What Remains

by Garrett Leigh

  A fight had broken out in front of the pub the footie boys favoured. Three blokes on one. Jodi winced. Shit like that never ended well. He bypassed the commotion, looping a bus stop, letting the curses and screams wash over him. Trouble in Tottenham was nothing new, but as he left it behind with half a mind to mention it to the next pub’s security team, a shout rang out above the others and made him look round in time to see a doorman enter the fray—a tall, blond doorman who was just about the hottest bloke Jodi had ever seen.

  Dressed in black, he waded into the fight and seized two men by their collars. “All right, all right. Pack it in.”

  He sent the first two men flying, launching them in separate directions. The altercation seemed abruptly over, both men stayed by the doorman’s fierce glare, but the third man was less obliging—or more stupid. Either way, the doorman appeared unmoved as the remaining attacker picked up a bottle and charged him.

  With good reason, it seemed. The bottle was gone before Jodi could blink, and the third man facedown on the wet pavement, the doorman’s foot on the back of his neck. “Stay there, shit-tits. The coppers are coming for you.”

  Wow. Jodi’s pulse quickened as the fourth man scrambled to his feet and scarpered. The man melted into the crowd, and Jodi turned his attention back to the doorman, hoping he’d say something else in the Irish brogue that was rough enough to make Jodi shiver. Approaching sirens should’ve moved him on too, considering the state he was in, but he couldn’t look away. Bathed in the orange glow of a nearby streetlight, the doorman was enthralling. Though powerful and strong, he wasn’t as big as Jodi had first thought. Yet his strength was striking, enticing, and Jodi’s breath caught in his throat.

  The police arrived and cleared the scene. Jodi took a seat in the bus stop and lit a fag, blowing smoke to the moon as he watched the doorman turn the third man into their custody and give his account of events. Jodi thought about going home when the doorman went back into the pub, but garbled signs of life from his half-drowned phone distracted him.

  He was still poking at it when a shadow blocked out the light of the bus stop.

  “Lost your Oyster card, mate?”

  “Hmm?”

  The doorman raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been sat out here for hours. Must be time to go home, eh? You need anything?”

  “Um . . .” Jodi rarely found himself lost for words, but the power of speech evaded him now. Instead, he held up his phone, showing the doorman the buggered screen.

  “Ah, dropped it in the bog, did ya?”

  “Puddle, actually,” Jodi said. “I think it’s fucked.”

  The doorman took the phone and held it up to the light. “Nah. Bury it in a bowl of rice and stick it in the airing cupboard. Be right as rain in a few days.”

  “Really? Sounds like witchcraft to me.”

  “Suit yourself. Anyway, you didn’t answer my question. Do you need anything? We’re all closed up here. Probably time you went home. Got far to go?”

  Jodi ran his gaze over the doorman and saw that his earpiece was gone and he had a bag slung over his shoulder. “I live round the corner. Where are you going?”

  “Bedsit in Harringay. It’s a heap of shit, but I need my bed, so come on, off you fuck. Get your arse home so I can rest knowing I’ve done my job for the night.”

  “What are you? Some kind of social worker?” Jodi stood and absorbed the drunken buzz that washed over him. Damn. He’d forgotten how wasted he was. “I’m just sitting here, mate. Minding my own business. Didn’t ask for no help.”

  He said the words with a smile, but the doorman frowned. “You’re fucking twatted. Can I walk you home?”

  “Not a serial killer, are you?”

  “No, I’m Rupert.”

  “Rupert?” Jodi covered a treacherous, buzz-fuelled giggle with a cough. “Like the bear?”

  “If you say so. Far as I know, Rupert Bear never killed anyone, so I guess it fits.”

  “Bet he did. Let’s google that shit.” Jodi reclaimed his phone and peered at the frozen screen. “Balls. Forgot it was broken.”

  Rupert rolled his eyes. “Come on, hooligan. Let’s get you home.”

