Spurred on by the thought, he leaned over to kiss Ezra’s forehead lightly, and earned himself a slightly surprised look.
“Are you married?”
“What’s that, Nana?”
“Are you married?” she repeated sharply, beady little eyes on Jesse’s hand at Ezra’s waist.
“Um, well, no,” Ezra said.
She harrumphed noisily and said, “Well, you better not be having sex, young man.”
“Mum!” Mrs Pryce exclaimed.
“You mustn’t let any man put his penis in you before you have a ring on your finger!” Nana exclaimed hotly, and Ezra choked on his cup of tea. Jesse hastily removed it before it could spill everywhere, and took the opportunity to try to fathom what his boyfriend’s extremely elderly grandmother had just said. Jesus Christ!
“Mum, really, that’s hardly appro—” Mrs Pryce attempted.
“I did it!” Nana cried. “And look where it got me! Men are only after one thing, Ezra, so you get a ring on your finger before you let that great oaf of yours do anything!”
“Mum!” Mrs Pryce said furiously, going an interesting shade of purple. Jesse couldn’t stop it and started sniggering helplessly. Ezra just dragged the sheet up over his head and hid from the world.
“Don’t you ‘mum’ me, young lady!” Nana protested. “Don’t think I don’t know what you and Zach were up to behind my back! And I’ll bet you didn’t even use any condoms either! Foolish boy that he is—I raised a waster of a son, and you’ve made a waster of my grandson too. Ezra! Ezra, come out of there and answer me!”
“No,” Ezra said firmly, and clutched the sheets with a vice-like grip when Jesse attempted half-heartedly to pull them down. “I’m never coming out again.”
“Mum, you can’t just say things like that!” Mrs Pryce looked horribly embarrassed, and Jesse felt somewhat sorry for her.
“It’s, um, it’s all right,” he tried, and Nana turned up her pointy nose at him.
“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to, young man,” she said, and squinted at him. “Who are you, anyway? Are you Michael’s youngest? You’re a bit old, aren’t you?”
“Oh, Mum, for goodness’ sake—”
“Oh my God, she either thinks I’m a girl, or has converted to the rainbow,” Ezra mumbled into the sheets. “Jess. I’m on fire.”
“You wish,” Jesse said.
“Where’s Zach?” Nana asked, apparently sick of the subject. “And where have Josh and Ezra gotten to? They’d better not be fighting again.”
“They’re not fighting, Mum,” Mrs Pryce said awkwardly. “Drink your tea and, um, check your knitting. I think you’ve dropped a couple.”
It was a good distraction technique. Nana’s attention was tidily diverted from her embarrassed grandson—or temporary granddaughter, because God only knew what was going on in her head—and daughter-in-law. Ezra unburied himself, scowling at his grandmother in a manner that suggested he knew all too well what her clouded mind was like, and yet couldn’t get over the kind of things it came out with every now and then. Jesse smoothed his ruffled hair and rolled his eyes when Ezra turned the scowl on him.
“She’s your grandmother,” he murmured.
“And if she were in her right mind, she wouldn’t even sit here and watch the pair of you,” Grace sneered suddenly.
“Grace, stop it,” Mrs Pryce said wearily.
Grace huffed and stood up. “I’m going for a fag,” she said, dragging out the last word deliberately, and stalked out of the living room towards the front door. Jesse watched her go, frowning at her slender back until she sashayed out of sight, and Ezra flicked his arm.
“Leave it,” he murmured.
Jesse was tired of leaving it, though.
“I’ll be right back,” he murmured, shifting free and following her, half-curious and half-angry in an idle fashion. He didn’t have a brother—or a sister, for that matter—but he liked to think he’d never treat them like Grace treated Ezra, and he was sick of it. What had Ezra done to deserve it?
He followed the smell of fag smoke. Jesse hated smokers, smoking and generally anything that involved flicking hot ash over flammable materials. He’d seen too many people killed in house fires started by not stubbing out fag ends properly, or by flicking the ash onto things it shouldn’t touch. So the smell was distinctive, and he followed it like a bloodhound.
