12 Toby

It's a couple of days before I find the courage to go back to Greasy Joe's. I'm expecting it to be carnage, like it was the last time I wasn't there, but I arrive in the middle of the afternoon lull and it's pretty quiet. I can even smell baking coming from the kitchen. It can't be Hairy, because he's in the caff itself, with his foot up on one of the chairs, so it's probably Luigi.

There's a few regulars around and Ruby hovering by the big kettle. And Greasy Joe, who's chatting to Hairy. He's wearing an honest-to-God apron, and holding an actual motherfucking coffeepot.

Holy shit. I'm dead.

I've never seen him do that…like, ever.

When I sidle over, he turns death-ray eyes on me.

"Um." My voice has reached the sort of pitch usually only registered by dogs. I cough. "Can I have a word?"

He huffs out this gale-force sigh and makes a show of checking a nonexistent watch. "What the fuck day do you call this?"

"The wrong day, but—"

"Then get in the fucking kitchen, and we'll hear no more about it."

I think of Granddad. And Laurie. And me. I think about me. And what I want. What I deserve. I've got down from canine to castrato as I force the words out. "My granddad's dead. I'm entitled to unpaid compassionate leave…so…so…I'm taking it."

Greasy Joe inflates like a puffer fish. He's already a big man, so it's fucking awful. "If you don't do your fucking job, there won't be a fucking job for you to do."

There.

Everything I've been scared of. And actually, it's not so bad. All that's happening is I'm losing a shitty job. And Laurie's right. I can get another one.

Or…I can try to get a different job. One that isn't shitty. Or I can be Laurie's live-in cabana boy. Or whatever. The point is…the point is…the future is terrifying because it's full of stuff, not because it's empty.1

I dig my nails into my palms. What I mean to say is something dignified and professional about accepting those terms and consequently tendering my resignation. What comes out of my mouth is, "Oh, go fuck yourself."

I'm in the process of sweeping out of there, not that I'm a natural-born sweeper, when the applause starts. I spin round, and the whole caff is clapping for me. Greasy Joe too.

He comes after me, and I think he's going to punch me in the face or something, but he just claps me on the shoulder—nearly dislocating it. "Take your fucking leave, son. You'll always have a job here."

"Then—" My head is spinning. It must be adrenaline. "I think you could do a bit better than ￡5.03 an hour."

He laughs this crazy Tim Curry laugh. "Don't push your luck."

I get out of there, texting Laurie with trembling fingers to tell him I'll be back soon.

I still can't quite believe how easy that was. How simple.

Greasy Joe got it wrong, though. I'm starting to think you should always push your luck. No, you can deal with. Don't know is the most frightening thing of all.

When I get back to Laurie's, I babble the whole story. I don't lie, but maybe I make myself a bit bolder and a bit less squeaky. I can tell he's proud of me. Hell, I'm proud of me. When I'm done talking, he drops to his knees and gives me a celebratory blowjob. And I don't just feel like a prince. I feel like a fucking king.

* * *

It's a good week. Just me and Laurie. Together. In love.

We do have another argument. He gets sick of my pants on the floor, so he gives me a drawer—a fucking drawer, like this is supposed to be enough. I don't make him sleep on the sofa though, and the next day he offers me a room.

Like a whole room. In his home. Just for me. He says I can do whatever I like with it. Make it my own space. I take the Bluebeard room, of course. The light up there is beautiful, and Laurie's mine now.

But basically, things are good. So good I sometimes feel guilty for falling so easily into happiness. We watch black and white movies and have all the sex and eat takeaway every night, and talk about…everything.

And when I'm ready, we talk about me.

I tell him how I wanted to be an astronaut, then a palaeontologist, then a marine biologist, then a spy, then an explorer, then an artist, then a poet. About how I had so many dreams, and they all just went away, one by one, until there was only me left.

It's kind of a relief, in a way, to get that out there.

But I'm also terrified because this trusting-people shit is hard. It's this naked feeling like when he kneels for me, and part of me can't quite believe it's me he wants. Still wants.

The reality of me.

