by C F White
“Thanks for coming today,” Seb said. “I know it wasn’t scheduled. But I needed you there. This is yours as much as it is mine.”
“It’s good.” Martin tapped him on the shoulder, shushing baby Rocky. “Really good.”
“Yeah,” Noah agreed over the screeching child. “Never thought our songs would fill a fucking West End musical, but it kinda rocks. You and Jay off celebrating?”
There was an almost painful jealousy oozing from both Martin and Noah. Little did they know how badly Seb would trade a night out for a night in with Jay and their child. If they had one. Which they didn’t. So there wasn’t much point dwelling on it.
“Apparently we’ve been summoned to meet his parents.” Seb opened the news app on his phone and read the first story. “Fucking hell.”
“What is it?” Martin asked.
Seb pocketed the phone. “It’s been passed.”
Noah and Martin shared confused glances.
“Jay and I can finally get hitched.” Seb’s body thrummed with excitement, then his phone rang again and without even thinking, he answered it with a chipper, “Yes?”
“Sebastian Saunders? It’s Nicola from the Observer. We’re doing a story on the recent announcement that same sex marriage will be legalised in the UK. We’d love a quote from you.”
“A quote?” Seb grinned. “I’ll give you a quote. About fucking time!”
chapter Three
Scoring a Brace
Jay clanged down the tray of drinks on the reserved table in the private section of the Court Yard gastro pub and shook out his aching arms. He’d had a tough gym session that morning, then had to carry the over filled tray of delights for his family. His dad and brother grabbed their pints and Jay handed over the glasses of wine to his mum and sister-in-law.
“Where is he this time then?” Bryan asked.
They were set apart from the others eating in the Greenwich establishment, giving the two high-profile regulars and their extended family a boasting of privacy. Their table overlooked the kids play area out back, which was a bonus as, sure enough, Jay’s eight-year-old niece was pushing her little brother on the makeshift swing attached to the apple tree. He smiled but looked away so as not to feel the pinch of disappointment.
One day, he’d gaze out there to his own children.
One day. When the time was right.
“Rehearsals for that musical he’s producing,” Jay replied to his brother, taking a swig from his pint.
“You two spend more time apart than together.”
“It’s called work, Bry. Some of us ain’t shy of it.”
“Piss off. I got a family.”
“Yeah.” Jay looked away, guzzling more beer. He couldn’t acknowledge the pang of remorse at Bryan’s flippant statement. Nor did he think Bryan had meant it to come across the way it did. They didn’t all know that Jay and Seb would kill for a family of their own. They’d spent a lot of money on it, yet they were still a twosome and had resigned themselves to that.
Maybe things were better that way.
“Sorry, Sorry!” Seb’s apologies called over their heads as he weaved through the other patrons in the Court Yard stamped out that conversation anyway. “I got held up.” He kissed Jay’s temple as he sat beside him on the round table filled with Ruttman’s.
“Rehearsal’s go all right?” Jay asked, filling the empty glass in front of him with the already purchased red wine.
“It’ll be good once they get the hang of it.” He glanced at the other occupants of the table all looking on at him with various degrees of smiles. “So? Why the family meeting?”
“Did you not see?” Jay asked.
“Of course I bloody saw!” He grinned. “I wanted Babs to have her moment.”
Barbara practically leapt out of her seat. “It’s finally going to happen!” She clapped, nearly knocking over her own glass of vino if John hadn’t rescued it.
“All right, Babs,” he said and scraped the wine in front of him, dabbing the spillage with a napkin.
“Sorry, love, I’m just so excited.”
“Never have guessed, Ma,” Bryan hollered over his pint of lager. “You weren’t this giddy for my big day.”
“You didn’t have to fight tooth and nail to get your big day, did you?” Barbara widened those authoritative eyes that had Bryan clamping shut then set her smile back on Jay and Seb. “Have you decided on a date?”
