Ordinary futures

Life moved on, and it was slightly terrifying how easy it was. I kept waking up thinking that today would be the day when we fucked it all up. Instead?

My life turned into another ordinary day. Just him and me. And work. I was smiling despite the rain pelting down outside and Reuben being on an early shift.

I was kind of pulling an early shift too, having got out of bed and spent far too long on the phone persuading my personal trainer to help me sort out this ridiculous home gym. Later, Stewart was coming over. For now, though, I was on my own, and my mind kept wandering.

I missed Reuben all the time we were apart. He’d become much more tactile, constantly be touching my face, stroking his fingertips down my arms, making me shiver with every little touch. But he was also holding back. At night, we mostly slept and cuddled, with the odd little jolly where I’d end up with his dick in my mouth.

I didn’t mind. It made it all that more fun. Exciting. Building up to something else.

Because I wanted more. I wanted so much to show him all the things his body could do.

I’d ordered stuff that had arrived in discreet packaging as promised, hand-delivered by the dude in that concierge office, which was, yes. Cringe. But I’d lost my old plug somewhere, and I knew the kind of lube and condoms I liked.

We live together. I silently cheered every time that little thought popped up in my head. Him and me, in this house. Also, I’d paid for private medical insurance for us both. Well, for him. The insurance Blitz management had set up for me was still active, and a nurse was coming out to get the two of us tested. Job done.

If I didn’t have meetings, Reuben made sure I had things to do. He left his laptop on the kitchen worktop so I could look for recipes and home insurance. Go me.

I even watched TV on his streaming account now I’d managed to get the Wi-Fi set up, but once again the internet wanted to smack me in the face, and I squirmed when I came across the trailer for The Great Big Blitz Tour movie we’d apparently made and exclusively sold to this big streaming service. I couldn’t even watch the trailer for it and slammed the screen shut, panicking, breathing, ignoring the pain in my chest.

I could deal with it.

I could. Because I was finally growing up.

I’d even promised to sort out the pile of mail on the side, which was turning into another of those insurmountable things.

I needed help. Lots of it. Which was why, an hour later, Stewart was sitting at our kitchen table reading my emails, scratching his head and demanding I make him another cup of tea.

Like I was his slave.

Which I was. Kind of.

“Does it make any sense at all?” I asked weakly, putting the cup down next to him—poured from the teapot Reuben had bought. Wanker.

“Well, if I’m very honest?” He laughed. “Moving your kitchen table was much more straightforward. You sure you have no other furniture you need me to move? I can mow the lawn?”

“We have a communal gardener, apparently.” We’d actually read the contract for the house, Reuben and me. It had been very enlightening. We’d also had stern words with the concierge in the security office about not giving out personal information and a hundred percent not telling strangers which tenants were at home…or not. Well, Stewart and Reuben had stern words. I mostly hid around the corner ready to bolt.

I needed help. And I needed people.

“So the financial advisor is coming at three?” Stewart scratched his head again as he pored over our collection of spreadsheets.

“Yes,” I said proudly. That was taking major control for me. I had my own, independent financial advisor, recommended by Michelle. He handled most of her big clients, she said, so I was in good hands. Even so, Stewart would sit in on that meeting and make sure I didn’t sign away my hard-earned cash for nothing.

I still didn’t understand most of the legal and financial side, but I was starting to make some sense of it. Partly that was about asking for and accepting help. I’d even asked for help during another meeting with our lawyers, straight up admitted I had no clue what any of it meant. As it turned out, neither did Josh.

Michelle said I needed a PA. I didn’t want a PA, but watching Stewart scratch his head and roll his eyes at me, I could see her point.

“So, there are a couple of court orders, mostly with regards to…not sure. You need to check with someone who understands all this legal jargon.”

“Tell me about it. What I do understand is that I wrote all these songs. They were credited to me and whoever helped write the music. Which meant I got paid royalties. Then suddenly, they were not credited to me anymore but credited as having been written by Blitz Industries. Which meant—”

“You got paid peanuts,” Stewart filled in. “So it wasn’t just you and the boys who got cut out. Every penny went back to the company.”

“It’s not right.” I sat down next to him. “I mean, we should have earned loads this year. I bought my house with last year’s royalties. This year, I’ve made what? ￡12,000 according to this. Makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense if you own Blitz industries.” Stewart sighed. “But I get why the lawsuit has to happen. It’s your work. Your property. And they’ve been blatantly stealing it. Looking at Kieran Williams and this other guy, Soren Kvist. He’s ranked as one of the UK’s highest earners. Pays himself just under a million per month.”

“Money that’s ours.” I honestly didn’t care that much, other than it was my money, and I was entitled to it. The worst thing?

“The security contract. Am I still paying for that?”

“Well, that’s up to the courts now. The monthly payments were ridiculous. You were paying upfront for the driver, the security, the alarm, the twenty-four-seven people in your house, and on top of that, you were paying Lauren for her work.”

“Instead of me getting paid, I was paying them?”

