Page 4 of Gideon (Finding Home #3)

However, I love Milo. I never wanted to, and for many years I hated him for having the family life I’d always wanted. For the fact that my mother and father loved him even though they never managed it with me.

So, for a long time I distanced myself from him.

Then he fell in love with Niall and it seemed to me that once again he’d taken everything away from me.

Niall was my occasional hook-up, but more importantly he was my family, one of only two people I could be myself with.

And it seemed like history was repeating itself all over again where Milo had everything, leaving me alone and on the outside.

It seemed to reinforce all the lessons of my childhood over how unlovable I really must be and spurred me into behaving like that small child.

However, Milo still managed to edge under my barriers without me even realising.

When he and I reconciled I made promises of closeness, but then I visited everyone at Chi an Mor and it just seemed to reinforce how isolated I was and how connected they all were, living and working on the estate and involved in each other’s lives.

They had their own jokes and stories, and I’d hovered on the outside trying to take part but feeling the sting of failure.

There was a distance between us all that I couldn’t bridge no matter how I tried.

I didn’t visit again but instead immersed myself in very bad behaviour.

The same bad behaviour that has landed me in hospital.

Despite all this, Milo is probably the only person in this world apart from my two best friends who I love, and I therefore can’t say anything more about our parents without upsetting him.

“So, who’s visiting?” I ask instead.

“Frankie,” he says with an evil smile, and I blanch at the thought of my manager.

“Fuck!”

“Yes, I thought you’d say that. He’s even more worked up than normal because as well as your little PR present to him of a threesome with drugs and – even worse in Frankie’s eyes – men, I then barred him from your hospital room and wouldn’t let him see you.”

“ You did?”

Niall nods and shoots my brother an affectionate and proud look. “Yep. Told him to fuck off and said as he wasn’t family he wasn’t coming in. He’s been cooling his heels in the waiting room and winding the nurses up ever since.”

“I really don’t know why you don’t like him,” I say to Milo, coughing and shifting as my ribs protest.

He instantly rises and plumps my pillows up. I slide back against them and he shakes his head.

“You don’t know why I don’t like him? Let’s see.

He’s a terrible old fossil of a homophobe who took advantage of my brother’s yearning for family when he persuaded him to leave school at seventeen to make him famous, and incidentally make Frankie a lot of money.

Then he proceeded to remake you, telling you that people would never accept a gay actor and that the idea of you with a man would send the world into mourning. ”

“He’s alright,” I say slowly. “He’s looked after me all these years. I need him.”

“He’s looked after himself more,” my brother argues. “Look at his house and the car he drives. Look at the women who hang around him. You pay for all that.”

“I pay him a wage.”

“You pay him to tell you that an integral part of you is wrong and disgusting. He’s told you it so often that I’m sure you half believe him. As a consequence we’ve had to watch you get wilder and wilder over the years and not give a shit about yourself.”

“Do we need Frankie?” I say faintly. “You’re doing a good enough job of character assassination without getting a member of paid staff to help.”

“Shut up,” he says sharply, and I subside obediently back against the pillow.

“Can I have some more water?” I ask meekly.

“You do it,” he huffs at Niall. “I’ll drown him in it if I get too close.”

“Don’t judge yourself too harshly. It’s his personality,” Niall assures him. “Most people embrace murder as a valid interaction with him after knowing him for just a few minutes.”

“This is really lovely,” I say faintly. “Aren’t people in hospital supposed to get Lucozade and grapes and members of their families weeping on them, or is that just stereotyping? Ow!” My brother retracts his fingers from where he just pinched me. “What did you do that for?”

“Because I love you.”

“Can’t you buy me a card like normal people?”

“No, because Hallmark doesn’t have anything to rhyme with ‘you’re behaving like a total wanker,’” he says firmly. Niall snorts and I glare at him as Milo carries on talking. “You need to clean up your act. No more drugs, no more hook-ups with random men and women.”

“But what on earth will I do on set? Knit ?”

“You’re not going on set.”

“ What ? I’ve got a film starting in a week.”

“Gideon, you’ve had pneumonia. I don’t think you know how serious that is.”