Jay opened his mouth, but it seemed his mother hadn’t actually been asking a question and merely throwing out a rhetorical statement that he needn’t bother responding to. So he sat back, allowing her to continue and smiled when Seb slid his hand onto his leg under the table and squeezed. That silent gesture was enough to know they were in this together. As in, they were both going to have to rein Barbara in at some point. But that moment wasn’t right then.
“See, I think you two should be the first,” Barbara prattled on. “You need to get in there quick. Find out when they’ll let you and book the date.” She reached over John for her wine. “You’ve been talking about this so long, you need to be out there, telling the world about it.”
“I already put my quote to the press.” Seb leaned back, satisfaction oozing out of his smug exterior.
That didn’t bode well. “What did you say?” Jay asked, trepidation in the delivery. Seb had a habit of letting his mouth run away with him in the press. And as much as Jay had gotten used to it, he still preferred it when Seb ran stuff by him first.
Seb winced. “Perhaps avoid the Observer tweets.”
Jay pinched the bridge of his nose, but Barbara rifled through her bag, dug out a hefty notepad bulging with cut outs and scribbled notes and dumped it on the table, putting the spotlight back on her.
“Oh, shit, fella.” Bryan pointed to his mother. “She’s brought the book.”
“What book?” Seb asked.
“The wedding book.” Bryan leaned in, whispering out of the side of his mouth, “Wedding bible. Did the same when Chez and I were planning our day.”
“You mean when Cheryl was planning it,” Seb said and clinked his glass to Cheryl beside him.
“I had many, many inputs for that day.” Bryan pouted.
“Naming the tables after football stadiums you got drunk in wasn’t that much of a contribution, babe.” Cheryl slammed back her wine and tapped the glass with her fingernail. Seb refilled it for her.
“Anyway.” Barbara flipped open the notebook and rained a multitude of magazine cut outs onto the table.
John downed his pint, scraped back his chair and said, “I’ll go supervise the kids.” He then strolled out to the garden where, through the window, Jay could see him sitting on the wall scrolling through his phone rather than watching his grandchildren. Oh, to have that excuse.
“Where’d you like it to be?” Barbara lifted her gaze and settled it on Jay, then Seb.
“We haven’t really discussed it properly, Babs,” Seb said. “It took a back seat with everything else.”
That wasn’t strictly true. They’d had many discussions-slash-arguments about where they would like to hold the ceremony could it ever go ahead. Usually over a few glasses at home, or when lounging on a beach on their far-flung holidays during off season. Back then, though, it had always seemed like a pipe dream. Like a fantasy. So they’d tried to one up each other with the most lavish and eccentric venues they could. Seb’s Glastonbury idea had been vetoed along with Jay’s Wembley one.
Then the discussion of kids happened…
They hadn’t done the civil partnership that many others had and the world, mostly the media, had always asked them why. Their response was that they wanted to get married. They wanted the same rights. They wanted a ceremony. Seb was all about the spectacle after all. Now that was within their grasp, Jay realised they hadn’t made any concrete plans and there was his mother thrusting her Bible on them as though she’d been planning it for years and they’d sat around with their thumbs up their arses.
“Oh.” Barbara pouted. “You must have some idea? Jay?”
Jay straightened. “We have a few.”
“Yeah?” Barbara rested her hands over the table, eyebrows trailing up and waiting eagerly.
Seb whipped to face him with a look that said he’d like to know what those ideas were too.
“We thought about hiring a huge gaff.” Jay shifted uncomfortably. “In the country?”
“A stately home?” Seb questioned, arching an eyebrow.
“Yeah?” Jay nodded, slight apprehension. Surely, they’d said that. That was traditional. Weren’t it? “Like, have the whole thing. Keep it as private as possible. Probably hire security to keep the paps out. Then we can all stay there. Before and after.”
“Yes!” Cheryl clapped. “Mummy’s getting pissed!” she sing-songed, waving her hands in the air.
Barbara sipped from her wine, eyes darting away as though she wasn’t as on board with the idea as perhaps her daughter-in-law was. “I have a few options.” She flicked through the pages in her book then slid it across the table. “See what you think? I’ve called them all and they are the ones who are ready to go for same sex weddings when they let them have at it. I’ve colour coded it, put tags in the right pages and there’s a pro and con list at the back.”
