The Beginning (Starting Over) Page 16

  Chris preferred that plan to all moving in at once. He had a little space to adjust and get his thoughts in order before they showed up and the enormity of it all really sank in. By the time they arrived, he’d have started to get used to everything.

  He was starting his life over anew.

  Being busy helped keep the nagging anxiety at bay. He put the bed together but nothing else, instead stacking everything room by room and watching the van’s load shrinking with every trip. He got the vehicle almost completely unloaded before he got to the plastic bag hidden at the very back, and it made him pause.

  A lump formed in his throat as he picked it up.

  He ought to start putting all the furniture back together and in the right places, but—

  The one attachment he’d held to the bungalow was that his brother’s ashes had been scattered in the garden after he was killed. Chris had scattered Mum there too. It had felt right. She’d mourned Tim for the rest of her life, and Chris didn’t believe in an afterlife, but it had felt right to put them together in the garden once more.

  But just leaving them there hadn’t.

  So before he’d left, he’d dug up a bucket of earth from the vegetable patch and had two brass plaques made. He obviously couldn’t find every speck of ash again, but he could take part of the garden itself with him. He could let them rest in peace, but not leave them behind. He could replant their memory.

  He’d meant to wait to put his plan into action, but—

  But standing in the silent plot under the slowly strengthening sun, clutching the bag and its contents to his chest, Chris was struck with the urge to do it now.

  He put the bag back and shut the rear doors before rescuing Noodle. The cat hid in the back of the carrier, wailing but refusing to come out when he set it down and opened the door in the kitchen. Shrugging, he laid out food, water and a litter tray, closed the kitchen door so there’d be no escaping and trying to flee back to Somerset, then locked up the bungalow and headed out. Left out of the driveway led to a single-track road and more Cornwall. Right headed back to St Ives.

  He turned right, and went looking for a garden centre.

  Chris wanted to take up gardening. Have a vegetable plot. A fruit tree or two. Grow some of his own necessities. Maybe even keep chickens, now they’d bought a big enough plot. He’d always liked the idea of being a bit self-sufficient, so he’d already looked up garden centres around the St Ives area. Trundling through the quiet town at half past nine, a sense of belonging was already starting to settle over him. He could see tomato plants overhanging garden walls and peas dying back along trellises. He could find company here. Maybe even work along those lines. He’d never thought about going into landscaping, but there was bound to be somebody who could take him on. He filed the thought away, and the strange land started to seem a little more familiar.

  It was about half-eight, and the town was awake, if not exactly buzzing. He paused to grab a coffee from a local cafe and pick up a fistful of leaflets on community clubs and events, then continued to a small garden centre just on the other side of the bay. It didn’t have much, but it had what he needed—a rear yard filled with saplings, and massive bags of the appropriate composts. He bought two trees and enough dirt to bury a corpse. Cherry trees, of course. Mum had always liked the flowers, and Tim had liked the fruit.

  He spent the rest of the morning planting them on either side of the gate with the earth from the bungalow garden.

  In the peaceful quiet, the jarring sensation of starting again eased. Birds cheeped in the hedge, curious about what he was doing. He could put up feeders. Noodle was too old to be bothered about going out much anymore. His vegetable garden could run down the grassy area between his bungalow and the gate, and Aled and Gabriel could do something with their own narrow run. Then the open yard between the two front doors could be a communal whatever. Patio furniture, he imagined. The hammock. Something to enjoy the long summer evenings together, surrounded by bees and goldfinches and fat chickens scratching in the dirt. He could grow strawberries and runner beans and try and sneak things into Aled’s food so he wouldn’t just drop dead of a heart attack in twenty years’ time.

  Sitting back on his heels, saplings planted, Chris bit his lip at the thought of being here in twenty years.

  Reaching for the abandoned bag, he slid out the brass plaques and set one at the base of each tree with tears blurring his vision. It didn’t matter. He knew what they said.

