Then and Now

Then and Now ♥ Clare London

DEAR God, it was only a look. I mean, afterward, I thought I could have been wrong. Not that the man didn’t look at Thom, but that he didn’t mean what I thought he did. It’s not that I’m remiss or too old to recognise a significant look between people. Far from it: I see that sort of attention in all kinds of places. Other people never imagine just how often I do. But I think I hoped to be wrong. I’m telling my story backward, of course, so I need to set things in context. From the very start of Amelie’s engagement party, I was distracted. For me, it’s both a joy and a misery at that kind of family event, being surrounded by people. On the one hand, I’ve been an anti-social bastard for years—or so my siblings tell me—and I find it stressful, getting out and practicing my rather rusty conversational skills. But it’s a consolation if the event is a happy occasion. This one was in honor of Amelie’s engagement, my youngest niece, one of my sister Dana’s children. Dana and her husband Paul had a small house, and it was full that afternoon, full of relatives and partners; full of neighbors who were rather too keen on Dana’s free booze for my liking; full of Amelie’s college friends who were noisy, clumsy, and astonishingly enthusiastic about living the moment, and

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London most of whom seemed to subscribe to piercings and tattoos as the new black. That look was superb on Amelie, of course. So call me biased. But she was beautiful and young and uninhibitedly in love—what’s not to admire? At one stage, she’d been showing off a new tongue stud to my aunt, her great-aunt, maybe not a wise move. Luckily, Aunt Elsie’s eyesight was never the best after a few glasses of sherry, and she just simpered and nodded. Dana caught my gaze in passing and shrugged ruefully. The trials of parenthood, her gesture said eloquently. I couldn’t say I understood, but I sympathized. But on the other hand, these events are also a trial. And not just because the younger nieces and nephews seem to grin mischievously at me all the time and treat me like some aged uncle who’d be better suited to a stair-lift and a nice warm blanket. Dammit, I’m not that far the other side of forty; I’m only a couple of years older than Dana. But I don’t fit into their categories, I suppose, despite my liberal scattering of gifts and bank notes that usually gets the younger generation back on my side. “Why don’t you come over more often?” they wheedle. Some of them have the grace to laugh, knowing they’ve been caught out in their mercenary cupboard-love. “Why don’t you get married, Uncle Ned?” they murmur. “Wouldn’t you like children just like us?” Today, Dana stopped beside me in the kitchen. I was on my own in there, pretending to wash some glasses, grateful for a moment’s oasis amongst the relentless party spirit.

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London She was carrying a plate of sandwiches, but she put them down for long enough to put a hand on my shoulder. “You need to mix, Ned,” she said, her scolding the usual cover for concern. “Don’t hide here, out of the way.” “But I have mixed,” I protested, keeping it mild. “I’ve taken Eric’s mother-in-law to the cloakroom twice, saved Amelie’s fiancé from sitting in the gateau, and listened to Great Uncle William’s tales of the Blitz. Oh, and handed out pocket money that would equal the first repayment on the national debt. Haven’t you been taking notes?” She smiled, but her eyes were searching my face. She knew me too well. “Is it so bad, Ned? To be here… when he’s not?” I frowned. later. Or not.

Not now, I thought.

We can talk about it

“He’s gone,” she said, even more softly. “Your best friend Jack… your usual buddy at these events. I’m so sorry for your loss, but it’s been six months now. You need to move on.” “Dana.” I sighed. There was a painful knot starting up in my throat. Someone roared with laughter in the living room, and we both flinched. “You’ve been drinking.” She grimaced. “Don’t be an asshole. So have you.” I met her gaze. “Not enough,” I said in a rare burst of openness. “It’s not so easily done, you know. Friendship doesn’t just… move on.”

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London She half nodded, but she looked confused. Of all my delightful, flighty, frustrating, lively sisters, Dana was the one who knew me best, but that didn’t mean she knew everything. Over her shoulder, I saw a group of people coming into the kitchen looking for drinks, laughing loudly. “Go back to the party,” I said to her, more gently. I nudged her off toward the living room again. I nodded hello to a couple of the arrivals, one of my cousins and his wife. And to some friends of Amelie’s whose names I couldn’t—nor was expected to—remember. A girl who looked around, frowned at not finding her particular friends, and left the room. A couple of young men with the dyed, jet-black hair that followed the popular Goth fashion, accentuating their pale, washed-out skin. And then I saw Thom Ellis, Jack’s son. He grinned at me and lifted his glass in acknowledgement to a family friend. Thom’s family had lived in the house next door my whole life. A couple of generations back, our families moved in on the same day, and we’d all stayed here ever since. Dana and I and Thom’s father, Jack, had grown up together. Then the houses had been passed down the generations, ours to Dana and her children and next door to Jack and his family. Thom came over to talk to me, leaving his friends chatting amongst themselves. “Ned.” He smiled and shook my hand with the slight embarrassment young people often have when they’re trying to show off their manners. But I appreciated the way he never felt the need to prefix my name with ‘Uncle’ the way some people insist on it for adult friends