  He took Jodi’s arm and steered him out of the bus stop. Jodi allowed himself to be led, distracted from the bizarre situation by Rupert’s commanding grip on his arm. For some reason, it didn’t feel odd. Hmm. Perhaps the sparkly powder had scrambled his inhibitions. Ha. Not that he’d had many to start with. The neon body paint smeared all over his torso was testament to that.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Eh?” Jodi glanced up to find they’d come to a stop at a junction. He glanced both ways, then turned left. “Oh, erm, it’s this way, I think.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.” Jodi pulled his arm from Rupert and grabbed his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  Rupert let Jodi drag him to the zebra crossing, but he stayed Jodi before he stepped into the road. “Oi, look both ways, mate. You gotta death wish, or something?”

  A series of black cabs rumbled past. Jodi’s coat blew up in the backdraft. He shivered and instinctively moved closer to Rupert, seeking warmth. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Rupert smiled, showing Jodi a set of teeth that had clearly never seen a cigarette. “How about you tell me where to go and I’ll do the driving? You haven’t even got your laces done up.”

  Jodi looked down at his scruffy, untied boots. “Yeah . . . let’s do that.” He took Rupert’s arm again and, despite an embarrassing lack of control over his own feet, navigated the remaining twenty metres to his first-floor maisonette. “This is me.”

  “Nice. Figured you for one of those horrible yuppie apartment blocks.”

  “Piss off. I ain’t no yuppie.”

  “Fucking hipster, though, aren’t ya?”

  Jodi couldn’t argue with that. His skinny jeans and obligatory beard gave him away. “Nothing wrong with hipsters.”

  Rupert snorted. “If you say so. My ma warned me about city boys like you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, no. She actually warned me about slutty city girls with loose morals, but she didn’t know any better.”

  Jodi’s heart skipped a beat. “Does she know now?”

  “Yeah.” Rupert’s tone turned flat and his endearing grin faded. “Think it’s safe to say I’m off her Christmas card list.”

  “But it’s Boxing Day,” Jodi said. “Who did you spend Christmas with?”

  Rupert slid Jodi a sideways glance. “What do you care?”

  Jodi shrugged. “I guess in the same way you care enough to walk me home.”

  “Unless I’m a serial killer.”

  “You’re not, though, are you?”

  Rupert grinned again, and the cloud that had descended on them lifted. “Not in the slightest. Just don’t want you to come to any harm. I’ll sleep easier knowing you’re safe in your bed.”

  Jodi let that hang for a moment while he fished around in his pockets for his keys. Retrieving them proved simple. Finding the right key and aiming it at the lock, not so much.

  Rupert took the keys from him and unlocked the door. He pushed it open and eyed the steep stairs that led to Jodi’s maisonette. “You gonna be okay getting up there, mate?”

  “Hmm?”

  Rupert sighed. “Come on. Let’s get you in.”

  He offered Jodi his arm. Jodi took it and was once more drawn to the comforting warmth of Rupert’s larger frame as they tackled the stairs.

  Jodi stumbled onto the landing. “This is me.”

  “Yeah, you said that downstairs. Which door is yours?”

  “The blue one. Silver key.”

  Rupert unlocked Jodi’s front door and stood back. Jodi ducked under his arm. He sensed Rupert turn away, and reached for him before he knew what he was doing. “Don’t go.”

  “Why? Do you need help with something?”

  “No, I, er . . .” Jodi stared at his hand, wrapped around Rupert’s wrist l
ike a limpet. “I’ve got coffee. Want some?”

  It wasn’t his best chat-up line, though he’d got laid behind the weight of far worse in the past, but after a protracted pause, Rupert shrugged. “Reckon I could bang a cuppa down before I head home. Got any tea?”

  Turned out Jodi hadn’t, but Rupert settled for a mug of dubious-looking decaf while Jodi brewed himself a pot of nuclear Colombian espresso. “So,” Jodi said when he’d coaxed Rupert into taking a seat on his tatty living room couch. “Do you often walk pisshead gay boys home?”

  Rupert spluttered into his drink. “What? Fuck, no. Shit. Sorry. I didn’t come over to you because I thought you were gay.”

  “No?” Jodi frowned. He wasn’t getting come-on vibes from Rupert, but there was no denying the bloke was gay, even without his vague admission. “Why did you, then?”

  It was Rupert’s turn to stumble over his words. “Um . . . I s’pose I couldn’t stop myself. I saw you sitting out there after I put that bloke on his arse. After that, shit, I couldn’t look away.” Rupert cringed and briefly covered his face with his hands. “It didn’t cross my mind that you were gay, though, mate. I swear. I just got worried when you didn’t move on. Young lad got mugged by that bus stop a few weeks ago. Bastards left him for dead.”

