by Anna Martin
Ben shook his head slowly. “Did we just get a shout-out from Radio One?”
Summer looked like she was about to boil over with excitement. Then she broke, jumping up from her spot at the table and into Geordie’s arms, squealing and laughing. Geordie laughed and spun her around, then planted a big kiss on her lips.
“Right,” Jez said, clearly amused at the affection on display. “Now the real work starts.”
It was possibly the last balmy, warm evening of the year. Stan had convinced Ben to stay in bed for a little afternoon delight, while the rest of the band fled the house to start setting up at the Buck Shot. Jez had arranged a gig there, the last one in London before they headed out on tour again, this time with the intention of covering as much of Europe as they could. Festival season was over, but there was still plenty of interest in live music at this time of year, especially as universities started building their weekend gig schedules.
The difference was, this time Stan was going with them.
He didn’t quite have an official job within the Ares machine yet, but it was something to do with blogging, social media, industry contacts, tour planning, and making sure none of the band got arrested. The adverts he’d set up on his own blog were turning in some income, and the EP was selling well enough to fund at least part of the tour. Unbeknownst to the band, Stan had arranged for part of the gig tonight to be filmed, and that footage would make up part of their first music video. They didn’t know about that yet either.
In the week since the song had been played on Radio One, things had gone slightly mental. They’d gained tens of thousands of Twitter followers, seemingly out of nowhere, and a few other radio stations had picked up the song and played it. The website had been radically overhauled to accommodate the traffic heading towards it, and Jez had figured out how to get the EP onto iTunes and Spotify. They’d had interview requests. From both magazines and radio stations. And calls from agents. They were still trying to figure out what to do with that.
“You ready?” Ben called.
Stan took a deep breath and fluffed his hair for the last time.
“Coming.”
After plenty of internal debate, he’d decided to wear a dress for the gig. The last time he’d worn something feminine was before he went into hospital, and he knew Ben noticed. Unlike Tone, Ben was still dancing around Stan’s illness, treating him like he was something precious and fragile. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. There was room in his life for someone who treated him like a queen, and also for someone who ignored Stan’s protests of veganism and plied him with chocolate and fried chicken and porridge.
For tonight, Stan had curled his hair into big, bouncy waves. The dress was an elegantly structured combination of silk and tulle, finishing mid-shin. He was wearing his black Louboutin ankle boots, the ones that made him feel powerful and feminine and badass. Plenty of dark eyeshadow finished the look.
“Stan,” Ben said, his voice exasperated as he stuck his head around the bedroom door. “Holy shit, you look incredible.”
“Too much?”
“Definitely not. If I didn’t have a gig to get to, I’d stay home and just take it all off you.”
Stan laughed. “Okay. I’m ready.”
They caught a cab to the pub—because of the heels—and they were far too close to bother getting the Tube. The cab dropped them off on the wrong side of the road because it was easier than trying to turn around in Friday night traffic.
Ben slipped his hand into Stan’s as they waited at the pedestrian crossing and Stan felt something flutter in his belly, like it often did when he had a chance to be affectionate with Ben in public like this. The sun was just starting to set over Camden. This was when the real fun started in their little corner of London—the sun went down and the boys came out to play.
A young girl was waiting to cross the road, holding hands with her mother. Stan looked down at her pretty face and pigtails and grinned.
The little girl grabbed the hem of Ben’s black T-shirt and tugged.
“Alice,” the mother scolded. Ben shook his head at her—he didn’t mind.
“Is she a princess?” Alice stage-whispered.
Stan did a double take; firstly at the pronoun, secondly at the title. From the look on Ben’s face he was trying, very hard, not to laugh.
“Yeah,” he said. “She is. But don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Okay,” Alice said, then turned back to her mother, an excited expression on her face.
“Sorry,” Alice’s mum said.
“Not a problem,” Stan said softly.
The lights turned, traffic stopped, and Ben pulled Stan into a run across the road.
“Princess, eh?” Stan asked as they came to a stop in front of the pub. Ben laughed, tipping his head back to expose his throat.
“Yeah. My princess, anyway.”
Stan let Ben pull him into a long, slow kiss. He reached up to wind his arms around Ben’s shoulders, hanging on as they swayed together and Ben’s hands drifted down to squeeze Stan’s ass. Someone passing by whistled at them and Stan broke away with a laugh, kissing Ben’s nose instead.
“You ready for this?” Stan asked. Ben seemed to understand. Tonight was the start of something new for all of them. The end of one era, the beginning of the next one.
“As long as I can do it with my princess, I can do anything,” Ben murmured, the words soft against Stan’s lips. Stan smiled and pulled himself just a tiny bit closer to Ben’s solid chest. “With my beautiful, impossible boy.”
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Sequel to The Impossible Boy
THE LOST BOY
Five years after his band Ares shot to success, Ben Easton is struggling. He’s holed up in a mansion in Los Angeles while he fights depression and a dark drug addiction that threatens to destroy everything. In a final attempt to save Ben’s life, his best friend Tone does something desperate—he calls Ben’s ex-boyfriend Stan and begs him to help.
