Beatriz pointed out at the water.
“Baba!” she repeated.
“Daddy,” Andreas said.
“Baba!”
“Daddy,” he said, picking her up. “Daddy’s in the sea.”
She wailed in horrified mourning at the loss of her precious sand, chubby hands grasping for it. He laughed and lifted her up high to face the sea.
“Look,” he said. “Sea!”
“Sea!”
He blinked.
Slowly, he lowered her.
“Beatriz,” he said softly. “Where’s the sea?”
She pointed gleefully out at the blue.
“Sea,” he said, sounding out the Spanish word carefully and slowly. Stressing the last letter.
And she copied him.
“Sea!”
“Holy hell,” he said, and burst out laughing. “Lauren! Lauren, listen! Say it again, Beatriz. Say sea.”
“Sea!”
Lauren—whose understanding of Spanish was far better than Erik’s—shrieked.
“Oh my God!” she squealed.
Beatriz picked up on their glee, and began to clap.
“Sea, sea, sea!” she chanted. “Sea, sea, sea!”
“Aww, you have to go and show Erik!”
Andreas beamed, staggering up with her and began to wade through the sand down to the surf. Beatriz squealed when she caught sight of her father’s distinctive hair, and began to kick wildly.
“Erik!” Andreas shouted.
“Sea!” Beatriz squealed, and reached those greedy little hands out for Erik.
Bright red turned, and a huge smile bloomed between a wet beard and a dry bun. He rose out of the water like a fat Daniel Craig at the end of a James Bond spoof, and swept Beatriz from Andreas’ arms with a newfound confidence.
“Hello, my little warrior-princess!” he boomed, and Beatriz shrieked, yanking hard on his beard. “Ow!”
“Beatriz, say sea,” Andreas said.
“Sea!”
Erik blinked. “Eh? English, babe.”
“Sea!” Beatriz squawked.
“It’s a word!” Andreas said gleefully in English, and Erik’s face lit up like the surface of the sun. “It’s sea! She’s saying sea!”
“Sea,” Beatriz said, drawing the a in the middle out in a long cry. “Sea-sea-sea.”
Erik cheered, lifting her up and blowing a raspberry on her tummy. She shrieked happily.
“My little lady,” he crooned. “As a present, do you want to come in the sea with Daddy and Auntie Jo?”
“‘O!” she crowed. “Baba! Sea!”
Andreas smiled peaceably. “She’s your problem now.”
He turned to go, but Erik caught his arm.
“Hey. Stay and swim with us.”
“There’s a sun lounger with my name on it.”
Erik screwed up his face. Those bright blue eyes flicked between the empty lounger and Andreas. Cogs were turning, and Andreas waited patiently.
“Sunbathe with your top off,” Erik said finally, “or keep your shirt on, and swim with us.”
Andreas hesitated. He was wearing a white T-shirt. It would be as good as gone if he waded in with them. And he was tired. He wanted a nap, with Beatriz and her first word safely delivered to Erik and not his problem for the next hour.
And so what if people stared at his flabby gut and his stretch marks? His top surgery had withstood the pregnancy, hadn’t it? His haircut had fooled the receptionist at the hotel when they’d arrived, right?
“Sun lounger,” he said. “Sorry, but I need a sleep.”
Erik narrowed his eyes—but then Andreas tore his T-shirt off over his head, and the expression cleared.
“Your loss. Come on, Zena. Let’s have the best time ever in the sea and make Daddy jealous he missed out.”
“Sea!”
“Good luck!” Andreas shouted over his shoulder.
As he reached the sun lounger again, the smile still stretching his features, he curled his toes into the warm sand and tipped his head back to examine the cloudless sky.
If only his mother could see him now.
She’d hate him all the more, and Andreas finally felt like he could laugh in her face for her stupidity.
* * * *
“Mar-mar-mar-mar.”
Erik admitted to privately Googling ‘Spanish for sea’ but grudgingly yielded. Andreas wasn’t trying to pull a fast one. Beatriz had said her first word—and in Spanish.