  Timothy James Wheeler.

  Karen Mary Wheeler.

  They shimmered in the sun, the letters dancing before his eyes. An odd warmth sat at each shoulder, as though they were with him. Chris didn’t even believe in ghosts, yet something compelled him to speak.

  “Think I did good?” he whispered.

  No, history told him. Mum wouldn’t have liked this triad situation. Tim would have been weird about it.

  But—

  Their loss. Maybe in time they’d have come around. Maybe they wouldn’t. But Chris knew he’d done good. He had a nice house in the country, a friend across the garden and a boyfriend flitting between the pair of them without a care in the world. He had a plan for the future and a job lined up for the short term. His bike was ready in the hall for the first trip out with Gabriel, and his cat was hiding in a carrier in the kitchen, waiting for nightfall to explore.

  Gabriel: Setting off now. Let me know when you get there. See you this evening!!! Xxx

  Chris smiled and tapped out a reply.

  Me: Already here and moving myself in x

  He’d done good.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gabriel: Did you pack your suit?

  It wasn’t a question Aled expected after being kicked out of the house to buy—of all things—washing up liquid. Gabriel had gotten tired of his triple-checking everything and thrown him out so Gabriel could finish boxing up their last odds and ends. He wasn’t to come back until he’d found a very particular type of washing up liquid that, four supermarkets later, Aled was beginning to suspect didn’t exist.

  Me: Sort of. It’s in its bag, hanging up underneath the coats.

  Gabriel: Okay :) You can come back to the house now. But you pull up outside like a taxi, text me that you’re here, and we’re going out.

  Me: We are?

  Gabriel: Yes.

  Aled rolled his eyes and put the washing up liquid back on the shelf. No doubt Gabriel had a plan in mind. Maybe this was what the social side of being a sub felt like.

  Still, he wasn’t about to argue. Tomorrow’s chaos had his stomach in a knot. The ‘what if’s wouldn’t stop bothering him. They’d played a game almost every day for the past two weeks, either to calm Aled’s nerves or lance some of Gabriel’s excitement. If Gabriel was about to propose something filthy in a public setting to take his mind off it, Aled wasn’t going to put up much of a fight.

  He got home just after two, and dutifully sent the text. To his surprise, Gabriel emerged with a case in tow and one of Aled’s suits thrown over his shoulder in its bag. Not the work suit either, but the really nice suit. The one he’d worn to Suze’s wedding and Nan’s funeral.

  “What are you up to?” Aled asked once Gabriel had put them in the boot and let himself into the passenger side.

  “Taking your mind off tomorrow,” Gabriel replied breezily. “We have a fancy evening booked.”

  “We do?”

  “Yep.” Gabriel was already programming the sat nav. “Okay. Go!”

  “Are you going to tell me what we’re doing?”

  “When we get there.”

  Aled rolled his eyes, but turned the car around and followed the instructions. Gabriel had only put in a postcode near Birstall, and Aled wasn’t in the habit of cruising around Birstall unless it was to go to IKEA. And somehow he didn’t think Gabriel had brought the suit to buy Swedish flat-pack furniture.

  He was right.

  The sat nav took him through Birstall, but promptly out again into the slip of
surviving countryside to the north of the grotty little town—then off the road into the long, sweeping driveway of a five-star hotel and spa that Aled recognised from more than one work conference over the years.

  “Ta-da!” Gabriel said. “We have a spa afternoon, then dinner this evening and a hotel room for the night.”

  “We’re staying the night?”

  “Yup!”

  Aled groaned, yet parked up anyway. “You’re a nightmare.”

  “I’m a dream come true. You’re the nightmare right now. So let’s unwind in the spa, be civilised over dinner, and then very uncivilised in our hotel room tonight. Deal?”

  Aled laughed. “Deal.”

  He’d never actually used the spa facilities at the hotel. The last thing he wanted to do was see any of his colleagues in a state of undress in the steam room. But he had to admit that a massage and a soak sounded good right about now.

