Yes, it was good to get your own way, and part of him wanted to rub it in. Part of him very much liked the idea of Dave being dumped in a flower bed naked, waking with a face full of daffodils, pallid and helpless on the soil like a slug on salt. Part of him would laugh if that picture ended up in the Sunday supplements to prove what the rock god was really made of.
But James didn’t approve of that part of himself. “I think I can afford to be magnanimous in victory. I’m going to work now, so I won’t come in, but I will be back at noon to check what’s going on. If you’re not all gone by then, I call the police, all right? So you have until noon to get them all rehydrated and dressed and out. Dave is welcome to take whatever of his own personal possessions he can move, and I’ll contact him through a solicitor to sort out the rest.”
“Sounds permanent.” She raised her eyebrows as if she was almost impressed.
“Oh yes.” He smiled. “Permanent and long overdue.”
They lapsed into a moment’s easy silence, and he was impressed again with the thought that she was the grownup that Dave needed in charge of his life. “Why do you do it?” he asked, curious as to how she could stand it when she had no more respect for the band than he did. “Why do you put up with this nonsense, day in, day out?”
Peggy smiled at him, apparently surprised he’d asked. She uncrossed her arms and looked over his shoulder towards the greening hills, while her expression of hard competence cracked to reveal something wistful. “Come on. You must have heard their music. You can’t tell me it’s not worth digging in a little shit to grow those roses.”
He laughed. Everyone was a poet, it seemed, finding beauty and meaning in their lives wherever they could, willing to sacrifice to keep it alive. “I admire that.” He offered her his hand to shake. “I do. And I’m very glad he has you to keep him from overdosing or ending up in jail. Just . . .” Her hand felt final in his, and he was glad of that too. “Just get him out of my house, all right?”
He spent the morning at the dig on Wednesday Hill, from which he could see the movement of traffic around his house. Vans arrived and then left, and he took an afternoon off to make sure he was opening the door at noon precisely, braced for violence and recrimination and regret.
But there were only empty rooms. He gathered half-empty pizza boxes and dirty plates from the floors, put all the beer cans and the bottles in a bin bag and scrubbed the worst of the stains out of the carpet. The computer in his study was trashed—someone had beaten it with a brick or a bat—and someone had put a foot through the crates of small finds, kicked the bull-leaper into dust. But that was spite he could sweep up and dump in the bin. His important files were on Dropbox, he hadn’t known what to do with the small finds anyway, and Aidan could make him a new statue, a better one, now that they were both free.
Closing the door on the past, he checked his watch. Time to walk down to Idris’s tea shop and catch Aidan coming off shift. Time to bring him home.
Aidan was out already, standing by the riverside, gazing down as a party of tourists in a white motorboat exchanged laughing greetings with the crew of a narrowboat going downriver. Framed in the canal’s ruler-straight dazzle of silver light and surrounded by the flowers that hung from the tea shop’s self-consciously English facade, Aidan was breathtaking. James didn’t think he was alone in this view—half of the tourists were gawping as they passed, amazed to see such beauty in human form.
Aidan’s expression was serious but not solemn, his shoulders straight and his limbs loose and graceful beneath him. James’s heart filled at the sight of the dove-grey shirt he had topped with a charcoal waistcoat. He had done that for James, and James rejoiced at the intention almost as much as the sight.
“Hello,” he said, softly to match the softness in Aidan’s eyes.
“Hey.” Aidan’s gaze was demure, downcast, but when it flicked up to meet James’s eyes, there was a wealth of happiness in it that James hadn’t seen on him before—that James wanted to keep there at all costs. “How did it go?”
“Why don’t you come and see?”
They walked together through evening light that slowly slanted down, turning more golden all the way. Spots and wells of sunlight moved across the hills and at one point they both stopped simultaneously to watch rays of glory slant out from behind the clouds like a painting of the visitation of an angel.
