Page 33 of Pansies

“Well, obviously with my mouth?”

“No, I meant…the kissing thing. Oh God, why can’t I say anything right? And don’t you dare start smiling again.”

Alfie did his best to seem grave. “Look,” he said, as gently as he could, “I know you keep saying you don’t like me and don’t want me, but that wasn’t… When we… I mean, that’s not how you act. At least, not all the time.”

“I don’t normally throw things at people I like.”

“Do you fuck them?” The words came out more aggressively than Alfie had intended. With his head on straight, he knew Fen had every reason to be mistrustful, and that he had no right to be annoyed at him over it, but the plant water incident was rankling.

Something darkened Fen’s eyes for a moment, and Alfie thought it was maybe shame. He’d seen it often enough in the mirror to recognise it. And he knew just how it felt: a hot squiggle of pain and defiance, buried deep. Was that what he’d done to Fen? What he’d given him? It was like a punch. Like freezing water to the face again. And Alfie couldn’t remember the last time he’d hated himself more.5

“God, I’m sorry, I just—”

But Fen, who’d gone all sharp and scowly again, cut him off. “So I fucked you. So what?” He shrugged, the movement too abrupt to be convincing as a casual gesture. “I’ve wanted to fuck you since I knew what it meant. I used you for sex. That’s all it was.”

Alfie stared. “Wait. What. You what? Since when?”

“Oh God.” Fen’s hands went up and tangled in his hair. “Oh fuck.”

“Wow. I had no idea.”

“Why would you? Normally when people are torturing you, you don’t want to sleep with them.”

The bitterness in Fen’s voice made Alfie flinch for him. Though it took everything he had not to protest the language. Torture, really? It hadn’t beenthatbad. Except to Fen, it clearly had. He wanted to say something comforting, but he didn’t know where to start. Honestly, it was probably best he hadn’t known about the whole…the whole fancying him thing. How much worse would it have been for Fen if he had? Or would it have changed everything? Opened the door in Alfie’s mind he hadn’t even known was there. His imagination strained, struggled, and then gave up. He just couldn’t see his past with Fen in it. Not like that, anyway. He could get partway into an oddly appealing fantasy of holding hands on the pier and buying Fen candyfloss at the fair, or whatever you did when you were fifteen and a boy with a boyfriend, but it was a picture postcard. Not a life.

Fen had turned away. He was wearing a dark-blue dress shirt with short sleeves and a mandarin collar that made Alfie’s London-developed hipster-sense screamvintage. His shoulder blades pressed against the fabric like trapped wings. Before he could think better of it, Alfie rounded the counter and drew Fen into his arms, just like he’d wanted to do when he’d seen him standing in the Rattler. Fen didn’t even struggle. Just pressed against Alfie like it was all he wanted to do, his body finding places to fit so very naturally that it did weird things to Alfie’s heart. He leaned over Fen’s shoulder and brought his mouth to Fen’s ear, a fall of yellow-white-pink hair tickling his lips.

“Come on, Fen, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” Fen’s body might have been compliant, but his voice was ice. “It’s fucked-up and humiliating, and it sometimes feels like I’ve spent my whole life being humiliated by you or in front of you.”

“Nowt embarrassing about the night we spent together.”

“Are we thinking of the same occasion? I should have thrown my drink in your face. But instead I…I demanded you kiss me. Begged you to fuck me. How isn’t that embarrassing?”

“Because you were amazing and honest and sexy as hell. I wanted to know everything about you. Still do.”

Fen shivered, which Alfie felt everywhere. “You already know everything about me. I’m the weird kid you bullied at school.”

“No. You’re a hot, interesting guy I once treated really badly.”

“And you think that’s a good basis to…what? I don’t even know what you’re doing here.”

Alfie drew Fen in a little tighter. He was so warm and strong, some wild thing temporarily stilled in Alfie’s embrace. “I told you, I just wanted to say sorry properly. Show you that I got it.”

“Okay.” Fen’s head was still turned slightly away, the silken arch of his neck exposed and vulnerable. “You’ve done that.”

“And then I was thinking maybe we could go somewhere. Talk and get to know each other a bit? Put the past behind us.”

“Oh no, no, no. It’s way too fucked-up for that.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” Alfie nuzzled him. The secret curve of his ear. The flyaway strands of his hair. They smelled like flowers and a little bit of conditioner and a little bit of nicotine. “Let’s just try.”

Fen sighed. “That’s not how it works. You can’t make me feel better about all the shit you did to me. It’s not some kind of scale you can balance up with a few good deeds now.”

“No, I get that. But I’d really like to make this right. Just a little bit. I think it’d be good for both of us.”

“I don’t know.” Fen shifted restlessly in his arms. “I’ve lived quite a lot of my life being overly aware of you. Whereas you’ve only just remembered I exist.”

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