Work Text:
“You’re joking.”
“I would never joke,” James said, crossing one leg over the opposite knee, feeling very pleased with himself, “about a matter of such great import.” He considered twirling around in his chair, but that would probably be laying it on a bit thick.
Graham stuck his fork into his bowl of rice and broccoli and leaned over the conference table. “Seriously, you’ve got to be joking.”
“He’s definitely joking,” Dundy said. “That is a pull beyond the powers of any mere mortal. And I’ve seen him bag a literal prince in the Maldives.”
“Yeah, that’s, like, ten territory. And you’re—hm—” Charlie squinted. “A seven point five. Eight if I’m being generous.”
James set his can of kombucha down on the table with a clang. “Excuse me, I am absolutely—”
“Okay, okay, no rankings at lunch,” Graham said, holding up his hands. “Can we talk about something less volatile, please?”
“Then you don’t want to hear how I did it?”
“Listen, I’ve got a meeting that starts in thirteen minutes,” Charlie said, “so piss or get off the pot.”
James took a long sip of kombucha, then shrugged. “It’s just that I thought you all agreed I was joking.”
Dundy launched “I am going to fucking kill you” like a rocket, followed at ricochet speed by Charlie’s “You are actually such a wanker” and Graham’s “Mate, come on.”
James smirked. “We—ell,” he said, drawing it out like elastic, “if my audience insists.”
“Eleven minutes now.”
James dragged a fingertip through the ring of condensation on the table. “I asked him if he’d fancy dinner at Cicchetti sometime this week. He said, Can’t do Wednesday, I said, What about Thursday, he said, Yeah, alright.”
The room exploded. James bit down on his tongue, hiding his grin, and tucked triumphantly into his salad.
But it really had been that easy. He had spilled the whole unvarnished truth. Tipped it over like a brimming paint can in a crowded room. When he’d asked, Francis had said yes. That was all there was to it.
Some people simply didn’t understand that a story was, in actuality, raw data being shaped, worked at, pulled apart, kneaded into art. Other people did. They knew that going around betraying all of your secrets was poor form and bad business. A piece of reportage didn’t land quite as neatly if you mentioned that you’d been buttering the fellow up beforehand, bringing him the occasional nine o’clock coffee and four o’clock tea, giving him first dibs on the copier, asking where on earth he’d bought that shirt, it was just divine, so finely tailored, really lovely, when you’d bet the entire sum of your trust fund he’d got it at M&S. And a wager wasn’t quite so much fun if you let slip that maybe you’d had a small crush on him once, a very tiny little crush, definitively nothing with legs, just a crush that made you weak at the knees and desperate for a wank in the office loo but quickly lost its luster after your third public row in the conference room. Those were the sort of dull details James tended to leave out.
He’d made sure, in any case, that anything as unmentionable as a crush was long dead, buried, and paved over by concrete for a mixed-use development. It certainly wouldn’t be very sporting, and besides, he found the idea of the challenge actually quite energizing. All that stood between him and glory—glory being, of course, a sixty-pound pot and impossibly Herculean bragging rights—were three lousy dates.
If nothing else, he was a professional. Complete shit at relationships, yes, a therapist’s magic ATM, yes, genuinely afraid to take the “Narcissistic Personality Disorder Quiz” Dundy once sent as a joke in case he scored in the highest percentile, yes, basically an all-around sad shell of a human being, yes, but a white-collar seducer. He’d hooked Francis already. Now it was just a matter of reeling him in.
At first, James had chalked it up to the intensive suite of chemical procedures he had undergone only hours prior. Surely his senses had been overstimulated, his cognition impaired. There had been some sort of complication from the light therapy, or an allergic reaction to the serum, or possibly even a fatally jostled cerebellum from the massage. Otherwise there could be no reasonable explanation for the strange, mystical circumstances in which he now found himself.
Francis, it seemed, was a gentleman. The type who would be called “chivalrous” in a 2004 issue of Marie Claire. He had held the door open and insisted James enter first. His hand had grazed James’ back as he followed behind, light enough to skirt the edge of deniability, somehow both sweet and proprietary at the same time. He had asked for James’ coat and hung it up on the rack tableside. He had pulled James’ chair out and waited to sit until James had also. The words Please, after you had actually exited his mouth.
James stared down at the menu, biting his lip, thinking of how badly he needed a drink. Several drinks, in fact. The entire top shelf of spirits, if they’d let him. He wanted to get so completely blitzed that he no longer had to think too hard about Francis’ hand at his back or the novel softness in his voice. He especially didn’t want to think about the way Francis was currently sneaking guilty looks at him over the top of his menu. That was one thing this new Francis and the old, familiar Francis had in common, at least. Subtlety was nowhere to be found. Possibly it had been catapulted halfway across the Atlantic. But the old, familiar Francis’ lexicon consisted mostly of evasive grunts, barbs that were too blunted to really pierce the skin, and a manner James would describe as grumpy if it didn’t bring to mind a children’s book about a talking bear.
James decided he was owed a cheeky look of his own.
Francis’ hair was falling rakishly across his forehead. He was wearing the Prussian blue suit that brought out his eyes. No tie, though the top button of his shirt was undone. A scattering of evening stubble was starting to come in. James sighed despairingly. He really did look quite handsome.
“Not to your liking?”
James coughed. “Er—what?”
Francis nodded at the menu. “That very sad sound you just made. I assume they’ve done away with whatever you’d been wanting to order.”
“Oh, no, no, not at all! Merely pondering, you know, ah, work and all that. So draining, isn’t it? This field we’ve chosen. All its vagaries, its complexities, its provocations.” James was aware that his voice had gone rather hysterical. Play it cool, he reminded himself. You, old boy, are the tomcat here!
“Yes,” Francis said solemnly. “Well, we’d best not waste our time, then. So, the Hecla deck for next week. I know you’ve got Henry and Charlie working on it. I thought I’d lend you George if that might help.”
“Oh, Francis,” James sighed, tossing his hair, “must we over dinner? How dreadfully dull. We ought to enjoy ourselves, don’t you think?”
Francis frowned. “Over pudding, then?”
“No, not over pudding. I mean, not at all. Really, I’d prefer we just got to know each other a bit better.” James looked up at Francis through his lashes and smirked. Yes, that was more like it. No one had ever resisted the lashes before. “That is the custom, so I’ve been told.”
“James.” Francis was beginning to look like he’d just consumed a dish far beyond his spice threshold. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Work! Which is the very reason we are here, is it not? So I am at a loss as to why you suddenly have decided otherwise.”
“Francis.” James shut his eyes and took a long, slow breath. “Why would I ask you to dinner to talk about work? We do that every single day at work.”
“As we were discussing work mere moments before you asked me, with no segue, no explanation, no nothing, I surely had no alternative to consider, did I.”
James groaned. “Please tell me you cannot be that bloody thick.”
Francis’ cheeks were mottled with livid red patches, which unfortunately made him look less like an unconventionally attractive office daddy and more like a sad old drunk. “Why don’t you enlighten me, then.”
James could feel his attraction withering and his annoyance swelling. That was always the way with Francis, wasn’t it. Impossible to the last. “If I must spell it out for you like a primary school teacher, then I shall,” he said. “A date, Francis, alright? Christ.” He slapped the menu on the table with a not insignificant quantity of force. His fork skittered, rather feebly, an inch to the left.
As if beckoned, a waiter appeared at his elbow. “Anything to drink, gentlemen?”
Francis sighed as James threw up a series of wild hand gestures that were illegible even to himself.
“May I suggest the Bibi Graetz Testamatta if you’re in the mood for something a bit—”
“No, thank you,” James cut in, smiling with all his teeth. “Just sparkling water for the both of us, please.” The Testamatta was crap, anyway. Far too floral.
“I don’t mind if you order—”
“I am being courteous to my date, Francis.” James could feel his own flush rising. He hated how easily Francis could needle at him like this. Make him feel small and exposed, like a dead insect being picked at by clumsy schoolchildren. “Though I see I’ve been rather catastrophically mistaken.”
“I just didn’t think—” Francis started, then stopped. He shook his head. “Really, I didn’t.”