When they arrived at his house, James bit his lip, seeing the neglected garden, the peeling windows that he’d overlooked before. He’d always thought it an unnecessarily large mansion, but now he was afraid it wasn’t good enough to offer to someone as perfect as Aidan. “I suppose I should attempt to carry you over the threshold,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he had the strength to do it in anything other than a fireman’s carry, and that was hardly romantic.
“I think I’d prefer to walk.”
Of course he would. Of course! James kicked himself internally and realized he was as nervous as a newlywed. The thought gave him butterflies that he didn’t know what to do with.
Aidan took off his coat and hung it on the coatrack by the door, giving James another rush of warmth. Soon it would look like it belonged there. Soon Aidan’s scarves would be hung up among his own, and they’d quibble about where to put their hats and who had the black gloves, and were these Aidan’s wellies or James’s? It was starting already, and he wanted to cheer.
“Let me give you the tour, at least.” He wanted to make sure that Aidan stood in every room, owning them with his presence, disinfecting them of what had been here before. Looking bemused and curious and a little nervous himself, Aidan followed him into the kitchen and the living room, through to the library and his study and the swimming pool and the sunroom.
“This is the home movie theatre.” He opened the door on Dave’s pet room and wanted rid of it. “I was thinking perhaps this could be your studio.”
He pointed at the pristine plaster of the great bare wall. “That’s an outside wall. We can knock some windows in it. You’d have a view over the fields to the cathedral, and the light most of the day. We can put in a kiln and a wheel, shelves, whatever else you need.”
Aidan sobbed, turning away and covering his face, and James changed the subject fast. “Are you all right?”
“Happy,” Aidan gulped. He made a wide uncoordinated gesture to indicate the whole room. “I’ll pay you back.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
Oh, James thought, feeling the curves of unbroken eggshells under his feet. Of course he did, and that was good. He wanted to give Aidan the world, but what Aidan really needed was to take it for himself, and what Aidan really needed took precedence. “Well, thank you,” he said. “I appreciate that.”
Upstairs they walked silently through the many rooms until they stood shoulder to shoulder in the main bedroom and faced the bed that James had made carefully with new bedding bought for the occasion, green as the wall Aidan had painted in his flat. It lay there portentous and a little threatening, and it filled him with inappropriate thoughts, so he put it out of his mind for now and said, “How about we make dinner?”
“I’d like that,” Aidan said with a quick smile of relief. “Did I see salmon in the fridge? I’m thinking salsa verde and Mediterranean rice.”
He ducked a little after he’d said it, as if expecting to be cuffed around the ear for making a suggestion.
“Wow,” James said, feeling the ceremonial awkwardness of the last hour begin to slide away in favour of something more comfortable. “That sounds amazing.”
“Really?” Aidan flowered at the praise, giving James a smile so warm he had to step on his own toe to derail the thoughts of getting naked right now. “Okay, then. Come and chop herbs for me?”
“Obviously.” James rolled his eyes and made no attempt whatsoever to subjugate the wave of happiness that surged over him as they walked to the kitchen together and Aidan began opening drawers as though this was his house.
The evening passed better after that. They cooked together, switching the lights on when the last dregs of sunlight had passed from the sky, drawing the curtains to seal inside the warm, savoury-smelling kitchen. The radio played blues in the background, and James poured the champagne he had bought, hoping for the best. It tasted clear and clean next to the delicate flavour of the fish, and he felt that everything was become sensual now, now that he wasn’t pouring all his senses into sex.
But that was a bad observation, because although they’d had a delightful talk about James’s experiences in the Amazon, and he’d laughed more than he could remember having laughed in years, underneath the current of joy, his body began winding him tight. Aidan settled beside him on the couch and the brush of his hip was like a live wire to James’s groin. His smile was an aphrodisiac, and James knew, he knew Aidan was not doing this deliberately, was not in fact doing anything at all except existing, but James couldn’t see Aidan existing without wanting to make love to him. And he was trying . . . he was really trying to get this under control but his blood was on fire and his prick hurt and it hurt damn it.