He tells me how being a doctor wasn't his dream, either. How his parents put a lot of pressure on him to live a certain kind of life and be a certain kind of man, which is an odd thing to learn about him, since I have sort of the opposite problem. It's one of those moments when I realise that the gaps between people are always less than you'd imagine. Though I've honestly been hoping there comes a point in your life when you stop worrying about what your parents think.2

"So, you see," he says, "my career was just something to work towards to please my parents. And now it's just something I'm good at and helps me be…useful."

"But are you happy?"

He gives me this smile. "Deeply."

When he puts it like that, in his straightforward way, it doesn't seem so terrible a way to live. We can't all be my mum, after all.

I'm not sure I've ever wanted to be. I just wasn't sure if there was an alternative.

My mum's never really cared what I've done—to her there's art, and there's everything else. No difference between a lawyer or public lavatory attendant.

Laurie does care, but only because I care. And it turns out that's just the right type of caring. The truth is, he'd probably be okay if I just kind of…lived with him. But I'm not the househusband type. I want my own life, whatever that means, and Laurie understands, and we spend ages trying to figure out what that might look like.

I've never had someone to do that with me before. I've always just been trying to figure it out by looking at what other people were doing and hoping nobody noticed I was just miming.

We come back to the cooking a lot. The restaurant and the Michelin star. I don't know how or when it happens, but somehow—just by loving me and believing in me—Laurie nurtures this little flame inside me until it remembers how to burn on its own. I get that cooking is a tough thing to make a career out of—long hours and hard labour—but it's still the thing I love most in the world.

After Laurie and Granddad, of course.

Laurie disappears onto the internet and comes back with lists and lists of catering colleges, some of them in Paris, for fuck's sake. He tells me I shouldn't be curtailing my life to be close to him, and if this is what I really want to do, he'll wait for me. But I don't want to go to Paris. It's full of French people. That's a joke. Well, kinda. But mon fran?ais est très mal.

And, besides, I've seriously had it with school and all that hoop-jumping learning. Whatever Laurie thinks, it's not for me. I'm not getting another D because I quenelle with my left hand, not my right. So that's out.

I do some internetting of my own, and it turns out if you're willing to start at the bottom, the staff turnover in kitchens is so ridiculously high that somebody will probably take you if you ask them nicely. It's a fucking terrifying idea, but Laurie thinks I'm brilliant. We make this list of all the places I like best in a reasonable commuting distance, and then I bottle it for a while.

Laurie doesn't push me. In a strange way, that's what gives me courage.

So, one day, while he's sleeping, I ring the first restaurant on the list. They don't have any openings, but they don't treat me like I'm insane for asking, so I don't immediately die of despair. It doesn't happen at the second restaurant either, or the fifth, but I get through to the chef of the eleventh (it's the place Laurie took me a week ago), and she asks me a bunch of questions about who I am, and what I want, how much experience I have, and when I can start. I kind of babble, but it seems she really likes the answer "Whenever" to the last question, and she ends up asking me to come in the very next day for a chat—and suddenly, I have a job.

Like a bottom-of-the-ladder job, with a salary to match, but Melissa Lake—that's my boss, who has a Michelin star—thinks I've got potential. Or maybe she's just saying that so I'll wash dishes and sweep floors and peel potatoes, but who cares?

I've got a job. And potential.

Laurie's so happy for me, he wants to take me out to dinner again. But I just tell him to take me to bed.

Once we're both naked—something we accomplish in about two seconds of desperate handsy tugging—I shove him down and straddle him.

Mine, mine, mine.

I run my fingers down the line of his throat, hearing his breath hitch as I go. He tips his head back, offering himself, and this hot thrill of possession goes through me as I close my hand around his neck just like that very first night. I'm not ready to do anything super hardcore, but I think we both like the idea that I could. His hand comes up, takes my wrist, and he guides me so my thumb and first fingers settle on either side of his neck, against…I guess…the artery. I feel his pulse so strong here it's like I'm holding his heart in my hand. It gets me hard as fuck, and kind of tender at the same time, and the rush of his blood is this red rush of power all through me.

"Toby?" I feel my name in his throat under my palm. "Yeah?"

