The Other Man (Starting Over Book 2)

by Matthew J. Metzger

  Aled.

  “It was my partner’s thirty-fifth birthday. He’d gone out with friends earlier in the day, and I’d been busy, so I went to meet him at the pub once I was done with my other stuff. I didn’t want to go inside, because I’m a recovering alcoholic, so I asked him to come out. When he did, my ex turned up and they started shouting at each other. My ex has been harassing us for weeks and went to hit my partner, so I stepped in to defend him. Then my ex hit me back, so my partner and his friend waded in, and the police turned up.”

  He and Michael had been arrested. Tom had managed to keep Aled out of it and Gabriel owed him big time for that one.

  “What’s your partner’s name?”

  “Aled Evans.”

  “Do you know which friend of his got involved?”

  “I do, but I’d rather not say,” Gabriel replied cautiously.

  “And your ex-partner?”

  “Michael. I don’t know his last name. It was just a casual thing to me. I know his address, though.”

  “Please.”

  He furnished them with all the addresses—his old flat, Michael’s terraced house, Aled’s little nook—and the number plate of Michael’s car. It had been personalised. Of course Michael was the type to get a personalised number plate on a ten-year-old Clio.

  “And you say Michael has been harassing you?”

  “Yeah. We broke up last month.”

  “Could you be more specific about the harassment?”

  Gabriel took a deep breath. Here it went. All or nothing.

  He’d never really been pro-police before the PCSO who’d got him off the streets in Sheffield. They had always been the dark figures in the night who came to lock up his mum and her partner of the week when they’d been fighting. A threat if he misbehaved. A danger lurking on the way to school, shadowed faces under shadowed hats. Something to be avoided and mistrusted—first because he was from Hackney then because he was homeless then because he was queer. When that PCSO had first stopped by Gabriel’s pitch, the first question out of Gabriel’s mouth had been, ‘What do you care?’

  It had taken years to shake the idea that maybe they weren’t the devil in black and yellow, and were really just like anyone else he’d ever met—but it still took a moment for him to unlock his jaw and tell the story he should have been telling them from the start.

  He told them about the text messages.

  He told them about the argument on the landing.

  He told them about Kevin’s story—although he left out Kevin offering to sort it.

  He told them about the car following them back to the motorway.

  He told them about the scene outside the shop.

  And he told them that the car had been waiting, yet again, for him and Aled to come out of the pub.

  Then he sat back, pushed his instant coffee away and said, “Actually, can I have that lawyer, please? I want to talk about getting a restraining order.”

  * * * *

  It was raining when he stepped out of the police station, and Aled’s car was waiting across the road. Gabriel jogged through the puddles but was dripping wet by the time he slid into the front passenger seat and laughed when he was immediately offered a towel.

  “Kevin called,” Aled said. “You might have some angry voicemail messages.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth,” Aled replied. “He was pissed at you for getting yourself in the way of a fight, but—he understands, too.”

  “Great,” Gabriel said. “So I’m not going to get beaten, but Michael’s flat is on fire. How long have you been here?”

  “About an hour,” Aled said, turning the heater up. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine. It’s not the first time.”

  “I don’t wanna—”

  “I told them about Michael stalking me.”

  Aled cut himself off mid-word and stared.

  “I’m done,” Gabriel said, folding up the damp towel and setting it down in the footwell. “I deserved better than him from the start. I have better than him and I have it in spades. I’m going to get another job and get back into cycling. I haven’t been out on the bike since this whole mess started. I’m going to find a club or something. And I’m going to get a restraining order so if Michael comes sniffing around again, I can have him arrested. I’m done. Last night was the final straw.”

  “Sorry,” Aled said. “Still a bit slow. Blame the hangover. Or shock. You’ve—filed a complaint?”

  “I reported a crime.”

