Tea, page 26
“What I’m getting at,” John said, “is are you running everyday household items, or something big and exhausting that needs a lot of power?”
“It wouldn’t be a meditation space if I need a lot of power.”
“Uh. No. Guess not.”
He paced off down the garden. It was very long and narrow, a white gravel path snaking through a jungle of flowery bushes. A hammock was hidden in the nest of branches and leaves, and bees buzzed harmoniously by as he reached the summerhouse. It really was just a shed with a window knocked through, and he snorted. In truth, he could bury an extensional cable out here and plug it in next to the washing machine.
Still, he said, “Hmm,” and feigned seriousness as he poked around, looking for the best way to run the lead into the shed.
“So,” Caroline said chirpily. “Do you run your business?”
“Yep.”
“John, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right. John Halliday.”
Her beatific smile widened. “That’s lovely. So when does my stepson get to meet your father?”
John paused. Turned to tower over her and squinted at that bright, brilliant smile.
“Excuse me?”
It widened. “You heard.”
Oh, God.
But—
How?
A door banged. Someone, a very familiar someone, shouted Caroline’s name. John heard the grating slide of the glass doors, and then there he was. Chris. In a jacket and jeans, cane-free, one hand on the doorframe, frowning down the garden.
“Caroline!” he shouted again. “You out here?”
Wait—he knew about this?
“Summerhouse, darling! I’ve caught something!”
John had the sudden violent urge to throw himself over the fence and escape via next door’s garden.
“What’s that?” Chris asked, stepping out a couple of feet into the garden. “Dad wants your help with the shopping. Says I can’t be trusted with eggs.”
“Well, you can’t, darling. Here, you take your boyfriend here inside. I think he might combust.”
“My—what?”
John groaned.
“John?”
“Yeah,” he called weakly.
“What the—” Chris’s face twisted, and then he groaned. “Caroline, what the hell?”
“Well, you wouldn’t invite him over, so I did.”
“How did you even kno—did you hack my phone again?”
“Hack implies you even protected it.” She sniffed and sailed up the garden path, a display of regal aloofness that could have been funny, had John not been suffering from an intense heart attack and unable to appreciate it.
And then they were alone, and Chris gingerly took a few more steps.
“John?”
“I have no idea what’s going on,” John said but stepped into range. He reached out for a hug and found himself leaning heavily onto Chris. “She called wanting a quote for a cable laying…”
“Oh my God, trust her,” Chris muttered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think she’d go and take things into her own hands. She’s been sort of impatient to meet you.”
“She’s—why? Who is she?”
“My stepmum.”
“I thought Lauren was your stepmum.”
“She is.”
John pulled back a little and stared.
“What?”
“They both are,” Chris said. “My dad has two girlfriends.”
“Oh my God.”
“Well, technically, he and Lauren are engaged, but that’s never going to actually happen.”
“I—what?”
Chris laughed quietly. “Dad’s poly. Always has been. He met Lauren after splitting up from my mum, and then she met Caroline at a protest.”
John’s jaw sagged.
“Is that…too much?”
“I—it’s weird,” John admitted. “I’ve never even heard of that. Is your whole family crazy, or what?”
Chris chuckled. “They’re not crazy. It’s kind of nice, actually. I get five sets of presents for my birthday.”
“Why am I here?” John breathed.
“Because she tricked you. If you want to go, I will bawl her out and then come over.”
John wanted that. He felt a little cheated, a lot thrown, and very, very scared. This wasn’t even on a par with Nora stealing his wallet. This was downright sly.
But then…
He’d known it was Chris’s dad’s house. He’d made that choice himself, to walk into the wasps’ nest. He hadn’t been expecting Caroline, that was all. And he felt a little warmed, too. Chris’s quick defence of him, Chris’s lack of involvement in it, was kind of nice. He hadn’t known about it. He hadn’t been colluding to get John here.
And maybe—maybe this was a now or never situation. He’d met Chris’s very normal, very bland mum and stepdad. Chris had said they were the conventional half of his parents. Maybe this kind of explained Chris’s piercings and the sex frankness.
“No.”
“No, what?”
“I’ll—stay and meet them.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Chris leaned up to kiss him, stretching on his tiptoes. John squeezed him close and straightened until he came right up off the floor.
“And after, you owe me,” he mumbled.
Chris laughed. “Yes, I’ll owe you whatever you want.”
“That trip for your birthday?”
“Okay, okay. That trip for my birthday.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
John beamed, shoving the nerves away with determination. Okay. Met three people—all of whom he’d now already met, technically—and then get to whisk Chris off to the seaside again for a private little holiday. He could totally do that. He could totally—
He looked up.
The red-haired man was scowling at him from the kitchen door.
Oh dear God, he couldn’t do this.
“Uh.”
“What?”
“Your dad.”
“Face!”
“What?”
“Just his face, remember,” Chris said.
John looked up again, and the man had gone. He’d turned away to the fridge and was packing bags away.
Okay.
