Enough

by Matthew J. Metzger

  “I love you,” he said, and Ezra smiled softly. “I do, but I wouldn’t stay if our relationship was like that, you know? I don’t—you know, if you’re not here, I get on with things. I don’t sit and cry into my tea if you’re at work or out with your mates or anything. And, you know, I know I get possessive sometimes, but it’s not—”

  “It’s not the same,” Ezra said gently, and Jesse could have kissed him for confirming it.

  “It’s not, is it?” he pushed anyway. “Because—he’d—he was horrible to her, Ez. If we went out—we’d not do it much, but if we did—he’d yell at her in public, call her useless and a slag and accuse her of flirting with other people, and I—”

  “Jess,” Ezra interrupted gently. “Listen to me very carefully. Yes, you don’t like other guys flirting with me. Yes, you are overreacting about Liam. Yes, you get possessive, and don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you get very touchy-feely when we’re in a gay bar and you’re warding off the competition. But it’s not the same. Okay? Listen. This is the key part.” He ducked his head a little farther to hold Jesse’s eyes. “I have never, not once, felt threatened by you. Okay? Not ever.”

  Jesse swallowed against the lump in his throat and pulled on Ezra’s hands. “C’mere,” he choked, and Ezra made a low crooning noise, following the tug until he was wedged between Jesse’s hip and the arm of the sofa, his legs slung over Jesse’s thighs and his arms tight around his shoulders.

  “I love you,” Ezra murmured, “but I’m not stupid. I don’t do guys who think they can run my life for me. That’s actually why I dumped Liam. No, don’t, he wasn’t threatening or abusive or any of that, but he made a lot of plans for when we graduated that assumed I would be following the choices he made for me. And I said no.”

  Jesse pressed his face into Ezra’s neck. “I’m just scared of turning into my dad,” he confessed bitterly, and Ezra kissed his hair gently.

  “I have proof you’re not like him,” Ezra murmured.

  “What’s that?”

  “Remember when we started sleeping together?” Ezra asked, and smiled. “Generally, babe, not the specific, gasket-blowing glory of it.”

  “Yeah,” Jesse said, shifting his hold to eye Ezra’s calm face suspiciously.

  “You remember how I was so twitchy about you being on top of me if I wasn’t exhausted enough or horny enough to not notice how heavy you are?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jess, you asked if I’d ever been raped,” Ezra said flatly.

  Jesse flinched. “I didn’t!”

  “Okay, yes, you put it a lot more delicately than that, but that was the gist of it,” Ezra said dismissively. “But do you get my point, Jess? You wanted to know if I had been abused. It didn’t cross your mind that I might have been afraid of you, personally. You thought I was afraid because someone else had done something, and you were accidentally triggering the fear.”

  Jesse opened his mouth, said, “I—” and closed it again.

  “If it wasn’t for Liam being a prat, it wouldn’t have crossed your mind to think you were being threatening or abusive or any of the rest of it. Yes, you are possessive. You are a bit jealous. You don’t like Helen Glover at school purely because she’s sweet on me. You are prone to a little manhandling sometimes, but you know what? Sometimes I like a good bit of manhandling. And the key part is, Jess, if I tell you cut it out and leave me alone, you do. You might be domineering sometimes, but you’re never forceful, and you have never been so much as a little bit nasty to me if someone else shows an interest. You are not like your father.”

  Jesse’s lip wobbled dangerously, and he buried his face back into Ezra’s neck, fighting back the burning sensation behind his eyes. Ezra murmured an endearment and scratched his scalp soothingly, waiting out the little fit.

  “I look in the mirror, and I see him,” Jesse croaked. He was the spitting image of his father. The same tall, powerful, athletic build, the same thick, dark-blond hair, the same long, strong-featured face. He even had his father’s way of smiling, from one side to the other and back again, the same slight downward turn to the edges of his mouth that made the smiles look wry and exasperated even when they weren’t. The same fists. “I see him, Ez, and I’m terrified of turning into him.”