“Yes, well.” James laughed humorlessly. “Shame on me. But please, go. I’d hate to detain you here under false pretenses any longer.” With some careful excisions he could sculpt this into a real, legitimate, bonafide date. The full suite was obviously off the table, but he’d gotten one, at least, which was something. Not Herculean bragging rights so much as a third from a Polytechnic, though he would take it. “I am curious to know, however, if you put on the same show for all your colleagues. Hold the door for them, pull out their chairs, after you, that sort of thing. I can’t say I took you for a man possessed of such wiles.”
Francis’ face was starting to resemble a cherry tomato. “I didn’t mean for you to notice.”
“Oh?” James said.
“When I said earlier, I didn’t think—well, I didn’t mean, I didn’t want. I did. I have. Very much.”
“Oh,” James said. Francis was staring at him with those big, round, seaglass blue eyes, looking deathly serious but also maddeningly earnest. “Ah. I see.” All of a sudden his throat had gone quite dry. He reached for his water. His hand was shaking. “Yes, I see. Well, how amusing! How absolutely droll.” He laughed and then downed a sip like it was a shot of tequila, which had the regrettable effect of generating a minor choking incident.
Francis’ rogue eyebrow shot up toward his temple. “James, are you—”
“Yes, yes, ah, quite alright, thank you!” James covered his mouth and tried not to collapse into full-body convulsions. With his free hand he pinched the skin of his thigh as hard as he could, then counted to five. Pull it together, he thought. You’ve got a wager to win. A wager in which this embarrassing little incident will certainly not feature. When finally the coughs subsided, he clasped his hands together and offered up his best, widest, toothiest smile. “Let’s be clear, then. My proposition has your buy-in after all?”
“Not very romantic when you put it like that,” Francis muttered.
A huge swooping feeling passed through James’ stomach, as though he were a tiny skiff being tossed around by fifty-foot waves. He clutched at the armrest of his chair. Romantic. No one had said anything about romantic. Not now, not ever. Romantic was firmly outside his bailiwick. Being empirically, exceptionally, effortlessly bad at romantic, he did not wish to touch it even with nitrile gloves on. “Er,” he said. “Well.”
“To answer your question, yes, it does,” Francis said mildly, sounding like what he was really doing was putting James out of his misery. “If you’ll have me.” His damned eyebrow was doing funny things again, too.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” James snapped. He flipped the menu over with sweating fingers and tried very hard to study what, exactly, went into the sole alla Mugnaia.
“I’m not looking like anything. I’m merely surprised.”
“That’s—ah—that’s good.” James took another, measured sip of water. “I am as well, of course. Though I stand by what I said. You really are bloody thick, Francis. It couldn’t have been plainer!”
“James.” That eyebrow was tireless. “No doubt you’re aware that you are very good-looking.”
James couldn’t find it in himself to demur. There were some things one simply had to let go for the sake of decorum, good breeding be damned.
“Popular, well-liked, well-groomed.”
“Oh, it’s really just a bit of glitz and glam for the cameras, as it were, leadership, you know.” James said, trying not to preen.
“And I’m—” Francis shrugged.
“You’re—?”
“A drunk.”
James sighed. “Francis, I’ve no desire to hash this out again.” Though he supposed they had never talked about it, not truly.
One day, Francis had vanished after yet another display of spectacular drunken pyrotechnics, including but not limited to a smashed glass paperweight, a ham-fisted punch James had only narrowly ducked, and an expletive-laden email to one of their most profitable clients. Everyone had simply assumed he’d gotten the sack. They didn’t eulogize or reach out; he’d burned far too many bridges for that.
James had mourned in his own private way. Yes, the man was a prick, a boozer, a direct threat to the financial health of the agency; yes, he had an unbelievable capacity for nastiness; yes, he was completely out of control and a danger to himself. But it hadn’t always been like that. There was a time, when James was fresh out of uni and eagerly pounding the industry pavement, that Francis had been, in fact, quite well-liked if not exactly popular. James had seen flashes of it on occasion, even years later. It was a shame, really. A tragedy, if you wanted to be poetic about it. Francis came, conquered, fell from grace, disappeared.
James had just about put his disappointment to bed when Francis, being the lifelong irritant that he was, decided to reappear a month later, looking calm, clear-eyed, and a stone lighter. He spoke less, but more seriously. He was so deliberate about doling out praise to his team, sometimes it seemed like he was roleplaying a management training video. I hope we can start off on the right foot this time, he’d said to James one evening while they were both waiting for the lift. Though I understand if you’d rather not. It was the first time they’d been alone together since Francis’ leave. James, uneasy but also a little exhilarated for reasons he couldn’t quite wrap his head around, had said, Naturally, and they’d shook on it.
Since then, Francis had been good to him. More than good, really. Great, in fact. Quite a delight, if you could call a soft-spoken, middle-aged Luddite a delight. It wasn't Francis' fault he remained such an easy target for lunchtime chitchat.
“I’ve never even apologized to you, not—”
“Honestly. I’m not interested. Bygones and all that, you understand?”
Francis nodded slowly and poured himself a glass of sparkling water, which had just arrived on the table. “Old, then. Not good-looking. Can’t say I’ve got many friends left at the office.”
James smirked. “Jopson does keep you well-groomed, at least.”
Francis laughed a little. It was a pleasant sound, his laugh. Short and throaty like a friendly old dog’s bark. “That he does. He insisted on steaming my suit this afternoon. It was funny, actually, he said—” Here Francis launched into an absolutely pitiful impression as his cheeks flushed pink. “—sir, we must look our absolute best tonight, musn’t we, so important to make a good impression, and I said, Jopson, what the hell are you on about, it’s only dinner with James to go over the deck for Hecla, and he just looked at me like I was some daft intern who couldn’t figure out how to order lunch. Which I suppose isn’t terribly off the mark.”
“Oh, dear,” James said. “How tragic.” He found, to his horror, that he was smiling very broadly and very soppily, and also that he wanted very badly to see Francis blush again. “Though, for the record, you might want to reconsider not good-looking. You may find some rather compelling evidence to the contrary.”
“Really now.” Now the tip of Francis’ nose was pink, too. “I don’t suppose you’d care to share.”
“Perhaps later,” James said, signaling to the waiter scurrying past. “Over pudding.” If liquor was not the done thing in present company, he was at least owed some antipasti and the osso buco. Victory called for celebration, after all.
The veal in that osso buco must’ve gone off. James was certain of it.
Ordinarily he quite enjoyed the Tube at eight a.m. A nice little unencumbered pocket of time for meditating, scrolling LinkedIn, catching up on Entrepreneurs on Fire. This morning, though, he’d held onto the pole for dear life, terrified by the certainty that he was going to be sick all over the floor the next time the train started moving. Sweat dripped down his back and under his arms. He felt wretched and unwell and, for the first time in yonks, hideously anxious.
The usual pre-office matcha was, of course, out of the question. He did the six minutes from the station in four, waited until the lobby was clear and darted into the empty lift, then power-walked to his office and slammed the door shut. After he’d swapped out his damp, stained shirt for the fresh one he always kept hanging in the closet, he crumpled into his chair and laid his head on his desk. Deep breaths. That was it. Some proper diaphragmatic breathing to sort out the indigestion, just like he’d learned on Instagram.
His phone pinged. He groaned. It pinged again. “Shut up,” he mumbled. Another ping. Two pings. A series of pings so lightning-fast it actually made him feel uncharacteristically violent. Without looking up, he fumbled for the mute switch and shoved the phone to the far end of the desk. Only one chat in his rota ever texted with such speed and volume at eight forty-five in the morning. Bloody vultures, they were. He’d given them a killing last night, and here they were, champing at the bit for more.
Someone knocked at the door.
He ignored it.
They knocked again.
He wondered if asking Bridgens to fetch him some antacids from the Boots around the corner constituted an employment law violation.
“James?”
“Fuck.” It was Francis. James moaned into his hands.
“James, may I come in?”