She was sitting on the fence by the gate. From the back, she looked very much like Ezra’s sister. The same long limbs, the same way of folding herself gracefully down onto the boards, the same shimmering colour to her hair in the summer light. She half-turned her head when Jesse closed the front door behind him, and a sneer crossed the otherwise pretty mouth.
“What do you want?”
“Why are you here?” Jesse asked flatly.
Grace shrugged. “Mum insisted.”
“Look, I get it. You don’t like me. You don’t like Ezra. Whatever, that’s your problem. But do the Christian thing and lay off. He’s been badly injured, he could have died, and—”
“Good.”
Jesse’s brain rebooted. “What?”
“I said good,” she repeated coldly, and patted the fence next to her. Jesse didn’t take the invite. “I know you think the sun shines out of Ezra’s arse, but it doesn’t. He’s a selfish little shit and he always has been.”
“Lay off,” Jesse snapped.
“I’ll tell you a secret, Jesse,” Grace said, stubbing out the cigarette and rummaging in her pockets. “I’m a Christian, but I don’t worship God.”
Jesse frowned at the back of her head. She twirled a fresh cigarette between her fingers and lit up again.
“For my tenth birthday, God gave me a birthday present,” she said. “In His infinite wisdom, He killed my father and my brother. He murdered my father, who was a good man who worked hard to provide for us, and Joshua, who was everything I could have ever asked for in a big brother. Who did He spare? The faggot.”
She spat out the word with such venom it stunned Jesse, and where he had snapped and snarled earlier, he stood dumb now.
“The pathetic middle child, who sinned just by breathing, who kissed other boys and thought his perversions were normal—he was spared. But the eldest, the bright one, the best of us all? God took him away. What kind of a God does that? What kind of a God murders His good and loyal followers and spares the pervert?”
She turned her head again, not quite looking at him. Her eyes glittered in the sunset.
“I believe in God, Jesse, but I also believe God doesn’t deserve our worship. God is a child playing with us. God is cruel, God is vindictive and God destroyed our family to spare the sinner.”
“You can’t blame Ezra for living, Grace,” Jesse said numbly.
“I think you’ll find I can,” she said coldly. “I knew. I knew when we were children that he was gay. He kept quiet all those years, but we both knew it. Joshua knew it before he died. We tried to help him, we tried to set him straight, but Ezra has always refused to think about others. It broke Mum’s heart when he came out, said he was dating that law student. She cried for hours.”
Jesse felt sick. Ezra had been right. Grace was the nutjob. Mrs Pryce, with her ‘homosexual’ word usage and her pursed lips, was sweet and welcoming next to this vitriol. At least Mrs Pryce still loved her son, even if she thought he was damned.
“It’s an insult to Joshua’s memory, to Dad’s memory, that Ezra is all that’s left of the Pryce name,” she said coolly. “I’m not about to let Ezra spit on their memories by, what, pretending that his life choices are okay? No.”
A cold feeling was creeping up Jesse’s spine as the pieces suddenly fell into place. Let him? How could Grace not let him, how could—
It clicked.
“Liam,” he said.
Grace snorted. “Liam followed Ezra around like a puppy,” she drawled. “He adored him, the sick fuck. I knew he’d never let go, so when Mum said Ezra was visiting at Easter and bring
ing a guest, I knew it would be the new boyfriend,” and she shrugged.
Jesse stepped back, into the door. She’d called Liam.
“What did you tell him?”
She shrugged again, dragging on the cigarette until it glowed a brilliant amber. “That I was worried. My poor brother seemed to have this dangerous boyfriend from Brighton. I’d seen bruises. The usual. Got the idiot going all right. You see”—she turned her head to look over her shoulder at Jesse—“Liam’s never met me.”
So Liam wouldn’t have known that Grace was the most vindictive, spiteful little cat south of Mansfield. Hell, south of the bloody Outer Hebrides. He would have mistaken her for a genuinely concerned little sister, and—
She’d tried to play them off against each other, tried to exploit Jesse’s insecurities and Liam’s continued feelings. She’d tried to ruin her brother’s relationship, because—because he was gay, and had dared to survive the car crash that had killed their father and brother?
