Page 117 of Pansies

“Mate, you’ve seen me blubbing like a…like…a…”

“You’re not going to say ‘like a girl’ are you?”

“Fuck’s sake, go back to London, Kitty. I’ve already dated you.”

Fen slanted an arch look at him. “What’s that? Women don’t like misogynistic language. Say it ain’t so.”

“Oh shut up. It’s just an expression.”

“Likethat’s so gay?”

Alfie sighed. “Look, you’ve seen me cry and had your cock up my arse. Not sure how much more personal it can get. Ask whatever you like.”

“I just wanted to know… I guess I just wanted to know how you didn’t…notice you were gay.”

“It’s daft.” He shrugged a bit self-consciously. Greg had asked him too and hadn’t understood the answer—though that might have been Alfie’s fault. It wasn’t the sort of thing he was good at explaining. But maybe it would be easier with Fen. “It was just never a possibility. I mean, we all knew what gay was, right? It was, well, it was you.”

“Right.”

“Sorry.”

Fen rolled his eyes. “I’m not even particularly camp.”

“I know but you’re not…you’re norra lad, are you? And I did everything right. I like cars. And football—or, at least, I did when I got a chance to watch it. And I don’t really care about my hair.”

“That’s a complete lie.” Fen’s hip nudged Alfie’s in play rebuke. “I saw you styling it the other day. Making it all cool and spiky.”

Alfie glanced away, feeling himself flush.

“Oh come on. There’s no such thing as gay hair.”

“Oh yeah?” He reached out and curled Fen’s pink strands around his fingertips.

Fen laughed, a little sharply. “What, you think the fact I was sufficiently bored and depressed one day to dye bits of my hair makes me gayer? It’s just hair, Alfie. My hair.”

“I know.”

“You should try working in theatre. Some of the campest men I know are straight.”

Alfie pulled Fen fully into his arms, pressed his face into the curve of his neck. “I know it’s all bollocks really. But that’s how I grew up. I genuinely believed that being gay was this feature of gay people. Not something that could happen to me. I mean, be part of me.”

“I get it. I grew up here too, you know.” Fen dropped his gloves and the wire wool, and wrapped Alfie up tightly. “You must have been so lonely. All these years.”

He made an embarrassed noise. “It wasn’t so bad. Kept myself busy. It was kind of easy, really. You can always make it about something else, if you try hard enough.”

“I’m so glad you worked it out.”

He looked up. Grinned. “Me too.”

“It can be one of the most difficult things in the world, I think. To accept yourself.” Fen’s eyes were intent on his. So green they were almost black in the fading evening light. “I…I’m so proud of you, Alfie.”6

It was like a fishing hook, embedded deep, suddenly torn loose. At first, all he felt was pain. Then something else, something so bright and pure it almost hurt more. Made his eyes sting with water.

“Fen,” was about all he managed to say.

And then Alfie was kissing him, hard and deep, and as rough as the edges of his unshackled heart.

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