  “Where did you even learn about this place?” he asked as they checked in. He had a suspicion, but it had been a while since Gabriel had had a plaything who’d flashed his cash. “I wouldn’t have thought it was Kevin’s style.”

  “It’s not,” Gabriel said, giving the clearly gay receptionist a flirty smile as they were issued a key card and a handful of leaflets. “Doubt he knows it exists.”

  “Uh-huh. So who brought you here?”

  Gabriel just smirked. Aled followed him to their room, then pinned him up against the door before he could open it.

  “Ah-ah,” he said. “Tell me.”

  “If you must know—”

  “I must.”

  “Greg.”

  “Greg?”

  “Hey, he’s into his spa treatments!”

  “Are you serious? He fucks in portable toilets.”

  “And he’s very serious about keeping his muscles healthy,” Gabriel said, laughing. “It was months and months ago. Remember the Manchester gig and we stayed overnight?”

  “Last year? Vaguely.”

  “Well, we stayed here. Not in Manchester.”

  “Christ,” Aled said, letting go and letting Gabriel open the door. “What did you let him do in exchange for this?”

  The hotel room was nothing exceptional—not by Aled’s five-star standards, anyway—but the minibar was plentiful and the bed a massive expanse of white in the middle of a generous room. Aled rapped the footboard and asked if Gabriel had brought their toys.

  “Nope. You’ll have to get inventive.”

  “Well, I managed at the conference…”

  Gabriel grinned, but said nothing. He hefted the case up onto the little sofa tucked into the corner and unzipped it. Aled caught the trunks thrown at his head.

  “What have you actually booked me in for?”

  “Us!”

  “Us, then.”

  “Two treatments of your choice, an hour and a half in the spa facilities, and then dinner. Thought I did pick your treatments already.”

  “Which are?”

  “Hot stone massage and a foot spa.”

  It did sound nice, but—

  “And where are you going to be?”

  “Next to you,” Gabriel said cheerfully. “I’ve told you, I’ve been before.”

  “And they’re all right, are they?”

  About what hung unspoken between them, but then it was dashed away like a cobweb when Gabriel chuckled.

  “Yes. Promise.” He looped his arms around Aled’s neck and kissed him briefly. “Get into your trunks and let me prove I’m right.”

  He was right. Aled liked the hydrotherapy pool at the gym, but the spa pool was a whole other level. The tension and stress of the last few weeks arranging the move leeched away in the hot water, and the masseuse took care of the rest of it with a blissful hot stone massage. Aled hadn’t bothered much with spas since his divorce, but the heat pressing the strain out of his back and Gabriel’s fingers hooking gently around his own in the space between their beds was heaven.

  Suddenly, Aled’s idea of a game to take their minds off tomorrow wasn’t all that appealing.

  Why not be vanilla for the night? Why not be a little romantic?

  They floated back to the pool, and Aled didn’t let go of Gabriel’s hand. To hell with what anyone else thought. He was moving to be near his family, with the best man in his life in the passenger seat. Who gave a shit if Linda from Halifax couldn’t make heads or tails of Gabriel’s bikini body and scruffy jaw?

  He could have taken or left the foot massage—though it turned Gabriel into a puddle of bliss in the next chair—but the last twenty minutes in the water blended the two treatments together until his entire body felt refreshed. He wasn’t a chubby middle-aged bloke with greying hair. He was a god. And he was having an expensive dinner and a luxury hotel room with a man whose face—never mind the rest of him—could have launched a thousand ships.

  The bliss lasted well beyond their treatment session. Aled even got vanilla-handsy on the way back up to their hotel room, and debated between persuading Gabriel to skip out on dinner for a bit of gentle lovemaking in the middle of the cavernous bed, or showing him off to a restaurant full of jealous patrons. In the end, he opted for the showing off—especially when Gabriel wriggled into a pair of slacks that were anything but loose. Aled planted a hand on that perfect bum on the way down in the lift, and didn’t bother removing it again until they were shown to their table.

