Page 37 of Worth the Wait
Of course, he knew.
Freddie remembered every word Nathan had spilled that night. Half-cut on cheap cider and guilt, cheeks red from cold and shame as they’d walked the long way home from the house party. Nathan had told him how Katie had offered, how the lads from the football team had egged him on, how he hadn’t even wanted it, not really, but went along with it, anyway.
And after?
Afterward, Nathan had grabbed Freddie’s hand and yanked him out of the party. They’d walked the stretch along the seafront, cider still on their breath, cold wind biting at their cheeks, Nate talking too fast to outrun what he’d done. Said it felt weird. Awkward. That he hadn’t really known what he was doing and hadn’t enjoyed it. That he wasn’t even sure he’d done it right.
Turned out, he’d done it a littletooright.
Freddie had tried to smile through it, nod along, pretend it didn’t matter. Pretend it didn’t gut him from the inside out. But when they stopped, past the pier, the sea slapping gently against the rocks, something in him cracked wide open.
And he kissed him.
Not a joke. Not a dare. A raw, aching need that had come out of nowhere.
Okay, so maybe it hadn’t come out ofnowhere
Freddie had wanted to kiss Nathan for ages. And he’d accepted, somewhere deep down, that he probably never would. Watching Nathan snog girls at parties was supposed to numb the want, dull it to something bearable. But it never did. It sharpened it.
Worse still when last year, after the cup final, when they were both knackered and Freddie crashed at Nathan’s. He’d gone to sleep on the floor as usual, but Nathan had reached down, grabbed his hoodie, and hauled him up into the narrow bed beside him. They’d lain there in the dark, breathing too hard and too close, until Nathan whispered a quiet, “Night, Fred,” while brushing Freddie’s hair off his forehead as if it was nothing. As if it wasn’teverything.
After that, the touches shifted. Softer. Longer. Loaded.
But never a kiss.
Never that.
Until Freddie had to wait downstairs at that party, knowing Nate was upstairs losing his virginity to Katie Brewer. Knowing exactly what was happening. And in that moment, the pain of silence outweighed the risk of rejection.
So he kissed him.
And for three months, they had something. Quiet, hidden, theirs.
Now?
Now the girl who gave Nathan his first time was having his kid. And Freddie had never felt more like a footnote in his own story.
“Didn’t you wear a condom?” Freddie blurted. Feeble. Desperate. Grasping at straws because,fuck, this couldn’t be happening.
“Yeah.” Nathan scrubbed a hand down his face. “But I told you… I dunno if I got it on right. It didn’t, like, fit properly. She said it was fine, that she was on the pill.” He swallowed. “She says she reckons she must’ve missed a few.”
Freddie stared at him, heart hammering so loud he couldn’t think. Silence swallowed the room whole. Thick. Suffocating. He couldn’t even hear his sister’s music thudding through the paper-thin walls.
“Say somethin’.”
Freddie blinked himself back in the room. “What d’you want me to say?”
“I dunno! I just need to hearyou, so I don’t have to listen to the shit going on in my head.” He tapped his temple as if he would shake free the demons.
Freddie ran both hands down his face. Tried to collect the whirlwind in his chest and make it line up into words. “Okay. Fuck.” He looked at him hard, trying to will himinto hearing it. “This doesn’t have to ruinyourlife, yeah? You can still come Ibiza.”
It came out harsher than he meant. Too much bite. Too much desperation. But how the fuck else was he supposed to say it? When everything he wanted was slipping right through his fingers?
Freddie, more than most, knew fathers didn’t have to stick around. Knew all too well how easy it was for a man to… leave. His own dad had walked out when Piper was still in nappies, leaving their mum juggling three jobs and Freddie playing man of the house before he could even tie his own laces properly.
Yeah, it was shit.
Yeah, he hated him for it.
