Falling (23 page)

Overthinking never helps. I force myself to go back into the living room to help with the lights. When we’re done, we turn off the overhead lights and switch on the overloaded socket with all the fairy lights.

“This is probably going to take out the electrics to half of South London,” I say, only half joking and seriously wondering if it’s going to trip the electrics in the flat. But it doesn’t.

Angus has set the lights to fade gently on and off at different times, and the effect is mesmerizing. The three of us stand there gazing at the tree.

Angus takes my hand. His palm is warm, and when I bring it to my lips, all I can smell is pine needles. He leans his head against my shoulder.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it…. I’ll be downstairs,” Oskar says, hobbling out of the room.

For the first time, it occurs to me that it might hurt him to see me and Angus together. They never really had a thing, but still, I know he likes Angus.

“Oskar, are you seeing your family on Christmas Day?” I call out.

“Yeah, my sister,” Oskar calls back, opening my front door.

Oskar’s sister lives in town, and I’ve seen her here a few times. She has two kids… they must both be under five. They stared at me once when I was coming downstairs. I pulled a funny face at them and they ran away screaming or squealing—it’s hard to tell with kids. I hear Oskar playing games with them sometimes.

“You were going to invite him up here on Christmas Day, weren’t you?” Angus says as we listen to Oskar thump slowly down the stairs. He smiles.

“Only if he was going to be on his own…,” I say. Because even if seeing me and Angus together hurts, I’ve known loneliness. I’ve known how heavy its weight can be, and I’ve been crushed beneath it more than once.

“I didn’t expect you to get a tree, you know. It must have been expensive.” He stares at the tree, the lights of it reflected in his eyes like stars.

Is this what he’s worried about?

“Christmas isn’t really my thing—” I start to say.

“That’s what I mean.”

“I bought it for you. Because it’s your thing…. Are you okay?”

All at once he’s in my arms, sobbing. For a second I think I’ve upset him somehow with my stupid tree, and my heart drops, but he breathes words in my ear that sound like “Thank you,” and I hold him so tight.

“Y
OUR
PHONE
is ringing,” Angus murmurs, his arms still around me.

“I know. I’m ignoring it.”

Angus pulls away and wipes his sleeve across his eyes. Before I realize what he’s doing, he’s slipped his hand in my trouser pocket and pulled out my phone.

“Soren,” he says glancing at the screen before answering it and holding it to his ear.

“Hi,” he says. “It’s Angus….” A smile plays on his lips as he backs away across the room, still holding the phone to his ear and letting Soren talk. “Yeah, we’re free,” he says happily, while I narrow my eyes and shake my head at him.

I doubt I’m going to like whatever he is agreeing to. I have a feeling whatever he is agreeing to is going to involve some loud club or bar in town. Even though I try not to let it, dread unspools inside me.

“I’m going in the shower,” I mouth, thinking of all the ways I can get out of whatever Soren is going to get Angus to agree to.

The Christmas tree glows with soft pulses of light at my back. It’s nice and warm in front of the fire.

A distraction is better than an excuse any day.

I kick off my shoes and pull my jumper over my head.

I don’t really get Angus’s attention until I start to undo my jeans. At that point he stops looking at my face and watches my hands. I slide my jeans down my thighs, stepping out of them as though I strip like this every day. I play with the waistband of my underwear before pushing them down too.

“Okay,” Angus says to Soren a little distractedly. “See you later.”

He puts the phone down. Swallows. “Soren says to tell you three things.”

I touch my cock. Angus glances up at my face, just quickly, and gives me an “I can’t quite work out what you’re doing” look before he goes back to hungrily watching my hand.

Every time he tries to step closer, I move away.

“Soren can go fuck himself,” I say. I sort of mean it, but I’m smiling.

Angus is turned on. Angus is easy, so easy.

“It’s a Russian bar… Soren says. Oskar has to come too—I think he’s addicted to cocktails like the one Oskar made him. He said we have to get a taxi. He says if you come, he’ll get Emma to cover the first part of your shift tomorrow.”

