Page 16

Sixteen

TAM

I lie to Bhodi. I’m not okay. I called him baby , and it wasn’t a mistake.

It’s how I feel as I drift to sleep beside him for the second night running, and when I wake with my arms around him and my face pressed between his shoulder-blades. It’s how I feel when I realise he’s still sleeping and he’s more beautiful now than he’s ever been.

That’s quite the fucking claim, but with Bhodi it’s always been more than how he looks, even if he’s so pretty right now I might legitimately die from it.

It’s the contentment in my heart as I stare at him. The peace. And the sadness that comes from knowing I have to wake him.

Don’t sneak out on him . Learned that lesson yesterday when he gazed at me like he was so fucking certain I never wanted to see him again .

“Bhodi.” I kiss his neck on a whisper. “ Bhodi . Wake up.”

Bhodi breathes a little deeper. Then his eyes flash open. “What is it? Are you okay?”

I stop him bolting upright and kiss his neck again. “Sab’s heading out this morning. I need to be there, but I can’t leave without saying goodbye.”

A beat passes before Bhodi relaxes, and the readiness in his jewel gaze softens a little. “Is he coming back?”

“I have no fucking idea. I just need to make sure he knows he can.”

Bhodi nods, understanding, even as his gaze dips. “See you later…maybe?”

“There’s no fucking maybe about it . ” I breathe him in one last time. Then I get up, throw my clothes on, and leave without looking back, because I know one glance, however fleeting, will burn my resolve to the ground.

Merde, I’m not built for how hard it is to walk away from him when I know he needs me to stay. But Sab…he’s my brother. I can’t let him go without telling him, even though he already knows, that my home is his home for as long as he needs it to be.

At least, that’s my intention. Then I walk into my house to Rudy’s apocalyptic barking and Sab’s smug face and I feel like chucking a bucket of water over the pair of them.

“Don’t.” I jab a finger at him with one hand while I stuff a toothbrush in my mouth with the other. “Don’t say a fucking word.”

Sab threads his arms across his chest. “Why? You want privacy?”

“It’s not that much to ask. ”

“Then shut the blinds when you get banged, bro. I’m scarred for life over here.”

I don’t blink. I don’t breathe. “What?”

Sab comes closer and pokes my bicep hard enough to make me sway on my feet. “The blinds in the annex. I got the not-shock of my fucking life when I got up for a piss last night.”

“Not-shock?”

“Oui-oui. I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t know you went over there to get some. Just didn’t expect to find a front row seat on the landing.”

“I didn’t go over there to get some .” I ignore the rest of it. I have to, or I really will throw something at him. “It’s not about that.”

“What is it about then? And don’t tell me you’re just friends. You could power every Christmas light in the world from the chemistry between you.”

Sab’s question throws me. I have no answer for him and it spins my head that I can’t figure it out. That the roadblock in my brain is still standing, even after the nights I’ve spent with the nicest bloke I’ve ever met. “Leave me alone.”

“All right.”

Sab steps away and starts gathering his things. Esme plays on the rug in front of the guarded log-burner Sab’s already lit, and away from his inquisition, I smell the breakfast I know he’s cooked and left in the oven for me.

I ditch my toothbrush and scoop Esme from the rug, straightening the hat on her tiny head. She regards me with a deep Dubois gaze just like her dad’s, but she has no answers for me either, and it dawns on me that I have to let them both go.

“What are you going to do when you get home?” I trail Sab outside with Esme in my arms. “Where are you going to sleep? ”

“On the fucking driveway if I have to.”

“Sab.”

“What?” He takes Esme from me and straps her into her seat. “What do you want me to do? Live with Charmaine and her fuckboy? Or leave my baby there and piss off to a hotel?”

“I want you to be safe. Both of you.”

“We will be.”

I’m unconvinced enough that I feel like following him home to Manchester, but I know I can’t. Charmaine dislikes me at the best of times, and this is the worst. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Like what?”

“Like letting her goad you into fucking shit up.”

Sab shuts Esme in the van and straightens to face me. “I’m not going to do that, I promise.”

“I love you.”

“I know.” We hug. “I love you too. That’s why I need you to take that breakfast I made you down the garden and let yourself have something nice for once. Give me one less thing to worry about, eh?”

He leaves on that note. I watch him drive away with a lump in my throat, but it’s an affliction I’ll have to live with until I see him again.

