He pouted. “Don’t see how a hand job could do any harm. It’s not like you’d have to move much. No more than you have been every day now you’re exercising again. Makes me think you just don’t want me to.”
“You know that’s rubbish. Just… God, just give me another couple of weeks, okay?”
I kissed him to prevent him replying, and when we parted he headed to the kitchen table without a word.
In the hallway that night, on his way out, he gave me another drawing. In it I was lying back on a bed, and he was kneeling between my legs, sucking me off, his arse thrust high in brazen invitation, his hole gaping. I groaned.
“You like it?” Ollie asked, his cheeks dimpling in mischief.
“I… Of course I like it! I just—”
“Let me, Ben. Please? I need to do something for you.” His hand snaked down to my crotch, and I slapped it away, annoyed.
“Why?” I demanded, and the way he flinched made me even more irritated.
“Why are you so desperate to get me off? Can’t you just enjoy what I’m giving you and leave it at that? Jesus, how much more do you need? I’m doing everything I can!”
His lips twisted into something like a smile but which looked wrong. “I didn’t realise it was such a chore,” he said bitterly.
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“It’s not a fucking chore!” I shouted.
He looked ready to bolt, and I grabbed hold of his arms, ashamed to see the fear in his eyes. Shit, had I put that there? I loosened my grip, kneading with my fingers in what I hoped was a reassuring manner. “Look, I don’t know how to put this in a way that will make sense, but spending time with you has been brilliant, and all I want right now is to treat you well. You aren’t obliged to give me anything back.” You’ve already given me more than you’ll ever know, I wanted to add but couldn’t force the words out.
He stared back at me, his eyes wide and uncomprehending.
“But I should. I feel guilty always taking. You’re older and bigger, and you’re the top, so I should be servicing you.”
“Who told you that bullshit?” I really was angry now. “That’s not the way it works, Ollie. People are too bloody complicated to be put in little boxes like that.
If you want someone to boss you around, if you get a kick out of being used, then you’re with the wrong guy.”
Ollie’s gaze dropped. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”
“No, you didn’t. You just have a screwy idea of how relationships work. This ex of yours, is that how he wanted things?”
“I don’t wanna talk about him.” Ollie’s lips were tight, so I didn’t quiz him any further.
“Okay, just remember, this is our relationship, and we make our own rules.
We don’t have to follow anyone else’s.”
Ollie nodded, smiled and kissed me goodnight as usual. I watched him start up Rogue and pull away into the night with a mix of relief and regret. I hoped I’d said the right things to him, but it was hard to know what his problem was if he wouldn’t talk to me about it.
I lay awake for a long time, running through scenarios in my head, each more alarming than the last. In the end, I told myself I might never know what this ex had done to him, and succumbed to an uneasy sleep.
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Chapter Fifteen
“What’s this?” Zoe’s voice was muffled by the refrigerator, but I could hear the chill of disapproval.
“What’s what?” I asked, slowly swirling the hot water over a dirty plate. I might not have been fast at household chores, but I was deriving a strange sort of enjoyment out of getting back to them again.
“This.” Zoe lifted out a small plastic container of orange mush. “I didn’t make this for you. Has he started cooking for you now as well?” Her tone was resentful, but I could hear the tremor of tears underneath it.
“Zo, you’re overreacting.”
“I’m not! I’m fucking well being replaced, and you don’t need me anymore.
How the hell am I supposed to react to that?”
“Jesus Christ!” I dropped the plate into the sink and heard something crack.
Didn’t matter. My little sister was hurting.
I grasped her around the shoulders, but she turned her head away, glowering at the wall. “Look at me. Zoe, come on! That’s better. Now listen carefully, because this is the truth. You are not being replaced. No one could ever replace you, because you’re my sister and I love you with all my heart.”
“How can you?” she wailed.
I shook my head, baffled. “How can I what? Love you?”
“You can’t love me with all your heart when you love him too.”
