Page 55 of Milo
He looks over at my wet hair. “Is it safe to stand so close?”
“Fuck off,” I say companionably and nudge him with my shoulder. “I slipped. It’s not my fault a fucking fox had decided to shit in the place I chose to land.”
He laughs. “It was rather rancid.”
“No more than that twink you picked up a few months ago. His aftershave smelt like someone had died and they’d bottled the body odour.”
He shakes his head. “And yet you still managed to fuck him.”
“My nasal cavities might have died but my bodily urges still worked.”
He looks at me searchingly. “Unlike now. What a difference a few months make.”
I stare back. “So, we’re going to talk about the elephant in the room, then?”
He takes a sip of his coffee, his face calm and pensive. “Not sure Milo could ever be described as an elephant, although he was a very rowdy toddler, if I remember rightly.”
“He was a noisy bugger,” I say, smiling at the thought of him rampaging through the house when I’d visited, holding my hand and always talking, talking. My smile dies as I remember the fact that this had vanished after his head injury and I’m actually fucking the adult version of that boy.
Gideon shoots me a look as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking, which wouldn’t surprise me at all. At one point we were so close we could echo each other’s thoughts. I frown because at one point I’d thought myself in love with him, and that delusion had allowed us to fuck each other and other people through many hedonistic years. Now, I know it was never love, although I shy immediately away from why I’m so sure.
His voice interrupts my thoughts. “How long?”
“A week.” I look at him but he just nods. Then his mouth pulls tight.
“Is this just fucking?”
“No,” I say hurriedly and forcefully. “No, of course it’s fucking not.”
He sighs. “Part of me is happy about that because he’s my brother but the other half …”
His voice falls away and I look at him. “The other half, what?”
He shakes his head and I know he won’t tell me. Finally, he sighs. “It seems strange and yet somehow inevitable.”
I’m startled. “Inevitable. Why?”
“Because you’ve always been so protective of him when you’re not like that with anyone else.” He hesitates. “You weren’t like that with me.”
“Because we never let our relationship develop like that.” I shrug. “Maybe it would have if we’d fed and watered it, but we didn’t and it died.”
He winces. “And Milo is different?”
“Milo has always been different.”
He shrugs and then suddenly laughs. “You can say that again. Do you remember his habit of stripping his clothes off when he was five? He used to walk everywhere naked, apart from a little plastic builder’s hat.”
“He’s always made odd sartorial choices,” I say, and he laughs again. It’s only a slight turn of my head that lets me see the flash of Milo’s red jumper on the drive before he whirls around and vanishes back into the woods. I look at Gideon and myself and wince. “Fuck!”
“Was that Milo?”
I nod.
He looks almost amused and it makes me want to punch him. “So, he must think that we …?” I nod and he laughs. “Well, we still could.”
I pull away, stung. “I spill my heart out and you joke.”
His arm shoots out and he grabs me. “Your heart.” He sounds almost winded. “Your heart, Niall?”