Aidan raised a hand to James’s face, and his smile faltered. “You’re shaking. What’s wrong?”
He’d barely moved in. He hadn’t spent one night in the house and already James was failing to make this work. Aidan smoothed a thumb along James’s cheekbone, and James groaned. “I’m sorry.” The shower upstairs beckoned, though the thought of slippery gel and warm water was not as alluring as that hand on his cheek. He turned his head to suck Aidan’s thumb into his mouth.
Aidan twitched as if in alarm, and James shot to his feet and made for the stairs. “I’d better go and deal with this. I’m sorry. You’re just so beautiful. I’m sorry.”
Aidan let him go, and he made it to the upstairs landing before reaching down and rubbing himself through his trousers. That was almost enough to set him off by itself. “Oh God.”
“James . . .” He looked wildly at Aidan, who didn’t have the sense to stay put but was coming after him with a look of affection and compassion and just a tiny touch of contempt. “Come to bed.”
“I don’t . . .” James closed his eyes and made a heroic effort to turn away, but Aidan’s hands were on his arms and every particle of him needed to get into contact with Aidan’s skin right now, and he didn’t think he’d ever had it this bad, not even as a teenager. Damn his stupid luck at having it happen now. He should tear himself away and lock himself down in the bathroom, but he didn’t, he followed Aidan to the bedside, where Aidan started taking off his clothes.
Aidan’s hands fell to his fly and unzipped it. He pushed forward into Aidan’s fingers and felt his innards combust in a sensation where pleasure was indistinguishable from pain. “What are you doing? How am I supposed to stop thinking about sex if you’re doing that?”
“You’re wonderful.” Unbelievably, Aidan actually laughed as he took off his own shirt and then James’s, folded down the bedclothes and urged James to lie down on his back, so that Aidan could slip his undone trousers over his hips and pull them off. “You really are. But just because I don’t particularly want to do this for me doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it at all.”
“Hmm?” James was having trouble following Aidan’s argument now that the man was stripping off his own clothes and crawling up the bed to settle naked against James’s hard and painful prick. He was just about with it enough to baulk when his fingers brushed the raised scars that twisted in a sun wheel over Aidan’s hip. “A swastika? He chose it?”
Aidan nodded. “I didn’t want it. When I have the money I’m going to change it into a flower. Hibiscus, maybe. I quite like the tattoos though.”
“I love the tattoos.” James fastened his mouth to the end of a thick, writhing tendril of blue ink and followed it up to Aidan’s nipple, losing the gist of the conversation as he went. “They’re so. So primal. I love . . .” Words eluded him as he angled his hips to drag his cock over the eye of an inked raven that spread its dark wings over Aidan’s belly. “Oh God, please.”
Aidan seemed to recognise that conversation was a lost cause. He leaned forward until his body blanketed James’s, and his skin and his scent were everywhere. James slid his shaking hands down Aidan’s back, curved them around Aidan’s buttocks, dug his fingers in, and pulled him close, thrusting up against Aidan’s taut belly. Aidan’s mouth came down over his, hot and open, the press of his tongue inviting. He drew away just long enough to say, “Do whatever you like,” and dipped back, flicking the end of his tongue against James’s upper lip. James arched up to capture him, crushed their mouths together, sucking him down as he rolled them over and thrust hard and furiously against Aidan’s groin.
He came embarrassingly fast, shivering and prepared to be ashamed of himself. Reaching for Aidan’s cock to reciprocate, he found it still soft, tenderly disinterested.
“I’m sorry.”
Aidan laughed. “It’s okay.” He drew James into a long hug that only grew warmer as James’s state of distressed overarousal transmuted into heady satisfaction. He felt sure he should feel guilty, but he found he was smiling. When he yawned, Aidan drew back enough to kiss him on the nose, got out of bed to return with a towel with which he wiped them both dry. “Do you like fishing?”
