10 Toby

Laurie's ex looks like I wish—and sometimes imagine—I look. Tall and strong and stern and Daniel Craigy, all jaw and cheekbones and piercing blue eyes.

I think maybe Laurie has an unacknowledged thing for blue eyes.

Mine aren't as good as Robert's.

Nothing about me is as good as Robert.

I probably ought to be a puddle of insecurity and despair…except I'm just not. For once in my life I'm okay. And this is a fucking weird time for it because I think we're kind of in a pickle.

I don't know how I got us into it, and I definitely don't know how to get us out of it.

I've been practicing with the flogger Laurie gave me and daydreaming about what it'll be like when I hit him with it, the sounds he'll make, and how much it's going to totally get me off. But I'm pretty sure none of those daydreams—and there's been a lot—included an audience and Laurie's ex telling me all about what Laurie likes.

Because fuck it—I know what Laurie likes too, and I wasn't the one who ran away like a coward because I fucked up. I want to tell him: you don't get to say this shit anymore. But he's tall and hot and invincible and really amazing with those two floggers, so I don't have the balls.

Which I guess makes me a coward too.

Besides, I don't want to embarrass Laurie in front of all these people. I know they probably just think I'm a clueless kid—and let's face it, I am a clueless kid. But not when it comes to Laurie, because I love him and I trust him and I know him. I do. I know him.

But if I don't do this—and I have to do it without fucking up—then nobody will believe I'm right for him. They'll feel sorry for him. Or like he said to me all those weeks ago: like he's indulging me. I think he'd hate that. He's proud, is Laurie.

And the way he gives that up for me—the way he lets me take it from him—is private. In public, it's my business. I have to look after him.1

The good thing is, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to fuck this up. The flogger I'm holding is heavier than the one I'm used to, but it's nowhere near as bad as the one Robert gave me, and I just kind of like it. It's thrilling and humbling at the same time, and above all deeply sensuous. The handle tucks into my hand really neatly, and the chevron pattern is comforting under my thumb, like the creases in someone's palm. When I stroke my fingers through the tails—there must be like forty of them—I can feel the grain in the leather, tiny dents and bubbles, also oddly personal, warming from my touch.

I really, really want to make them dance against Laurie's skin. Two beautiful, powerful things I'm going to bring into conjunction, pain and pleasure, skin and leather, and ohmyfuckingGod. Ngh. I'd be hard, except my cock is a bit scared because a bunch of people are ogling it.

I glance at Laurie. His gorgeous back, all strong and markable, goldenish in the dim light. I love him so much, and I'm so fucking desperate to hurt him.

Except…this isn't how it's supposed to be. This isn't for other people; it's for us. And I think Laurie's shaking. Not like he usually does, but in this tight, frantic way, as if he's trying to control it but he can't.

I head over to him. I guess everyone thinks I've lost my nerve, but I don't care. I put my hand flat between his shoulders, and he jerks like I've stuck him full of needles. He's clammy with cold sweat.

"You know what." I turn to the crowd. "Fuck this."

"Toby…" A tiny whisper from Laurie.

"No, seriously. This is…like…important. It's ours. And I'm going to do it my way, nobody else's. So…show's over. Sorry."

I give the flogger back to the guy who gave it to me. He gives me this weird little nod, like he's saluting me. I guess he gets it.

Everybody else is still sort of staring. What part of "show's over" don't they fucking understand?

Well. Tough. I ignore them. Go back to Laurie and try to get him off the cross, but his hands are clinging to the wood, and embarrassingly, I can't reach, and I can't get him to let go.

I tug pathetically at his shoulder. "Come on, love. I want to go home."

And that gets through to him. He unlocks his death grip and turns round. He kind of doesn't quite look like my Laurie. He's trembling all over now, eyes like a wild horse.

Jesus. I'm fucking glad I didn't hit him. But in a weird way, I also know I didn't even come close. But I guess Laurie didn't know… Fuck, I've fucked this up. I was just confused and trying to do the right thing. And fuck.

I back off a little bit, trying to entice him after me, like he's some shy, feral creature and I'm a totally inept trapper. But he does follow, step by step, and then—suddenly—he just crumples to his knees at my feet. It's awful and graceless and kind of helpless, and I hear him hit the floor, and I can't imagine how much that must have fucking hurt. Then he kind of pitches forward onto his elbows, hands outstretched towards me, and I think what he's saying is "thank you, thank you, thank you."

And, Jesus fuck, this isn't for the rest of them either. So I throw myself down beside him and gather him into my arms. I hold him and he holds me too, and we hold each other so fucking tight. I don't know for how long, but when I look up again, we're alone.

That's one good thing.

And Laurie's warm again, and he's not trembling anymore.

So that's probably another.

After a bit, he pushes my hair out of my face, which he's kind of obsessed with for some reason, but it's how I know he's getting to be okay. Which God, I'm so fucking relieved about. Then he gives me this shy little smile and says, "Banoffee pie."

And then we're laughing. It's shaky, and I'm not sure if I should be crying, but whatever, it's what we're doing, and it feels right.

There's no reception down here because basement, which means we can't ring for a taxi, so we go stumbling for the stairs. On the way, we meet the guy who lent me his awesomely nice flogger, and he's got Laurie's shirt.

It takes both of us to get poor Laurie into it. He tries to help, but his fingers are basically incompetent.

God. What have I done to him?

