Page 36 of Pansies

“Can you just do that? Say you’re closed?”

Another of Fen’s tight little shrugs. “My shop. My rules.”

“Ehm, what about your mam?”

“She’s not here. Come on, it’s this way.”

So Alfie followed him into the back room, along a narrow corridor, and up a twisty staircase with a faded runner. He got a vague impression this area was lived in, but he didn’t really have time for sightseeing before Fen yanked open a door and he abruptly found himself standing in a bathroom. Cracked tile floor. Mildew streaking the walls. Alfie, who barely spent any time in his flat and paid someone he’d never met to keep it pristine, winced. He’d half-convinced himself that Fen was just fucking with him—that nobody really lived here—when he caught sight of the clean, slightly damp towel hanging from the rack.And there was a toothbrush and a razor by the sink. Shampoo bottles (and conditioner too, which Alfie had long believed to be a scam for women) balanced on the edge of the scabby bathtub.

“Is this where you’re staying?” he asked.

“Problem?”

“Well, it’s, uh, kind of a dump.”

Fen did his irritated fast-blink. “I’m a florist, not Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“What?”

“Why are you still here? In South Shields?”

“None of your business.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.” Alfie rolled his eyes. “You have to stick my head down the toilet before I’m allowed to talk to you.”

He hadn’t exactly been stalling—or maybe he had—but since no reprieve seemed imminent, he took hold of the hem of his T-shirt and peeled it off his body.

There was an odd sort of squeaking sound. “What are you doing?”

Alfie emerged to discover that Fen was staring at him, shameless and ravenous, and in a different context, it would have been hot as hell. As it was, it just made him grumpy. “Mate, it’s not pay-per-view. I just don’t want to get bog water all over my clothes. This is Calvin Klein.”

Fen turned very, very red and covered his eyes.

Somehow, that was even worse. Alfie hadn’t meant to embarrass him. He reached for his wrists. And Fen let him have them, let him draw his hands down, and hold them there, between their bodies like a bridge. Beneath Alfie’s thumbs, Fen’s pulse thudded as hard as hoofbeats. Oh God, the memories, bodies moving together, heat and skin and salt, and he knew Fen was thinkingthe same thing. He could see it in his eyes. So light and bright, like the first apples of spring.

If he didn’t do something, he was going to do something else, something bad. Like ignore the rest of this nonsense, and push Fen up against one of those grotty walls and take him. Until there was nothing left between them but this. This sweet, senseless wanting that wouldn’t go away.

He dropped Fen’s hands abruptly, and Fen actually bit his lip, another strange, uncertain sound, not quite moan, not quite whimper, echoing through the bathroom.

Somehow Alfie managed not to kiss him. He wanted to taste that noise.

He turned away and dropped to his knees on the bathroom floor. It was painfully hard. Cold, too. He shifted his weight, trying to get something close to comfortable. Apparently that was impossible.

“I’m doing this,” he announced, since Fen, still standing somewhere behind him, was giving no indication of moving. Alfie only knew he was alive because he could hear him breathing.

He adopted what he assumed might be a helpful position. Screwed his eyes tightly closed. It was, all things considered, fairly clean down there. Well, for a toilet. But he didn’t think close scrutiny would benefit anyone right now. Also, there was no denying it. When you got this intimate with a bog, even a fairly clean one, you couldn’t escape the purpose for which this particular piece of furniture had been designed. It smelled.

He turned his head, trying not to gag. “I’m ready. All yours.”

Then. Nothing.

“In your own time, mate.”

Fen’s hand touched him so lightly on his naked shoulder that it made him jump. He tried to settle down again, but that justground his knees deeper against the tiles. And he was trying to find a way to get air into his lungs without inhaling through his nose or opening his mouth but, unsurprisingly, not having much success.

Callused fingers traced the top edge of his tattoo. Awarenessswooshedover his skin, making it prickle and dance. He swallowed something that might have come out of his mouth as a groan. “Can you maybe do that later?”

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