“You’re the sick one,” Jesse said, his voice shaking. “You’re a sick, vindictive little bitch who’s acting out like a fucking child because you lost your daddy. I get it, Grace, it’s hard to lose a father. I was eight when I lost mine. But you can’t blame your brother for surviving. That’s the sick part. You’re a sick, lonely, pathetic woman and you will never find someone who loves you. You will never understand love, and that’s why you hate him, because Ezra moved on with his life and you didn’t. You get off on wrecking other people’s lives, and guess what? You failed.”
She drew on her cigarette, long and hard, and said nothing.
“You fucking failed,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “You’re just—Jesus fucking Christ.”
He turned on his heel, unable to look at her any longer. The conversation in the living room ground to a halt when he marched back in, and Ezra frowned up at him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked as Jesse sat on the edge of the bed with more force than was strictly necessary, and Jesse licked his lips.
“Grace told Liam I’m abusing you,” he blurted out.
“What?” Mrs Pryce said.
“What?” Ezra echoed angrily.
“Grace told Liam. Grace told Liam so he’d come in and try splitting us up,” Jesse said, and shook his head. “I know I probably shouldn’t say this about anyone in your family, but—your sister is a massive fucking cunt.”
Mrs Pryce reeled back in her chair. Ezra’s expression went from angry to downright furious.
Nana said, “Language, dear,” and carried on knitting.
“I—” Ezra began, then shook his head. “Jess, get my phone.”
“Ez—”
“Get my phone.”
Jesse got it. Ezra immediately scrolled through his contacts and put in a call. Mrs Pryce scurried outside, presumably to talk to her daughter. Nana knitted away, oblivious to the hubbub.
“Liam,” Ezra said sharply. “Yeah, fine. Question for you. Did Grace ever talk to you about me? Or Jesse, for that matter?”
Jesse settled on the mattress, resting a hand lightly on Ezra’s biceps, rubbing against the tense muscle. He felt oddly…calm about the whole thing. At Easter, he would have blown a gasket, yet now…he felt calm.
Hated the little bitch, that was for sure, but…he was calm.
He half-listened to Ezra’s conversation with Liam, and half-watched Nana, in case she decided to do something random and nutty, and jumped when Mrs Pryce stole back into the room, pink-eyed and smudged-looking, and began to gather their things.
“Ezra, dear,” she said when Ezra hung up. “I think it’s best we go.”
“Yeah, I think so,” Ezra agreed icily. “And tell that fucking cow that if she—”
“Hey, hey, relax,” Jesse urged, rubbing at his arms and pressing him back into the pillows again. “Relax,” he insisted, and Ezra huffed.
“Mum, just—just go,” he said, waving her off. “I’ll—I’ll call you next week or something, just—”
She hovered a moment, then set about coaxing her mother-in-law up out of the armchair she’d adopted as her own in the short visit. Jesse ignored her, turning his focus on Ezra.
“Relax,” he urged, eyeing the tight lines in Ezra’s face. “Don’t let her get to you.”
Ezra huffed angrily but squeezed Jesse’s hand tightly. “I’m more pissed at Liam than her,” he grumbled.
“Why?”
“I told him she’s a horrible witch, but he obviously never bloody—”
“All right,” Jesse interrupted. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now. I mean, we’re okay, right? She didn’t get to us.”
“She did for a while,” Ezra said pointedly.
Jesse worried at his lip. “That was—worries I already had surfacing.”
Mrs Pryce led Nana out. Ezra watched Jesse’s face in silence until the front door closed, then wound his fingers through Jesse’s and tugged.
“Yes,” he said. “And we need to talk about that. Now.”
Oh, shit.
Chapter Fourteen
Jesse made attempts at postponing the talk. He brewed fresh tea, fed the cats when they pestered and went to check the front door was properly locked. But when he returned to the living room, ever hopeful, Ezra hadn’t settled down and dozed off again. He was sitting up, petting Flopsy at one hip like a Bond villain, and waiting.
“Come on, Jesse,” he coaxed, and patted the sofa-bed.