  “To the police?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And—”

  “And they have to look into it. They’re going to give it to someone from their domestic abuse team. I showed them all my messages. And they’re going to ring you and Kevin and ask about it. Do you keep your dashcam footage?”

  “Er, yeah, for a few days…”

  “Do you have it still from when he followed us away from the flat?”

  “Probably.”

  “You can send them that, then. And—”

  Aled held up both hands. “Hold up. Can I get a recording of this? The guy who was blasé about being used like a sex toy and never getting an orgasm from some steroid-guzzling airhead has finally admitted he deserves better?”

  “Well, I at least deserve the orgasms,” Gabriel quipped.

  Aled laughed. It was his surprised wheeze, as if it had been punched out of him, and secretly it was Gabriel’s favourite laugh. He curled his toes in his shoes and grinned at the windscreen until Aled had recovered.

  “You deserve the world,” Aled said, and Gabriel whined at him for being cheesy. “Shut up, it’s true. I’m glad you’ve seen sense about him at any rate.”

  Gabriel shrugged, heat rising in his face.

  “So I’m slow. Big deal.”

  “Hey, no slower than me. I even felt a bit sorry for him at the start.”

  “You what?”

  Aled pulled a face. “I know what it’s like, remember? To have someone you’re enthralled by walk away from you. I know what it’s like to watch someone incredible slip through your fingers. The way I acted with Melissa, trying to deny her the divorce—that wasn’t acceptable either.”

  “You didn’t stalk her or deck her new boyfriend.”

  “I wanted to.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Aled shrugged. “I got where he was coming from is what I’m saying. It wasn’t okay, but—yeah. I could understand him on an emotional level. At first. And it’s a little scary to look at him, to be honest, because I could easily have gone that way with Melissa.”

  “Uh-huh,” Gabriel said. “But you didn’t. And the reason he lost me is because of how he treated me in the first place, because if he’d been decent to me, you wouldn’t have minded him and none of this would have happened.”

  Aled nodded.

  Gabriel licked his lips and took a deep breath before continuing. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For challenging things without trying to change me.”

  Slowly, Aled wound his fingers around Gabriel’s.

  “You were uncomfortable because of how he treated me. You’re fine with Kevin—you get along with Kevin, even. But Michael made you feel antsy, and it was because of how he treated me. And I didn’t really see how he treated me until you were pointing it out. So…thanks. I’ve got room for better people now. And I’m going to find some.”

  It was just Aled and Kevin now. And that was too weighted in one direction. Gabriel needed the hotel room flings and loud gigs. Someone to go cycling with, maybe. Or camping—proper wild camping, not Aled’s cabin-in-the-woods pussying-out version. Maybe he could get another boyfriend, too. Proper dates and stuff, when Aled was working and Kevin was too married-with-kids for midnight screenings of the latest blockbuster and Nando’s on a Saturday afternoon.

  “Can you postpone the finding someone until tomorrow?” Aled asked.

  Gabriel raised hi
s eyebrows. “Maybe. Why?”

  The hand holding his own tightened.

  “I want to play a game.”

  Gabriel licked his lips, casually shifting in the seat to open his knees a fraction.

  “What kind of a game?”

  “You caused a fight. I think you ought to pay for my black eye, don’t you?”

  The hand migrated to his thigh and squeezed. Gabriel grinned and squirmed before dropping his gaze and adopted a more contrite air.

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Green.

  “You will be.”

  Aled started the engine and, as they peeled out into traffic, Gabriel risked a peek in the wing mirror. No familiar car following. No Michael in their wake. Nothing.

  Just him and Aled—and, by the tone, a pair of handcuffs and the radiator in the spare room.

  Perfect.

  Epilogue

  There was a letter on the mat when Aled came downstairs.

  He didn’t tend to get much post, and the blue crest caught his eye. Police. It was addressed to both of them, but really it was meant for Gabriel.

  Aled hesitated then tore into it anyway.

