“Are you in pain still?” Piers said, turning over from his sprawled position on his back. He pushed himself up onto one elbow and regarded Aidan’s frown with an expression that looked like concern but which Aidan was sure concealed a glimmer of irritation. Three weeks was a long time to be ill in Piers’s house.
“No. No, I’m fine.” His half-healed ribs ached, and his back hurt from cramping up around the pain. His fingers hurt and his legs still trembled, and all the bruises had spread out until there was scarcely an inch of him that wasn’t purple tending towards green, but he didn’t think Piers would want to hear that. “I, ah, started exercising again yesterday. Pretty much back to normal.”
Piers smiled. Sliding out of bed, he shrugged his dressing gown on and disappeared out the door. Aidan assumed he had gone to the shower and had just begun to relax when Piers reappeared with a tray of breakfast—cereal and tea and toast.
Shit.
“Breakfast in bed.” Piers smiled. And God, he was trying so hard. He’d been visibly trying so hard since Aidan regained consciousness. It was painful to watch.
Aidan smiled back, cringing inside as he struggled to sit up, lean his pillow against the wall, and put his back to it. He could manage this. He could. He would.
His throat tightened in anticipation and the pit of his stomach roiled in nausea. But he took the bowl of cornflakes into his lap and cradled the tea between his hands as though he wanted them both.
With an effort, he raised the mug to his lips, conscious of Piers’s gaze on his bent head, and forced himself to swallow two, three mouthfuls. Piers slid back into his own side of the bed and hit the button to raise the TV hidden in the foot of the bed and turn on the news. While he wasn’t watching, Aidan lifted a spoonful of milk and managed to choke that down too.
“You’ve got to eat something solid,” said Piers, and obviously he had been watching after all. Aidan didn’t know why he had thought differently—Piers always was.
Obediently, Aidan tried putting some cornflakes into his mouth. His throat turned into solid stone as a result, the muscles paralysed, even the airway compromised, choked together so tightly he could scarcely gasp in air, let alone solids. He chewed frantically. Maybe, maybe if he could pulverise it into a liquid he could . . . But he couldn’t. He tried to swallow and gagged, tears leaking from the corners of his tightly shut eyes, scared to see Piers’s expression, failing him again.
“Aidan, there’s nothing wrong with your throat. They checked it at the hospital, remember? The bruising is superficial. You are fine. Just stop . . . stop being such a drama queen and eat something.”
The cold edge to Piers’s tone set all his alarms blaring. He knew it had been hard for Piers to be so attentive, so smotheringly pleasant and caring these past three weeks. He knew it would wear off eventually, and they would be back to the regular pulse of their lives—the slow buildup towards a beating, the contrition after.
He spat the cornflake paste into a napkin. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I just get self-conscious. Maybe if you weren’t watching?”
“I have a business trip in the States I have to go on.” Piers got a hold of his voice, gentled it, but only succeeded in sounding saccharine instead of sweet. “I was going to fly out just before lunchtime for a week, but if I can’t trust you to feed yourself, I might have to cancel it and stay.”
A week alone? Aidan wiped the moisture from the corners of his eyes and drank more tea. “I don’t want to be a problem for you.”
He picked up a single wilted cornflake on the end of his spoon and, telling himself this was for freedom, he got it down somehow. Flooded with joy at the achievement, he dared to look up and meet Piers’s eyes, hoping for approval.
But Piers’s expression was cold and hard. “I thought so.”
Almost as soon as Piers’s car had turned the corner down the lane, Aidan was struggling into his coat and shoes. He knew going out was a bad idea, but he didn’t think he could stand a moment longer indoors, not even alone. Outside, the grim end of winter weather had eased into the far more hopeful beginning of spring. The sky was bright blue from end to end, the birds were singing, and the sunshine was actually warm.
