“But they won’t have their Uncle Aled,” Suze croaked.
Aled laughed. “’Course they will. This isn’t the fifties, Suze. We can Skype and see each other still. I can drive down to visit. We could come for Christmas, me and Gabe, every year if you want. And summers! You’ll have better summers in Cornwall than what we get here. All you have to do is tell Gabriel he can go cycling up a cliff or some such bollocks, and he’ll drag us both down every year without fail.”
Suze’s lip started to shake again.
“Suze,” Aled breathed, cupping her hand in both of his. “I love you. I love you. I’ve always loved you. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, you’re the sister I never did have, and this is your future, your happiness, calling for you. Tom has always said he would be going home one day. He can’t abandon his family, even for you—”
“I’d be abandoning—!”
“—and you can’t abandon everything you ever wanted for me.”
She burst into tears and Aled groaned, leaning over to hug her.
“If I could have loved you like I did Melissa, like I do Gabriel, then I would have done, and I would have lamped Tom the minute you saw him and removed the Cornish competition,” he said, pressing his nose against her hair when she laughed wetly. “But we were never like that, Suze. We both knew this was going to happen eventually. You’ve always wanted your family, and for that to happen, you have to leave me behind a little.”
“Not like this,” she sobbed.
“Yes, like this,” Aled coaxed. “Because Tom’s yours. I never once got jealous of him. He took you away from me, he took my place as the most important man in your life, but I never once resented him because of how you looked at him. You absolutely adore him, Suze, and he’s so besotted with you that I’m not even worried he’ll fuck it up and I’ll have to break his legs.”
“Oh please, he’d kick your fat ginger arse,” she mumbled.
“You forget how much effort I have to put into getting Gabriel pinned down. I’m a better fighter than I look, thank you.”
“Yeah, and Tom plays rugby.”
“Fine, point taken, but I’d still take a sledgehammer. See him beat that,” Aled scoffed, squeezing her tightly. “Thing is, Suze, you will always, always regret it if you let him go because of me.”
“I don’t want to let you go,” Suze insisted, fisting a hand into his jacket. “You’re the only family I’ve got left, Aled. When your dad died, it was like my dad died. Nana is my nana. You’re my brother, and my kids deserve you too, not just Daz and Gary and Neil and Jamie.”
“Fuck me, how many brothers does Tom have!”
“Seven. And two sisters.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“And six steps.”
“Well, you’ll never have to pay a babysitter,” Aled quipped, rocking her when she just cried harder. “Hey, come on, Suze. This isn’t leaving me behind. This is giving me a free holiday home for Christmas, and the ability to actually like your kids because I won’t get kid-phobia if they’re a few hundred miles away.”
She sniffled, clinging tight, and whispered, “I don’t know—”
“Forget about me,” Aled advised. “Answer him based purely and simply whether or not you want to marry him and have kids with him. Then do what you need to do in order to get that, because that’s always been your dream, Suze.”
“A dream, Aled. This is reality.”
“And your reality is offering you that dream.”
“In Cornwall. Miles from my best friend. From my family.”
“From your tiny family who can’t give you that,” Aled said frankly. “Distance isn’t going to change us, Suze. If we can cope with my wife who never quite trusted you, and your boyfriend who has never made a secret of the fact he’s not staying in Yorkshire forever, then we can cope with a long car trip to get to each other physically. And if you go to Penzance or Plymouth instead of some middle-of-nowhere village, direct train! It’s a win-win situation.”
“Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with you?” Suze mumbled morosely.
“We’d kill each other. Plus, still no kids.”
Suze hummed, pulling away and scrubbing at her face. Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks flushed.
“You’re more than just a mate, and that’s why I know we’ll be all right,” Aled said gently, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You and me, we’re stronger than any of this. Most best friends drop down to casual after weddings and shit. You and me? We’re for good. You’ve caught a bloke who trusts you, who loves you, who doesn’t question why your best mate is a man and what you’re up to with him. And I’ve caught someone who actively shoves me out the door to spend time with you and Tom when he wants to play with someone else.”