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London of their family. Dana and I once thought Amelie and Thom might get together romantically, if you know what I mean. They’re about the same age and get on well, and Dana imagined it as a rather sentimental linking of yet another generation. I’d never admitted to anyone the additional, bitter irony in that. But anyway, it wasn’t to be. Amelie had fallen in love with a musician during her college years, and Thom had fallen into the role of nurse to his sick father. They remained friends, and that was all. I looked closely at Thom today, seeing lines of worry on his young face. Seeing a ghostly echo of his father. I’d been to kindergarten and then school with Jack Ellis; I’d watched him grow up alongside me. I’d watched him laugh, cry, break bones, and learn to swear, and then mature into adulthood at a weird, gangly pace. He played football with a passion, though not well enough to follow his dream as a professional, so he’d settled for a mediocre but steady job for the sake of security. I’d been with him through all those years, through a modestly successful career; through celebrations when Thom was born; through grief a few years later when he lost his wife in a tragic accident. Jack had brought Thom up himself. I’d moved out to my own place by then, but we were still in and out of each other’s family home as Dana shared the upbringing of her own kids. It had been a busy life for all of us, barely time to stop and think how things were really going. Then, over the course of the last eighteen months, I’d watched Jack grow very, very sick. He had cancer, was eaten up by it, destroyed by the shocking disease that people

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London pitied in their hearts but too rarely mentioned in polite conversation. I’d visited him more than any of his other friends had, and people commented on what a good neighbor I was. And then, six months ago, I’d watched him submit to the wracking pain, waste away, and die. They had no idea at all what a good neighbor I was—or wasn’t. “How is it at home, Thom? How are you nowadays?” I didn’t want to bring unhappiness into this happy afternoon, but the words spilled out of me regardless. Thom looked so like his father—the same tousled dark curls, the same crooked nose, the same eyes that creased at the edges when he smiled. He didn’t seem to mind my intrusion. I’d always admired that in Thom since he was a boy, the same courage and honesty that Jack had. He didn’t have Jack’s bold, easy charm, but other similarities were there. The very opposite to me and my frequently abrasive attitude, causing me to rail against the injustices in life, to alienate the very people I needed to charm, to scupper the rare opportunities I had for forming lasting relationships outside of my own family. Apart from Jack, of course. “Ned, I’m okay. I miss Dad a lot, but it’s better that he’s not around, suffering. Right?” Thom smiled that same smile, and the pain cramped in my belly. “Actually, I’m going to re-apply to college this year as a mature student on a new English lit course. Give myself a chance to catch up with what I missed. I think he’d have wanted that, now that

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London I’m getting along without him. I’m doing my best, anyway. How about you?” “Me?” Thom frowned, puzzled. “He talked about you a lot. You were best friends. I just thought….” “Yes, I miss him too.” I couldn’t hear my voice very well, it sounded weak and distant. Thom flushed. Maybe he’d been drinking too, though I’d never seen him drunk or under the influence of anything. He was more careful about that than Jack had ever been. “Ned, look….” He bit at his lower lip as if he didn’t know whether to go on. Was he afraid of offending me somehow? “I want you to know I understand.” His eyes lifted to mine, and his expression was disturbed. His voice was so quiet I had to lean forward a little to hear him. “At least, I think I do. I’ve wanted to say this ever since Dad… died. You were such a good friend, so devoted to him. You and him….” His eyes darted away again. “We’d been friends since children.” I coughed, trying to clear my throat. “Least I could do.” Thom nodded but didn’t look as if he were really listening to me. His mind was on something else, something he wanted to get off his chest. I knew the look, because Jack had also worn it, though he hadn’t always followed it up with words. “This sort of event,” Thom murmured. I couldn’t imagine what he was going to say, so I couldn’t forestall it. “It’s a trial. If you’re not… part of it.”

