The Third Date (Starting Over) Read online

  “Yeah. Some of our best games were probably because of you.”

  Chris’ smile was wobbly, and he dropped it quickly.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Aled said. “You’ve got permission to do it. And he’s no pushover with his consent.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Chris confessed. “He’s never tried to stop me.”

  Aled laughed. “Well, take it from the man who’s been safeworded halfway through an orgasm—he’s no pushover with his consent.”

  Chris blinked. “What the hell were you doing halfway through an orgasm?”

  “You don’t want to know, but he didn’t like it,” Aled chuckled, lifting his can to his lips. He figured that telling Chris he’d threatened to rip Gabriel’s nipple off with a staple remover for calling him a rapist would be a bit much for their fledgling friendship.

  “When did you accept your sex life?”

  “Eh?”

  “What you like to do. You know. The violence.”

  “Oh. Early twenties. My wife was a big help.” Christ, he hadn’t thought about his ex-wife in ages. “She was a real powerhouse in every other aspect of her life, but she had some really intense sex fantasies. That’s what I liked about her, to be honest. I knew she wanted me to do everything I was doing in the bedroom because she’d murder me if I so much as left a pair of dirty socks on the floor the rest of the time. Gabriel does the same. I can trust him, because he’s happy to rip me a new one if I’m doing something he doesn’t like, sexually or otherwise. So if he’s letting you do it, then either he doesn’t give a damn or he likes it. And”—Aled raised his can in a ‘cheers’ gesture—“from the man who fucks him after you’re done with him, I’m going to say he likes it.”

  “He doesn’t even get off. Why would he like it?”

  “I don’t know why he likes being fisted either, but he does.”

  “He likes what?”

  Aled laughed.

  “You fist him? How does it even fit?”

  “I don’t use his arse, for one.”

  “Even then!”

  “In theory, a baby can come out of there. My fist is nowhere near the size of a baby’s head.”

  “Yeah but your fist is going in. Not out. I’ve taken dumps bigger than your fist, and it still wouldn’t fit going up there.”

  Aled buckled with laughter. He’d thought he’d have to get Chris drunk to talk about sex, but if it all it took was a ginger beer and some sunshine, what the hell would booze get out of him?

  “What’s your favourite thing?” Chris asked, cracking open another can.

  “Sex-wise?”

  “Yeah. I mean, you do like everything with him, but what’s your favourite thing ever?”

  “With Gabriel, or ever?”

  “Gabriel.”

  Aled hummed. He leaned back, propping his half-empty can on his stomach. He didn’t feel especially sexual—oversized gut, rumpled hair, glasses almost hanging off the end of his nose. But it lurked just under the surface as always, and he dragged up the memory like it had only been yesterday.

  “When he still lived in Belle Isle, we played this game once. We pretended he owed me money, so I locked him in his flat until he paid it off.”

  “With sex?”

  “Bingo. Either he went out and whored himself for the money, or he fucked me for free until it would have cost me that much to hire someone. Kept him gagged so he couldn’t get help and locked him in his bathroom while I was out so he couldn’t get out the windows. When he had to go to work, I’d plug him and put him in a chastity belt—he didn’t like that so much—and drop him off and pick him up after. We played for three days before it got a bit too real for me and I stopped it.”

  “You ever done it since?”

  “Variations,” Aled said. “He’s a bit more sensitive about money so we don’t tend to do that part anymore. And he refuses to play at all at his new job. Likes it too much to risk it. But occasionally I buy him off Kevin and keep him for a weekend like a toy.”

  Chris hummed. “So—what about ever?”

  “Huh?”

  “You asked if I meant with Gabriel or ever.”

  “Ah. Knife play.”

  Chris cringed. “Oh hell no.”

  “Yeah, that’s his reaction.” Aled grinned. “I don’t know. There’s something about it. Especially on pale skin. But he’ll never let me, and it’s just a nice fantasy. I don’t need it, and it’s not worth finding a second sub for. So I’ve not done it in years.”

  Chris finally sat back and stretched.

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Just—talking about this shit with me.”

