Be My Best Man

by Con Riley

  “About what?” Jason’s distracted by another text arriving. He stops videoing so he can read.

  Vanya’s sent an angel emoticon. I’m still work hard on wedding.

  “About squatters.” The agent is still out of breath, but her sneer is loud and clear. “Look at them over there. Worse than rats, like I said. That place was empty not long ago. But once they find a way in, they take over a whole building before you know it.”

  Jason doesn’t see a rat when he looks across the alley.

  He sees something much worse.

  His voice sounds like a stranger’s. “Maybe someone started converting that block into flats already.”

  “Over there?” The agent is dismissive. “No.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Absolutely. I know every property for sale in this postcode. That one’s still on the market. Whoever is in there is definitely squatting.”

  Jason reads the message on his phone screen again rather than look at what’s right in front of his nose.

  Vanya’s text is categoric—I’m still work hard on wedding—but it doesn’t tell anything close to the truth.

  He’s not working on the wedding at all.

  He’s on the opposite side of this alley, so close that Jason can make out the smile he’s started to love. That smile widens as Anna steps into his embrace, still visible over her shoulder as he texts Jason more lies.

  This time when his phone pings, Jason puts it away without reading.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Vanya and Anna work on making wedding favours until the afternoon light fades. It’s barely four by the time cutting out the gossamer fabric becomes too tricky. Vanya quietly curses, scissors clattering on the windowsill after he drops them to suck a finger. “Ouch.” He inspects his last gauzy circle. “Shit. I ruined this one, sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Anna hugs him hard for a second time that afternoon. “We’ve made amazing progress. Thank you so much for helping.”

  “Don’t be too grateful until you’ve seen the others I cut out. I’m not exactly the neatest.” Her hair is warm under his chin, her hug tight and long-lasting. “What’s up?” he asks quietly when her grasp doesn’t loosen.

  “Nothing.” Her arms tighten around him, and she whispers even though they’re utterly alone with no one here to witness this needy moment. “I just can’t believe we’re actually going to do it. We’re really going to have enough after the wedding to get our own place.” Her voice gets quieter. “It wouldn’t have happened without your connection to Jason.”

  “I could say the same about you. Chantel really likes you.”

  She squeezes him one more time before inspecting his final attempt. “This is fine. The edges don’t have to be perfect. It’ll look the same as all the others once it’s tied with the ribbon you cut.”

  “How many more do we need?”

  Anna counts their work-in-progress, neat lines of favours covering desks they pushed together. “Only a few more.” She consults her clipboard. “For the adults, at least. But Chantel wants some little gifts for all the children as well.” Her worry is barely visible now that the light outside has dimmed. “I have no idea what to buy for them.”

  “Let me help you with that.” A task for tomorrow will help the day pass.

  She opens an envelope of cash and counts what remains there. “Chantel’s a stubborn one,” she says as she pulls out the last few bank notes. “Insisted it was her idea to include every single child in her class, so their gifts should come from her own money.” She holds it out to Vanya. “This is all that’s left. See what you can do with it.”

  He can do a whole lot with very little now that he’s had so much practice. Purpose fuels a smile that he finds hard to keep in. A busy day that ends with dinner at Jason’s place sounds more than perfect.

  Anna doesn’t share the happiness that warms him. “My hands are cold already.” She sets down her clipboard and shoves her hands deep in her pockets. “I think it’s going to be a bad night.”

  Outside, the cloudy sky has cleared. It doesn’t matter that light pollution will still hide stars much later, that clear sky signals a cold night. “You know,” he offers, “If it gets too cold, we could go back to the—”

  “No. I’m never going back there.”

  It’s not hard to understand why. Heating and hot water at the hostel count for nothing if they come with being frightened. He wouldn’t knowingly want to revisit the alley where he’d been attacked either. It’s bad enough that the one downstairs is a constant reminder. “But it is going to get colder.” It’s a fact that’s inescapable. “If it gets really cold, we could rent a room in a hotel.” Both their gazes flick to where their rental deposit is secreted—wages, tips, and cash from Jason’s appointments—and equally as quickly, they both shake their heads.

  They’re so close now.

  Anna’s right: Another week of living like this, at most, and they’ll have enough to rent a safe space that no one can take from them. But her next shiver turns to a full-body shudder.

  “Maybe I could talk to Jason,” Vanya offers without thinking. “If he knew—”

  “If he knew what?” Anna’s next headshake is firm. “That the top-class wedding planner he hired is squatting in an old call centre? That his boyfriend doesn’t know the first thing about fashion or have a work visa?”

  “I could say we had a power cut or a burst pipe or something. I know he has a spare room.”

  “Seriously?” She parts the fabric that curtains the snug area where they sleep close together. “You’re going to tell a man who loves to fix things that there’s a problem with where you’re living?” Her sharp tone softens. “He’ll only want to mend it for you. Come on,” she says. “Kaspar will be home soon with some supper. Let’s make a nest before he hogs all the covers.” She rearranges cushions and the blankets they’ve pooled, holding one up until Vanya sits beside her. She shuffles closer, and her voice is quiet. “Tell me a story while we wait.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t care.” She sniffs and then stifles a sneeze. “Tell me about the last wedding you went to at home. Or the last big family dinner.”

