The Third Date (Starting Over) Read online

  “We’re taking you home.”

  Home.

  Home.

  “Oh my God,” Gabriel said. “Call the nurse. Come on. Let’s go. Let’s go!”

  No more Gabby. No more strangers wiping his fucking arse. No more shampoo that smelled like a Body Shop had thrown up on him. No more women’s moisturiser for his scars. Gabriel had never cared about what moisturiser smelled like until he’d had no option but the rose-scented shit they kept smearing on him. He could have his binders back. A sports bra that wouldn’t scrape against the sheets. Decent sheets!

  “Come on!” he said.

  Chris leaned over to press the bell, then opened the side cabinet and started to gather Gabriel’s meagre things. He didn’t have much. Some magazines, his phone, a Kindle they kept unplugging from its charger so he could never settle in for a good read. Some clothes he wasn’t allowed to wear because he couldn’t get them off in the bathroom by himself. The toiletries the nurses ignored.

  Gabriel pushed back the sheets, wiggling his bare toes in the cool air. The dizziness clawed at him, so fierce that he couldn’t sit up or swing his legs down, but who cared. They were taking him home. He’d suffer the wheelchair. Chris could even carry him once they were actually out of the hospital. He was going to be able to sleep in his own bed, eat proper food, piss in his own toilet. If he wanted to lie naked on the sofa all afternoon and bask in the early summer sun, then he could.

  A nurse appeared to help, but Chris simply asked her to fetch the doctor to sign off the discharge papers, and effortlessly kept her from interfering. He wasn’t a big man, but he was skilled at just getting in the way, somehow always blocking her from the cabinet or the bed or the blankets. Only when the smug wanker of a duty doctor appeared did Chris move enough to let the nurse take Gabriel’s IV out, and he talked at—not to—the doctor with the same stonewalling attitude that the fat fuck had been showing Gabriel since he’d been admitted.

  “I must say, I think it’s too soon,” the doctor said.

  “Watch me give a fuck,” Gabriel snapped. “Now you can get me a wheelchair and an orderly to push it, or you can get the fuck out of my way.”

  His things were bagged up in a plastic Tesco bag like he was homeless again. He picked at the arseless gown until Chris came to help stuff him into a T-shirt and jogging bottoms. His leg twitched weakly, still unused to movement. His back ached when he carefully sat up, and the room dipped. So did his stomach.

  “Don’t you dare,” he muttered to it.

  It settled as Chris’ warm fingers rubbed his belly through the thin T-shirt. By the time Gabriel dared to open his eyes again, a flash of greying red hair caught his eye at the edges of the curtains. And thank fuck, Aled had grown a pair. He was talking at the doctor, too. Not to. Not a discussion. A one-way wash of information.

  “Carry me,” he said to Chris.

  “What?”

  “They’re not getting a chair fast enough. Carry me.”

  “Okay.”

  Miraculously, a chair appeared the moment Chris’ arm slid under Gabriel’s legs, and he was tipped from bed to chair in a rush. His knuckles ached as he gripped the armrests, and he rolled his head to rest it against Chris’ belt.

  “Give me a minute.”

  Chris just carded his fingers through Gabriel’s hair and said nothing.

  Gabriel zoned out, just relaxing into the darkness of his own eyelids and the soft pass of Chris’ fingers, until the chair jerked and the wheels began to move. Movement on top of vertigo was too challenging, so Gabriel didn’t dare open his eyes. He felt the hospital pass by instead. The quiet hum of the corridors. The smell of coffee by the main entrance. Smokers in the shelter. Two taxi drivers in a furious argument about right of way. Engine fumes.

  Freedom.

  He sniffled like a little kid when he heard the beep of Aled’s central locking system and clung to Chris’ shoulders when he tried to lift him into the car.

  “Just a minute,” he mumbled. “Please.”

  Chris held on. Aled kissed the side of his head. For a moment, Gabriel’s world narrowed to them. Their grip and their breathing and they’d finally come for him. Together. They’d finally freed him. It felt like coming out of prison.

  It felt like coming out of hell.

  “M’kay. I’m good. I’m good.”