“Ugh—alright—I mean, yes, yes, please do!” At uni, he’d taken a red eye home from a long weekend in Berlin and gone straight from the airport to his Thucydides and the Greek World exam. Running on nothing but equal parts coke, molly, and Puschkin, he’d gotten an Upper Second. Next to that, this was child’s play. All he’d done was have dinner with a longtime colleague as part of a prank played by some mates trying to forestall middle age via youthful mischief. So what if the colleague was, objectively speaking, uncommonly sexy? Wryly charming? Perilously softhearted? Clearly husband material? They hadn’t even kissed, for Christ’s sake.
Francis ducked his head into the room. “You alright?”
James steepled his fingers together and smiled. “Why wouldn’t I be?” He beckoned Francis in. “Please.”
“Well, you sprinted into your office looking a bit poorly. And no—one of those green things—what’re they called—chachas—in your hand, either.” Francis was holding a steaming mug in his hands. He came closer and placed it delicately on James’ desk. “So, tea. For you.”
“Matcha,” James sighed. “Francis, really, that’s too kind.”
Francis clasped his hands behind him. His shoulders were drawn back, braced for impact. “Not at all.”
James took a sip. His brow creased. “Oh—it’s—”
“Yes.” Francis gave a small smile. “Almond milk and a spoonful of brown sugar.”
“God,” James mumbled in between sips, “am I really as loud as all that.”
“Yes, as a general rule. But no. It’s more that I—” The tip of Francis’ nose was pink. “I watch you. I pay attention, I mean.”
What a horrid thought. James could feel his intestines constricting by the second. This really was completely intolerable. Perhaps a quick trip to the A&E was in order, just to make sure he hadn’t suddenly contracted a parasite or grown an inoperable tumor.
“Sorry,” Francis said quickly, “I didn’t—ah—I suppose that was—”
“—No, no, it’s fine, you’re fine, you’re lovely.” James grimaced. You’re lovely. What was wrong with him? Twenty-four hours ago he’d been a Don Juan on the prowl. Now he was flapping his mouth, losing his head, clutching his stomach like a child who’d gobbled down too many biscuits. Come to think of it, he hadn’t been sleeping very well lately, either. Hadn’t left the office before seven most nights, hadn’t even taken more than two days’ leave since last Christmas. Blimey! He nearly slapped his forehead in jubilation. Surely that was the culprit: common exhaustion. Nothing more. He would put in for some days next week, call this silly wager off, rest up, return totally sound of mind and body. “My head’s—ah—a bit fuzzy, is all. Think I’ve just come down with a wee bug. You know how they spread so fast this time of year.”
“Well.” Francis looked like a man being marched out to face a firing squad, determined to preserve his dignity until the very last. “In that case, I’d say you ought to be home in bed. And when you’re recovered, I’d like to take you to dinner, anywhere you fancy.”
This is really not helping at all, James wanted to screech. Go be lovely elsewhere, for God’s sake! Instead he said, quite breathlessly, “Oh, jolly good,” and took a monstrous gulp of tea.
A wave of relief washed over Francis’ face. His eyes softened and the tense set of his mouth slackened, which made him look, it had to be said, eminently kissable. “You’ll let me know when, then?”
James nodded, swallowing the tea in small mouthfuls. If he spoke, he might blurt out something very, very foolish indeed.
“Right. I’ll leave you to it.”
Once Francis had closed the door behind him, James blew out a blustery breath, slumped back in his chair, and closed his eyes. He was still for a long moment. Then he reached for his phone and began to type.
“Right, we’ve got to make this quick,” Graham said, taking the chair closest to the door. “Stanley’s been up my arse since dawn about getting those valuation metrics in by COB.”
Charlie plopped down next to him. “I assume this couldn’t have been a text?”
“Knowing Fitzy, he’s up to something rather naughty,” Dundy drawled.
James took a sip of tea. His entrails had mostly quieted down by the time he finished the mug Francis had brought him. He’d got up to brew another before his nine-thirty call, but standing alone under the kitchen’s shrewd fluorescents, unscrewing the milk carton Francis had unscrewed, rummaging through the sugar jar Francis had rummaged through, he’d felt a strange rift open up somewhere inside of him, like a sinkhole eating away at solid, familiar terrain. He’d never had a clue. Not the faintest idea that Francis held any sort of warm feeling for him, or indeed could ever be, as it turned out, quite devoted to him. No one had ever been devoted to him before. “I have gathered you all here today to convene an emergency question time,” he said. “Specifically, the examination of one very important question.” He paused, letting the anticipation gestate a little.
Dundy drummed his fingers on the conference table. “And?”
“Does it count if Francis proposes the second date?”
“Ooh,” Graham said. “So he has, then?”
James gave a small incline of his head, which he thought came off as rather regal.
“Absolutely not,” Charlie said. “We said, He’s got to accept three dates with you. Accept. Not propose. That makes it far too easy.”
Graham hummed in contemplation. “Yes, but Francis initiating is the natural corollary, right? That just seems obvious.”
“Hm,” Dundy said. “I dunno. Like, yeah, of course, but isn’t the wager sort of null and void now? We had no idea that old bore was actually interested. Takes the fun out of it, I say.”
James bit down on his tongue. He’d just been overcome by the extremely frightful urge to exclaim, Pardon me, but Francis is not an old bore! Had a more hellish reality ever existed? That sick leave really was an imperative.
Charlie raised his can of Diet Coke. “Hear, hear.”
“I wonder how long he has been interested,” Graham said, in a tone of veritable wonderment. “I mean, have we totally missed that? James? Did you have any inkling?”
“Trying to pull one over on us, were you?” Dundy said, elbowing James. “Easy money, eh?”
James shrugged. “Well, I’d hardly say he’s interested.” His palms were prickling with sweat under the table. “More curious. One’s curiosity is naturally piqued in a scenario like this, isn’t it? Former enemies cautiously exchanging the olive branch, learning that perhaps they may have hidden common ground—that sort of thing. I think the appeal is actually quite scientific. He is a numbers man, after all.”
Dundy rolled his eyes. “God, you are dramatic. And also utterly full of shit.”
“Ought we call it here?” Graham said. “Now that we’ve got a bit of our own back, as it were. And, if I’m honest, I’m starting to feel a little bad.” He leveled his most unimpeachable Eton head boy look at Charlie, who had just scoffed. “I don’t want to traumatize the man, Charlie!”
“He was a prick to us for years,” Charlie said. “Practically tortured us with the most ludicrous demands. Prepare his decks. Cover his pitches. Take his clients out for drinks. Throw a fit if we didn't. Refuse to read our emails, then accuse us of dropping the ball. And all while he was lounging in his office without a care in the world, absolutely plastered. Suppose that doesn’t count for anything?”
James smiled gallantly. “Don’t you think tortured is a bit—”
“Honestly,” Dundy chimed in, “he rather deserves it, doesn’t he? A piece of humble pie? After what he put us through? After he nearly gave you a black eye?”
“No one’s arguing that, Henry, but look, he has real psychological issues, real medical issues,” Graham said. “He went through some shit that none of us should envy if we’ve got an ounce of sense. And he's been remarkably well-behaved since he took that leave. We've had some nice chats, you know?"
James would’ve whacked his head against the wall if it didn’t make him look like a complete nutter. For that very same reason, he did not leap onto the table and shout, Can we please stop publicly litigating the character of the man who is responsible for my current health crisis?
“We’re just having a laugh,” Charlie said, gesticulating sternly with his can, as though he were a headmaster admonishing his students. “A bit of fun. That’s all. Once James loses—sorry, mate, I’m counting on it—he’ll call it off, and Francis’ll be none the wiser. Not like he’s a teenager getting his heart broken or anything. He’s, what, sixty?”
“Fifty-one,” James said, without thinking. His stomach plummeted straight down to the floor when they all turned to stare at him. “Er. Just a rough estimate.”
“Hm,” Dundy said, raising an eyebrow.
James felt himself withering under its suggestive power. Dundy knew. Dundy always knew. That was the treacherous thing about friendships old enough to legally drink. “Well, of course I agree completely, Charlie. So what’s the harm in letting date the second run its course, then?”