  “No problem.”

  “I’m going for a run before dinner. Though here’s an idea. For your old toy game.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Well, he’s going to need loads of running up and down to the hospital, and physio and taking care of, right?”

  “Kind of why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “Sure. But you’re paying. Maybe he should be.”

  The idea flashed through his head like lightning, and Aled smirked. Chris blinked, then hastily excused himself.

  “Guess you don’t need to be sexual to have good sexual ideas,” Aled yelled after him.

  “Uh. Guess not!”

  “Well, if those are the ideas you come up with, Chris, then we can talk about sex any time you want. Have a good run.”

  Aled eyed the sleeping body in the hammock as Chris disappeared into the house, and rubbed his bristling jaw thoughtfully.

  “You said your southern biker boyfriend was a shy little sweetheart,” he mused. “I think maybe we can pull him out of his shell a little more. What do you say, angel?”

  Gabriel, of course, said nothing.

  For now.

  Chapter Five

  Chris stepped out of the shower and paused.

  He’d stayed the night at Gabriel’s before, but only once or twice with Aled in the house. And those one or two times had always been with the same expectation—one or other of them would be gone by the morning.

  But he could hear Aled talking to someone on the phone downstairs.

  He’d still be there on Saturday morning. And Sunday. He’d go to work on Monday, then come back in the afternoon. And Tuesday. And so on and so forth.

  He’d be around.

  Chris really wasn’t used to Aled being around, and he felt paralysed by it. Stupidly so. Of course he’d known that would be how it worked, but—

  But.

  He dried off in the bathroom, turning his jumbled thoughts over in his head. The spare room would be his room. Properly his. No swapping it for the master bedroom once Aled had gone. It wasn’t a temporary stopping point like it had been before. He’d sleep there every night, with Aled and Gabriel cuddled up together just the other side of the wall.

  To his surprise, a flicker of jealousy sparked up in his chest.

  Why?

  Why should he be relegated to the spare room, and Aled to the master bed? Weren’t they both Gabriel’s boyfriends? Didn’t he love them both? Chris wasn’t here for the short term. Why should he have to take the spare room all the time? Why couldn’t he and Aled switch sometimes?

  Chris snuffed it out as quickly as it had arrived, and stepped into his boxers. He was being stupid. Gabriel was ill. It wasn’t like he’d moved in for fun.

  He stepped out onto the landing in his boxers and slippers, still drying off his chest. Gabriel whistled from the master bedroom and Chris paused in the doorway, raising his eyebrows at the tired smile thrown at him.

  “C’mon,” Gabriel said, patting the bed. “Watch this with me.”

  “It’s half ten. I’m calling it a day,” Chris said.

  “Exactly.”

  Chris blinked. “Um. No, I’m—I’m in the guest room.”

  Gabriel frowned muzzily. He’d had his painkillers with dinner, and if the vertigo made him a little loopy, the pain
killers finished him off.

  “But you’re not a guest,” he said.

  “This is your room. With Aled. That’s mine.”

  “No. This is my bed. For me an’ my boyfriends. So come here.”

  Chris laughed. “Right, because me and Aled are going to share a bed.”

  “Didn’t your garden date go well?”

  “We had a couple of ginger beers and a chat,” Chris said. “Hardly a date.”

  “You were one-on-one and the idea was to get to know each other, right? That’s a date,” Gabriel countered.

  “God, you’re impossible.”

  “Says the man just standing there. C’mon. Come cuddle me.”

  Chris sighed and inched into the room. It was a hedonist’s wet dream. Thick carpet, silk lining the ceiling to mimic a tent canopy, soft lights, a bed that could drown a man and a TV the size of a small cinema screen. Sprawled out in the middle of the bed, Gabriel looked like he was on a luxury holiday.

  “Aled will be up soon.”

  “Yeah, so? C’mon.”

  “You really want me to sleep in here with the two of you.”

  “Yes, you idiot. C’mon.”

  Chris groaned, and stepped out to dump his towel back in his room. Fine. If Gabriel wanted to get him killed, so be it. It might teach the flirt a lesson.