“I thought only old people and young ladies in eighteenth century novels got that.”

“Well, add thirty-nine-year-old dissolute actors and you’d be right.” He shakes his head. “You can’t work for a few months. We told the director and he’s replacing you.”

“Who is we ?” My voice is icy and Niall shifts, ready and able to come to Milo’s defence. My brother shakes his head at him and he subsides.

“Me as your next of kin, which believe me was needed as you nearly died, and Niall as my boyfriend and your best friend,” he says defiantly.

“Frankie would never have gone along with that.”

He smiles and it’s slightly evil. “Frankie has no authority here.”

I blink. “You’ve created a monster,” I say accusingly to Niall, and he shrugs.

“He’s very bossy now. It’s extremely beneficial in the bedroom.”

“Ugh!” I shake my head. “I don’t want to know.”

“Are you bothered about the film?” Milo asks, and that quickly his bossiness is gone, replaced by worry. I exchange a look that says everything with Niall. Love and tenderness towards the kind, gentle man that my brother is.

I consider myself and realise how really awful I feel.

Weak, drained, old, and tired. So very weary.

“No,” I say finally, seeing Milo sag with relief.

“It’s alien to me not to want to work because it’s all I have.

I just don’t think at the moment I could stand the idea of being on set.

Even thinking about it is fucking exhausting. ”

“That’s good,” my brother says gently. “According to Frankie’s wails, that means that you now have a six-month window in your diary for the first time since you were seventeen. That’s plenty of time.”

“For what?” I ask nervously.

“For us to get your life in order.”

There’s a rap on the door before I can argue and a nurse puts her head around the door. “Mr Grantham is waiting very anxiously out here.” She grimaces slightly. “Any chance he could see Mr Ramsay?”

“He certainly can,” Milo says sweetly and sits back in his chair. “Please tell him to come in. I’m sure Gideon will be ecstatic to have a conversation with him.”

Niall and the nurse wince in unison.

“Could I have some morphine first?” I ask mournfully.

Frankie explodes into the room a few seconds later, and I take the time to look at the man who’s been my agent since my career started.

I met him after a school production of Hamlet in which I’d played the title role.

He came up afterwards and introduced himself as a talent scout for a well-known agency.

He’d been full of praise and bright admiring eyes, and I’d lapped it up, knowing that there was no one in the audience who belonged to me apart from my best friends Niall and Silas.

Everyone else had their families sitting in the seats they’d been allocated.

I had no one because my mother and father were taking Milo to a pantomime.

I’d felt almost embarrassed to have to give my tickets to other people and ended up telling a story of my parents being away for work.

That excuse had been accepted unquestioningly as we were at boarding school.

This man who was then in his mid-twenties had been interesting and bohemian-looking, wearing ripped jeans and a Sesame Street t-shirt when all the parents were in their Sunday best. I’d been amused by his chain smoking despite the Head’s pointed glances at the No Smoking sign, and I’d been intrigued by his honeyed words of praise and offers of more money than I could imagine.

He’d been like the pied piper of cool and I’d happily followed him, abandoning my plans for a university career without a backward look.

He’d abided by his promises and when he announced his intention of leaving the agency to set up independently I’d followed him again, lending my name to the operation which I’m pretty sure is why he has so many A-list clients now.

I look at him now as he paces angrily over to me and it’s like I’m seeing a stranger.

Gone is the man with the overlong hair and penchant for wearing t-shirts with political slogans.

Instead, Frankie now wears bespoke designer suits and shiny wingtip shoes.

His wild hair is corralled into a short back and sides and slicked ruthlessly down.

His expression has lost that laid-back charm that so appealed to me and become tense and angry-looking.

Still, I can’t fault him for that. There’s no trace of that starry-eyed boy in me anymore either.

No sign of the lad who wanted to act more than anything.

Now, I mostly make money and headlines for bad behaviour and the public as a whole love me, but I know they’d turn on me in seconds if they really knew me.

I know this because Frankie has told me often enough.

“What the fuck, Gideon?” he growls, pushing his hand into his suit pocket and drawing attention to the big belly he now sports because of too many expense lunches. Mostly my expense, I think idly.