"Would you… Do you think… Would you like to flog me?" His pulse jumps. "Please."3

I totally fail to play it cool. "Oh hell yeah."

I let him go, and we sit up in bed, and I'm kind of fluttery and nervous and excited in this first kiss, fairy tale way, and Laurie is a little bit flushed as well, so we're kind of shy suddenly. Then I say, "Um, so—" at the same time he says, "How do you—" so we stop and go "No, after you," and then we both start talking again, and I say, "What's the best—" and he says, "Shall I—" and then it's such a mess that there's only one thing left to do, and that's laugh.

Once that's over, we eye each other cautiously.

"Well, that was…" I say.

"It was," he agrees.

"I really want to do this." Like my ridiculous hard-on isn't giving the game away a bit, but after the party, I want to make sure he knows this is for me and for him and for both of us. And fuck anybody else.

His eyes have gone all smouldery, smoky grey and hazy gold, like when he's on his knees, or when he's fucking me. "I know."

"So, how do we do… What's best?"

"I used to have…um…furniture, but not anymore. Lying, standing, or kneeling covers most of the basics. And it depends if you want to"—his flush deepened—"restrain me."

"Do I need to?"

"I can be still, if you want."

I grin. The thing is, I like tying him up. The question is…how and to what? And then I remember the hooks in the bed frame, and I know exactly what I'm doing. I tell him not to go anywhere, because I'm a dork, and go grab stuff from…my room.

I've got the deerskin flogger, and there's a few more in the magic chest, but since Robert left them behind, they're probably not favourites. Also, I'm kind of limited by which ones aren't going to knock me off-balance. There's one, but the tails are rubber and even throwing them against the air feels whippy and scary, so I pass. There's also a single-tail coiled up like an adder, but I'm like, Fuck no.

Then I find…I don't know…I think it must be horsehair. It's really beautiful—this shining white-blond fall that feels both silky and rough against my fingers. The handle is smooth wood, just as shiny and fits my hand, warming against my palm, like it's saying, Meant to be here. It's so light, but when I swing, fuck, those strands pack a wallop.

I practice a bit until I'm pretty sure I'm comfortable. It's weird because it's totally different to the deerskin flogger, but it's like my brain has learned how to compensate without me. I'm not really thinking at all, just letting my wrist do its thing.

I also whack my own thigh a bunch of times. Not quite as hard as I can go, but less than half as hard as I can go is making me yelpy and eye-watery. It's heavy and sharp at the same time. I guess that's what they call "sting."

So I take that, the deerskin, some cuffs and snap hooks because my ropework—even with The Boy Scout Knot Book—is arse. And let's face it, it's probably always going to be arse. I recognise it's an art, and it's a perfectly reasonable thing to be into, but when I want Laurie tied up, I want him tied up and fuck faffing around.4

In the bedroom, Laurie is waiting patiently, sprawled out on the covers, all strong and leonine and hurtable. He springs up as soon as I come in, his eyes lingering on my kinky swag.

I put everything down on the chest of drawers out of his way. Maybe I should have blindfolded him… Actually, maybe I should blindfold him. He's scared of it (which, naturally, I like), and it makes him all raw and open and frantic.

That gives me an idea. But first things first.

"So…I thought you could maybe stand at the bottom of the bed and hold on to the frame?"

He hesitates. Always, he hesitates. And then he nods and obeys, stretching himself between the bedposts like Samson.

He looks…perfect. I spend a minute just kind of climbing him with my eyes, up his calves and thighs, knotty muscles and rough dark hair, over his gorgeous, gorgeous arse, which is kind of this smooth, gleaming curve, and then there's his back, which is all these stark and powerful, pristine planes…and also sort of towering above me.

Shit. All my walls and pillows have been basically me-height. Shit.

I'm an idiot.

"So…" I try to keep my voice exactly the same as it was the first time. "I thought you could maybe kneel at the bottom of the bed and hold on to the frame."

I can't see his face, but somehow I know he's trying not to smile. Something to do with the pull of his shoulders, I think. And I'm smiling too, even though he can't see that either.

