Page 58 of Pansies

“Didn’t you like it?”

Fen smiled suddenly, a touch sheepishly. “I liked being at university, I just didn’t like studying. I mean, I did geography. Who gives a crap about geography?”

“You should have gone to drama school or something.”

“I’m glad I didn’t. I don’t actually like being on the stage very much.”

A memory caught him then. The school play one year. He hadn’t been paying much attention. He just remembered Karim being pissed off he had to be a Shark because he was brown. “Wait. When we didWest Side Whatsit. You were…” He flapped a hand excitedly.

“Triple threat, baby.”

“No, no, I think his name was Tony?”

Fen laughed. “You doofus. Yes, I was Tony. Triple threat iswhen you can dance, sing, and act. Although actually I’m not that great at any of them.”

Alfie wondered if Fen was just being modest. Like him and his degree. He couldn’t remember a damn thing about the play, but suddenly he could remember Fen. Alone in the moonlight—or, rather, on a darkened stage—leaning dreamily against the scaffolding that was all they had for scenery at Whitburn Comprehensive, singing about some girl he’d just met. His fluff of pale hair. His hands, stripped of their restlessness, given focus and purpose. Confidence. His body, too, graceful, not nervous. And his voice, its cold, clear swoop through notes Alfie could barely recall.

“It should probably have been,” Fen was saying, “…oh, who was that boy? Karim. He was better than me. But I was white, so, hey, I got the part.”

“You were good. Why’d you stop?”

Fen looked down, his fingers twisting idly with the green wire. “I didn’t…need it in the same way, so I lost interest.”

“Need what?”

“Oh…” He glanced up again and shifted a little uncomfortably. “Oh. Well. I…suppose I learned how to like being me. Your turn, now. What happened after university?”

Fen still looked like he was on an anthill, and Alfie realised the kindest thing he could do right now was answer. “Well, I got onto this National Scholarship Programme, did an MSc in risk and finance at the LSE, and J.D. Jarndyce recruited me after that.” Alfie’s babbling seemed to be soothing for Fen, so he kept babbling. “Promised me the entire world. Pretty much gave it to me, actually. And maybe that’s not golden enough for you, but it was pretty damn golden to me. I made more in my first year than my dad has probably earned in his entire life.” He let out a slowbreath he hadn’t even realised was caught inside him. “I don’t even know how I’m supposed to think about that.”

Fen folded his elbows on the table and leaned forward. It was one of the few times he’d done that. Actually reached out to Alfie. “But what did you have to give up to get it?”

A defensive kind of annoyance prickled down Alfie’s spine as he tried not to think of the car he barely drove and the penthouse he barely visited. And he definitely didn’t think about the family he wouldn’t have, because that was a different problem. “There were choices, and I made the ones I did, that’s all. I work long hours, my job is hard, but so what? Yeah, it’s not the sort of thing you dream about when you’re a kid but, again, so what? When my dad put his back out, he got to retire. When the recession hit, Billy didn’t go under.”

“It’s for your family, then? You’re supporting them?”

One of Fen’s hands was lying carelessly in the space between them, between the dirty plates. It would have been so easy to touch it. To take whatever it was he kept not quite offering. But Alfie was afraid it might be pity, and he didn’t want that. He wanted the other things: lust, and need, and approval. “You can’t tell anybody. Dad thinks the insurance paid out. Billy just thinks he got lucky with an investor.”

Up went Fen’s brows. “Alfie, you can’t do that to people.”

“Can’t do what?”

“Lie to them. Trick them. Even in the name of helping them.”

“Howay, man. They’re both proud as fuck. It’s bad enough cos they probably think I think I’m better than them. And then being a woofter on top of that. I couldn’t be further away if I moved to New Zealand.” Alfie ran a hand through his hair. “I just want them to be okay. Is that too much to ask? Being able to take care of the people I…” He couldn’t say it. You didn’t just talk about love likea nancy or a Sandra Bullock movie. Love was something you did. Something that was justthere. “Being able to take care of people.”

Fen had taken his hand away. Wrapped his arms around himself. He was trembling very slightly, which made Alfie physically ache to hold him. Let that slender body shake in the safety of his arms. “Well, sometimes you just can’t. Things happen and…and you can’t. And all the love and money in the world won’t make a difference.”

Some piece or reflection of the light gleamed for a moment on Fen’s cheek, and he flicked a hand idly across his face. Another gleam, this time on the other side, another flick. Oh God, was hecrying?

“Alfie.” He sounded breathless, close to panic. “I’m…s-so sorry. But I have to go. Right now.”

Alfie opened his mouth to say something hopeless like,It’s all right, orDon’t worry, but it was too late. Fen was reaching for his hat, sliding out of the booth, jerking clumsily to his feet, briefly, awkwardly caught in the tablecloth, causing their knives and forks to rattle on their empty plates.

If Alfie hadn’t managed to grab a fistful of fabric, Fen would probably have dragged the whole thing with him. It was the right thing to do—the least embarrassing thing at any rate—but it did mean Fen was gone. And Alfie was left sitting there. On his own. With the whole restaurant staring.

Nobody had ever done this to him when he was straight.

A middle-aged woman leaned over the space between the tables. “Ye should gan after him, pet.”

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