“That’s not how love works. It doesn’t diminish when you love more people.
It grows. There isn’t a finite amount of it, you know.” She was giving me that “yeah, right” look she does so well, so I cast my mind around for an example to prove what I was saying. “I didn’t love Mum and Dad any less when you came along. I thought I would. To begin with, I resented you for taking away their attention. Everything was ‘baby this’ and ‘Zoe that’ for a while.”
Zoe sniffled but lifted her watery eyes to mine. “What changed?”
“Nothing, really. Just me. I realised you weren’t going to go away, so I decided I may as well try to get along with you. Then I noticed how cute you were, and before I knew it, I was reading you picture books and throwing you in the air to make you giggle.”
“Are you saying I should try throwing Ollie around?”
I made a face like I was seriously contemplating it. “You could try tickling him. He’s pretty ticklish behind the ears.”
Zoe gave a tremulous smile. “I’ll try.”
“That would be good, because he’s not going anywhere and it would make me so happy if the two of you could get along. He’s a really nice bloke, Zo.”
“I know. I know he is, really. I just get so wound up when I see things like this.” She gestured in the direction of the tub that had started the whole episode.
“That’s my job. I love cooking for you.”
“No one’s trying to replace you, little sis.” I kissed the top of her head. “And if you’d waited for a moment before going off on a wobbler, you’d have found out that isn’t for me. It’s one of Ollie’s experimental organic baby food recipes for the café.”
Zoe giggled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I’ve been a right idiot, haven’t I?”
“No comment.”
“Is it any good? The baby food?”
“Try it and see.”
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Zoe grabbed a teaspoon from the washing up and sampled a tentative mouthful. “Not bad. Could do with a little garlic, though.”
“You can’t feed babies garlic.”
“Who says? You’d be surprised. Hmmm…” Zoe took another mouthful, then another. “This is good, though. D’you think Ollie would mind if I gave him some tips?”
I considered it. Would Ollie think she was sticking her nose in? Given what I knew of Ollie, I thought not. He wouldn’t even agree that Mrs. F. was an interfering old biddy and had given her the benefit of the doubt over the whole letter thing. “I think it would be a great idea. He’d love some advice from someone with your culinary expertise.”
“Cool.” Zoe smiled, and this time, she genuinely looked happy.
I decided I’d have to work on making sure she felt appreciated. “How about I take you out to dinner at the weekend? Sunday lunch at the Little Angel?” It was a place on the river in Henley, and Zoe had always loved eating there as a kid. I used to tell her she was my Little Angel and they’d named the place after her. It had gone a bit gastropub these days, but the grown-up Zoe would probably appreciate the enhanced menu with added marinated unpronounceables and sun-dried whatevers.
“Sunday? Won’t Ollie be working then?”
“Yes, but I’m asking you. Just you and me, out for a meal like old times.
What do
you say?”
Zoe hugged me tight. “Can we feed the ducks afterwards?”
I grinned. “Those greedy little bastards? Of course we can.”
My kitchen had turned into some kind of baby-food research lab. Zoe and Ollie dodged around each other in a crazy dance as they grabbed ingredients, jotted down notes and stuck their fingers into bowls of goop, pulling faces that ranged from disgust to delight as they sampled the flavours. I watched from my seat at the kitchen table, bemused by the whirlwind of activity.
Every now and then, Ollie would shoot me a look that communicated just how grateful he was for me talking things through with Zoe. Then Zoe would shout out an order or smack him on the bum, and he’d roll his eyes at me.
But eventually, they were ready. Ollie placed the twelve pots of mush in front of me with a flourish. Each contained a wooden lolly stick with a different letter written on the end, and a teaspoon. Oh goodie.
“Do I have to?” I pleaded.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Zoe said. “You’re our chief taster.”
“I thought being a baby was the whole point,” I grumbled, but I lifted the spoon in the nearest pot and had a sniff before tasting. It was yellow and smelled faintly spicy. I opened my mouth and hoped for the best.
