The Devil's Trill Sonata (11 page)

“Stonewall,” the dreadlocked girl offered, overhearing the mutter. “Do you support them?”

Darren shrugged. In all honesty, he’d only heard of them because some speaker had come to school when he was fourteen to talk about homophobic bullying. He’d been bored stupid and ignored most of the talk, as had pretty much everyone else in the assembly.

“They don’t support trans and questioning people,” she said. What in the hell was a questioning person?

“They
do
!” another girl interjected hotly. “You have to look at the
actions
of an organisation first and foremost; actual
policy
, the
written
policy, is always the last to change!”

Darren shrugged again. Frankly, he didn’t know and he didn’t care. He wanted to ask if anyone had seen the Spurs match last weekend, but suspected he’d get asked who Spurs were.

“You think that’s acceptable?” Dreadlocks demanded.

Okay. Fine. If she was going to push this, he’d push back. Fuck it. “You campaign for it?” he asked bluntly.

“Yes.”

“So why trans? Why not asexual people? Or intersex people, or queers, or pansexuals, or whatever other labels there are.” He didn’t even know what most of the alphabet labels even
meant
anymore, but fuck that too. “Why bitch about trans and not the rest of them?” he asked flatly and then tuned out as she started ranting. He didn’t
care
, but Jayden had sharp elbows, and Darren was under no illusions that he’d get another jab in the ribs if he engaged properly.

He left them to their arguing and watched. It was hard to tell if Jayden didn’t join in much because Darren was here or if it was a mild version of school all over again. Jayden had taken nearly a year to start talking to the other boys independently of Darren; he tried to fit in, but was always wary and looking over his shoulder for the inevitable bully. Here seemed similar, but then, Darren wasn’t always here. Maybe Jayden liked drinking wine now; maybe he liked discussing this ivory tower, theoretical crap. Maybe he had big opinions about Stonewall and transsexual people and whether or not biphobia was a genuine phenomenon within queer subculture. He
might
.

So why did Darren feel so
uneasy
about it?

Darren wasn’t stupid. He might not be at Cambridge, but he wasn’t stupid, and he watched the slow sag and relax of Jayden’s shoulders with every mile the train tore them away from Cambridge. The bustle of their connection in London was loud and distracting, and he pulled faces at kids in buggies to make Jayden laugh while they waited for their next train out, and it was like watching Jayden come back, watching the new, outer layer peel away.

Jayden had always had an outer layer, but never such a deliberate one, and Darren didn’t know what to make of it. He’d always been shy and easily embarrassed, and sometimes he still flushed and got himself in a snit if Darren talked dirty to him, but this…this was more of a
front
, like a
shield
¸ and Darren didn’t like it. He hadn’t liked the distance between them last night in the bar; he hadn’t liked the stilted way Jayden talked and drank and acted in front of his ‘friends’; and he
especially
hadn’t liked the way that every veiled insult was left sliding across the table, and every single thing he said to defend himself got him an elbow in the ribs.

But he liked
this
, when Jayden jolted awake from his doze just before their station, slipped his gloved fingers into Darren’s after the ticket barrier, and squeezed his hand as they reached the exit.

“Hello,” Darren said, bemused by the sudden attention, and Jayden flagged down a taxi.

“Just making sure you come home with me,” Jayden said, and the calm insistence in his voice outweighed the flare of irritation that the taxi caused. Since when did Jayden get taxis everywhere? Or
any
where?

“Where else I am going to go?” Darren asked, peeling off his gloves and flexing his fingers once they were in the warmth of the heated taxi. Jayden caught his hands again and began rubbing them.

“I don’t know. You get these stupid ideas of
imposing
on Mum and Dad sometimes,” Jayden sniped, and Darren relaxed back into the cheap leather seats.

“I should go and see my own ‘rents tomorrow,” he tried, and Jayden snorted.

“I don’t know why you don’t just forget about them,” he said and turned those beseeching eyes on Darren plaintively. “Mum made up the room for both of us, and you can’t let all her hard work go to waste, and Dad has to have
someone
to watch the Boxing Day match with, and…”

“I’m impressed you know there’s a game on,” Darren interrupted.

Jayden shrugged. “His tradition.”

“Ah.”

“C’mon.” Jayden squeezed his hand again tightly. “You’ve never spent actual, proper Christmas Day with me, just Eve, so you have to this time.”

