Married Ones

by Matthew J. Metzger

  Willing him to come back smiling.

  “Mike!”

  An elbow dug into his ribs, and he jumped.

  “Get up!” his aunt whispered, and he groaned.

  “Ah. Yes. Sorry. Uh.”

  He stumbled to his feet, a crowd of faces in varying styles of makeup, from subtle and refined to outrageous and eye-catching, peering up at him expectantly.

  He gave the empty corner one last glance, then pushed the clinic from his mind entirely. This wasn’t a sombre speech. This wasn’t the time for treatment and worrying. This was his stepsister’s wedding, to a tiny woman who had her by the crown jewels, and damn it, Mike was never going to get another chance like this one.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” rumbled the usher, “pray silence for the best man.”

  Showtime.

  “I don’t know about that,” Mike said, and a titter spread around the gardens. “Am I the only one who wasn’t sure what to make of the wedding invite? Who the hell are Suzette and Victoria?”

  Vikki flipped him off. Her new wife slapped her arm down.

  “Oh, there we are, Suze is the girl, got it,” Mike said, giving them a thumbs up. “Alright, alright. Ladies and gents, for those of you who don’t know me, I am the wife’s stepbrother. Unfortunately my staid old chap of a stepfather came as a package deal. And if he was the luxury holiday, Vikki is the twelve hour flight in front of a screaming baby to punish you for booking it.”

  Suitably warmed up, Mike took a long look down both barrels, and fired.

  “Vikki was eleven when her old man got together with my old lady—sorry, Mam, your wedding is over so you’re fair game again—and I was buttered up for the idea with lots of encouragement on how fun being a big brother would be, and how it would be my job to look out for my sweet little sister at school. And then that walked into our living room.”

  Vikki’s friends collapsed. Mam was trying, and resolutely failing, to keep a straight face. Even Suze’s refined, proper family were smirking.

  “Even at eleven, Vikki was sporting a buzz cut and a crush on Nicola Adams a mile wide. She had her entry-level lesbian kit of dungarees and a flannel shirt, and painted rainbows on the banisters for pride before she’d even come out of the closet. By which I mean technically told us, because believe me, we all knew. But, and here is a moment of brutal honesty I’m never going to come out with again, I rather liked having Vikki for a little sister.”

  A look of genuine surprise washed over Vikki’s face, and Mike shrugged.

  “She was fun. She came to watch the rugby with me, and we liked all the same telly shows for the fit actresses. And she went first. By the time I had to admit I was carrying on with a bloke, it was blindingly obvious nobody in my family had an issue with queers. Vikki had already beaten it out of us.”

  A ripple of gentle laughter waved through the grass.

  “But most importantly, we weren’t really a stepfamily. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful there’s not a scrape of DNA in common with hers—”

  “Feeling’s sodding mutual!”

  “—but we clicked fine. We both hated next door’s dog, and Mr Frobisher in the maths department at school. And Sheffield United.”

  Boos.

  “Piss off, they’re shit! But those are the important things. So by the grace of God, she’s not my blood sister—but she’s still my sister, and I’m still chuffed to be here watching her sink her claws into the love of her life.”

  The laughter turned a little sniffly and wet, and Mike decided to scrap the rest of the mush, and get back to ripping the piss out of her.

  “The love of her life, though—now that was a bit of a low ball. The surprise isn’t that we’re here at a lesbian wedding, ladies and gents—it’s that we’re here with Suze.”

  He paused, and began to smirk.

  “I was banned from mentioning certain names. Like Charley. Grace. Anastasia—my personal favourite of the demonic collection—followed by Rachel, a close second. Suffice to say, my dear sister has a taste for the lunatic fringe. The type of girlfriend who will announce it’s over by taking out billboard space, or taking the carpets with her when she leaves. And no, I swear I’m not making those up.”

  He distinctly saw Suze mouth, “Who’s Anastasia?” and knew he was paying for that after the honeymoon. Worth it.

