This is Not a Love Story (11 page)

Julian leans his head forward and shows her his stitched-up scalp and touches his swollen cheekbone.

Tessa takes another few pictures.

“And this was where the police picked you up from?”

Julian nods.

“Okay. Thank you, Julian, you’ve been really brave. We have one other boy from the camp willing to give a statement, but if there is anyone else you know from the squat or the white house who you think would come forward, it will only strengthen our case.”

I think of Peter and Nathaniel sleeping rough on the heath. I think about finding them.

Before she leaves, Tessa asks for an address, and I’m surprised when Julian gives the cafe as his.

“Cassey said we can stay there until I’m well,” he says, leaning against me and sighing deeply once Tessa has gone.

What about Lloyd?
I sign, remembering suddenly.

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to deal with each day as it comes.”

I nod distractedly, my brain in overdrive, processing what happened to Julian, how much he’s been hurt, weighing it up against the threat of Lloyd coming to look for us. I need to stop thinking.

I concentrate on his breath, steady and warm against my shoulder, how he smells really clean and nice. I smell awful. I stare at the dirt all around my fingernails, ground into the lines all over my hands, and suddenly I feel so filthy sitting on this clean bed with him. And I know it’s not the dirt that’s the problem, not really. I know it’s because I feel overwhelmed by everything he’s gone through, and too inadequate to be of any use.

I get off the bed and sink to the floor.

“What are you doing down there?” he asks softly, puzzled.

I shrug.
You’re clean. I’m not
, I sign.

Slowly, carefully, he edges his way down the bed until his head lies against the mattress inches from mine.

“Do you really think I give a fuck?”

He reaches out his good arm to turn my face toward him and looks at me searchingly with his warm brown eyes.

He knows what the problem is. He always knows.

With trembling fingers he traces the curve of my cheekbones, the hollow dip either side of my nose, this slow exploration made so much more intimate in the bright hospital light.

“You know what really hurt when I was lying in that caravan?” he says gently, drawing me closer with every touch. “It hurt that if I died there you would never have known. It’s stupid, but out of everything, I just couldn’t bear you not knowing. It didn’t seem right somehow that the one person who was everything to me wouldn’t know that I’d gone.”

We’re so close now; I feel such an incredible tender rush of desire to stop his tears with my lips, to feel the salty skin of his cheek beneath my tongue. I’ve come to realize it’s possible to take away pain with such actions, to show you love someone without saying a word.

He lowers his eyelashes, and I close my eyes. We’re so hesitant and shy with one another, the anticipation is painful and… wonderful.

“And I knew if I ever saw you again….” The words are just delicious whispers of breath. “I would….”

He inhales sharply at the first touch of our lips, and I jerk back, afraid that I’ve caused him pain.

I’m so very scared of hurting him.

His eyes are half lidded, dark, confused.

I don’t want to hurt you
, I sign rapidly.

He groans shakily. “
Please, Remee.
” And his voice is full of a different sort of pain.

I want him so badly I’m aching for contact. And this time, when our lips meet, I open my mouth against his and gasp as his tongue touches mine and sweeps inside. He twists his head against the bed to deepen the kiss, and his moan vibrates inside me when I lean over and kiss him back just as deep.

I clench and unclench my hands in his hair, against the bed sheets, trying to be gentle but losing coherent thought completely. I’m panting and gasping and still barely breathing, high on all the little sounds he makes, his body pleading with mine to be
closer, closer
. I’ve never kissed anyone like this, lost in some fierce, wild longing that seems impossible to satisfy.

We know each other so well, and we know nothing.

It becomes messy and desperate very quickly, and I pull back to touch our cheeks gently together.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he whispers, still clutching me, breathing heavily against my ear.

I can’t respond. I can’t fucking breathe. That was too nice. I don’t want to come like that. I want to come with my body pressed up against him, wrapped up in him, holding me as I fly apart. I don’t want to lose control kneeling on the floor next to his hospital bed, the possibility of a nurse or doctor walking in on us.

