Page 48 of Pansies

Fen jumped and spun round, and then saw Alfie leaning against his car. He laughed, half-relieved, half-grudging. He was in dark-wash jeans and a pale-pink herringbone shirt, the sleeves pushed back to reveal his forearms with their secret dusting of soft, golden hair. Then there was a pin-striped waistcoat and a matching trilby, dipped rather coyly over one eye. The lenses in his dark-framed glasses were tinted smoky pink.

“What’s with the glasses?” Alfie asked.

“I don’t know.” Fen’s brow tightened, his expression too sad to be a frown. “Sometimes I like my world a little rose-coloured.”

“Ready to go?”

“Give me a moment. I just need to pull down the grille.”

Alfie tried not to stare after Fen’s beautifully denim-framed arse as he walked round to the front of the shop. Or at the curve of his spine and the press of his biceps beneath his shirt as hestretched up to pull down the shutter. He went onto his toes like a ballet dancer, his entire body drawn into a tightly gleaming line, all of it poised, all of it reaching.

“Uh, let me help?” he offered.

But then, with a tug, a rattle, and a crash, it was done, and the grille dropped into place. Someone had spray-paintedFaggot’s Flowersacross the front in bright, bubbly letters, though the apostrophe and the secondgin faggot were in a slightly different colour by a somewhat neater hand.

“What the fuck?”

Fen hooked his thumbs over the pockets of his jeans. “Well, it’s not inaccurate.”

“Mate, get it cleaned.”

“My God”—Fen pressed a hand dramatically to his heart as if to calm its beating—“why didn’tIthink of that?”

“What am I missing?”

“You’re missing, Alfie Bell, the very basic fact that there’s no fucking point. They can spray it on faster than I can scrub it off.”

The words, so horrible and so cheerful, swam before Alfie’s eyes. “Can’t you call the police like?”

“And say what? Someone is violating spelling outside my shop?”

“But, but, look at it. Fucking look at it. That’s…a hate crime.”

“It’s graffiti, Alfie.” Fen sighed. He looked very small right then, tucked in on himself. “Not worth anybody’s worry. Please? Can we just go?”

Alfie wanted to say that no they couldn’t, not until they’d done something, but he had just enough presence of mind to recognise that spending the evening scrubbing homophobic graffiti off a wall probably wasn’t the best way to show a boy a good time.

“Yeah, all right.” He went round, unlocked the passenger door, and held it open.1

Fen stared at him like he’d lost it. “What are you doing?”

“I’m inviting you to get in my car?”

“I’m not Cinderella going to the ball. I can get in a car.”

“God. I’m just being polite.”

“If I was your grandma, maybe.”

“Are you going to be like this all night?” asked Alfie, in what he thought was a very patient voice.

“I am if you’re going to treat me like a prom date.”

“Fine. Get in the fucking car. How’s that?”

“Kind of threatening.”

Alfie made an exasperated noise, but then he saw the twitch at the corner of Fen’s lips. Laughing, he leaned over the top of the door and kissed him, right on that fleeting edge of a smile.

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