  The bed was a king size, and it was probably just as well. Chris was able to slide into the far side without disturbing Gabriel’s middle-of-the-pillows position too much and tucked his hands behind his head so Gabriel could perform his usual trick of using Chris’ armpit like a pillow. The mattress was deeper than he remembered. This was going to be like getting drugged to sleep.

  “So what are we falling asleep to?”

  “This murder documentary.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  Chris screwed up his face as a mutilated corpse flashed up on the screen. “Gross.”

  “Oh, they were just saying that the killer kept dumping them out in the desert so they’d rot faster.”

  “Why are you like this?” Chris complained.

  Gabriel chuckled and poked his foot under the covers. “Ssh. I wanna hear how the insects helped solve it.”

  Chris shut up, grimacing at the screen every now and then and trying not to track Aled pacing around downstairs. When the phone call stopped, a knot formed in the pit of Chris’ stomach. When the stairs creaked, a sweat broke out on his back.

  Then Aled said, “Joining us?” and tossed his shirt into the laundry hamper as he walked through the door.

  “Apparently.”

  “I nagged,” Gabriel admitted with a huge yawn. “Who was that?”

  “Imogen from work.”

  “Something come up?”

  “Nah, just bitching about a mutually loathed twassock.”

  Chris breathed in tiny increments. Aled was just…ignoring him. Undressing down to his briefs. Wandering out to brush his teeth. Coming back scratching his hairy belly like they’d all been married for years. The bed dipped as he climbed in, and he leaned over to kiss Gabriel’s cheek, and—

  That was it.

  He lay down on Gabriel’s other side, a hand on the flat belly separating him from Chris, and closed his eyes. Gabriel turned the volume down. A forensic scientist was talking about flies. A low snore emanated from the other side of the bed.

  And the knot in Chris’ stomach dissolved.

  “You shouldn’t be so scared all the time,” Gabriel murmured.

  “You take some getting used to.”

  “You’ve slept in a bed with me loads of times. Aled is what you’re getting used to.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

  They watched the rest of the documentary in silence. Gabriel dozed off as they started talking about the trial, and Chris turned it off once the credits rolled. The bedroom darkened. A few final birds twittered outside. A cat began singing on the back fence. In the distance, he could faintly hear motorway traffic, a light breeze carrying the noise over the fields and gentle hills.

  But sleep eluded him.

  Aled was breathing deep and slow on the other side of the bed, oblivious to the world. Gabriel had rolled onto his side and tucked his bum against Chris’ hip. On their own, Chris would have turned over and taken up the sleeping invitation for a spoon.

  But Aled—

  Chris closed his eyes and gave himself a talking to. Aled had invited him here. Aled had seen him kiss Gabriel at the hospital. Aled knew. For fuck’s sake, what was Chris worrying about?

  Slowly, he rotated his hips. Chest. Drew up his legs. Slid his arm over Gabriel’s waist.

  Gabriel mumbled something and tucked up his knees towards his chest. A hand twitched. His ribs pushed lightly at the underside of Chris’ arm.

  And nothing happened.

  Chris exhaled heavily into Gabriel’s hair and tried to relax. So he was supposed to sleep here at night. Great. That was fine. Gabriel would stay in the middle and separate him from Aled, and it would be fine. Comfortable. Sensible, too, if he was playing nurse.

  It would be fine.

  And he’d keep telling himself that until he believed it.

  * * * *

  Chris woke with the dawn.

  The chorus was part of the reason for it. He was used to a bit of chatter in Nailsea, but Newmillerdam was like Glastonbury For Birds was going off outside the window. When one hit the window with a deafening smack, neither Aled nor Gabriel twitched.

  Slowly, Chris drew back his arm.

  He was still cuddled up to Gabriel’s back. They’d all contracted in the night—Gabriel’s face was buried in Aled’s armpit, and Aled was flat on his back, one arm over his head and his mouth twisted open in a silent snore. His eyes looked small and weak without his glasses, and there were grey hairs in his eyebrows. He looked older. Blander. Less—

  “Huh,” Chris said.

