Page 28 of Someone Like You

He’d missed talking to Abby this openly.

He’d tried to keep his struggles and fears to himself since moving to Scotland, wishing to take as much of a load off her shoulders as possible.

She had more than enough to deal with: new workplace and new colleagues, new responsibilities, old friendships to rekindle, the frequent trips to London and Edinburgh…

She didn’t need any other burden. But there were things that needed to be addressed.

“Abbs, if…” he began, holding his breath. “If everything goes back to functioning normally in my body, would it be okay if we… if things between us stayed as they are?”

Abby glanced up at him. “You mean platonic?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure.” Abby comfortingly rubbed a hand over his abs. “Are we still okay with physical displays of affection? I can stop if—”

“God, no,” Phil interrupted her with a relieved laugh. He may not always be in the mood for it, but he couldn’t have lived without hugs and kisses. “Please, keep that coming.”

“Okay.” Abby was in the middle of settling back against him when she suddenly perked up again. “Hey, if you think you’re asexual or anything like that, that’s totally fine.”

Phil had considered that many times, but that was before Ian and his enticing everything had come around.

Phil’s dick twitched if he so much as thought about Ian’s sharp comebacks, let alone if he went as far as recalling the scratchy depth of his voice and his massive chest pressed against his back .

He’d never slept with a man, kissed one, or even had a single homosexual thought before meeting Ian.

He had no clue what it was like to have sex with a guy, although one way or another he’d gathered enough basics to imagine , but the thing was: the arousal he experienced around Ian was unprecedented.

He’d never felt that for anyone else, women or men.

The chemicals in his body acted differently when Ian was close, when he spoke, when he laughed…

It was like Phil was going through a second puberty and had to discover himself all over again. At forty -fucking- five .

“Definitely not asexual,” he choked, suddenly parched. “Just… confused.”

Abby nuzzled into the crook of his shoulder. “You’ll figure it out,” she said, her voice taming away all the restlessness simmering inside him. “And if you don’t, we’ll just stick to what you’re comfortable with.”

“You sure?”

Abby grabbed Phil’s chin and urged him to look at her. “I don’t need sex to be happy with you, P. J. Hanson.” A feathery peck graced his cheek.

The sword of Damocles hanging above Phil by a thread rattled, reminding him that withheld truths were lies, too.

He couldn’t live like this — pretending with Abby, pretending with Ian.

If the price for honesty was losing them both, so be it.

* * *

They chatted much more during their runs than they did in the beginning. A matter of improved lung capacity on Phil’s side, surely, but it’d become almost a necessity more recently, as if they were both afraid of what could slip out of their mouths if they let silence take over for too long.

Phil knew all too well what would slip out of his mouth. It’d been lingering there for quite a while now, barely restrained, a mess of feelings and instincts that could’ve been summarised in three stupid little words that made him feel like a cheater just for rolling them around in his mind.

“... she was tiny. Barely ten. If I’d got my hands on him, I’d be in jail and he’d be six feet under. I’m not cut out to deal with these cunts.”

Phil fumbled, trying to remember what they’d been talking about before he’d zoned out. Some game Ian had just been to. There had been a brawl? Triggered by what?

“I don’t think I could survive a stadium,” he said. “Was invited to a couple of football games, but it was VIP suite seats. I kinda liked that.”

“I’d take you to an Old Firm if I wanted to kill ye,” Ian huffed, thinking of the Glasgow Derby, where his beloved Celtic played their oldest, most bitter rivals, Rangers. “The pub is decent most of the time.”

“I liked that too.”

A dimple appeared in Ian’s cheek. His gaze was fixed ahead, minuscule drops of perspiration dotting his forehead.

Phil loved when he tied his hair back, baring the strong neck with all its mesmerising tendons and veins.

As someone who’d always appreciated feminine beauty, he should probably be at least slightly fazed by being so attracted to someone so masculine.

He found it hilarious that he wasn’t, not one bit. It felt too natural to bother him.

He wiped his sweaty face into his shoulder, puffing out a couple of deep breaths while checking his watch: optimal heart rate, 80% of the track completed.

If he’d told last year’s Phil he’d be able to run ten miles in an hour and a half, old Phil wouldn’t have even laughed.

He would’ve just said: ‘You mean we’re still ALIVE in a year? ’

Alive and very much kicking.

Despite the highs and lows.

Before he had a chance to boast about the excellent pace they’d been keeping, a searing pain stabbed his left calf, forcing him to stop and bend over.

