Falling (3 page)

Angus runs his fingers down the old fabric-covered spines of the books that line the shelves in the hallway. “Have you read all of them?”

I spin round, incredulous. “Are you joking?”

“Is that a no, then?”

He looks so uncertain. What does he think I do up here on my own?

It drives me a little crazy that this boy has to have everything so definite and sure. It makes me want to wrong-foot him and infuriate the certainty out of him.

But instead, he somehow infuriates the certainty out of
me
.

“Does that seem so unlikely?” I ask as I switch on the light in the kitchen and quickly switch it back off again, guiding Angus into the living room as it occurs to me all the explicit sex scenes I papered on the kitchen walls are not what I want Angus to see right now. Kitchen sex seemed like a wonderfully perverse idea when I decorated, but I don’t want to put any more ideas into Angus’s probably already overstimulated imagination.

Faintly he whispers something.

I’m not sure if it’s in answer to my question or not. The living room seems to have captured his attention somewhat.

“You don’t have a TV,” he says more loudly, spinning round and looking a little mesmerized. “And you’ve got clouds on your ceiling.”

I allow myself a grin. “Technically, they’re not clouds.”

I flick the switch on the wall behind him, turning on the overhead light so he can see a little more clearly.

“Nebula,” he says, meeting my gaze with strange intensity.

The room is still pretty shadowy, and usually I love the warm low lighting, but right now I wish it were brighter.

“How? Is it wallpaper?”

I give in. “They’re just photographs from the Internet that I had blown up.”

“But it’s so seamless,” he says, turning round. “Is it accurate?”

“Pretty much. Bit of research, and voilà, the universe. No TV, remember.” I try to smile, but it’s a bit of a painful memory. I did the ceiling before I did the walls, back when I wasn’t really coping.

“It’s amazing.”

This kid who doesn’t smile too often is grinning widely, and all at once I’m glad I brought him up here. It’s not often I feel like this either.

But all the good he does with one sentence, he destroys with the next.

“Why do you never invite anyone back here?”

“Why do none of your friends from school visit?” I retort helplessly.

He wasn’t to know, but his question hit a nerve, and it seems from the stunned expression on his face, mine did too. Right into the heart of things.

I close my eyes.

Up here under the eaves, the rain sounds heavier, and I’m so tired, I feel as though I want to curl up in my warm bed and let it lull me to sleep, but instead I slump down into the armchair behind me, hugging my knees to my chest and thinking how strange it is having someone here. How strange it is watching Angus’s broad-shouldered silhouette as he stands looking out my window at the brightness that lights up distant London.

It’s strange, but I’m surprised to find I don’t mind, not really. Even if we don’t really know what to say to each other now.

When Angus first moved in a couple of months ago, he was lonely, and Eleanor asked me if I would make him feel welcome. So I tried, and we got on pretty well for a few weeks, but then he found out I was gay and things started to get all weird between us. Well, it was either that or the fact that I chased his dad away one day when he was hammering on the door and trying to be all intimidating. Perhaps Angus now sees me as some sort of knight in shining armor.

It makes me want to laugh at how wrong he is.

I pick up the matches off the mantelpiece—it’s a shame I can’t be bothered to fetch any wood to light a fire—and sink back down into the chair as I light the joint.

“Hey,” I say softly. It’s the closest he’ll get to a peace offering.

His shoulders tense, and he turns around, his expression telling me how unsure he is. Of me… of being here. He’s just a kid, I tell myself. A kid who’s as lonely as I am.

I take a drag and pass him the joint. “Sit down. Want a drink?” I offer recklessly.

“Of what?” he asks, leaning back awkwardly on the threadbare velveteen sofa and trying not to cough as he takes too greedy a hit.

His inexperience is a turn-on. It probably shouldn’t be. No. It
definitely
shouldn’t be.

“Beer. It’s not particularly strong. I don’t want to get you drunk,” I add before I can stop myself. The guilt I’m feeling for upsetting him just now is doing strange things to me—things like causing this weirdly protective urge to look after him.

