by Anna Martin
Ryan was lying on the sofa, one hand thrown casually over his eyes. Sleeping. Or snoozing, at least.
He was wearing only boxers and a T-shirt, probably warm, like Henry had been, from spending the morning outside. On a moment of impulse, Henry stripped out of his jeans and manoeuvred himself onto the sofa, snuggling into Ryan’s side.
“Hmm?” Ryan murmured sleepily. Then, “Oh. It’s you.”
“Yeah, it’s me. Go back to sleep.”
“Wasn’t sleeping,” he murmured, then yawned widely.
Henry laughed, pulled the soft fleece blanket from the back of the sofa, and tucked it around them both. He laid his head on Ryan’s shoulder and felt Ryan’s arms tighten around him. Then, after a moment, fingers gently combed through his hair.
There was nothing in the world he wanted more than to take just a little nap….
They were both woken by the sound of a throat clearing, a noise surely intended to do the job of waking.
Henry prized an eyelid open, took sight of Stella—fuck—of Ryan’s sister standing at the end of the sofa, hands on hips and thoroughly intrigued expression on her face. He decided he was completely justified in groaning and burying his face into Ryan’s neck.
“Huh? What?” Ryan said, confirming in Henry’s mind that he really was completely useless when woken up.
“I’ll just go make a pot of tea, then,” Stella said pointedly and left the room.
“Oh shit,” Henry mumbled. “What do we do now?”
Ryan ran his bare foot up and down Henry’s bare calf, reminding him that his jeans were currently lying in a pool at the end of the sofa, knowing exactly how their current position would have looked to Stella who (of course) had her own set of keys to the house.
“Put your jeans on,” Ryan said. He seemed unperturbed. “Drink some tea. Hopefully, she bought cake.”
After struggling to his feet, Henry reached for his jeans and pulled them on, folded the blanket, and threw it over the back of the sofa again. Ryan scrubbed his fingers though his hair and allowed Henry to pull him to his feet.
“I’ll just… go find some clothes,” he mumbled.
“You can’t leave me with her,” Henry said desperately, grabbing on to Ryan’s arm and gripping it tightly.
“She’ll be fine. Go on.”
Feeling like he was being thrown to the lions, Henry walked through to the kitchen as slowly as he possibly could. Stella had her back to him, making the tea, so he sat down at the kitchen table and waited.
She turned, smirked at him, and handed him the red stripey mug.
Henry shook his head.
“What?”
“That’s Ryan’s mug,” he mumbled, feeling stupid. “Mine is the blue one.”
Stella’s eyebrows rose right up to her hairline, but she said nothing, swapping his mug for the one on the counter and settling herself and her green stripey mug down in the chair opposite his.
“So. You’re sleeping with my brother, then?”
Henry sighed heavily, then looked up into Stella’s blue eyes, so similar to her younger brother’s.
“No,” Henry said, aware of how pained his voice sounded. “No, I’m not sleeping with him. But I really, really wish I was.”
She laughed, proving that she really was only making fun of them and that she didn’t have a problem, not that Henry thought she would, but it was good to know all the same.
“He’s holding out on you?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
Stella hummed and sipped her tea. “He’s not out, you know.”
“I know.”
She hummed again.
“Do you have anything to say?”
Before she could answer, Ryan appeared in the kitchen doorway, now wearing incredibly baggy grey sweatpants. With Stella’s eyes following him, he collected his mug of tea and hopped up to sit on the countertop.
“I get the impression you’ve been talking about me,” he said.
“You’d be right,” Stella said.
“It’s nothing bad,” Henry hastened to add.
“The only reason why I’d kick your ass is if I thought you were hiding something from me,” Stella said frankly, addressing her brother. “Or if I thought you were worried about me being upset about this.”
“I’m not gay,” he said lightly. Henry felt stung, until Ryan met his eyes. “I’m probably bisexual, though,” he added in a softer voice.