  The restaurant was full but surprisingly quiet, and if they attracted a couple of glances from the other customers, the staff didn’t bat an eyelash. For once, Aled felt quite comfortable holding hands on the tabletop, and appreciated the plainly romantic candle. A sentimental sensation bubbled up in his chest. The end of their lives in Yorkshire.

  And yet brand-new lives beckoned in Cornwall. With Aled’s family, Gabriel’s boyfriend and a whole new host of opportunities.

  “This feels like starting over,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The move,” he clarified. “It feels like we’re starting again, somehow.”

  Gabriel smiled, squeezing his hand.

  “Can’t think of anyone better to start again with,” Aled continued.

  “Are you angling for that vanilla sex you wanted earlier?”

  “Mm, maybe. But it’s true, too. I’m glad you were on board.”

  “Well, likewise.”

  “Me? On board with what?”

  “With Chris coming with us,” Gabriel said. “And Kevin’s visiting schedule.”

  “‘Course.”

  It had been second nature to agree, in a way. Aled had never been the jealous type, and if he’d never really gone looking for polygamous partners, he also couldn’t claim it had been much of an adjustment on his part. So what if their relationship wasn’t like everybody else’s? So what if their starting over—or their happy ending, depending how he chose to view it—wasn’t what other people would want?

  “I meant what I said at Suze’s wedding.”

  Gabriel cocked his head.

  “If we were the marrying kind, I would.”

  A faint smile played over Gabriel’s lips, and his foot rubbed up against Aled’s ankle under the table.

  “Me too,” he said.

  The faux wine arrived. Aled didn’t even bother to test it, dismissing the waiter with a wave of his hand and cracking open the bottle on his own, turning the label at Gabriel’s frown to show him the proof of its non-alcoholic nature.

  “That stuff is revolting.”

  “I’ll order you something else in a minute. Just toast with me.”

  “To what?”

  Aled didn’t answer until he’d poured out generous helpings into both glasses, then raised his own.

  “To you and me and the people who love us, and to everything that comes next.”

  “That’s a long toast.”

  “Fine. To happy endings.”

  Gabriel laughed and clinked his glass against Aled’s.

  “To the beginning,” he countered.


  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The moving van arrived first thing in the morning.

  Gabriel had learned from last time they’d moved house—Aled was best avoided. He’d been up at six, insisting on checking out of the hotel and getting back to the house before Gabriel was even properly awake. And he flapped like nobody’s business when it came to having tradesmen and labourers around at the best of times, so Gabriel made the last round of tea, packed the kettle and waited in the car with his phone.

  Last time had felt like getting shot of a house that had never really been his. Aled’s ex-wife’s fingerprints had been all over the interior design and décor, and Gabriel had been excited to move into a house where he could leave his own prints. But this time, the excitement was tempered by a thin layer of anxiety. Not as bad as he’d feared—nowhere near as bad as he’d been when they’d first moved in together—but anxiety all the same.

  After all, this wasn’t moving a couple of miles down the road. It was moving a couple of hundred miles down the motorway.

  Still, he let Aled boss everyone around and stayed out of the way. Only when the movers slammed the doors on the last box did Gabriel slide out of the car and go for one last walk-through of a house he’d never see again.

  The empty rooms gaped. Shadows on the paint betrayed the former locations of their photos. Aled was running the vacuum cleaner over the dust bunnies that had bred under their furniture. Had the mantelpiece always been that large?

  “All right?” Aled asked as he switched the vacuum cleaner off.

  “Yeah. Just looks a little strange.”

  Aled hummed. The removal guy came back in for him to sign some papers, but once he’d gone and the van had roared off down the street, Aled held up his arms. Gabriel stepped into the hug, burrowing for a moment.