It's Nice Flogger Man who calls us the taxi, and all three of us end up sitting on the doorstep waiting for it to come. The cold air is really good because it was comfortable-when-naked hot in the house, which meant it was basically uncomfortable-hot. Laurie rests his head on my shoulder, like he's completely exhausted, and I suddenly realise I feel kind of the same way—inside, not outside—and we slump against each other. "Oh, Toby," Laurie says, in this slightly slurry, dreamy way, "this is Dom. He plays the alto sax."

This is clearly some kind of in-joke or something, but Nice Flogger Man—Dom, I guess—looks thrilled. I think he's probably kind of hot, but he's so not my type it barely registers. Total lack of ping, and I'm starting to accept I'm all about the ping.

"Uh, do you, like… Are you in a band or something?" I ask.

"I sometimes jam at the North Star on a Tuesday night."

Laurie stirs a little. "We should come, hear you play."

"I'd like that." Dom smiles and stands up, trousers squeaking. "I think you two can take it from here."

And then, totally out of nowhere, Laurie is like, "I'm sorry I never called you," and I'm like, Wait, what? but I don't say it aloud, thank God.

But Dom just shrugs. "I'm glad you found what you were looking for," is all he says, as he goes back inside.

I call after him, "I hope you do too," but I'm not sure he hears me.

I mean it though. He seems like a good person.

Our taxi comes, and we're quiet all the way home, holding hands in the back. As we pass under streetlights, they paint Laurie in orange stripes, like he's a tiger. A very tired tiger who needs looking after tonight.

"Y'know," I say, when we finally get home, "let's not do that again."

Laurie gives me this look. "You know, let's not."

We still aren't talking much, but it's not the bad sort of not-talking. It's not Laurie-keeping-me-out not-talking, it's not needing-to-talk not-talking. It's still early, but after Laurie has some water, we go to bed anyway, and just sort of lie there, being with each other.

It's totally romantic in this quiet, unexplainable way.

I roll onto an elbow and stare at him all goofy-like, and he stares back—entirely ungoofy—but the greys in his eyes are soft as swan's-down.

"‘He's all states, and all princes I,'" I whisper to him.

I don't think Laurie really knows what I'm on about, but he smiles up at me anyway.

"I'm sorry I fucked up tonight."

"You didn't."

He sounds like he genuinely means it, but I'm not sure I deserve to get off that lightly. "I nearly did. I didn't know what to do, and I got in a mess."

"It was my fault too." He glances away sheepishly. "I got caught up in everyone else's ideas about what was important. Thank you for, err, not."

I'm kind of bummed to learn that's still a thing that happens in your thirties. "But what if I'd… I mean, would you have let—"2

"I know my own limits, Toby." He reaches for my hand and presses it tight. He's all warm and strong and unshaken. "The worst it would have been was stupid, since neither of us wanted it."

"I didn't want to let you down."

He gives me his uncertain smile. "Ditto."

That's how we leave it. All equitable and mature and shit.

Except it's fake, isn't it? Just like me. I'm trying to cling to how I felt at the party—all strong and sure and shit—but we both know what happened, or what nearly happened, is all my stupid fault. I was the one who pushed to go in the first place. If I'd listened to Laurie, and what he wanted, instead of being lost in my own messed-up head, I'd never have come so close to hurting him.

The truth is, I just can't bear to…to…think right now. Not about Granddad. Not about myself. What Laurie doesn't realise is that no matter how kind he is, no matter how much he holds me or fucks me or tries so hard to understand me, this weekend is just a way station. What's waiting for me on the other side is life without Granddad.

Just greasy café days spiralling the same into forever. And I'm scared and alone and I don't know what to do.

I thought grief would be kind of cool and lofty: this rarefied sadness. But it's the most ignoble thing I've ever known. I feel like a wild animal, lost and scratching. And all I want to do is see my granddad again. I want to look into his eyes again and see that love there. That unchanging, unflinching love. Why the fuck didn't I realise what a gift that was? Why wasn't I grateful for it every day of my shitty little life? Instead of taking it for granted.

Like the sun and the moon.

The moon waxes and the sun rises and my granddad loves me and everything will always be all right. And now only some of those are true. And thank God Laurie's asleep so he can't see these pathetic tears I'm crying in the dark for myself.

He'd want to comfort me, of course, but I don't know how to be comforted by him.

This man I know so much about and so little that it all kind of blurs in my head—these tiny details like how he likes his eggs or the sound he makes when he comes, and this huge stuff like thinking of him walking down the Underground tracks towards a bomb and this whole relationship he had when I was barely alive.

And the fact he doesn't really know me either. Only thinks he does.

And so I lie there, stifling my sobs in my hands, wondering how long until he leaves me too.

I must fall asleep at some point, but I don't sleep so well. I just haven't been lately.

I like being next to Laurie though. I still don't sleep, but it sometimes stops my head spinning. I concentrate on all the little things, like the heat of his skin and the beat of his heart and the deep, steady rhythm of his breath. It seems so eternal, so ceaseless, the physical business of being alive. It's hard to imagine that it'll just stop one day. For all of us.

I wasn't there when Granddad died. I don't know if that's the sort of thing that's supposed to matter. They told me it happened in his sleep. Apparently it was peaceful, but I bet they always say that. It's what you want to hear.

The last thing I said to him was, "See you tomorrow, Granddad."

Which turned out to be a lie. A really banal fucking lie.

But it's all lies, really, when someone dies. The whole business of consolation. I don't think I even really believe in God, but I did find myself sort of…hoping. Because there's nothing like being handed an ornamental pot of your loved one to make life just a little bit fucking pointless. Ninety-something years and all that's left is ashes and a boy who can't even mourn you properly.