“Let’s do this,” John said and let go.
Strode out for the door.
Stood on the threshold, in his dirty boots and workman’s trousers, and stuck out one enormous paw.
“John Halliday.”
The man turned.
He was very short, very fat, and very frowny. The red hair was greying in places, and his face ruddy and sagging with age. But he paused not a second before sticking out his own and shaking John’s hand like he was trying to fling water off it.
“Ted Bannerman.”
“I, uh, didn’t realise I was coming here, or I’d have dressed better…”
Ted snorted. “Like I care. What pretence did she use?”
“Cable-laying out to your shed.”
“Bollocks to that,” came the flat reply. “Not having my deckchairs moved out for some meditation nonsense. Caroline! That’s my damn shed!”
“Oh, hang your deckchairs!” came the breezy reply from the hall, and the front door closed. She shuffled back in, a bag in each hand and breasts on full display through the opened dressing gown. John choked. “Ah, John, dear. Would you prefer dinner here, or shall we all eat out?”
John averted his eyes to the table, squashed into the kitchen that really had no room for it. Then Chris slipped back inside and closed the glass doors, and a hand worked its way into his own.
“Out,” Chris said. “I want Italian.”
“Demanding shit,” Ted grunted.
“Ted! Company! Out’s fine, darling. I’ll need to get ready, though. Ted, put the kettle on. John?”
“Uh—”
“Cup of tea?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
IN THE END, they all ended up going out for dinner. Lauren came home half an hour later, in those lime green wellies, and then Caroline swanned back down the stairs in a floaty blue dress and corralled Ted into changing his trousers.
“There’s holes, dear!”
“Like anyone cares, woman!”
Chris smiled, holding John’s hand on the table, a mug of coffee in the other.
“They’re bonkers,” he said. “Ignore them.”
It was actually a nice chance to get to figure them out a little bit. Lauren seemed fairly normal, and John relaxed quickly when she admired his neck tattoo and jealously said she’d be covered herself, if not for a crippling fear of needles. Ted seemed a fairly typical grumpy old man. Caroline was mad as a box of frogs, but actually seemed kind of harmless. And she certainly bossed Ted around just like John’s mum and dad.
John watched, utterly fascinated.
He’d never really met too many alternative types up close before. Mum and Dad were very traditional. His mates down the yard were very traditional. The rugby lads were the definition of traditional. Even Chris himself wasn’t all that odd, when you came down to it. He wasn’t even Kelham Island hipster level.
But his family were bonkers.
Actually going to this Italian place was apparently an enormous operation. Chris opted for the simpler route, saying John would drive the pair of them and they would meet up later. John genuinely wasn’t sure—until they were in the car and Chris leaned over to kiss him—if it was to make things simpler, or to take the pressure off John.
Then Chris said, “You okay?” and John figured it out.
“Yeah. I think so.”
“You’re doing fine. They like you.”
“They do?” Apart from Lauren and her tattoo talk, they’d mostly ignored him.
“Oh, yeah. They’re not subtle.”
“Thanks…I think.”
In fact, they ignored him all the way into the restaurant, and only after orders were taken did Caroline tut and say, “Lasagne, darling? Really?”
“It’s traditional, and I like it,” John replied uncertainly.
“Traditional,” she echoed, like it was a dirty word.
“Yeah, some people like that,” Chris chimed in.
“It’s limiting!”
“With you around, it’s bloody peaceful,” Ted muttered.
“Mouth is open, darling, and it shouldn’t be!” she sang.
“You know,” John said, “I’m beginning to see where you get it from.”
Chris raised his eyebrows. “Your mouth is open, and shouldn’t be.”
“Case in point.”
Chatter over the main course was easy enough. Basic. Simple. They asked some standard fare questions about him, and he got to work out what the heck was going on here.
Slowly, it emerged that Ted and Lauren had been together since Chris was about twelve years old, and Caroline had come along when he was fifteen or so. Ted lived off his Army pension and spread betting, having broken his back in the Marines when Chris was still a baby. The faint Scottish accent wasn’t in John’s imagination—he was from Aberdeen. Chris was delicately described as his only living child, and John didn’t want to ask a single thing about that if he could possibly help it. Lauren, on the other hand, was from Sheffield and had an ex-husband of her own, less delicately described as a C-word. She was a horse riding instructor, and forever intent on getting Chris to try it.
“No reason for you not to,” she said. “Do you ride, John?”
“Hating bloody horses not enough for you?”
“Um, no,” John said. “Never tried.”
“Oh, well—”
He got the impression he might be, soon enough.
Caroline was…well, Caroline. She didn’t tell him any of the normal things, like where she was from. She told him that she collected amethysts to promote healing, worked at some Buddhist centre, and sold candles on Etsy. She also had another girlfriend in Rotherham and usually spent her weekends with Allison. Neither Lauren nor Ted batted an eyelash.
“So it’s a kind of…big, open thing?”
“Caroline’s open,” Lauren said. “Ted and I, not so much.”