Charlie sighed and held his hands up in surrender, while Graham nodded. It was only Dundy who spoke. “What’s the harm indeed?” He shot James a grotesquely vaudevillian wink.
“Ugh,” James said.
James was feeling unwell again.
It was quickly becoming apparent, in fact with the quickness of a snake darting out of its burrow to administer a deadly bite, that he could not stand it when Francis turned to him and said things like, Tell me about your parents. He hated the soft burl of Francis’ voice. He hated the security of Francis’ gaze. He hated how that lethal combination made him feel quite weak in the knees, as though he were liable to topple over the railing and plunge straight into the Thames at any moment. Above all, he hated how Francis would plainly waste no time in jumping after him.
“Oh, I’m sure I’ve prattled on about them enough over the years,” he said, plucking at a loose thread in his scarf. The evening was brisk, but in that cozy, agreeable way particular to late November, where you knew the comforts of home awaited you at the end of it all. There was something magical, too, in the glassy shimmer of the water, the pinpricks of light across the river from offices burning the midnight oil, the endless black-and-blue-bruised sky. How long had it been since he’d put image, reputation, responsibility, aspiration—all of it, all of those endless nagging worries—away, and just walked?
“I’d like to hear anyway, if you’ve anything to tell.”
The stories James wanted to tell were not ones he’d ever told before. The impulse was primal and irresistible, as though spilling the contents of his soul to this very man, at this very instant, was a mandate encoded in his DNA. He wanted to tell Francis things that would make any sensible person frown and say, Have you ever considered talking to a professional about this, James, and he would say, Oh, yes, it’s on my to-do list, but of course you know there’s such a shortage of openings these days, it’s so difficult to find anyone, when the simple truth was that keeping it all inside was safer and easier. “Well, I’ll have a think, see if I can rustle up something entertaining.”
“It doesn’t have to be entertaining,” Francis said, in that mild tone of his.
James shuddered and kicked at a pile of leaves in his path. “Yes, certainly, I only mean—”
“It’s alright, James. Take your time, hm?”
They were coming up on the Globe now. James breathed a sigh of relief. “Did you manage to catch their All’s Well this summer? Really marvelous stuff. Some fascinating rearrangements of the text.”
“Not much of a theatregoer, me.” Francis sounded inexplicably amused. “Don’t think I’ve seen anything since my school days.”
“For shame!” James poked him in the shoulder. “We must do something about that straightaway.”
“You’ll have to drag me there,” Francis said. “Sometime soon, maybe.” He grinned, revealing that tantalizing gap between his front teeth. It was the same grin he’d shyly unveiled at dinner, not long after James had insisted they trade each other bites of their mains and, in an unexpected show of daring, he’d held a forkful of lamb kofta up to James’ lips. There you are, he’d murmured. James had opened his mouth wide and squeezed his legs together under the table.
It was dangerous to plan on dragging Francis anywhere, especially sometime soon, because soon was a subjunctive that imagined a future beyond the margins of this exceedingly ill-advised wager, and James really did not wish to consider that at present. Even if he allowed himself an indulgent three-and-a-half seconds to think about how Francis would fall asleep during The Flick, and how his head would loll against James’ shoulder, and how afterward they would go home together to their Victorian conversion in Queen’s Park and program the coffee maker for the morning before engaging in thirty minutes of tender yet athletic sex. “I’d love to,” he said.
Francis smiled faintly. “You know, it’s been so many years since I did this with anyone. Bit rusty, I’m afraid. So thanks for indulging me.”
James studied the pattern of fallen leaves on the path ahead with a pointed scrutiny. “Since—?”
“Yeah.”
“Right.”
“You can say her name, James. It’s fine. We get coffee now.”
“Sure,” James said, a little more testily than intended. He’d met Sophia a handful of times at office holiday parties and the like, the kinds of functions where everyone except James, it seemed, brought along a plus-one. He liked her tremendously. She was smart, sharp, uncompromising, and a fellow Le Labo acolyte, which was an unassailable indicator of taste. But he very much did not care to let this comparing-oneself-to-the-ex-on-the-second-date train depart from the station.
“If it’s not too forward of me, I’ve been wondering—” Francis coughed. “What you said last week. Why it is that you haven’t been out much.”
James felt a stabbing pain in his stomach. “Just overly caught up in work, I suppose. Time flies when you’re putting in sixty-five hours a week!” He laughed shrilly. Francis didn’t.
“Yes, but you’re—” Francis waved his hand vaguely in James’ direction. “You're very personable. You love people. You love meeting them, talking to them, learning about them. Even when it’s just so we can win the account or get the campaign approved. And they love you, for good reason. I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world for you to find someone.”
James stopped. He shut his eyes. A powerful sense of vertigo gripped him. In all his life he’d never felt so unsteady, so unsure of where to plant his feet next.
“I mean it, James.” Francis’ hand spread across his back. “I wish I’d seen it before. I wrote you off for far too long while I was busy feeling sorry for myself, being a miserable old prick.”
James shook him off and stumbled over to the railing. The river shone with long columns of refracted neon light. The surface was smooth and still as ice. A swim would be quite nice right about now, he reckoned.
“You’ll fall in if you lean over another inch.” Francis’ voice was warm in his ear. He didn’t touch James again, but he was standing close enough that their thighs brushed when the breeze blew in. That part of him was warm, too.
“That’d be for the best,” James muttered.
“James.” It was appalling how gentle Francis could sound even when he was being stern. “It would not be. Not at all.”
“Francis, I’ve—” James broke off to laugh again, this time sourly, because it really was so incredibly stupid, so completely pathetic. “I’ve never been in a relationship that lasted longer than three months. I invite men round to mine, or I go to theirs, we spend the evening together, I never see them again. That’s it. I don’t go on dates because I can’t date.”
Francis’ hand returned to settle on James’ shoulder. His thumb moved in small circles against the notch of bone. “How’s that?”
“I don’t want anyone to learn that much about me. To know me that well.”
“Why not?”
This had to be the most humiliating moment of James’ entire existence. Surely no convict approaching the guillotine, recoiling from the force of whatever rotten produce was being pelted his way, had ever felt more shame. “There’s nothing good to be found there.”
“I disagree,” Francis said. “I’d like to think I know you fairly well, and I would say that there is only good.”
“Ugh.” James’ nose prickled. “Please, Francis, be quiet.”
“In fact, I’d like to know you better, if you’ll let me.”
“A fool’s errand.” James wiped hastily at his eyes. “You’re mental.”
“People have called me worse, so.” Francis’ thumb was still rubbing slowly. James thought maybe he would die if it stopped.
“I’m starting to suspect they’re right.”
“Well, be that as it may. What do you say?”
James swallowed against the lump in his throat. Every raw nerve in his body told him he would regret this tomorrow, in the cold, canny light of morning, when Francis would look at him and see only a messy sketch of a human being. But all he could think about now was how close he was. Not to the edge of a cliff, as he’d feared, but to the end of a very dark tunnel. “Okay.”
“But before I do any of that—”
“Yes?” James’ heart was hammering in his chest.
“I’d like very much to kiss you.”
James nodded dazedly. Francis cupped his face and stroked along his cheekbones, then pressed their mouths together. James’ legs wobbled a bit, but he wrapped his arms around Francis’ waist and leaned in, resting all his weight against Francis, who seemed perfectly happy to bear it. He wondered, as Francis licked gently at the seam of his lips, if he actually had died after all, if this was the mad, electric, spun-out fantasy of his final milliseconds on earth. But the fantasy kept on spinning out, and Francis kept kissing him, and he kept holding on and kissing back for what seemed like eternity. He was shocked to find, when finally they broke apart for air, that he was laughing. His ribs ached with it. He felt weightless and giddy and ready to write a guest column for Glamour entitled How I Finally Found Romance at Forty.
“James.” Francis’ cheeks were stained pink in the glow of the streetlamp.
James knew he was smiling like a loon. “Francis.”
“Would you want to come home with me—I mean—only if—”
James reached into his coat pocket. “Let me call the Uber,” he said.
James had never dreaded a Monday more.
