Page 122 of The Bright and Hungry Future of Hawks

He’d taken a fractured, broken man and had decided for him who he was, who they were together—Ben and Aleksey Rider-Mikkelsen.

* * *

Aleksey had suspected birthday preparations had been afoot, obviously. You didn’t have three children and an idiot for a best friend without working that out. But he’d had his own concerns—healing—which he was still doing. He’d been in traction for a month, and a full leg cast for another two, and if going any further than he had that day, used a stick to walk. He did everything he was told to get better—he had no intention of limping through life, physically or metaphorically. His shattered heart had healed at the very same moment Ben’s had—when he’d seen Ben cut the rope. He knew now that he was so deeply loved that Ben had been willing to die with him when he could so easily have cut loose and climbed to freedom. Ben Rider-Mikkelsen had not wanted freedom, or life, come to that, without him.

And then Ben had done all of this. Ben had simply told him how it was going to be:Aleksey Rider-Mikkelsen.

Aleksey smirked inwardly. He liked saying it, even in his head.

Although he had not tried to explain this to Ben, or to the others, (Babushka was still claiming that Aleksey Primakov had saved her and Emilia in Russia, but that she’d come to England for the man Nikolas, and that she always saw the little ten-year-old boy in him, too, so near the surface of all his pretences), in many ways, this new Aleksey Rider-Mikkelsenwasthe little boy who they had remembered in that service today. He was just grown now as he should—a wealthy, happy man surrounded by a family he loved and that loved him in return; a man with an architectural masterpiece to his name built on far more solid ground than his castles of sand. Aleksey Mikkelsen had grown up as he should, and had then met Ben Rider, and together they had forged a bond that realigned the world. He knew it hadn’t been quite like that, but he was happy remembering it this way. One distinct advantage of becoming a new man at fifty, he’d discovered, was it gave him huge latitude to invent his own past. And perhaps, more importantly, it gave him the freedom tonotadmit to the life hehadlived. It no longer defined him.

Ben defined him.

He glanced over at his other half now. Ben was watching Squeezy tease Phoebe Mailer about lost dreams and hopes. She’d known really—of course she had. She wasn’t stupid, but she, like a lot of people, hadn’t really understood the depths of his bond with Ben—he’d kept it hidden.

AlekseyRider-Mikkelsenrather said it all. She got it now.

He took Ben’s hand. “I hope you all bought me some nice presents.”

Ben turned his striking green gaze back to where it should be. Presents were a standing joke between them. Apparently, Aleksey Rider-Mikkelsen was the sort of man who thought that anyone who bought their own presents, just to make sure they liked them, was an extremely sad creature indeed.

Ben leant close and murmured in his ear, “Party games before pressies.”

Aleksey drew back so sharply that Ben clearly didn’t need his expression to explain what thisapparentlynew man thought about that. Ben hissed gleefully, turned to Squeezy and high-fived the annoying one. Money sneakily changed hands with a gleeful, “Five minutes. I won,” added from Ben.

He retook Aleksey’s hand, and as he was pulling him towards the house whispered for his ears alone, “Games after then. When it’s just us.”

Aleksey huffed and muttered back, “I cannot be placated or bribed by sex, Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen. That was theoldme.”

“Excellent. I’ll have to teach the new you some games I know then. I had a very good instructor and fourteen years of training. He rated me very highly, I seem to recall.”

“I think he might have been distracted by a pair of eyes that should be made illegal.”

“Maybe. But he seemed to like the rest of the package, too.”

“I’m a jealous man, Ben, be careful.”

“Nope. You’re whatever I say you are, Aleksey Rider-Mikkelsen. My creation, my design, to suitme.”

“You have begun to be—oh, presents. Excellent.”

The table was laden with them, and not one had textured paper from a ridiculously expensive shop. No costly contents either, come to that.

Who needed to be given things of high value when he was gifted love? Aleksey Rider-Mikkelsen surely didn’t.

* * *

Chapter 68

April. Today.

Later that evening, sitting on the sofa with Aleksey, watching the flames from the wood burner, stroking through the longish golden strands of hair which were speckled here and there with threads of grey, Ben glanced down at the leg casually crossed, ankle on knee, the damage hidden beneath clothing.

It had been touch and go there for a while.

If he had not made that final attempt to climb the shaft, Squeezy and Radulf might not have found them in time.

They had shouted and barked, lost in drifted snow banks and a sound-deadening wind. Ben, high enough up the mineshaft to hear them, had shouted back. It seemed so simple when Ben recalled it, but it had not been. If he had not made that one last climb, he would not have heard their voices. One last attempt when all others had failed.

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