Angus talks quickly as if he’s not really thinking about the words, as if he’s afraid he’s going to forget everything.

“And if I don’t?”

He shrugs, still not looking at my face. I know exactly what he is looking at. I grin.

“Does this turn you on?” I step back against the wall and arch my back, stroking my cock slowly, slowly.

Angus strips off his jumper, his T-shirt. He throws them on the floor. He undoes the buckle on his belt. The fairy lights dance on his skin. All the hollows, all the shadows.

I step forward as he’s bent over pushing his trousers down, and I lick across his back, his shoulder blades, his spine. He tastes salty and earthy. He holds on to me as though he’s going to fall over. I lick him again, and he groans and tackles me roughly to the floor. I lie back as he straddles my hips and tries to pin my hands above my head. He’s got the strength but not the inclination to be rough. I fight him a little. Just playfully.

All at once he leans his whole weight down over me and frowns.

I stop struggling. I let his hands clasp mine and hold me in place.

“Is this…. Are you doing this to get out of going out with Soren?”

I swallow uncomfortably. What would be the point in lying?

“I like having sex with you,” I say, opting for being evasive instead.

Angus looks troubled. The erection that was so obvious in his shorts a moment ago has wilted. “You really don’t want to go out, do you?”

I shake my head, feeling the cracks in the boards beneath my skull. Feeling the weight of Angus’s disappointment sit like stones on my chest.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, closing my eyes.

His soft hands let go their grip on my arms, and he cups my face. “Hey. I’m sorry. I’ll call Soren back, tell him another time or something. Maybe if he gave us a bit of warning?”

“It’s been so long,” I murmur. I feel awful. Angus isn’t the only one who’s lost his erection.

“It’s okay. I didn’t think.”

You shouldn’t have to think, Angus.

For the first time since we’ve been together—really together—I feel like maybe Angus has made a mistake. But I stop that train of thought before it even gets started. Pointless. He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to be. I’m hardly forcing him. He’s pursued me since, well, since before he even knew me.

“Soren has been trying to get me to go out with him and his friends or Lucy for years. He thinks I’ll just pretend to forget if he gives me any warning…. I guess he was just trying another tack.” I hesitate and then say, “Invite him here.”

Angus studies me. I know I’ll never be able to lie to him. It’s a good thing, but perhaps one day it’ll be what hurts him the most.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a few drinks, and Soren and whoever can bring some more. Oskar can make cocktails if Soren brings the right ingredients,” I add, knowing Oskar will probably be more than up for that.

“I’ll call him and then”—he leans down, all smiles and warm skin—“we can finish what we started here, yes?”

Wrapping my arm around his waist, I pull him closer.
Yes.

L
ATER
WE
lie in bed, Angus splayed across me like a warm blanket. The real blanket has been kicked to the end of the bed. The flat is warm from people, laughter.

“I’m glad everyone came here,” I say, meaning it.

I bring Angus’s wrist to my lips and kiss the soft skin. He loves to be kissed there. There and at the juncture of his thighs. He lifts his head and pushes his face against mine, and we kiss lazily.

It’s half one in the morning, and I am exhausted. Without looking, I reach behind me and flick off the light.

“It was fun.” Angus pauses, and I know he’s thinking about something. “Do you think Oskar is okay?”

“With you staying up here, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

Angus has yet to return to the flat downstairs at night. Every night since I told him I was in love with him, we’ve slept curled around each other like cats, in a tangle of limbs and impossible angles. Maybe I should make it more official. But not at half one in the morning.

“I think he probably quite likes having your flat to himself. From what he’s told me, he’s never had a flat to himself before.”

“Yeah. I just don’t want him to think it’s because of him I’m not there. I don’t want him to feel unwelcome.”

“I think he knows it’s not because of him you’re not there,” I say wryly.

I’m almost asleep when Angus murmurs drowsily, “You miss them. You don’t have to miss them.”