  “I’m not,” Ezra said gently. “You’re behaving like an idiot over Liam, and I really do not appreciate the spying on my text messages thing, but if you will just get it through your head that Liam is no more threatening to your place in my life than a random drunk at the local bar, then you will calm down and this whole sorry mess will be forgotten about.”

  Except for the fact that if it wasn’t Liam who was better for Ezra, somebody else would be, someday, but Jesse was wise enough to keep that stray thought to himself.

  “You told Mum that your parents were dead,” Ezra said gently. “I know your mum died a few years ago, but—?”

  “I don’t know about my dad,” Jesse admitted. “He left.”

  “You lost touch?”

  Jesse snorted. “He was cheating on her, I knew about that from when I was about six. I’m pretty sure I have a half-brother out there somewhere—I remember my mother yelling about ‘that bastard boy of yours’ once or twice—but they married before I was born. Then when I was eight, he said he’d had enough of her. He picked me up from school with some blonde tart, asked if I wanted to go to Dover with them. I said I wanted to go home. So he dropped me off home and that was the last we ever saw of him. I assume—I don’t know, he said Dover—I assume he left the country. Went to France with the skanky bitch or something. I don’t know. He never came to the funeral, and Mum left everything to me in her will, so—I don’t know. He’s gone.”

  Ezra bit his lip. “Do—do you—?”

  “I spent,” Jesse continued ruthlessly, “the next nine years going from house to house in Portsmouth with my mum. She just cried all the time, she couldn’t keep a job for more than a month. She spent thousands of pounds of dole money trying to call him or send him letters. His sister took out a restraining order on her. She broke it twice. They threatened to take me into care more than once, and she’d straighten up for long enough to get the social workers to back off, then it would start all over again. Then after I moved out, not long after I moved into my flat—” He shrugged, the pain of the memory of that phone call flaring up in the back of his mind. “She—she drove down to Beachy Head and threw herself off.”

  Ezra inhaled sharply. “Oh, Jess.”

  Jesse shook his head but allowed Ezra to squeeze him tightly in another hug. He clung back, staring at the coffee table without really seeing it. “I changed my name,” he said hoarsely. “Dawkins was Mum’s maiden name, so I changed it. And my middle name. It was his name, so I changed it. Kevin was my first boss, took a shot on me even though I had no references and no experience and was new to Brighton. I didn’t want anything to do with my father anymore, so I dropped his name.”

  “What were you?” Ezra asked curiously.

  Jesse shook his head fiercely.

  “All right, sweetheart, ssh.”

  “He ruined her, Ez. That bastard destroyed her, he as good as murdered her, and he’s my father. So you know—you know what it does to me when Liam makes those insinuations?”

  “Stop it,” Ezra said sharply, and leaned back, taking Jesse’s face in his hands. “Liam is a jealous idiot who knows my stance on that sort of thing. He knows if he could persuade me that you’re some abusive scumbag, I’d be gone in a heartbeat. But given that you’ve never so much as punched the wall in my presence, he’s got his work cut out for him.”

  Jesse managed a strangled sort of laugh. “I just—I look like my father, Ez. I look like him.”

  “And I look like my mother,” Ezra said simply. “Doesn’t mean I’ve been attending Mass behind your back.”

  “It’s different.”

  “It’s not,” Ezra said simply. “Your father was a cunt. ’Scuse my French, but he was. You, on the o
ther hand, are a generous, supportive, dedicated man who would never even think about hitting me in an argument. I know that.”

  Jesse cracked a watery smile. Ezra rested his chin on Jesse’s shoulder until his nose was less than an inch from Jesse’s cheek, and out of the corner of his eye, Jesse could see the answering smile.

  “I love you,” Ezra murmured, and Jesse slid an arm around his back and kissed his cheekbone, not quite trusting himself to kiss him properly and not get carried away with trying to show much he loved Ezra too, even if his bastard of a father had crippled his ability to actually tell anyone that he loved them in so natural a manner. “Hey. Let’s forget about Liam and your father and silly mirrors, hey? We could watch daytime TV and get Chinese later and maybe have sex without a cat watching, for once?”

  “Your cats are those voyager things.”

