Page 54 of The Missing Page
In the end, it was James who drove home, and they were hardly out of Cornwall before Leo fell asleep in the passenger seat. Leo slept so deeply he didn’t even stir when James drove over a particularly potholed stretch of road, only waking when James pulled the car to a stop in front of his house in Wychcomb St. Mary.
“Come on,” James said softly, nudging Leo in the shoulder. “Get up and you can finish your nap in a proper bed.”
Leo muttered something incoherent but got out and went around to the back of the car to help James unload their baggage.
James fiddled with his latch key and pushed open the door to the house. The smell of the place—the lemon soap the cleaner used on the furniture, mingled with a bit of disinfectant wafting over from the surgery—was something he never quite noticed when he was home, but after a few days away, it was both obvious and soothing.
He hung his coat and hat on the hooks where he always hung them. It was hard to believe he had only been away for a little over two days, and peculiar to realize that two days was all it took for his own home to feel slightly off kilter but also a blessed relief. He ran his finger along the table where he habitually tossed his keys. It was probably just exhaustion and stress catching up with him, but that stupid table felt impossibly dear, almost miraculous in its familiarity.
“I don’t ever want to leave again,” he said.
“Neither do I,” said Leo, dropping James’s suitcase to the hall floor.
If it hadn’t been for the dead seriousness of Leo’s tone, James might have thought it a mere glib line. Instead, he turned to face the man. “What does that mean?”
It wasn’t often that Leo looked flustered. Hell, it wasn’t often that Leo looked anything other than completely competent and in control. But now he scuffed the toe of his shoe against the floor like a bashful schoolboy. “This last job was—” He broke off, shaking his head.
“Worse than usual?” James suggested. He had guessed as much, given the state Leo was in when he returned from his trip—weary and somehow brittle. What he hadn’t expected was for Leo to want to talk about it.
“No,” Leo said. “That’s exactly it. It wasn’t any different than any other job. It’s me that’s different.”
Since Christmas, Leo had been saying that he wanted to quit, and James had very carefully avoided saying anything that Leo might take as pressure. It was Leo’s decision, and not James’s business. And yet, maybe it was James’s business to support Leo in doing what he had already made up his mind to do. James had said he wanted a life with Leo. Maybe he needed to act like it.
“Are they putting pressure on you to keep working?” James asked.
“No, thank God,” Leo said.
“Quit, then. You can quit tomorrow. You don’t need the money.”
“Like hell I don’t.”
“Let’s get something to eat,” James said, and put a hand on the small of Leo’s back to lead him to the kitchen. He ran the sink for a moment to clear any stale water from the pipes, then filled the kettle. While the kettle was heating on the hob, he turned to face Leo. “You have a home. You have food. You don’t have to risk your life and safety unless that’s what you want to do.”
“I’ve been doing this in one way or another for my entire adult life, not to mention the bit before that. I don’t know what else I’d do. I’m certainly not qualified for anything else. I don’t have any way of earning my keep.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m twenty-nine.”
The last time James asked, Leo had been twenty-eight, and he didn’t know if that meant Leo had had a birthday since then or if he didn’t know his own damned age, and either explanation made James want to cry. Or possibly bake Leo a cake. Or both. “That means you have plenty of time to figure out what you want to do with the next few decades,” James said. “If that’s what you choose.”
“Christ, stop being so decent, James.”
“If you quit, I don’t want it to be because of me.”
“But it will be! Don’t you see? You’ve made me totally unfit for that life. I can’t go around putting bullets in people when you look at me like—fuck, like I’m something special. And I can’t very well let other people put bullets in me when all the while I know how you’d feel about that. I’m just developing a strong anti-bullet stance all around, it seems.”
The kettle began to hiss and James took out two cups and a pair of tea bags, then poured the water, conscious that his hands were far from steady. “I’m not sure whether to apologize,” he said, his back to Leo. “No, scratch that. You are something special and I’m not going to apologize for letting you know that I think so. And as for you being hurt—well, I imagine you’d feel the same about me being hurt.”
“You know I would,” Leo said, coming up behind him. “The trouble is that I love you,” he said. “And it’s ruined me for gainful employment.”
James turned around. “Bugger gainful employment.” And he kissed Leo, trying not to be too frantic about it, one hand on Leo’s jaw and the other hard on his hip. “I love you too.”
“I can’t just follow you about like a lost lamb,” Leo said. “I have to do something.”
James was tempted to say that of course Leo could follow him like a lost lamb; he could lie about and do nothing but take up space and James wouldn’t even begin to mind. But that wasn’t what Leo needed to hear. “And so you will. You don’t need to know what that is quite yet.”
“I can’t just stay with you.”
Now, this James couldn’t pretend to hear with equanimity. “This is your home,” he said firmly, stroking Leo’s cheekbone with a thumb. “Isn’t it?” He tried not to sound as if he desperately needed to hear Leo agree.
Leo sighed, but not without one corner of his mouth twitching upwards. “You know it is.”
