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“She’s an absolute devil when she wants to be. But also extremely pleasant when called for,” he said. “I’m glad she’s taken you on. ”

“She doesn’t trust me. And she knows about my…incident.”

“Of course she does. It’s all over those court papers.”

“So you already knew?” I pushed back from him in surprise.

“Yes. You made me sort through the copies. I can read, Dylan. And it all made sense.”

“Oh.” Yet he was calm, and he wasn’t pushing me away. Gosh, how I needed this.

“She also found the medical reports that weren’t brought up in court,” I added quietly.

“Okay.” He let me go but only so he could sit me at the table and give me a glass of something sparkling, like it was a real date. I took the glass, my hands shaking.

“What was in those medical reports?” he asked, raising his glass. “Sparkling elderflower, by the way. Pleasant and dry. Cheers. To us. And our little project.”

“Project?” I smiled.

“Medical reports?” he reminded me.

“I… Sometimes in the past, when I’ve felt like I was pushed in a corner, I needed something to release the frustration.

An other thing from my university days, when studying would take its toll on me and the expectations were just overwhelming.

Those corners were always there, intimidating and frightening, where failure wasn’t an option. Not for me, anyway.”

“And?”

Gosh, he was frustrating, but pushing me to talk was probably the only way forward. I knew that.

“I have scars,” I said, allowing myself to look straight at him.

“We all do.”

“No, Stewart. Real scars. Ones I inflicted on myself. Razor blades. Knives. Sharp cuts that somehow made me… I know how crazy this sounds, but you need to know. I don’t want you to come across them and get scared. I’m not…you know.”

“You mean if we get intimate?”

Stewart Schiller was a piece of work. Straightforward and…

well, I should have been embarrassed. Intimidated.

Weirded out? Instead I was smiling, talking about the lines of scarred skin that decorated the insides of my upper arms. Veronica had always been ashamed of them, made me wear long sleeves at all times .

“I have no idea what I would do with you,” I admitted as he shook his head.

“Neither have I. But we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. That’s how I see it, anyway.”

“I used to play tennis.” I took a sip of my drink. Nice. Refreshing. “I was part of a group of lawyers who met up every weekend. Had a drink. Played a few games. Talked shop.”

“Do you still play?”

“No. I took lessons for a while too, but it’s funny.

When you get divorced, your friends just…

drift away. Nobody wants to take sides or be seen as part of the drama.

I was never asked to join them again. Nobody rang to see how I was, apart from the tennis instructor.

Nice guy, very handsome. I thought it was so nice of him to get in touch because nobody else had.

It turned out I hadn’t paid for the last term of lessons, and he wanted his money. ”

At the time, it had made me cry, but today, I laughed, as Stewart snorted through his held-back laughter.

“Typical, isn’t it? Same when you lose your job.

Nobody wants to ring you in case you’re going to ask them to help you get work.

I didn’t dare to call people either because I was embarrassed.

Nobody likes admitting that they were let go.

That their skills were so subpar that they actually weren’t even offered to stay on as anything.

That hotel wouldn’t even offer me a cleaning job.

I could have easily worked on the loading dock.

Done simple admin work. Not wanted. Not needed. It hurt.”

“Says the guy who tells me to man up and get on with it.”

“We both need to do exactly that.” He winked. “And on that note, I think the rice is done.”

The warm evening air felt almost too perfect, and I was actually…

relaxed. Not only that, but the food was simple and warming, and instead of sitting outside on the patio like we’d usually do, we stayed inside, and we talked.

We constantly talked, skipping from one subject to another with ease. And laughter.

“Do you want to move to the sofa?” he asked, taking our plates away like the gentleman he was.

I picked up our empty glasses and followed him to the sink, placing them gently on the worktop as he switched off the lights overhead.

“I think we’ll leave the washing-up for tomorrow. I’d rather just sit and talk to you.”

He was such a gentleman.

“This has been…really nice. I needed this, especially after today. Too much going on. ”

“It has been. But I still have a lot of things I want to ask you. I want to know about these scars.”

“I don’t do it anymore. I haven’t for a very long time. But it’s part of who I am, and what I’ve done. So, you can see where Veronica was coming from. She wanted better for the kids. She wanted them to be in an environment that wasn’t so full of all the issues I brought.”

“But you’re their dad. We all bring issues—good and bad.”