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London I frowned. “Of course you are. You’re like family, you know that. Amelie—” “Not that,” he interrupted. “I meant the engagement thing. Marriage. For some people it represents everything good in their life. All about commitment, happiness, status, right?” Perhaps the question was rhetorical; he certainly didn’t wait for me to respond. “But for others, it’s just like a closed shop. All those same good things in the window, but the door’s shut tight.” “Thom.” I found I couldn’t go on. I’d never had a conversation like this with him before; I wasn’t even sure what he meant. And there was something very raw and very honest in his eyes. Something that struck a deep, anguished chord inside me. “It’s meant to be different nowadays, Ned.” Thom sounded hesitant, but determined. “The world’s getting more tolerant, or so they say. What do you think?” “Me?” “You don’t have to let things eat you up inside, hiding how you feel,” he continued. His face was reddening. “You don’t need to feel ashamed or anything. Okay, so maybe that’s naïve, it’s not completely easy, and plenty of people are still so bloody narrow-minded….” He flushed again. “I’m saying this badly. I suppose I hope it’s easier to be different. To choose different paths, yet still have the same opportunities. To be open about it all.” He glanced at me, nodding. “For all of us.”

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m afraid.” The words were an automatic politeness, but the chill of fear clutched my heart. I looked at Thom’s eyes, and instead I saw Jack’s—the eyes that had met mine, bold and amused and challenging all through my life. He’d roll his eyes when he was sharing a joke: he’d peer at me when he was determined or angry. Like the time he caught me shoplifting after school, and we fought, physically, on the path outside my house. That was maybe the first time I felt his strength directed against me. Even as a teenager he rarely picked fights, but I’d really riled him that day. He gripped me and punched wildly, bringing me to the ground so he lay on me, his face red and sweaty. His hands were so tight on my arms that he bruised me, his heart hammering against my chest, his legs stretched out the length of my own. I’d stared into his face, and all I could remember now after so many years was my plaintive crying, apologizing, shouting at him, trying to calm him down. To make his disappointment go away, to make things right between us, and still the hammering, hammering of his heart against my chest— “Ned?” Thom was staring at me. He was rather pale. Jack had never been that pale when he was a young man. I remembered his flushed, angry face that day, and the warmth of his skin against mine, a drop of his spittle on my cheek. Neither of us won the fight; it was broken up by our parents, who never understood why we fought in the first place. He never told on me either. When they came to pull us apart, there was a fierce, astonishing period when we still gripped hard to each other, and then he was wrenched away, still angry with me. In that moment, I knew two things with

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London blinding clarity—that I wanted to keep holding him, but I was the only one clinging to that moment. And that’s how it would always be. When Jack glared back at me, sweating and cursing, his father’s arms holding him back, there was a flicker of shock in his eyes. Not because of our parents’ anger, not because of the thieving, but because of me. His look warned me of something I didn’t even understand myself. It was a statement of the rules, of the limits to which he was prepared to go, and no further. Even for the sake of our friendship. For my sake. It set the tone for all the years ahead. “Ned?” There was so much more: so many memories, such layers of experience we built between us. As adults, we’d continued to be close friends. I remembered how Jack would laugh at my more pathetic jokes when no one else did. He helped me choose clothes for a job interview, celebrating with me at the pub when I got the job. We’d go camping in the spring, fishing in the summer, playing pool in the winter. We spent our weekends under my car, fixing the gearbox because the damned thing never really ran properly. Jack had always been the more social one, pushing me forward, laughing at my attempts at courting, accusing me of being a coward. His own eyes were always on the women, his success so much better than mine, with his charm and his easy going tolerance, and his smile— “Are you okay?” Thom looked distressed now. He put a hand on my arm, and his features became clear to me again,

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London prompting my memory away from the days of my youth and into the blunt reality of my sister’s present-day kitchen. There was noise at the doorway again as more young people came through. Two girls, Amelie’s flatmates, were draped around each other and bemoaning the loss of another from their exclusively feminine gang. Behind them was another man, tall and dark-haired, who looked a little older than the others. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him at any other family functions. He was broad-shouldered, but he moved with a confident grace and was very striking. He had a pleasant smile too, though it was strained. I could well imagine that being with those girls was wearing. I drew back against the counter, waiting for Thom to go over and join the new arrivals. Just as Jack and I had been friends in our youth, so Thom knew most of Amelie’s friends from their shared college days. Framed in the doorway, the dark-haired man glanced over at us, his gaze skimming across me and settling on Thom. And the look lingered there. I couldn’t drag my own gaze away. Realization washed gently over me, but with that same cold chill that made me shiver. Despite the pretty young girls around, that man had eyes for Thom and Thom alone. It was something gentle yet fierce, both passionate and compassionate. I saw things in that look that scared me, shocked me, thrilled me. I saw things that looked back at me from my own mirror and had done so for most of my life. Things that I’d hidden, denied, and suffered. Every thought and dream and desire I’d ever