“Right,” John said.
“Let me guess, traditionalist household? One man, one woman?”
“Well…one and one, I guess. Not so fussed about the genders involved.”
“You’re out, then?”
And just like that, Caroline’s eyes narrowed in on him, and John felt the interrogation part of the dinner open up.
He swallowed. The anxiety balloon inflated.
“Yes.”
“Why our Christian?”
John blinked.
Then turned to look at Chris.
“Christian?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Christopher’s boring.”
John left it there.
“So?” Caroline prompted.
“Um. Because…because I spilled coffee on him, and he laughed at me, and my heart stopped beating.”
Chris groaned. So did Ted. The sounds were identical. But both women beamed, as if John had said the best thing he could possibly have managed.
“He’s…amazing,” John said, warming to his theme a little. Chris put his hands over his ears. “He’s beautiful and he’s funny. When I’m with him, I feel like everything’s fine, even the things that go wrong. And he has the worst chat-up lines.”
“Excuse me, I do not.”
“Oh, like father like son, then?” Lauren muttered.
“Can it,” Ted groused.
“You wish.”
“Chris hasn’t really told us anything about you,” Caroline said airily. “I had to get your phone number off his mobile, and then imagine my surprise when Google threw back you were an electrician! I always hoped he’d go for an art student.”
“No bloody use in art students, can’t pay the bills,” Ted groused and earned himself a solid kick under the table from his distinctly artistic girlfriend.
“I, uh, no. Not arty.”
“You wax poetic about sex often enough,” Chris mumbled.
John’s face flamed red. “Chris!”
“Oh, don’t be shy, darling, very important to talk about sex,” Caroline said. “I trust you do have sex?”
“Oh my God…”
“Don’t be embarrassed!”
Chris started to laugh.
“I—yes. We do,” John said.
“Are you kinky at all? You know, it could be complicated if you are, Chris’s epilepsy doesn’t—”
“Caroline, knock it off.” Chris cackled, hand over his mouth.
John hid his face in his hands.
“I’m just saying…”
“No, you’re winding him up,” Chris said. “Ask something else if you want to play Twenty Questions.”
“And not his damned size,” Ted grumbled. “No bugger wants to know that.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lauren said.
John could feel himself going beet red.
“Why didn’t you want to meet us?”
It was Ted who asked.
It was the first real question he’d asked—apart from the all-important one about what teams John supported—and it felt heavier than all the other questions from Chris’s stepmothers. It fell into the room like a lead weight and smacked down on the floor. John paused. He could feel the colour draining out of his face again. The truth? Should he tell these mad but obviously loving stepmothers what he’d been accused of doing? Should he let this ex-Marine—bad back notwithstanding—know?
“I—”
They waited.
Chris’s hand carefully gripped his own on the table.
“Parents don’t like me,” John hedged. “The way I look. Too—big. Scary. Aggressive.”
Ted snorted. “Aggressive my fragrant arse.”
Chris smiled.
“My last boyfriend used that against me.”
“How?” Lauren asked.
“He—he was cheating. Turns out I was the other man. And when he—when he got caught, he tried to say that—that he’d gone along with me because I scared him. That I’d…”
That word.
That word.
“That I’d effectively…”
Don’t be afraid of it.
“Raped him.”
Silence.
John took a gulping breath.
Then battled on.
“I was scared you’d think the same. That I could do that. I needed to prove to Chris—I needed to prove to me—that it was nothing but a stupid, ugly lie.”
The women glanced at one another. John could see the uncertainty. See the hesitation. See the maybe.
And Ted snorted again.
“Bollocks.”
“W-what?” John asked.
“I’ve seen more aggressive bloody rabbits.”
A flower of relief blossomed where the balloon ought to have been.
“You’re a bigger pushover than our old dog, and that’s saying something.”
John’s shoulders sagged with relief. Ted believed him. Ted bloody well believed him. They weren’t freaking out. They weren’t giving each other the look. They weren’t demanding he leave, or that they needed to talk to Chris alone.
They believed him.
And Chris’s fingers were warm and relaxed around John’s own.
John took a deep breath—and there was no balloon inside to restrict his breathing.
CHRIS TURNED ON him at the car and kissed him like they were drowning. Hands on John’s biceps, stroking down the sleeves. Mouth caught fast to his own until they were one being. Every inch of that long, beautiful body pressed to John’s.
And then, when he let go, he simply said, “I love you.”
John ran a hand down the back of his neck and kissed him again.
The curls were thick and heavy against his palm. Their weight was familiar. The taste of rich coffee and richer chocolate cake were sweet and soft around the edges of a mouth that John knew as well as he knew his own. And he loved it. Loved him. Loved every single moment that had brought him here, to this dark spot with this bright man, even the ones that included his darkest days.
He slid his arms down Chris’s back. Clasped his waist in both hands and held him close and fast. Held him as though they need never let go, as though nothing could possibly happen that required them to leave.
Because John was in love.