He goes to his knees in that graceful way of his, like he belongs on them, just while we're like this, and I crouch next to him, and fasten the cuffs on his wrists. I make a bit of a ceremony of it because I…can, I guess, stroking my thumbs over the skin first, kissing the long vein. It makes him shiver, just these small touches, and the leather closing round him.

I do the other side and clip the cuffs to the hooks set into the bed frame—and there he is with his arms outstretched, all sacrificial and magnificent and so clearly turned on by it. I slip my hand between his legs and idly palm his cock, forcing a little moan out of him.

Then I let him go, and that's a kind of power too, all the ways—and things—I can make him want. It's like love, this power—surprising, endless, warm. It makes me dizzy and soft inside. (Not outside, obviously. Outside, it does the exact opposite.)5

Cock first, I head back to the chest of drawers. I don't know if this is normal, but Laurie keeps his ties in there, all snarled up together with his socks. I thought you were supposed to have a special rack or something, but Laurie's ties are crap anyway. They're mainly blue and grey and crumply; ties that say, I'm only wearing this because it's, like, required by my job or whatever, and given the choice I'd rather be naked at my boyfriend's feet. Err, well, maybe not the second bit. I'm looking for the one he was wearing the night I forced myself back into his life and he…with his tongue. God, even thinking about it makes me all hot and embarrassed and fucking thrilled.

Anyway, I can't find it because all his ties suck, so I just grab one and go back to him. He tilts his head back, just a little bit, to help me slip it over his eyes. I like his hesitations and his struggles, but I like this too—this trust that's effortless sometimes. Surrender that slips through him like light. He gives this soft, soft sigh as the darkness takes him, and he bows his head.6

I put my palm flat against the space between his shoulders, feeling the heat of him, the strength, the way those big muscles are held wide for me. He's not tense, but he's not relaxed either—it's something else, something more like readiness, or openness, as if his body is a door to some deep, lonely part of me, which I guess is whatever it is in me that wants to cause pain to the man I love.

Except with Laurie, I don't even have to give myself the side-eye. He understands and makes it okay.

He makes what I have to give beautiful.

I pick up the deerskin flogger and dance the tips of the falls over his shoulders. It's a caress, pure and simple, a kiss from closed lips. I don't even have to think about it much. I know where the tails are going to go and they do. My hands are a bit sweaty, but they're steady, and I'm not afraid. He trusts me, so I trust me.

The thing that kind of shakes me a bit is not so much what I'm doing—or the ways I could fuck it up—but all possibilities of it and in it. Like when his body is stretched out over me or under me and the ways of touching each other are…forever. This is the same, except I've got a flogger to be my hands and my teeth. I keep my wrist loose and twirl the thing a few times, just getting sure of myself. And then I–I…do it. I hit him. I hit a person. I hit…Laurie. Gently, because we're warming up, but I'm still hitting him, over and over again with these underarm strokes that fan the tails across his back as they fall.7

And it's weird because it doesn't feel wrong at all. It feels…amazing. I kind of live in those strokes, in the rhythms of them, and the soft sound of leather against skin. It's its own universe somehow, this cycle of reaction, reaction, reaction, him and me, flogger and him, flogger and me, all connected. The best thing, though, is when the falls land, the impact travels all the way from his body to mine, through the leather, then the handle, through my arm and to my heart. We're so…together.

At first I don't think I'm really doing anything, but then these pinkish lines rise to the surface of his skin, and then they stop fading away, and then his whole upper back is flushed. And, okay, it's not a big deal, but I did that. I put myself all over him, and I'm there in all that warmed skin.

And I want…to do it more.

"How… What's it like?" I ask.

Because I want to know everything. I want to touch him in all the ways.

"Warm." His voice is rough but intent somehow. "You."

Not exactly coherent, but it's all the answer I need.

I switch to figure eights. Even with one hand, I'm not as good as Robert, but there's still a rhythm here—two firm strikes, one left, one right—and the moment the first one lands with this glorious smack, Laurie chokes out this sound of pure, ragged longing. And fuck, I just love his noises. I think it's because he's a quiet man, really. Not like in the obvious way of not speaking much, or speaking softly, but in the way he is. All these still places in his soul that he disturbs for me.