  Victim care. A fairly standard boilerplate bracketing the details. And Aled’s tension eased. The restraining order—covering the whole of Wakefield—had been granted. Three months arguing with lawyers had paid off—and paid off well. The area was bigger than they’d hoped for and it had been granted for a year. That was more than enough to shake him off.

  Especially if Gabriel agreed to—

  Aled took a deep breath and propped the letter up on the side. They could discuss what to do about it later. Michael had a year to cool his heels and get over being dumped. They had a year to sort something out. And sorting something out would be so much easier if Gabriel agreed to stay.

  But Aled wasn’t going to think about any of it right now Gabriel was due out of his job interview any minute, and Aled had designs on whisking him off for a pub lunch somewhere in the country, with convenient lay-bys for a lay on the way home if Gabriel were amenable to a quick and dirty fumble somewhere. If the interview had gone well, perhaps a slow and sensual lay at home instead. If it had gone badly, a commiseration screw in a public toilet, perhaps. It was the middle of March, but the weather felt more like the middle of June. If it had gone really badly, maybe even a fuck in some cold mud somewhere and a game to go with it. That would cheer Gabriel up.

  Although…

  Aled would never admit it, but he was hoping it had gone badly. He felt bad for even feeling it and would never breathe a word of it to Gabriel, but the longer it took Gabriel to find another job, the longer he’d have to stay. And Aled wanted him to stay. Permanently.

  He’d not say a word, though. Not until the time came for Gabriel to make the decision.

  And anyway, if Gabriel did go, well, Aled would just have to up the ante, wouldn’t he? And persuade him to come back. Permanently.

  Pushing the question aside, Aled locked up behind him as his phone buzzed. He ignored it, knowing it would just be his summons to come and collect His Majesty, and drove with the windows down and the radio on loud. His foot was slightly too heavy on the accelerator and he let himself enjoy it. He couldn’t influence Gabriel’s decision either way and it could be ages before he found another job anyway. So why worry? Pick him up, spoil him rotten, undress just enough to play with and bring them both to a high. He wouldn’t need long to do it either—Gabriel had left at eight for this interview, without so much as a goodbye kiss. Bastard.

  The interview was at Aled’s gym and he almost autopiloted his way to the spaces by the trees before rolling his eyes and swerving around to the entrance. Gabriel was standing by the bike racks, texting furiously, and Aled rolled right up in front of him.

  “Oi! You,” he said. Gabriel jumped. “Face. Here. Now.”

  Gabriel laughed, his whole face lighting up. Then, rather than lean in through the window, he opened the driver’s door and crashed into Aled’s mouth and chest, the kiss hungry and lopsided, the hug too hot and awkward.

  “I got it!”

  “Sorry?” Aled asked, a little dazed.

  “I got it! I got the job!”

  So much for time.

  Gabriel didn’t seem to notice Aled’s stunned silence, near-bouncing around the car to jump into the passenger seat and enthusing a mile a minute about the interviewer, the team members, the shift pattern, the free use of the facilities…

  “I mean, the pay’s not great and it’s only part-time, but it’s a start and—”

  “Celebratory drink?”

  “Pitstop on the way? I’m buzzing! I need—” A hand strayed to Aled’s thigh. “Something, you know, to take the edge off…”

  Aled’s stomach churned. He wanted to beam and enthuse. Wanted to run them out through Brandy Carr and a lonely field. Wanted to buy lunch and tease about perhaps coming for a swim when Gabriel was at work and taking him in the changing rooms while his colleagues mopped floors two feet away…

  But all he could think was about home.

  About coming home to an empty house again. About having space in the wardrobes. About having to arrange dates and visits. About no more foot massages in the middle of the news, random kisses at the sink or waking up when he was smacked to let Gabriel go for his three-in-the-morning piss.

  About taking several steps backwards, when all he wanted to do was go forward.

  “Aled?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sorry, just distracted.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gabriel bite his lip.

  “You don’t seem happy about this.”