In the lift up to the fifteenth floor, he sweated and squirmed, feeling like a mistress slinking back into her paramour’s flat to retrieve the pants she’d left behind. Which was, if you were being metaphorical about it, more or less what he’d done on Saturday night.
He’d spent roughly six minutes petting Neptune and pretending to admire the sparse furnishings of Francis’ flat, which were all varying shades of beige, burgundy, and navy, with a few wooden antiques thrown in that would fetch hundreds of pounds at Greenwich Market but were probably hand-me-downs, before grabbing Francis by the shirtfront and shoving him against the wall. A faded Turner watercolor rattled in its frame beside Francis’ head. They kissed each other senseless for a spell, then Francis gasped, Let me make you tea, at least. James laughed the high, hysterical laugh his physiology had just invented this evening, nipped at Francis’ earlobe, and said, Either you fuck me out here or in your bed, dealer’s choice.
What followed was, in sequential order, the best sex and the worst afterglow of James’ life. He’d never understood the people who gushed, It’s so much better with someone you care for, which usually triggered the impulse to protest, quite indignantly, I have a perfectly nice time without, thank you, but it was true: he wanted to be close to Francis, to swaddle himself in the cocoon of Francis’ warmth, to have Francis unwrap him like a sad Christmas present that had been forgotten under the tree, to ask Francis to break him apart and put him back together. Everything he wanted, he got. He’d felt, as he laid back and let Francis do some extremely devilish things with his fingers and tongue, that a divine spirit was present, irradiating him with light and joy, making a snug shelter out of a bedroom that looked a bit tragically like a page from an Ikea catalogue. It was the same spirit that possessed him, once he had come twice in a row, weeping and writhing, not to put on his typical show of exhaustion, but to haul Francis down beside him and ask what he liked, what would make him feel good. He’d never done that before. Francis had flushed and said Oh, er, like it was new to him, too, and gingerly touched James’ face.
Afterward, once Francis had recovered from being sucked off and James had reminded himself that it was not physically possible to come a third time, they had flopped onto their backs and listened to each other wheeze. Usually it was easy for James to conjure up some cute, kittenish line, but all he could say, stupidly, breathlessly, was Wow. Francis had barked out a laugh and rolled over to embrace him. Burying his face in Francis’ neck, with Francis’ hand stroking up and down his shoulder, James had made peace with the fact that, if he died in his sleep from a massive heart attack, this would be a tremendously satisfactory final memory.
Then he remembered the axe hanging over his head, poised to swing before the fortnight was out. It came as a bolt of shock so ice-cold that he shivered. You alright? Francis had said sleepily, dragging his toes along James’ calf. James had begun to panic. Just—ah—do you have the time? Francis had fumbled for his phone on the nightstand and reported one forty-five. What he said next, in a sex-roughened rasp, brought the axe within an inch of James’ nose. Stay. I’ll make you breakfast in the morning. James had promptly leapt up and started fishing under the bed for his socks and trousers, thinking, He’s perfect, I am a monster, while muttering some rubbish about the marathon training at seven a.m. sharp he simply could not miss. Francis, to his credit, only managed to look crestfallen for a total of ten seconds, during which time James felt his heart painfully constricting like he was about to have that heart attack after all. It was very possible he deserved it.
Since then he hadn’t texted, or called, or fulfilled any other post-date conventions. He’d considered sending Francis flowers with a card, but he couldn’t decide between Please don’t hate me, I warned you I was a hot mess, and I will be moving to Europe next month so sadly this could never work for the inscription. Francis hadn’t reached out, either, which was upsetting for a number of reasons. To his utter surprise, James found he missed getting texts that sounded like they’d been sent by someone’s eighty-five-year-old nan.
Now it was going on eleven, and he was still too nervous to enter the office kitchen to brew his morning tea. He knew Francis drank at least two cups before noon, and the risk of collision was far too high. But he’d barely slept the past two nights, and that damn deck was due tomorrow, so he Slacked Bridgens and requested some clandestine kitchen reconnaissance.
All clear, Bridgens typed a minute later. He’s with John in the conference room.
James breathed in a gulp of air. He could do this. It was an eight-minute mission, tops. The chances of Francis dodging his meeting to pop in for a cuppa were slim to none. Excellent odds, any betting man would claim.
Naturally, Francis entered about five seconds after James switched the kettle on.
James crossed his legs and leaned back against the worktop, trying to look cool, casual, and effortlessly sexy in that “off-duty runway model” way, rather than guilty and anxious. “Morning.”
To his horror, Francis smiled broadly and said, “Morning.” He pointed to James’ jumper. “That new? It’s very nice.”
“Er,” James choked out, just as he remembered what it was like to choke on Francis’ cock. Blissful, if anyone asked. “Yeah. It is. Liberty’s fall sale. Couldn’t resist.” Francis didn’t stop smiling, even as he opened the cupboard and plucked a mug off the shelf. The guilt and anxiety swelled with the force of a tidal wave. “Listen, Francis, I’m so awfully sorry about the other night—I’m very committed to my training, you see, and any interruptions to the routine—but still, that’s no excuse—”
“James.” Francis held up a hand. His smile was dimmer, but it hadn’t vanished completely, just rearranged itself from soppy into reassuring. “I understand. It’s a lot. I’m sure neither of us had planned for all that.” He fiddled with the mug’s handle. His shoulders were doing that ramrod-straight military drilling thing again. “If I was rushing you into anything, I’m—”
“No, no,” James cut in, flapping his arms about like a gawky idiot bird. “Not at all. I had such a lovely time.”
Francis’ posture loosened a little. “Well. Good. I’m glad. You can let me know when you’re ready. I won’t push you.” Then he lavished an excruciatingly tender look of hope upon James, which was enough to seal the deal. James knew what he had to do.
Some people were born self-assured and found love in their youth. Some people did the mature thing and waited for their brains to develop, then settled down with an equally mature companion to live happily ever after. Some people, however, were pathologically afraid of vulnerability and so morally bankrupt they would agree to a wager just to earn a laugh from their mates and take the piss out of their former office nemesis, who was actually very likely their soulmate, and cock it all up so badly that they were forced to engineer the annihilation of said nemesis’ heart as well as their own future happiness. As the saying went, it takes all kinds.
Proletariat was precisely the kind of bar James loved best: tin ceilings, nineteenth-century portraits on the walls, crimson-colored velvet armchairs, tea lights on every table, the whole place so dimly lit you had to whip out your phone flashlight in order to read the menu. Yet nothing there stirred him. No cocktail fashioned out of peanut butter ice cubes and Cornflake smoke could thrill him. All he felt, as he sat back in his chair and listened to the lads prattle amongst themselves, was a sickening emptiness from top to tail.
He’d made the most fatal error a man could make: misjudging his own soul. Said soul had taken him by the hand and led him, as though he were a mindless little poodle on a leash, down a highly destructive path that led to nowhere but heartbreak. Possibly also a transcontinental move.
He heaved a huge sigh and sipped at his boulevardier.
Graham placed a hand on his shoulder. “Alright there? You’re quiet tonight.” Good old Graham. He was the only one who’d voiced even a scrap of resistance to this whole affair in the beginning.
James smiled weakly. “Not really, no.”
“Sorry. I told them we should give you space. Stop prodding you about—” Graham winced. “Er—geriatric dick. At the end of the day, it’s your business. And, hey, if you want to call it off—”
“Yes,” James said, injecting some steel into it, “that’s exactly what I am going to do.” He put his drink down on the table and clapped his hands. Dundy and Charlie, who were embroiled in a very vigorous debate over whether or not Cara Delevingne had ever gotten cheek fillers, paused.
“So he’s finally going to dish, eh,” Charlie said, flinching when Dundy elbowed him hard. “Oi! All I’m saying is that usually you love a bit of a chat. Don’t blame us for thinking something weird’s going on.”
James rooted around in his trouser pocket and produced a thin wad of notes. “Here you are. Twenty apiece.”
Dundy examined his like it was a priceless artifact. “So it’s off, then?”
“I quit,” James said. “I give up. I’m done. It’s over.”
