Page 20 of For Real

“Oi!” Nobody gets to call my mum a nutcase except me. “She’s a genius.” Then he gets the other look I’m familiar with. “And I’m aware they probably seem pretty similar from a distance.”

That’s why I don’t like talking about this stuff. People always get the wrong idea. It’s not the Super Noodles that grind you down, it’s spending your whole life being second. Like, don’t get me wrong, Mum loves me. She loves me more than she loves anyone else in the world. I’ve never doubted that for a moment. But there’s something else: the ever-fading flame of inspiration, or whatever.

That’s where my mother dances.

Not for the ordinary shit like scrambled eggs or school reports or anybody else’s dreams. And I get it. And it’s okay. But she’s never going to understand what it’s like to…not have that. She’ll always support me in whatever I do, whether I’m studying law or working for £5.03 an hour as a kitchen porter at a greasy spoon, but that’s kind of the whole fucking problem.

Laurie breaks the silence with, “That was delicious. Thank you.”

“‘S’okay.” I go kind of squirmy inside with pleasure. I like it so much when people enjoy my cooking, and that makes me embarrassed and self-conscious. Because it’s kind of pathetically needy, when you get right down to it. Like wanting to be first.

There’s butter glistening on his fingers from the last piece of toast. He’s got good hands. Because, frankly, he’s got good everything. They’re strong and blunt and very, very steady. Except, sometimes, when they’re really not. And that’s a wild thrill all by itself.

I know so little about this man, but I know he unravels hands first.6

I swoop in and clean him up, my tongue getting right down in the tender little V between his fingers, where he tastes so very much like him.

It makes him groan.

And my cock perks up like a Labrador at walkies.

“Toby.” There’s warning in his voice.

I look up at him, the tip of his finger caught between my teeth and cushioned by my lips, and I make my eyes as big as they can go.

“Please stop that.” There’s something else in his voice this time.

And, uh, I’m so confused. Please stop that should in no way press the Go button in your brain. And, honestly, it doesn’t in a real way. I know what the rules are and how to take no for an answer.

But the way he says it.

Right now, it’s ambiguous in the wrong way. But I can so easily imagine it being ambiguous in the right way.

I want him to say that to me and mean it and not mean it, knowing I might not stop. I want him to say it in pleasure, and I want him to say it in pain. And I want the power to deny him. Just because I can. Just because his suffering makes me hot.

I let go of his finger with one last kiss.

And then we stare at each other because it’s suddenly awkward as fuck. I’m supposed to be leaving but I’m not, and he’s not asking me to.

“Won’t your mother,” he says finally, “be wondering where you are?”

She probably hasn’t noticed yet. Wait. That sounds bad. She would notice. She definitely would. It’s just her maternal panic sensor is kept on the lowest setting.

I shake my head. “But I should be going, right?”

“Yes, you should.”

“Yeah.” I chase a crumb round and round the empty plate with my finger. “Or we could—”

“No.”

Shit, I’ve gone too far. I always do that. There was reluctance before, but now certainty’s come down like a wall. I keep trying though. Probably because I’m an idiot. But what have I got to lose? “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“I don’t have to.”

Whoa. Talk about quelling. I sigh. “Well, it doesn’t have to be wall-to-wall kinky shenanigans. We could…fuck or talk or go for a walk. Anything.”

Shit, could I sound any more desperate? But I kind of am. Also: go for a walk? What the fuck. Who does that?

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