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London concealed in the deep recesses of my mind came back now like a secret sore to haunt me, to torment me, not only with what might have been, but with what had never been allowed to live in the first place. I glanced at Thom, and he’d obviously seen the man’s interest. There was a slight smile on his face, an answering flush on his cheeks. Then one of the women shrieked with laughter at something her friend said, and the tension of the moment shattered. The dark-haired man backed out of the kitchen, all the other people following, the girls stumbling around him with fresh drinks in their hand and musical laughter on their lips. I thought I saw Thom’s shoulders sag a little. We were alone again. Except that now we’d been joined by my memories and fears, both past and present. And for now, they demanded my attention. In a sudden, spontaneous gesture, not something I was ever known for, I grasped Thom’s arm and pulled him in closer. “Thom, I’m sorry.” I sounded breathless. “What you’re trying to say… I know you mean well. He’d be proud of you, you know? Jack would. Even if he was narrowminded in some ways. And you know he was.” Jack had been loud and opinionated about the roles of men and women. About traditional society. Yet there had been many times he looked as if he had something important to say to me, with the same fearful nervousness I saw today in Thom’s eyes. It had never happened: Jack had always turned away again. Sometimes that hurt me, but sometimes I was glad. Maybe he’d have said something that could have eased the small but leaden knot of loneliness I carried around all the

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London time. But maybe I’d been afraid he’d say something that would part us irrevocably. Thom’s eyes widened. “I don’t think… no, Ned, I didn’t mean about me….” But his eyes told me that was a lie. We both knew it. We both shared this. The pain in my chest was as tangible as if he’d struck me. I gripped him harder, the memory of a hot day and a young man’s breath on my neck making me dizzy. “Be honest with yourself too. It’s too late for me. Don’t let that happen to you.” I’ll never forgive myself. I can never fully accept what I’ve become. I’d said that so many times—to myself, to the mirror, to a single, midnight-cold pillow. Thom glanced over toward the empty doorway then back to me. He was still very flushed. “Ned, look… I haven’t spoken to anyone, not really….” He sighed, still wary, dropping his voice even further in case someone else came in. “I’m not sure. Of anything. You understand? What’s best for me to do. I know how I feel; I think I know what I want. But that’s not always enough, is it?” He grimaced with frustration. He looked like he wanted to swear but was holding it back, and his respect for a family friend’s sensibilities touched me deeply. “What chance is there, for anything in the long term, if I… choose wrong?” “And what chance if you don’t choose at all?” I snapped. His eyes widened, but there was a flicker of spirit in them. “God, this is weird, talking to you like this… a hell of a relief, too, though. I just don’t want to upset anyone.”

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London I frowned. say?”

“Fuck them.

Isn’t that what you should

He laughed abruptly, too loudly; I’d startled him. “Ned, you’re… I don’t know what I’d say! What’s brought all this on?” I released him, recalling the older man who’d just been in the kitchen with us and the dark, devoted depths of his eyes when he looked at Thom. There had been so much in there that I’d recognized. That I might have wanted for my own, if things had been different—if I’d had the courage. “Go back to the party,” I said. “Go with whomever you want, whoever makes you happy. But make sure that they do. Live life, Thom. Make your own chance. Grab it with both hands.” I lifted my palms and stared at them, as if they still bore the imprint of that fight from years ago, scarred with the rough scrape of pavement and aching with the sharp, illicit, unrequited desire for another man’s flesh. For another man’s love. “With both hands.”

HOW much longer, I wondered, before I could leave the party? What was a reasonably civil time? At previous family events, Dad would have been one of the last to leave. I know, because Ned and I often had to half-carry him home,

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London worse for wear from the drink. He always drank a lot when he visited Dana and Paul’s house, especially when Ned was visiting too. Dammit, Dad had drunk a lot ever since I’d been old enough to notice. Of course, to people outside the family, he was always cheerful, always larger than life. Everyone’s favorite visitor, a party guy. Wearing that mask must have taken its toll on him. He mourned Mum more than anyone realized; maybe other things disillusioned him as well. It’d taken me a long time to think about it like that. To see him as an adult, the same as I was now. To have made mistakes, to have had regrets, never articulated. They said at the hospital that his liver wasn’t bad for a man who drank as much as he did. It wasn’t his liver that caused the most damage, anyway, although gradually all the organs failed. He drank; he smoked; he ate crap most of the time when I wasn’t there to watch over it… dammit, there wasn’t much in his favor. Whatever the cause, the last year of his life had been a long, miserable journey for both of us, ferrying him to and from the treatments and then accepting they weren’t doing anything except making him more uncomfortable. I’d already dropped out of college to work part-time at a local firm, and I moved back into the house to see him through the last months. He was a bastard to his nurses, and there was no one else who could cope with him by then. Well, maybe there was. Ned came around most days, even if Dad was a bastard to him, too, sometimes. It was the

