Page 93 of Pansies

Alfie didn’t know how to say any of that, though. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have. It was the last thing Fen needed to hear from someone else.

So, instead he simply tried to soothe him, pressing the tension from his back in long, shiver-inspiring strokes. It was weird, or perhaps not weird at all, how easy it was to touch like this, its own little language, which included sex but was somehow more than sex.

“Gorra be tough,” he tried, “running a shop through a double-dip recession. I don’t know much about flowers, but I’m good with numbers. Want me to take a look at your books? I could get a head start on your tax return or think about cost cut—”

Fen jerked back sharply. “No. Just… God, Alfie, stop trying tohelpme.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t need it and…and…” There was something a bit frantic in Fen’s eyes and his voice, but then he drew in a deep, unsteady breath. Seemed to calm a little. “Because when I’m with you, I don’t want it to be about any of this.”

It was the most romanticfuck offAlfie had ever received. But it made him sad as well because he wanted to be part of Fen’s life, not separate from it. Involved in the things he cared about. Had given up pretty much everything for. “Can I at least chisel the concrete off your bathroom floor?”

“No.”

“But—”

A finger to his lips silenced him. Lightly traced the upper arch and bottom curve, a bit like a kiss, but not. They stared at each other, deadlocked, caught between Alfie’s domineering tendencies and Fen’s stubbornness. He could have pushed—would probably have got his way, in the end, because he was Alfie Bell and Fen was right that he always did. But it would’ve been wrong. He wanted Fen to come to him out of trust. And to feel stronger for it, not weakened by it.

Alfie shrugged. “I guess I’ll get out your way, then.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you.” Fen’s eyes seemed to beg his understanding.

No, he thought with a muddle of exasperation and tenderness,you’re just too damn proud. But all he said was, “I’m coming back at four, mind. To help you close up.”

“Okay.”

They kissed again, lingeringly this time, until Fen’s mouth was as yielding as ripe fruit and he was pressed breathlesslyagainst Alfie. Afterwards, he glanced up coyly, through the golden haze of his lashes. “I’m letting the social justice side down terribly, but I kind of like when you get all bossy.”

“Oh aye?” Alfie couldn’t help swaggering at that. He knew he could be a bit of a bulldozer—a chauvinist bulldozer, to use Kitty’s exact phrase—but he was pleased and relieved to learn Fen found something sexy in his aggressive brand of over-caring.

Fen nodded. “Mm-hmm. Makes me think about fucking you.”

“Uh.”

“Don’t worry, Alfie.” Fen patted his cheek. “You’re still bossy when you’re being fucked.”

“Uh,” he said again. It was about all he could manage. He was drowning in heat. A blush that started in his cock.

Fen sidled even closer and went up on tiptoes so he could whisper, in a pretty decent approximation of Alfie’s rough northern lilt, “Fuck me, Fen, fuck me harder.”

“Oi.” He was caught between laughing and dying and leaving the country forever. Somehow, laughing won. And it felt a lot better than the other two would have. “You shouldn’t take the piss out of the stuff a lad says when there’s a dick in him.”

“I’m not. It was really hot.” Fen’s hand snaked around and squeezed Alfie’s arse, a little bit playful, a little bit possessive.

And Alfie made a funny little hiccoughing noise, desire and embarrassment. “Look, do you want me to leave? Or are we doing it over the counter instead?”

Fen glanced longingly over his shoulder towards the back room. Then cleared his throat. “You…you’d better go.”

Neither of them moved.

“Alreet,” Alfie sighed. “I’m going.”

It was way more difficult than it should have been, especially when Fen’s hands were inclined to cling and linger, evenas he stood there insisting Alfie get out of his face. Eventually, though, he was sitting in his car—which still smelled of sex and McDonald’s—wondering what to do with himself.

That was when his phone bleeped. An email from J.D. Jarndyce himself. It just said:Meeting, 7:00 a.m., next Monday.

Well, that wasn’t good. Alfie waited for the reality of it to sink in, but apparently it was already sunk, because he felt fine. There were tonnes of guys in the city who kept swearing they were going to get out of it. Just five years, they’d say at first. Then, just until I’m thirty…forty…fifty. It was the money, of course. Not so much for its own sake, because you never got the time to spend it, but there was something reassuring—addictively reassuring—in watching those numbers tick up. And up. How were you supposed to know when enough was enough? Always easier to wait for the next bonus.

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