Because what I'm really thinking as I watch Laurie sleep is: I wish he would try lying to me. Just a little bit. He could, for example, say I love you. And I don't care if it's real or not. Just want to hear him say it. So I'm not so fucking alone.

But people don't fall in love with mopey, needy idiots, so I'm determined to be shiny by the time he wakes up. I bring him eggs and the Sunday paper, and curl into the crook of his arm while he reads and eats, and in a weird way it does kind of work. I half convince myself that I'm okay. That Monday is another country I may never have to visit. And maybe now I have Laurie's phone number and a key to his house, that this is enough. That we're something. Boyfriends. Whatever.

We take it easy for most of the day. After yesterday, I don't think we're up for anything super kinky so we just sort of have sex. Except there's no just about it when it's Laurie. He takes me apart with this incredible fucking tenderness and then stretches me out on top of him like a wanton slut, takes my cock deep into his throat, and slides his fingers deep into my arse, and oh God, turns me into this pleasure circuit. I last no time, as usual, fucking myself crazy in two directions at once, while Laurie bathes me in all his muffled moans. Doesn't take me long to get back in the game though. Ten minutes sprawled over him, with him hot and hard and desperate and denied, and then I pin his wrists to the pillow and ride him like the rodeo until I fountain wildly over both of us and he pours himself into me in a warm, familiar flood. And for a little while, I can pretend that maybe I'm where I'm supposed to be.

* * *

In the evening, Laurie takes me out on this date. This actual motherfucking date. Which turns out to be something I want so badly I haven't even dared admit I want it. And for once, I don't even have to ask for it.

I haven't been home, and when I've been with Laurie I've been mostly naked, so I've only got some jeans I've come in and my funeral suit. It's not my funeral suit in any real sense. It's just a suit. But since I wore it to Granddad's funeral, that's basically what it is now. Laurie thinks I should just go in the jeans, but this is a date. And he's supposedly taking me somewhere nice.

I don't want to be someone who looks awful at nice places.

Laurie tries to convince me that everyone would just think I'm an eccentric millionaire or something.

But I think I'd look like a rent boy. A cheap one.

So funeral suit it is. I leave the collar undone and the tie behind, so at least it's kind of smart-casual funeral. Laurie's in dark blue. It makes the grey in his eyes all pale and pearly, more than usually wolfish. I love it.

He takes me to this place in Mayfair. It has a Michelin star. I have no idea how he's managed to get a booking at such short notice, but he just gives me a mysterious look and tells me he knows people. I don't know if he's feeling nostalgic for Oxford, or if it's the only place he could get into, or if he thinks I'll like it, but it's very…brown. Wooden floors and oak panelling gleaming darkly under this huge skylight thing. The tables are all squished pretty close together, but soon we're seated at one, and nobody has made any comments about me looking like a rent boy or Laurie looking like my dad.

So it's all good.

I disappear into the menu, and Laurie lets me order for him. He's indulging me a bit, and even though we only do kinky stuff in a sex context—honestly, it's the only context I want to do kinky stuff in, the rest of the time I want a boyfriend—I think we're sort of flirting around the edges of it right now. I'm pretty sure it's as far as we're ever going to take it, but it's kind of obvious to both of us we're each getting our own thrill out of it. I like choosing for him, and he likes being chosen for.

Laurie blushes a little bit as I engage the waiter, but the guy is either really well trained or a really nice person or just really used to accepting the dynamics of other people's relationships, because while he talks to both of us, he defers the decisions to me and answers all my questions. Because I've got loads.

We have pork belly with snails. The crackling is crisp and velvety at the same time, and the snails come with carrot purée and roasted garlic, and they're kind of this perfect earthy contrast. I practically swoon, and Laurie faffs with the napkin over his lap and hisses at me to stop having sex with the food.

That kind of sobers me up, not because of what he says, but because I shouldn't be allowed to be this happy right now. Not with my granddad being dead and Monday coming at me like a train down a tunnel.

Laurie spots it, though—the shift in my mood—and holds my hand over the table. In public and everything. I cling to him and let him make it okay. He tells me the stuff he's been telling me all weekend: it's natural, and not wrong at all, and sometimes I'm going to feel bad, and sometimes I'm not, and there's no rules. It doesn't mean I loved my granddad any less if I'm not sad all the time.

I get it. I do. Rationally what he's saying makes sense. But it's like there's something between us, between me and the world, this…crust I know is there but can't break through. I try to remind myself that Granddad wasn't, like, a psychopath. He wouldn't want me to be miserable. But that's somehow worse in a way because all he is anymore is dead. And he can't want anything for me or from me ever again.

And I don't know how I'm supposed to deal with that. I'm kind of dizzy but in my brain, all the time. Like I'm going to fall over. I don't want to go back to work. I want to stay with Laurie. I want him to take me to Paris. I want him to hold me until my world stops spinning and I'm strong enough to stand on my own again.

Which is so completely fucking pathetic.

Besides, if I don't go in, Joe will probably fire me, and then I'll have to figure out what to do next. And I can't. I just can't do that right now.

We have the bouillabaisse for our mains, which Laurie—I think trying to make me laugh again—confesses he would never have ordered on account of not being able to pronounce it and not knowing what it is. So I go on about Marseille bouillabaisse for a while, showing off basically, until I feel a bit like me again. It's a portion for two, and it comes in this huge copper pan thing, along with croutons and rouille sauce, and it's weirdly romantic, sharing this vat of stew on a chilly winter-spring evening.