Suze laughed a little, then swallowed. “You have to come visit all the time.”
“Of course I will.”
“Gabe too.”
“I’ll just show him some pictures of cute Cornishmen and he’ll be booking the tickets,” Aled promised.
“And—and you’d be their uncle. When we have kids. They’d know all about you, and you’d have to send presents and come and see them, and we’d come and see you…”
“Eh, I’ll visit you. You can leave the kids at home when you come back here,” Aled negotiated.
Suze nodded, then exhaled heavily and started rummaging in her pockets for tissues. “So you think I should say yes.”
“I think you should chase what you want from your future and adapt what you’ve got now to fit it.”
“Which means saying yes,” she admitted quietly. “I do want to marry him. I do want his kids. I just—I guess I always told myself that he might change his mind and want to stay here to have them. But why would he? All his family are there. And he misses them every day, just like I’d miss you—”
“Do what’s best for you and Tom. Because no matter what you choose, you’re not letting go of me to get it,” Aled said, squeezing her arm. “I’ll be at the other end of the phone, just like always.”
Suze took a deep breath.
“So, I guess I’m engaged. And moving. If.”
“If?”
“If you do one thing for me.”
“What’s that?”
“You have to give me away at my wedding.”
Aled blinked. “Suze—”
“I don’t want my dad there. He’s no business being there. Or my real brother. And I always planned in my head that your dad would do it, but—but as he’s gone, I want you to do it.”
Aled swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Okay,” he agreed hoarsely. “Yeah. ’Course I will.”
She hugged him, flinging her arms around his neck, and squeezed tightly enough to choke him.
If they both cried a little, neither of them cared.
Chapter Two
Gabriel coasted the bike to a stop and planted one exhausted foot on the rocky ground.
“Fuck,” he gasped. “Holy fuck.”
Chris just grinned. His face was flushed red from a combination of the wind and the effort. He’d won their race—of course he had, the jammy bastard—and was sitting atop a stray rock, a half-empty water bottle dangling limply from his fingers.
“Check out the view,” he said.
The Dales were spread out below them, splashes of green and brown under a deep blue sky. The sun was beginning to sink, and the blue was slowly inching towards purple.
“How far have we gone?” Gabriel asked.
“Twenty-eight miles.”
“Fuck.”
“Two more,” Chris said. “Then the last train home.”
“I might just sleep out here,” Gabriel said. He propped his bike against the rock and stole Chris’ water bottle, draining it in three desperate gulps. Chris just watched, a smirk playing around his lips. A little thrill of achievement chased up Gabriel’s spine. Chris could be so serious sometimes. It was almost exciting to wrestle a smile out of him.
“I wou
ldn’t recommend it,” Chris said and slid down from the rock. “Anyway, your boyfriend will want you back tonight.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes.
“Technically,” he said, easing his sore arse back onto the saddle, “aren’t you both my boyfriends?”
Chris just pushed off and didn’t answer.
They’d met at a race. Aled would drop Gabriel off sometimes with the bike, but that was as close as Gabriel had managed to get him to cycling. He hated it. With a passion that made Gabriel wonder if a bike hadn’t bitten him as a child. So Gabriel usually went to races alone—and there had been Chris. Shy. Gorgeous deep voice that creaked and rasped its way out on the odd occasion he chose to speak. A habit of glancing at Gabriel’s tits then looking away again hastily that made Gabriel laugh.
He was sweet. And Gabriel didn’t do sweet very often. He didn’t usually like it, so he’d been intrigued by the warm flush in his stomach—and elsewhere—when Chris had stammered out an invite for a drink after that fateful race. He’d chased it. He’d wanted to understand it.
He still wanted to understand it.
But Chris wasn’t wholly helpful. He was quiet and not entirely comfortable with unpacking his thoughts in front of other people. So Gabriel just asked the questions to himself, and by and large didn’t bother to ask them.