He thought he didn’t have anywhere in particular to go, but he wasn’t at all surprised to find himself on the steps of the museum, using the handrail to help himself climb the twelve risers and limp inside. The museum’s foyer was a marvel of Victorian splendour: multicoloured faux-medieval tiles underfoot, red-brick gothic arches soaring overhead, stained glass windows pouring rainbow colours over the tableau of fighting dinosaur skeletons hanging from the painted ceiling.
James stood beneath the triceratops’s skull, with a red spot of light turning his toffee-coloured hair brilliant auburn and a yellow one gilding his widened eyes.
Something in Aidan sighed in relief at the sight. He hadn’t known he was doing it, but of course he had come to see James. Of course he had missed him.
“I thought you were avoiding me!” James bent down to clip closed the display panel on the dinosaurs’ pedestal, then straightened up to stride over in a pace that was more than half jog. Both his hands were out and it seemed natural for Aidan to offer his own to be caught in James’s encompassing grasp.
“I’m so sorry about the paparazzi. It’s unconscionable, isn’t it, how they think they can splash your private moments all over the national press, just because you’re—” James started to squeeze, but at Aidan’s faint wince he stopped immediately, looked down. Amazing how clear, how luminous his eyes seemed, like the spring sky, when he looked up again, now cradling Aidan’s taped fingers in the palms of his hands as if they were a precious artefact he didn’t wish to damage.
“What happened?”
The nurse had been concerned, but it had had an edge of professionalism. She would have been concerned over anyone. James’s concern felt far, far more personal. To his horror, Aidan found himself tearing up. He turned his head away quickly in the hopes of hiding it. But James was not so easily fooled. He took one hand away and then his fingers brushed lightly against the bruising that ran like a noose around Aidan’s neck directly underneath his necklace. The touch made him shudder everywhere, as though he’d been sleepwalking and plunged into cold water—as though he was waking up.
He was suddenly conscious of how hungry he was and how much he hurt and how much he wanted to be held. Held with no ulterior motive, no threat of sex, just comfort, just warmth and comfort and ease. “I . . .”
He bit his lip, trying to keep it in, but his breathing went wild anyway, the sobs forcing their way out, bending his broken ribs, making them throb.
James’s arm went around his back almost automatically. It fit there nicely—the guy was gangly but tall, and Aidan was thinner than he had been. It was so good, so good to feel James take some of his weight, to feel the soft warmth of the fluffy black fleece jumper he was wearing, to feel supported.
“Is this because of me?” James whispered, sounding appalled, like he actually cared. “Oh, dear Lord, I don’t even know your name. What happened?”
He guided Aidan to the edge of the foyer, let him lean on his narrow shoulder a moment while he unlocked a forbidding oak door, and then Aidan was being guided through a room full of filing cabinets to sit on a bench beneath a mullioned window. James sat beside him and the sunlight kneaded their backs. James’s arm was still around him, their thighs touching, and it didn’t feel daring at all to turn and put his arms around James’s neck, put his head down on the man’s shoulder, and weep into his collar. It felt easy, like he’d done it a thousand times before.
“That stupid article,” James said, his own voice a little rough with sorrow. “I should have realized your other half wouldn’t be pleased either. I was so taken up in my own concerns I didn’t . . . I thought you were just avoiding me because you were embarrassed. But he didn’t hit you, surely?”
So innocent. So sure of that—so sure of the goodness of human nature. Aidan couldn’t
take that away from him, and besides, he was ashamed. “Aidan,” he said instead, and dared to look up into James’s startled grey eyes to see if they were angry.
“Sorry?”
He forced a rather watery smile. “It’s my name. Aidan Swift.”
“Oh.” James smiled back, the moment holding around them, clear and kind like something numinous, like they’d briefly brushed the outer edge of God’s love for all things. “Oh, thank you. Thank you for telling me that. I gather it’s not something you hand out at random.”
James pushed away, making an attempt to disentangle himself. Aidan clung on for a moment more before letting him disengage, but though he expected to feel ashamed for that, oddly enough he didn’t. He felt calmly assured that James didn’t mind.