He nods, and I leave him staring around the room as I retrieve a couple of glasses and the beer from the kitchen.

This is the last thing I thought I would be doing this evening. To be perfectly honest, playing host to a lonely eighteen-year-old is up there with firing rockets at the moon.

I
FORGOT
how weed makes your mind elastic and alcohol cuts your mind’s ties with your tongue. It’s been years since I’ve felt like this, drunk this much with anyone else around. And though it feels kind of nice, I wish I could shut up.

We’re lying on the sofa on the verge of slipping off—there is not enough room. I can’t remember how we ended up here in the first place. I think I must have fallen over it on the way back from the kitchen with the third or fourth round of drinks. Angus is gripping my arm to stop me sliding, and I’m laughing so hard it hurts. God, happiness is painful.

In between my laughter, I’m telling him in all seriousness about what makes up the darkness of the Horsehead Nebula. It seems crucial that I impart this information to him, but for some reason he snickers every time I say
horsehead
, and in a rush of giddy laughter, we land in a heap on the floor, knocking bottles and glasses flying.

We stop laughing at exactly the same moment, and though the pleasure of it still rolls through me, it’s now mixed with a different, deeper sort of bliss.

A bliss that comes from having another body lying close to mine, so warm and strong, another heart thumping excitedly.

It’s been so long since I’ve been so warmly tangled with someone. I didn’t realize quite how much I’ve missed it.

I stroke my fingers down a fabric-covered limb because, I tell myself, it’s hard to know where I end and he begins. I’m just curious, I tell myself. It’s not because I like the weight of his slightly stockier form pressing me into the floor, or the steady warmth that has suddenly surrounded me.

His head is on my chest. I think I can feel the pulse of him against me somewhere low down. My own pulse is like the electricity of a thundering machine, rushing blood and longing round my pathetic, lonely body.

I wish this didn’t feel so good, so right. I wish it wasn’t making me hard. I should push him off. I should open the window and drink in lungfuls of cold London air to cure this madness.

But I don’t.

We shift like a moveable sea, as a single being. When I feel the heat of Angus’s breath on the side of my neck and his fingers, somehow in this mess of limbs, find mine, I turn my head toward his and his mouth opens against my cheek and, sloppily, he kisses me.

Again I’m just curious. It’s not because I want him so much as I just want
someone
.

He’s not good at this, but what he lacks in experience, he makes up for with sweetness, as when he doesn’t find my mouth the first time, he searches so tenderly, eyes squeezed shut tight until I relent and turn my head so our lips brush and we hungrily press our mouths together. Deliciously, he whimpers when I flick my tongue against his and grinds his erection into my thigh. He tastes so smoky, and his mouth is so hot and liquid, I want time to explore it. I want to get lost in the taste of him.

I kiss him deeply, and the sound he makes reverberates down my throat and awakens something so long dormant inside my chest, it aches.

Willing and eager, he lets me roll him over onto his back and pin his arms above his head. I’m not curious anymore. Alcohol has diminished my usually rigid self-control, and I know exactly what I want. I want him naked and trapped beneath me, pressed against the floor. Pushing my hips hard against his, I nuzzle his neck, drinking in the earthy scent of him while he tries to kiss any part of me he can reach. I am desperate with need, and in some still sober corner of my mind, I know that if I kiss his mouth again, this is going to go too far, too fast. Cautiously I lick and then suck the supple skin at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He tilts his head to give me better access and moans encouragingly. I don’t know where this desire to mark him has come from. It feels primeval. When I start nipping and rolling his skin between my teeth, he gasps and yelps, so lost to the sensation, I know this is going to make him come. He trusts me not to hurt him, and it’s the biggest turn-on.

“Josh,” he moans breathlessly.

And just like that, it’s as though a bucket of icy water has been poured over my head.

Fuck, I don’t even know why, but hearing my name has shattered whatever fragile spell was working its magic between us.

I recoil away from him, my hand covering my mouth, disgusted with myself.