Seb flipped through the pages. “Looks like you’ve thought of everything, Babs,” he said and the disappointment in his voice didn’t go unnoticed.
“Cheers, Mum.” Jay tapped Barbara’s hand. “We’ll take it home and think about it. Seb’s a dab hand at creating a spectacle though, ain’t he? He’s probably got a few ideas of his own.”
“One or two,” Seb chirped up and Jay took that to mean he might have his own bulging Bible to dip into, whereas all Jay had decided was that he’d quite like to someone else to write his vows for him. And to say them.
Barbara squeezed Jay’s hand and her eyes welled. Bollocks. She was going to cry. Or give some speech. Or knock back her wine, get tipsy and start hugging everyone and thanking the nation for making this happen.
“I’m just so blinkin—” Barbara was cut off when Jay’s phone blasted out a tune that caused Seb’s eye to twitch.
“Hurry up and answer the fucking thing,” Seb seethed between gritted teeth.
Jay chuckled. He only kept that ringing tone to annoy his boyfriend. “It’s a text. Hang on.” He’d expected it to be Tony, the agent he’d succumbed to hiring when the media circus had proved too much for him to handle and he’d batted the press demands for a soundbite on the latest news to him. Tony was worth his weight in the gold-plated Lambo he drove.
It wasn’t him though. And he rushed thumbs across the pad to reply.
“That better be about my birthday present,” Seb said.
“Your birthday ain’t for another month.”
“I like how prepared you are then.”
Jay snorted. “Nah, it’s Tom.”
“Tom?” Seb grabbed his glass and gulped down half of it. “I fail to understand why you have to be friends with all of your exes.”
“Two of them.”
“That’s all of them.”
Jay ignored the jibe. “He’s in town next month. He’s coming over for the demonstration.”
“Of course he is. Will he save child poverty at the same time too?”
“Probably. And he’s got a new fella.”
Seb arched an eyebrow.
“He wants to meet up. With both of us.”
“And you replied with ‘sorry, but we are both exceptionally busy’?” Seb replied with a hopeful lilt.
Jay leaned over and kissed him. “I said we’re free whenever he is.”
“I hate you.”
Jay smiled. “I love you.”
“Bastard.”
“Weren’t it you who said we needed to hang out with more gay couples? Didn’t you bang on about how we talk the talk but don’t walk the walk? Well, let’s mingle. We might not have that luxury soon.”
The sweet, genteel, and reticent smile from Seb made Jay’s stomach flutter. But they had onlookers, so Seb held a finger to his lips and said, “Shhh. Let’s not count our chickens. I might have used up all our eggs.”
Jay furrowed his brow.
“What about horse and carriage, love?” Barbara’s excitable squeal encroached on the moment not allowing for Jay to ask exactly what Seb had meant by that.
Seb slipped a hand up Jay’s back and rubbed in soothing circles. “We’ll think about it, Babs.”
Jay’s mum looked giddy at the prospect.
* * * *
After they’d done the dutiful son bit, Jay let them into their Greenwich detached house feeling like he’d been bulldozed by his mother. The conversation hadn’t swayed too much from her plans for their wedding and whilst Jay was excited to finally be able to get hitched to the man he’d asked to six years ago, he’d have quite liked to have made plans with Seb alone. Or at least have been heard out. The thing was going to turn into a circus at this rate. Exactly what neither of them wanted. They lived their whole lives in the limelight. They wanted their wedding to be personal. Intimate. Private.
“Maybe we just give your mother a particular area to work on,” Seb suggested, shrugging out of his leather jacket, and hanging it on the hook.
Jay shut the door, ensuring the security locks were set up. “Like what?”
“Flowers?”
“Christ, she’ll have the place kitted out like the pride flag threw up.”
Seb snorted. “Okay, maybe we’ll leave her to the catering? I mean, that’s the least thing I care about. As long as there is food, I don’t care whether it’s chicken or steak.”