It was sweet. So sweet my taste buds went into overdrive. “Are you sure this is okay for me to eat?”
“It’s all fine,” Ollie reassured me. “No added salt or sugar, no e-numbers, no artificial colours or preservatives. Just fruit, vegetables and cereals.”
“It tastes like curry. Can babies eat curry?”
“Yes!” they exclaimed in unison, giving each other a look of exasperated affection.
I decided to shut up in case they ganged up on me again and took another mouthful. It was surprisingly good, actually. I decided I needed one more to make a proper assessment.
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Ollie whipped the bowl away. “Don’t fill yourself up with the first one.
You’ve got eleven more to go.”
“So, how would you rate sample A for appearance, texture, aroma and flavour?” Zoe asked, clipboard in hand. “I want marks out of ten for each.”
I groaned, but I did my best to answer for each different sample. There were a couple that weren’t to my taste, including one made with ginger and parsnip, but on the whole, I was really impressed. The blueberry-and-apricot one was particularly good, we all agreed.
“You know, you could get some moulds and make this one into ice-lollies,”
Zoe suggested after taking another spoonful. “It would be much cheaper than buying them in, and it could be a unique selling point for you.”
“That’s a brilliant idea!” Ollie beamed at Zoe.
“I’m full of them,” Zoe said. Modesty had never been one of her strong points, particularly when her cooking was involved.
“What she’s not telling you is about the time she had a brilliant idea to make jacket potatoes with banana and beetroot mashed inside.”
“Hey! I liked them,” Zoe protested.
“You only said that to save face. I could see the way you grimaced every time you swallowed. Potatoes shouldn’t be pink, and they shouldn’t taste of banana.”
“This man is the antithesis of Heston Blumenthal, Ollie. I hope you realise that. He wouldn’t recognise innovative cuisine if you poked him in the eye with it. We had pasta or fish and chips every single night before I took over the cooking.”
“Yeah, and then we had takeaway pizza every other night because you’d made something so gross even you wouldn’t eat it.”
Zoe had her hands on her hips, squaring off at me. “I was ten years old and entirely self-taught. Give me a break!”
“All I’m saying is maybe you should have started with simple stuff rather than diving straight in with the gourmet recipes.”
“But they looked so much prettier!”
“Pretty isn’t the same as tasty.”
Ollie’s gaze moved between the two of us, clearly amused at the squabbling, but I thought I saw something else in his expression too, so I reined it back in and changed the subject.
Later, once Zoe had left and we were working our way through the pile of dirty dishes, I asked Ollie if everything was okay.
“Yeah, of course. Why d’you ask?”
“I thought you looked a bit put out when me and Zo were arguing. You know it’s only for fun, don’t you?”
“Oh yeah. I get that. I just…I guess I felt a bit sad, that’s all.”
“Sad? What for?” I handed Ollie a dripping saucepan, and he began to dry it, but then set it down on the worktop.
“Just that me and my brother are probably never gonna have a relationship like you and Zoe have. I mean, I never really get to see him these days.”
“Why not? Things aren’t that bad between you and your stepdad, are they?”
Ollie heaved a sigh. then looked me straight in the eyes. “It’s not that they won’t let me visit or anything. I just feel so awkward there, like a spare part.
They’re all so close, doesn’t feel like there’s any room for me.”
I thought about it for a moment as I washed goop off the teaspoons. I didn’t want to interfere in Ollie’s life, but then again, maybe he wanted a bit of direction. He had seemed to like it whenever I’d taken charge of things.
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“We’ll go and see them together,” I announced. “As soon as I’m feeling fit again. That way you’ll feel like you belong with me, so it won’t be awkward.”
Ollie stared down at his saucepan and didn’t reply, and I wondered if I was presuming too much. “That’s if you want me to, anyway. It’s your call.”
“Of course I want you there! Would you really want to meet them?”