  Aled exhaled heavily then decided to hell with it. He pulled over, ignoring the driver who hit his horn behind them, and hauled on the handbrake.

  “Okay,” he said. “There is no way of saying this that isn’t going to make you wary, especially after everything that’s happened, but the simple fact is, I don’t want you to go.”

  “What?”

  “You moved in because you lost your job. And now you have a new one. And it’s always your choice—it’s absolutely your choice—I’d never try to stop you, but—I don’t want you to move out again. I want—I want evenings in with the telly, I want your bitching about the state of my kitchen, I want your feet to end up in my lap like you’re owed a foot massage just for bloody well existing, I want—”

  “Yes.”

  Aled’s heart hiccupped.

  “What?”

  “I want that too. I want to stay.”

  The hiccup turned into a shiver.

  “You—really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t have to bring out the big bribery guns?”

  “A foot massage a day kind of counts, right?”

  Aled laughed. It sounded reed-thin and shaky. “You’re seriously agreeing to stay moved in with me?”

  Gabriel flushed lightly and nodded. “Yes. I mean…Jesus, Aled, I think I’ve figured out you’re not going to turn into what I was afraid of. And I love you. So…yeah. I want to stay. If you’d let me.”

  “Let you? You kidding me? Seriously, Gabe, last chance of backing out, ‘cause after one more yes, I won’t let you go without a hell of a fight. Divorce-level fight. Sure?”

  Gabriel laughed.

  And all he said was, “Gabriel.”

  Aled surged across the car and kissed him.

  It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t even dirty—it was a harsh clash of lips and teeth, painful and too sudden and smeared sideways by Gabriel’s laughter. It was messy, clutching hands and traffic roaring past them and the heat too oppressive to be tolerated.

  “Fuck the pub,” Aled said hoarsely. “When’s your first shift?”

  “At the gym?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Need to know how rough I can be,” Aled said, grinning and palming Gabriel’s thigh.
“Home. Our home. You and me. Our—hall floor. I’m not getting further than that. I’m going to christen the hall floor with you then I’ll take you out to lunch.”

  Gabriel wound both hands into Aled’s hair and kissed him.

  “Hall floor,” he breathed. “Order takeaway. Then we can work on the living room carpet.”

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  Enough

  Matthew J. Metzger

  Excerpt

  He could smell the fire.

  He was blind. His eyes streamed. The curling wallpaper crackled and hissed. His skin was burning. The air in his lungs seared him from the inside out. And there was nowhere to go—no escape from the heat, no escape from the orange towers and acrid black smoke, no air.

  “Ezra!”

  The smoke wrapped itself around his teeth and tongue like a grotesque mockery of a kiss, and there was no reply but the roar of hot air and climbing fire. The house was burning. The house was burning!

  “Ezra! Ez!”

  A scream. A piercing scream, like nothing he’d ever heard, but before he could move, the wooden boards crumbled to ash and he was falling, tearing through the shreds of stairs into the inferno, and—

  Jesse hit the carpet with a thump and jarred himself awake.

  The flat was quiet. The streetlight touched the other side of the curtains with a faint orange light. There was no smoke, no fire, no sound. Nothing.

  Jesse dragged himself back onto the bed. The sheets were impossibly tangled and his tank top stuck to him with sweat. His wrist ached in its brace where he’d bumped it, but the panic hadn’t quite eased its grip on his heart or his lungs, and he fumbled for his phone, ignoring the pain.

  Thank God for speed dial.

  The clock on the side said two-fifty-eight, and the phone rang six times before the line coughed and crackled and a sleepy voice, tinged in the early hours with the fading edges of a Welsh accent, mumbled a vague sort of question.

  “Ez?”

  There was a rustle of sheets. “Jesse?”

  “Oh, God,” Jesse breathed. The air escaped in a rush, loud and hard. His lungs shook with the effort. “Shit. I just— I needed to check—”