She was also excited, probably because Andreas was so excited. It had been like trying to keep hold of a live eel and Erik had taken her back to the edge of the water for safety more than anything else. She loved the ebb and flow of the tide, squealed at every wave that crashed down to the sand, and had roared with apoplectic fury when they’d attempted to go back into the city for lunch.
Erik had ended up having lunch brought to the pair of them by a cackling Lauren, and eating while sitting cross-legged just within the reach of the tide, the world’s happiest baby chanting her first word in the small triangle formed by his legs. And pulling on his leg hair whenever the sea rolled away from her to boot.
It wasn’t the most comfortable day of his life, but it’d do alright.
Her energy was ridiculous though, and she skipped her usual mid-afternoon nap in favour of the water. By the time she finally showed signs of tiring, the sun was beginning to sink in the sky, and it was beyond time for dinner.
“What do you reckon?” Erik asked, tipping his head back to smile at Andreas upside-down when his boyfriend came down to the water’s edge, shirt back on and baby bag over his shoulder. “Just put her straight to bed, or try and feed her?”
“Might try and get a milkshake down her or something,” Andreas said. “She’ll need a sleep more than a feed, though, she had a decent lunch.”
“C’mere.”
Erik patted the sand. Andreas chuckled and hunkered down. Beatriz waved happily at him and he blew her a noisy kiss.
“You win,” Erik said. “How the hell did you get her to speak Spanish first?”
“Persistence,” Andreas said, grinning. “You know, her babbling sounds different with you than with me. I think she’s already learning to speak different languages to each of us.”
“Is that what you did?”
“Oh, I didn’t learn English until I went to school.”
Erik grunted, hefted Beatriz out of her wet pile of sand and deposited her on her father. She cooed, told them the sea was a thing that existed, and giggled when Andreas kissed her cheek and turned her around to watch the waves again.
“Do you reckon I can bribe Lauren or Jo to have her tonight?”
“Probably Lauren. Jo’s got sunburn on her shoulders. Why?”
Erik patted his bare knee. “Why do you think?”
Andreas snorted, smirking. “Going to take more than that, sunshine.”
“Please.” Erik flexed his biceps in an exaggerated manner, and Andreas cracked up laughing. “One look at this sculpted bod in the birthday suit, and you’ll be dropping those shorts.”
“Whoever sculpted you was drunk, sweetheart.”
“That just means they took absolute freedom with their creativity. I’m postmodernist.”
“I’m sure,” Andreas drawled. “Postmodernist what? Postmodernist pie?”
“Postmodernist sex god.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Erik chuckled, heaving himself up out of the surf. He had to help Andreas to his feet after Beatriz refused to be passed up, and they wandered back up the beach towards the hotel side-by-side. By the time they reached the little cafe at the lip of the resort, Beatriz had foiled Andreas’ milkshake plan, and dozed off on his shoulder.
“Don’t give her to Lauren,” Andreas said. “She’ll wake up screaming for a feed now, and that’s not fair.”
Erik grumbled.
“You can have your fun tomorrow, sex god,” he chided as they reached the women. They’d found a ta
ble near the pool bar, and Jo was nursing a savage burn all across her shoulders and the back of her neck.
“Who’s a sex god?” she asked grumpily.
“Me,” Erik said, puffing his chest out proudly.
“Uh-huh.” Lauren’s tone was completely flat. “I’m going to bet that didn’t come from Andreas.”
“Nope.”
“Hey!” Erik adopted a wounded look. “You’re my partner, you’re meant to be on my side.”
“It’s like you don’t even know me,” Andreas chuckled, easing Beatriz down into her buggy. She whimpered, but was thankfully silenced by a dummy, and dropped off again without further ado. “Tops,” Andreas added as he straightened up, “you’re sex middle management.”
“Middle management?” Erik echoed in outrage.
“There’s potential for career development, but you’ve got to put the effort in.”