When we're together, I collect his groans and whimpers, his muffled cries and the ones he can't muffle. I fucking cherish them. This is all new, though, the way he is beneath my flogger, and that first little noise he makes is like the first time he put his mouth on my cock. Leaves me full of this sweet, shuddery joy and something darker, something that wants to make him struggle and hurt and yield.

I hit him harder, the same spots, over and over again, putting my arm into the blows as well as my wrist, until the flush deepens, gleaming under a patina of gathering sweat. I'm sweating too, and my breath is coming a bit hard. It's partly excitement and partly that this is…demanding, in the same way sex is demanding: blunt physical effort muddled up with pleasure and intimacy and the closeness of being against and inside someone, of sharing something.

Laurie murmurs a sound like yes.

My confidence is flying with the tails now, so I can sort of vary what I'm doing. I've been performing my steps like a dancer—to a pattern—but now I guess I'm free-forming. I nestle my harder blows in with softer ones, claiming all that gorgeous expanse of glowing skin in all the ways I can throw a flogger. I jolt him sometimes with the force behind my strikes, but he doesn't try to twist away from them. Just gives me some naked sounds—a little bit shocked, a little bit hurt, a little bit blissful—and takes the next one. And the next.

His breathing is edged with groans when I stop and swap to the horsehair thing. Its lightness is kind of a surprise, as I swing my whole arm in a circle above my head, keeping the tails from wrapping round the handle. And then I throw the tips against his back with all my strength and anything gravity can give me.

It makes a completely different sound: soft and swift, rustling like sharp-winged birds flying past me.

And…Laurie…God…he kind of screams, not exactly pain, just the suddenness, I think, of a new sensation, and while he's lost in that moment, I cover his upper back and shoulders with all these stinging little flicks, watching the impact points flare and vanish like a trail of comets against a red sky. Laurie's moving now, not in a way that throws me off, but sort of into me and into my strokes, so we're one, our breath harsh and mingling with the scratchy whisper of horsehair on skin and Laurie's occasional frantic moan.

I love this. I fucking love it. I love that I'm hurting him, and I love him.

I'm gasping and sweaty and my heart is thundering and I'm not sure if I'm going to come or laugh or cry or…or…what.

I turn my body sideways, gather up the tails, and fling the flogger at him with everything I've got, sending them crashing into him like handfuls of needles. He jerks and cries out, sounding so powerful and powerless at the same time, this chained-up man who is taking pain for me, who isn't afraid to be weak for me or ashamed to be afraid. The bravest, strongest, most beautiful man I've ever met.

And then I'm throwing the flogger aside, and I'm wrapping myself around him, pressing myself against all the hot, hurt places I've left on his body, and he's, "Oh God, yes, Toby, touch me, please," so desperately that I only really hear because it's what I'm thinking too. And I kiss him and bite him and tear at him with my fingernails, and I'm sort of actually really crying, but it's good crying somehow, and makes Laurie hiss when I spill salt all over his abraded skin. But he's still leaning into me, still arching to my touch, still answering my tangle of snarls and sobs with "please" and "yes" and "Toby."

It's crazy because even though I'm crying everywhere, I'm not sad. There's just all this feeling pouring out of me, but it's wild and fierce and rapturous, like I've been waiting for it my whole life and everything makes sense now. And it's not that I'm complete, or some shit like that, because I always was, but there's a bunch of pieces of me that fit together in a way they didn't before.8

With Laurie. Because of Laurie.

The urge to have him and take him and revel in all the ways he's mine is clawing me to shreds from the inside out.

Shakily I unclip the cuffs. Concern for his knees and his arms kind of vaguely flits across my brain, but I don't think he's been there long, and when I tell him, "Up," he lets me use his own weight to pull him and shove him over the bed. There's no resistance in him, no struggle, he doesn't even put his hands out to protect himself—just falls, surrendered, blind and helpless, his upper back this blazing testimony to all my love and savagery.

"Don't move."

My cock feels like it's going to explode if I touch it, but I somehow manage to slaver myself in lube.