I think the main fish in there is hake, not rascasse, but the amount of saffron in the stock is so completely wonderful I pretty much do want to have sex with it. Even Laurie seems a bit dazed about how fucking good the whole thing tastes.

We finish with honey ice cream and crushed honeycomb, which I'm slightly dubious about because I'm convinced it's going to be too sweet. But it isn't. Somehow it's subtle. I guess that's the sort of shit that gets you a Michelin star.

I'm discussing this with Laurie as we're crunching through honeycomb, and somehow…I don't know…but somehow I'm too relaxed, or not paying attention properly, or love struck and food hypnotised, but what he says is, "Are you going to have your own restaurant some day?" and what I say is, "Yes."

And then I'm completely terrified.

Because once you've thought something like that, or said it, all you've done is given yourself something to fail at.

Or have taken away.

We don't have sex that night. It's kind of the first time ever. But I'm too happy and sad and scared of tomorrow and, on top of that, scared of not having sex in case Laurie minds, but he doesn't seem to. He just holds me while I'm very, very small. Too small for everything.

All because my weekend with Laurie is over, and I have to go back to Greasy Joe's and the life I've kind of accidentally made for myself that I don't know how to live and don't know how to change.3

I wish I could stay in the circle of Laurie's arms where everything's all right.

Which is probably why I forget about tomorrow, and don't even set the alarm on my phone, and I sleep, at last I fucking sleep, deep and dreamless and stupidly happy, in the world Laurie makes for me. Until Greasy Joe wakes me up with a phone call at half nine, because I'm late, I'm so late, and Luigi's sick, and Bella's had to go home, and everything's a mess, and I'm a fucking irresponsible kid, and what the fuck do I know, and I need to get the fuck down there, right the fuck away. For fuck's sake.

Like insanely angry is his modus operandi.

I know he doesn't mean it mean it.

But the shock…after everything…after being so safe and cared for…practically rips my skin off.

And suddenly, everything with Laurie seems like bullshit. A soap bubble, fragile and floating away from me. And I'm so not a prince. I'm a kid, a fucking irresponsible kid who can't keep a shitty job at a shitty caff properly.

This is how it really is.

Not…this…this fucking bullshit soap bubble with a man who's going to wake up one morning and see how fucking crap I am.

And he's been awake since the call. Greasy Joe has volume, even over the air waves, so I don't know how much of that Laurie caught before I got out of bed and out of the room. None I hope. I'd fucking hate it if he heard.

"What's the matter?" he asks as I start scrabbling around for my clothes and yanking them on.

"Forgot work."

"Was that your manager? Does he usually talk to you like that?"

I shrug. Try not to look at him.

He stirs in his cloud of Egyptian cotton. "Are you sure you're well enough?" He hesitates a tiny second before he says well. Like there were other words he had to discard first. Strong enough, maybe. Or capable. "You've had so little time."

"Well, it's what I got. And you're the last person to talk to me about what I want versus what I get."

I yank-zip my hoodie so hard I nearly hit myself in the face and run downstairs to find my shoes. Truthfully I'm almost glad to get away from him. I don't want to talk about this, and the more he's nice to me, the more I want to cry.

So, no.

When I finally get to Greasy Joe's, sweaty and late, it's total carnage. I don't know who's been in the kitchen while I've been away, but it's…it's not trashed, but it's not right. It's not been cared for and everything's kind of higgledy-piggledy, stuffed wherever, and I know this makes me sound like a freak, but systems are important in a kitchen. It feels like somebody's been wearing my pants and had them on backwards all the time they were wearing them. What the fuck's with the ordering? There's way too much bacon and way not enough eggs and no tomatoes at all and the mushrooms look kind of oogly and argh, argh, argh.

And that's just the back. Up front…I have no idea what's going on up front, because there's only Ruby serving, and she's really nice, but she smokes a lot of weed and you can tell. There's customers, and some of them have food, but nobody looks happy, and there's a bunch of American tourists standing in the doorway kind of laughing in a mean way about how lousy service must be part of the authentic British experience.

I know it's just a caff and just a job and it's not my fault and I shouldn't care so much, but it feels really overwhelming right now, and I do care, because if I don't, I'm just wasting my life. Everything is really bright and loud, and everywhere I look there's something I don't know how to deal with, and out of nowhere, all I can think is my granddad is dead and I wish he wasn't. But there's nothing I can do about that either.

There's nothing I can do about anything.

My hands are shaking so hard I can't even tie my apron properly, and I'm just standing there in the kitchen like a stunned moose when Joe barges in and tells me I'm a worthless fuckup who's fucking up his caff. He goes on and on, getting louder and louder, as if it's not enough that all the diners can hear him, he wants to make sure the street can hear him. Laurie back in bed in Kensington can probably hear him. The whole fucking world.

He finishes with, "Sort it out, or get out, or I'll throw you out," before he's off, in this immense ripple of fat and muscle, like a Spanish galleon under full sail.

Ruby's got her elbows propped on the service hatch, watching the show. "Wow, his dander, it's like so up today."

"Yeah." I try to act like…like I'm okay. Anyway, it doesn't matter. It doesn't fucking matter. All I have to do is cook some shit for some people. That's it. There's scraps of paper blowing about on one of the surfaces. "Uh, what's this?"

"Which?"

I point. "This!"

"Oh, that's orders, babe."

I paw through them crazily, this shipwrecked sailor looking for a message in a bottle. "Which comes first? What tables?"