“I’ll give you middle management…”
“Not in front of the baby, sweetie,” Andreas said beatifically.
Erik snorted, but part of him was grinning inside. He liked Andreas best in that kind of a mood. Flirty tart, Erik privately called it. Flirty tart Andreas turned him on like crazy. Even if they kept the baby for the night, he might have to shuffle Andreas off into the ensuite for a quick bit of middle management later.
Maybe work on a promotion to senior management.
Chapter 18
Home was both a rude shock and a welcome relief.
The cold, the rain, the pile of bills behind the front door, the rise in bus fare in the space of a week—it all sucked.
But sinking down onto the sofa with a mug of tea and immediately having a purring cat climb into his lap was just the kind of thing Andreas needed after a long journey home.
If the journey out had been fine, the one back had been awful. Beatriz had cried almost the whole way, yet somehow Erik had managed to fall asleep and leave Andreas quite literally holding the baby.
So he’d handed her right back at the door, still crying, and barricaded himself in the kitchen to make the tea.
Upstairs was finally quiet, though, and Andreas sighed as he reached for the remote control. He’d sort the bills later. Picking out a nice dull drama he’d seen a thousand times before, he put his feet up, tipped his head back, and buried his free hand in Marmalade’s fur.
Next thing he knew, the lamp on the mantelpiece was the only light in the room, the TV was playing a very quiet documentary about Lindisfarne, and there was a head in his lap instead of the cat.
Andreas blinked.
Still a mass of ginger hair, though. So he shrugged, picked the band around Erik’s bun out of the way, and began to smooth out the long tresses with his fingers.
“Mm, hello.”
Andreas grunted.
Erik shifted onto his back, and Andreas scratched gently at his hairline before resuming the stroking. The warm weight was pleasant. He could easily go back to sleep like this.
“Baby asleep?”
“Yeah. Got her fed and down while you napped.”
Knuckles nudged the side of his face, and Andreas blinked. He hadn’t realised he’d closed his eyes again.
“You alright?” Erik asked quietly.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
“You sure?”
Andreas hummed, smoothing out a frizzy bunch of hair. In truth, he suspected his run of good luck was over, and he would be starting a period soon. But he felt too tired to get upset, and Erik’s heaviness anchoring him to the sofa was like a bubble against reality.
“There’s a letter for you.”
Andreas blinked. “Sorry?”
“A letter for you. From the hospital.”
“The—oh!”
He started to sit up, but Erik’s hand stopped him. The letter was produced from the mess on the coffee table, already open. He recognised the stamp from the endocrinology department, and his breath caught.
“Oh God. Tell me what it says.”
“I didn’t rea—”
“Then read it now, and tell me what it says.”
There was a long pause. Andreas dropped his head back and closed his eyes, suddenly feeling a bit sick. He never usually let Erik read his hospital letters. They made Erik angry, and Andreas got upset, and it just wasn’t worth it. He preferred to keep it all inside, no matter how much Erik didn’t like it.
“Okay.”
He breathed out. Paper rustled.
“Dear Mr Mão De Ferro—”
He winced at the terrible mauling of his last name.
“—I have received your latest test results from your GP—when did you go for those?”
“The week before we went away.”
“You didn’t say—”
“Same day Beatriz had her latest round of needles. You were working.”
He grunted grumpily, and Andreas ignored him.
“—which showed the following—”
“Skip the results. She always does that.”
“Good, because I have no idea what any of this means. Okay. Um. Hormone level, blah blah blah, something about potassium, blah blah, alright, here we go—I am aware that you are keen to proceed with hormone replacement therapy as soon as medically advisable. Based on your test results since the termination of your pregnancy—Jesus, she could have put that better—I have advised your GP surgery to commence bridging treatment with—”
“What!”
Andreas shot up. Erik yelped as he was jerked right off Andreas’ lap and fell off the sofa with a bang. The house shivered. Upstairs, a wail rose like an air raid siren in an old movie. The cat shot off into the kitchen with a shriek.