Stella sighed heavily. “You’re my baby brother,” she said, rolling the mug between her palms. “I really don’t care if you’re gay, bi, or if you want to change your name to Tallulah and become a cruise ship singer. It doesn’t matter.”
“Thanks, Stell,” Ryan said and rolled his eyes. “You’re safe, though. I don’t want to be a cruise ship singer.”
“Thank fuck for that,” she said and helped herself to a biscuit from the jar on the table. “What’s going on between the two of you, then?”
“Not a lot,” Henry murmured, but loud enough for Ryan to hear him. Which, of course, he did.
“We’re just friends,” Ryan added.
“Mhmm.” Stella looked between the two of them with an expression of utter disdain. “Don’t bullshit me, boys. I don’t snuggle on the sofa with my friends.”
“Maybe you should,” Ryan snapped.
“Okay, I get it,” she said, holding her hands up. “Your business, not mine.”
“Due to a combination of factors,” Henry said diplomatically, “we are taking things slowly. And we’ll see what happens from there.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad idea,” Stella said. She stood, dumped her mug in the sink, and brushed her hands off on her jeans. “I only came over to ask if you were going to come down to the pub tonight,” she said.
“You could have called to ask that,” Ryan said drily.
“I could have,” she agreed with a smirk. “I’ve just got back from shopping, though, thought I’d stop in. Didn’t expect to find the two of you naked on the sofa.”
“Hey, we weren’t naked—” Ryan started before Henry put a hand out to cut him off.
“We’ll see you later, Stella,” Henry said.
Stella let herself out. Once the front door had clicked shut behind her, Ryan rubbed his face with his hands in what Henry assumed to be frustration. Or shame. He was hoping it was the former.
“Are you okay?” Henry asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I suppose I would have told her sooner or later. It would have been nice to tell her, though, rather than having her walk in on us naked on the sofa.”
“Stop being dramatic. We weren’t naked. She didn’t see anything.”
“Easy for you to say. She’s not your sister.”
Henry rolled his eyes and stood to wash up the mugs in the sink. That was a new habit he’d developed. Back home he’d always put things in the dishwasher, but Ryan didn’t like using it. He said it was bad for the environment, so Henry had got used to doing the dishes by hand.
When he was done, the three mugs stacked upside down to dry, Ryan caught hold of his wrist and dragged him in close, so Henry was standing between his knees.
“I just came out to my sister,” Ryan said softly, wrapping his arms around Henry’s shoulders.
“You did,” Henry agreed. “Congratulations.”
“I don’t want to hide who I am,” Ryan said. “And you’re important to me. But this is a small village, and I’m not sure how the people here would react. My parents built up their businesses, and they’re sort of at the heart of the community—”
“Which puts you right there too. I get it,” Henry said.
“Yeah,” Ryan said, sounding miserable.
“Hey, it’s fine. Honestly. We can do things in our own time. Like you said, there’s no need to rush.”
“Thanks. I just didn’t want you to feel like I was… I don’t know, ashamed of you or something. Because I’m not.”
Ryan lifted his chin defiantly, and Henry
kissed it. “I understand.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon apart. Ryan claimed he had work to do and locked himself away in his office with a pot of tea and his log books. It gave Henry the chance to video call his mom, prove to her that he was alive and well, and catch her up on the progress of the restoration work.
When they ended the call, after an hour or so of conversation, Henry was left wondering why he didn’t feel more of an aching loss at the distance between himself and his mother. They spoke fairly regularly, sent each other e-mails too, but there wasn’t any great, sweeping emotion at being separated from her. He decided not to dwell on that train of thought, not while he had so many other things occupying his mind.
After checking the clock, Henry decided to take a shower and get ready to go out for the evening. He was getting better at taking less time preparing himself, but there was a familiarity in the ritual of showering, shaving, styling his hair, and picking an outfit that was comforting to him, and there was nothing to stop him doing it. He turned on the radio before jumping into the shower and sang along with it as he began his routine.