"Oh yeah, forgot. Soz." She's chewing absently on a piece of her own hair. I seriously want to rip it out of her mouth.

"It's fine," I say, and I don't recognise my own voice. "It's fine. Just…sit those Americans."

"Which Americans?"

"Jesus, Rubes, the ones in the fucking doorway."

She turns really slowly. "Oh yeah, lol."

"Like, put them on six."

"Which one's six?"

"Put them anywhere. Just put them anywhere."

She drifts off, and I'm left in my wreck of a kitchen. I try to stack up the orders based on how and where they've flown, but it's hopeless. In the end I go for one I can read and whizz it along the grabber as if this is the same as being even a little bit in control of what's going on.

I tell myself: one thing at a time.

Except there's a lot of things, and they're stacking up faster than I can do them, which means…I'm never going to get on top of this. I've failed before I've even tried.

And I feel weird, like hot and cold at the same time, and I still can't seem to stop shaking, which is really bad when you're supposed to be preparing food. But it's not like I have a choice.

One thing at a time.

Full English. Okay. I can do that. I can do that.

I wash my hands, fire up the griddle…and realise about half the stuff I need is piled up in about six inches of stagnant water in one of the stainless steel sinks.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck.

I try to wash up while I'm cooking, but that just means I do a shitty job of both. And more orders come blowing in through the service hatch, and Ruby can't remember how to use the coffee machine, and I drop a stack of plates and I don't have time to clean the shards up properly so I just have to kick them under one of the counters, and while I'm stressing about that, I burn my eggs, which takes real fucking skill because, Jesus, they're eggs. And while I'm scraping them off the griddle in a torrent of grease and charcoal, I burst into tears, and then I'm weeping my heart out into someone else's breakfast as Stevie—one of our regulars—sticks his head in, and is all like, "I can see you're up against it, son," and tells me he's going to come back tomorrow.

I know he's trying to be nice. I know he's trying to help.

But I've lost a customer. I've fucking lost a customer.

And I can't stop crying.

In the end I go to the back of the kitchen, and I crawl into a space under one of the work surfaces where we keep the industrial-sized tubs of mayo and ketchup and mustard, and I make myself about as small as I can get—disappearing small, like I did for the bad year I had at school when everybody knew I was gay.4

I don't even know if what I'm doing is crying anymore. There's some tears, but mainly it's noisy and weird and sounds more like hiccoughs, and the more I do it, the more I keep doing it, even though it's starting to hurt a bit because my mouth and my throat are all dry and I can't seem to get enough air.

I'm so lost and stuck in this loop of breathless-cry-hiccoughing that I don't even hear footsteps, I don't even know there's somebody with me until Laurie's drawing me into his arms, whispering my name, calling me darling, and gently brushing the hair out of my sticky eyes.

At first I think I've gone bona fide nutters. Like I'm so miserable I've hallucinated him.

But, no, he's really here. Laurie is here, in Greasy Joe's, with me. And that's so incredibly, well, incredible that I forget what a mess I am. So I'm just pathetically happy to see him, which I mainly demonstrate by covering his shirt with snot and slobber.

Eventually he manages to coax me upright, and I manage to ask him what he's doing here.

"I was worried about you," he says.

That doesn't exactly make me feel brilliant, but since he found me cowering behind a tub of Hellman's, it's not like I can claim I'm fine. I scrub at my face since I've basically abandoned all hope of pride and dignity. "I don't know what's wrong with me. Everything's a mess."

I squint up at him, looking for wariness or disgust or shock, but there's only Laurie, my Laurie, frowning a bit, but in his thoughtful way, not his angry way. "Come home, Toby. Let me take care of you."

Home. That sounds so nice. So does the bit about taking care of me.

But I'm supposed to be able to take care of myself.

I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and drink it scary fast. "I can't. I know it's rubbish, but this is my job and we're understaffed and if I go away there's nobody to cook. I just…" Looking round at the chaos makes me want to run away and hide again. "I don't know…how to…" I give up. I can't even finish a sentence right now.

Laurie doesn't say anything for a moment. Then he goes, "All right." And I have no idea what that even means in this context. He leans in and kisses me lightly.

Then he's unhooking one of the spare aprons off the back of the door and putting it on. And while I'm gaping, he strides out of the kitchen, sweeping the crumpled heap of orders with him. I hear the clatter and click of the filter coffee machine and then his voice cutting easily over the disgruntled hubbub of the caff.

"All right, everyone, we've had a technical hitch with our ordering system—"

"What sort of hitch?" asks one of the Americans.

There's a teeny tiny pause. And then Laurie, at his driest, "They fell off the slider."

And people are laughing. But not, like, in a bad way. "So, we're going to give you all a free cup of coffee while we double-check your orders, and then we'll get your food to you as quickly as we can."

I've been working at Greasy Joe's for nearly a year, so I know the place, and I feel the atmosphere shift. I'm kind of stunned. A free cup of 99p coffee shouldn't make people go from not-okay to okay just like that, but there's something about Laurie, something I've only ever seen sort of banked before or maybe only in the way he focuses it on me. Somehow he makes you believe in him. And it doesn't matter if it's a big thing or a small thing, you just do.

It's so weird watching him like that, just being Laurie, in this grotty little caff.

He's probably going to encore by turning a pumpkin into a carriage for me.