“Golly,” Charlie said, sniffing, “you sound serious about it.”
“I am serious. It was a horrible idea to begin with, and if there were any justice in the world, frankly, we’d all get the sack.”
The three of them exchanged dubious glances.
“What!” James said, at what was perhaps a slightly frenzied pitch. “I mean, it’s totally unethical. Just a dreadful thing to do to someone.”
“Obviously,” Graham said slowly, “but when these two wankers first hatched it, you said, and I quote, Oh, how marvelous, this will be great fun.”
James felt his cheeks heat. Though he did not believe in a higher power and had never attended church, he thought, quite fervently, Please, God, strike me down dead where I stand. “Well, I was wrong. Francis doesn’t deserve this. He’s a good guy. A great guy.”
“I’m taking that to mean you two definitely—” Charlie started.
“Shut up, oh my God!” James dragged a hand down his face. “Just leave it. Please.”
“Ooh-kay, Graham and Charlie are off to get another round,” Dundy said. “Aren’t you, lads?”
“Right-o,” Graham replied cheerfully, dragging Charlie away by the arm.
Dundy rose and stepped with delicacy around the table, taking the now-unoccupied chair next to James’. He crossed his arms and turned the full force of his we-once-smuggled-a-cheetah-onto-a-hijacked-Ibizan-yacht-together-so-don’t-you-go-lying-to-me-now gaze on James, who flung himself back into the velvety depths of his chair.
“Oh, mate,” Dundy sighed. “You’ve got it bad, eh?”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” James wailed. “I know you knew!”
Dundy shrugged. “Thought it was just an old crush. Like those last little embers that take so long to go out, you can’t really be arsed to hang around so you just leave the campsite and hope you haven’t started a forest fire. Besides, you don’t do—well—whatever it is you’re doing.”
James buried his face in his hands. “For the first time ever I want to. But I’ve gone and made a complete mess out of it.”
“Can’t you just, you know, keep on with him? Charlie will be a prick about it, but who cares, let him talk. And HR at this place is a joke, anyway. Alex wouldn’t give a shit.”
“Are you insane? That’d be even worse. I’m going to sit him down and tell him everything.”
“Bloody hell.” Dundy shook his head. “How do you think he’ll take it?”
“Probably as poorly as anyone would who’s been gaslit, lied to, and mocked behind their back,” James said bitterly. Maybe Francis would finally get to land that punch of his.
Dundy sucked his teeth. “Sounds about right.”
“I might talk to John and request a transfer to the Brussels office, too. I mean, how can I show my face around here anymore? Or do you think I should just quit? I’ve a lot of savings, I’d be fine.”
Dundy snatched up the boulevardier and held it up to James’ lips like he was a newborn bottle-feeding. “Drink this immediately so you stop spouting nonsense, please.”
“But—”
“Drink. Now.”
James downed the remaining three-quarters in one shot. He had to admit, it was quite restorative. I wonder if Francis has ever been to Brussels, he thought, wiping his mouth, then remembered he hadn’t eaten all day and was possibly already a wee bit tipsy. He cringed. If this was the stuff of his drunken reveries, he might as well give it up altogether.
“Let’s take it one step at a time, alright? Talk to him, see what happens, go from there.”
James nodded.
“Good man.”
“It’s just—” James groaned, feeling like a spoiled child who’d destroyed his favorite toy. “I really like him, Dundy. I like him so very much. I want to be with him.” He found, in a ghastly turn of events, that he was holding back tears.
“I know, darling,” Dundy said, giving his shoulder an encouraging pat. “Maybe in the next life.”
It was hell wrangling a table away from the hive of beanie-wearing twenty-somethings. All the would-be novelists in London, it seemed, had picked today to descend en masse, laptops and iPad and notebooks in tow. James had stared down one young person who was also sizing up the table in the corner until they rolled their eyes and moved on.
He checked his phone—ten to one—and straightened the napkins for the twelfth time. Part of him hoped Francis would do the indecent thing and fail to show up. Perhaps even decide he was better off without the company of a two-faced narcissist and dump him altogether. At least that would spare James the agony of having to endure the next hour. This really was the strangest break-up he’d ever undertaken in his history of break-ups, which admittedly was short enough to barely fill half of one Post-it note. He’d certainly never put in this much effort before, either. When a liaison started texting him good morning or the sex started getting stale, he simply feigned overwork for the foreseeable future and called it to an amicable halt. Easygoing, attractive men who could fuck were a dime a dozen in this city. Anything else—anything more—was a fantasy he wasn’t brave enough to indulge.
The door chimed. He looked up to see Francis brushing past a crowd of lithe yuppies all outfitted in Lululemon, yoga mats strapped across their shoulders. His body screamed run. His brain screamed no, stop. He plastered a smile on his face and waved.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” Francis echoed, taking the chair across from him. “Did you order? Shall I grab you something?”
“Not yet,” James said. He was beginning to sweat. “Can we talk for a second first?”
“Of course.” Francis frowned. “What’s wrong? Are you ill again? Your color is quite poor.”
“Um, this is really difficult for me to say.” James swallowed hard. He’d never been so tense in all his life. He could feel his molars grinding together. His muscles were clenched so tight, he was probably sustaining permanent fascial damage. “Before I asked you to dinner, I’d been having lunch with the lads—you know, Dundy, Graham, Charlie—and we were talking about office romances, and you happened to come up, having dated the boss’ niece and all that, and—well—very unkind things were said, owing to some vestigial tensions that really ought to be ironed out, and—”
“I am well aware that your mates dislike me,” Francis said. He didn’t appear particularly perturbed. In fact, he was smiling faintly. “That’s perfectly fine.”
“It’s not fine, actually,” James said, surprised at how much heat had slipped into his voice. “Anyway, so, someone, I can’t recall who, said, Who’d you think Francis will go for next, and someone else said, Doesn’t matter, that bloke couldn’t seduce an apple from a tree, and then someone else said, James, you’re a prize flirt, you ought to take a crack, and we each laid twenty on the table against three dates, and—”
“Ah,” Francis said. The smile was gone. “I see.”
James hadn’t registered how blisteringly fast he’d been speaking. His chest was hot and tight, like he’d just come off a long run. He couldn’t seem to fill his lungs. His breath came in brief, aborted puffs. “But Francis, I’ve always liked you—I mean, largely aesthetically, physically, at first, obviously we had so many quarrels back in the day—but when you came back from leave I really started to like you as a person—being around you is so wonderful, and I’ve loved every second of our time together, and—”
“James.” Francis huffed out a laugh that was entirely absent of noise or humor. “You don’t have to lie to make me feel better.”
“What—Francis—I’m not bloody lying!”
“I understand that things I’ve done in the past have caused a lot of problems, a lot of resentment. I accept that. If this is what you and your mates consider recompense for the bad behavior, the drinking, the fighting—I get it, I really do.”
“No, we were just being stupid!” James gripped the edges of the table. His knuckles were white. “It’s not about that. It’s about me being too scared, too selfish, to do what I should’ve been doing all along.”
“And what is that?”
“Asking you out properly. Getting to know you. Opening up to you. Realizing that I—” James stopped himself. He couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to Francis. “Nothing I’ve said or done with you has been phony, for what it’s worth. But I thought you ought to know the truth, even if you hate me for it.”
Francis sighed. “I don’t hate you. I see that I’ve played my own role in this. Well, that’s alright. It would’ve come back to me sooner or later.”
James shut his eyes. “This is not on you, Francis. Please believe me.”
“Listen, I should go.” Francis sounded tired, defeated, a hundred years old. “I’ll see you around.”
Before James could protest or cry out or fling himself headfirst over the table to stop it, Francis was up, heading toward the front of the shop. Then, like a lightning bolt that had touched down without even a whiff of smoke, he was gone. James looked at the door swinging to and fro, the empty space where a warm body had just been, and felt his heart get up and follow.