“Hello, Frankie,” I say smoothly. “Thank you for your concern. Yes, I am fine, thank you. I’m sure I’ll manage to pull back from my headlong rush towards death.”

“So dramatic,” Niall breathes. Milo huffs, glaring at Frankie as if he’s imagining dissecting him.

Frankie waves a casual hand. “I knew you were alright,” he scoffs. “Your brother was kind enough to pass on a few pieces of information.” He throws Milo an acidic look, and I stir.

“My brother is my next of kin,” I say coolly. “And unlike mostly everyone else, he was actually concerned about me. As such, he can do as he bloody well pleases. If I die he gets everything. I’d give it to him while I was alive if I thought he’d accept it.”

“Oh, don’t talk about that,” Milo protests, looking upset and grabbing my hand. Niall kisses the top of his head and I watch as Frankie makes a moue of disgust at seeing two men behaving affectionately.

He looks up and flushes as he catches me watching him with a raised eyebrow.

Obviously realising that he’s misstepped, he changes the subject fluidly.

“Lovely as that is, we need to talk, Gid. This is a complete disaster.” He shakes his head.

“I’ve done the best I can. The two blokes have been paid off and signed nondisclosures. ”

“W-Why,” Milo stutters slightly and we all turn to look at him. I smile encouragingly and he carries on. “N-Nondisclosures imply that he was doing something wrong. He was just in a threesome, n-not running around dismembering hotel guests.”

“I’m so glad I cancelled that portion of my evening,” I say, and he grins at me suddenly before turning back to Frankie.

“He’s not married. He’s n-not with anyone. It might be scandalous to the general public but it’s hardly a hanging offense. He’s …” He pauses. “I was going to say that he’s a responsible man, but I couldn’t get the words out.”

“Because of the stutter?” Frankie asks.

“No, because it would be an appalling lie,” Milo says pertly, making Niall laugh.

Frankie turns back to me. “Lovely and idyllic as that all sounded, the reality is that Gideon lives in a world where his actions have repercussions because he’s judged on everything he does.”

“I hope you’re not judging me on Christian,” I say tiredly. “I’d hate for that to be held against me.”

“Enough,” Frankie barks. “You know the reality, Gideon. It’s too late to come out as bisexual or gay or whatever the fuck you are this week.

The fans will turn against you in a heartbeat because you’ll be a liar to them.

Someone who has consistently lied for years in order to make money and be famous.

” He shakes his head. “You’d be lucky to get a job doing panto in Margate after that. It’ll be the end of your career.”

“I think you’re m-more concerned about your own c-career,” Milo bursts out, the words emerging disjointed and halting but full of passion. “Stop forcing your homophobic b-bloody views on him. He needs to know that people will love him regardless of his sexuality.”

“They won’t.” My voice is flat, and I suddenly feel like I’m a hundred years old. “They won’t, Milo. Frankie’s right.”

Frankie shrugs, looking smug. “As I said,” he says pointedly. “We need to spin this.” He pauses. “I’ll ring Jacinta. She can come out. We can get a few pictures of her nursing you, a few pap shots of you eating out and her looking at you lovingly.”

“No,” I say harshly, glaring at him with the last of my strength.

I can feel weariness beating at my body, wanting to drag me under.

“That’s not going to happen,” I say slowly.

“She’s straightened her act up now – got clean and she has a really nice boyfriend.

” I stare at him. “You leave her alone. I mean it, Frankie.”

He subsides somewhat sulkily, which has become more obvious over the last year or so. Like he owns me and makes my decisions for me.

“Well, Gideon, we’ve got to do something.

You need to stay out of trouble for the foreseeable future.

The bloke from The Sun is sniffing around at the moment asking very leading questions.

” He glares at me. “I don’t want to hear anything apart from the fact that you’re an angel for the next few months.

I want you to have a reputation that Bonnie Langford would have been proud of. ”

“Oh, you’ve no need to worry about that,” Milo says somewhat smugly.

“Why?” I ask, worry stirring.

His smile widens. “I’ve booked you on a cruise.”

Niall’s laughter drowns out my, “What the fuck?”