But chasing the dying light down the hill, he drew up alongside Chris and echoed his rhythm until it felt oddly like a very choreographed spin class rather than the most punishing trail in the Peaks, then leaned forward over the bars and snuck a peek at Chris’ red face.
“So—”
“What?” Chris croaked.
“Aren’t you both my boyfriends?”
Chris coughed. “Uh. I don’t— Your other bloke won’t—”
“Aled,” Gabriel said for the thousandth time.
“Um. Yeah.”
There was a short silence and Gabriel chuckled.
“He won’t give a shit if you’re my boyfriend or not, you know.”
Chris’ foot slipped on the pedal, and he wobbled.
“He knows I’ve got them.”
Sort of. Kevin wasn’t a boyfriend, and Greg was just a friend with nine-inch benefits, but the theory was all there.
“Sure,” Chris said. “‘Course.”
Gabriel smirked.
“You know,” he said conversationally as the track began to level out and head down towards the road, “you could always stay the night and get the morning train.”
“Work,” Chris grunted.
“Next time, then.”
“Um.”
“You should meet him.”
Even in the dying light, Gabriel could see the flush rapidly recede. He burst out laughing and almost came off.
“Oh my God, your face!”
“Shut up!” Chris whined.
“Aled works in marketing. Even if you were the other man, what’s he gonna do? Throw a leaflet campaign at you?”
“Shut up!”
“You’d like him,” Gabriel said as they wrestled the bikes over the bank and onto a narrow lane framed by tall hedges. They paused to get their bearings, then headed east for the nearer station. “You both think I’m crazy.”
“You are.”
“Well, yeah, but you both love me anyway.”
Chris mumbled something that might have been a weak denial. Gabriel blissfully ignored it. He hooked a foot up onto the frame and coasted for a while, enjoying the cool evening. A harsh winter was approaching, and there’d be no more cycling for a while. Not beyond his commute to work, anyway. And sliding down Dewsbury Road in the ice after an eight-hour shift mopping floors and hoovering carpets wasn’t anyone’s idea of fun, least of all Gabriel’s.
He dropped back a little to admire the view as they climbed the last hill, then winking village lights came into view. They managed the station with only seconds to spare and heaved the muddy bikes onto the train under the unamused nose of an elderly guard who’d fallen out of some costume drama on the telly. He sniffed at them for daring to actually have tickets, and Chris pulled a face as they leaned up against the partitions, bracketing the dirty bikes between them.
“You’d think we were delinquents.”
“I am. Dunno about you.”
“Someone has to be sensible here.”
“Nah,” Gabriel said, and cocked his head. His smile dimmed to a fond scrutiny of Chris’ still-blushing face. “I can’t figure you out, you know.”
“Huh?”
“You asked me out the day we met, you booked those gig tickets after a week and you must text me every week with new trip ideas—”
Chris’ skin flamed red again. “I…I like spending time with you.”
“And I never hid Aled from you, and you’re not bothered by him existing, but you’re so sure he’ll take one look at you and try and kill you.”
Chris scuffed his shoe against the train floor.
“Something you want to tell me?” Gabriel pushed gently.
“Nah,” Chris said. “Just—you know. Lots of guys say their boyfriends are okay with it.”
“You’re okay with it.”
Chris frowned. “Huh?”
The carriage was empty. The guard had vanished into the next one. The train lurched through the darkness towards Sheffield, like they were the only two people in the world and civilisation was thousands of miles away. In that cocoon, Gabriel reached out and hooked his fingers around Chris’ until the connection swayed between them in the gentle rocking of the carriage hurtling through the twilight.
“I’ve had a day out with my boyfriend,” Gabriel murmured. “Now he’s going home, and I’m going to see if my other boyfriend is home from the US yet.”
Chris coloured faintly. He ducked his head, but not fast enough to hide the smile that flashed across his face.
