Page 16 of Note to Self
We kiss for what feels like hours, and when we break apart, his eyes are dilated and his lips puffy. He looks blissed out. I cock my eyebrow when he giggles. “You look totally kissed out. I like it.”
“I was thinking the same about you, but you need to answer my question.”
He taps his finger on his bottom lip. “Hmm, I think I’d need more data. I mean, he is really hot.”
I hover over him, looking up and down his body. He lies still, eyes fixed on me, and licks his lips. “God, you’re beautiful,” I whisper. The blush rises from his neck to his cheeks. “Do you blush all over?” I brush my nose against his, and his breath hitches.
“I guess that’s something you’ll have to wait to find out,” Trent says softly, sliding his hands around my nape and threading his fingers through my hair. He pulls me back for another kiss. A slower one this time, languid and lazy, but just as sexy.
I lower down onto him, my arms on either side of his head, keeping the weight off his body. The double layers of fabric between us don’t hide his erection, and when I rock my hips, he moans into my mouth. He’s so responsive to everything. How long has it been since he’s been with someone? I’m not someone who jumps quickly into bed for a random fuck. I’m not a saint. I’ve hooked up with guys, but with Trent, it feels different. He’s worth going slow and waiting for him to be ready. I want to get to know him so much more. He’s going through a change in his life. He needs his head in the right place and to have at least some ideas about his future before sex gets added to the equation.
“Okay. You’re the best kisser,” Trent murmurs.
As I roll to my side, his phone chimes. Trent groans and reaches for it on the other side of the blanket.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He snarls at the screen, then opens it. His expression doesn’t change, nor does he reply. All he does is shove his phone into his pocket. “Sorry about that.”
“You okay?”
“Yep.” He pops thePin obvious annoyance, then picks up his empty wine glass and pours himself another glass. “Sorry, it was from home, and that is never a good thing.”
I take the bottle and top up my glass. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Now that’s a question and a half. Do I want to talk about it? The thought of bringing my ugly parents into what I think is a fledgling relationship is the last thing I want to do. I’m not ready to block them, but it won’t take much more from them to do it. The passive aggression from my parents has moved on to simple aggression. No more tiptoeing around my disappearance from their lives. Now it’s full-on ranting and insistence to talk to them. Apparently, I’m behaving like a child, and I need to stop the silly nonsense of my sexuality. I just haven’t met the right girl yet. I’m thirty-five and hardly looking for girls.
Texts aren’t enough for my mum now. She’s adding voicemails to her daily assault. Both she and my dad will never accept me for who I am, and they will never apologise. I’ve been trying to remember how they had treated Josh when he came out. He was still a part of our family and in our lives back then. They even went to his and Merrick’s wedding, but what would they have done when Willow got older? She’s the image of Merrick.
“No, not really. I’m having a great time and really don’t want to ruin it,” I say.
“That’s okay, but I’m here and happy to listen if you need to.” Merlin kisses me sweetly again.
I nod, then grab the box of salad and a fork. I shovel a mouthful into my mouth and chew. “What’s the first thing you have to do on the land?” I mumble. Merlin laughs and snags a forkful from the tub.
Our conversation is light now, allowing me to push away the crappy attitude from my parents.
“Tell me more about your brother,” Merlin asks.
“Josh? Um, you know the story, don’t you? Merrick is one of your best friends.” I’m not sure what I can say about him. What does he want to know?
“I’ve heard about his illness and what happened to Merrick. I don’t want you to relive the pain of that. I’d like to know about you and him. You smile every time you mention him, so you’ve got to have happy memories too.”
Warmth spread through me, not because of thinking of Josh, but because of the fact that Merlin’s aware of me and how I feel. No one has ever done that. It’s always about how sorry they are, and they don’t want to upset me by talking about him. “Josh was the golden boy, super clever, driven, focused, but never a dick about it. He was just good at everything. We were more than brothers. We were friends. He had the usual dickish behaviour towards me when he was fourteen, but he grew out of it. As I grew older, the more we got on. I remember him telling Mum and Dad he was gay.” I chuckle. “It wasn’t pretty, but they wanted to be able to boast about him to their friends, and as long as he didn’t bring any boyfriends home or look gay, they could pretend everything was ‘normal’.” I make quote signs with my fingers.
“What about you? They must’ve been okay with you too,” Merlin asks.
I laugh, but it’s dry and humourless. “No, that’s why I’m here. I’ll get to that. I knew I was bisexual when I was about fifteen. Josh would’ve been eighteen and about to startuniversity. He told me not to say anything until I’d found my person. We would hang out a lot more. I think it was his way of protecting me from our parents. When I was eighteen, we would go out to bars and clubs, and one night, he met Merrick. I remember when he brought Merrick home the first time. It was priceless. My mother looked like she’d swallowed a wasp. But Josh wasn’t fazed. He had found the love of his life and didn’t care if they accepted him.”
“You must miss him terribly.”
“I do, although I was angry with him for a long time, even before he died. He stubbornly refused any treatment. To me, that felt like he was giving up. Willow was only a few weeks old, and he wouldn’t listen to any of us. As he got weaker, he would lie with Willow and sleep. I hated every moment, but I was there every day, sometimes to look after Willow so Merrick could have some time with Josh. It was afterwards at the funeral that it all turned to shit for me. My parents wanted Willow, wanted her to grow up in a traditional family, a.k.a. not with a gay single father. Merrick and Josh had an idea that this would happen, so they had Willow’s DNA tested. She was Merrick’s biological daughter. As soon as my parents heard that, they walked away as if she were nothing to them. I was appalled, furious with them. They said that I would be the one to give them a real grandchild.”
“Jesus, Trent. That’s horrendous.” Merlin looks as horrified as he sounds. “How did you cope?”
“I gave them the brush-off for a long time, but eventually, I started to see them on Sundays for lunch and a weekly berating for not having a girlfriend, let alone a wife. Until earlier this year, when I finally snapped when they tried to set me up with another daughter of someone they knew. I told them if she has a brother, I’d be interested.”
This raises a smile on Merlin’s sad face. “They don’t deserve you.” He chews on the corner of his lip. “Neither did the man who made you feel crap about yourself.”
I nod slowly, not wanting to go back down that dark alley. “I know that, but like I said, I’ve made some bad choices and have been left with trust issues. Mostly, I don’t trust myself. But…”
