in. There was a pinboard above, full of rosettes that his rats had won, and it always made him feel better to look at them. He went to a cage where five of his bucks lived, opened the door, and scooped out the one closest to him. Poe was a beautiful black dumbo rat with perfectly formed ears and a glossy coat. His temperament was outstanding. He licked Jamie’s hand and moved his fingers so he could nibble at his nails. Jamie stroked between his ears with one finger, and Poe’s eyes started to boggle.
Jamie smiled. Maybe being a crazy old rat man wouldn’t be so bad.
JAMIE WAS so thankful that his job as countryside manager at Lockstone Chase kept him not only physically busy, but mentally. He worked hard, sometimes in horrible conditions, but there was a flexibility not there in other jobs, and no day was ever the same. It was a godsend as he tried to keep his mind occupied. Sometimes he wished he didn’t have to deal with quite so many people, but overall, he couldn’t think of a j
ob he’d like more. That and Dane were the only things keeping him sane after Paul split up with him. An image of Liam flickered through his mind, but he shook it off before it could take root. He didn’t know what to think of that yet.
Their whole friends’ group was fractured, and it was exhausting as he tried to pretend he wasn’t hurt or mad and that he didn’t care if Dane and Markus stayed friends with Paul and Tommy. He felt guilty for the position they were in, and it wasn’t even his fault. He wanted to be petty and demand they stop being friends, but he knew that was a shitty thing to do, so he kept all his hurt to himself and tried to get on as best as he could.
Jamie carefully walked through the heathland, minding the pretty purple budded flowers as he stepped. The wind picked up, and he shivered beneath his green fleece. He wished he’d put on trousers, not shorts. Luckily the sun was bright, so it wasn’t too uncomfortable.
His body felt heavy and tired as he walked. He hoped that meant he would sleep that night. He’d taken a class of schoolchildren around Chasewater, spoken to the RSPB volunteers, spent too long pushing paper in the office, and only now had he managed to escape for the afternoon over Cannock Chase. He followed the natural grassy pathways over the rolling banks, and the long reeds tickled his bare legs. There was less scrub on the ground, and he gave a nod in satisfaction. Introducing the grazing cattle had helped keep the scrub down and gave the heathland a chance to flourish, bringing in so much wildlife from insects to birds.
There was a large black cow in the distance, and he steered himself toward it, stepping carefully through the heath. The birds whistled above him, and he started to relax, letting the crisp, cool air sink into his lungs.
“Jamie, wait, please wait,” a voice shouted from behind him, making him jump, not just because he didn’t expect it but because he knew whom that voice belonged to. Jamie stood still and took a deep breath, then turned around.
Tommy ran toward him, stumbling slightly over rocky mounds. His forehead was sweaty, and he was wearing jogging bottoms and a baggy T-shirt that did nothing to hide his muscular arms and broad shoulders.
“Ben said you’d be here somewhere, but I wasn’t sure I was going to find you.”
Jamie wished he hadn’t. “I’m at work, Tommy. What are you doing here?” Jamie crossed his arms. He didn’t want to deal with this now. This was the one place he shouldn’t have to worry about bumping into Tommy or Paul.
Tommy shook his head and sighed. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. We both are.” His voice had a pleading quality to it that grated on Jamie’s nerves.
“You’ve already said sorry. On my answer machine, by text—and I don’t fucking care.” It was a lie and they both knew it. It wouldn’t hurt so much if he didn’t care. Tommy had been a constant in his life for so long that missing him was a physical ache. Most of his memories from his teenage years included Tommy, which made it even more painful. He couldn’t just blot them out, no matter how much he wanted to.
“We didn’t mean for it to happen. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.” Tommy did look upset, he’d give him that. But Jamie couldn’t just forgive and forget. How could he trust Tommy again? He’d shared so many hopes and dreams with him, and he felt… violated. If Tommy could do this to him, then what else could he do—what else had he done?
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it. We’ve been friends nearly our whole lives. You were like a brother to me. How could you do that?” Jamie wanted to scream at him or punch him—possibly both. He took a steadying breath and unclenched his fists at his sides.
“It’s not like we thought, ‘Let’s cheat on Jamie today.’ We just…. I don’t even know. We fell in love. But we didn’t know what to do because neither of us wanted to hurt you.”
Jamie snorted, his lip curled distastefully. “Didn’t want to hurt me? Paul broke up with me in public. Not only that, but he knew how important that day was to me. That doesn’t sound like a man who didn’t want to hurt me. The opposite, in fact. ‘Vindictive’ springs to mind.”
Tommy winced. “It might look like that, but he was freaking out beforehand. He got it into his head that he had to do it then or he’d chicken out. I know it was a shitty thing to do, and it was a shitty time to do it, but he wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“I’m so sorry poor Paul was having such a hard time deciding how to split up with me. Fuck you, and fuck Paul. Oh wait, sorry—you’re already doing that.”
Jamie turned around and strode off, hoping Tommy would leave him alone. The anger burned inside him now, and he tried to hold on to it because anger felt better than pain.