James didn’t know what to make of the non sequitur, but he put out his arms and gladly let Aidan slip back between them, holding him close. “Not really.”
“But if I wanted you to come fishing with me, you’d still come, wouldn’t you? It’s like that.”
James didn’t see how sex could possibly be like that, but presumably Aidan knew his own mind best. He snuggled closer, letting go of guilt, feeling in its place the budding conviction that this might actually work. “Then I’m honoured,” he offered, painfully sincere. “I’m honoured you would do that for me. What can I do to make it up to you?”
“Make me a coffee in the morning?”
“That’s all?”
Aidan shook his head, as if exasperated that they were coming up against a translation problem. “A coffee in bed first thing in the morning would really improve my day,” he explained, slightly sharp. “Sex isn’t more important than that. You’d have to get up before me and go downstairs in the cold and boil the kettle while you were still bleary and zombified. If you did that for me, of course I would know that you loved me. It would be just the same.”
James’s afterglow turned into awe, awe and joy. “You’re a little bit weird,” he said, burying his nose in Aidan’s hair. “But I like that. I can’t believe how lucky I am.”
“No.” Aidan relaxed against him, his body growing heavy, moulding into all the spaces James left him, until they were pressed together, breathing in sync, sleepy as a puppy pile. “You saved my life. You gave me back my self-respect. And you love me for who I am. I’m the one who’s lucky.”
Aidan twisted the dough of the last croissant into a crescent and slid the whole sheet of them into the oven to bake. He brushed shoulders with James, who stood at the counter slicing peaches for the fruit salad. It still amazed him that James cooked with him and would not sit down to eat unless Aidan too was free to sit. They shared chopping and stirring and washing-up duties, and although it irked him slightly that James wouldn’t let him wait on him hand and foot, the larger part of him loved the company and the help and the implicit assumption that Aidan’s time was as valuable as James’s.
While the croissants cooked, he washed the bowl and his hands, looking out of the kitchen window to where the amber autumn sunlight shone on orange and red leaves. They had managed to spend four months of their promised year apart, and he was glad for that—glad to have had the break in his life when he proved to himself that he could survive alone. But he was happier still like this, with someone to share the glorious world with, someone he could pamper and who would in turn pamper him.
The kitchen gradually began to smell of sweet b
aked bread, and he stirred himself to make coffee with the machine they’d bought to rival the ones Idris had put in at work.
James was wearing the casual trousers and the plain white shirt Aidan had picked out for him, looking like a confident professional, with his glasses attached by a cord to his top pocket. He still spent much of the time dressed as weirdly as he pleased, but occasionally he let Aidan decide what he should put on in the morning, and he claimed the result had brought him new respect both from his colleagues at the museum and his friends at the book club. Aidan’s heart brimmed with pride at the thought, and he leaned in close to kiss James on the cheek, keeping it carefully short so James wouldn’t mistake it for anything other than the gesture of affection it was.
“I think we’re done,” said James, putting bowls of homemade muesli down on the kitchen table and reaching out just in time to snag Aidan’s waist in a long arm and squeeze it. “Oh no. Butter.”
A few minutes later and the croissants were out of the oven, crispy and piping hot, and they were sitting down to Saturday-morning breakfast with the papers. It reminded him sometimes of the same ritual in Piers’s house, and though that had caused him some trouble at first, lately he found that all he noticed was how much better this was, how easily they inhabited the same room—how comfortable he felt with James close in his space. How when he said something, James would look up and smile.
They had put Piers in jail two months ago. A life sentence. And Aidan had thought he would be at least a little sad, a little sympathetic about that, but it turned out he wasn’t. He was simply grateful to be free.
Food tasted good to him now. He sat at the kitchen table—his table, their table—and ate with gusto, thankful for the creaminess of butter and the flavour burst of peaches, the crisp sweetness of croissant and the revitalising bitter kick of coffee.
Blue Steel Chain (Trowchester Blues Book 3) Page 20