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London sickness that made him that way. Or that’s what I used to think. I leaned back against the wall of the hallway, swallowing a sigh. It was always great to see Amelie and her parents, but now we were at that end-of-the-day time you get at family parties, when all the best food has gone, the kids are whining, the teenagers are getting itchy feet waiting to get off to a club, and the older guests are getting maudlin over the sherry. Meanwhile, I was standing around, waiting my turn for a piss in the tiny downstairs cloakroom. There was just me and another of Amelie’s family friends waiting, and one girl who’d gone in ahead of us. She’d looked pale and disorientated; we could hear her now, stumbling about inside the small room. I wasn’t sure how long to leave it before I knocked and asked if she needed help. Aunt Dana came past, squeezing through the space left in the corridor, balancing more plates of impromptu sandwiches, her smart suit looking creased. I reached out to help carry a plate or two, but she stopped, pulling them back and shaking her head. She was smiling, though. “Thom, you’re a guest today. I can manage.” She glanced between me and the other man in the makeshift queue. She wouldn’t like talking too personally in front of the distant relatives. “Everything okay?” I nodded and smiled dutifully. Dana was still peering at me. “You were all right with Ned? In the kitchen just now?” She must have seen my puzzlement. “Sorry, I was just worried… well, no reason. He

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London can be sharp, you know that. He misses your dad at functions like this; they were company for each other.” I knew what she was saying without any words. Two men on their own, used to their own ways, understanding each other’s habits. When I continued with the bland smile, she bit her lip. “I don’t think Ned understands how things are for you young people. For him, and for me, growing up… well, the world wasn’t like it is now.” I didn’t quite know what to say, so I just nodded again. “You’re on your own today?” She glanced around, her voice bright. Maybe she thought a partner for me would suddenly step down from the wallpaper or emerge like ectoplasm from the vase of chrysanthemums on the hall table. “Yes,” I said quietly. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to her. I rarely brought anyone around, relying on her family to provide the company. Or in her Aunt Elsie’s case, a succession of single girls she kept prodding my way. “Well, I mean, I came with a group I know from college, from when I was there. You know. Amelie’s friends.” Dana nodded, her expression confused for some reason. Then we heard a child’s loud cry from the living room— accompanied by the crash of crockery—and Dana rolled her eyes. She hurried on past me. The man waiting in the hallway with me had been watching us talking. Now he grinned at me. “Best way, eh?

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London Put yourself about when you’re young. But that’s family for you, always trying to spoil your fun.” I stared back. For a second, I was confused, wondering who he was, what the hell he was talking about. “Women.” He grinned, nodding at me as if we were on our own exclusive planet. He was older than me, though maybe not as old as Dana and Paul. I thought I’d seen him before at family events, some friend of a friend. Someone’s husband too, I seemed to remember. “I mean, we’ve all got to give it up some time, right? Need someone at the end of the day to clean up after us. But while the going’s good, play the field.” I didn’t even nod. The guy was offensive, and I didn’t want to encourage him. A brief moment of sympathy for his wife passed through my mind. Anyway, I was used to holding my tongue. Had to do it for all those months with Dad—had to do it for a few years before that, for other reasons. “Stirring things up, though, right?” He peered at me, his eyes rimmed red from too much drink. “Engagements… weddings. All these hours of hormonal melodrama. I know what that’s like.” For a horrible moment, I thought he was going to jab me in the ribs as well. “Gets the girls expecting too much, that’s what I say. Gets ’em unsettled.” He didn’t give me a chance to give an opinion on that. His grin had slipped into more of a leer, and he was leaning against the wall as if he needed it to keep him upright. “In fact, if you really ask me, what you want to do is get to know a couple of

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London those tarts in there with skirts up around their ass and preferably without too much fucking metalwork in their mou—” “Excuse me?” snapped a male voice from behind us. The guy swivelled around to glare at whoever had interrupted his pearls of sordid wisdom. Then his eyes travelled further upward and paused. His throat swallowed, convulsively. “You have a problem with some of my girl friends?” continued the new voice. It was smooth but firm. And very confident. Alex Brough was well over six foot, a fine rugby player and built like one, dark-haired and broad. He was only a couple of years older than me, but he already had that air of steady, calm strength the best athletes have. Though in Alex, there was mercifully little arrogance to match. The man started to bluster. Luckily for him—because I’d seen Alex turn on people occasionally, his aggression not restricted entirely to the playing field—the girl in the toilet chose that particular moment to stumble out. She fell against me, giggling, and as I handed her off to Alex to direct her back to her friends, the man backed away toward the kitchen and dodged inside. I caught Alex’s eye. For a second, his look was grim, and then it relaxed. We both grinned. “Thom,” Alex said. It was more than a greeting; it was as if he’d discovered and was naming me for the very first time. But then, the gentle, eager way he spoke to me was always like that. I’d forgotten how happy it made me feel.