“But most of us don’t get our issues dissected and laid out in public.

Most fathers aren’t made to fight for the right to be allowed to speak to their children on their birthdays.

I’m not saying that for sympathy. I know there are parents who are fighting all the time.

But it still… It’s such a big part of what I’ve become. I didn’t fight. Not hard enough.”

“It’s who you’ll always be,” he said softly, stroking his fingers down my cheek.

I went back for a hug, because that seemed the safest thing to do and because I needed it. I needed to know that I was doing the right thing. That he felt this as much as I did .

“Maybe you didn’t fight hard enough. Maybe you took on some of your mother’s traits, giving your children peace from the drama, letting them settle into what they had. They were with their mother, safe and warm. Am I right?”

“Yes,” I whispered. It seemed so simple when he put it like that.

“And now? We just take it day by day and see what happens. If it goes nowhere, then I need you to promise me that you’ll stop putting yourself down.

You tried. You fought. There will come a day when Constance will turn up and demand to see you, because she loves you, and the boys will follow.

They will be adults and be able to make their own choices.

Until then, you just have to be here and let them know that you are. ”

“I know. I have Constance’s number. I don’t dare to ring her because that would violate the agreement.”

“Her coming to see you violated the agreement. I’m not saying you should, but wait her out. She knows where you are. ”

“I know.”

I did. And the way he leant over and kissed my forehead? I needed that too. I needed all of this. Someone to talk me down. Hold me. Kiss my feverish skin.

I curled into his arms, right there on the sofa, our legs pressed together as he shifted slightly so I could lay my head on his chest.

“I never thought I would fall for a man. Never even considered it.”

I smiled. Ditto. “I…I’ve had crushes before,” I admitted.

The words suddenly sat comfortably in my mouth.

“I’ve felt attracted to very beautiful men, but I’ve never done anything about it.

In my youth, I was too scared. Then I married Veronica, and it never crossed my mind to pursue anything.

I was married. With children. And that was… ”

“Enough.”

“Yes.”

“I think enough is a bad word,” he murmured into my hair. “We shouldn’t settle for less. We should go all in for what we want.”

“Am I…” I struggled to ask the questions I wanted to ask, just as he was clearly struggling to tell me what was on the tip of his tongue .

“Enough?” he said, tipping my chin up with his fingertip.

I liked it. “Dylan, you’re more than enough.

You’re intriguing, and funny, and you make me smile, and you’ve got this snarky side that sometimes comes out to play.

I want to see more of it. I think, deep down, you’re probably the best friend I’ve ever made. ”

“I like…that we are close.”

“I think we’re more than close,” he countered. Then he looked at me, at my lips, his finger tracing my jawline as I lay there like a giant lump of clay. Heavy. Motionless.

Or so I thought, but then my hand was back on his stubbled jaw. Soft. Prickly.

Exciting. He made me breathless, and I couldn’t put words to what I was feeling, apart from a little dizzy.

I was a grown man, yet suddenly I felt like a teenager in heat, crawling around until I was on top of him, his hands around my face as mine were around his, and when our lips finally met, it was like…

I’d waited all my life for this. My entire existence was trivial compared to this very minute when we were just one, my knees digging deep into the sofa, straddling him as he sank into the backrest, my chest pressed to his.

I felt every heartbeat. His and mine .

“Stew…”

He stopped. I didn’t want him to.

“Tell me what you want. Whatever you want, I will try to give it to you.”

That was a big offer. A huge one. The responsibility was endless.

I wanted to squeal out that I didn’t know.

That I had no idea where to go from here, and that I was too old and broken and disjointed to ever be what he wanted me to be.

I wasn’t special. I wasn’t precious. I wasn’t anything but a collection of fragmented humanity shoved into a laundered shirt.

The tie around my neck suddenly felt wrong.

This wasn’t who I was. This wasn’t what was supposed to be my life. The urge to flee hit me, trickles of panic rising through me as my breath left my lungs in a rush.

“Dylan,” he said quietly, cupping my face. “Dylan, Dylan, Dylan.”

“Can I sleep here?” shot out of my mouth.

Self-preservation, fear, panic…then an overwhelming feeling of calm as he wrapped his arms around me, held me against his beating heart .

“You’re staying,” he said. “However that pans out, you’re safe with me.”

For the first time in a long time, I believed it.