“Here.” James pulled a bottle of Tango from the desk’s large lower drawer and handed it to him. “Crying always makes me thirsty. Are you hungry? I have some . . . um . . .”
He fished in the drawer again, coming up with a Tupperware container that held a heel of sandwich splotched with green mould, a foil-wrapped baguette that sounded like rock when he put it down on the tabletop, and a tomato so overripe it deformed between his fingers like a water balloon. “I could have sworn I packed lunch today.”
A frown, and his face cleared in realization. “Oh, I did. And then I left it on the counter when I was putting my coat on.” He made a tsk noise behind his teeth. “I’m so . . .” and then he refocused on Aidan, bright, friendly, encouraging. “I gather you don’t want to talk about the bruises?”
Aidan had drunk half of the Tango without even realizing it before this question made him choke on a mouthful, made it spurt up and sear the inside of his nose. He managed to swallow the dregs, to not let it trickle from between his fingers to fall and stain James’s antique floor, but he capped the bottle and shoved the rest of it away.
James’s face clouded with something Aidan didn’t recognize. He didn’t think it was anger, and it didn’t make him feel unsafe, didn’t stop the slow loosening of his throat. So he just shook his head and waited in the quiet for his voice to return.
“Well, I want lunch,” James said, not nagging, just stating his own needs. “Let’s go to the café. I think I at least owe you a hotpot for invading your life with unwelcome press. And then . . . as it happens you did make it in time for the last day of the pottery workshops, so we can— We can fashion a commemorative plate or something.”
He took Aidan by the forearms and lifted him gently, watching the creaky way Aidan straightened up, the painful hitches in the rise and fall of his chest. That look crossed his face again, but he only said, “Actually the idea is to teach people not to dismiss the artistry of coil pots—just because the potter’s wheel is faster doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better. To demonstrate that so-called ‘primitive’ pottery might have been nothing of the sort.”
He let Aidan put an arm around his shoulders again and lean on him as they walked, and that was fantastic because Aidan’s body wanted to touch James, wanted to hug and be held. James supported him through a gallery of Mesopotamian carving, down a stair and into the steamy, savoury warmth of a large cafeteria just beginning to fill up for the lunchtime rush.
James lowered Aidan into a seat at a small brown wooden table next to a window. As they were in the basement, all he could see through the window was a small stone well of a space, sunlight coming down in black-and-white checks through a grating over which many feet were hurrying. But someone had put a window box on the outside sill, and it was riotous with little violas, purple and gold as an emperor’s finery. Aidan cracked the sash window open to let the fresh spring air come inside, relieved at its cool touch on his bruises.
The café’s walls had been plastered and painted like the inside of a pyramid, complete with cartouches and inscriptions from the Book of the Dead. It should have been macabre, but he found it reassuring somehow. If he was already dead and buried, that must mean he was free.
He could feel all his ligaments let go, relax and unravel. His shoulders came down. As his muscles softened, his headache and the pain in his neck softened with them. Colours sharpened around him. He spent some time marvelling at the gerbera in its bud vase on the table, looking as though it was made out of silk, though it was actually a real plant. Sometimes he felt like that too.
Then he spent a long wordless period watching James queue up for food. Today James was eccentrically clad in lime-green cords and a black fleece that made him look like the cygnet of a black swan—round and fluffy. The man’s fashion sense was . . . unique. His glasses were hooked in his collar again, but he fished them out to read the menu, deciphering it as if it was an ancient inscription.
He had long, spidery fingers and long arms. Long legs, and a body that could have done to put on some mass, but that moved with a strange stalking grace. He put Aidan in mind of a giraffe quietly enjoying the shade on the edge of the savannah. Although he didn’t think there would be much power in a punch thrown by James, he found he couldn’t actually imagine the man even trying, and something about that thought made his heart ache.
What would it be like, to be James’s boyfriend? To have the right to cuddle with him at any time, maybe even hold hands? He thought about forgotten lunches and misplaced glasses and those godawful trousers, and knew he could do something about all of that. He would send James to work with a stir-fry he could heat up in the microwave, or soup in a flask and freshly made bread, or maybe bento boxes of homemade sushi.