  No more Gabby. No more strangers washing his genitals. No more rose-scented toiletries.

  Instead, Chris’ hard thighs under his head. The pine air freshener in the car. A pillow from their bed. Aled’s favourite radio station. The purr as the car reversed out of the space.

  They were going home.

  Next door’s cat sunbathing on their patio. Dawn chorus. The little old milkman coming round on Wednesday mornings like they lived in a twee cartoon. The fourth step and the way it creaked no matter where or how it was stepped on. The smell of expensive coffee and cheap toast on weekday mornings when Aled got ready for work.

  Home.

  Gabriel closed his eyes and relaxed in the gentle sway of the vehicle. If he couldn’t see, the vertigo wasn’t so bad. It felt like swinging in a hammock, even though he knew the car didn’t rock that much.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “You can thank us by doing as you’re told until you’re better,” Aled drawled.

  “Will. Promise.”

  “Sure.”

  Gabriel smiled faintly at the scepticism.

  “M’sorry for shouting at you so much.”

  “It’s all right, sweetheart. I know you were feeling upset in there.”

  “Thanks for changing your mind.”

  “He didn’t,” Chris said. “I’m going to be looking after you.”

  “You—what?” Gabriel frowned. “There’s no room in your flat. And Jack’s a prick. I’m not living near his filth.”

  Chris chuckled. “Uh, no, genius. I’m moving into your spare room.”

  “You’re what?”

  “Told you. Quit my job.” He tugged a lock of hair. “Aled called and said you were going mad in the hospital but you weren’t ready to leave unsupervised. So I’m the supervision.”

  “You’ve moved in?”

  “Yup.”

  His brain spun, and it wasn’t anything to do with the head injury. Chris had always resisted coming north. He hated the north. Too wet, too cold, too many weird accents, and shit food. All wrong, but that was what he thought. Gabriel had been trying to persuade him to move closer for over a year and had never gotten anywhere.

  “I should have tangled with that bus sooner.”

  Chris groaned. Aled called him a twat. Gabriel just raised a hand to curl his fingers into Chris’ T-shirt, smiling loopily.

  “I get both of you?”

  “I’ll have to go back to work full time,” Aled warned.

  “I still get both of you.”

  “Fine. Sure. Both of us.”

  “I’m dead,” Gabriel announced. “I died and went to heaven, didn’t I?”

  “Like hell you’d get into heaven,” Aled muttered.

  “I heard that.”

  “Good, you were meant to.”

  The banter settled the last of his ruffled feathers from the prolonged hospital stay, and by the time Aled pulled up onto the driveway, Gabriel almost felt normal. He needed to be carried into the house, but its warmth and smell closed around him like a blanket, and the birds chattering on the feeders in the garden called to him.

  “Hammock,” he whispered, clinging when Chris tried to put him down on the sofa. “It’s sunny, right? I want to lie in the hammock.”

  “Bit cool for it.”

  “Then get me a blanket.”

  Chris laughed, but lifted him again. Next door’s dog barked as he stepped out of the back door into the long, thin garden that was Gabriel’s domain. It wasn’t carefully curated or even very pretty—ivy had eaten the back fence alive, the grass was too long, and wildflowers bobbed with fat bees all along the west side. But the ha
mmock was wide and comfortable, the soft sway mimicking the confusion of his head injury, and he relaxed into the coarse fabric like it was the finest bed money could buy.

  “You have a date,” he said as Aled tucked a throw from the sofa around him.

  “What?”

  “You and Chris. Have a date. I’m going to nap.”

  Aled chuckled, kissing his hair. “Nap away. We’ll sit out and enjoy a bit of sun too.”

  “Mind your skin, ginger biscuit.”

  “Piss off.”

  Gabriel caught the hand stroking his ribs and squeezed it.

  “Thank you,” he breathed. “And I’m sorry.”

  The next kiss touched his lips, and he opened up for it. Shallow and sweet, somehow chaste even as teeth nipped his lower lip when Aled pulled away. The sparks faded into blissful happiness, and Aled’s thumb stroked his chin as though he could see them.

  “Apology accepted, and you’re welcome, sweetheart. Welcome home.”