“You’re my boyfriend, and you don’t mind the others,” Gabriel said. “So why wouldn’t Aled be like you?”
Chris opened his mouth, but there was no reply.
“I like people like you,” Gabriel said. “Is it so surprising you have some things in common?”
“I—guess not.”
“You’ve got loads in common, really.”
“Like what?”
“Neither of you are what you look like.”
Aled looked about as savage as a cabbage but liked to force Gabriel to his knees and fuck his face until he choked. Chris, with his shaved head, broken teeth and hard, stocky frame, looked like he could kill with a single punch but was about as aggressive as…well, the exact same cabbage. He didn’t do kink. He didn’t do rough sex. He barely even did gentle sex. They’d met at the beginning of the summer, and Gabriel had had him exactly twice. Twice. That had to be a record.
“I was expecting someone more…hard-looking,” Chris admitted.
“Yeah, well, he’s not.”
“So you say.”
“Meet him and you’ll find out.”
“No thanks.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Fine. You also both dip your biscuits in your tea wrong, and neither of you know how to match socks.”
“Excuse me, I do not dunk wrong.”
“You’re supposed to dunk a bit of the biscuit, eat it then dunk a new bit. Not drown the whole thing then act surprised when it dissolves.”
“It only dissolves if you used a shitty rich tea.”
“Custard creams dissolve.”
“Since when? Where the hell are you buying your custard creams?”
“And,” Gabriel interrupted loudly, dropping Chris’ hand, “you both let yourselves get drawn into dumb arguments about biscuits.”
Chris snorted. He stepped forward as lights flickered outside and the train began to slow, and caught Gabriel’s hip in one hand. If Aled was soft edges and fuzzy lines, Chris was forged out of steel. Even his hands felt hard, and the kiss grazed even as there wasn’t a hint of demand in it. Gabriel melted a bit around the edges. God, he hoped he could persuade Chris
into a proper fuck soon.
“Your fault,” Chris muttered.
“Everything’s my fault.”
“True.”
“Hey!”
“You said it, not me.”
The debate was punctured by arriving into a quiet station. Gabriel followed Chris to the train bound for Bristol, but there were a couple of drunks on the platform, so he didn’t quite dare to kiss him. Instead, they shared a back-thumping hug and a cheery, obnoxiously deep goodbye, before Gabriel hefted up his bike and headed for the shuttle that would wind its way towards Leeds, via Wakefield.
The text came in before he got there, though, and he grinned stupidly at the display.
Chris: Love you too xxx
“Softie.”
The last train to Leeds was even lonelier than the last one in from the Peaks and Gabriel propped the bike against the trackside doors and flopped into a nearby seat to text Kevin. It wasn’t a line he’d been giving Chris. Gabriel had only tried monogamy once and it had really not worked. He wasn’t built for the same guy and the same sex over and over again—and he wasn’t really built that way romantically, either. He wasn’t in love with Kevin and certainly not with Greg, but he loved Aled to bits, and was rapidly heading that way with Chris too.
And how lucky was he that he had four guys who just…got it?
Okay, Chris was a work in progress. But Aled had always understood. So had Kevin. And Greg, okay, Greg didn’t get it, but Greg was only interested in a buddy he could fuck after gigs sometimes, not a relationship or anything. He didn’t give a shit if Gabriel had one boyfriend or twenty, just so long as he could come out to play sometimes.
Kevin was either busy with a client, busy with the kids or busy fucking his wife. Gabriel sighed and switched over to a game for the rest of the journey, then stuffed the phone away and wrestled his aching legs under him as Wakefield shivered into view. It was a short downhill coast from the station to Aled’s house, but to his burning thighs it felt like a thousand miles.
Then he paused on the corner, grinning.
He’d locked up and turned all the lights out when he and Chris had left that morning. But the landing light was on, a warm yellow glow peeking out through the slats in the blind.
The Wedding (Starting Over Book 3) Page 2