Alexis Hall

Toby nodded. “I remember you from Pervocracy.”

“Believe me—” Grace smiled “—we remember you too.”

“Why were you worried about Laurie?”

“That’s not important,” I interrupted. “Does anybody want some tea?”

“Because you’d fucked off,” Grace explained. “He was in a state.”

“Really?” Toby hustled across the sofa and practically climbed into my lap. “Really really?”

I brushed his fringe out of his eyes. “Yes, really. I told you. And you know, it’s bad manners to get excited when you hear about someone being miserable.”

“Yeah, but I was miserable without you too, so it’s comforting. And for the record—” he turned back to Grace and Sam “—I didn’t fuck off. I had . . . like . . . a thing, and I didn’t have his number.”

It was ridiculous. A skinny nineteen-year-old with his adolescence still written on his skin. I nearly said, You’re not a dom, you’re a child.

This is why I like Laurie so much—he has absolutely no culture.

Point is, my dad’s a dick who treated my mum like shit, and now he’s doing this big comeback where everyone’s acting like it’s okay, and it’s not okay, and it fucks me off.”

just sort of aware that anything you wanted to know about me you could Google.”

“Would it be the truth, though?”

I cringed. “Some of it. And not only the good stuff.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my line of work, it’s that ‘some of the truth’ is the most misleading thing you can hear. Anything I want to know about you, I’ll ask.”

“You’re okay.”

I lay still, my body not sure whether it wanted to run screaming for the door or just sort of…melt everywhere. “Um, what’s going on?”

“You’re going to sleep.”

There was no way that was happening. This was too much. It was far too much.

Except, as it turned out, he was right, and it wasn’t, and I was.

There’s actually French toast.”

“For me?”

“Lucien, I don’t understand why you’re obsessed with glorified eggy bread.”

I think I was blushing. “I don’t know. It’s just got this domestic bliss vibe to it that I find, um, nice?”

“I see.”

“And, honestly,” I admitted, “I never imagined anyone would actually make it for me.”

He brushed the hair out of my eyes almost absentmindedly. “You know, you’re sometimes very sweet.”

glanced from me to the lack of filth to me again. “You cleaned?”

“Yes. I mean, I had help.”

“You didn’t do this for me, did you?”

“For myself. And a bit for you.”

He looked genuinely overwhelmed. “Oh, Lucien.”

“It’s…it’s not a big de—”

He kissed me. And it was the most Oliver kiss, his hands cupping my face gently to draw me to him, and his lips covering mine with a deliberate care that was its own kind of passion. The way you’d eat a really expensive chocolate, savouring it because you knew you might never get another. He smelled of familiarity, of homecoming, and of the night I’d spent wrapped in his arms. And he made me feel so fucking precious I wasn’t sure I could bear it.

Except I also didn’t want it to end. This moment of finding something I’d long since given up looking for. Maybe even stopped believing in

Family’s hard. But you know you’ve got me, right? Um, not as a replacement. But, like, a bonus.”

“You’re more than a bonus, Lucien. You’re integral.”

Oh, be still my beating heart. And I wasn’t even being sarcastic.

He stirred nervously at my side. “I’m conscious this could be rather burdensome to hear, but you remain the thing I have most chosen for myself. The thing that’s most exclusively mine. The one that brings me the deepest joy.”

I suspect you were right and I was trying too hard. It felt safe to let my guard down with you because I could tell myself it wasn’t real. But now it is and…well…I’m coming to the conclusion I might be unbelievably terrified.”

“Me too,” I said. “But let’s be terrified together.”

I slipped my hand into Oliver’s and we sat for a while in silence. And I was pretty sure this was how love felt: fuzzy and scary and confusing and light enough to whisk you away like a Tesco’s bag on the wind.