He's talking to Ruby now, agreeing to—or basically, telling her—a numbering system for the tables. It's not the one we normally use, but honestly, it's probably an improvement. And the next thing I know, Ruby's back in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, and she's doing the dishes in a slightly haphazard but still better than nothing way. And I can hear Laurie's voice in the caff, like I'm attuned to it, even if I don't know exactly what he's saying.

He appears at the service hatch, jug of coffee in one hand, a stack of orders in the other, which he feeds into the grabber. "Two full English, one with no black pudding, one with extra sausage. One cheese-and-bacon omelette. One chips and a portion of hash browns."

For a moment, I'm frozen. And then…I'm not.

Everything is simple again.

Two full English, one with no black pudding, one with extra sausage. One cheese-and-bacon omelette. One chips and a portion of hash browns.

I can…I can do that.

And I do. And while I'm cooking I tug on the slider, so I can occasionally glance at the little piece of paper fluttering above my head. I don't actually need the reminder, but I like having Laurie—okay, yeah, his handwriting—so close to me. He's neat for a doctor, but maybe he's just being extra specially careful. He's put the table number in a little box at the top right, all precise.

The next orders come in quickly, Laurie calling them out to me as he sends me the slips, but it's okay, I've got this. The truth is, with Laurie around I feel I can do anything.5

And that's kind of scary too, in its way.

When the first order is ready, I arrange the plates in the hatch and ding the bell, and because I'm feeling almost whole enough to be silly, I call out, "Service!"

Laurie's over in an instant, and for a moment our eyes catch over a pair of full English breakfasts, and he smiles at me.

This man I tied up on his kitchen table while I baked a lemon meringue pie. Who nearly let me hurt him in public. Who can't seem to stop finding ways to give me himself.

I…don't know what I've done to…get this. How I can possibly be what he wants? Especially now that I've basically had hysterics into some mayonnaise. Well, near some mayonnaise, but that doesn't exactly make it better.

The thing is, it was just easier to believe in good stuff when Granddad was around. But he's gone, and now there's just me, and who's going to be proud of me when there's nothing to be proud of? The pieces of me and the pieces of him are all in boxes at the hospice. I need to go pick us up, but I don't want to see what two lives look like.

Things are running pretty close to normally after an hour or so. I'm knackered and sweaty, and I still want to be…God…Laurie'd called it home.

So yeah. I want to be at home with Laurie.

Home sounds even better than Paris.

I can't quite believe Laurie's the same guy who freaked out at taking me sixty miles up the country. But even if he does still want to sweep me off somewhere, there's no way I'll be able to get time off. Also, I have exactly ￡57.29 in my bank account right now.

I really have been living in a crazy bubble, so obsessed with wanting Laurie and winning Laurie, I didn't stop and think how it was going to work. Like, he wants to go on romantic holidays, and I can barely afford to take him to KFC.

At one point, Greasy Joe stomps downstairs, ready to rip me a new one, discovers everything's fine, grunts, and then goes away again, totally failing to notice there's a complete stranger working in his caff. Because that's how he rolls.

Once we've dealt with the breakfast/brunch rush, Laurie sends Ruby to clear and takes over the washing up. And I feel fucking terrible.

He's a doctor—no, a consultant. He went to Oxford. And now he's up to his elbows in dirty plates and Fairy Liquid. All because of me.

I leave the griddle, so horribly aware I'm flushed and spotty and deeply unattractive right now. "You don't have to do that. We're okay."

"I'm not going until you're coming with me."

"Yeah, but…" I tug on his elbow, trying to stop him. "You shouldn't be doing that shit. You're like…too good for it."

"Toby, do you think I got to the age of thirty-seven without ever washing dishes?" He turns and piles a few bubbles on the end of my nose. Should be cute, right, but it just breaks what's left of my fucking heart. "I can work a menial job for a day. It's fine."

That's the thing, though, isn't it? I nearly tell him I work this menial job every day, but then Ruby's at the hatch.

"Somebody wants to know if you can, like, make…a…" Her brows pull together.

"A what?" I ask eventually.

"Oh, sorry, um, a root beer float."

"Not without any root beer or ice cream, no."

A second or two later, she comes back with, "What about cream soda?"

I think about putting my head in the oven, but I have to prepare for the lunch crowd, so I don't. Laurie powers through the washing up, and I chop all the things, and Ruby goes out for a smoke, and finally we scrape a few spare minutes to hang out by the service hatch, having toast and tea.

The thing is, while there are rubbish things—menial things—about my job, and I'm not a big fan of being paid ￡5.03 an hour, there's also stuff I really like. Working with food and people. And these quiet moments when you feel you've been through something and created something. Even if it's just some awesomely fried eggs. I kind of dither between being glad Laurie's here and horrified and terrified about what'll happen when he realises this isn't Take Your Awesome Older Boyfriend to Work Day. That this is my life. For real. And this is really who he goes to his knees for, surrenders his body to.

Most of our regulars have set times they come in—usually just before, or just after, the normal times most people are thinking about breakfast or lunch or a cup of coffee and cake. It's how they always get to have the same table and get their orders in before the rush. It amuses me in a way—because it's a bit daft, deliberately choosing to have your lunch at 11:45 a.m. every day—but it sort of makes me sentimental too, the way people will structure their lives around the stuff they feel is important. Even if it's just an omelette done exactly the way they like it.

Is that what's happening with Laurie and me?

Except what I'm doing to his life is dragging it down with mine.

