Tea, page 10
And then, slowly, the smile slipped away.
Chris hadn’t stayed the night at John’s. He’d mentioned a doctor, and medication, and a disability that could knock him out.
And suddenly John had an idea of what the secret might be.
Chapter Thirteen
JOHN DIDN’T GET to escape until nearly six—and only then via a convoluted route—dropping off each sister in turn.
He kept quiet about his plans. Thankfully, Nora wanted to go to her boyfriend’s rather than straight home, so he managed to get shot of the girls in record time. Once he was alone in the car, he found his phone again.
“Hey, Chris, it’s me.”
“I know. Caller ID.”
“Can you re—”
“It talks to me,” Chris said and laughed. “Where are you?”
“Abbeydale Road.”
“I’m back at Dad’s. Ring me when you’re outside, and I’ll come out—unless you want to meet my folks?”
“Um. Maybe next time?”
“No problem.”
Chris hung up then, and John blew out a shaky breath. Okay. Staying the night. He had an inkling of what Chris was going to tell him, and honestly, if John were right, who cared? He wasn’t going to bail on someone that gorgeous for that.
So…he dared to hope and stopped by the supermarket to pick up a packet of condoms and some lube.
It was starting to snow again by the time he arrived outside Chris’s parents’ house. His call was cut off after only two rings, and then a light came on in the porch. Two shadows hovered behind the frosted glass as John got out to open the passenger side door.
Then the front door opened.
John’s breath caught at the sight of Chris in an open jacket, tight T-shirt, and baggy black jogging bottoms. His hair was a mess, and the lip ring was black this time. Oh, hell yes.
Then his breath wheezed out again in a rush at the squat, fat man who frowned down at the car from behind him. The blue eyes were unmistakeable, even at this distance.
John raised a hand awkwardly to wave at Chris’s father and wanted—very, very intensely—to drop dead at that very minute.
Oh, that man did not like John.
“Hey,” Chris said sunnily, grasping at John’s coat sleeve and standing up on his toes in a now familiar pose. John kissed him quickly, hardly daring to take his eyes off the imposing man at the house. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, sorry, here—”
Chris didn’t buy it. The moment John was back in the driver’s seat, a hand crept over and found his thigh, squeezing lightly.
“You really okay?”
“Your dad is glaring at me like I’m the spawn of Satan. It’s…intimidating.”
Chris snorted with laughter. “That’s his face.”
“He’s scowling!”
“Yeah. That’s his face.”
“Oh, right, he looks at the postman like that, I’m sure…”
“He does. Lauren calls him Gill.”
“What?”
“Grumpy gills? Gill. Even I remember my dad scowling. My mum used to say if I pulled faces in the mirror, then I’d get stuck like that, and said that was what happened to Dad.”
John laughed. “Really?”
“Uh-huh. I believed her too. So. My place.”
A postcode was supplied, slap bang in the middle of the grotty Parson Cross, and John grimaced as he fought through the steadily worsening weather into a steadily worsening estate. He’d done enough jobs in Parson Cross to know the area reasonably well. Some bits were just old widowers and disabled ladies, and they were nice enough. But other bits were stuffed with scrotes, who’d think nothing of mugging a blind lad, and John found himself tensing up as the satnav turned him into a small parking area behind a block of definitely scrote-stuffed flats.
“You live here?”
Chris pulled a face. “It’s a council flat. They hardly own mansions, you know.”
“I meant more…not exactly nice neighbours round this way.”
“Oh, mine are all right, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. A mum and her baby across the landing, and Danny in the flat above watches out for anyone giving me shit.”
“Mate of yours?”
“Eh. Laundrette friends. He’s a bit…he’s got a few screws loose. Someone stabbed his brother last year, so Danny burned their house down. But he’s nice enough, if you don’t cross him. Just overreacts sometimes.”
“Reassuring,” John said dryly.
“He’s fine with me. I think even Danny doesn’t go so low as to go after disabled people,” Chris said, getting out of the car. “C’mon.”
John inched out in the too-small gap between his car and a battered Suzuki Jimny and peered up at the flats. They were little more than a concrete block, ugly and unsightly. But through the grimy windows, he could see traces of homes. Flowers here. Nice curtains there. A set of glittery butterfly stickers on the third floor.
Maybe they were nicer inside.
They were quiet, at least. The faint sounds of TVs accompanied their ascent, but nothing much else. The stairwell was covered in graffiti, smelled faintly of piss, and was freezing from the lack of glass in the windows to the outside world. Chris’s front door, flimsy and in need of sanding down and repainting, wasn’t exactly inspiring.
And then the door opened, and John stepped into warmth.
“Oh my God.”
“Nice, isn’t it?”
Even to John’s inexpert eye, the flat was kitted out for a blind hedonist. The carpets were ridiculously thick. A sofa that must have cost near enough a thousand pounds was covered in throws and blankets of all different types and textures. A state-of-the-art surround sound system bordered a laughably small TV screen. The kitchenette, just built into the living room, was rammed with odds and ends that John didn’t recognise.
“You cook?”
“Yep.”
“Is that what these are for?”