Stan Novikov is living in New York and thriving in his career as a fashion journalist. He hasn’t been back to London since he and Ben broke up, but that seems like the right place to go—along with Tone—to try and shock Ben out of his unhealthy lifestyle.
The band have to finish their album before Christmas but without Ben, work has stalled. Ben has to decide whether he’s going to stay with Ares and keep making music, or find another path for his future. One that might just include Stan.
Cricket
by Anna Martin
Prologue
Annabell Richardson was a rich old lady with a wicked sense of humour. She celebrated her ninety-first birthday in the house she’d lived in since childhood, the same house which had stood proudly through two world wars and the quiet, gentle death of her family.
Nell, as she was known in the village, played bingo on Mondays, did her washing on Tuesdays, scrubbed her step (on ninety-one-year-old hands and knees) on Wednesdays, took lunch with the vicar on Thursdays, and went to the pub for a gin on Fridays. It was a routine as well-worn as the lines in her face.
Nell swore like a sailor and liked to read dirty books that she found in the local Oxfam charity shop. She hadn’t missed an episode of Coronation Street in thirty-eight years. She got ideas from television programs that her solicitor strongly advised her against implementing.
Nell Richardson rarely did as she was told.
Chapter One
The rain lashed down on the streets of Manhattan as Henry Richardson rushed for the subway. The message that had been left for him, summoning him to his lawyer’s office in the middle of the day, had been more than a little ominous. Despite all his instincts telling him to hide his face, he’d braved the weather and headed out.
Henry slicked his dark hair back as he looked up at the building, double checking he had the right address. The offices of Dawson, Swan and Co. were small but suitably modern, and being a small, modern business, they had been happy to correspond with
Henry mostly by e-mail up until now. Inside, there was a young woman working reception who wore her blouse with too many buttons undone but smiled prettily at him as he gave his name.
“Go on through, Mr. Richardson.”
Gareth Swan—the beast of a man who spent more working hours out to lunch than he did in the office—invited him in like an old family friend. Gareth and Henry’s father had season tickets to the Yankees just two rows apart and had a long-standing arrangement for a beer together after every winning game. A Bronx native, Swan had built his own career and was proud of the fact he’d put himself through college, waiting tables to pay his tuition fees. Now a barrel-chested man of sixty-five, he was greying at the temples and rarely took cases any longer.
Henry’s case had been a special exception, at the request of his father.
“Come in, Henry. Sit down,” Gareth said, welcoming him with a warm handshake and carefully not staring too closely at Henry’s face. “Glad you found us okay. How’s your mother?”
“Distraught,” Henry said and tried to disguise the fact that rainwater was actually seeping through his jeans to his underwear. “Lou Lou died.”
His mother’s pet poodle had finally kicked the bucket, and, according to his father, she had been in mourning ever since. The house was full of lilies, and she was wearing nothing but black.
“Oh dear,” Gareth said with a hearty chuckle. “She always was attached to that dog.”
Henry managed a wan smile and leaned forward in his seat. “Please tell me they haven’t found anything else. I thought it was all being wrapped up.”
“It is,” Gareth said. “There’s nothing to worry about, Henry. The settlements are being finalised. Then we can be done with the whole messy business. I’ve actually been approached on another matter entirely. Normally, I dismiss these things right away, but considering the circumstances….”
“Tell me,” Henry said, not even bothering to hide his desperation.
“It’s not bad news.”
“Thank God for that.” He relaxed a tiny bit.
“Henry, have you ever heard of Cheddar?”
“The cheese?”
“No, the place.”
“No. Is it in Wisconsin?”
Gareth chuckled again. “No. Somerset.”
“Somerset… New England?”
“Ha! Wrong again. Somerset, original England.”
Henry sat back in his chair, utterly confused. “No, Gareth, I’ve never heard of Cheddar. Or Somerset.”
With great relish, and with the swagger of a man who knew something, Gareth leaned forward on his desk. “Well, Henry, you might want to familiarise yourself.”
Less than a week later, Henry woke with a start as a woman—a flight attendant—placed her hand on his arm and asked him to buckle up for landing.
Groggily, he snapped the belt over his lap and pulled the thin blanket more tightly around his shoulders. He’d always hated flying, always found himself too cold, and his skin dried out horribly, especially on longer flights.
This was the last leg of his journey from Amsterdam to Bristol, and he’d caught only a few hours’ sleep at a time over the past twenty or so hours. His body and his head had no idea what the time was, and his split lip was throbbing where he’d bitten down on it while sleeping. This was the last of his injuries to heal, probably because he kept chewing on it by accident.
In the frequent moments when Henry wondered what the fuck he was doing, he carefully repeated the facts over and over in his mind; those, at least, being comforting to him.
Nell Richardson, his father’s grandmother, was dying.
But she was taking her time about it.
With spiralling private healthcare costs, she had reached the stage where her move to a nursing home was imminent, and her greatest fear was that her beloved family home would be sold to help pay the bills.
