Hard Tail (29 page)

I thrust a hand between my legs and pumped myself once, twice—then I was coming so hard I literally saw stars. My orgasm seemed to go on forever, blacking out my vision and tearing through my body so violently I felt it had to leave a scar—and God, I’d wear that scar with pride. Matt let out a huge cry and thrust a couple more times into my oversensitised hole before collapsing, panting, onto my back. I let my knees slide away from me and lay prone on the bed, with him on top of me and inside me, thinking if a meteor struck now, I could die happy.

Then I reflected that was a daft idea, because bloody hell, I wanted to do that again.

As Matt heaved his weight off me, his cock slipping out of my thoroughly fucked arse, I turned over so I could face him. “That…” Words failed me, and I shook my head. “I had no idea,” I started again. “I mean, I’ve never…”

Matt gave me a shaky smile, seeming just as overcome. His hair was hanging around his face in sweaty straggles as he looked down at me, muscles bulging in those broad shoulders from holding his weight off me, and he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. “No,” he agreed. “Me neither.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Do you want me to come with you?” Matt asked, his face looking worried in the mirror beside mine.

I ran the comb through my hair one last time. I was tempted—but if it went as badly as I feared it might, I didn’t want him caught in the fallout. “No—thanks, but I’ll be fine. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?” I gave a little laugh that sounded horribly fake.

“Your dad isn’t a firearms enthusiast, is he?”

“No, but he’s got a chainsaw in the shed. And any amount of other power tools.” All in pristine condition, because he never actually used the things.

“
The Winchester Driller Killer
… nah, I can’t see it, can you?”

“
The Hampshire Chainsaw Massacre
hasn’t quite got the same ring, either,” I mused. “Do you think this shirt’s all right?”

Matt frowned. “I’m not sure anyone’s going to care about your clothes, to be honest. I think they’re going to be more worried about what you’re saying.”

He was probably right. I doubted there was an ideal outfit to come out to your parents in.

“You know you don’t have to do this, right?” Matt asked one more time.

“Yes, I do. I’m not hiding you.” I twisted around to slide my hands round his waist. “And anyway, it’s probably as good a time as any. What with the fight and everything. Isn’t that what politicians do—try and bury bad news with worse news?”

“Depends what they think is the worse news,” Matt said dubiously.

“Good point. All right, wish me luck—I’m going in.”

The drive up to Winchester took half an hour, most of which I spent biting my nails and hoping against hope for a sudden flash traffic jam that’d mean I could put the whole thing off for a bit longer. Needless to say, the roads were clearer than I’d ever seen them.

When I got to Mum and Dad’s Victorian semi, I parked at the end of the drive and sat there for a moment, taking some deep, supposedly calming breaths. I could do this. I was twenty-eight, for God’s sake, not some confused, hormonal teenager. This was the twenty-first century.
Everyone
knew someone who was gay. It was no big deal anymore.

Yes, right. Tell that to my pounding heart and sweaty palms. I got out of the car, strode swiftly to the door before I could change my mind, and rang the bell.

And waited.

And waited some more. Where the hell was everyone? I could forgive Jay for not jumping up to answer the door, but surely they wouldn’t have left him on his own? After all, since he’d retired, Dad hardly even went out anymore—just spent all his time reading the paper or in the garden…

Ah. The garden. It was a bright, sunny afternoon in late June, and Mum had some rather fixed ideas about the health benefits of fresh air. Where else would they be? Huffing a bit at them anyway for making this all even more nerve-racking than it had to be, I trooped around the side of the house.

They were all sitting on the patio, Mum and Dad on their twee little wrought-iron chairs and Jay stretched out on what looked like a brand-new lounger, the Meccano set glinting in the sun. They were sipping PG Tips and nibbling on slices of Mr. Kipling’s Battenburg, and the only one missing from the set was Olivia. Birds were twittering, flowers were blooming, somewhere in the distance a neighbour’s lawnmower buzzed—the whole scene was idyllically peaceful. Until I stepped into view.