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London “Alex, hi.” I sounded clumsy in return; I knew I did. I was over-warm too. The awkward feelings had started in the kitchen when I was talking to Ned, when Alex came in and looked over at me. I felt like some stupid adolescent, all over again. Flushing with nervousness…with excitement. Bloody idiot. I scolded myself, but the feelings didn’t go away. For that matter, neither did the happiness. At that moment, we were the only people in the hallway, though there was the murmur of voices and soft laughter in the living room. I didn’t know what to say next. We’d both been here since the party started, but somehow I’d never been anywhere alone with him—not anywhere we might talk. Just circumstantial, of course. “What a prick, right?” I grinned, remembering. “Yes, he was. You scared the shit out of him, you know.” “Good. He’d better keep his distance from Amelie. I’m assuming he’s a very distant branch of the family?” I shrugged. “Very, I hope.” Alex laughed, his eyes flickering over me. good,” he said simply.

“You look

I cleared my throat, looking down in embarrassment at my rather shabby chinos. “Didn’t know what to wear really, for something like this. Not a lot of choice, a capsule wardrobe like mine.” While I mumbled out pathetic jokes, I

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London could feel him watching me. It was as if his look reached out and stroked me. “I meant you, not your jacket and tie, you moron.” He sighed, very quietly, rather fondly. I glanced up at him, startled, to find him still smiling at me. “Thanks,” I retorted. We both laughed, and my embarrassment faded away. There was a sudden burst of movement from the living room doorway and one of the younger children darted out into the hallway. He was laughing but unsteady on his feet, and he grabbed at us to get his balance back, one sticky hand on my trouser leg and one on Alex’s. He straightened up, holding us together like that, as if our legs made up a matching pair and we were just one single, familiar man to him. Then he laughed again, let go, and staggered back into the living room. I heard a woman who was probably his mother calling for him. “Friend of yours?” I asked, joking. Alex laughed again, a rich, easy sound. Every time I made him laugh like that, I felt like a young god. My stomach churned with confusion. Why hadn’t there been more laughter like that recently? When had it started to slip away, fading like memory in the morning after, like an old photo bleaching slowly but inexorably in the sun…. “You waiting?” Alex interrupted me, nodding his head toward the toilet door.

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London I tried to smile as easily as before. “Yes. That stupid guy….” I never finished the sentence. Silently, Alex took hold of my sleeve and, before I could protest, tugged me into the small cloakroom after him. He flattened his back against the wall, twisted me around so that I had my back to the sink and my face close to his, and then he pulled the door shut behind us. The sound of voices was immediately muted, and we were plunged into semi darkness. I laughed nervously. It sounded startlingly loud. “Turn on the light, Alex. And you’d better let yourself out again unless you’re planning on sharing some rather personal bodily functions….” This time, his non-answer was to kiss me. He was taller than I was; he had to bend down to reach. I felt his hair brush my cheek just a second before his mouth touched mine. I jumped a little, but I didn’t pull away. I couldn’t—or rather, I didn’t want to. The taste was too delicious, too shockingly sweet. His mouth was as confident as the rest of him, pressing against mine, damp and warm and firm. I gasped very slightly, and that opened my lips a fraction. His tongue slid in between them. His kissing was… so good. Both familiar and thrillingly new. Was that how it was meant to feel? Or just with him? “Thom.” It was only a whisper, but I felt as if I tasted the breath along with his lips. “We can’t.” My words were muffled as his tongue thrust gently into my mouth, his hands gripping me close to him. It

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London was only half a surprise to find my own hands clutching him back. “What if someone catches us?” He pulled away from me, panting. the dim light from under the door. I forming the shape of his kiss, seeking loss. My heart beat was very fast, thickened swiftly inside my trousers.

His eyes glinted in found my lips still for it, mourning its and my cock had

“Thom, I can’t keep this up,” he said raggedly. seeing you. Not being with you.”

“Not

I heard a soft, sad gasp and realized it was my own. “Alex, I’m so sorry. I never meant….” “What?” His tone sharpened. “What didn’t you mean?” “Hush,” I muttered. I had a sudden vision of Dana knocking on the door, asking if everything was all right, if someone had been taken ill. Sick, yes, I thought. But not in the way she’d mean. “We can talk about it outside. Can’t we?” His hand brushed gently down my arm, and my whole body shivered, involuntarily. Alex laughed softly, sounding bitter. He must have felt me shake; he was still holding me tightly. “I think we’ve talked enough. That’s all we did do for weeks. And you still ended up dumping me.” “Hey.” I protested, but the guilt stirred inside me. He was right. I’d been the one to say we needed a break. I needed one. But I could smell him now, so close, feel his