There had been no contact from Ryan at all during the afternoon, so Henry hesitated before knocking on Ryan’s bedroom door.
“Are you nearly ready to go?” he called and waited for an answer before pushing it open.
“Nearly. Come in.”
He had never ventured into Ryan’s room before. It was as jumbled and chaotic as the man himself, yet strangely welcoming, even with clothes of questionable cleanness covering most surfaces.
Ryan was standing facing away from him, digging into a chest of drawers that seemed to contain underwear. Since he was wearing only loose jeans, his strong, bare back with all its muscles exposed, Henry allowed a ripple of appreciation to hum through his veins.
“What are you looking for?”
“Socks,” Ryan muttered. “I can’t find two that match.”
“Wear two that don’t match, then,” Henry said reasonably, leaning against the doorframe.
Ryan huffed and turned around, his expression softening as he looked Henry up and down.
“You look good.”
“Thanks. So do you.”
Looking down at his bare chest, Ryan blushed and turned back to his drawer.
Henry took the opportunity to look around the room with undisguised interest. Underneath all the mess, it was actually a nice space—warm, coordinated, homey. The walls were dark green, which could have been overpowering, but the room was large enough to be able to counteract that. In fact, Henry mused, the dark colour might have been chosen for the purpose of making the room seem more intimate.
The furnishings, including the chest of drawers that Ryan was still absorbed in, were all a light-honey wood that matched the wooden floorboards. The bed was a large sleigh style with white sheets and a plaid comforter, all the bedclothes currently torn away from the mattress and heaped in the middle. Henry guessed that, when sleeping alone, Ryan was a sprawler.
There was a large dog bed in the corner, which surprised Henry, who had always assumed that Hulk slept down in the mudroom. It was endearing to think that Ryan allowed his pet to sleep up here.
Taking a chance, Henry stepped into the room, avoided a pile of laundry, and headed for the wardrobe that sat in a corner, both doors thrown wide open. There was a small space where some shirts hung haphazardly, and shelves that contained jeans and a few knitted sweaters.
Ryan came over and nudged him out of the way, grabbed a T-shirt from the shelf, then selected a sweater at random and pulled them both on. Henry tried not to laugh at the fluffy mess of hair that popped through the top of the sweater as Ryan’s head reappeared, and pressed his lips together.
“What?” Ryan demanded.
“Oh, honey.”
There were several pots of hair product on the top of the chest of drawers, and Henry selected one and held it out to Ryan.
“You might want to use some of this.”
Ryan scooped some of the gooey white stuff onto his fingers, gave Henry a lascivious grin, and styled his hair back from his face in a fashionable quiff.
“Shoes?” Henry asked once he was done.
“They’re by the door.”
“Come on, then.”
There were three sets of keys hung on the board next to the door, one for each of the vehicles Ryan owned. He pulled on his shoes, then picked the set for the truck.
“If I get drunk, you can drive me home,” Ryan said, tossing his keys to his truck to Henry as he closed the door behind them. Henry threw them straight back.
“Oh no. No way am I driving that thing.”
“Why not? Can’t you drive?”
“I can drive,” Henry said defensively. “That’s a fucking tank, though.”
Ryan threw his head back and laughed. “Come on. We’ve got an hour. I’ll take you down one of the back fields and teach you.”
“No thank you,” Henry said primly and opened his own door to slide into the passenger seat of the Ranger. “I’m fine.”
After getting in the driver’s side, Ryan leaned across the handbrake, right into Henry’s personal space.
“Why do you always resist me?” he murmured in a low voice. “Why can’t you just agree, for once?”
It could have been Ryan’s tone that turned Henry’s brain to mush, or the smell of him, or the confined space, or his lips only inches away. Or, most likely, a combination of all of the above.
“Fuck’s sake,” Henry grumbled, an expression he’d surely picked up from being around Ryan for so long. “Fine.”
He leaned back and put his feet up on the dash as Ryan negotiated the back roads around Cheddar until they found an empty field. He parked, and they swapped sides. This time, Henry buckled up. So did Ryan.
