It was strangely comforting to see Oliver even a little bit out of control. Even if it was in quite a controlling way. And at least I didn’t have to worry about my hands anymore, although that might have been cheating. “It’s…okay. I think I’m into it. I mean”—I gave a shaky laugh—“not if you’re going to pull out your leathers and start telling me to call you Daddy.”

He nipped at my throat in playful rebuke. “Oliver will be fine.”

His fingers curled around mine, unexpectedly tender given he was on top and holding me down, as he leaned in for another kiss. I pushed against him, not because I wanted to get away, but to feel what it was like to be…inescapably held.

Not awful, as it turned out. When it was Oliver.

My movements turned squirmy. And I heard myself moaning softly. And, God help me, needily. Which was scary and embarrassing and weird.

“Please trust me, Lucien.” In that moment, I was sort of relieved and sort of horrified to hear the vulnerability in Oliver’s voice. “It’s okay to have this.”

“Then what are you having?”

“You.” He smiled, eyes glinting silver. “I’m rather enjoying having you at my mercy.”

And that was when I remembered something—how fucking good it could be, just to be with someone. To let them see you. To be enough.

“How about”—I strained up and kissed him. Well, bit him. Kissily—“less mercy, more having?”

He legit growled.

And things got excitingly rough for a while, my self-consciousness fleeing with Oliver’s self-restraint. I made a few token efforts to wriggle free, but he always distracted me, with my name on his lips, or some fresh touch to a place I never knew could be so sensitive, and by the time he stopped holding me down, I was too far gone to notice.

There was only him and me, and the crumpling sheets, and the play of the streetlights through the curtains.

I was pinned by the sheer pleasure of it all—of Oliver’s ragged breath and the stream of his caresses. Of his deep, deep kisses, ceaseless as the sky in summer. The drag and press of our bodies, the rub of hair and the glide of sweat.

And the way he was looking at me, tender and fierce, and almost…awestruck, like I was a different, better person.

Although maybe, just then, I was.

Chapter 39

What was I thinking? Not only had I agreed to meet Jon Fucking Fleming at the busiest point in my working year, but now he was taking me away from my gorgeous nearly boyfriend who would otherwise be sexing me silly. I guess I was just that good a person.

To my surprise, The Half Moon turned out to be one of those craft beer places, all exposed brickwork and trying too hard. My dad was late—not that I’d really expected otherwise—so I got myself a pint of Monkey’s Butthole, which apparently had notes of mango and pineapple, and a toasty bitterness that lingered right to the end, and found a spare table amongst the beards and ironic lumberjack shirts.

For a while I sat there, feeling like the sort of person who went out on his own to drink artisanal ales which, thinking about it, was probably a perfectly respected pastime in the artisanal-ale-drinking community. Oddly enough, this wasn’t very comforting.

Having spent the past half-decade missing deadlines and then telling myself it was fine because my friends knew where they stood with me, I felt at once angry at my dad for pulling the same shit and angry at myself for taking so long to realise what a crappy way that was to treat people, and also for being hypocritical about it.

My phone buzzed. It was nice to know Oliver was thinking of me, but it was less nice that he’d apparently decided to think of me through the medium of an old, bald white man.

What the fuck, I texted. I assume this is a dick?

Yes.

Should I have any clue what kind of dick it is?

It’s a political dick.

I liked this better when it was a flirty game instead of an actual general knowledge quiz

I’m sorry. Somehow Oliver could even make text come across as genuinely contrite. It’s Dick Cheney.

How was I ever supposed to get that?

Contextual clues. I said it was political. How many Dicks are there in politics?

To make the obvious joke. Loads

There was a pause. It’s also an I miss you dick.

That’s a very specific flavour of dick

“You’re here,” said Jon Fleming, who was standing over me. “I wasn’t sure you would be.”

Speaking of, I typed, Dad’s here

Reluctantly I put my phone away, and found—as ever—I had nothing to say to him. “Yes. Yes, I’m here.”

“This has changed.” He sounded genuinely peeved about it. “Can I get you anything from the bar?”

I had most of a Monkey’s Butthole left, but my father had abandoned me when I was three and making him say “Monkey’s Butthole” to a stranger might be the only revenge I’d ever get. I showed him the bottle. “I’ll have another of these, thanks.”

Heading to the counter, he scored the latest in a string of small, annoying victories by simply pointing at the drinks he wanted, and somehow making the gesture look dignified and commanding, instead of utterly petty. And then, sporting a second Butthole and a pint of Ajax Napalm, he made his way back to me. Given this was so clearly not what he’d been expecting, and that he was the oldest person in the building by a good thirty years, he looked infuriatingly non-out of place. I think it was the combination of everyone else trying to dress like they’d been rock stars in the seventies and that fucking awful charisma that made the world shape itself to him, not the other way around.

Fuck, it was going to be a long evening.

“You wouldn’t believe”—he settled himself across from me—“that Mark Knopfler used to perform right over there.”

“Oh, I believe it. I just don’t care. Honestly, I’m not even”—okay, this was a lie, but I wanted to piss him off the teeniest bit—“completely sure who he is.”

I’d definitely misjudged it. Not only did he know I was bullshitting him, but he also wasn’t going to let that stop him giving me a long, self-serving rant about the history of the music scene. “When I first met Mark in ’76, he and his brother were both on the dole and thinking about starting a band, so I took them to see Max Merritt and the Meteors here at the Moon. Back then, it was part of what we called the toilet circuit.”

The problem with my dad—well, one of the many problems with my dad—was that when he talked like this, you really wanted to listen. “The what?”