That night, James went online and canceled his next Pfeffer Sal session. Oh, what’s the point, he thought dejectedly, and canceled all the other upcoming sessions and his plan entirely. Then he canceled his monthly delivery of gourmet matcha, his Saturday morning yoga classes, and his Littlewine Club subscription, and told himself he was going on a no-buy until January. He deleted his Grindr account. He was too wrung-out to respond to the forty-three messages he had on LinkedIn, which sat impatiently in his inbox until Sunday afternoon, when he deleted those, too.
None of it gave him the satisfaction he had hoped for. He’d assumed it would feel good to punish himself, to systemically expel from his life all the nice things he didn’t deserve. Instead, all he felt was a sort of hollow irony. They weren’t nice things. They were tools to optimize, to shield, to mask. Yes, he loved luxury, but he loved the protection it afforded him even more. He could see all of it so clearly now. If he was being honest with himself, though, he’d always known. It was just safer to shove that ugly, spiky knowledge deep down inside, cram it into a tiny little ball of fear, so it could never rise up and run him through.
Only Francis had ever seen that fear. He saw it with the unerring accuracy and precision of someone who had acquired special eyewear just for the job. He’d diagnosed it and produced a cure in rapid succession, and James had thought, for the first time since childhood, that maybe freedom was within sight.
Now his mind just felt like a prison. His flat, too, where he spent the next thirty-six hours curled up on the sofa, scrolling mindlessly on his phone, paying zero attention to the Gossip Girl reruns blaring on the telly. All he had the stomach for was a handful of biscuits and half a piece of dry toast. Dundy had texted him a dozen times asking how it’d gone, but he didn’t have the strength to answer. Spelling it out in plain, indelible English was too beastly to bear.
As another week dawned, that same listlessness clung to him like a stubborn ghost. He did his job well, but unenthusiastically. Client calls were tedious. Casual chatter in the office disinterested him. Questions that ordinarily prompted him to launch into long-form anecdotes only roused one-word replies.
He’d been terrified of running into Francis, but it seemed that Francis was just as keen on avoiding him, and they saw neither hide nor hair of each other until Friday evening. James had tried to time it down to the second, but because fate was a fickle overlord with a shit sense of humor, Francis was already there, waiting for the lift, when he arrived in the lobby. James considered spinning on his heel and sprinting back to his office, but it was too late.
“James,” Francis said in a dispassionate tone. He gave a brisk nod of his head, then turned his attention to the ticking lift display.
James felt like there was a horrid little frog stuck in his throat. “Francis,” he managed.
Afterward, he had no memory of boarding the lift, descending fifteen floors, exiting the building, or getting the train home. He’d heard about how pain could do that to a person, though. Compress the roads you traveled on into narrow and unbending corridors, paint them over in white, erase their tracks. Make you believe there was no way forward, no way back.
How long did it take someone to answer a door? James had rung the bell more than ninety seconds ago, a period of time which was starting to take on the air of a hellishly interminable wait at the GP’s to go over some troubling test results. He checked his phone. A full two minutes now. Of course the possibility of Francis being out had occurred to him, but he’d been judicious in his plotting. Francis, it had to be said, was not likely to be out at eight-thirty p.m. on a Saturday.
From inside the house came the dull sound of something heavy being knocked over, then a muffled shout. James drew a sharp breath. Before he had time to exhale, the door was swinging open, revealing three-quarters of Francis in sweats, plus a giant, fluffy black mass behind him.
Francis’ face, lit up in slices of gold shadow by the porch light, immediately closed in on itself. “Oh,” he said. “Neptune, back!” Neptune barked twice and retreated.
James’ body was frozen, racked by the impulse to either pass out or puke. All he could say, uselessly, was, “Hello.” They stared at each other for an agonizing moment. Then James forced himself to present the flowers he’d brought along. Rather than humbly handing them over as he’d planned, though, he whipped them out from behind his back and brandished the bouquet like a sword. Unsurprisingly, Francis took a stunned step back.
“Sorry,” James said. “Sorry, sorry, um—these are for you.”
Francis frowned.
“I realized I’d never actually apologized to you, which is unthinkably rude, so.” James shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I’m sorry, Francis. So truly, terribly sorry. I’m sorrier than I can say. We don’t have to talk about it or anything—in fact, we never have to talk again, I’ve been looking into transferring elsewhere, and I’m happy to discuss it with John if you’d like—but I had to say it properly. And give you these.” He tipped the flowers an inch in Francis’ direction.
Francis’ brow was creased and he hadn’t lost the wary expression, but he closed his fingers around the wrapper and slowly, cautiously lifted the bouquet to his nose, as though it were a living creature priming itself to spring up and bite him. “Chrysanthemums.”
“You’d had some in your office once.”
“Last year. For my fiftieth. My sister sent a delivery over.”
“I remember,” James said. “I noticed. You kept them in that vase—the blue chipped one—even after they were drooping, practically dead. It drove me mad. I kept thinking I ought to just tell you to toss them and buy you a fresh set.”
“They smell nice,” Francis murmured. His nose was still buried in the blossoms.
“I also wanted to be clear—it’s so important that you know, it really is vital, I just can’t live with myself unless you do—anyway—anyone would be lucky to have you, Francis. All the things you say about yourself, the way you’ve tried to take blame for this—you’re wrong.”
“James—”
“You’ve been good to me. I mean, that night—it was like a dream. I’ve hardly ever been so happy.” James stared down at his feet. “I’ll always cherish that. And I hope whoever you decide to see next knows how privileged they are to have your company, your regard, your kindness.”
Francis didn’t say anything.
James was too afraid to meet his eyes, to see any more pain etched on his face. “Well.” He coughed. It sounded explosively, abominably loud in the silence. He nudged at a stray pebble with the tip of his boot. “I’ve already bothered—”
“You didn’t have to tell me,” Francis interrupted. “If you really meant what you’ve just said. I’d have been none the wiser.”
“But I would be. It would be wrong. Dishonest. And I’d been so honest with you. The most I’ve ever been with anyone, really. It felt good to be that way.”
Francis went silent again.
“I know I’ve lost whatever jot of credibility I’ve ever had, so maybe this means nothing now, but I swear it’s the truth, Francis.” Stop talking, you fucking wanker, James wanted to shriek at himself. But he couldn’t. Not until Francis understood the kind of magic he was capable of. “The thing is, I’m not actually a real person. I mean, yes, I have a physical form, I was birthed, obviously, but I don’t have a core, a nucleus, an essential truth to me. I’m just a load of different fronts I’ve learned to switch in and out. But with you, I can let go of all that. I don’t know why. You make it easy for me to be myself, or the closest possible version of that. I deeply, deeply regret this damned bet, but I suppose I’m also a bit grateful for it, if that’s not too awful to say. I’d never have known how decent you are otherwise. I don’t think I’d have had the courage to find out.”
“Why is that?”
“Because—well—you’re you. And I’m me.”
“Meaning?”
“What could you possibly want with me? I’ve always irritated you. I am irritating. You’d never go for someone like that.”
Francis raised an eyebrow. “Funny,” he said, “that’s exactly what I thought. What could he possibly want with me? So I told myself, Don’t be an idiot, no chance it’s anything but professional. Even afterward, I was convinced of it. He’ll get bored of me soon enough. He’ll realize I’ve nothing to offer.”
“Francis, no, that isn’t true. Not at all. I promise you.”
Francis shrugged. “Hard to disabuse yourself of the notion when you’ve got the track record I do.”
James had to laugh at that, even though it was small and short, even though it was shameful, because what sort of person would laugh when they ought to be on their knees prostrating, but he had suddenly been beset by the curious conviction that he was looking straight into a mirror. “I know the feeling.”
Francis’ eyebrow seemed torn between suspicion and amusement. “Hm.” He scratched his ear, then sighed heavily. “I suppose you’re good at artsy things like arranging flowers.”
“Er, yes?” James was indeed quite gifted in that department, as it happened, but hauteur wouldn’t do at a time like this.
“I wouldn’t want to ruin these by faffing about. They look expensive.”
“Oh,” James said. They were, in fact. He’d gone all the way out to Pulbrook and Gould. “Well, yes, that’d be a shame.”
Francis propped his weight against the door so it opened all the way. “You must be cold out there, anyway. The temperature’s dropped.”