“Remee?” He turns my face toward his.

His skin is flushed around his neck and the top of his chest, just visible above his gown, and I remember that time in the squat when I thought he was embarrassed after I got carried away. How fucking wrong I was.

Not here
, I sign, self-conscious that I am so easy.

He smiles (and even though his face is distorted by bruising, it still makes me melt inside) and then blushes ever so slightly as he catches my gaze wandering down the raised bedclothes and resting with surprise on his evident erection.

Thank God we didn’t get any further
, I think, as abruptly the curtains are drawn aside and a nurse walks in with a pile of prescriptions and Julian’s discharge papers.

T
HERE
’
S
AN
indoor phone booth near the accident and emergency reception. I hand Julian my last coin out of the pocket of my filthy jeans and lean against the wall in an attempt to keep upright. I’m so unbelievably tired I’m seeing weird dancing lights on the edge of my vision.

Julian watches me with concern as he talks to Cassey.

“You okay?” he mouths midconversation.

I nod, even though I’m aware I’m slipping.

He reaches out and grabs my arm, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder.

“Shit. Remee?”

I feel my head fall back and hit the wall behind me and everything just goes so cold.

Luckily, I’m not out for long, and by the time Julian’s somehow sat me on the floor and propped my head between my knees, I’m coming together again.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” he murmurs, and his comforting warmth disappears from my side.

He returns with a handful of sugar sachets, palmed from the hospital cafe opposite reception.

Opening one with his teeth, he tips the contents onto my hand and holds it up to my mouth.

“When was the last time you ate anything, baby?”

I shrug. I honestly can’t remember.

He opens another sachet, tips his head back, and swallows the contents himself. Then one by one we work our way through them. This is why Cassey has to hide the sugar in the cafe—there have been days when we have survived on nothing else but sugar and ketchup sachets.

It doesn’t make you feel great; in fact I probably feel more hollow and empty than before, now that my stomach has woken up, but at least the weird lights have gone from my vision, and the brief sugar high means I have a bit of energy.

“You went so fucking pale just then, you know.”

Which I know translates as
you scared the shit out of me
.

I push my body against his in reassurance, and we sit like that, leaning into one another, too exhausted to communicate as we wait for Cassey to arrive.

It’s dark again by the time Cassey comes in her beat-up car to drive us back to the cafe. We sink into the backseat, and I close my eyes as Julian wraps his warm arms around me. He smells so fucking good, even if it is a bit hospital-y. And I know this is all I need. All I want. Always.

The next time I open my eyes, the car is stopped under the dim orange glow of a streetlight, and Cassey is talking in a low voice to Julian. She hands him a set of keys to the back door.

“Phillippe left with Cricket and Roxy, so you have the place to yourselves. I’m sorry I can’t let you stay indefinitely, but if anyone finds out, they’ll shut me down. Two or three weeks is the best I can do.”

Julian nods gratefully.

“Thank you,” he says, squeezing his arm tighter around me and edging toward the door.

Everything is shut up, and the building is dark. I notice the broken window Julian smashed is boarded up with a solid-looking piece of plywood. Secure.

“Gem left you some bits and pieces in the back room,” Cassey calls through the car window, remembering, just before she drives away.

“Only out of guilt,” Julian mutters darkly as we walk across the yard we’ve slept in more times than I can count.

My breath is smoky vapor in the freezing air as Julian struggles with the lock, determined to fit and twist the key one-handed in the gloom.

Did you argue with Gem?
I sign after we’ve switched every light switch we can find.

Julian looks away briefly. “You could say that,” he says, standing in the doorway between the back room and the hall. “Gem let you go when you went there for help.”

Do you still…?
I stop. What on earth am I asking him? I
know
he doesn’t, of course I know he doesn’t still have those feelings for Gem, so why do I want to hear him
say
he doesn’t so much?