“What?”
John toed off his boots and crossed the little room. He picked up a plastic sensor, not unlike a thermometer, and handed it over.
“Oh, those. Yeah.”
“What’s that one?”
“Tells me when the coffee cup is full.”
“Huh,” John said. Chris skirted past him to put it back. The lip ring shimmered, and John stared. “Um. So. You wanted to tell me something?”
“Uh-huh. Want some tea?”
John hesitated. Chris seemed oddly nervous.
“Actually,” he said. “Can I get the grand tour, and then—”
He trailed off. Chris cocked his head.
“Then?”
“Your lip ring is taunting me.”
“I can take it o—”
“Not the solution.”
Chris laughed, flushing a little. “You’ve kissed me when I’ve had it in before, you know.”
“Briefly.”
“Oh, I see. You want to tongue-fuck my mouth when I’ve got it in.”
John coughed. “No. I want to—” He blew out his cheeks. “I want to suck on it while opening you up around my fingers again.”
Chris coughed.
“Oh,” he said weakly.
John shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Well, fuck.”
Then Chris took it out.
Just peeled it out of his lip and set it on the counter.
“Right,” he said, a little breathlessly. “We—we really do need to talk first. And then—then if you’re not put off by what I’ve got to say, then…then maybe I can put it back in and, um. You can do that.”
“Then can we skip tea and tour and just talk?” John urged. “Because—I—after everything you said yesterday, and calling me to check I was okay today, and being so damned understanding and nice about it all instead of running a mile as you probably should have done, and now you’re standing there in your jogging bottoms and your lip ring—”
“Minus the lip ring.”
“Yeah, only your lip’s flushed from you taking it out, and I can see the piercing, so…”
“Right.”
“I just…want to make—”
“No!”
John rolled his eyes. “Sleep with you,” he amended.
“Well, if you still want to sleep with me in fifteen minutes or so, then I will drop these trousers and bend over,” Chris said, which really did not help the dick situation.
Then he sank onto the sofa and tucked his socked feet under him. Chewing on his thumbnail, he looked so suddenly nervous that John’s dick softened again from its hopeful semi, and he shucked his jacket and joined him.
The sofa dipped so hard under his weight that Chris almost rolled into him, which earned him a laugh and a hand-on-thigh squeeze again, but then the nail went back into the ring-free mouth, and John bit his lip.
“So…” he prompted.
“So,” Chris echoed but said nothing.
John licked his lips and reached out to touch his fingers lightly to the gold chain.
“Is it about this?”
The medical bracelet.
Chris sighed. “Yes.”
“Okay,” John said. “What do you wear it for?”
“Epilepsy.”
That was…
Surprising, but also not. John had actually been guessing at advanced diabetes, given the whole medication at home, gone blind, healthy options at the restaurant, bracelet thing, but it wasn’t exactly a shock either. He’d heard of it. Lots of people had it.
“So…you’re epileptic.”
“Mm.”
“Chris?”
Chris sighed and sat back. Finally stopped chewing his nail. “Sorry. I don’t really like to talk about it, but…you need to know this, if this is heading into…staying the night sort of territory.”
“You have seizures at night?”
“Not usually at night, no, but I have a lot of seizures. Sooner or later, I’m going to have one in front of you.”
“And I need to know what to do.”
“Mm.”
“Okay. Does it…does it help if I say I’ve seen seizures before?”
“Depends. What type?”
“Uh. Seizure-seizures?”
Chris coughed a small laugh. “There’s a lot of different types of seizures, John.”
“Well, when I was an apprentice, a guy at work collapsed and had a fit on the floor. And I do first-aid training every year, and they show us videos. So, I know the whole…don’t restrain them, wait it out, don’t put anything in their mouth stuff.”
“The guy at work…”
“Uh-huh?”
“Did he go all stiff, then fall over and start twitching?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. That kind of seizure.”
“You have that kind?”
“Yeah. The seizures themselves aren’t that severe. I mean, the falling over can be, obviously, but I have a lot of them.”
“By a lot, you mean…”
“Two or three a week. And that’s when the drugs are working really well.”
“Oh, wow.”
Chris pulled a face.
“We—we had to call an ambulance for that guy.”
“You probably didn’t.”
“What?”
“My seizures never last more than two or three minutes. And after, I want to sleep. It’s exhausting and disorienting, and it can hurt. So—I’m moody, and I want to sleep, but I don’t need a doctor.”
“You don’t?”
“No. It’s normal.”
“Oh.”
“I can feel them coming. I get an aura. So, you know, I won’t bite your tongue off and go down in the middle of a shag. But they can happen whenever they want, so…I’ve ruined dates before. I’ve ended up fitting and pissing myself in parks and cafés. Dad nearly crashed his car once because I seized in the passenger seat and somehow got hold of the gearstick.”
“Christ.”
Chris curled his knee a little higher into his chest. “It’s humiliating.”
“You can’t help it.”
“That doesn’t make it not humiliating to come round on a pub floor and knowing full well your jeans aren’t wet because of spilled beer.”
“Okay, maybe not, but better than being so drunk you’ve done it, right?”