Even though we're just standing next to each other, not really saying or doing anything, I guess there's something about us. Or maybe I talked up my boyfriend too much because everybody guesses straight away that he's the guy. I mean, the ones who aren't uncomfortable with the gay thing, which some of them are even though they try to be nice about it. But I get shoulder-squeezed and cheek-patted and hair-ruffled a lot, and Laurie gets told at least twice that if he hurts me, folks will find out, and then they'll break his kneecaps.

So that totally helps all my concerns about what a shitty deal our relationship is for him.

But he seems okay and hasn't run away screaming yet, even under the threat of actual physical violence. He just smiles through the…I think…fairly well-meaning ribbing he gets about being a cradle snatcher. I'm scared though, because I remember how upset he was when that woman thought he was my dad that time. I really don't need to give him any more reasons to run.

So I blurt out desperately, "Hey, maybe he's not a cradle snatcher. Maybe I'm a grave robber."

In the explosion of laughter that follows, Laurie puts his arm around my shoulders. "Toby, darling, please stop helping."

The rest of the day kind of bobs past pretty much normally.

Apart from Laurie, who gets on with things like he's been there for years. It should be funny or something, right, how hard I try, how much I want to be good, and he just comes in and makes it look easy. In the afternoon lull, I phone in tomorrow's food delivery and bake up a storm because nobody's been keeping up with the cakes. And, after Ruby leaves, I give the kitchen this epic clean. You have to be consistent with standards, and I'm worried it's been neglected while I've been away.

I can't make Laurie leave. He gets down on his hands and knees with me and cleans up the broken plates and scrubs under benches. He helps me do the coffee machine and the grill hood and behind the fridges. And finally he kind of peels the marigolds off me and chucks my cloth into the bin and says in this scarily gentle voice, "If you scrub any more of this kitchen, there'll be nothing left. I think we're done."

I'm slightly dizzy and a bit confused, like I've just been woken up, except I'm pretty sure I wasn't asleep. I check the clock on the wall and it's half eight. Fuck.

The kitchen is cold and silver all around us.

"Toby," Laurie asks me, "why on earth are you doing this?"

"It needed cleaning."

"No, not that." He gestures around the caff. "This. Why are you here? Why aren't you at university? Or catering college? Anything would be better than this."

I shrug. I don't want to have this conversation. I just want him to take me home like he promised, and make me feel safe and powerful and loved. Instead of all the things I really am. "Does it matter?"

"It matters to me." I don't want to look at him, but I know he's looking at me. The steady warmth of his eyes.

"Well," I snap, "it doesn't."

"For God's sake, Toby." Laurie's hands close over my forearms, and I don't like it. It's too close to being trapped. "Walk your fucking talk."

I try to pull away, but he's too strong. "What do you mean?"

"You won't let me hold anything back from you, and that's all right. I don't want to anymore. But you won't even answer a goddamn question for me."

There's something in his voice, under the anger. But I can't make my head quiet enough to figure out what's happening. I don't feel…anything. I just want him to take his hands off me and stop asking me stuff. I stare blankly at the wall over his shoulder.

"Why won't you look at me? What's wrong with you?"6

I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry.I carefully turn my head. Meet his eyes. Nearly cry anyway, because he looks so confused. "There's nothing wrong with me, Laurie. It's just…this is who I am. It's who I've always been. Someone with a shitty job because it's all they can get."

He leans in like he's going to kiss me, but I flinch back, so he doesn't. Folds his arms instead, maybe so he won't be tempted to reach for me, but it just makes him look faraway and unassailable. "This is what you're doing, but it isn't who you are. You're a clever and talented young man with a lot of potential—"

"You sound like my English teacher before I got that D. You sound like one of the dads when they can be arsed to pretend to take an interest."

He steps away.

And I immediately wish he hadn't. I'm so fucked up right now that I can't even work out whether I want my boyfriend to hold me.

"That's not fair," he says in this too-calm voice. But I totally got to him. I can tell from his mouth, the flush on his cheeks. "I'm not trying to be some…sort…of father figure here, and I don't think that's what you want either."

It's not, but he's taken away what I wanted, which was what we had when he didn't know about this stuff and I could be who he thought I was.

He sighs. He's not angry, he's disappointed. Yeah, yeah. Aren't they always? "Toby, I just want you to talk to me. Please."

"What's there to say?"

"I want an explanation." He knows how bad that sounds because the flush deepens. "I mean, I want to understand."

"Why?" I give him a hard stare. "Because all of a sudden who I am and what I'm doing isn't good enough for you?"

"It's not good enough for you."

My heart's this red-hot lump. I think I'm going to be sick. "How the fuck do you know what's good enough for me?"

"That's not what I meant."

But everything I've ever heard about me is in what he just said. Tobermory is clever, but doesn't apply himself. Tobermory has potential, but doesn't live up to it. Tobermory needs focus. Tobermory needs discipline. Tobermory needs to decide what he wants and work for it. I tuck my hands into the pockets of my hoodie to hide the fact they're shaking.

"I just meant," he goes on, like this is supposed to help, "you could do so much more than this." I've heard that before too. The thing is, nobody's ever told me what, or how. "You told me last night you wanted to have your own restaurant."

I wish I hadn't. It's going to hang over me forever. "So?"

"Is that why you dropped out of university? To go into catering?"

People are always so fucking desperate for you to have some sort of plan. "Not really."

"Then what happened?" I can tell how hard he's trying to stay patient with me.

But that just pisses me off even more. Makes me stubborn and petulant and like I don't want to give him anything. Which on some level, I know is stupid and unfair. The problem is I don't know how to stop. "I didn't like it."

