Page 35 of Gideon (Finding Home #3)

For a few minutes there’s only the sound of our choked pants as we struggle to get air in.

Then he moves and I feel fabric rub over my face, removing the fluid.

I open my eyes in time for him to climb into my lap.

My arms come up automatically, and it’s strange because although I’ve never held a man like this before, something about it feels as if I’ve done this with him a thousand times.

Somehow in another time I must have cuddled him on my lap, his balls damp and hot on my thigh and his arms around my neck.

It’s the only way to account for this shocking sense of familiarity.

“Jesus,” he says, burying his head in my neck. “Jesus, Gid, why is it like this with you?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper, pushing my hand into his mass of dirty-blond waves that are damp now with rain. “I wish I did.”

He looks up. “Did you love him?”

It takes me a second to work out what he’s talking about.

“Niall?” He nods, his expression worried.

I stroke my fingers down his face. “ No ,” I say clearly, watching his shoulders sag slightly.

“No, I love him as a friend and that’s all.

It’s all it should ever have been if we hadn’t been stupid. He doesn’t love me either.”

“Really?” He huffs and something warms in my chest.

“Yes,” I say. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m not very loveable.”

He stares at me, emotions running over his face. “Well, I’m not sure about that, Gideon Ramsay.” For a long second we stare at each other until I reach out and grab the rose from the table and hand it to him. “For me?” he asks, astonished.

I nod and sigh. “It’s like you. Warm and open and the dew’s still fresh. You’re so young, Eli.”

He shakes his head. “Not that young. You make me sound like Macaulay Culkin in his heyday. Don’t use my age against me as well.”

“As well as what?”

“As well as everything else that stands in our way.” He stands up, carefully holding the flower. “Come on,” he says cheerfully, holding his hand out to me with all traces of seriousness suddenly gone.

I reel at the abrupt change of subject and mood. “Where?”

“Inside.” He shudders. “It’s fucking freezing out here, and my hair doesn’t react well when it gets wet.”

“I remember,” I say tartly. “You had more curls than Leo Sayer when we went swimming on the ship.”

His laughter follows me into the house as does the swat he gives me on my backside.

Inside, he bounds upstairs while I pull on a T-shirt and gather the late breakfast together.

He appears next to me a few minutes later as I pour boiling water into the cafetière.

He’s barefoot and has flung on jean shorts and a stripy T-shirt, his other shorts sacrificed to clean up jizz.

His hair is a wavy mess, and he glows with something that looks very much like contentment.

I hope it is because that’s my predominant emotion too.

“The croissants are cold,” I tell him abruptly, unable to articulate what I’m feeling at the moment and hating it. He’s given me so much, the least he deserves are my words, but for the first time in my life they’ve deserted me, leaving me an incoherent mess.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says happily, recalling me to the food. “Let’s have some cheese, and I noticed some deli bits. Let’s have a picnic in the lounge.”

I shake my head. “How old are you?”

“You’re only as old as the man you feel,” he whispers, goosing my arse and making me jump.

“Ancient then?”

“Oh yes,” he says smugly. “Probably older than Simon Cowell.”

I try to be indignant but can’t summon it up. “Help me with the stuff,” I say instead and, grinning, he complies.

We throw the blanket down and while I arrange the food, I nod at the old record player. “Put something on. There’s quite an eclectic choice as long as you don’t want anything made after the fifties. Although I think there’s some Bowie in there and other bits.”

He rummages through the old crate, exclaiming in pleasure as he pulls out records and stares at their sleeves. “I hate CDs and downloads,” he says. “I love vinyl.”

“You’re not old enough for vinyl,” I scoff, and he shakes his head.

“Not the first time round, no, but who is?” He laughs. “Oh, that would be you.” I raise my middle finger at him, and he laughs before exclaiming and pulling out an album. “I love this one. Used to listen to it in my bedroom at home while I was wallowing in teenage angst.”

I peer at the record in his hands and try to dismiss the fact that I was probably having threesomes when this album came out. “‘Abattoir Blues.’ That’s got to be Silas’s. He went through a Nick Cave period a few years ago, and he’s always loved vinyl.”

