Page 29 of Someone Like You

Ian turned the other way with a terse sniff. “I was going to say I’d go to bloody hell and back for you, but we’re already there.”

As forlorn as the remark was, it spilled a sprinkle of sunlight into Phil’s chest.

“That’s... oddly romantic,” he couldn’t help but grin. “Not what I expected, but…”

“What’d ye want to hear? That Abigail’s the only thing standing between us? ’Cause she is.” A grimace twisted Ian’s mouth. “I hate myself for all the times I’ve wished she didn’t exist. But she does, and you love each other, so why are we even talkin’ about this?”

“I don’t know,” Phil had to admit. He hadn’t felt so lost and so frighteningly helpless. “I wish… I don’t even know. That things were… different.”

“I’m not worth losing her.”

“So you’re encouraging me to lie? ”

“Fuck’s sake, Phil…”

“It’s not your decision to make, is it?”

Ian’s shoulders sank, shrouded by sadness. “You can’t throw away four happy years and a whole future with Abigail just because you met some hot guy on a trip to Scotland.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m jeopardising my relationship with my fiancée because you’re hot, I’m that shallow!” Phil spat, anger now mounting inside him. If Ian thought this whole ordeal was just a horny crush, Phil had bad news for him.

“So what’s your plan? Ruin everythin’ for you two just to risk it all with me?”

“I don’t know.”

“We might not even work out, so why—”

Phil saw red. “You know that’s bullshit!” He jumped to his feet, fuming. There were many things he was willing to let slide, but not this. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t think we’d make each other happy.” He towered over Ian, nostrils flaring. “C’mon, big man! Lie to my face!”

Ian shook his head, refusing to look up.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

A cold breeze blew on their clammy skin.

“You love her,” said Ian glumly.

“It’s because I love her that I can’t keep this from her.

You, of all people, should understand.” Phil bit the inside of his cheek, afraid he’d overstepped his boundaries, but it was too late to take it back.

It was true, after all: Ian had been in Abby’s place with Jamie.

He knew how harmful hiding things from your partner was.

“She has a right to know her fiancé’s in love with someone else. ”

Also in love with someone else?

Semantics.

An abrupt silence fell. Even the wind stopped blowing, leaving an unnatural stillness around them. Motionless trees and their dead leaves, no one in sight. Just the two of them and an uncomfortable truth that should’ve stayed buried for the sake of a friendship that had become nothing but a facade.

Ian glanced up at Phil with an anguished expression of shock and betrayal and then cowardly away again, a sorrowful crease in his brow.

“What? Thought I didn’t have the guts to say it?

” Phil snarled. “ I love you. ” He spit it out venomously, as if he didn’t know it was as painful for Ian to hear as it was for him to pronounce.

But the pain was soothing. It was familiar.

It was comforting. Still better than the nothing Phil had lived with all this time.

“I love you,” he repeated, spite and desperation merging in the quaver of his voice. “ Look at me, Ian, for fuck’s sake! ”

Ian obeyed, his posture slack with resignation. “Stop.” Blue eyes watered turning to the harsh grey light. “Please, don’t make this any—”

“No. I want you to hear this, if it’s the last thing I get to say to you.” Phil’s hands clenched into fists. He wasn’t going to keep quiet any more, whatever the consequences. “You were like an earthquake under my feet. Since the day we ran into each other—”

“Ach, so it’s mutual responsibility now?”

Phil had to stop for a second to shake off an unwitting laugh and start again.

“Since the day we ran into each other, you’ve been altering my fucking brain chemistry — you and that insufferable smart mouth of yours.

And you know what? Being alive finally tastes like something again.

So forgive me — for-fucking-give me — for latching onto the very first feeling in forever that wasn’t utter misery !

I’m sorry it turned into this . But you dragged me out of a very dark place and you can’t make me regret how I feel about you! Can’t make me regret— ”

The words died in his mouth as Ian sprang to his feet and grabbed his face, thumbs pressing into Phil’s lips to seal them.

“Shut. The fuck. Up.” Ian pressed their foreheads together, breathing heavily, as his grip tightened to the point Phil couldn’t move his jaw.

“Shut your fucking mouth, Phil, I swear to god.”

“Make me.”

The taunt, devoid of any real provocation, managed to extort a soundless laugh out of Ian, but it was the most broken and most heartbreaking laugh Phil had ever heard.

“You’re a bloody arsehole.” Ian’s iron grip melted into a reverent touch, his hands moulding around Phil’s face, ever so gently, like handling an extremely fragile piece of glass.

“Don’t do this,” he implored. “Don’t fuck up the best thing in your life for something that might not work. You’re smarter than that.”

Phil granted Ian and himself a few seconds of respite, just to savour that unexpected closeness and soak up as much of its intimacy as he could, as long as he could. It was just another stolen moment, but, as wretched and forbidden as it was, Phil couldn’t see anything wrong in it.

It shouldn’t be like this.

Love shouldn’t compromise love.

Love shouldn’t outrule more love.

“I’m not smart,” he heaved out, holding on to Ian’s wrists for dear life. “I’m a fucking moron. A greedy, selfish son of a bitch who has two best things in his life and doesn’t know how to live without either of them.”

A reluctant laugh pushed through Ian’s teeth. He inched back from Phil but didn’t let go of him, which Phil was thankful for because he felt dizzy and wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand on his own.

“We really fucked up, eh?”

Phil bobbed his head as he gulped. “Big time.”

It didn’t feel fucked up though.

And that was the problem.

How could they feel bad about something that felt so right ?

How could they ignore that they’d found each other across the world, against all odds, and it’d felt like coming home?

“You wouldn’t actually leave Abigail,” Ian muttered, and by the tone it was unclear whether it was a statement or a question.

“No,” Phil grudgingly admitted. “I could never.”

It seemed cruel to say it so straight-facedly, but the answer pacified Ian, who let go of Phil’s face to give his shoulders a firm squeeze.

“Good.”

“But maybe she’ll be the one to get rid of me, who knows.” Phil shrugged. “Do you take sloppy seconds?”

The squeeze turned into a shove. “You’re full of shit.” Ian waited for Phil to breathe the dizziness away. It took a few tries. “Ready?”

“I could use some water.”

Ian nodded. They’d left the fountain behind them, but it wasn’t distant.

“C’mon. We still have two miles to go.”