James shook his head. “Francis, it’s—”
“Don’t argue,” Francis said, turning on his heel. “Just come in.”
James tried to keep his head down while he snipped the stems, filled up the tall glass jar Francis had fished from a cupboard, and organized the blooms as artfully as possible. He didn’t want to take up any more room, waste any more of Francis’ time, leave behind any more unpleasant traces of himself. It was impossible to miss the little sprinkles of personality that ornamented the house, though. The sepia-toned portrait of a woman in pincurls. A tattered copy of Seamus Heaney’s collected works. A chunky blue-and-white knit scarf, clearly homemade, thrown over the back of the sofa. Chewed-up, neon-colored dog toys. A photo of a gap-toothed boy playing in the surf.
“That’s me, you know,” Francis said, peering over James’ shoulder.
“I figured.” James brushed his thumb over the corner of the frame. “How old were you?”
“Twelve, I think. We’d gone up to Ballygally Beach for a summer holiday.”
“You were adorable. Look at that grin.”
“Hah,” Francis said, snorting. “There wasn’t a girl on the island who’ve said so at the time. I was miserable.”
“Their loss,” James said, lingering over the thought of Francis at twelve, sad and lonely and unloved, free and radiant for the camera. Carefully, he put the frame back into its position on the credenza, then gestured to the vase on the dining table. “There you are. I hope it’s decent enough.”
“Right.” Francis fingered one of the petals, moving with the syrupy slowness of someone under an enchantment. It was like he’d never seen a flower before. “It looks good. Cheers.”
“I’m glad.” James linked his hands behind his back. He hadn’t taken his coat off, but a chill was beginning to settle over him. “I suppose I’d best be off now. It’s getting late.”
“It is,” Francis agreed. He was still gazing at the vase.
“Thank you for seeing me. You didn’t have to.”
“Of course.”
“Well,” James said. He took a step toward the door.
“Well,” Francis said, sounding like he was very far away.
James took one more step, then another and another, until he was at the threshold. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done. “Night, then.” He reached for the door.
“Wait.”
James’ hand hovered over the knob. “Pardon?”
“You haven’t eaten supper, have you.”
“I—”
Francis was red-faced with determination. “You never eat when you’re nervous.”
“What?” James said stupidly, incredulously, a tad woozily. It was entirely possible he’d begun to hallucinate in his despair, not having had any food since before noon.
“Take off your coat.” When James didn’t, he came closer, moving like a trainer cautiously approaching an unruly zoo animal. “Here. Give it over.” He divested James of his coat, steered him over to the sofa, and fluffed up the pillows. “Sit. I’ll warm up some curry.”
“What?” James said again, because every other word in the English language had just evaporated from the mushy pea soup of his brain.
“It’s not good for you, James.”
James refused to sit. He clutched at Francis’ sleeve. “Francis. What in the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about—” Francis groaned and ran a frantic, frustrated hand through his hair. One lock fell across his forehead, while others stuck up like wild beach grass. James didn’t have time to say, Look, now you’ve gone and made a mess of your lovely part, which was what he was thinking, because it was true, Francis often appeared pleasingly neat for someone who clearly couldn’t be arsed to keep up with any breed of fashion, and it was actually a rather attractive habit even if was mostly Jopson’s doing, or at least Jopson’s influence, as such a habit evidenced a high standard of care for oneself, and also meant that Francis would look very smart on his arm in public, which was assuredly not a thing to be discounted even if it was now relegated strictly to the twin realms of nighttime dreams and daytime wanks, before he was being kissed soundly.
He staggered back, nearly tripping over a footstool. Francis locked both arms around his waist and held him tight. They kept kissing while James’ body underwent a series of meteoric kinetic reactions, first flailing about like a loon, then going rigid with tension, at last finally relaxing, loosening, slackening, surrendering to the feeling of becoming jelly in Francis’ arms. It was insanity. It was the beautiful, fantastical trip of someone who’d just ingested a powerful cocktail of recreational drugs. It was perfection. It was bliss. It was only when Francis wedged an escalating leg in between his thighs that he broke away, panting, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why did you do that?”
Francis’ chest was heaving. “Why do you think?”
“I don’t know, Francis! I’ve just confessed to you that I committed a highly unprofessional, totally immoral, and virtually unforgivable act, so I am at a loss!”
“Well,” Francis said, planting his hands on his hips, tipping his chin up, “I forgive you.”
“You can’t,” James said, rather more loudly and petulantly than he’d intended.
“That isn’t up to you, is it.”
“I slept with you,” James hissed, as though the maidenly ears of passersby were likely to be scandalized if they overheard.
Francis was unfazed. “And?”
“It’s—well—it was under false pretenses.”
“Was it?”
“Yes!”
“I enjoyed it. Didn’t you?”
“I did,” James said, feeling his cheeks burn. “Very much.”
“I would like to do it again.”
James moaned. It was the final dying cry of a small woodland creature that had just been shot by a poacher. “You can’t just say that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“Because!”
“Don’t you?”
“Bloody hell.” With the length of James’ stride being what it was, he only needed six paces to hit the far side of the sitting room. The return journey he managed in five, breezing past an implacable Francis. “Obviously! But it’s not that simple.”
“Recently I told you that I don’t see a point in being coy. I stand by that.”
Finally James did take the seat Francis had offered him, though it was more of a feeble slump than a seat, and sank back against the cushions. For such a homely piece of furniture, the sofa really was very comfortable. “Francis, you’ve no idea the level of stress I’ve been dealing with in recent weeks. I simply can’t bear any more surprises. My health is very poor these days, and I might not survive them.” He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until he saw sparks, wishing for oblivion.
The sofa curved and creaked under new weight. A warm hand alighted on James’ knee. “James.”
“Oh, just leave me in peace, I beg of you.”
“I would, if that was what you really wanted. But I don’t think it is.”
“You don’t bloody know what I want,” James snapped.
“I do,” Francis said. “I know you.” He was doing that infernal stroking thing with his thumb again. “James, would you please look at me.”
James groaned. Before he knew it, his hands were being prised from his face, and he was blinking hard and fast in the light.
“Have lunch with me tomorrow. Or brunch, or coffee, or dinner. Or a walk on the Heath. Or a trip to the cinema. I’ll go shopping with you at some God-awful place in Soho, even. I don’t care what it is we do.”
James’ heart was creeping steadily up toward his throat. “Why?”
“For the same reason that you asked me. And because you’re a human being, James. Nothing less, nothing more.” The corner of Francis’ mouth flickered. “A real person, if you like.”
He held out his hand, palm up. James’ chest seized tight, but he extended his own and tangled them together. Francis brought their twined hands to his mouth and, one by one, gently kissed the knobby row of James’ knuckles.
It was, without a doubt, the most outrageously romantic thing James had ever experienced. For Christ’s sake, who kissed someone’s knuckles? Was this the eighteen-fifties? Had they been airlifted into a demented period reenactment? Then Francis began laying a line of kisses right up to the pulse of his wrist, and all rational thought scurried speedily out the window. James sighed with the satiation of one who had just slipped into a hot bath after a long day of toil. “If you don’t put a stop to that right now,” he murmured, “I am going to say something that would be very untoward and very embarrassing for what is technically not even a third date.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Francis said, muffled by James’ wrist. “I feel it, too.” He pressed one last kiss to the ball of James’ thumb, then released him. “So.”
“So.” James was certain he was blushing like mad. His legs were bobbing up and down like pistons. Not even his cringiest school crushes had been this bad.
“James.”
“Yes?”
Francis edged closer on the sofa. “Will you go steady with me?”
James laughed helplessly. He was not in the least bothered that Francis had used a line about four decades out of date. There was a sweet, earnest quality about it that tickled him like the softest touch of a finger to his ribs. “God, you’re adorable,” he said, meaning it. Meaning God, I adore you, which he also ventured to say aloud, if only to see Francis duck his head and blush a fierce pink. “And yes, Francis, I will.” That bit he meant, too. He meant it with every cell in his body, starting right now, this very second, for as long as Francis would have him. “But I believe I was promised some curry first.”