Mum put down her cup of tea the minute she saw me. “Timothy! Now, what’s all this nonsense Kate was saying about you being arrested?”

Oh, God. Facing a crazed, violently jealous Steve Pritchard was as nothing to the thought of explaining myself to my mother. “I got in a fight, Mum.”

She frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why on earth would you do that? You never get into fights. Your father and I have always worried you’d never toughen up and stand up for yourself.”

I winced at the implication they were still worrying about it and glanced at Dad. He shrugged and made a face that managed to encompass
sorry
,
well, a father worries about his son
and
you know what your mother’s like
all in one.

“Well, this time I did,” I said, hopefully not sounding too defensive.

“I hope this isn’t just some silly reaction to losing your job, where you’ve decided you need to prove yourself—”

“Mum! He started it!” Great. Now I sounded all of six years old. “I mean, we had a bit of a barney—” Mum gave me a sharp look, as well she might. Up until now, the word “barney” as used by me had been merely a generic term for Fred Flintstone’s best mate. It seemed Matt was rubbing off on me in more ways than one—and that little image was
not
what I needed to focus on while I was trying to talk to my mother. “A bit of an argument. And then he just went for me.”

“But why would he do that? What were you arguing about? Timothy?”

My throat almost closed up at the thought of telling them. “It was about this bloke…” I swallowed. “Mum, Dad—I’ve got a boyfriend.” I wiped my hands on my jeans, then wondered what on earth I was supposed to do with them now. If I put them in my pockets, I’d come over all sullen adolescent. Folding my arms would look confrontational. Putting them behind my back…

Mum interrupted my frantic mental ramblings. “Don’t be silly, Timothy. You’re married.”

Oops. Had I really forgotten to mention that before now? Had
Kate
? “We split up. Kate’s with someone else now. And I’m with Matt. Who used to be with the man I fought. Hence the, er, barney.”

“You’ve split up with Kate? When did this happen?”

“Just before I moved down here. It’s fine, Mum—we just weren’t really suited.”

“It’s easy for you to be so blasé about it—what about her? Poor girl, left hanging while you go off and experiment sexually—”

I was fairly sure I was now as crimson as Dad’s carefully pruned tea roses. “Mum! She left me! For another man—who, I might add, was a friend of mine.”

“Well, I have to say I’m very disappointed in her.” She sniffed. “I’ve held my tongue for a long time—I’m not one to speak out of turn—but I never did like that girl. Coming here, turning her nose up at everything. Thinking she was so much better because she had a
career
—”

“Mum! We’re still friends, you know. She came down from London to help me out with the police.”

“Well, I hardly see how that was necessary. Anyone in possession of the facts could see you were entirely blameless. Still, I don’t see why you felt the need to go off and get yourself a, a
male lover
over it.” Mum’s eyes narrowed. “I always did wonder when the rebellious phase would finally happen. Don’t you think you’re a little old for this? Or is it some kind of reaction to being almost thirty?”

“I’m only twenty-eight—and no, it’s not a reaction. Mum, I’m—I’m gay.” The ground seemed to tilt as I finally said the words, then thankfully settled back. “I’ve known for a while, all right? I just…didn’t want to be.”

“Now you’re making no sense at all. Either you are, or you aren’t.”

“He could be bisexual,” Jay put in, looking thoughtful, as if it was a matter of purely academic interest. Something inside me curled up and wanted to die quietly at the thought of my whole family actively thinking about my sex life.

Mum was dismissive. “I’m sure I read somewhere there’s no such thing. Just people refusing to make up their minds.”

“Does it matter?” I asked desperately. “The point is, I’m with a man now. I’m gay.” It was easier, saying it the second time.

“Oh,
Timothy
!” And to my utter astonishment, my mother came over and crushed me in a Chanel No. 5-scented hug. “Don’t worry, darling. Of course your father and I will support you in everything. You’ll have to bring the young man over for Sunday dinner, just as soon as we’ve got this ridiculous assault charge settled. I’ll phone Anna Stephanides from number four right away—you remember Mrs. Stephanides, don’t you, darling? Her son’s a barrister, very high-flying as I understand it. He’ll soon have these charges dismissed.”