  “So when Vikki brought Suze over for Sunday dinner for the first time, I have to make a confession. None of us realised Suze was the new girlfriend. I mean!” He swept out an arm. “Look at her! Look at all that class and poise! A barrister, for Christ’s sake! Suze could have any girl in the world—so why on earth did she marry our Vikki?”

  Vikki loudly told him to fuck off.

  “Case in point,” Mike drawled. “Vikki’s a cook. Not even a chef, but a proper apron-wearing, flannel-rolled-up-to-the-elbows cook. She can outshout a football referee, and goes to the boxing more often than she goes to work. She’s not exactly a catch, ladies and gents, get what I’m saying?”

  “Speak for your bloody self!” Vikki shouted.

  “Stop proving my point!” Mike shouted back, and the crowd hooted. Suze had lowered her veil again, and was giggling madly behind it. “Anyway. Before I was so rudely interrupted. Eventually we started to figure out that Suze might be the new lass—Leonard walking in on the pair of them did put paid to any doubt, and yes, he’s still in therapy for that sight. But I have to make another confession. We gave it a year. Not a chance, we all said. Vikki’s like a sulky dragon on a good day, no way a nice girl like Suze is going to be able to handle it.”

  About one half of the room snorted as one, like a herd of dry-witted bison.

  “Turns out, we really underestimated Suze.”

  He decided not to tell the story of the day they found that out—screaming domestics in the street probably weren’t the things to bring up at weddings—and shifted past it.

  “As Suze kept on coming round to Sunday dinners and family functions, and had our Vikki—who can barely speak English, by the way—trying to muddle through Mandarin lessons to impress Suze’s great-grandma over Skype in Peking, we started to figure maybe this was serious after all. But so what? Vikki’s been perfectly serious before. Doesn’t stop the fact she keeps going after crazy women who can’t tell her when to wind her neck in. Sooner or later, we all figured, it’ll come crashing down.”

  He paused. The crowd rustled gently. The soft murmur of Suze’s dad translating for an ancient old lady who was probably her nana paused.

  “And I have to admit, I didn’t truly let go of that thought until Suze walked down that aisle this morning, more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her. Because I was right there beside my sister, and I knew the look on her face perfectly.”

  He swallowed, and dared to glance up from his cue cards. Stephen had returned, crouching on the very edge of the crowd with a couple of Vikki’s friends, a champagne flute in hand.

  “It was the same look,” Mike said carefully, “that I wore when I realised I wanted to marry my then-boyfriend. It was the same look that he wore on our wedding day. It was the same look my mam has in her first and second wedding pictures. It was the same look I caught my new stepfather giving my mam, in the early days of us being one big happy family together.”

  Suze lifted her veil again, and kissed her new wife on the cheek. They stayed close, staring at Mike with identical expressions.

  “It was the look of someone who knows exactly what they’ve found. Who knows it’s not perfect. Who knows where every crack and every flaw is. Who knows there’s going to be some really shit days—but who also knows they have got exactly what they need, and who is going to keep working for it. And when I saw that look on my sister’s face, I knew I was wrong. This isn’t going to break. Suze is more than up to that task, and Vikki is walking in with her eyes wide open to how damned lucky she is.”

  Vikki bit down hard on a wobbling lip, and threw him a venomous look.

  “Our family is not a blood family
,” Mike said. “We are all here because we have chosen one another. And right here is the proof that blood doesn’t matter. It’s love. So I’d like to propose two toasts.”

  Glasses and people rose, sniffling and giggling all together, and the sun bounced off the champagne bubbles in bright flashes.

  “To Vikki and Suze!”

  The echo was deafening, broken with cheers. When it subsided, Mike raised the now half-empty flute again, and said the second, looking Stephen dead in the eyes across the crowd.

  “To love.”

  “To love!”

  As the hubbub died down, the mantel of speech-giving being passed to one of Suze’s bridesmaids, and Vikki leaning across to punch Mike in the arm before getting him in a headlock in her substitute for a hug. By the time he was released, Stephen had returned to his spot on the blanket, and settled into Mike’s side in an oddly affectionate gesture.