Chris looked a little startled.
“I—sort of guessed that there was something else,” John said awkwardly. “I didn’t think epilepsy, but I’d seen your bracelet. Is that why you’re blind?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
Chris chewed on his nail again. John dared to reach out and gently tug it away. After a beat, those warm fingers sank between his own, and he squeezed the captured hand.
“I had a seizure. I was six, and I wasn’t so good at recognising my aura. So I had this seizure by surprise. And I fell. And I…hurt my head.”
“Enough to go blind?”
“Yeah. I don’t—it’s not something we really talk about much.”
Christ, he was probably lucky to be alive.
“I’m better at recognising it now. Haven’t hurt myself in years. But…sooner or later, you’ll be out somewhere with me, and I’ll go. And you’ll be left in the middle of the street with everyone staring and taking pictures, and taxis won’t take us home if I’ve pissed myself, and you’ll have to wait for Dad or Lauren to come and get us…”
It was an ugly picture. John mentally prodded it and came away…feeling nothing different.
“I also can’t take you to rugby practice and taunt you in my shorts,” he said. “Still here.”
Chris gave him a slightly wobbly smile.
“Is my first-aid stuff…enough?”
Chris shrugged. “Yeah. No. Kind of.”
“What else do I need?”
“If I have a seizure,” Chris said, “just…leave me alone. I mean, not alone, alone. But don’t touch me.”
“I know that bit. Move stuff out the way so you can’t hit it, and wait it out.”
“Yeah.”
“What about when you’re done? Airways, pulse, the usual?”
“Yeah. And I’ll usually go to sleep. Like, immediately. I power-nap for about half an hour after every one. And I can be pretty belligerent about getting to do it.”
“How belligerent is—”
“I punched a paramedic once.”
John snorted and then grinned. “Noted, but—not that worried.”
“Hey!”
“You’d have to clout me with a dumbbell to do any damage. I’m not worried.”
“Might punch you in the balls.”
“Okay, good point. Keep balls away from you. Got it.”
Chris finally cracked a proper smile.
“Hey.” John shook the captured hand. “I—” Love you. “—like you. A hell of a lot. And like I say, I knew from the minute I met you that I couldn’t do my usual third-date trick and take you to rugby practice to get you insanely turned on by bending over in my shorts a lot.”
“Well, not at practice, no…”
“There’s a trade-off, you know.”
“What?”
“You touch. All the time. And way better than most guys.”
The smile widened a little. “Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. And this isn’t big enough to send me out the door.”
Chris’s hand tightened. “You’re sure?”
“Sure.”
If he were being completely honest with himself, John found Chris’s gender a bigger minefield than he did epilepsy and blindness. There were first-aid certificates and those warnings on films with special effects. He’d seen Braille buttons in lifts, and people out with guide dogs. But he’d never so much as seen a trans man on TV. So, yeah. One was definitely newer than the other, in John’s little world.
But he sensed right now—with Chris’s thumb damp and the nail chewed—wasn’t the time to say it. Chris probably wouldn’t take it very well.
“So, still here.”
“Yeah,” Chris whispered.
“You want to maybe put that lip ring back in?”
Chris laughed, then shook his head.
“I’m…feeling a little bit too raw for all of that right now.”
“Okay,” John said quickly. “Do you want me to go, or—”
“No. No, I want you to stay. And maybe later, I’ll put the ring back. But, um…can we just…”
“Can do whatever.”
“You’re probably not hungry again yet if you had Sunday dinner, but I do a mean homemade pizza, if you want?”
“You’re always hungry when you’re this big,” John said and dared to lean over enough to kiss Chris’s neck. He wriggled, as though ticklish, and John grinned. “Pizza sounds great. And maybe a cuppa?”
“Tea?”
“Tea.”
Chapter Fourteen
THEY ENDED UP not having pizza at all after John voiced scepticism that Chris could make quesadillas without burning himself or the food. Chris got enormously offended and demonstrated that John’s opinion was, in fact, moronic.
“Okay,” John said when Chris took back the empty plate and retreated to the kitchenette to wash up. “I was wrong. You’re a master chef.”
“Damn right.”
“Where the hell did you learn to do that? You could cook for bloody Gordon Ramsay.”
“If I wanted to not starve when I was at my mum’s, I had to cook. She can only make three meals, and Jack is even worse.”
“Jack?”
“My stepdad.”
“What do they eat when you’re not visiting?”
“I told you, three meals. Steak, chicken casserole, and fish fingers. Over and over again. Mum keeps complaining she’s getting fat, but it’s not exactly surprising.”
“Wouldn’t have taken you for a health nut.”
“Nut, no. Healthy, yeah.”
“Any particular reason?”
Chris shrugged as he wrenched the tap off and began washing the plates. “The epilepsy is worse when I’m not feeling good. And eating right and exercising keeps me feeling good. So…it’s not a cure, there is no cure, but it keeps it more manageable.”
“So, a big binge at the weekend, loads of beer and pizza with the footie on the telly, is out?”
“I didn’t say that,” Chris said. “It’s not that delicate. But I couldn’t do it for a whole week.”
