Pretending to catch the kiss, I swallowed it down, then laughed and planted a real one on his cheek.“I missed you doing that.” Longingly, I stroked his hair.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to join me?” His eyes didn't hold panic, more bewilderment; he clutched me like the last twenty-four hours had suddenly hit home all over again, and he was at a total loss how to react.

  As tempting as diving under the covers was, the rest of my life would not begin this way. We deserved better than that. I shook my head and gave him a final kiss. “No, not yet. But we’re going to be all right, Mungs. You and me. I promise.”

  CHAPTER 18

  MILO

  Did my happily ever after start with our night of the comforting hand job, cement itself with breakfast in bed, and settle into the home straight when Mungo packed his bags the next morning and drove us back to my place?

  Did it fuck. Even if me and my big sensible mouth hadn’t decided to take things slowly, Mungo needed time to recover. And perhaps, on some level, I did too? On a microcosmic scale, obviously; thin gruel compared to the meaty trauma Mungo suffered. But my rock was going to need a lot of healing before I could call him that once more, and I needed time to digest. Not to mention reset my own equilibrium. Nothing brought your own harsh past flooding back like a large helping of someone else’s.

  I stayed another night at the penthouse. Frankie declared themselves hysterically petrified of a dose of the shits even though I sensed they sniffed there was more to the story than I let on. Nevertheless, them and Lys played along and stayed away.

  We watched TV; I doubted Mungo would be able to recall what. We held hands—barely letting go—and I fed him chocolate, regular painkillers, and sleeping pills. With him in the next room, in a dreamless sleep as far as I could tell, I lay awake on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, chastising myself for letting it happen and fighting my brain’s attempts to rehash my miserable childhood.

  And then I came home. Mungo said he felt better and was ready for his time alone. That using me to fill an emotional void was too tempting. Too easy to paper over the cracks in his emotional resilience instead of repairing them properly. To become dependent on me to restore his mental health for him.

  Seemed I wasn’t the only one who’d been doing some thinking.

  As I sat alone in front of my laptop, trying to catch up with some work, though it pained me to admit, he was right.

  “Have you tripped and landed on a pair of false teeth?” I asked acidly and with a fair dollop of jealousy as Danny stumbled into the kitchen.

  Bleary-eyed, he also sported the blissed-out look stemming from having one’s balls thoroughly emptied by someone else. I could relate, although not for a while. He threw me a sleepy grin, the beginnings of something quite fucking sexy once he grew into himself. Flushing, he tenderly prodded a vivid bruise on the side of his neck, approximating the shape of Spain. And, frankly, not much smaller.

  “Hah! Yeah. Flute practice was ace.”

  “Just practicing with hands, I hope. We need a serious chat before you take things any further.” Of the sort no one ever gave me.

  “Yes, Dad.” He yawned wide enough to do himself an injury before his dreamy gaze dipped down to his phone.

  I smiled fondly at him. The poetry and clumsiness of youth in one handy package.

  “Reuben’s been texting since five this morning,” he informed me, feeling for the fridge door. His brows pinched together; he looked back at me. “How can I make him come in forty seconds, but he takes longer than three minutes to text me back?”

  “Climb aboard the rollercoaster, my friend,” I murmured. “You’re in for a bumpy ride.”

  The frown changed to a smile. “Ah, there it is. He’s meeting me by the bus stop so we can walk into school together.”

  I, on the other hand, was still facing school alone.

  So sure, hand jobs were good, I wanted to say to Danny, but have you ever fallen so hard for someone you wanted to patent them? To stamp your name on them so fiercely the world knew they belonged only to you?

  Except I could do that no more than I could patent the sun. When Mungo was healed, he’d come home to me. He’d said so, after I’d promised him I’d wait. His warm hand in mine made promises in return, and I knew every word, and every touch, to be true. Happy endings came to people who never gave up, and neither of us had done that.