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London muscles under my hands, taste his skin on my tongue. What the hell had I been thinking? He must have felt my hesitation, too, because he leaned back in and kissed me again, more fiercely this time. And I kissed back, my tongue equally as aggressive. The edge of the sink basin was digging into the small of my back, and the small towelling mat on the floor slipped about awkwardly under my feet. But I grabbed Alex and pressed myself against him, my groin rubbing against the delicious hardness behind his fly. He groaned, muttering fractured phrases, his voice low and urgent. “Thom… yes. Yes. Fuck, touch me. Want you. God.” I moaned into his mouth and slid my hand down between us, cupping him. He was half-erect already and still swelling under the tightening fabric. I knew I was the same. I stroked him, felt him thicken under my fingers. He put his hand over mine, following my movements, his knuckles rubbing in the same rhythm against my own hardness. We were both panting. So close to him, so maddeningly close! The only reason I’d kept sane so far was because I’d kept him away. Denied myself this touch, this affection, this desire. “Come back with me tonight,” he whispered in my ear. “Stay with me. Come back. Thom… God.” I’d denied myself his laughter and his wit and his firm, steady strength. I’d lost his company, his arguments, and his untidiness. His arm around my shoulders, his glorious,

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London naked, sweating body beside me in bed, his bleary grin over the breakfast cereal. I ached to have it all back. He’d say I was all kinds of moron, breaking up with him. Of course he would, though he’d swiftly smile to show he didn’t really mean the insult. But it’d always been different for him, hadn’t it? He never seemed to doubt things, never struggled. Whereas I couldn’t think straight when I was with him. I couldn’t stop smiling, laughing, wanting to touch him. Wanting him to touch me. It was too distracting, too confusing, when there were so many other things I thought I had to consider—other people, other places, other opinions. I couldn’t work out what was best for us both. I’d needed some space. So that’s what I told him. I’d needed to do that, hadn’t I? Someone from the party called up the hallway, their voice loud outside the door then fading away as they moved on. It was enough to make me pull away from Alex, gasping, though there was little enough room. This wasn’t just a joke; it wasn’t just fumbling and frottage in the cloakroom. It wasn’t just something we’d laugh off if we were caught, two young men, friends having drunk a few too many beers, messing about. Had it ever been? Alex tensed up against me. “For God’s sake, Thom, stop it.” “Stop…?” “The angst. The panic.” His voice was low, sad, angry. “Shit, I can feel it through you like steel cable. Is it really that bad, being with me?”

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London “No, of course not, it’s not that,” I groaned. Of course it wasn’t! Every touch of Alex made me ache, every word he spoke made me either laugh or want to cry. Being with him was like the welcome light coming on in a dark corridor, like stepping into a dry, warm room after getting drenched in the winter rain. So what was my problem? That’s what Alex was saying. So was I. I stared at him, trying to focus properly. The sliver of light under the doorway flickered in and out as someone else walked past in the hallway. The water in the cistern behind me gurgled suddenly and, startled, we both started to laugh. “I love you, Thom,” he said hoarsely. I bit back my laugh. thought he’d hear it.

My heart beat was so loud I

“I pushed you too hard, I know. Bullied you. I’m sorry, I can’t tell you how much I regret that. So I’m backing off the idea of us getting a place together when you come back to college.” Alex’s voice was very small for the large man that he was. “We don’t have to say anything to anyone at all if that’s what scares you. What people will think.” “I’m not scared.” I said it boldly, but my voice came out weaker than I hoped. Alex shook his head, though his eyes were sympathetic. “Alex, what that guy said in the hall….”

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London “About the girls?” “No. About marriage. About how it unsettles people.” I needed to take an extra breath. “Raises expectations.” I knew Alex was puzzled. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I sighed. My hand was still clutching his elbow. “It is for us. It won’t happen for us.” “Why not? It’s legal. It’s… if we wanted it—” “Shit.” I cursed too loudly perhaps, but there wasn’t any response from outside the room. “Don’t be so fucking naïve.” Suddenly I wished he’d been with me when I spoke to Ned, to see the agony in the man’s expression, the frustration and the resentment and the angry pain. All I’d offered in return was my own selfish relief, knowing someone else understood. Yet it had nearly broken Ned, hadn’t it? And Dad… the things he’d said when he’d been in the most pain, when the morphine had been at its thickest. He loved Ned, his best friend, I’d never doubted it, though Dad never used that word, of course. For that matter, he hadn’t often used it with me, though I’d learned not to mind. But I know he realized what Ned was, what his friend really felt, really wanted. He was just never able to talk to him about it. It had never been acknowledged. Tolerance hadn’t been an option, let alone anything else. What kind of life had it been, to exclude all that?