“What?” he asks softly.

I shake my head a bit too vigorously. Nothing.

Sometimes, when he looks at me like this, I think he can see inside me, right through to all the stupid fears and anxieties written on the walls of my mind.

“It was over a long time ago, baby.”

You loved her, though.

Julian cocks his head, eyebrows furrowed.

“Him. I loved him.”

Oh.

Realization comes like curtains opening in a dark room to reveal a whole brightly lit world beyond it.

Gem is a guy.

He’s
Joel’s dad.

No wonder he thought my question about Julian being Joel’s father stupid. I wonder if he’s flattered I didn’t know.

“Gem wasn’t always as he is now. In the beginning I didn’t deal with the whole cross-dressing thing very well. I was a kid. I didn’t understand.”

I reach out for his hand across the hallway. I can accept his past. Understanding takes effort, but it’s an effort I know we are both willing to put in.

W
IDE
-
EYED
WITH
a kind of sleepy, muted excitement, we make each other cups of sugary tea and round after round of toast slathered with jam.

Cassey said we could use the supplies in the back room’s kitchen, as long as we didn’t use
all
the supplies in there. I figure she’d give us all the toast we could eat anyway.

I feel a lot better. Weary, but better.

The bits and pieces Gem left us are in a black bin bag by the door. Julian tips it out, and we eagerly sort through the odd assortment of T-shirts and trousers (smelling wonderfully of some flower-scented washing powder) to find something warm to sleep in. There are also a couple of towels, some soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and toothbrushes.

“There’s a bath down the hall,” Julian says, awkwardly wrapping all the toiletries up in a towel one-handed.

What about your dressings?
I sign.

“I can get them wet; you’ll just have to help me put new ones on after.”

Already my heart is beating erratic and quick.

I kneel beside him and twist the ends of the errant towel together, brushing my fingers against his. The atmosphere between us is all of a sudden heavier somehow, our movements weighted down, drawing us closer.

Slowly, his fingers stroke down my arm, and I turn and press into him, burying my face in his shoulder, breathing in the sharp, familiar scent of him.

I feel him swallow, and his words vibrate through me, urgent with longing. “Come on.”

The ancient fan heater up on the wall groans into life as we wash out the grimy bath.

Does it hurt?
I sign, gently touching the gauze wrapped around his wrist as he holds it out of the way of the water for now.

He shakes his head in bemused wonderment. “The painkillers they gave me are opiates. Doesn’t hurt at all.”

His eyes lock with mine, and he brings the fingers of that hand tentatively up to my face, traces the outer edges of my lips until I reach for his fingers and kiss them, and he looks on, lost in some sort of helpless desire.

Emboldened and somehow weak at his reaction, I suck each finger deep into my mouth, feeling my cock stiffen painfully in my jeans. I need
more
. And apparently so does he, as he suddenly reaches out, grips the back of my skull and, in a heartbeat, crushes our mouths together, the both of us struggling frantically to get closer, until we crash, shocked, against the concrete bathroom floor.

“Fuck. You okay?” he gasps.

I nod, my skull still ringing from the impact, even as I pull him down heavily on top of me, searching for his mouth, his skin, at last.

God
, his
skin
, warm yet shivering beneath my fingers as I trail them up the long muscles on either side of his spine, under his top, causing him to arch and push his hips down against mine as he kisses me slow and deep.

So much sensation, I lose myself in it, in him. In every grind of his hips, in every rough stroke of his tongue. Our world narrowed to a single bright strip of touch, of taste. Why on earth would we need anything more?

It’s only when the bath begins to overflow onto the floor that we come back to ourselves.

Julian laughs as we both grab wildly for the taps, breathless, giddy.
Glowing.

I try to tell him, but he doesn’t understand. Perhaps he just can’t see it.

Shyly, we undress, pulling our tops off over our flushed faces and just dumping them carelessly on the wet floor.