“Well, they were technically your employees, but you shouldn’t have been paying Lauren’s wages. Those should have come out of the company.”

“I agree.”

“Sorry, Gray,” he said softly. “I’m not much help to you, but you know what?” He put his teacup down, looked at me. “I’m happy that you’re asking for help. It shows what a good and decent person you are. A lesser man would have stuck his head in the sand and let this all consume him. But you’re working through it, one day at a time.”

“Trying to,” I said. I didn’t feel very strong, or good and decent for that matter.

“And you’re looking after my Reuben. That means the world to me. We make a good team, you and me. Keeping him happy.”

“He’s okay,” I tried to sound reassuring. “Takes his meds, sleeps, eats.”

“Has a really nice place to live and someone who loves him. That’s what I was trying to thank you for. For loving him. Because I can tell you do, and he knows that too.”

“Yeah.” We were as bad as each other, Reubs and me, with our one-word sentences, and we still had no idea how to keep this house clean. As I thought it, Reuben burst through the door in his work shoes, leaving muddy marks all over the hallway floor.

“Still raining?” I laughed as he stomped around, swearing under his breath. Kicking off his shoes, he threw a tea towel on the floor and skated it back out into the hallway.

“Not the tea towel!” Stewart barked. “You heathens!”

“You’ll just have to buy us some more!”

“I bought you a bloody teapot!”

“I bought the teapot. You bought us that wanky tablecloth that we keep spilling ketchup on.”

“It’s in the wash.” I laughed. I did do the washing. See? I wasn’t completely useless, even if I still felt so most of the time.

“Hi,” he mumbled, wrapping his arms around me. He always seemed so tall when he came home, like I’d somehow forgotten what he looked like, how his arms fit around me, what I was supposed to do with myself when he was with me like this. This big, snuggly blanket of warmth.

“Hi,” I mumbled back, turning so he could plant a kiss on my mouth. It was a little bit weird still, kissing in front of his dad. But whatever. Stewart took a sip of his tea and picked up another letter from the pile.

“This is your tax form,” he said sternly. “We need this for your tax return, although with this kind of income, I think you need a professional.”

He put the letter back in the envelope and handed it to me. I didn’t dare look at it. To be honest, I didn’t know what my income was. I’d just asked the bank if I had enough to buy a house. They said I did, so I bought it.

“We need to set up all of those direct debits too,” Reuben said. “I made a list.”

Blimey. He hadn’t been wrong about being the adult in this relationship. I was happy just skulking around fiddling with our new washing machine and making tea. And not much else if I could get away with it.

But there went my phone again, and I had to morph back into being The Dieter, which was becoming a bit easier now I could differentiate the two. Graham was just some bloke. Dieter was a little more complicated. The fun part? Dieter was allowed to be a bit of a dick. And maybe I needed more therapy and I was doing this all wrong, but I just grunted into the phone as Musa laughed in my ear.

“Dude,” he said. “Okay. Serious stuff. Hearing tomorrow. Closed doors with a judge, in simple terms, just to approve that this is going ahead. You need to be there, all of us do. Josh is picking up Cam and his mum, so all six of us will be in that room. United front. That’s really important. If you flake on us again, I’ll kill you.”

“The Dieter will be there. With bells on. Do I need to wear leather?”

Musa sighed. “Suit. Tie. For once, pretend you actually know what we’re doing there.”

I sighed back. At least everyone knew I didn’t know. Admitting that had been a good thing. Made me feel less weird.

“Wait—you said all six of us. Lee will be there? Seriously?”

“Has to be. He’s as desp for this to be over and done with as the rest of us are. We’ve lost half a million in royalties between us just in the past month, and as long as we drag this out, Blitz bloody Industries are raking it in and we’re just sat here like muppets.”

“Muppets,” I agreed. I glanced over at Stewart, who was pointing to something on the spreadsheet with a worried look on his face.

“Gotta go,” I said, wanting to rein in whatever was going on with Reuben, who was staring at the piece of paper in his hand. Uh-oh. Not good.

“Tomorrow. Get your boyfriend to drive you or take an Uber or whatever. I’ll be with Lee, beating him to a pulp at the back of the courthouse.”

“Sure,” I deadpanned and hung up. The Dieter was as bad as Michelle. No goodbyes.

“Gray?” Reuben said.

“What have I done now?” I was getting a little tired of being told off, but yes. I did that. Bought random houses. Ordered a bigger TV because the one from my old house looked like shit in here. And perhaps I couldn’t afford it but I was…me.

“Okay,” Stewart said, taking a deep breath. “Sit down, son.”

I liked when he called me son. Normally. Right now, he looked like he wanted to bite my head off. He ripped the piece of paper out of Reuben’s hand and gave it to me.

Vehicle registration document.

Oh.

“You can shout at me now,” I said. “My dad did. The gearbox had gone on the old Fiat, and the garage up there is a right scam outfit.”

Well, that was my excuse. Dad’s new car was being delivered next week, and I fully expected a similar reaction here to the one I got from my own father, with added moral pointers about never buying a new car and how much value they lost in just the first week. “Open the door and you’ve lost half the resale value,” my dad always said.