  Gabriel drifted in the warmth of the summer sun and felt the shards of his psyche finally coming back together.

  He was home.

  Chapter Four

  Gabriel hadn’t been kidding about wanting a nap.

  Chris carried him out to the hammock like it was their wedding day. By the time Aled picked up the pillow and throw off the sofa and followed, Gabriel was already out like a light.

  “I didn’t think hammocks worked that fast,” Aled remarked.

  “They don’t. Apparently I’m a good pillow.”

  Aled smirked. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Chris flushed and looked away hastily, and Aled rolled his eyes.

  “Let’s do as he says. Got some ginger beer in the fridge if you fancy it?”

  “Sure.”

  Aled left him to cool off. All those weekends sitting either side of Gabriel’s bed, yet they’d never really talked to each other. Chris had always been nervous of him, and—until now—Aled hadn’t been too bothered about bridging the gap. So what if Gabriel’s other boyfriend was laughably afraid of him? He lived hundreds of miles away.

  Only now he didn’t.

  Thanks to Gabriel’s alcoholism, Aled didn’t keep actual beer in the house—or any other type of alcohol—but he’d found ginger beer to be an acceptable alternative. He fished a couple of cans out of the fridge, along with a multipack of crisps, before heading back out and deciding to make the effort.

  “I don’t keep booze in the house,” he said, setting down the cans. “I take it you know that rule?”

  “Yeah,” Chris said. “Don’t drink either.”

  “Oh. Same—”

  “No. It’s bad for your liver.”

  “Well, here’s to bowel cancer instead.”

  They clunked cans, and Aled stretched his feet out in the weak sun. It wasn’t all that warm, but it beat hospital rooms. And the atmosphere felt warmer than it had any right to. Maybe it was Aled’s good mood, or Chris’ relaxation. He watched Gabriel with an absent-minded lack of focus, rather than keeping one eye firmly on Aled.

  “Reckon he’ll go to bed early tonight?”

  “Yeah,” Aled said.

  “Mind if I hook up my games console?”

  “In the spare room?”

  “Uh, I mean, I can—”

  “No, you can’t,” Aled said. “It’s bust. Use the living room.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You much of a gamer?”

  Chris shrugged. “I guess. I game more than I watch telly. I only watch comedy stand-up on TV, really.”

  “Let me guess. You’re a Russell Howard fan.”

  “Fuck off!”

  Aled laughed at the vehement response. “Sorry, sorry. Figured you preferred that nicer brand of comedy.”

  Chris snorted. “I do, but not that placid.”

  “Who’s your favourite, then?”

  They argued good-naturedly. They could agree on Josh Widdecombe being shite, but were divided on Jimmy Carr. Chris refused to admit anything about Bill Bailey, but did admit to watching everything Dylan Moran had ever done, his one exception to a pattern of not bothering with TV shows featuring comedians.

  “I haven’t watched comedy TV in years,” Aled admitted to that one “Gabriel would kill me, but I miss Frankie Boyle.”

  “You would. Bloody northern gingers.”

  “He’s Scottish, you twat.”

  “You’re all foreigners north of Birmingham.”

  Aled laughed.

  “I’ve got Black Books on a pen drive somewhere if you want to watch it once Gabriel’s gone to bed this evening. He thinks it’s boring, so we might as well take our chance.”

  “Surprised he doesn’t find me boring,” Chris said.

  “He’s mad about you.”

  “Yeah. And you know what else he’s mad for? Sex.”

  “Uh, yeah, I know that part.”

  Chris coughed a bitter laugh.

  “Gabriel’s the first person I ever fucked and liked it.”

  Aled threw him a look. “You what?”

  “I hate it,” Chris said. “I only do it because the frustration is even worse. But with Gabriel, it’s okay.”

  “Er. Good? How the fuck have you been fucking?”

  The coarseness didn’t seem bother Chris.

  “Ace. Probably. Remember?”

  “What?”

  “Asexual.” He shifted to dump the empty can on the table. “Probably.” He dropped his hands between his knees and fidgeted.

  “If you hate sex, where’s the probably?”

  “’Cause I have to sometimes.”

