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Authors: Jay Northcote

Cold Feet (6 page)

BOOK: Cold Feet
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“Can we do anything to help?” Ryan offered.

“Oh, thank you, love. Pour some water in the pot, will you?”

Sam was feeling like a spare part while Ryan poured the water, so he approached the black and white cat on the kitchen surface and made a clicking noise, offering it his hand. The cat stood, sniffed it, and then rubbed its face against it, asking for a stroke.

“Ah, she’s a softie, that one,” Mari said. “That’s Nerys’s mum, Meg.”

She started assembling plates, cups, and saucers onto a tray,
then
addressed Ryan. “Put the teapot on there, and there’s a jug of milk in the fridge that needs to come too. Can you manage to carry the tray? I’ve only got one hand free, what with this bloody stick.” She picked up the plate of cake and led the way back into the living room. “Now take a seat. Don’t mind about moving the cats, but if you’re happy to have them on your laps, most of them love that.”

Sam decided the big grey fluffy thing on one end of the sofa looked pretty amenable. He scooped it up. It purred, so he deposited it on his knees and stroked, hoping it would stay.

Ryan took the other end of the sofa, with a tabby
who
rejected his knee, choosing to fit between him and Sam instead with a rather disgruntled expression.

“Now then,” Mari said once she’d moved the tortoiseshell onto her lap and settled herself in the armchair. “Introduce yourselves. I forgot to ask your names before.”

 
 
 
 
 
Chapter Six
 

Ryan let Sam do more of the talking as Mari poured tea with a shaky grip and put slices of cake onto plates for them. Sam introduced them both and explained where they were staying.

“Ah, yes, it’s nice to see the place being used,” Mari said. “Bit of a change of scenery for you?”

“Yes. We both live in towns, so being here is very different.”

“It really is a quiet haven, then. That’s what the cottage name means you know,” she added, noticing Sam’s frown of confusion. “Hafan dawel—quiet haven.”

“I didn’t know. That’s cool. And yeah… it’s a bit different to what I’m used to.”

Ryan tuned out of the conversation for a moment and let his mind drift back to kissing Sam.

He wondered what would have happened if Nerys hadn’t interrupted them. Maybe they’d still be out there, kissing in the snow. Maybe they’d have gone back to their cottage and picked up where they’d left off. He tried to study Sam surreptitiously, dying to know what he thought about it all.

“Oh, thank you,” Ryan said, pulled out of his daydreams when Mari handed him a cup of tea. He balanced the saucer on the arm of the sofa and nearly spilled it as Nerys leapt up onto his knee.

“Ah, look at that. She knows you.” Mari nodded approvingly. “Knows who her friends are.”

Ryan tried not to wince as he unhooked Nerys’s needle-like claws from his jeans where she was kneading his thigh. She eventually circled his lap a few times and curled up over his crotch. Ryan hoped she’d keep her claws to herself from now on.

“So how many cats have you got?” Sam asked.

As he carried on a conversation with Mari about her eight cats and their various names, relationships, and habits, Ryan’s mind wandered right back to the kiss again.

His heart had nearly burst out of his chest when he finally had Sam’s lips against his. It had felt so perfectly right. He wondered where it could have ended, what words might have been exchanged. But Nerys’s sudden appearance had taken Ryan right out of the moment. He knew maybe he should have said something about the kiss afterwards. But he’d had no idea what he wanted to say, and the cat had been the perfect distraction and an excuse to pretend nothing had happened.

Ryan watched Sam as he talked to Mari, admiring the mercurial expressions that flitted across his angular features, the swift movements of his hands as he used them to emphasise a point, the curve of his lips when he smiled. Something in Ryan’s chest felt full and warm and he had to fight to stop the answering smile that wanted to creep across his face as he looked at Sam. When he looked away from Sam to Mari, he caught Mari’s gaze on him and flushed as he turned his attention back to the cat in his lap.

“So our friends couldn’t get through because of the snow,” Sam was explaining.

“Oh, I thought it was just the two of you,” Mari said. “Having a bit of time alone—romantic, like.”

Ryan glanced quickly at Sam. Ryan’s cheeks were flaming at Mari’s assumption, but Sam’s lips twitched as he tried to hide his amusement.

“No, there were supposed to be four of us,” Sam explained. “But the others didn’t make it before the snow came.”

“Ah well, that’s a shame.” She studied Ryan in a way that was a little too knowing for Ryan’s liking. “And now you’re stuck here?” The way she pronounced the word ‘here’ made it sound like ‘yurr,’ Ryan noticed.