The van disappears. I wait until I can’t hear the engine anymore, then I slowly spin round and find myself face-to-face with the one soul on this earth who can soothe the worry building in my heart for my brother.

Bhodi stands behind me, dressed in the gym clothes he wears for running, bottom lip caught between his teeth. “Hey.”

I don’t hesitate. I step to him and rescue that lip, claiming it for myself. I kiss him as if we haven’t already parted ways this morning. As if we’re still rolling around on his bed like we did last night. “Are you heading out to get all sweaty without me?”

Bhodi hums against my mouth. “It’s good for me—to run off some steam. I get in my head if I don’t do it often enough.”

“I used to burn around on my hog for the same reason.”

“Your what?”

“My bike. I liked to ride fast, but it got me in the end.”

“Don’t talk about that like it was your fault.” Bhodi rubs his warm nose against mine before he pulls away. “It wasn’t.”

I know that. And I’ve known it for a long time, but watching Bhodi back up scrambles my brain. Wherever he’s headed, and for whatever reason, I don’t want him to go. I want him back in my arms, even more than I want him in bed, and it’s a physical pain to stand here, still and silent, as he spins around and jogs away.

It’s different to watching Sab and Esme leave.

The same, but different , and I feel heavy as I trudge inside to find Rudy and figure out what the fuck I’m doing with my life today. I have so much work to do. It’s my busiest week of the year and I have so many deadlines I’ve forgotten them all. But my head—and my heart—is still with Bhodi, and it’s hard to think about Christmas poems and whimsical greetings cards. Only the fact that the more I get done now, the more time I’ll have for him later drives me upstairs without thinking about the breakfast Sab left for us.

I take a shower and realise my whole body aches. For once, it’s a sweet pain, but it makes me miss Bhodi more, and at my desk, I find myself scanning the horizon for him instead of putting ink to paper.

He’s gone ages . Long enough for worry to form a tight cage around my heart, binding my muscles enough that I start to make mistakes. I’m drowning in a sea of scrap paper by the time his blond head finally appears at the end of the road.

I abandon my desk as if the ink and parchment on it aren’t what saved me six years ago. I burn down the stairs and charge out of the house. Sans boots, of course, but I don’t feel the damp ground, or the puddle I stomp through. I feel nothing but angst until I lurch onto the pavement in front of Bhodi, forcing him to skid to a stop.

“Where the fuck did you run to?” I blurt before he can react. “The North fucking Pole?”

Bhodi pushes his hair back, face flushed like it was last night, his eyes bright with endorphins and exertion. “Huh?”

“You’ve been gone ages.”

“Have I?”

“Yeah.” I reach for him and pull him into my arms. “I thought you were gone forever.”

Bhodi frowns.

I realise I’ve lapsed into French, but repeating myself feels like madness, so I kiss him instead. “I missed you.”

He’s still confused. As if he doesn’t see a reality where that can possibly be true, and I hate the bloke that came before me a little bit more, even though I believe Bhodi when he says his ex did nothing bad. Merde, I hate everyone that’s ever so much as breathed wrong around Bhodi.

I hate myself for not meeting him ten years ago.

“Do you have a fetish for wet feet?”

I have a fetish for him. And how he makes me feel. But that sounds weird, even in my head, so I grab his hand and hustle him into my house, keeping my wayward thoughts to myself. “Sab made us breakfast.”

“Us?” Bhodi hovers by the counter .

I open the oven and face the dried-up meal Sab made a thousand hours ago. Kick it shut again. “He saw us together last night.”

Bhodi’s bewilderment deepens. Then his eyes widen. “Oh shit. The blinds. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. I installed them. If anyone should remember to close them, it’s me.”

“How much did he see?”

“Enough to think we needed a hundred croissants to recover, but they’re a bit fucked now. You want bacon?”

Bhodi stares, and I can’t work out if he’s just gassed from his run or genuinely surprised that he’s been on my mind, and Sab’s, since I left him at dawn.

I give him a minute, ditch another pair of ruined socks, and open the fridge. It says a lot about Sab’s current mental state that I still have food. Lots of it. I drag out the works and chuck it all in pans.

I’m chopping mushrooms when Bhodi comes up behind me. “I need a shower.”

“Okay.”

“I won’t be long.”

He isn’t, but it still feels like a fucking lifetime has passed by the time he comes back.

I slide him a breakfast plate, and this time he doesn’t look at it, or me, like he’s scared we’re not real.