  “Everything okay?” Mike murmured.

  “In a minute.”

  That…didn’t sound good.

  “Alright.”

  But that had Mike distracted. Stephen was tense in his arm, and didn’t seem to be listening to Tara’s story of how Vikki and Suze met on her own hen night. He was staring off into the distance, and Mike found himself missing most of the story, too. Last time the clinic treatment had failed, Stephen had bought a crate of beer and gotten absolutely hammered. Mike mentally brushed off the credit card and pushed the champagne flute away. He could drive home tonight. Let Stephen do whatever he needed to do.

  And then, once the dust had settled, Mike could put his foot down. No more. This was taking too much out of the pair of them.

  The reception party was being held in the B&B’s conservatory, a little disco spilling out onto the lawn, and as the wedding party were gathered up and shepherded indoors, Stephen’s hand slid into Mike’s and pulled. And as it was frankly embarrassing to watch Stephen try and drag him anywhere, Mike capitulated and followed him to the two willows that bracketed the end of the driveway, far out of earshot of everybody else—and when Stephen ducked around the huge trunks, out of sight, too.

  “You alright?”

  Stephen licked his lips.

  Mike sighed.

  “No more.”

  “What?” Stephen asked.

  “No more tries. This is taking too much out of both of us.”

  Stephen took a deep breath and shook his head.

  “Stephen—”

  “Here.”

  Stephen’s phone. Locked. Mike rolled his eyes, and handed it back.

  “Oh, like you don’t have the code…”

  Stephen’s voice was reed-thin, and Mike hauled on his good humour. Crying at a wedding, in his opinion, was reserved solely for those getting married. And only then if they absolutely had to.

  “I don’t. Respect your privacy, me. Never touch it, don’t know how.”

  “Bollocks you don’t. Just magically managed to text Beth that she picked her bridesmaids perfectly to make her look more beautiful, did it?”

  “Yes,” Mike said peaceably. “And you changed the code after that anyway.”

  The unlocked phone was shoved back into his hand, delivered with one of those patented long-suffering eye rolls.

  “Thanks?”

  “Photos.”

  “Oh, aye?”

  “Mind out of the gutter, please.”

  And yet Stephen was red-eyed. Mike hesitated.

  “Stephen…”

  “The clinic called.”

  “I figured. Look, if you want to go h—”

  “Just look at the photos, please.”

  Mike bit his lip, then did as he was told. He didn’t need proof. But what now? Stephen had been a mess last time, but it was Vikki’s wedding. They couldn’t very well duck out of Vikki’s wedding.

  Then the photo loaded, and Mike’s brain screeched to a halt.

  “Oh my God,” he breathed.

  Stephen made a strangled noise and flung both arms around his neck. Mike staggered, but didn’t stop staring at the phone.

  At the photo, obviously taken in his mam’s bathroom by the blue mat in the background. In the background to a small, white stick. With a display panel. With two solid blue lines, stretching from one side to the other, perfectly parallel.

  Positive.

  Mike opened his mouth, and nothing came out.

  “I just—I wanted to check this morning. I know it was stupid, but I just wanted to know—”

  “Did the—did the clinic—”

  He finally looked up. Stephen’s eyes were wide.

  “They called.”

  “And?”

  “It’s right.”

  “Oh my God,” Mike said again—then dropped the phone with a clatter onto the exposed roots of the tree, wrapped both arms around Stephen’s waist and hoisted him into the air with a jubilant laugh. “You fucking did it, you jammy fucking beautiful sod!”

  Stephen burst out laughing, the noise almost hysterical, clinging when Mike twirled them. Mike had to have the sound. He dropped Stephen back to his feet, and seized his face in both hands to kiss him, the phone crunching under his shoe when he moved. Bugger it. There were other phones.

  “You did it, you fucking did it, you did it!”

  Stephen beamed against his face. They were uncomfortably mashed together. Mike’s back was protesting the effort of lifting Stephen’s shockingly heavy weight. But sod the whole bloody lot of it. They’d done it. They’d only bloody gone and done it.