“Yes,” Ryan replied, pulling himself together and joining in with the conversation. It wasn’t fair to leave all the small talk to Sam.

“What are you going to have for your Christmas dinner?” Mari asked
,
concern etched on her features.

“The closest we could manage to turkey was chicken nuggets from the village shop.” Sam told her. “With oven chips instead of roast potatoes, and frozen peas.”

“Oh no, that will never do.” Mari shook her head, a genuine frown on her face. “But you know what? I think Nerys has done us all a favour.
Because I have the opposite problem to you—a houseful of food and nobody to share it with.
My daughter and her family were supposed to be coming here tonight and stayin’. I already had all the food delivered before the snow came, and I’m never going to manage to eat it all on my own. Hell, I can’t even lift the bloody turkey to put it in the oven with my arthritis. How about you boys come here tomorrow morning sometime, help me with the cooking, and we can have Christmas dinner together? What do you think?” Her face lit up as she made the suggestion, and Ryan could see the young woman she once was, excitement stripping the years away and making her eyes dance.

Sam looked at Ryan and raised his eyebrows.

“We’d love to,” Ryan said. “Wouldn’t we, Sam? If you’re sure.”

Sam nodded, and Ryan smiled back.

“Of course I’m sure.” Mari’s delight was obvious. “I can’t bear to see good food go to waste.”

They made plans for the next day as they finished their tea and cake. Then Mari started talking about her daughter, prompted by a question from Sam.

“No, she doesn’t live far. Just down near Monmouth with her wife and their little boy.”

“Her… wife?” Ryan said hesitantly, wondering whether he’d misheard.

“Yes dear, she’s a lesbian. They got married a couple of months ago—it’s legal now, you know—but they’ve been together for ten years, so it’s about bloody time. There’s a photo of them on the mantelpiece there. Look, little David was a pageboy, see?”

Ryan looked to see a photo of two women. Their purple dresses were similar but in different shades. They had their arms around each other and were beaming at the camera. In front of them stood a boy of about six or seven in a dark blue suit.

“It’s a shame they can’t make it to you for Christmas,” Sam was saying sympathetically. “Will you be able to see them at New Year instead?”

“They’re visiting Belinda’s family then—that’s my daughter-in-law—but I’m sure I’ll see them soon. They usually come up to visit me every few weeks. They’ve been good like that since my Bill died, keepin’ an eye on me, you know.”

When they’d finished their tea and cake, they carried everything back to the kitchen for Mari. Ryan offered to wash the plates, but she shooed him out of the kitchen.

“No need, boy. I can manage them just fine. Having my hands in the hot water’ll warm me up a bit.”

“Okay, well, thank you again, Mrs—Mari, I mean,”
Ryan
said. “And we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Lovely.” She addressed them both. “Come and help me get the bird in the oven around midday if you would?”

They said their goodbyes and went back out into the cold.

 
 

It was dark outside as they walked down the lane, and they had difficulty keeping their footing where there was ice under the snow.

Ryan stumbled, and Sam grabbed his arm to steady him.

“Thanks,” Ryan said.

Sam kept his hand on Ryan’s arm, fingers gripping tight while Ryan regained his balance. He carried on holding Ryan’s arm afterwards. He relaxed his fingers a little, but didn’t let go until they got back to the door of their cottage.

They got the fire lit straightaway and decided to get some dinner on while they were waiting for the room to warm up a little. The gas oven took the chill off the kitchen as they cooked frozen pizza, and they finished the dregs of the wine from the night before and opened a new bottle.

Ryan was on edge, still stunned by the kiss earlier. Sam didn’t seem to be behaving any differently to normal, but Ryan felt as though awkwardness must be visible in every movement he made, every word he spoke. He was achingly, painfully aware of all the ways they were almost but not quite touching as they moved around the tiny kitchen together, preparing dinner and acting as though nothing had changed.

After they’d eaten, the living room was still cold, so they brought a blanket down to sit under. Sitting at opposite ends of the sofa with their knees bent and feet tangled under the blanket gave a false impression of intimacy, but the giant invisible elephant parked between them was driving Ryan a little crazy. All he could think about was the kiss, but he had no idea
what
to think about it. They’d almost reached the bottom of the new bottle of wine, and the silence was bordering on excruciating when Sam finally broke it.

“So…. I guess we need to talk about what happened earlier.”