Ollie’s eyes gleamed so bright with emotion I was alarmed, but I reassured him as best I could that I really did want to know his family.
But as we sat and watched an old episode of Babylon Five later that evening, our conversation played through my head again. It was sobering to realise just how dependent Ollie was on me, and how willingly he deferred to what I wanted. I had a huge responsibility towards his happiness, I realised, and I really couldn’t bear the idea of screwing it up in any way.
I’d have to be extremely careful how I exercised the power Ollie had given to me.
Chapter Sixteen
As my body healed from the surgery, I experienced a surge of energy like I hadn’t had in years, so when James suggested I might like to come into the office for a meeting with clients and to see the old team again, I readily agreed. It had been only eighteen days since leaving hospital, but I was ready to see a bit more of the world than the walls of my flat and the outpatients’ clinic.
“Can I come with you?” Ollie asked as I stood in front of the mirror, checking the fit of my suit. Now that I wasn’t bloated with dialysate anymore, I could get back into my old clothes again. In fact, if anything, they were a little baggy around the waist. I tightened my belt another notch.
“Are you sure you want to? It’ll be pretty boring. I’ll be in a meeting for most of the time.”
“I want to see where you used to work.”
I’d come to recognise that determined set of Ollie’s jaw, so I smiled affably and agreed. God knew what James and the others would make of him and his bright red hair, but it wasn’t exactly a secret that I was gay, so they’d just have to deal with it.
“How do I look?” I asked Ollie. “Can you see the tube through these?” I’d stuck the thing down with double the amount of tape I usually used, but it still made me paranoid, especially wearing trousers that clung very differently from the jeans I’d been favouring since leaving hospital. At least I didn’t have as much resentment of my tube as I used to, though. Now it wasn’t being used and I knew its days were numbered, I could put up with it with much better grace.
Ollie’s hands dropped onto my shoulders, massaging me through the layers of shirt and jacket. “With shoulders like
these, no one’s going to be looking anywhere else.”
“You like my shoulders?” This was news to me.
“Your shoulders are bloody awesome. Really broad and strong looking.”
I raised my eyebrows at my reflection. Okay, maybe I could see what Ollie was getting at. It was an expensive jacket with a flattering cut, after all. I grinned at Ollie in the mirror.
“Go get ’em, Tiger,” he teased.
We headed on out, and when I used my remote to open the garage door, Ollie’s eyes just about popped out of his head. “We’re taking the MG?”
“It is my car.”
“You sure you’ll be up for driving on the way back?”
“I’ll be fine.” I bit back the annoyance at being mollycoddled. He had a valid point, much as I didn’t like to hear it. I might be feeling better than I had been, but I was still a long way from recovered. “If I’m not, then you can drive us.”
“Me? You’d let me? Really?” Ollie was practically dancing on the spot.
I rolled my eyes. “Only as a last resort. Come on, behave yourself.”
Ollie batted his eyelashes at me. “Did I tell you yet how sexy you look in that suit?”
“Flattery will get you many places but not behind the wheel of my car.”
“Spoilsport.” Ollie pouted, but his eyes still gleamed with pleasure.
“Climb on in. You’re making me feel tired just watching you jump around.”
Ollie was suitably impressed by the journey to the office, running his hands over the walnut dashboard and singing the praises of the leather interior. I turned the heated seats on just to amuse him, even though the weather was mild.
When we pulled up outside the office, he was even more impressed.
“Swanky,” he breathed.
I glanced out at the imposing stone facade, impeccably manicured topiary and gleaming brass plate by the door. “You get used to it.”
His face fell.
“All right. I admit it, it’s swanky.” I turned to see what Ollie was staring at and saw James walking down the street with a man who could only be Dane Gibson, the client I was here to meet. There was the same manicured goatee and smug smile I remembered from the photograph on his website. “I’d better get going. That’s my boss over there. Are you coming?” I asked as I opened my door.
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