Jesse perched gingerly on the edge, pulling at a loose thread in the sheets, and sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For the fight,” he said, and felt a coil of sour guilt stir in his stomach. “I didn’t mean—”
“I think you did,” Ezra said quietly.
“Not all of it.” Jesse shook his head and reached out for a hand, curling his fingers around it loosely. “I didn’t mean any of the things I called you, I swear. I—”
“I’m not worried about that,” Ezra said. “I’m worried about the bits where you’ve not been listening to me for months, the bits where you’ve let your jealousy get to you and the bits where you apparently think you’re not worth loving, Jess.”
“I don’t—”
“Well, what else is saying you’re not enough for me supposed to mean?” Ezra prodded gently.
Jess bit his lip. “I—”
“Jess.” Ezra leaned forward with a pained hiss. Jesse shuffled a little closer. “You need to talk to me.”
“I told you about my dad.”
“You didn’t tell me about this,” Ezra insisted gently. “Come on, Jesse. Why would you not be enough for me?”
Jesse took a deep breath. “Okay—look, I—I was stupid. I get that now. After—after this,” he gestured at the cast, bulky under the sheets. “After the crash, I realised just how stupid I was being, but—”
“But what about before the crash?”
“Just look at it from my point of view,” Jesse said, shifting until he was sitting loosely cross-legged, holding Ezra’s hand in his lap and rubbing the joints in a habitual sort of tic. “So last October I see this gorgeous guy in a club, and it’s just like every other gorgeous guy I’ve ever seen in a club. He’ll dance with me, he’ll have a drink with me and he’ll even kiss me. Only this one gives me his number, and when I call, he actually agrees to go out with me.”
“You can’t tell me that’s entirely new, Jess,” Ezra said softly.
“Not yet,” Jesse said bitterly. “So I take this guy on a date, and he’s not just gorgeous, he’s brilliant and funny and he doesn’t think I’m cheap or a moron for not liking fancy restaurants because I don’t know which fork to use.”
Ezra laughed a little. Jesse smiled and squeezed his hand.
“See?” he said.
“Mm. But—”
“And the date is amazing and he lets me walk him to his car and when I call about doing it again, he says yes. And this is new, Ez, you’re like one of maybe four guys who ever went
on a second date with me. And by the fifth date, you’re the only guy who hung around that much. All I ever had before you was sex. Guys want me, you know, they want to be able to say they got off with a firefighter, but that’s all they want. They don’t want to date one. Some of them don’t want to date at all. They’re just into the club scene and random shagging and I was looking for something more and it was—it was bloody depressing, Ez.”
“Jess, that doesn’t mean—”
“But it did,” Jesse insisted, squeezing that captured hand tightly. “It did mean that, Ez. It meant nobody was interested in me, not really, then suddenly life dropped this amazing, beautiful guy into my lap who was everything I’d ever wanted, and—I couldn’t believe it.”
“Oh, Jess.”
“It’s always been like that, Ezra,” Jesse confessed, feeling hot and shaky and sick with the outpouring, and yet grounded, with Ezra’s fingers rubbing little circles into his hand and the firm answering grip if he squeezed. “I’ve never, ever had a boyfriend before you. I’m twenty-five—well, was twenty-four—and I’d never had a boyfriend and it’s not like I came out in my twenties, you know? I knew I was gay since—since forever, really, I’ve always known, but I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’ve never even had someone interested in me that I didn’t want to date. It’s never happened.”
“Jesse, sweetheart, all that means is you didn’t meet the right guys for ages,” Ezra urged gently. “If I’d made a habit of gay bars, we would have met a couple of years ago. And some people will look at your job and think it’s too heavy, you know? That’s really heavy when you don’t know how much you like this guy yet, that he might have to rush off in the middle of a commitment to go to work and he’ll come home at all sorts of stupid hours and maybe someday he won’t come home at all.”
“Yeah, but, Ez, nobody ever gave me the chance,” Jesse said. “Not until you.”
“Oh, sweetheart. That—”
“So, think of it from my point of view,” Jesse reiterated. “I suddenly have this boyfriend. This gorgeous boyfriend who doesn’t think my job is a liability, and thinks my taste in music is actually half-decent—”
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