  Jodi’s disappointment warred with an overwhelming sense of endearment. Rupert was bloody gorgeous, and Jodi wouldn’t have minded in the slightest if his insistence on walking him home had been a ploy to get him into bed, but the fact that it wasn’t? Damn. Jodi could fall in love with a man that fucking sweet. “Did he die?”

  “As good as. Think he’s still in a coma.”

  “Fuck that.” Jodi shuddered. “My cousin had a diving accident when we were kids. Took them weeks to turn him off, even though the doctors said he was already dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I hardly remember him.”

  “Stays with you, though, doesn’t it? When you lose someone?”

  Jodi shrugged and picked up his coffee. Talking about death wasn’t good for his buzz. “So how often do you pick up waifs and drunks and take them home for whatever reason?”

  Rupert chuckled. “Actually, you’re the first. I usually call them a cab.”

  “I’m privileged, then?”

  “If you say so. I’m the one getting a cuppa instead of a cold walk home.”

  Jodi could think of better ways to keep warm. He shifted on the couch and let his leg brush against Rupert’s. Rupert jumped. Jodi grinned. “Jesus, you’re like a stray cat.”

  Rupert looked away. “I’m not used to people—blokes, touching me. It’s a little new.”

  “How new?”

  Silence. Jodi chanced another nudge with his leg. “It’s okay. You can tell me. We’ve all been there.”

  Rupert glanced up, and the sadness in his gaze broke Jodi’s heart. “Too new for me to stay here much longer. I should get going.”

  “Don’t go.” Jodi sat up. Something told him that if he let Rupert slink away, he’d probably never see him again. “We don’t have to do anything. I didn’t ask you in for that, honest.”

  “No? Shame, eh? I could’ve freaked out on you properly, then.”

  Jodi set his coffee aside. The urge to put a comforting hand on Rupert was strong, but the very real fear that it would make things worse stopped him. “Everyone freaks out when they first touch another man. It’s a rite of passage.”

  “Yeah? Did you?”

  “Yup.” Jodi pictured his first disastrous dalliance with a bloke after he’d realised his bisexuality. “Ran off like a scalded cat. Was halfway down the garden with my pants round my ankles before he caught up with me.”

  Rupert chuckled his deep, warming chuckle again. “Another cat metaphor? I’m sensing a theme.”

  “I have a limited imagination.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  It was on the tip of Jodi’s tongue to invite Rupert to find out, but Rupert leaned forward before he could speak, and put his hand on Jodi’s leg, hesitantly at first, then his grip strengthened, and it was all Jodi could do not to moan.

  He settled for sucking in a shaky breath. Bloody hell. What was it about this bloke? A touch, a brush of skin, a stare that went on just a beat too long; tiny gestures that lit Jodi on fire. He stared at Rupert’s hand and then covered it with his own, entwining his fingers with Rupert’s until their hands were clasped, bound together like lovers, rather than two souls who’d met less than an hour ago.

  Rupert squeezed Jodi’s hand. Jodi squeezed back and tugged gently, coaxing Rupert closer until their faces were inches apart.

  Rupert’s nerves were tangible. His beautiful, gold-flecked eyes had widened, and he swallowed thickly. But it was him who leaned in first. Him who ghosted his lips over Jodi’s. Him who tentatively pushed his tongue into Jodi’s mouth and kissed him as the room began to spin.

  Jodi gasped and wrapped his arms around Rupert, clutching at the dark shirt he was wearing under his unzipped doorman’s jacket. The shirt came loose from Rupert’s waistband. Jodi pushed it up until his hands found the hard, unyielding flesh of Rupert’s abdomen. He dug his nails in. Rupert groaned and bit Jodi’s lip, so Jodi did it again and again, until he suddenly found himself on the floor.

  “Ow! Jesus.”

  Rupert lurched up like he’d been burned. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  “I’ll live.” Jodi walked on his knees to where Rupert stood and accepted his proffered hands. Rupert hauled him up like he was made of feathers. “Let me guess. You had an epiphany, realised my dick is probably as big as yours, and lost your shit?”

  “Something like that?” Rupert winced. “I’m so sorry. I told you. I’m new at this.”