  He’d never looked less like a sadistic dominant.

  Chris didn’t feel like chancing it, though, and slipped free of the bed. His skin was sticky hot, and he snuck out to find his bag and slip back into the bathroom. A quick rinse off and a pair of shorts was all he needed. He refilled his water bottle at the kitchen sink, laced his trainers by the door and borrowed Gabriel’s house keys to let himself out into the noisy morning.

  The first hundred yards swept all the thoughts away.

  Gabriel laughed at him and called him a fitness freak, but it wasn’t about washboard abs and weightlifting to Chris. It was about the shutdown. When the brain was too busy breathing, putting one foot in front of the other, remembering to drink, watching out for stitches, minding the rabbit holes in the bank, to think. When the busy nature of life had to stop, because it couldn’t be done alongside the air raking through his lungs or the pounding pressure of his heart.

  He couldn’t worry about his weird sex life. About his lack of social circle. About coming out to his mum. About Aled.

  When he ran—or raced, or swam, or hiked—there was nothing but his physical being and nature. Birds didn’t care if he liked to fuck. The glittering lake didn’t have shit opinions.

  Nature was the bedrock of his relationship with Gabriel, truth be told. They’d met at a cycling event, and Chris had been riding the endorphin high when he’d asked him out. If his brain had been online, he’d never have done it. Too scared. Too confused. But he had, because of the buzz. And their first date had been another ride and benefited from much the same effect. He’d kept himself too wired to ask himself any questions.

  If he’d asked, he’d have talked himself out of it.

  So he adopted the same tactic, and hoped it would work once more. He didn’t need to ask how he stood with Aled. He wasn’t attracted to Aled. Aled probably wasn’t attracted to him. They just had Gabriel in common, and that was all they needed. He had to relax.

  At the completion of the lap round the water, Chris wondered if that wasn’t asking a little much of his anxiety-riddled brain.

&n
bsp; But that was a thought.

  So he set off for another lap.

  Chapter Six

  For the first time in weeks, Gabriel felt like he’d slept properly.

  No nurses fussing about in the night. No beeps and clicks. No breakfast at half seven whether he wanted to get up yet or not. No hard mattress digging into his spine and no itchy sheets aggravating his skin. No drips and catheters to stop him from—

  Wait.

  Halfway through turning over, Gabriel froze up as the room—and his stomach—rolled. He closed his eyes, but it didn’t do much to help. The bed was sliding under him. He was going to fall. It was crazy and he knew it, but—but—

  He was going to fall.

  “Aled!”

  He clung to the sheets until his knuckles ached. Muscles shuddered. The bed had to be flat, must be flat, couldn’t be anything except flat…

  The door creaked.

  “What’s up?”

  “M’falling. M’falling!”

  Feet padded across the carpet. Aled’s voice was soft, but his hands were firm on Gabriel’s back and shoulder.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I know, I know, but I am—”

  “No. You’re not.”

  The duvet shifted. The mattress dipped violently and Gabriel burst into humiliating tears as the terror sank cold claws into his brain.

  Then—

  Aled’s body settled against his back. Between him and the floor. His biceps slid under Gabriel’s head until the rhythm of his heart beat against Gabriel’s ear. His other arm locked tight around Gabriel’s waist. Holding on. Anchoring him.

  The bed was still tipped at a steep angle, but Aled lay against his back, and Aled wasn’t falling.

  “Better?”

  “Mm.”

  He carefully let go of the sheets with one hand. His fingers shook as he scrubbed the tears away, face burning with embarrassment.

  “Thanks,” he whispered.

  “S’fine.”

  “Think—think you might be stuck now.”

  Aled chuckled deeply. “Well, there’s always the TV.”

  Gabriel pushed his nose against Aled’s arm and inhaled. He smelled of toast and the nice aftershave. His arm hair tickled Gabriel’s cheek. He was wearing pyjamas, the worn fabric familiar against Gabriel’s skin. The bed was a rumpled mess, all flowing lines and soft cotton sliding through Gabriel’s fingers, but Aled was solid as a rock.