  Remembering food and drink and good times weighs much heavier than her head on his shoulder. He’s spent almost a year avoiding thinking about extended family. Recalling the last time they shared a celebration stings like another cut from her scissors.

  Not one of those family members came to see him while he was hospitalised for so long.

  Not a single person.

  They’d cut ties, like he’d cut lengths of ribbon today, before he’d even left Russia.

  His storytelling stops and starts a few times. Yet, as Anna asks more questions, he finds unexpected comfort.

  So what if none of those blood relations stood by him? Somehow, a new family’s found him—here and in Moreton-in-Marsh—linked to him by a man he can love without hiding, if he wants. He pulls Anna closer and tells more tales from a past that sting a little less, hurting in a way he can live with now that he might have a real future.

  Vanya daydreams as he travels under London the next evening, not caring for one moment how he appears to other people. No one pays attention when he smiles at nothing, thoughts full of the last time he journeyed, Jason’s smile just as helpless.

  The closer he gets to his last station, the more that mental image transforms, and it’s not the warm breeze filling each tunnel between platforms that heats him or the thickly padded jacket he borrowed. It’s the thought of Jason’s reflection in a steamed up bathroom mirror, his arm an unrelenting thick bar across Vanya’s chest, holding him tight as they fucked.

  He wants to repeat it.

  He wants to repeat the whole thing, only without any white lies between them.

  It’s a wish that only firms on his way to Jason’s, intensifying when he arrives at the end of his street. Each big bay window he passes offers glimpses of how life might be when he lives
someplace safer.

  Soon, he silently promises.

  He’s already waited almost a year for a decision—six months longer than average, maybe due to his poor English or to the anti-foreigner headlines he has no trouble translating each time he sees a newspaper.

  But, his conscience counters, if he’d been granted asylum quickly, he wouldn’t have met Jason.

  Happiness surges when he spies him silhouetted in his front window, joy spurring Vanya into a jog past the last few houses. He waves, and it doesn’t matter that Jason doesn’t return the gesture—he’s only hurrying to the front door, likely just as keen as Vanya to pick up where they left off. His smile is impossible to restrain when he knows full well what’s coming.

  Jason’s going to hug him so hard, like he has the last few times, so his feet leave the floor for a few seconds.

  He’ll hug him and kiss him right there in full view of the whole street, and Vanya’s more than okay with that.

  Excitement has him tripping over the doorstep in his hurry, laughter bubbling at the picture he must paint, stumbling like Lady’s brand new foal, so keen to see his boyfriend. He’s still unsteady when the front door opens, but that doesn’t matter. He launches himself regardless, so certain Jason wants him.

  He’ll open his arms at any moment, Vanya’s sure, instead of standing stock-still, and he’ll kiss him back, instead of turning his face away with a grimace. Jason will hold him tight, just like he imagined, rather than letting him rebound and stumble backwards.

  Only none of that happens.

  Instead of bending so their lips can meet when he tries once more, Jason jerks his head back like Vanya’s a viper about to strike him. All he gets is a faint brush of stubble against his lips for his trouble, and Jason saying a firm, “No.”

  Vanya echoes those two letters. “No?”

  “No.” Jason confirms that with his next actions, the flat of his hand pressing directly over Vanya’s heart to push him away. “No fucking way.”

  Somehow, Jason’s voice cracking somewhere between those three words registers faster than his actions.

  Vanya speaks, he thinks, but he’s not sure any sound comes out. “But why?” he repeats when he stumbles, leaving him off-balance. The sound Jason lets out is disbelieving, but he grabs the lapel of the jacket he lent, hauling Vanya inside and slamming the door closed behind him.

  The hallway is unlit tonight, intensely dark and narrow.

  The walls close in as Vanya’s heart trips and skips and skitters.

  Jason doesn’t notice, too busy marching Vanya along the hallway, not stopping even when Vanya’s phone falls from his pocket and a button pings free from his jacket. Both are left unnoticed as he hauls Vanya into his kitchen, which is unlit too and full of shadows.

  Vanya’s thousands of miles from Moscow tonight, and yet he’s in a very familiar dark place.

  He barely survived the last time he confronted this much anger.

  A repeat will surely kill him.

  He shuts down and panics.

  Run.

  He doesn’t see Jason’s hand reach out to the light switch, only that his arm’s raised.

  He pivots, muscles bunched on instinct, straining to spring like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter as he should have done so much sooner the last time he was cornered.

  Escape.

  He turns on his heel, rubber squealing against floor tile, his arms raised like a bird about to take flight, helpless to do anything but tear away from what feels like fatal danger. It doesn’t matter that Jason speaks, his voice distorted as if underwater. Vanya’s too far gone to hear him, sunk deep and nearly drowning in fright that saturates him.

  Survival commands take over.