"What—I don't—" He sighs, and I definitely don't like this Laurie. This exasperated adult who doesn't get why it matters that Ted Hughes doesn't give a flying fuck about zoos. Who doesn't get me. "What does that even mean?"

I kind of explode. "It means I didn't fucking like it. What don't you get? Two terms in, I realised I didn't care about the law, I didn't like studying it, and I certainly didn't want to be a lawyer. So I dropped out, and here I am, working at the only place that'd take me."

Laurie doesn't say anything. That makes me almost happy in this awful, nasty way like I'm saying I told you so to myself. And it totally kills me at the same time, because there's some deeply sad and pathetic part of me that wants him to see all this and love me anyway.

"Isn't," he tries at last, so carefully he might as well just stab me in the face and have done, "isn't there something else you're…interested in or want to do? You could study something. Or develop your cooking? Start working towards that restaurant?"

Does he have to keep coming back to that? I mean…yes…maybe…? "I don't know." My voice bounces off the stainless steel. "I just don't fucking know, okay? I've never known. My entire life is just me pretending—not very well—that I have a clue what I'm doing. But I don't. I just don't. I don't have, like, a dream or a goal, and I don't know how to get one, or what's wrong with me that I don't."

Great. Now I'm crying again. Just to make me hate everything a little bit more.

Laurie's hand reaches across the space between us, but I don't feel like touching it. "There's nothing wrong with you. You're nineteen. It makes perfect sense that you aren't sure what to do with your life yet."

"Oh yeah, and what were you doing when you were my age?"

At least he has the grace to look sheepish. "Well, I was studying medicine, but—"

"When she was my age, my mum was already famous. She'd had two massively successful exhibitions. Two."

"You don't have to be your mother."

"Easy to say when it's not actually an option." I wipe my eyes and try to glare at him through the wet, grey haze. "This is bullshit, Laurie."

It's going exactly the way I've always been terrified it would. He's trying to be kind and understanding and all this crap, but basically what he's seeing right now is a lost and confused teenager who needs his help and guidance.

And, yeah, okay, I am lost and confused, but I'm his boyfriend, not his project. I don't want to be rescued. I want him on his knees. In my arms. In my body. I want him laughing and crying and hurting and happy and whispering his secrets to me in the dark like I'm worthy of them.

I want to be his equal.

But I can't be. Because I'm not. How the fuck am I supposed to be his prince when I'm just a pauper?

And I really want to be with my granddad. I've always told him everything. Like when everybody was calling me names at school or when my friends stopped speaking to me or when I got that fucking D, which meant I wasn't allowed to do English at A level. And we'd go to Hyde Park, or to Primrose Hill, or any of the other eighty gazillion places he liked to go walking, and sometimes the snowdrops would be out or the daffodils or the world would be gold with autumn, and he'd tell me that I was the best part of his life, and if I was good enough for him, I was good enough for anybody.

And I'd believe him.

Every.

Single.

Time.

"Toby, please." Laurie's talking to me like I'm standing on a ledge. Like I'm a hamster he's trying to get out from behind the sofa. And I hate it. "Talk to me. I can help."

"I don't want your fucking help, and I don't want to fucking talk about it." Oh God. I'm yelling. Yelling and crying and ugly and raw. "You don't get it. I knew you wouldn't get it."

He draws in this breath. Willing himself to be patient with the crappy, lunatic teen. "You haven't given me a chance to get it. You've never trusted me with…with anything."

"Yes, because I knew you'd be like this."

"Be like what? I'm trying to—"

"Yes, yes, you're trying to help me." Fuck. I'm a monster. And I can't stop. "So, what, you can pack me off to university or get me some differently crappy job and congratulate yourself on having saved me before you leave me?"

His eyes get wide, all the gold in them consumed by grey. "Who said anything about leaving you?"

"Because you've been leaving me from the moment I met you. And now you know the good stuff is stuff you made up. And the real stuff is"—I gestured at the kitchen, pile of egg boxes in the corner, the carefully cling-filmed cakes—"this."

"It's all real, darling. And I'm sorry—"

"I had it right that very first night. You're always sorry. What the fuck use is sorry?" I reach into my pocket and pull out my keys. The teeth are embedded in the seam of my jeans I hear something tear as I yank them free. Getting his key off the ring takes ages. My hands are shaking too much. Kind of ruins the gesture.

"Toby, what are you doing?" There's an edge to his voice now. Fear maybe. And in some twisted, miserable way it feels good to hear it. "I'm not leaving you. I don't want to leave you. Why are you acting like this?"

The key finally comes free from the ring, and I throw it at him. His hand comes up, and the key slaps against his palm, hits the floor with an unimpressive clink. Something I wanted so fucking badly—nothing but an unimpressive clink.

I stare at Laurie, who looks pale and shocked and confused and hurt and all hazy through my tears. "You don't even have the bollocks to tell me you love me." This is meant to sound devastating. But it sounds what it is. What I am. Small and broken. "And I'm sick of waiting for you to be done with me. I'm done with you."7

Next thing I know, I'm running for the fire door like the building is on actual fire. I just can't be here right now. I don't know where to go or what to do, but I can't be here.

"Toby. Don't." Laurie catches my arm as I rush past him, but I yank hard enough that he'd have to hurt me to keep me, so he doesn't.

I hear his footsteps behind me.

"Get away from me," I yell. "Go away."

He stops.

"Please." Laurie's voice is this distant swirl of panic and fear, cracking a bit. "Please don't leave."

I shove through the door and into the night, and I don't look back.