“It’s that crackle,” he muses, taking the record out carefully and placing it on the deck. He lowers the needle carefully, and we both smile at the crackle as “Babe, You Turn Me On” begins to play. “Appropriate,” he muses, and I smile almost shyly at him before shaking it off.

“Come and eat,” I command, and he wriggles around to sit next to me cross-legged.

We eat, and drink a bottle of red I found in the wine rack.

Its dry, earthy taste complements the food, and I sip it slowly, watching him as he talks with his hands flying around like normal, his deep voice with that wonderful Welsh accent making even the mundane words sound like poetry.

He’s tactile too, constantly touching my leg and arm and smiling at me as if this is the best time he’s ever had.

Ever since I met him, I’ve envied him this ability to stay in the moment.

“Are you okay with the Niall thing now?” I ask abruptly, and immediately want to punch myself in the throat for spoiling the moment.

For a second he looks startled but then settles back against the chair. “Yes,” he says slowly. “Not being funny, it is a bit strange, but your past is your past, Gid. I haven’t got any control over what you did and who you did, just as you don’t have any control over my past.”

“So? What’s the problem? I know there is one.”

“It’s just that you have such a tie with him. I saw that at the hospital and I overheard some of your conversation with Milo, and a year ago you seemed to be singing a very different tune.”

“A year ago I hadn’t met you,” I say softly, reaching over and brushing back his hair so I can look into his eyes that are turbulent tonight.

“Niall knew me.” I shrug. “Actually, he knew the bits of me I showed him. But we’re still friends.

Good friends. And I felt like I was losing my chance to be me if he stopped the thing we were doing.

Totally selfish and not based on anything more than hurt pride and muddled emotions that I confused with real feelings. ”

“It’s not just Niall. It’s the future too,” he says slowly. He smiles deprecatingly. “Listen to me. I’m about to ask your intentions. Jesus Christ, I’m one badly behaved rake short of a Georgette Heyer novel.”

I run my fingers through the waves of his hair. “I want a future,” I say slowly. “I never ever thought I’d say those words, but I can’t help it with you.”

“But? I sense a but?”

“There’s always one of those.” I frown. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, Eli.

I’ve been closeted for so long. I want to be with you, and I don’t want to shut you in there with me.

You’re open and honest and it would kill me to make you hide a part of yourself.

But equally, I don’t know what will happen when I’m confronted with this.

My first reaction has always been to lie, to smooth things over with clever words.

What happens if I do that again and you leave me? ”

He reaches over and grabs my face, his hands smelling of the rose I gave him that he proudly put in a mug in the lounge. “Easy,” he says slowly. “Gideon, everyone comes out in their own time. I would never ever pressure you to do something you’re not ready for.”

“What if I’m never ready?” I ask, my breath catching in my throat.

He cocks his head to one side and examines my face, his own clouded with uncertainty. At that point the record changes and “Oh Children” comes on, the slow song filling the silent air.

He stands up and extends his hand. “Come on.”

“Come on where?”

“Dance with me.”

“ Here ?”

He smiles. “Yes, here. Why? Would you rather I’d booked the Strictly Come Dancing stage?”

“I’ve never danced with a man before,” I say slowly.

He smiles so wide my hand shoots out and slides into his before I can think about it. He pulls me to my feet and into his arms. “Then dance with me,” he says. “Let me lead.”

I snort. “When are you not doing that?”

He pulls me close, his arms sliding around my shoulder blades, their heat startling against the thin material of my T-shirt. “I’m not sure of that,” he whispers into my ear, making me shudder. “You’ve led me to some places I’ve never been before.”

I want to ask what those places are, but he shushes me and pulls me tighter against him.

I slide my hands around his slim waist and lower my head into his shoulder as he starts to move, slowly shuffling.

I follow him as if he’s the lord of the dance, and somehow it feels magic in this dim room lit by the murky twilight and the glow of a lamp and with the scent of the rain drifting through the open window. It’s like I’ve been bespelled.

I have dined in the fanciest restaurants, seen the wonders of the world, and lived with riches that few ever attain, but here in this small room, in this man’s arms, shuffling to a beautiful song, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

Happier than I probably ever will be again. At some point he’s going to leave me. Everyone does. I want to grab the memories and greedily drink them in, but he pulls me closer, and I’m blind once again to everything but this man. This poetic, perennially cheerful Welsh man who makes me feel safe.