  “I didn’t expect to see you back for a while.” Danny tipped a mountain of cornflakes into a bowl before drowning them in a lake of milk. “Not without your beardy bloke in tow, anyhow. And you look…” Pointing with his spoon, he perused me and my suit, “your normal, tetchy self. I thought finally getting your end away with him might chill you out.”

  “He’s just come out of a long-term relationship. He’s not ready to dive into another. So we’re taking things slowly.”

  “Not like you,” he mused. “Are you feeling alright?”

  I tagged sugar onto my mental shopping list as the boy blanketed his breakfast in it. “Impulsiveness is charming, Danny, but deliberation and patience also have value. Good things take time, flower. I’m prepared to wait.”

  The spoon plunged into the cornflakes noisily. “Mate, you can’t wait for a kettle to boil. So don’t give me that bollocks. What’s really happened?”

  Nothing much. Only that the man I love has been stripped of everything and everyone he believed he held dear. Except for me.

  “Mungo is ill,” I said shortly. “He’s got… he’s…”

  Danny’s guileless eyes landed on mine as I stumbled over the lie. He chewed carefully. “He’s got what?”

  Irreparable damage? What exactly had that fucker Cav done to him to make him so broken? To doubt himself?

  The sound of cornflakes crunching filled the kitchen. More than anything, I wished Mungo was sitting opposite me crunching them. So I could love him back to happiness. I took in a deep breath.

  “He’s become one of us, Danny.”

  Diligently, my young friend munched on. No more explanation required. He’d make a good social anthropologist, an old head on young shoulders. The last of the cornflakes were swilled down with a noisy gulp of tea.

  “I’d say I was surprised,” he said eventually. “What with that bloke of his being so hoity-toity. And your Mungo being so smart and nice. But then, I’ve spent the last fourteen years living with my stepdad. And he passes around the collection plate at church every Sunday. So nothing surprises me anymore.”

  CHAPTER 19

  MUNGO

  Like interminable white noise, days and weeks merged into sameness as I sleepwalked through eating, drinking, washing, existing. Through flattened peaks and shallow valleys of emotion. Hiding the damage Cav inflicted on me from Frankie and Lysander took every ounce of what feeble energy I had left. I felt as thin as tissue paper, transparent, like if I spent more than a minute in their company, if I gave Frankie a moment to properly stare at me, they’d punch through it and join the dots. Lysander volunteered to deal with the loose ends of my time with Cav, and I gratefully accepted. Whether he and Frankie guessed what had happened anyway, whether they noticed the receding blemish on my cheek or the stiffness in my movements, they said nothing.

  After a month, I returned to work, where lunchtime breaks down by the duckpond with Milo became the only bright spots in the exhausted, bleak vacuum I called living. We didn’t meet every day—we were both too busy—but at least a couple of times a week. Sometimes only for ten minutes, no more than checking in on each other, sometimes half an hour. In the way of old friends, we invariably reminisced.

  We skirted well clear of the present, that’s for sure.

  Milo loved to stir random memories from our uni days, when we were all single, friendships were uncontaminated, and summer holidays stretched out forever. I knew why, of course, and if we could have transported ourselves back to those crazy, feckless days, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Nonetheless, his anecdotes always brought a smile to my face, no matter how bleak my mood.

  Over time, our duck-feeding sessions turned into a mental touchstone, nudging me in the direction I needed to travel, back towards the light. Towards the hope that, in the future, life would be that good again.

  “What’s the story with Danny?” I asked him one day. I’d tried not to pry, but Milo had been laughing on the phone to him as I arrived. He signed off with his usual mwah mwah and ciao ciao, sparking a tinge of jealousy I had no right to.

  “Nothing.” He smiled up at me as I stretched out my legs next to him. “He needed help, had no one to turn to, and I took him in. He’s been staying in the spare room for a few months until his older brother finds a place for them both. Should only be a few more weeks.”

  “So you’re not sleeping with him?”

  “Nah. I’m not sleeping with anyone.” He threw me a naughty side eye. “I’m, you know, still waiting for my Mr Right. You haven’t spotted him hanging around, have you?”