  “Voyeurs, babe.”

  “Those,” Jesse agreed, and Ezra laughed, stroking his face with the back of one hand. “I—”

  He wanted to say it. Needed to. But his tongue seized up and his brain sputtered, and Ezra cocked his head and kissed his lower lip gently.

  “Love you too, sweetheart,” he said, and it was enough.

  It just—it had to be enough.

  Chapter Seven

  Light duties meant largely staying in the station. Maintenance, admin, that sort of thing. Paperwork was the scourge of the fire service just like every other public service these days, and Jesse’s boss, Alan, was a pro at making sure the most physically useless people of the week did it.

  Jesse didn’t actually mind paperwork. Okay, it was boring, and he wasn’t exactly the most educated guy, but it was all designed so that even a monkey could fill it out. Plus, he’d personally met some of the drones it went off to, and they weren’t exactly geniuses either. It helped that they had a new transferee in the station too, and Jesse’s first morning back was spent filling him in on the various community safety outreach things the higher-ups had them doing every month.

  But the afternoon was for paperwork, and Jesse liked paperwork.

  It wasn’t the paperwork itself he liked. It was the fact that he was left alone to do it when a car hit a van on the main road and the police called for the fire service to come and separate what was left of the two vehicles. And that left Jesse on his own in the station, at the desk by the big upstairs office window, overlooking the park and the houses beyond.

  One of which was Ezra’s.

  He wasn’t close enough to really spy. He watched out at two for Ezra’s habitual run around the park during his holidays but could only guess at which jogger he was around the right time. It was the principle of the thing rather than the actual ability to do it. Right over there was Ezra’s house. After work, Jesse could wander over in less than five minutes. And he knew, because he’d texted and asked that morning, that Ezra would be home. He would be cross, because he was spending the day marking the Year Nine tests they’d done before the Easter holiday and apparently his Year Nines were complete morons and all going to fail every chemistry exam they ever took. And Jesse could get a bunch of flowers from the garage opposite the station, turn up with the offering and prise Ezra away from his work. And he’d succeed, because Ezra wanted to be prised.

  In short, Jesse was back at work, and in a very good mood.

  He felt…lighter, since telling Ezra about his father. Since telling Ezra about that nagging little fear that had always been there, and that Liam had neatly tapped into and brought bubbling up. He felt more stable, because it wasn’t just going to be a matter of time before Ezra found out. He knew now, and if he knew, then he could watch out too, and maybe with both of them being careful, it wouldn’t happen.

  There was just no way Jesse was going to turn into his father.

  It was a cloudy sort of day, and Jesse half watched the park and half watched his work for most of the afternoon. It was odd to think how close Ezra had been all that time. He had been teaching in Brighton for two and a half years, so for nearly two years, Jesse had worked not half a mile from him and never known. Never had any idea that he existed, not a clue that the perfect guy—even if he did have freezing feet in bed—was literally just around the corner.

  I am so lucky, he texted Ezra before leaning the mobile up against the computer speaker and carrying on replying to the emails that had built up in his absence. Someone wanted him to come and help test some applicants for the recent recruitment drive. He’d have to ask Alan if he could be spared, but it might be fun. Scaring newbies was always fun.

  ??? was Ezra’s reply.

  Me: I found you <3

  Sap, was Ezra’s less-than-romantic response. He had to be a third of the way through his marking, at least. Maybe even half. Shut up and get back to pressing buttons and pretending you’re useful.

  Me: You’re horrible to me.

  Ezra <3: Get the fuck used to it, sweetheart ;)

  Jesse grinned. Maybe he’d make it an extra big bunch of flowers this time. Ezra seemed to be in the mood for games. Well, now I have your attention…

  Ezra <3: Get back to work. You’re not paid to flirt!

  Me: How much would you pay me???

  Ezra <3: WORK!

  Jesse snickered and left the phone alone, returning to the emails and forwarding the training request to Alan. It was either him or Mac, and given that Mac wasn’t even close to being cleared for duty after his injuries…

  His phone buzzed again.