I don't do Laurie, though. I want this to hurt a little bit too. I want him to carry it with him, like the marks on his skin. I want to give him this gift. Because with him I can be fearless too.

I kick his legs wider—which makes him groan in some muffled mixture of eagerness and shame—but I don't touch him. Not yet.

He shifts a little against the bed, pushing his hips up, so I catch a glimpse of his tightly drawn-up balls, the shadow of his eager cock. "Please?" he tries, a little hesitantly.

I love it when he begs, but it's not what I want. I lean over him, shoving our bodies together, and rub myself over his back until he gasps and writhes. I put my lips to his ear, and I whisper, "Spread yourself for me, and I'll fuck you."

And then I stand again and wait, shuddering with lust and power, cruelty and love, tears drying on my face and sweat on my back.9

Laurie makes a mortified little noise and hesitates for a long moment, though I have no doubt he'll do it, no doubt at all. Then reaches back his hands and pulls himself open—exposed, vulnerable, inexpressibly needy, and completely beautiful. I last about a cool, controlled nanosecond before I slam into him like a really short, skinny juggernaut showing serious commitment to getting into some guy's arse.

It's… Well…I make it. There's a moment when I think I might not, but Laurie kind of lets out this sharp, pained breath, and suddenly, fuck, he yields, and I'm in. He's tight, but there's enough lube that I don't think I'm going to actually do any damage. I like the charade of violence, the pretence that I could actually overpower him, his flogged and hurting body forced into subjugation by mine.

I push his hands out of the way and pull his hips back to meet my thrusts. He claws at the bed, as a kind of instinctive reaction to loss of physical control, but I'm in him deep by then and I sort of know how to do this now. His body goes pliant when the pleasure hits, and the sound he makes is one for my trophy cabinet: ecstasy and relief and gratitude and submission.

I dig my fingers into his flanks, and I fuck him like I've never fucked anyone. I wouldn't have dared. But the marks I've left on his skin are singing to me, urging me to use him, and take him, and bring us together like that again. The less care I seem to show, the more Laurie responds, twisting under me, crying out with helpless passion for every harsh thrust I give him.

It is like flogging. Rhythms and patterns and control, and the sheer power of having someone respond the way Laurie responds to me. Everything we give and take from each other in those moments of pure and perfect connection. I know how to take him to the brink and how to pull him back, how to please myself and deny him, until he's practically weeping with longing, begging me to touch him, to fuck him, to let him come. And when I don't, when I'm cruel, he wails and protests and loves me even more. And I'm humbled and honoured and touched and so fucking happy he can find this thing in me to love.

I want to be like this forever, but it's too much for me: the pleasure and the power and Laurie being Laurie. So utterly gorgeous when he's all undone, no control or pride left, stripped back to nothing but this. Because beyond shame, fear, and vulnerability, there's only true things: sex and love and us.

I fall over his back, still buried deep inside him, and sink my teeth into his shoulder, into all that red and tender skin. It's not…planned.

Because all I'm thinking is mine.

And Laurie bucks up, into my bite, against my body, and comes with a hoarse, wild cry, just from my teeth and my touch and my cock.

I almost come too, but with some world-record-type effort of will, and probably some serious internal damage to my bollocks, I hold off. Instead I pull out of him as carefully as I can. I barely need to touch myself—just the sight of him lying there in a shuddering heap, hurt and fucked, and covered in all the ways I've had him, is enough. I spray myself across his back, white over red, and Laurie takes that too, with the same grace, the same generosity, the same courage and eagerness he takes everything I give him: my cock, my cruelty, my kisses. Me.

I just about manage not to fall on top of him and ruin my handiwork. I land on my side next to him, and he lies where I've left him, as though I've still got him in chains, his body heaving a little with the aftermath of everything we've just done. Reaching over, I push the tie out of his way, and he emerges, blinking and wet-eyed.

"Oh, Toby," is the first thing he says, with his voice still rough from all the noise he's been making. "You've been crying."

I'd sort of almost forgotten I'd done that, and swipe at my face with my elbow, feeling like an idiot. Because who cries when they're flogging someone else?