That was, unless she could pass the house on to a relative—any relative—in her will. Henry still wasn’t sure why she’d chosen him over one of his cousins, but Gareth was convinced that Mrs. Richardson wanted him to go first, before she considered passing the house on to anyone else.
Not that Henry was complaining. With the year he’d had, getting out of New York, even if it was just for a visit, was a tempting prospect.
When, through Gareth, Henry sent word that he was willing to go and meet the old lady, he was shocked at the speed of the response. His flights and travel visas were secured with surprising alacrity, making him wonder what was so important that he needed to be in England within a week.
For this trip, he’d packed relatively light, which for him meant two suitcases and his carry-on bag. He had no idea how long it was going to take, and, other than the fabled rain, he didn’t know what the weather was like during the British springtime.
It was early evening when he dragged himself and his luggage out of the airport terminal into a steady, misty rain. A short, squat man held a sign with his name on it, and Henry followed him out to a vehicle that was emblazoned with the cab firm’s logo: STDs. Underneath, in a smaller font, the full name of the firm—Somerset Taxi Drivers—didn’t really counter the first impression.
“You from New York?” the driver asked as they pulled out of the airport.
“Yeah,” Henry said, failing to keep the weariness from his voice.
“Long trip. Long trip.”
As they made the journey south, Henry tried to keep awake, to watch the changing scenery as they moved through the rolling countryside, but his eyes were drooping. It only took thirty minutes before they were pulling up in front of a small building with bright flowers hanging from baskets either side of the door.
“This is it.”
“Thanks,” Henry said, digging in his pocket for his wallet.
“It’s all paid for,” the driver assured him. “Mrs. Richardson said to put it on her tab.”
Henry nodded, grateful, and dragged his suitcases up the path. The small bed-and-breakfast-style hotel was clearly a converted house, the reception desk placed somewhat awkwardly half under the stairs, sticking out into the hallway.
Behind it sat a middle-aged woman with a paperback, reading so intently she didn’t immediately notice the door closing as Henry pushed it behind him.
“Oh!” she said as she looked up. “I’m so sorry. It’s too easy to get engrossed, don’t you think?”
Henry smiled wryly. “Sure.”
“You must be Mr. Richardson. I’m Judith. This is my place.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“I’ll just get you checked in….” She spun on her chair to tap at a laptop, then reached behind her to a wall and pulled a key from a hook. Not a key card, an old fashioned skeleton key. Henry groaned to himself.
“I’ve put you in room five,” she continued, “it’s at the front of the building, but it’s actually the quietest room we have here.”
Judith hopped over the desk with an agility that belied what Henry estimated was her fifty years. She wore jeans that were splashed with bleach stains and a pink polo shirt, her light hair tucked behind ears that were decorated with small diamond earrings.
“Come on. I’ll show you upstairs.”
The hotel was warm and clean, and Henry decided that it had probably been renovated about ten years ago. The décor was just slightly outdated. Still, it was a fairly nice place to set up camp in while he was here.
Judith chattered enough that he didn’t feel compelled to join in the conversation except for the occasional, vague words of agreement. She showed him the room—a double—with its adjoining bath.
“I’ll let you crash,” she said. “You seem tired.”
“Thanks.”
When she left, Henry kicked off his boots and collapsed, fully dressed, on the bed.
As she’d promised, among all the idle chatter the night before, Judith allowed Henry to sleep in for as long as he wanted. Despite that, he woke fairly early—the sun was seeping in through the flimsy curtains
. The clock on the wall told him it was approaching 10:30 a.m., but his watch and his body clock were convinced it was more like five thirty.
Once sitting up in bed, Henry could appreciate how exhausted he must have been when arriving. He ran his fingers through his hair, combing it back from his face, stretched, yawned, and headed for the shower.
It sucked.
It took him at least half an hour to get clean, to run a razor over his jaw and scrub his teeth. He dressed in jeans and a light-blue shirt, rolled the cuffs up several times, and gelled his hair so it flopped artfully back from his forehead.
When his stomach clenched, he felt suddenly sick. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a meal—the bag of chips he’d managed at the airport in Amsterdam didn’t count. Deciding there would surely be a diner or something close by, he grabbed his wallet with its strange foreign bills inside, the key to his room, and his phone and headed down the stairs.
Judith was at her desk again. “We’re happy to do you a breakfast if you want it,” she said with a warm smile.
“That—” Henry croaked, then cleared his throat. “That would be good,” he said. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Go and find a table. There are newspapers on the bar if you want one. Oh, and I’ll give Miss Gupta a call for you.”
Henry wasn’t sure exactly who Miss Gupta was or why the British referred to young or unmarried women as Miss rather than Ms., but he could smell coffee coming from the dining room, and to his nose, it seemed to be freshly brewed. He wasn’t going to hang around and ask questions. Those could come later.
The coffee was served to him by a teenage girl wearing a slightly stained white shirt and short black skirt. She looked no more than about fourteen, not that he was particularly good at guessing the ages of teenagers, but it would put her at about the right age to be Judith’s daughter, so he didn’t question it.