Piers had always wanted him to be the perfect houseboy, and he was, but Piers still preferred to order things in, to get experts, to pay for services that Aidan would have provided with love. Aidan could have been proud of being a domestic god and would have been glad to let Piers pay some expert from an agency for sex. But Piers had always preferred it the other way around.
But he wasn’t thinking about Piers right now.
“Here.” James put a plate of shepherd’s pie with green salad in front of him. It smelled amazing. His mouth watered and his eyes tried to do the same. God, he really hoped . . . The mashed potato looked smooth enough. He probably would be able to . . .
“I wasn’t sure what you wanted, but I thought maybe something comforting. This is a regular dish here and they do it very well.”
Aidan took a fork full of potato, raised it to his mouth, hesitated.
James grimaced at the ceiling. “You might be wondering why the burial chamber decor? Frankly, I wonder too. It was my predecessor’s choice. I personally would have thought the juxtaposition of ideas was . . . not appetizing, but . . .”
Expecting fear and struggle, Aidan put the food in his mouth only to be overwhelmed by the burst of flavour and the smoothness. His saliva glands ached with watering, and he had swallowed before he had time to gag. It went down easy, welcome as a rescue.
Oh God, this was so good. Aidan closed his eyes in bliss as he took more. Peas and carrots and lamb in this forkful, but the lamb was tender and the vegetables were soft and sweet, and the gravy was sleek and fat with all the calories and nutrients his healing body was crying out for, and he could have wept for how fucking good it was.
“I was thinking that if we had to go with funerary art, we could go for Etruscan instead. Have you made a study of the Etruscan frescos at all?”
Aidan opened his eyes to see James leaning forward over the table, smiling with enthusiasm, his eyes gentler than his voice. Aidan managed a sip of orange juice that tasted like golden volcanoes, and his voice was almost strong when he said, “I haven’t even heard of them. What are they like?”
“Oh, gorgeous.” James wrapped his long hand around Aidan’s left wrist, skin to skin. It lay there just lightly, but Aidan could almost discern the shape of the fingerprints, he was so aware of it. Not a restraint, not a threat, just an unspoken promise that James was there, like a miniaturized hug for the arm. “Just these very Mediterranean-looking people with curly hair and dark eyelashes, not wearing very many clothe
s, apparently having the time of their lives. Eating fruit, wrestling with bulls, playing flutes, partying with their friends. Seems like a nice afterlife, you know? And actually quite a nice fore-life as well. Much like the Minoans in that respect. Do you know the Minoans at all?”
Aidan’s fork scraped the plate. He looked at it in astonishment, while something that was very like rage roared futilely in the back of his mind. Apparently the hospital had been right. There was nothing wrong with his throat. Apparently even if Piers didn’t try to murder him again, Aidan had decided on some subconscious level he wanted to kill himself.
And he was still starving. “I’ve seen a documentary or two. They’re the ones with Knossos? The bull dancers?” He pushed the plate away to make room in front of him. “Am I allowed to have pudding?”
James cocked his head to one side and studied his face. “You do look rather thin. Have you eaten much recently?”
“I . . .” Aidan was afraid to say, in case it spoiled everything, this happy, normal little conversation in a crowded, safe room with someone who seemed to be looking out for him. But James deserved an answer. He bowed his head and mumbled it to the table. “I haven’t . . . I can’t swallow. I can’t do anything right.”
“How much have you eaten in the last three days?”
James was going to think he was weird now. He was going to get up and walk away and leave. “I drank some milk. And some tea.”
The hand around his wrist flexed in a gentle squeeze. “Well, in that case, I think you’d better not have any more just now in case it makes you sick. But I’ll tell you what: if you keep it down, come back tomorrow and have pudding then. They have the most amazing jam roly-poly and custard. That’ll put hairs on your chest.”
Blue Steel Chain (Trowchester Blues Book 3) Page 8