  “Say it,” Mike said.

  “What?”

  “Say it.”

  Stephen laughed. “No. Dear God, no. I’m not that cheesy!”

  “Bloody say it, you sod!”

  Stephen kissed him. It was more like being bitten. Hard, desperate, undeniably sexual and domineering. The champagne had been grape juice—Mike could taste it against the seams of Stephen’s lips.

  And then the bloody sod whispered, “Nope,” against Mike’s mouth, and Mike spoiled it all by grinning like a loon.

  “Mam’s going to be insufferable.”

  “You can’t tell her yet!”

  “Why the hell not? We’re having a—”

  “Ssh!”

  The hand over his mouth was very little deterrent. Mike simply bit the thumb joint, and it was retracted with a short slap.

  “You can’t tell her yet,” Stephen repeated stubbornly. “This is Vikki and Suze’s big day. We’ll just overshadow them if we say anything.”

  “Minute we walk back in there, they’ll know.”

  “Then we wait until we’re not so obvious.”

  “Not so—” Mike shook his head. They were still acting like complete madmen. People would be thinking they’d just got married. “Alright. Fine I won’t say anything, if you say it, right now.”

  “Dear God…”

  “Say it.”

  Stephen scowled. Mike pushed him up against the tree, and bit his neck.

  “Say it.”

  Stephen laughed, stretching his head back for another bite.

  And said it.

  * * * *

  They ducked out of the reception early.

  Mike called it literally doing as they were told. He couldn’t keep his hands off, not after Stephen’s news, and without being allowed to tell anybody why, they were written off as ‘sodding randy’ by the newlyweds and fondly told to get a room.

  So they got one, borrowing the one Mam had booked to hold all her things during the ceremony, and didn’t even have sex. Just lay naked together in the vast bed, the whole world locked out, and wildly planning a future that had suddenly fallen into their laps.

  And then when Stephen dozed off, drugged by excitement and exhaustion, Mike lay awake most of the night, listening to him breathe, touching every inch of skin he could find, and imagining what this would be like in a month, two, five, nine.

  Ten.

  In less than a year, it would all be over—and then everything Mike had ever wa
nted would begin. With Stephen. Because of Stephen.

  And Stephen would be Stephen again. Not so dangerously obsessed with running and afraid of so much as a scrap of fat on his bones. Not ill every month. He’d be one hundred percent Stephen, but it would have all been worth it.

  Mike could have his cake, and eat it, too.

  By the time dawn broke, Mike was physically exhausted, but mentally high as a kite. He nipped out early in the car to a chemist, and bought another test, making Stephen redo it in the ensuite and laughing like an overexcited kid when those two blue lines appeared all over again.

  “You know what this means,” Stephen said imperiously.

  “What?”

  “Better start bloody feeding me.”

  “Means no coffee for you, either.”

  “It’s called decaf.”

  “That’s called a crime against humanity.”

  Mike didn’t know what to say, do, plan next. They only had nine days until term started. He’d have to ring the head. Stephen would have to talk to his, too. They were going to need all the advice under the sun for this, and Mike didn’t even know where to begin.

  “Mike!”

  “What?”

  “Breakfast! Christ.”

  But Stephen was grinning, too, and Mike kept catching him in the halls on the way down to kiss the smile away and touch his flat stomach, his thin hip, the pound of his heart behind his ribs. He didn’t know what to do with himself until they got down to a quiet dining room. The patio doors were open, butterflies already flitting about an enormous buddleja bush on the terrace, and they headed out into the bright morning sun. Stephen was made to sit there and earn more freckles, while Mike fetched and carried everything, insisting loudly the whole time that this was their new norm.

  “Getting into the habit,” Mike said. “Just sit down and enjoy it.”

  “Oh, hey, no problem,” Stephen drawled, leaning back and crossing his ankles. “Do you mind making it a lifelong habit? I could get used to this.”

  “You should be so lucky. Oi,” Mike added as he set the last mountain of toast down. “I’m holding you to the conversation we had in Barcelona.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I’m coming to all the appointments.”