“It’s not all our fault, you know,” Tommy shouted.
Jamie laughed, the sound sticking at the back of his throat like sandpaper. “What the hell do you mean by that?” He stood still and turned around as Tommy walked toward him again. Tommy’s cheeks were flushed with anger—what did he have to be angry about? Jamie hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Oh, come on. You, Dane, and Markus have been close since uni, with the band and all your practices. Me and Paul, we’re always just on the sideline. Rat Pack Ranger groupies. We just got close when you were all doing your thing,” Tommy said.
“So it’s my fault because I didn’t give either of you enough attention? Grow up.” What a pathetic excuse.
Tommy let out a frustrated grunt. “Don’t put words into my mouth. I fucking love him, okay?” It was Tommy’s turn to laugh now, and he sounded as unhappy as Jamie was. “I think I’ve always loved him, but I didn’t let myself think about it because you always liked him, and you always get what you want. Fancy job, great house, gorgeous boyfriend.” He sounded bitter. “I just locked away my feelings until I forgot all about them. I never expected him to return them.”
Jamie didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t need to hear how much they loved each other. He rubbed the ache in his chest absently. “I loved him too. We were living together. We were serious.” He’d thought they were. He loved Tommy as well, not in the same way, of course, but that was why it was so difficult. It was why he couldn’t get over it. The two people he loved most in the world, the two people he thought loved him, had betrayed him, and he was meant to sit back and forgive them? He couldn’t do it.
Not once had he ever suspected Tommy liked Paul as more than just a friend, and he never guessed Tommy was jealous of his job. It wasn’t Jamie’s fault Tommy was too scared to pursue a career in countryside management after he was made redundant from his last job. It was as if one bad experience put him off for life.
“This is all crazy,” Jamie said. “It doesn’t even matter. Whatever you felt, whatever the reasons, what you both did was wrong.” Now the can of worms had been opened, Jamie couldn’t stop the words spilling out. He’d repressed so many of his feelings because he didn’t want to make things awkward for their friends, and he’d not confronted either of them. “Cheating is unacceptable anyway. I can’t trust you ever again. I doubt I’ll ever be able to forgive you—just leave me alone. Go back to your boyfriend, but don’t be surprised if he does the same to you.”
Jamie walked off again in the opposite direction, praying that Tommy didn’t follow him. He didn’t look where he was going and walked into a patch of stinging nettles that sent sharp tingles of pain up his legs.
“Shit,” he cursed, hopping out of the nettles and onto a dry piece of dirt.
He hoped Tommy hadn’t seen that. He was humiliated enough as it was. His legs were mottled with tiny, itchy red spots. Just great. He found a few dock leaves growing next to the nettles and roughly pulled them out of the ground. He rubbed them against the rash on his legs, soothing the irritation. It wasn’t the first time he’d been stung by nettles, and it wouldn’t be the last.
He glanced behind him, and Tommy was nowhere to be seen. He let out a breath of relief and kicked at the batch of dirt, wishing it were Tommy’s face. The dirt was little more than dust and gravel that sprayed in the air as the wind blew around him. It covered
him in a fine layer of dust. Great. Now he had a stone in his boot.
His phone vibrated. What now? He sighed in frustration. Bloody Liam asking to go out for a coffee. Before he could think more clearly, he texted back, agreeing to meet up. He didn’t need Tommy’s friendship, and he didn’t need Paul’s love.
Chapter Seven
TO FAKE or Not To Fake?
L_ofa_Ride
547K Views. 3 days ago
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single gay man in possession of a good pet rat must be in want of a husband—or at the very least a fake boyfriend.” Liam watched himself talk on the computer screen, gently swaying in his chair, mindful of Mabel sitting on his shoulder. “I don’t know, Riders, am I putting all my eggs into one basket? How do I persuade him to go on a date with me? Ideas in the comments, please.” The video was a rare moment of seriousness mixed in with humour. It was odd that he could have a somewhat serious conversation with his viewers… until he realised it was because they couldn’t answer back. Then it made sense.
There wasn’t much to edit on this video; it was mostly him talking. He just needed to clean up a little, add his intro, and then upload it. It was only six minutes, but he didn’t like to ramble too long unless there was action to balance it.
Seven minutes after the video went live, there was a like and then a comment.
Forget about him, I’ll be your Mr Darcy. Let’s meet x
He didn’t want to forget about Jamie. He liked a challenge, and he didn’t think the comments that were still coming would do any good. But he could at least show his softer side, and who would be able to resist Mabel? Liam reached for his phone, opened Messenger, and sent Jamie another text.
There was no reply straightaway, but Liam didn’t expect it. Then he glanced at the clock and cursed.
He was going to be late for his next student unless he got a wriggle on, so he put Mabel back in her cage, jogged outside, and put the magnetic learner driver plates on the side of his car, and a large plastic driving school sign on the roof that incorporated his business name, L of a Ride. He was damned proud of the name he’d picked, using a play on L for learner driver and his name to come up with it. It was a little cheeky, but it always stuck in prospective drivers’ minds.