Page 80 of Your Pace or Mine
Chi
I don’t know, but you need to fix it.
One of the perils of starting to use your mobile again after days of ignoring everyone was that it was a bit overwhelming. For Darius in particular, the low contact combined with his name being splashed across sordid headlines had earned him a summons out to the family manor.
As if he didn’t have enough to deal with.
He made the long drive alone. A depressing contrast to his last visit there, where Jamie had been a steadying presence beside him.
“You wanted to see me?” Darius stood awkwardly in the doorway to his father’s immaculate study. The walls were lined with books, and a whiskey decanter sat to the side of the large mahogany desk. This was the room that had taught Darius to bury himself, to hide his emotions behind a hardened shell—though arguably, he’d truly perfected the art at school. Darius eyed the small photo of Abebe Bikila on the wall, somehow hoping the picture of the legendary marathoner would give him strength.
The Duke was standing at the large sash window, gazing out onto the grounds. He beckoned Darius over to his side. “Do you remember when you fell into that pond?” he asked. Darius didn’t. But his father continued. “Couldn’t have been more than three years old. We were hosting a garden party, and you’d taken off running after a squirrel or some other creature. Impossiblyfast, even then.” A strange expression had come over his father’s face, and Darius didn’t know what to do with it.
“You slipped on the hill and went headfirst into the pond,” he continued. “I was terrified. I ran down to reach you, but by the time I got there, you’d already clambered out and were proudly pointing out the interesting algae you’d collected on your arms.”
Darius met his father’s gaze.
“I don’t like seeing all these headlines, Darius. Your friend…” his father started.
Something inside Darius snapped. “You can call him my boyfriend, or my ex, I suppose. Refusing to acknowledge it won’t make me less gay.”
His father inhaled sharply. “Is that what you think of me?” he walked over to the whiskey decanter and poured out two small measures. “I was hard on you, growing up. I know that. There’s no excuse for it. But I never once wanted you to be anything other than yourself, Darius.”
Darius accepted the glass. “I can read between the lines.”
“Can you?” His father swirled the amber liquid slowly before taking a long, drawn-out sip.
Darius stared down at the glass, some sort of heirloom no doubt. Everything in this mausoleum of a house was.
There was an impenetrable silence in the room. Even the birds in the garden seemed to have quieted. His father strode quickly across the room to the deep green leather sofa and sank into it, still nursing his whiskey. With a wave of his hand, he summoned Darius to join him. He perched himself awkwardly on the edge of the seat, back straight and alert.
“It can be difficult to carry the weight of a community on your back. I failed at it, and in doing so, I failed you, and I failed myself. I, I didn’t want that for you, Darius. Didn’t want you to have to feel that burden, but I apologise if my reticence cameacross as disapproval. I’d never seek to dictate who you choose to be with, Son.”
The weight of the moment didn’t fail to register with Darius as his father continued. “I lost someone I loved once, you know,” he said. There was an unreadable look on his face, something broken that Darius had never seen or imagined on his emotionless father.
Darius scrunched his nose in confusion. “Mum?”
His father exhaled sharply. “No. Though I don’t think I will ever forgive the way she left you and Selena, I don’t blame your mother for straying from me. Not anymore. I was a hard man to live with then, and she knew she’d never really had my full heart.”
That was a revelation Darius hadn’t expected. His mother’s affair had torn their family apart. It had been splashed across the tabloids for months, causing his father to retreat into himself. Darius had been left to weather the storm publicly as just a young teenager with a little sister to protect.
His father took another deep swig from his glass. “Before. Before your mother. I loved someone so completely, I thought nothing could come between us,” he continued. Now that he had started, it seemed like there was some sort of deep need within him to get the story out. “But your grandfather didn’t approve,” he chuckled darkly. “And made it very clear just what would happen if I continued the relationship.”
“He threatened you?” Darius asked.
His father’s eyes were burning with anger. “He threatened them.”
Darius understood. Regardless of where he stood with Jamie now, he’d do anything to protect him. Even if it meant he could never be with him again.
“That you seem to see me in even a slightly similar light to how I saw my father means I have failed you,” he said, meetingDarius’s gaze. “I don’t expect this is something I can correct overnight. But I will endeavour to do better by you, Darius, and I will never judge your choice of partner or try to come between you. If there is one thing I know, though, it is that love is something worth fighting for, and that man I met— he loved you.”
His father finished his glass, abruptly straightening as though to recover from the uncharacteristic display of emotion. “Your sister couldn’t get excused from school, but she’ll be at the marathon on Sunday. Are you still pacing it?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure that’s still the right choice?” his father asked as he collected their barely touched glasses and set them aside.
Darius nodded. “I am, yes.”