  “Yeah but it’s about who you want to fuck, isn’t it? Not whether you want to fuck at all. I mean—” Aled waved a hand. “I didn’t sleep with a man until I was in my twenties, but I was still a bisexual teenager, ’cause I still looked at some guys like…hell yeah, I would.”

  Chris wrinkled his nose. “I guess.”

  “So you’re ace with a sex drive. That’s gotta suck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What d’you even do?” Aled asked. “I mean, he’s kinky as fuck.”

  Chris considered the grass between his shoes.

  “You ever—” He cleared his throat. “You ever think you’re fucked up for what you like?”

  Aled snorted. “Welcome to my life.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I get off on him begging me not to hurt him. Yeah. I know what it’s like.”

  He’d spent years worrying about that. Years. He’d grown up wondering when he’d snap and go to prison. When he’d finally go crazy and rape someone. When the line between fantasy and reality would finally be erased.

  And it hadn’t.

  His games with Gabriel were coercive, controlling, sometimes violent—and ended abruptly at the utterance of a safe word. They cuddled on the sofa. They went out to eat on special occasions. There were limits he’d never crossed, both his limits and Gabriel’s. He was thirty-six, and yet to cross the line.

  So maybe he never would.

  “Sometimes he rides me and we talk and it’s like we’re not having sex at all,” Chris said. “Like he’ll just—sit on me and…and yeah.”

  He shuddered like something was crawling under his skin.

  “Huh,” Aled said.

  “I don’t think he likes it much either, but he does it then it’s over and I can just forget about it for a while.”

  He fidgeted with the knee of his jeans.

  “Then sometimes—”

  He trailed off. Aled waited. He remembered this part. The agony of finally opening up to someone. For him, it had been his best friend. But for Chris…perhaps there was nobody else to open up to. Or perhaps he found some safety in admitting things to Aled, a man who clearly had much more dangerous fantasies than being ridden.

  “Sometimes I fuck him while he’s asleep.”

  Aled suppressed the flinch.

  Subs had limits, but so did doms. And that was one of Aled’s. Whatever the
y did, he had to be one hundred percent sure Gabriel was capable of removing consent, right then and right there. So he’d never played with drugs. Never fucked Gabriel in his sleep. Never so much as wanked off when he was dozing in the same bed. He couldn’t. Whatever limits he could put in place when they were both awake and aware were wiped out by sleep—no matter how many times Gabriel had tried to give him permission.

  Aled knew it was just one of his things. Kevin played with sedatives now and then. Gabriel had mentioned sleep sex with Chris on occasion. But once Aled had explained his reasons, Gabriel had never asked him again, and Aled had appreciated the fake ignorance and the lack of talking about it. If Aled couldn’t use knives, Gabriel couldn’t be out of it.

  But he knew Chris had permission and crushed the urge to shrink away as Chris kept talking.

  “If I’m allowed, he’ll come to bed naked and I can just—”

  Chris’ hands were shaking.

  “Hey,” Aled interrupted. “It’s all right.”

  “Is it?” Chris croaked.

  “Yeah. ’Cause you’ve got permission. That’s what makes it all right. S’that easy.”

  Chris kept leaning forward until his elbows were on his knees and his head dangled limply down. Aled placed a hand on his shoulder, wondering if he was going to faint.

  “You all right?”

  “That easy,” Chris croaked.

  “Yup.”

  “Easy.”

  “Yup. Do you wear a rubber?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bet he likes trying to figure it out in the morning.”

  Chris flashed him a weak smile. “Yeah.”

  “One of his kinks, the sleep thing,” Aled said. “I can’t do it. Can do almost anything if I can get a safeword out of him, but asleep? No chance. That’d set off all my issues no matter how much he liked it.”

  “It’s okay if—if they’re not responding. Like it’s…a better type of wanking or something.”

  He visibly cringed at how it sounded, and Aled decided to leave that one be.

  “Explains one thing,” he remarked instead.

  “What?”

  “When he comes back from a trip with you, he usually wants something savage,” Aled said. “He gets like that if he’s had sex but not an orgasm. Guess I never put two and two together. Thanks.”

  “Thanks?” Chris echoed.