  Run and escape are a deafening klaxon as he lurches, struggling out of the jacket Jason still holds onto. He skids as he pulls free and then stumbles hard against the doorjamb. Stars spark in the periphery of his vision when his head makes contact, but it’s lack of oxygen, not a fracture this time, that makes those sparkles brighten. His lungs are locked tight, reliving sharp slivers of rib he couldn’t breathe through last time and he staggers forward, deaf to Jason’s surprised yell over the roar behind his eardrums.

  He runs for the front door, so close to escaping.

  So close to surviving.

  It’s his phone that fells him.

  The case cracks when he treads on it, screen shattering as it takes his full weight, skidding wildly under his foot.

  His fall is headlong, face-first onto floor tile only seconds since his arrival. None of that registers as more adrenaline floods him, fight warring with flight to shape his next reaction.

  An attacker looms above him, his face completely shadowed.

  It’s not Jason who extends a hand in his direction. Nothing of Jason—his Jason—registers while Vanya relives almost dying.

  Fight wins over flight even as he lunges for the front door. He evades Jason’s hand one more time despite it being held open rather than curled into a tight fist. Instead, he kicks out wildly.

  “Vanya!” is the first word he hears clearly, followed by the sound of keening.

  It’s him, Vanya realises.

  It’s him who sounds like an animal that’s cornered.

  Him, who chokes instead of speaking, like hands still tighten around his throat a year after he last blacked out, suffocated.

  And it’s him, who finally drags in a lungful of air that floods his brain far too late for reason. His vision clears to show Jason, on his knees, blood smearing his mouth and chin for some reason.

  A siren sounds as a police car passes, lending a final spurt of terror, its wail a stark reminder of police officers who watched the end of his beating with blank indifference.

  Run and escape take over for a third time in as many minutes.

  This time, he gets to the door and flings it open, oblivious to the cold outside as he runs from Jason.

  Chapter Thirty

  Jason crosses London at first light after a long night of scouring nearby streets and calling A&E departments. There doesn’t seem much point in waiting; attempting sleep is pointless while he imagines the worst—Vanya running blindly into traffic while in the grip of panic so out of proportion that Jason can’t begin to grasp what caused it. But now that he’s at the mouth of the alley, he hugs the jacket Vanya borrowed and he second-guesses.

  His reaction last night had come out of the blue.

  Okay, Jason had opened his front door while pissed off, but he had good reason. Vanya hadn’t given him a second to say so. Instead, he’d acted like discussing it in private was some kind of attack. Then he fled before Jason could ask why.

  He paces the alley slowly, examining the netting that shrouds the building in the same way he re-examines exactly what happened last night. Everything about those few minutes is confusing. Worse than that, he’s spent the rest of the night with a growing worry that he’s missed something vital.

  Lies or not, there’s no ignoring Vanya’s terror.

  It’s the missing part of this puzzle that he can’t walk away from.

  He calls Andrew without thinking.

  He answers, sounding sleepy. “If this is you calling to say you’ve arranged another stag night in Amsterdam, I’m putting the phone down.”

  Jason would smile if he could. Instead, he winces and says nothing, listening to the sound of bed sheets rustling and a quiet murmur of, “It’s only Jason,” before Andrew speaks again, sounding a lot clearer. “Seriously, mate, I thought we agreed. No last minute stag night this time around. Actually, no stag night at all, thanks. Two’s enough for anyone. We barely made it back in time for the service last time. Do you really want Chantel to kill you after all her and Anna’s planning?” A door closes, and Jason hears the sound of water filling the kettle. He closes his eyes for a second, wishing he was at Riversmeet so hard that he can’t help sighing.

  “Hey. What’s up?” Andrew’s fully alert. “It’s not even seven, so it must b
e important.” His voice lowers. “Don’t tell me there’s a problem with the dress.”

  “No. There’s nothing wrong with it,” he hopes, at least.

  Further along the alley, the netting parts abruptly. Kaspar and Anna appear, the white mist of their exhales obscuring Jason from view before they walk in the other direction. Jason lets out a cloudy exhale of his own once they’re gone. “Listen, I… I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Go ahead.” Water pours in the background, and he hears the fridge door open and then shut as Andrew makes tea. “Only be quick. Chantel’s got a million plans for this morning. For the whole week, to be honest. I’ll be glad for the wedding at the weekend so I can catch up on some rest.” He pauses when Jason doesn’t join in his banter. “Or you can take your time, if you need?” There’s a squeak like Andrew’s pulled out a chair from the kitchen table. “If there’s something important you need to get off your chest right now, I’ve got time to listen.”

  Jason finds the gap in the netting that Kaspar and Anna just passed through. Behind it is the window he remembers, leading to a staircase. He pulls the netting closed behind him, and asks Andrew a quiet question before he enters.

  “Why did you decide to be friends with me after I first turned up at your place?”

  “Why…?” Andrew hesitates, sounding puzzled.

  “When we were kids.” Jason adds more detail. “I fought you all that first week. I even kicked out one of your teeth, for fuck’s sake. Why did you let me do that when you were more than big enough to stop me?”

  “Where’s this coming from?”

  “I need to know, that’s all.”

  “That was Mum,” Andrew answers. “That was her, all over.”

  “What do you mean?” Jason looks up the flight of stairs he only half hopes will lead him to Vanya.