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London It’s meant to be different nowadays, Ned. I’d said that, thinking I’d console both of us. Or did I mean to encourage us? Alex was silent, watching me. I could see him frowning. His breathing was shallow, as if the movement hurt him. “So we have to give it all up, then? You’re going to find yourself one of those nice girls your extended family keeps bringing around. Thom, is that what you really want?” “No.” “So what are we? What were we?” He didn’t wait for an answer, his voice rising in volume. “Some kind of sexual experiment, a game? I didn’t think you were like that. I thought you were honest with me.” “I was.” “It’s never going to be easy, fuck, I know that. You think I don’t know what we’d have to cope with, that I’m blissfully ignorant. But I’m not. I just don’t want it to rule my life.” He was rushing on, talking over me. I watched the fever in his eyes, the passion in his expression. His hands were tight on my arms though he didn’t move any closer. I knew if we kept speaking at this volume someone would soon hear us. “We can go at whatever pace you want, whatever you need. But I want you with me. I want us to be together, and I want it public. I want us to get a place to live and have fun and find better jobs and go on holiday and… everything. Just like—” “Normal couples?”

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London At last he stopped rambling, his eyes widening. are,” he whispered. “Aren’t we?”

“We

“Normal?” He nodded. His lips were moist. The air was charged around us, tension keeping us both together and apart. I let out my breath very slowly. “Yes, we are,” I said softly. How could it be otherwise? “Normal for us. Right?” He stared at me warily, as if I might be teasing him. I’d adapted to the light in the cloakroom, and I could see his face more clearly now. How cruel did he think I could be? Make your own chance, Ned had told me. Grab it with both hands. And then, just as slowly, Alex smiled back. “Normal, he says. You’re a guy who uses piles of collectible comic books in his room as a coffee table.” I grimaced, but I smiled back, joining in the joke. “Yeah? And you’re a guy starts every morning at five a.m. with a run around the park, regardless of weather. Five point six miles…” “…no more, no less. Always clockwise.” Alex was laughing. “I know. We’re both weird, sure. Not the conventional type. Not the marrying kind.” He reached around my waist again, pulling me in for another quick, deep kiss. “Though I don’t run every morning,” he murmured mischievously.

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London There was a man’s voice outside the cloakroom, interrupting us. “Who’s in there? Dammit, come out, I’m going to piss myself in a minute. Hey, you hear me?” Someone else murmured to him in the background. “What do you mean, there’s two of them in there? Did someone bring a smoke or something? Dammit, if there’s none left for me when they come out….” I was reluctant to let Alex go, but time was running out. At least now I knew it was only this time. “I love you too,” I whispered back. I’d never said it enough. I think I’d been afraid of what it really meant. Bloody idiot. “…so would you?” Alex whispered urgently. “Ever?” “Would I what?” I was shaking, half from laughter, half from the excitement of holding him close. I expected discovery and dismay any second now, when I stumbled out of the cloakroom with tousled hair, a broad grin, and my cock still swollen under my trouser fly, without a good enough excuse for being in there with another man in the first place. “Marry me?” The man impatiently.

outside

was

rattling

the

door

handle

“Shit.” Alex looked very flushed, even in the poor light. “Sorry, what a fucking stupid thing to say….” “Maybe,” I said quickly, putting my hand to his mouth to stop his unnecessary apology. “Maybe, yes, one day.

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London Please.” He was grinning, staring at me, looking as shocked as the day I’d told him we should part for a while, but this time without the pain. I wriggled around to unlock the door, and I glanced back over my shoulder just before I burst us both rudely back into suburban society. “And I already know someone I’d like to be our best man.”

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London

CLARE took the pen name LONDON from the city where she lives, loves, and writes. A lone, brave female in a frenetic, testosterone-fueled family home, she juggles her writing with the weekly wash, waiting for the far distant day when she can afford to give up her day job as an accountant. She’s written in many genres and across many settings, with novels and short stories published both online and in print. She says she likes variety in her writing while friends say she’s just fickle, but as long as both theories spawn good fiction, she’s happy. Most of her work features male/male romance and drama with a healthy serving of physical passion, as she enjoys both reading and writing about strong, sympathetic, and sexy characters. Clare currently has several novels sulking at that tricky chapter three stage and plenty of other projects in mind... she just has to find out where she left them in that frenetic, testosterone-fueled family home. Visit her Web site at http://www.clarelondon.co.uk and her blog at http://clarelondon.livejournal.com/.

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London

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Then and Now ♥ Clare London

Then and Now ©Copyright Clare London, 2009 Published by Dreamspinner Press 4760 Preston Road Suite 244-149 Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover Design by Mara McKennen This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ Released in the United States of America June, 2009

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