“Thanks.”

“How far did you run?”

“This morning?”

A sarcastic reply bubbles up my throat. I swallow it down and wait .

Bhodi shrugs. “I don’t know. I just keep going until I’m done.”

“Sounds like sex.”

“Sex with me?”

“That’s the only sex on my mind right now.”

Bhodi chews, a subtle smirk dancing in his features, but there’s shyness too, an emotion I didn’t get from him last night when he fucked the hell out of me.

I finish my breakfast and wait for him. When he’s done, I take his plate and drop it in the dishwasher, hustling him away from the rest of it before he starts cleaning up. “I have to work, but I like it when you’re with me. I’m distracted as fuck, but somehow I get more done.”

Bhodi runs a hand through his damp hair. “All I did last time was stare at you.”

“Yeah, well. I liked it.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

The stand-off is brief, but long enough to let me know he’s still having trouble believing I want him around. Can’t lie, it breaks my heart a bit. Even without the intense attraction we share, and the mind-blowing sex, Bhodi is the best company. He’s sweet, funny, and kind. He’s fucking healing , and I can’t let him go.

Metaphorically.

Literally.

It’s a struggle to bypass my bedroom and face my crowded desk again, but with Bhodi within arm’s reach, anything feels possible.

I put the radio on. Cheesy Christmas songs fill the space, and later, as the sky darkens with an oncoming storm, the fairy lights from that long-ago Instagram post cast a glow that brings a contentment I haven’t felt in years.

It’s not the music.

It’s not the lights, or Rudy snoring in his bed at my bare feet.

It’s Bhodi chilling beside me, working his way through the writing books I dug out for him, his brow furrowed in a concentration that’s so enchanting I have no defence against it reeling me in.

I set my pen down, midnight ink staining my fingers, and edge closer, taking a peek over his shoulder. “Well, look at that.”

“Shh. I’ll fuck it up.”

I watch him glide the nib over the complex letter combination he’s reached in the workbook. It’s not perfect, but it’s a world away from how he was writing when I met him. “Have you been practising?”

“Not like this.” Bhodi finishes the combination with a flourish that makes him wince. “I’ve been trying to follow the rules at work, though, and I haven’t got in trouble for my chicken-scratch notes all week.”

“Maybe you should write like this at work. Give them something to think about.”

“They’d think I’d been body-snatched.” He turns the page and cringes harder. “I never realised how much I could hate the letter S .”

“Why do you hate it?”

“I can’t get it to flow until the next thing. Think I need more practice, but every time I see it, I freak out and turn the page.”

“It’s not about practice.” I press up behind him and wrap the fingers of my good hand around his wrist, guiding him through the combination he’s so afraid of. “It’s about accepting things are how they are, and you can be okay with that. And maybe even one day, you’ll find it’s the easiest thing in the world.”

I trace his pen over the letters again. Then I let him do it, but I don’t let go of his wrist. If anything, my grip tightens and the space between us narrows to nothing.

It feels so good to hold him like this. To watch his face as he breaks concentration and tips his head to smile at me.

This isn’t what friends do. It’s something else. I know it and I don’t want to push it away. I don’t want to run from it, and merde, I have to kiss him. So I do, and it’s deep and long, and I can barely breathe through the sweet force of it. That I’m hard— so fucking hard —for him seems secondary, and there’s so much I need to say to him right now. So much he needs to hear before real life catches up with us and he leaves my arms thinking he’s just a casual fuck to me.

You told him that’s all you ever want—from anyone, not just him .

I did say that, and I’m an idiot. But as I open my mouth to say so, Bhodi’s phone buzzes up a storm on the desk. “If that’s your boss, tell her to go jump in the canal.”

“It’s not my boss.” Bhodi licks my cheek, then wriggles out of my hold. “It’s my mum. She wanted to see the annex. I’ll be back, okay?”

He’s gone in the blink of an eye, and he doesn’t come back before it’s time for me to head out on deliveries.

I get caught in traffic.

All of it.

Then my van gets a flat tyre and I have to change it by the side of the road in the fucking rain. Wet and cold, it puts me in a foul mood and it’s late by the time I stomp home with the fury of a thousand gods in my veins. With the way the latter part of my day has panned out, I expect Bhodi’s car to be gone. Him at work or whatever.

But he’s not gone. He’s sitting on my wall with a cup of tea and an outstretched hand. “Come home with me?”

I say yes in every language I know.