“It’s not just the stick shift that makes me nervous, you know,” Henry said as he turned the engine over. “It’s the driving on the wrong side of the road and the….” He twirled a finger in the air demonstratively.
“Roundabouts?” Ryan suggested.
“Yes! Those.”
“We’ll deal with roundabouts later,” Ryan said. “Have you ever driven a manual transmission before?”
Henry winced. “Once.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
It only took half an hour for Henry to be comfortable doing slow laps of the field, carefully changing up and down through the gears. At that point, Ryan was grouching about wanting to go to the pub and Henry was tired of listening to it, so he decided to take control of the situation and pulled out of the field and onto the little country lane.
“Woah,” Ryan said as Henry picked up speed. “Are you sure you don’t want to swap back?”
“If you drive, you can’t have a pint,” Henry said, layering bravado over his nerves. “It’s not that far, anyway.”
Not far, but they did have to cross both a narrow bridge and a roundabout before reaching the parking lot behind the Dog and Duck. Henry thought Ryan’s reaction to both obstacles was highly overacted.
Ryan attempted to take his keys back after Henry had locked the doors, but Henry quickly tucked them into his back pocket, his eyes issuing a challenge for Ryan to go in there and get them for himself. Chastised, Ryan settled for leaning in and stealing a soft kiss from Henry’s cheek.
The pub was packed.
Stella had set up the projector to show a football match in stunning, super wide-screen HD glory, and one side of the pub was full of polyester-shirt-wearing men, while on the other side (where the screen wasn’t visible), there were several empty tables.
Ryan’s eyes diverted to the screen and seemed to linger there as Henry made his way to the bar. He looked back, rolled his eyes, and leaned over the bar to kiss Stella on the cheek.
“Hey, how you doing?”
“I’ll never get tired of your accent,” she sighed, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “It’s so sexy.”
Henry laughed. “Sorry, darling, I don’t pl
ay for your team.”
“I know, I know. What can I get you?”
“I’ll have a Coke and a pint for Ryan?”
“No problem.”
She set about pouring the drinks and gestured to the quieter side of the pub. “You know Shenal and Paul have been over there for a while, waiting for you.”
Henry checked his watch. “We’re not late.”
“No, the two of them were just very early.” She winked.
Henry caught on. “You mean—”
“Nothing to report as yet,” Stella said. “But I reckon if you left them alone for a couple hours more….”
It wasn’t going to happen, though. Apparently, Shenal had been keeping an eye out for them and waved Henry over as soon as he’d finished paying for the drinks.
“Where’s Ryan?” she asked as he sat down.
“Got distracted by the game, I expect,” Paul said before Henry could answer.
“You got it,” Henry said.
It took another ten minutes before Ryan wandered over and sat down, helping himself to the pint of cider and giving Henry a warm smile in thanks. Unfortunately, the football match was only at halftime, so it was another hour before the pub started to empty out, the local team defeated, the locals dejected.
“Load of bloody rubbish,” Ryan declared as the final whistle sounded. “Round?”
“I’ll come with you,” Henry said.
They were able to get to the main area of the bar now, where so many bodies had been packed in when they’d arrived.
“Sure you don’t want a drink?” Ryan asked after he’d placed his order. “We can walk home and pick the car up tomorrow.”
“I’m okay with a Coke,” Henry said. “Thanks.”
It was only after he refused that he caught sight of the sign. It was on the black chalkboard that the dessert specials were usually written on on Sundays.
Local gin! It proclaimed. £3 on its own, £3.20 with mixer.
The barmaid—Caz, Henry was pleased at remembering her name—caught him looking and gave him a wicked grin. “It’s selling really well,” she said. “We’ll need to get more stock in soon.”
“That’s good,” he said and would have let it go at that, if it weren’t for Ryan’s supremely uncomfortable expression. “What?” he demanded, feeling like he was missing something important and hating it.