I don’t think I said a word. All these years, when nothing I’d done had ever been good enough to rate a smile from my mother, much less a hug—and suddenly, due to what some parents might have seen as a series of major fuck-ups, I was the apple of her tear-misted eye? I looked helplessly at Jay.

He just shrugged again and mouthed something over my mother’s gently heaving shoulder.

I think it was,
She likes to have someone to make a fuss over
.

“Mum,” I said, actually feeling a bit reluctant to tell her we didn’t need to bother the high-flying barrister, “it’s all right. I’m not going to be charged. They’ve accepted my story.”

“And so they should! How dare they accuse my son of lying—” Mum choked up a bit then and squeezed hard enough to give me new bruises. When she finally released me, slightly crushed, a bit damper and a lot more fragranced than I’d been before, I braced myself and turned to face Dad. He hadn’t said a word so far. He was looking even older and more tired now, and my spirits sank.

“Dad?” I asked, then swallowed.

“Oh, Tim,” he sighed.

“You’re disappointed, aren’t you?” I managed to keep my voice steady. For a wonder, Mum didn’t interrupt.

“Well, I can’t say it’s what I’ve always hoped to hear—dreaded, perhaps. It’s not most fathers’ wish for their sons, is it?”

“Sorry,” I whispered, staring at an ant crawling across the patio.

“None of that!” he said sharply.

I looked up. There was something of his old energy showing in those pale blue eyes. “Dad?”

“Your mother’s right. Of course we’ll support you in everything. You’re our son. Nothing could ever change that.” He reached out a hand, which shook a little, and I hurried over to take it. “I think I always suspected. You were always so different from Jay—never wanting to play the same rough games.”

“Well, I never suspected,” Jay put in, sounding annoyed. “I hope you realise you’ve lost me ten quid.”

“Er, how?”

“Olivia. First time she met you, she bet me a tenner you were gay.”

“What? How the hell did she know?”

Jay grinned. “Because you’re the only ‘straight’ bloke she’s met—present company
not
excepted, and yeah, Dad, I’m looking at you—who can talk to her without spending half the time staring at her tits.”

“James!”

“Sorry, Mum. Breasts.” He gave Dad a sly look. “Bazoombas. Jugs. Melons. Air-bags. Baps—”

“James!”

Mum glared at the three of us, all helplessly giggling like schoolboys.

“Plus,” Jay went on breathlessly, “remember that time she turned up when you were letting it all hang out at my place and she pretended you were going grey?”

“What?” She’d only been pretending? I
didn’t
have grey pubes?

I was going to murder that woman.

Jay laughed. “Yeah, she said your face fell so fast she nearly dived to catch it. She reckons she’s never yet had a straight bloke come in for the old
intimate grooming
.”

“I have not had any intimate grooming!” I shouted, just as Olivia walked around the side of the house.

“If you ask me, more men should,” she said, coolly walking up to Jay and giving him a kiss. “Maybe they wouldn’t be so keen to insist their girlfriends get a Brazilian, then.”

How had my big coming-out speech turned into a discussion on the merits of bikini waxing?

Oh, right. Jay. As usual.

“That’s right, laugh at me,” I groused, glaring at them both, and Olivia in particular. “When I think of all I’ve done for you—run your shop, done your books, fed your cat—at, I might add, considerable risk to life and limb—”

“Cat?” Jay said. He and Olivia turned to me with matching frowns. “What cat?”

I wondered what the penalty was for felicide and whether I’d be allowed to serve my sentence concurrently with the one I was about to incur for fratricide and whatever the Latin word was for killing your brother’s girlfriend. “Never mind,” I said with as much dignity as I could scrabble together, which wasn’t much. “I’ve got a boyfriend to get back to.”