  From: Ezra <3

  Time: 15.43

  Message: …but don’t linger after shift too long ;) xxx

  * * * *

  Ezra opened the door, and Jesse thrust the flowers at him. They were a gaudy purple, an almost violent colour, and would have looked like oversized daisies if not for the virulent hue. He didn’t know what they were called, but they’d been the brightest, boldest bunch in the garage forecourt, so it had to be them.

  “Oh,” Ezra said, and grinned, taking them in both hands and sticking his nose in them appreciatively. “Is this just the flowers, or a full stripogram?”

  “Depends on the size of the tip,” Jesse said, leaning his hip against the door frame.

  “You know exactly how big the tip is—and the rest of it,” Ezra returned, and Jesse laughed, leaning in to kiss him hello.

  “Mm, and it’s not half bad either,” he murmured, and Ezra swatted at him.

  “Charming,” he said. “Come in, I suppose.”

  “Equally charming,” Jesse said, closing the door behind him and pausing to tickle Kitsa when she came to investigate his boots as he toed them off. “Mind if I change?” he asked, tugging on the shirt collar. “I hate this shit.”

  “Sure.” Ezra waved him off, already halfway to the kitchen.

  Usually, Jesse changed at work, but he’d not engaged his brain before going in this morning and realised that his uniform would be clean when he was done, and his actual firefighting kit wouldn’t move from his locker all day. Which meant he’d spent all day in the blacks, and he hated the itchy material. But he kept a change of clothes at Ezra’s for, well, maybe not this purpose, but for change-of-clothes purposes generally, and he jogged upstairs to raid the wardrobe in Ezra’s room and change into the pair of jeans and loose T-shirt he kept there.

  By the time he padded back downstairs and bounced into the kitchen, Ezra was arranging the purple monsters in a vase that was supermarket-brand plastic masquerading as fairly convincing crystal. His stereo was on, playing some nameless indie music, and Kitsa was sitting on top of a box of files by the table, the only evidence of what he’d spent his day doing.

  “How was marking?”

  “I’m a failure as a teacher,” Ezra said, tilting his head to let Jesse kiss his neck and hug him from behind. “They’re all criminally stupid. One superstar thought the chemical symbol for oxygen was ‘air’.”

  “As in, the word air?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well”—Jesse fidgeted, chin on Ezra’s shoulder—“I onl
y know it because of work.”

  “What’s C?”

  “What?”

  “The letter C—what’s that the chemical symbol for?”

  “Um—” Jesse wracked his brains. “Um, calcium?”

  “Carbon,” Ezra said flatly. “But at least you guessed an element. The same genius wrote ‘cat.’”

  “What is the chemical symbol for a cat?”

  “The equation would be about three hundred feet long,” Ezra said and pointed at Kitsa, watching them avidly from the box. “And the equation for that one would have to include the element ‘evil’, which hasn’t been found yet.”

  Jesse laughed, and squeezed Ezra tighter once he’d filled the vase with water and put it back on the counter.

  “Night in with the telly?” he proposed. “I offer my cooking skills and my hands for a shoulder massage later.”

  “What about the rest of you?” Ezra asked, tipping his head back onto Jesse’s shoulder to look up at him in a half upside-down, half sideways sort of move.

  “Always there if you want it,” Jesse grinned, and Ezra huffed, half smiling, and patted his cheek.

  “You’re a strange one,” he muttered, and twisted in Jesse’s hands to slide his arms around his chest and hug him. “I suppose you can stay for a little while, then, if you’re going to make yourself useful.”

  Jesse beamed and kissed his cheek before letting go. “What d’you want, then?”

  Much as Jesse was the more sociable one of the two, more prone to going out and getting plastered on his rest days with his mates from work or down the gym, he liked these evenings too. Puttering around Ezra’s kitchen with the telly on in the living room, and Ezra flitting about doing his chores like it was totally irrelevant that Jesse was there. It was comfortable, a sort of comfortable they were only just beginning to fall into, and Jesse enjoyed it. He liked the implications of it—that he belonged here, that Ezra expected him to be here. The little house was beginning to feel less like his boyfriend’s house near work and more like their home.