  “It’s okay.” And it was. Who the hell was Jodi to judge a man flying blind in his sexuality? Accepting his own bisexuality had been a journey fraught with denial and false starts. It was only in the last year he’d truly grown into it, and it wasn’t so long ago he’d been toppling blokes off the end of the bed himself. He squeezed Rupert’s hands. “But tell me, have you ever—”

  “Nope. Never put my hands on a fella . . . like this, until tonight. Oh God, I’m so sorry. You must think I’m such a twat.”

  Jodi shook his head slowly. “No, not at all. I’ll tell you exactly what I think, Rupert. I think you should calm the fuck down, go home, get some sleep, then come back tomorrow so I can teach you how to make this shit awesome.”

  August 26, 2014

  Drip, beep, drip, beep, drip, beep. Rupert counted the drops of clear fluid as they passed through the pressure-measuring device in Jodi’s brain. That’s right, they were clear now. The blood had faded away one evening nearly two weeks ago. Rupert recalled his surge of elation like it was yesterday, remembered every minute of the twenty-four-hour vigil he’d mounted after, waiting on tenterhooks for the moment when Jodi would surely wake up. But he hadn’t woken up. Not then, and not now, a month and two days since that damn fucking speeding car had catapulted him across the streets of Tottenham.

  Rupert tore his gaze from the drip and focussed on Jodi. He touched his cheek with the pad of his thumb, and smoothed the scruffy beard that, despite the nurse’s diligent efforts, was now slightly longer than he’d ever seen on Jodi before. Rupert liked it. It would suit Jodi’s brown eyes, if Rupert was lucky enough to ever see them again.

  Lucky. Ha. Rupert clenched his teeth and turned his attention to Jodi’s shattered arm. It had been operated on again in recent days. The surgeons had inserted metal rods to keep the bones’ original realignment in place, but they wouldn’t know if Jodi had retained full function until he woke up.

  If he woke up.

  Rupert took Jodi’s good hand and squeezed, trying to remember what life had been like before the cramped ICU bay had become their home. But it was so fucking hard. Most of Jodi’s outward wounds had healed, but the ominous shadow on his brain remained, dark and deadly, and the doctors reminded Rupert every
day that even if Jodi did wake up, there was every chance he wouldn’t be the Jodi that Rupert had loved—still loved so much he could barely breathe.

  But he’d run out of time to grieve today. It was midday, and he was due back at work in ten minutes. He closed his eyes, still clutching Jodi’s hand. The brigade had been patient with him so far, but with Jodi’s business not earning, someone had to pay the bills—

  Jodi’s hand squeezed his. Rupert jumped a mile, his heart in his throat. His eyes flew open, and he stared down at Jodi’s hand, his own suddenly red hot. It moved. But had it? It didn’t seem any different.

  Don’t be a dick. You haven’t got time for imaginary drama. Rupert counted to ten, praying he’d feel that brief pressure on his palm again, but nothing happened, because it was all in his damn fucking head.

  Twat. He looked down at Jodi one last time. For a moment, he dared to dream Jodi really had returned the death grip he had on his hand, but their grim reality wouldn’t quit. Jodi remained slack and lifeless, and Rupert had to go to work.

  January 26, 2010

  Rupert didn’t come back the next day or the day after that. In fact, it was nearly a month before his name flashed up on Jodi’s phone. The message was short, sweet, and perfectly timed. Fancy a late night cuppa?

  Hell yeah.

  Jodi tapped out a reply, inviting Rupert to come over whenever he was ready, then shut down his computer and drifted to the bathroom to take a much-needed shower. He’d been on a deadline for the last few days, and things like eating, sleeping, and washing had fallen by the wayside.

  Dressed in trackies, hair still dripping, he emerged from the bathroom to another text. Twenty minutes. He glanced at the clock: 2 a.m. Jesus. How had that happened? Last time he’d checked, it had been nine o’clock and he’d been considering ordering pizza. Or was that yesterday? Shamefully, he had no idea.

  He padded barefoot through the flat to the kitchen and opened the fridge. The contents were uninspiring, but he had enough bacon left for sarnies. Poaching about in his neglected salad drawer revealed some tired mushrooms too. He was tipping them into the sizzling bacon fat when the doorbell rang.