Darren laughed and rolled his eyes. This was Jayden: bullying him into doing things that Jayden wanted him to do, not letting blonde twigs and gay economists shape who he was supposed to be.
This
was Jayden.

“Four-twenty,” the cabbie said suddenly, easing to a stop in the dark, narrow confines of Attlee Road, still wholly familiar, and Darren batted Jayden’s hand down and rummaged in his pocket.

“I
got
it,” he said and pressed a rumpled fiver through the glass hatch. “Keep the change, mate, cheers.”

“Merry Christmas,” the cabbie grunted, even though he probably didn’t celebrate it, and Jayden huffed as he hauled their bags out of the car.

“I was going to pay for that,” he said pointedly.

“Oops.”

“Oh, shut up,” Jayden muttered, then curled his fingers into Darren’s coat and kissed him. He tasted of the Coke Darren had bought him on the train; his hair, when Darren touched his fingers to it, was icy-cold and escaping from its spray.

Light spilled out into the street. “Darlings!”

“G’wan.” Darren laughed and shoved Jayden unceremoniously in the direction of Mrs. Phillips. He’d never be greeted at the door like that if he went home. Jayden didn’t know how
lucky
he was; he never had.

“Both of you!” Mrs. Phillips demanded imperiously and pulled them into the house by their collars. Darren let her. She was several inches shorter than both of them now, but she hauled them with determination and obliviousness to the height difference, and then they were in the hot light pooling in the narrow hall, and…

Oh.

“
Jesus
, Mum!”

Mrs. Phillips was wearing a blue blouse that did very little to hide the small but obvious baby bump. Darren had experience with mothers-with-bumps and nodded at it before toeing off his shoes, hanging up his coat, and helping Jayden—who was jaw-dropped, eyes-bugged, flat-out
gawping—
out of his.

“You’re going to have a baby?!” he demanded. “I mean…you’re…Mum, you’re pregnant?!”

“Yes, darling, very well done,” she teased and hugged her son tightly with an enthusiasm that brought a lump violently to Darren’s throat, and he busied himself with hanging up Jayden’s coat
just so
. “You too, Darren, darling.”

Her hug was firm, despite the bump that pushed at Darren’s hip, and she smelled of roses and stale perfume. Her hair teased at Darren’s skin, and he must have pulled a face or hugged back too tightly, because suddenly Jayden’s hand was on the small of his back, and when he pulled away from Mrs. Phillips, they wore identical worried expressions.

“Are you all right, dear?” she murmured, stroking his cheek with her housework-rough palm, and Darren swallowed. Stupid. Stupid to get choked up over
this
. He was out of practice. It wasn’t like this was any different to how Mrs. Phillips
always
greeted them.

“Fine,” he said hoarsely, and Jayden stepped a little closer. “Long trip, that’s all.”

Neither of them bought it for a minute, but Mrs. Phillips stretched up to kiss his cheek and then flitted away, calling to her husband (“Colin, get yourself
in
here, you lazy excuse for a man!”) and left him to Jayden. Who slid both arms around his waist, kissed his cheek in the same spot, and asked, “Are you feeling all right?”

Feeling all right. The question to end all questions. But he
did
, when he thought about it. He just felt a little jarred, being back here and having Jayden sliding back to normal. He’d forgotten how difficult visiting Attlee Road had always been, because it was everything he’d wanted his own family to be like. He’d forgotten this part.

“Yeah,” he said and squeezed Jayden’s arm across his waist. “I’m okay.”

Jayden bit his lip.

“Promise,” Darren added and kissed him lightly on the mouth. His lips were cold from outside, and warm at the very seams, like they’d been outlined in a hot fine liner pen. Or something. “It’ll be a girl. Bet you a tenner it’s a girl?”

“What?”

“The new baby. It’ll be a girl.”

“Oh, and you just know these things, I suppose?” Jayden murmured, nosing at his cheek promisingly.

“‘Course I do.”

“How?”

“Well, she got close enough to a girl
last
time…”

He got a punch in the arm for that one, his shoulder throbbing unhappily, but Jayden laughed anyway. It lifted the worry that was oddly foreboding, and Darren dragged them into the kitchen. As he hoped, Jayden was distracted by the sight of Mrs. Phillips’ baby bump from the side, and exploded all over again, probably not helped by the girly comment.