  “He’s here. He’s always been here.”

  As the words left my mouth, my face grew hot, even though we both knew them to be true. We’d steered clear of our future together until now. I looked up to the skies, to the glimpse of cool sunshine poking through the clouds.

  “I know that now,” he answered, simply. “As I said, I’m waiting for him. I’ll wait forever, if that’s how long it takes.”

  I was gradually on the mend; the trauma of my abusive relationship less consuming, my identity outside of it re-emerging. Though I still woke in a cold sweat some nights, and I still looked over my shoulder on the Tube, as if Cav would suddenly appear. I wanted Milo, with every fibre of my being, but I wanted him when I was healed, not this facsimile of the chilled guy he’d once known. So, for the moment, slowly feeling our way back was enough.

  “I’m… getting better,” I answered. “What happened, with… with Cav, it won’t define me, you know.”

  “I do,” agreed Milo. “Here you are, living, despite it all. Recognising that is a huge step.” The air had a brisk chill to it, and he cuddled up. “This gorgeous big body of yours makes an excellent hot water bottle.”

  I stared down at my smart black work brogues, hiding my size twelve feet. “Cav often told me being big made me clumsy.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I think about it a lot. It upsets me, more than it should. Because no one else has ever labelled me that. It had never occurred to me, you see, but I became self-conscious of how much space I took up, whether I was in the way. And if ever I dropped something, or tripped or knocked into someone—you know, how anyone can—I felt so anxious, I’d catch myself apologising endlessly. It would ruin my day.”

  Milo’s warm palm landed on my knee, a hardly there touch. All his touches were gentle, like I was precious. “Mungs, you’re not clumsy. I promise.”

  He threw me a tiny smile. That was gentle too. Most people weren’t lucky enough to glimpse Milo’s kindness, but they were missing out on something special. “And you truly don’t need to worry about Danny,” he added. “One day, I’ll tell you the full story of how we met. It’s not especially edifying, even with me cast as the hero. But I’m not sleeping with him. Mostly, I’m helping him with his homework and listening to him and his first proper boyfriend flirting.”

  The weather was probably too cool for lunching outside, but we’d become creatures of habit. Milo took my hand in his, like always, and warmed it up between his own. Loving me when I was not lovable. “But you’d guessed, anyway, hadn’t you? From the first time you met him?”

  “I’d certainly realised he wasn’t one of your usual pick-ups. The protective, daddy vibes when you came over for dinner gave it away,” I teased. “Radiating from you, not him.”

  His filthy pixie laugh rang out across the duck pond.

  And it must have been contagious because I was chuckling too. “I mean, seriously, Milo. Social anthropology? You need to update that 2018 edition of the Guinness Book of Records, sweetheart.”

  Sweetheart. Of course, Milo wouldn’t let that pass. “God, talking of daddies, I’d forgotten how you always say that word with such a daddy growl.”

  “Takes one to know one, sweetheart.”

  I attempted to growl his favourite endearment in an even deeper tone, and he laughed harder. We both did. Over fucking nothing, really.

  “Oh my God, you’re definitely out of practise! Say it again,” he urged, still laughing. “But slower. Draw it out. And assume the daddy pose. Spread your legs so you look massive. Stroke your beard at the same time. Stare at me like you want me for dinner, instead of that shitty salad.”

  As seductively as I could, I ran my fingers through my beard, letting the tips linger around my bottom lip. “Sweetheart,” I growled, trying not to spoil it by laughing. I contorted my face into a suggestive smoulder. “Come over here, sweetheart. This beard wants to know if you’d like to take a comfy seat.”

  Clutching his belly, Milo laughed so hard he struggled to breathe. Two ducks flew away in alarm as the tears ran down his cheeks. His sandwich bag slipped off his lap; I lunged before it reached the ground.

  “It’s not funny! Aren’t you supposed to be melting with lust? Jesus, Milo, how to knock a man when he’s already down.”