Ian instantly skidded to a halt. “What’s up? ”

“Cramp.” Not an excuse, this time. Phil hated cramps. He wasn’t great at keeping himself hydrated, or keeping himself in good condition in general, and he knew — he knew he should be drinking extra water in preparation for a run, but he never did. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. ”

There was a bench not too far ahead, but he was in too much pain to limp to it.

The wet ground was the only viable option, he couldn’t possibly stand one second longer.

He was about to ease himself down when, without a warning, Ian swept an arm under his knees and one around his back and lifted him up in an obnoxiously effortless bridal carry that actually managed to get a snort out of Phil.

“Fucking idiot.”

“And yet I don’t hear you complainin’.”

“I’m depressed, not stupid.”

Ian’s eyes locked into Phil’s with a sparkle that lost most of its mischief the moment Phil’s arms looped around his neck for support.

Talk about Hallmark movie moments.

Clearing his throat, Ian marched towards the bench, dropping several jaws as they passed a group of mothers pushing their strollers.

“If my husband could do that to me, we’d have way more than two weans,” said one of them, and the rest of the group cackled loudly, heads turning to gawk at Ian’s back.

Phil couldn’t blame them. He wasn’t a small man: he was tall and still fairly muscular despite letting himself go. Two-hundred pounds were a lot to carry, but Ian made it look like it was a piece of cake, which would’ve been swoon-worthy even if he hadn’t looked like that .

“Show-off,” Phil grumbled as he was carefully set down on the bench.

“Peasant. ”

Without ceremony, Ian went down on one knee, propped Phil’s foot to his thigh and curled a hand around the calf, prodding experimentally. Phil hissed, gripping the edge of the bench.

“Sorry.” Ian kneaded more carefully, strong fingers moving over the tense muscle in expert moves from the ankle and up, then down and up again, all accompanied by faint grunts of concentration. The cramp was gone within seconds. “Better?”

“No.” Ian glanced up, confused, hand stilling behind Phil’s knee. Phil cracked a smirk. “You’re gonna give me a boner if you keep that up.”

The mischievous sparkle rekindled in Ian’s eyes. “You like me that much?”

“Hate to break it to you like this, but the little guy was on strike for a long while before we met you.”

Ian’s grip twitched around Phil’s calf. “You couldn’t—”

“Nope,” Phil affably confirmed. “But I can now , so tone the gallantry down a notch, if you don’t mind. Jesus fuck, wipe that smug look off your face!” But that just obtained the opposite effect.

“Ye good here?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Ian plopped down on the bench, spreading his arms out along the backrest with a satisfied sigh.

All Phil wanted was to lean back, too, use Ian’s meaty arm as a pillow and close his eyes, forget about the world, what was right or wrong, and just live without thinking about consequences.

He chose to lean forward instead, propping his elbows on his knees while pulling up the neckline of his t-shirt to wipe his face into it.

“Is it always gonna be like this for us?” he asked then, staring at the ground. “Playing flirty boyfriends like it’s a game until it’s so good it starts hurting?”

Ian scoffed. “When doesn’t it hurt?”

Head thrown back, eyes shut, the only sign of bitterness was in the dry sharpness of his tone.

The truth in his words punched Phil so hard he was glad he was already sitting.

There were good things and bad things in life, and you grew up with the naive belief that good was good and bad was bad and that everything was that simple, black or white, but that wasn’t always the case.

Sometimes good things felt bad because they weren’t meant to happen and there was nothing to do about it.

Impossibility made good things unbearable.

“If I didn’t have Abby…”

Ian’s eyes snapped open. “ Don’t .” His neck craning to shoot Phil a pleading look. “Don’t do that.”

“I need to know.”

Ian pulled himself up and propped his elbows on his knees, too. A deep sigh got smothered by a large hand rubbing down his face. “What happened to ‘in another life’ ?”

“You were right. We don’t have another life.”

“What difference would it make?”

“I can’t keep lying to Abby.”

“Nothing happened. There’s nothing to lie about.”

Phil frowned. “That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? I can control my actions, but not how I feel.”

It was apparent Ian hadn’t expected such a direct admission, because he almost smiled at it. Almost .

“Then what? You’re going to leave her for me?”

The disillusioned abrasiveness didn’t scare Phil. He felt the same way. Grieved the same way.

“Would you have me if I did?”

“You’re not fuckin’ serious.”

“Answer the question.”