I know he means my family. I open my eyes to the dark and roll away onto my side, pretending I haven’t heard his words.

I can’t, Angus
, I think.

But I have no good reason for what is stopping me anymore. Other than I’m scared. Scared that if I contact them, they’ll want nothing to do with me. They’ll tell me I left it too long or they’re better off without their fucked-up son. Perhaps Angus can see how my fear eats away at me. Perhaps he can see the bright bit of hope I want to keep burning that I still have a family, that I’ll always have a family even if we never contact one another again.

But what is the point of having a family you never see?

Perhaps he’s trying to show me that whatever happens, my family is with him, that he and Eleanor will always be part of my life if that’s what I want.

I want that more than anything.

I close my eyes and hold Angus in the dark.

C
HRISTMAS
E
VE
,
and Angus is sleeping on the sofa, the fire glowing in the hearth. He is worn out.

We spent this morning bringing each other off slowly—agonizingly slowly. I’ve never had sex anywhere near as intense. I made Angus come without touching him, without letting him touch himself even. It was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.

At twelve we dressed and showered and then spent the afternoon with Eleanor. For the first time since she’s been in hospital, I wish she hadn’t tried to hide how sad she is. It’s hard to explain, but Angus spent the afternoon trying to cheer her up when he could have spent it just being with her, no expectations, no pressure.

I wanted to say to her,
It’s okay to be sad that you’re in hospital and not at home
.
It’s okay to be sad that things have turned out like this
.
I know you wanted your first Christmas with your son in however many years to be at home, but it can still mean something
.
He would understand that you feel sad
.
Please don’t make him feel like he has to dance around cheering you up
.

But it’s not something you can tell someone, really, is it? And I do understand—it’s crap being in hospital. Tomorrow morning we’re supposed to go and see Angus’s dad. It’ll go how it goes, I guess. Good, bad, we’ll deal with it.

I cover Angus with Eleanor’s quilt and wander back into the kitchen, staring at my phone. I know what I want to do. What I have to do. Doesn’t make it any easier, though.

The number is imprinted on my brain. It was the first phone number I ever memorized, and I’ve never forgotten it. I’ll know it for always.
Home
. Guilt flickers in my chest for thinking of anywhere other than this little flat as home. But once upon a time, my parents’ house was the only home I knew.

I dial the number, and bring the phone to my ear as I lean against the sink. I stare out the window at the dark, glittering brightness of London streets. When the phone rings, I try not to hold my breath.

“Hello?” An excited, girlish voice gasps.

A thousand other voices seem to ring out in the background. It sounds like a party. I stand in my kitchen with the lights off, imagining everything all lit up and bright.

“Hello?” she says again.

I open my mouth, but I no longer know what to say.

I put the phone down and lean against the table, breathing hard.

She must be seventeen now, my sister. Rose. And that had to be her, didn’t it?

I can’t imagine the number is no longer theirs. My parents were never ones for change.

I open a bottle of orange brandy I bought for a dessert and pour myself half a glass. It’s the only liquor I have left in the house, and God, it’s disgusting, but I like the way it burns inside me.

“Okay?” Angus asks as he stands in the doorway, wrapped in the quilt, blinking blearily.

The Christmas tree is making the whole flat glow soft then bright, like a heartbeat.

I nod and down the rest of my brandy.

I told Angus my parents had never tried to contact me after I left the hospital. While that’s true, it’s also true that they wouldn’t have been officially notified until after I had left. They wouldn’t have known where I was by then.

And I never told them.

“What are you doing in the dark?” he asks gently.

I hold up my phone. “Something stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” he says, coming to stand in front of me. He rests his head against my shoulder. I love that he knows me well enough to work me out. Who else would I be phoning in the dark on Christmas Eve but my parents?

“I don’t know what to say to them,” I say, pulling him into a hug.

“Hi? How are you? I’d like to maybe come see you sometime? My boyfriend would love to meet you,” he mumbles against my jumper.