  That set him off again. “These aren’t tears, Daddy, honestly.” He wiped his eyes, holding wet fingers up to show me. “This is precum. You’re so hot, it’s oozing from everywhere.”

  Eventually—not until he’d made me attempt daddiness a second time—we pulled ourselves together and gathered our things. Stretching out the last few moments, I tipped my head back and slid my arm around his shoulders, hugging him close.

  “Thanks for this, Milo. I need it.”

  “I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for me.”

  We both knew that was a lie; Milo was tough as old leather.

  “There’s more stuff you haven’t told me, isn’t there?” he said softly. “It wasn’t just the one time.”

  “No. It wasn’t. And I will tell you. Can you be patient with me a little longer?”

  “As long as you need.”

  Reluctantly letting go of him, I rose to my feet. “Same time tomorrow?”

  “Should be fine, Daddy.” Grinning his pixie grin, he blew me a kiss. I made as if to catch it in my hand.

  “Love you, Mungs,” he said.

  I kissed my palm and pretended to swallow. “I know, sweetheart. And I love you too.”

  CHAPTER 20

  MILO

  So the lunches carried on. And I didn’t push him. Instead, I was grateful for small mercies. Like the beard, growing back with a vengeance. And the twee lunch bag, thankfully absent. Mind you, he still brought along a salad every day, which he half-heartedly picked at.

  “No one’s going to tell you off for eating a ham-and-cheese toastie, you know.”

  It used to be his go-to in the deli. I unwrapped my bagel and tore free a piece, tossing it to the ducks.

  He huffed a laugh. “I know. But Cav had a few things right. I should try to be a bit healthier.” He threw me a sidelong glance. “Not all of us are naturally sylph-like.”

  In a companiable silence, he chomped his lettuce while I licked the cream cheese off my smoked salmon. The ducks gathered in anticipation.

  “How are you these days?”

  He pulled a face. “I’ve been better.”

  Silently, I agreed. Mungo still seemed washed out, like a decent night’s kip wouldn’t go amiss. Sometimes he appeared shattered, haunted even. Like a guy staggering away from a car crash, or waking from a nightmare, shaken up and still not sure of his bearings.

  “Are you sleeping?”

  He tilted his head to one side. “Some. I drop off okay, then wake early.”

  More than anything, I wanted to crawl into his lap and hug him tight. “Have you thought about seeing a doctor? Not about… what happened. But perhaps for something to help you sleep? Or for… um… low mood?”

  “I’ve thought about it.” He shovelled in another mouthful of lettuce. “You’re the best medicine, though.”

  Neatly done. Side stepping my concerns with flattery.

  “Should you be at work?” I persisted.

  “Yeah. I think so. I’m glad I took those weeks off. But work is a good distraction.” He picked aimlessly at the salad.

  “Do you want to talk about it, yet?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Not especially. I want to blank it all out. Wake up in the morning and be someone else.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well. Me too.”

  His eyes always gave him away. Great brown things, making my heart flop about like a fish on dry land. Under bright lights, they’d melt into puddles of colour, forming a sunset of their very own. Today, they were more like dried mud, telling me not to pry into the ugly secrets behind them. Not yet, anyhow. With Frankie, we’d have thrashed out every detail of the breakup, like a big fat psychological hug, and walked away clearer, calmer, in a better place. But this was Mungo, and I had to be… patient. An alien concept, to be honest.

  “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if your… ah… mood became lower?” Please God, you’d tell me.

  He chuckled softly. “If you’re asking me if I’m thinking about topping myself, the answer is no. I’m tempted to live forever just to spite him.”

  Thank fuck. He wasn’t the only one sleeping badly. More than once I’d debated phoning Frankie at four a.m. to get out of bed to go and check up on him. “You know I’m here if you need me,” I offered. “Night and day.”

  “Thanks. And I do know.” He swallowed thickly. “It’s… the… this part is so hard. I hadn’t realised how difficult it would be. Despite what… what he did. We’d joined our lives together. Families, friends, bank accounts, a mortgage and stuff. Unpicking that is taking longer than I thought.”