“Graham.” Stewart did that low tone of voice that made me shiver and want to curl into a tiny ball, but instead, I sat up straighter.

“Stewart. It was my fault your car got stolen, so it’s only fair I replace it.” There. Bam.

“Bullshit.” Stewart looked kind of unhinged. “How would that have been your fault? Some lowlife finally got into it and went for a joyride. The police found it burnt out somewhere in Essex. That is no way the fault of The Dieter.”

“Ehhr, your number plate was all over the web because I did something stupid. So, my fault.”

“Gray,” Now Reuben was on his haunches, holding my hand but with that mischievous look on his face he sometimes had. The little shit. “Why have you bought my dad a Range Rover Evoque?”

“Because I asked him, ‘If money was no object and you were buying a car, what car would you buy?’”

“That was a theoretical question!” Stewart protested. “Gray! You can’t just buy me a car!”

There it was. The shouting. Why was it anytime I spent a little bit of money, people shouted at me? I didn’t want a Range Rover Evoque. Stewart did. So what?

“This is a vehicle registration for a Range Rover Evoque. Black. Custom seats, because they were really cool. And it’s bought and paid for. In the name of Stewart Schiller. Take it or leave it. If you don’t want it? Documents are in your name. Just sell it. Like I care.”

Here I was. Standing up in my kitchen, shouting and kicking chairs like the big stupid diva I was. Truly. And…

Fuck.

Reuben got up as well, grabbed my arms. I tried to turn away.

“Gray,” he said softly. “I think you need to hear it, right now, but I’m not going to say it.”

It made me smile. Because I did need to hear that. “Baby—”

“Not your baby.”

“Okay. No. Not sure why that slipped out.”

“Maybe because I am a little bit angry with you, but at the same time, I want to say the stuff I’m not going to say because you’re impossible…mate. Seriously?”

“Seriously. It was my fault. I’m just trying to fix what I messed up.”

“Graham.” Stewart had his forehead on the table, banging it gently against our now very crooked spreadsheet.

“What?” I was being a little twat, just like Graham, aged fifteen, had been. Telling his parents he was off to London to become a megastar and that there was nothing they could do to stop him.

“If I park that car outside our house, it’ll be stolen by midnight. Scratched to hell. And I can’t park it up in the backstreet outside work. Again, stolen within hours. It’s that kind of car. The kind of car we stick in the secure lock-up in the garage at work. We charge people an extra hundred quid a day to park there. That’s what we’re looking at.”

“Easy solution.” I pouted, then I rolled my eyes at myself. “You park it here and move in downstairs. Peckham is Peckham. Here, you could walk to the Tube and be at work in ten minutes. Simple.”

“Yeah, Dad. You could get a bike.” Reuben grinned.

I had to laugh because Stewart looked a bit green at the suggestion.

“Boys,” he said, and got up. “I’m going to take a walk.”

Good, I thought, watching him walk out the front door, letting it slam shut.

“I want to choose the people I have in my life, and I want you. And having you means we have to look after your dad too.”

“Dad can look after himself,” Reuben reassured me. “And you should… Man. Just stop spending your money on other people. Buy yourself a car. I need to take you out for that driving lesson. Soon as your provisional licence arrives.”

“Yeah.”

I felt a bit flat. Disheartened. And sad.

“Stop spending your money on shit that doesn’t matter.”

“It’s my money.”

“Gray,” he said again, cupping my face in his hands. “This past week? Most fun I’ve had in my life. Honestly. We did a road trip—”

“You did a road trip.”

“Yeah, but I rescued you, and then we did a road trip home.”

“We went shopping.”

“Tesco Express around the corner. I survived that, didn’t I? Then we ate.”

“We did.” He laughed. “And I stopped you buying the entire top one hundred in hardback fiction from Amazon, just so you could have something on the bookshelf.”

“I’ll give you something on the bookshelf,” I countered, trying to get out of his grip, but he held me tight. Kissed me.

“G,” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“We’re good.”

“We are, aren’t we?”

“And I know you’re under a lot of stress now with everything, but… Yeah. The car. Thank you. I think Dad is seriously overwhelmed. Give him some time to calm down.”

“Okay.”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“What?” I smiled. He kissed me again.

“My leave got approved, so I have to work tomorrow, and then I have two weeks off. Just you and me. And we’ll get this house sorted. Move the rest of my stuff over. Work on your spreadsheets and figure things out.”

“That sounds good,” I agreed. “Tonight, though, I want to watch a film. Sit on the sofa and have popcorn. Can we go buy popcorn? They had some at Tesco.”

“Yup. Sounds good.”

“And Reubs?”

“Yeah?”

I hugged him. As hard as I could. “Let’s just have an ordinary evening. Watch shit on TV. No drama. Forget about everything. Just a night in an ordinary life. Ordinary future. All that shit. No more money talk. It’s doing my head in.”

He rolled his eyes. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

“You’re a little shit,” he whispered. “But that’s okay.”