Laurie eases himself up a bit gingerly, rolls over, and then pulls me against his chest. I'm about to protest that I'm fine, I don't need him to look after me, but the moment his arms enfold me, it's like I'm trying to climb inside his skin.

"Darling," he murmurs. "Darling."

He calls me darling like eighty times and holds me really tight, and I nearly cry again, but thankfully I don't.

"It was just…really good," is the best explanation I can give him.

But it doesn't matter. I know he understands.

* * *

The rest of our holiday kind of gets away from us, and we don't really do anything except be together, but that's okay. We talk a bit about going away, but in the end we don't.

There's plenty of time for that stuff, and all I want is to be with Laurie in a place we both call home.

That last Sunday, the day before I'm meant to start work, and he's due to go back, he tells me he's got a surprise for me. I guess I've been pretty love-spoiled over the past couple of weeks, but we deserve this, Laurie and me. He's sleek with happiness, somehow, like the man I fell in love with lives on the surface now, not hidden deep inside, and it blows my mind to think that's for me and because of me.

It's this crystal-bright day, when it feels like winter is cracking like an egg and spring is spilling everywhere.

We get on the Tube to South Kensington, and Laurie still won't tell me where we're going, but he's excitable like a little kid, so I don't mind. I like him like this. I like all his secrets, innocent and not-so-innocent.

It turns out he's taking me to the Chelsea Physic Garden, which wasn't one of Granddad's places, though maybe it should have been because I learn it's the oldest botanical garden in London, founded way back when for trainee apothecaries.

It's closed during winter, but it's open on special occasions, and this is one of them.

Laurie says it's called a Snowdrop Day.

And I can see why. The woods are so thick with tiny white flowers that it genuinely looks like snowdrifts. I've never seen so many, and they shine in the fresh-made sun.

I've cried a lot recently, mainly for myself, but this is the first time I've really cried for Granddad.

We sit under a tree, and Laurie holds me, and it's not so grim. Because, at last, all the bad stuff—the fear and the anger and the pain and the guilt—is gone, and this is just grief stripped of everything but love. And I'm okay to cry for love.

I really am.

When I'm out of tears, I kiss Laurie and thank him, and I tell him how in love with him I am.

"I love you too," he says, so easily it's hard to believe he used to freak out at the very idea of it. "You make me very happy."

I smile up at him. I'm so proud that I can do this. That I can make a man like Laurence Dalziel happy. "I intend to do it for a long time."

I guess that's kind of the wrong thing to say because he frowns. "Toby, I don't have…expectations."

"Oh man, don't start that crap again. Not in the middle of our totally romantic day, which I've already cried in."

He colours a bit and laughs, but the shadow is still in his eyes. "I just mean…Toby, you're nineteen, I'm thirty-seven. We fit each other now, but the time might come when we don't. When you're thirty, I'll be nearly fifty." I'm about to cut him down with a scornful "So?" because, honestly, I don't want to love anyone except Laurie, but he goes on before I have a chance. "Our perceptions of time and distance aren't consistent. Sometimes the gap between us will seem nothing, sometimes it'll seem enormous. The day might come when we don't know how to bridge it."

Sometimes, for a clever man who's supposed to be older and wiser than me, he's kind of a doofus. "That's just relationships, Laurie. They aren't consistent either. You found a gap you couldn't bridge with Robert, and that had nothing to do with what age you were."

"I suppose, but—"

"Maybe the day will come when you cheat on me or—"

"I will never cheat on you."

"Okay, okay." I scramble to my feet and brush the soil off my arse. "Maybe the day will come when you go off my lemon meringue pie or decide my feet smell or find my insecurities annoying instead of adorable. Point is…let's worry about it when it happens."

He smiles up at me, squinting through the sun dapple. "I can't imagine any of those days."

"Neither can I, so let's just be in love today."

"All right." He rises from the ground, with all that grace and power he doesn't hesitate to lay at my feet for the asking.

Everywhere around us the world is green and white and gold and waiting.

I hold out my hand, and he takes it, and we walk together into the spring.

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