“I can’t believe you’re having a
baby
!” he cried, dropping Darren’s hand and throwing his own up. “I mean, you’re…”

“Old?” Mrs. Phillips asked dangerously. Mr. Phillips, sitting at the table and taking his boots off, guffawed. He was losing his hair, Darren noted absently.

“You can’t be having a baby!” Jayden exclaimed. “I’m nineteen! That’s a nineteen-year age gap! And, I mean…oh my God
, how
?!”

“I got laid,” Mr. Phillips said suddenly, and Jayden’s mum shrieked and hit him with a tablespoon.

“COLIN!”

“What?!”

Darren snickered; Jayden went magenta, clapped his hands over his ears, and started singing very loudly to himself.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, you’re both impossible!” Mrs. Phillips threw up her hands, just like her son, and turned to Darren. “You. You’ll have some sense. You’re a middle child, aren’t you, darling? Isn’t it
lovely
to have a little sibling?”

Darren opened his mouth; Mrs. Phillips tapped her fingers on the top of the biscuit tin, and he reconsidered.

“Isn’t it?” she prompted.

“Yes,” he lied, and Jayden glared at him. “Yes, it is. Wonderful. And miracle of life, and all that jazz.”

She beamed and pushed the biscuit tin towards him; Jayden groaned, muttered something that sounded like
“Sell-out!”
and said in a louder voice, “I am not babysitting.”

“You live in Cambridge, kid, I’m not paying the fare to make you babysit.” Mr. Phillips grunted and stood up. “I’m going to get changed. Welcome home, you wastrels,” he added, ruffling Jayden’s hair in passing, and then he was gone.

“Now.” Mrs. Phillips snapped her fingers. “Table, the pair of you. We ate earlier but I kept some casserole for you both, and Darren, would you like turkey or roast beef on Christmas Day? Colin won’t go without his beef so there’s always the option, even if turkey’s traditional. But no wine this year—if I can’t have any, neither can the rest of you.”

Darren blinked; Jayden pulled him down into a chair by the wrist. “Er,” he said, and Jayden huffed.

“He’s trying to make excuses and escape, Mum.”

“Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Phillips said immediately. “I need all my boys home for Christmas—you and Jayden and Colin—and Jayden, your Uncle Andy is coming to us this year, so it’s a full house, and don’t you dare say a word about his hair loss.”

The lump was back, and Darren had to take a deep breath through his nose.

“Jayden,” Mrs. Phillips said suddenly, “run upstairs and ask your father if he’s still wanting some dessert. We’ll have our dessert while the two of you eat and you can catch us up on everything. Go on, dear.”

Jayden wasn’t any dumber than Darren, even if he was blond, and he squeezed Darren’s good shoulder before slipping out of the kitchen, and then Mrs. Phillips sat in his chair and rested one of those dainty little hands on Darren’s elbow.

“How are you, darling?” she asked lowly. “Really?”

Darren licked his lips. There was a tennis ball in his throat, but thankfully his stupid face hadn’t gone further and decided to shake—or worse,
cry
. “I’m…” he said, fished for an answer she would buy and he could give, and settled for: “Okay.”

She squeezed his elbow. “But that’s all, isn’t it?”

He nodded wordlessly.

“Oh, darling,” Mrs. Phillips said and folded him into a hug. Darren let her, dropping his head onto her shoulder and pressing an ear to a tiny pulse just shy of her collarbone. She combed her fingers through his hair, the gentle bounce of his curls soothing, just the way Jayden did it half-asleep. “I know Jayden’s asked, and I am
telling
you: spend Christmas Day with us. After all this time, I think I’ve earned the right to say you’re one of my boys too.”

Darren squeezed back, and she exhaled over his neck and shoulder wearily.

“I know you find us a little overwhelming sometimes,” she murmured. “But I’ve patched together a little family here, and the moment you caught my Jayden, you were part of my family. And you always will be, sweetheart. Just remember that when you have one of your bad days.”

Darren took a deep breath and bared a shred of soul to her. “Already know that,” he mumbled. “Got me through a few days before.”

She kissed the back of his neck. “Good,” she said softly and then let him go. He worked his jaw furiously, trying not to cry—sometimes he hated Mrs. Phillips for her ability to just cut right through him like that—and then Jayden’s footsteps were on the stairs and he closed his eyes to gather himself. Wordlessly, his boyfriend’s mother got up and started getting plates out of one of the cupboards.