Page 23 of The Mission

“Rurik’s big on following rules. I’m not. Well, I wasn’t. I’m better at it now. I have to be as a pilot.”

“I had several therapy sessions a few months ago. I think they helped me understand why I stayed with Mark longer than I should have. I felt I’d been weak, and I had been but in my professional life, I wasn’t like that. She—the therapist—helped me see how abusive my parents had been, how I’d felt abandoned and that had led me to fall for Mark’s manipulations. Mark’s narcissistic. He preyed on me. I thought I let it happen, but I was in part of victim of his personality. A boy who’d never been loved, grew into a man desperate for love.”

“Did you love him?” Arlo asked quietly.

“I thought I did. I was wrong. I know he never loved me. The way he treated me was…bad on so many levels. He almost set me up to look like a thief on one occasion. He took a wallet from a shop after he knocked me into a display so it fell over. I ended up paying for it just to stop the police being called. He thought it was a joke. He stole a lot of stuff just because he was sure he’d get away with it. The more I read about narcissistic personality disorder, the more I saw Mark as a poster boy for it and the more liberated I felt.”

“He sounds awful.”

“He’d charm you. He charms everyone. But not me anymore. All those times I talked myself into staying with him, or going back to him, I regret every one of them. But I did some growing up. Mark was cruel and disrespectful and he doesn’t deserve another thought from me.”

“Do your parents? Have you thought about getting in touch with them?”

“No. They made it clear how they felt about me and that’s fine. I tried to be a good son and I was until the day I told them I was gay. It didn’t go down well. I actually thought they wouldn’t give a shit, but I was wrong. Coming out as gay made me someone they didn’t even want in their house anymore and that was that. They’re no loss to me.”

“Except they are. Well, not them, they’re no loss at all, but you should have had parents like mine.” Arlo kissed him. “The day I told my mother I was gay, she said, ‘Finally. Sweetheart, I knew when you were ten. So did your father. We wondered how long we’d have to wait for you to realise.’They were never anything but supportive. My brothers too. I was a little shit when I was young. Four older brothers meant I got away with more than I should have.”

“They don’t want you hurt. They seem very clear about that. Especially Rurik.”

Arlo sighed.

“What happened?” Conrad asked.

“A mess.”

“I’ve taken the lid off my mess and stirred it so…”

“I was in a relationship with a guy who lived in Berlin.I met him when I was positioning to Berlin to fly another aircraft back. We hit it off, and I used to bid to fly to Berlin all the time so I could see him. He came to see me in the UK. I thought he was the one. He was nothing like Mark. He was kind and fun and he never disrespected me. Until one day, he did. I’d bought a ring for him and when I tried to give it to him, he burst out laughing.” Arlo pressed himself harder against Conrad. “He said I’d only ever been his bit on the side, that he and his…husband had an open relationship, but I’d got too clingy. He’d shared everything we’d done with his husband. They got off on it. We’d been together a year and I had no idea he had another life.”

“Oh Christ.”

“I was so shocked that I had a breakdown. I couldn’t function. My mum had to force me to eat. My brothers came and made me shower. They did everything they could to snap me out of it. I was lucky to have them. Iamlucky. Even so, things were really dark for a long time. I felt so stupid, humiliated. Why hadn’t I seen? But I hadn’t.”

“That’s a horrible thing to do to someone.”

“It was. I finally plucked up the courage to tell him what I thought of him. I thought that would help me stop mourning, because that’s what I was doing, but before I had the chance, I found out he’d died in a car crash.” Arlo gave him a tight-mouthed smile. “I am over him now, over what happened. I made a mistake but I didn’t let it keep hurting me. Just a hard life-lesson.”

Conrad wanted to kiss him. It was all he could think about. Finally, he stopped thinking and pulled him in, keeping his hand at the back of Arlo’s head until their mouths were a breath apart. Arlo was breathing fast, but Conrad’s lungs seemed to have forgotten how to work. Then their lips were together and when their tongues touched, they both moaned.

They’d both been hurt. They were damaged but not broken. Even though they’d only just met, Conrad knew Arlo was special. Arlo stroked Conrad’s cheek and teased his tongue. The kiss was deep and hot, and Conrad found himself moving the pair of them to the middle of the tub so that they were on their knees, just their heads out of the bubbling water. Conrad felt as if he was in another world, maybe heaven, because this was all he wanted to do. Keep kissing Arlo, be part of his world and never let him get hurt again because he knew what that felt like.

I am so fucking yours,Arlo Lehner. Please don’t let me go.

5

Except you have to let me go tonight.

When Conrad said he wouldn’t stay the night, for one awful moment, he thought Arlo hadn’t understood, that he might imagine he was being rejected, when that was the last thing Conrad wanted him to feel.

“It isn’t that I don’t want to stay, but it seems disrespectful to you and to your family.”

“But you can stay here for the whole of the time you’re in Austria,” Arlo said. “I want you to. They won’t mind. I’m not a child.”

They stood at the door of Arlo’s family’s chalet and Conrad took his hands. “It feels wrong to climb into your bed the day after we met, with your family all around us.”

“They won’t be watching.”

Conrad laughed. “I didn’t express myself very well.”

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