“Fish? Veg?”
Seb grimaced then shook his head.
Jay laughed. “What do you wanna give your mum to do?”
“Sylvia?” Seb furrowed his brow, hands on hips. “I hadn’t even considered inviting her.”
“You’re joking right?” Jay threw the keys in their locked safe and pressed in the passcode, then met Seb’s deadpan gaze over his shoulder. “Babe, she’s your mum. You have to invite her.”
“I’ve read the rule book and there is absolutely nothing in there about having to invite estranged relatives.”
“She ain’t estranged anymore.”
“I knew that would bite me on the arse one day.” He pointed an accusatory finger at Jay. “Entirely your fault.”
Jay sighed.
Seb stepped in closer, sliding his arms around Jay’s waist and kissed him. “I forgive you for that.”
Jay slid his hands around Seb’s back, enjoying the moment of privacy and able to savour the moment where everything was coming together. Finally. They’d waited so long. They’d fought so hard. They’d thought it might never happen. But now it could. They could get hitched.
Seb faded those thoughts from Jay’s mind when he went in for a kiss and slipped in his tongue. He rubbed himself closer. Their kiss deepened, their breaths laboured, then…hold up—
Jay pulled back. “Are you trying to get out of talking about your mum by using your dirty kiss?”
“Yes.” Seb kissed him again. “Is it working?”
Jay cocked his head and smiled. Then snogged him for all he was worth, which at current Forbes value was a quite lot. “Yeah.” He slapped Seb’s arse. “Bedroom then.”
They both clambered for the stairs, locked in heavy petting worthy of horny teenagers and not nearly married men in their thirties. A deafening bang and following crash from the kitchen startled them apart.
“What the fuck—” Jay leaped back down the stairs, glancing up to a panicked Seb.
“I put the alarm on, I swear!” Seb held up his hands in surrender.
Jay would murder him if he’d forgotten to put the security alarm system on again. The last time he’d done that, they’d been broken into and had a ton of Jay’s football memorabilia stolen. At least they hadn’t been
home that time. He slipped a hand into his pocket to locate his phone and hovered his thumb on the button.
“Stay there,” he whispered to Seb, pointing a warning finger.
“Fuck that!” Seb jumped down but remained behind him as Jay crept around the entrance hallway to the kitchen and switched on the light.
“What the fuck?” Jay breathed out in exasperated relief.
Ann stood from gathering up a bunch of fallen saucepans from the floor and squinted at the lights beaming down on her. She shielded her eyes. “What time is it?” she asked, disorientation evident in her sway as she gripped the edge of the counter island.
“Half eleven.” Jay replied. “What are you doing here?”
“I think I fell asleep.” She yawned, rubbing her eyes until she noted black mascara splodging on her finger. Grimacing, she wiped under each eye, then gave up with a huff. She looked like a Panda.
“In the kitchen?” Seb glided in around Jay.
“Yeah.” Ann shook herself out. “Sorry, I let myself in as when Noah got home, I figured you would be as well.”
“We went out for dinner with the folks.” Jay crouched and gathered up the items fallen to the floor. “Why didn’t you ring?”
“Phone outta battery. I put it on charge. Over there. Then sat here and I must have passed out. Shit, Noah’s gonna kill me.”
“On it.” Seb waggled his phone and put it to his ear. “Your wife is here,” he said into it shortly after.
Jay stood, clambering the pots and pans back into the sink where Seb had obviously left them piled high when he’d been the last one to leave that afternoon. “Why’d you come round?”
“Oh, I came to show you.” She paused, a sheepish look creeping on her face. “I know I’m not meant to, but I had to. So I did.” With a bite of her lip, she held up a white stick.
Jay stepped in closer. Then, he glanced over to Seb. Dropping the phone from his ear where it shattered on the wood flooring, Seb gaped. “Is that?”
“Yeah.” Ann smiled. “A blue line!” She squealed and bounced on the spot.
Jay grabbed the stick—the pregnancy test—and checked it over. His heart pounding, his face flushing, he handed it over to Seb.