I’m suddenly sober as all hell and horrified that I let things get this far with Eleanor’s son. Eleanor’s completely inexperienced and unworldly
eighteen
-year-old son. Eleanor, whom I owe far too much to. Eleanor, who trusts me. How did I let myself get so carried away?

And it’s not just that—I don’t do sex with people I know. I don’t do intimacy. People don’t whisper my name as if I am holding their heart in my hands. I can’t deal with being so close to anyone. I feel sick.

I don’t know what to do.

In my mind I’m rushing toward the bathroom, locking the door, and throwing up, but in reality my limbs feel like lead and I can’t move. I crawl into the chair next to the sofa, wanting it to swallow me.

“Josh? What did I do wrong?” I hear him whisper.

He’s not feeling sorry for himself this time. He’s scared and he’s hurt. He really thinks he
has
done something wrong. And I know from other things he’s said it’s probably because of that fucking shit of a father he feels like this—he doesn’t think it’s me who has a problem, he automatically thinks it’s him.

I
am a complete shit—I don’t answer. The words just won’t come. Even though he has done nothing wrong, nothing at all.

Shakily he gets up off the floor and sits on the edge of the sofa. He sets a few of the bottles upright. The gentle clinking as they touch one another is the only sound in the room. I expect him to leave. I want him to leave.
Go, just go
, I will him.

Although I spend most of my time on my own, I’ve never needed to
be
alone more than I do right now. I wish I could take this hour back.

“Josh?” he murmurs and brings his hands up to his face.

“You should go home, Angus,” I say tightly.

Go home and never come back.

N
EXT
MORNING
I’m woken by a knock. It’s quiet and not urgent but still I leap out of bed in case Eleanor needs me, in case it means something has happened downstairs. It’s only when I pass the mess of glasses and bottles I didn’t bother clearing up in the living room and catch the faint, stale smell of smoke in the air, that I recall what happened last night, and I hesitate before opening the door. Dread pools low in my stomach, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

Please don’t be Angus.

Slowly I unlock the door, and when I open it, I frown.

It’s not Angus.

It’s not anyone.

In the bedroom, I can hear my 7:00 a.m. wake-up call going off. The hallway is empty, although there is a strong scent of coffee coming from somewhere. I look around, puzzled, and then on the floor at my feet, I see one of Eleanor’s brightly colored round tin trays laden with coffee and croissants from the bakery down the road.

I just stare at it.

I don’t know what to do.

The thought that he could have poisoned them flares briefly in my paranoid mind, but I quickly snuff it out. I know I’m being ridiculous. I just don’t understand why he’d do this for me when I’m the one who messed up last night. I’m the one who should have had more self-control and not allowed it to happen. And this has to be from Angus. Eleanor hasn’t left the house for so long.

Carefully picking up the tray, I close the door and take it through to the kitchen, where I put it on the table and sit unmoving in front of it until the coffee has gone cold.

I’
M
LATE
for work. I spend half an hour sitting in my car in the car park, picking at the black tape that holds my CD player in place, and wondering what the hell I should do. I have the desire to start the car again and go, to drive and drive and drive until I’m poised over the edge of something and can go no farther. It’s just a fantasy, but I need it.

I didn’t even check in on Eleanor as I usually do in the morning. I just left. My self-loathing feels a lot like nausea today.

I can’t stop thinking about how I kissed Angus. I can’t stop thinking about the warmth of his body against mine, how close we were, and how that feeling turned so wrong when he said my name and brought me back to myself. I let him kiss me, knowing he likes me. I let him kiss me, knowing how young he is.

It was as though I’d been having a wet dream and it’d twisted into a fucking nightmare.

I
wanted
him. So badly.

No, I correct myself sternly, I wanted
someone
. He just happened to be there.

Perhaps I just need to get laid. Sex is just a physical need, after all.

S
OREN
IS
sorting out the cash in the till with his maroon-and-gold tie wrapped around his head. He raises an eyebrow as I walk past.