And Andreas didn’t give a shit. He scrabbled for the letter. Bridging treatment. Erik said—
I have advised your GP surgery to commence bridging treatment with a low dose of testosterone in the first instance, with a view to seeing you in January for a follow-up examination to discuss a long-term treatment plan.
Andreas coughed. Spluttered.
And began to laugh.
Bridging treatment. She was—she was—
He could have testosterone. He could have it. He didn’t have to wait until the new year. He didn’t have to wait until Beatriz was one.
He could have it now.
The enormity swelled up in his chest. A great balloon of pure, raw feeling crashed over him like a hot wave.
Then he put both hands over his face, and burst into tears.
* * * *
Erik breathed a sigh of relief when he levered Beatriz carefully down into her cot, and she finally stayed asleep.
Then he stood rubbing the back of his head, pondering what to do next.
He had no real idea what had caused the explosion. He knew Andreas had wanted the HRT, but he’d had a complete meltdown. Laughing and crying at the same time. He’d gone into the bathroom and torn up his sanitary pads. And that was hard, they weren’t exactly made of paper.
Then he’d locked the door, run a bath, and left Erik with the baby.
So Erik was pleased, but—a little out of his depth. Andreas had gotten what he’d wanted, but he’d also gone completely bonkers.
Slowly, Erik edged out of the room. Pausing at the bathroom door, he could hear the radio on low, but nothing else. The flickering of light around the edges of the frame said Andreas had lit the candles and gone for the entire pampering session. He’d not come out for a while if that was the case.
Maybe Erik could play into that.
He stole quietly in the bedroom and tugged the band out of his hair. The mane spilled out, heavy and warm over his shoulders. It reached his mid-back now, and he took his time brushing it out until it shone, a shimmering waterfall of red and gold. The beard took more coaxing, and then he changed into a plain white T-shirt and some tartan pyjama bottoms. Nothing outrageous. Nothing to detract attention from his hair.
And bare feet.
Andreas had a thing about his bare feet. Always had. He wasn’t even into
feet, Erik had just noticed that when he tried to woo Andreas into something fun or something sexy, his success rate was much better when he was barefoot.
And so he stole back to the bathroom, hair flowing and feet naked, and rapped his knuckles on the door.
“Hey?”
“Mm?”
“Mind if I come in?”
“Mm…”
He didn’t know what that meant, but the door had been unlocked at some point. It gave when he pressed the handle, and he slipped into the steam-filled haven and closed it again with a snap. Andreas was submerged to his chin, eyes closed, and Erik had to clear out a few candles to prop himself up against the edge of the bath.
“Going to come to bed at some point?” he murmured.
Andreas cracked open a lazy eye—and stilled.
He stared.
Erik waited.
Then—slowly—Andreas came up out of the water. Chest and shoulders rose like the surfacing of a sea god, and wet hands grasped Erik’s head in both hands.
The kiss was passionate. Furious. The fire that had burned between them on that very first night. It was heat and hedonism, and his hard work ruined. Suds drenched his hair. Fingers fisted in clumps of red that would be knots by morning. His T-shirt was ruined.
He had armfuls of hot, wet skin, of passion and power, of brilliant glory and incredible beauty. And he was a part of the life that had forged it all. Sealed at the mouth, sealed at the heart, sealed at the soul, this man was bound to Erik’s life and still kissed him like it was the first time all over again.
Like they were in love for the first time, nearly three years late.
The fire didn’t ebb for hours, and the warm afterglow in their bed was like the candles that had burned steadily throughout. Perpetual light, tiny and warm in the vast expanse of their existence. And when the soft cry of their baby girl began to sound in the next room, Erik detached himself with a soft kiss to warm skin, and a promise to return soon.
He didn’t understand.
But he also didn’t have to.
Chapter 19
Andreas was woken by a storm battering the house—and a breakfast tray being nudged around the door.
“What the—”
“Happy birthday!” Erik crowed.
Erik the Pink Page 15