Ryan breathed a shaky sigh of relief that Sam had bigger balls than he did. He felt tied up in knots inside and still didn’t know what he really wanted. But he definitely didn’t want to carry on like this.

“Yeah,” he said, avoiding Sam’s eyes.

“Talking in words of more than one syllable would be good.”

“Yeah.” Ryan grinned sheepishly and licked his lips. “Um….”

Sam huffed. “For fuck’s sake. Okay, I’ll start with a question. Have you ever kissed a guy before?”

Ryan shook his head, daring to glance at Sam. Something passed over Sam’s face—relief maybe, or satisfaction.

“Have you ever wanted to?”

“Maybe in an abstract kind of a way.” Ryan shrugged. “But not like that… like I did with you.”

“But yesterday is the first time you ever said anything. So where did it come from?”

Ryan took a deep breath. “It’s not totally new.” He felt his cheeks heat and his heart surge as he geared himself up to be honest. He kept his eyes fixed on the flames rather than at Sam as he spoke, watching the flicker and glow as the wood was consumed. “I’ve been thinking about you… like
that
, for a while now.”

“How long’s a while?”

“I’m not sure. I guess it started when you came out. It made me think about stuff.” Ryan was sure his face must be scarlet.

“Are you gay, Ry?” Ryan’s mates rarely used the short form of his name. He was more used to hearing it from family. But it sounded right coming from Sam.

“Yeah. I think so.” Ryan could hear the uncertainty in his voice and he hated it.
Because he
was
sure.
He just wasn’t used to saying it, but he took a deep breath and met Sam’s gaze as he said the words, “Okay, no. I don’t think. I
know
.”

“But what about all those girls you kept bringing home? We were thinking about installing a turnstile for your bedroom door in the second year of uni.”

Ryan shrugged. “I suppose I was trying to prove to myself that I wasn’t… you know… gay. But it didn’t work.”

“So is that why you stopped?”

Ryan had been a monk since the summer. Jon and Anthony, their other housemates, had teased him for his sudden lack of action. But Ryan had used the pressure of studying as an excuse.

“Yeah. But I wasn’t ready to come out or anything, so I watched a lot of gay porn instead.” Ryan shrugged, cheeks heating.

Sam grinned. “Really?”

Ryan nodded.

“And that helped you make up your mind?”

“I guess.”

“But why the hell didn’t you say anything to me before?” Hurt flashed across Sam’s face. “God, Ryan. You should have known you could talk to me without me judging you.”

“I dunno. I s’pose I didn’t want you to think I was latching on to you as the only other gay bloke I knew well,
’specially
because I… you know. Fancied you a bit.” He tried to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal. “You’re a mate, my
best
mate. I didn’t want to complicate things by trying to get off with you. I felt weird about thinking stuff like that about someone who’s supposed to be my friend.” Ryan didn’t mention his feelings for Sam were more than just casual interest. How on earth did you tell your best mate you had a crush on him? There was no handbook for this.

“I didn’t mean about fancying me. I meant why didn’t you tell me you were gay?”

“Oh.” Ryan’s blush was back with a vengeance. “I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t ready to talk about it.”

Ryan knew he was being evasive and not admitting to Sam the true depth of his feelings. Sam knowing that Ryan had thought about kissing him was one thing, but telling Sam he’d been pining over him for the best part of a year was more than Ryan was prepared to admit. He couldn’t bear the thought of Sam letting him down gently, which he surely would if he knew the extent of Ryan’s interest.

“You’re an idiot,” Sam said, but when Ryan met his gaze, a slow smile crept over Sam’s face, reassuring Ryan that things were okay between them. “You should have told me.”

“Fuck off.” Ryan kicked Sam’s feet under the blanket. “I’m not. It was hard.”

“You are, though. So, anyway, what now? We’re here, alone. Got time to kill….” Sam trailed off wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. Then he added, “Shame we didn’t get any mistletoe when we decorated.”

Hope flared in Ryan’s chest and he tried to keep his voice even as he replied. “Do we need mistletoe?”

“I don’t if you don’t.”

There was a heated pause as they stared at each other. Ryan’s heart beat hard, hormones raced through his bloodstream, and excitement surged.

“What are you waiting for, then?”

That was apparently all the invitation Sam needed. He tossed the blanket aside and crawled over to climb into Ryan’s lap. He straddled Ryan’s thighs and looked down at him with a focus and intent both terrifying and exciting, because Ryan knew where this would lead. This time, once they started kissing, there would be nothing and nobody to stop them.

BOOK: Cold Feet
6.51Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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